FG2 - part 1

 

• aka ‘Flash Gordon 2.’
• being an unofficial sequel to the 1980 movie, ‘Flash Gordon.’

 

…

 

1. In which we revisit the end of ‘Flash Gordon’ and Ming teleports to his secret cavern, leaving his ring behind.

 

“You pitiful fool,” said Ming. “My life is not for any Earthling to give or take.”

 

“You power’s fading, Ming,” said the idiot from Earth.

 

He knew that he was done for, so he turned the ring upon himself and teleported to his secret cavern five miles under the palace. But not before regretting that in his final moments before Flash Gordon, it looked for all of Mongo like he was proposing to the floppy haired imbecile.

 

 

 

2. In which Dale, Zarkov and Flash (and a Mongonian astronomer) realise the Earth hasn’t been saved after all.

 

It was all very well Dale saying she was a New York City girl. If things had been wrapped up nicely, with Ming being dead, the Earth being saved and whatnot, they could have found a way to return home (which surely would have been a doddle, with all the resources of the empire at their disposal), got married, had kids and lived happily ever after. But life is not a movie.

 

“Oh dear,” said Dr Hans Zarkov, as he frowned at the screen before him.

 

“What is it, Hans?,” said Flash.

 

Zarkov pointed at the planet-sized cloud of rubble that was where the Earth used to be.

 

“Is that...?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Oh dear.”

 

“Oh dear indeed.”

 

Dale Arden came trotting over, giddy from not having married Ming the Merciless, a giddiness accentuated by the imbibing of copious quantities of the Mongonian liquor she had become rather fond of.

 

“Boys, you look like your favourite football team has dropped to the bottom of the league.”

 

“Firstly,” said Hans; “when have I ever shown the slightest interest in the childish pursuit known as American so-called football?”

 

Dale looked at Flash, who shrugged at Dale.

 

“And secondly,” continued the eccentric scientist; “our home planet is now dust.”

 

“Technically it consists of variously proportioned chunks of rock, floating in an increasingly expanding spheroid roughly halfway between the planets Venus and Mars,” said a Mongonian astronomer who none of the Earthlings realised had been standing there earwigging on their conversation.

 

“Who asked you?,” said Hans.

 

The Mongonian astronomer shrugged and sloped off.

 

“So what do we do now?,” said Dale, somewhat (but not particularly) sobered by this devastating news.

 

“We’ll figure something out, Dale,” said Flash.

 

“Whatever, Flash,” said Dale, who in truth was not quite in the right frame of mind to take anything in, never mind the annihilation of her home world. “I need another drink.”

 

Flash looked at Hans.

 

At the risk of indulging in repeating themes, by way of inserting a cheap comedic device, Hans shrugged at Flash.

 

 

 

3. In which Ming, in his secret cavern, watches the final moments of Earth on TV... then has a cheese and pickle sandwich.

 

“Ooh, my head,” said Ming, still potentially ‘the Merciless,’ but now beginning to contemplate his reduced status as no-longer-Ruler-of-the-Universe. “How could a pathetic so-called ‘sports star’ reduce me to this?”

 

By ‘this,’ he was referring, by gesture, to the big hole he now had in his stomach, skewered as it was by the pointy bit at the front of War Rocket Ajax, and his ringless and therefore powerless state.

 

It should be mentioned at this point that Mongonian anatomy is such that essential organs are distributed around the edges of the torso, so fortuitously the impalement by a great big spike through the stomach does not cause instant (ish) death. It bloody hurts, though.

 

“And ooh, my stomach,” said Ming, as if he had forgotten that there was pain there also.

 

Lying on an insultingly functional bed (it had never crossed Ming’s mind to upgrade the decor of this place, in all the 1000 years of its existence, since, being the unchallenged Ruler of the  Universe (gah!), he had never thought he would need to use it), Ming picked up the remote control and switched on the TV screen affixed to the rocky wall of the cavern.

 

An old Earth cartoon was showing, in which another floppy haired imbecile flounced about in a cape, ruining the plans of various evil geniuses.

 

“Earth is destroyed!,” declared Ming. “So why do I still have to suffer this puerile nonsense?!”

 

Although until a few minutes ago he was the self-titled ‘Emperor of the Universe’ (actually only Emperor of the planet Mongo, but that’s galactic tyrant egos for you), Ming the Merciless wasn’t the sharpest tool in the box. He knew how to point his magic ring (currently unfound in the rubble of the imperial palace) at people and get them to do things, but he knew nothing of the physics behind electromagnetic wave propagation, which meant that all the microwaves, radio waves, etc, which had ever emanated from planet Earth would continue to exist somewhere in the universe for all eternity, available to be picked up by anyone who had the right technology. Such as by the TV in Ming’s secret cavern.

 

Ming fiddled with the remote and found footage of the final moments of Earth.

 

“Ha ha ha ha ha ha,” said Ming evilly, as he rewound and watched the footage again... then again... then again... and so on. “In thinking they had destroyed me, the fools also thought they had prevented the annihilation of their precious world. How wrong they were!”

 

The Malevolent One then realised that, with the stress of recent events, he was a bit hungry, so he pressed some buttons on the automatic food dispenser and had a cheese and pickle sandwich.

 

 

 

4. In which Krark the lizard man finds Ming’s ring.

 

The thing with the teleportation function of the Ming ring was that the ring was left behind. So it wasn’t used very often. In fact Ming had not done any teleporting for a thousand years.

 

The ring that Ming had left behind, that had fallen off his finger as he had teleported to his secret cavern, was now, as has just been mentioned, hidden under a bit of rubble. In all the excitement of killing Ming and saving the Earth (neither of which had actually happened, as it happened, but there you go), no one had thought to have a look for this adornment which had been pretty much the source of all the Mongonian emperor’s power - which was why it was only spotted when Krark the lizard man came along and almost brushed it up.

 

Krark was a cleaner, whom nobody had yet told didn’t have to be a slave anymore. And so, at the appropriate time, he wheeled out his little cleaning cart and set about dusting, sweeping and polishing. When he spotted the ring, he picked it up and almost popped it, with all the other crap, in the rubbish sack attached to his cart - but then he decided it had a nice shine to it, so it went in his pocket. He thought nothing more of it, until he returned to his swamp.

 

 

 

5. In which it is three days later and our alleged heroes can’t decide what to do next, but then Flash has an idea.

 

“Zarkov, I’m bored,” said Dale. “What play thing can you offer me today?”

 

“An obscure game in the cupboard, Your Majesty. Mongonians refer to it as... Zyrklqot.”

 

“How boring it looks.”

 

“Will you play this... Zyrklqot?”

 

“Later! I’d like to just sit here awhile... before-”

 

“Dale!,” said Flash.

 

“What is it, Flash?,” said Dale.

 

“The ring!”

 

“What ring?”

 

“Ming’s ring.”

 

“What about it?”

 

“I’ve just remembered.”

 

“What have you remembered?”

 

“When Ming died, it fell off his finger.”

 

“You say ‘died’,” said Zarkov. “It looked like he just disappeared.”

 

“Potato, potato,” said Flash - pronouncing the second ‘potato’ po-tar-to.

 

“Go on, Flash,” said Dale.

 

“So...” said Flash, grinning and gesturing significantly.

 

“I’m too bored to figure out what your grinning and significant gesturing means.”

 

“So,” said Flash; “where is it?”

 

“Where’s what?,” said Dale.

 

“The ring.”

 

“What ring?”

 

(“Have you been on the Mongonian liquor?,” said Zarkov.)

 

(“Maybe a little,” said Dale.)

 

“Ming’s ring,” said Flash.

 

“What about it?,” said Dale.

 

Flash Gordon sighed. “Never mind,” he said. “Come on…” - and he led Dale and Zarkov to the throne room.

 

On the way, Dale said to Zarkov, “You know I never actually married Ming, don’t you?”

 

“I do,” said Zarkov.

 

“So why did you call me ‘Your Majesty’?”

 

“Something to do.”

 

 

 

6. In which Ming is bored (again).

 

When Ming had watched the final moments of Earth a thousand times, he then settled on the cartoons of superheroes.

 

“If only Klytus was here,” said the point-eyebrowed one. “He’d know what to do.”

 

He pressed some buttons on the automatic food dispenser and out came a Klytus-shaped cookie. He nibbled on this, whilst seething, as once again Batman foiled the Joker.

 

 

 

7. In which Krark tries out the ring.

 

Krark pointed the ring, which he was now wearing, at his wife.

 

“Make me a cup of tea,” he said, in Lizardish.

 

Krark’s wife (who was called Fleep) made Krark a cup of tea. But she didn’t do it how she normally did it. She did it while in a kind of trance.

 

Krark pointed the ring at his wife.

 

“Give me a kiss,” he said.

 

Krark’s wife gave Krark a peck on the cheek.

 

“Like you did when we were first dating.”

 

Fleep did so - which, as you can imagine, with them both being lizard people and all, was not a pleasant thing to behold.

 

“Now do the Macarena,” said Krark, upon pointing the ring at his wife again.

 

Fleep did not do the Macarena, because she did not know how to do it.

 

“My precioussssss...” said Krark, as he sat in the corner of the room, stroking his magic ring.

 

 

 

8. In which Zarkov realises what happened to Ming’s ring.

 

“Here,” said Flash, as he pointed to the spot on which Ming had been impaled on the pointy end of War Rocket Ajax.

 

Dale and Zarkov looked at a beautifully polished, but ringless, patch of floor.

 

“Where is it?,” said Zarkov.

 

“Someone’s taken it,” said Flash. “Obviously.”

 

“But who?,” said Zarkov.

 

“How should I know?,” said Flash.

 

Zarkov spotted a lizard man doing some sweeping in a corner.

 

“Hmm...” said Zarkov.

 

“What is it?,” said Flash.

 

The discredited scientist put his hand in his trouser pocket and pulled out a sweet wrapper. He held the sweet wrapper at arm’s length before him and dropped it. It fell, slowly fluttered and landed gently on the pristine floor.

 

The lizard man arrived almost instantaneously and swept up the sweet wrapper.

 

Zarkov raised his eyebrows and smiled at Flash, as if to say, “See?”

 

Flash also raised his eyebrows, as if to say, “See what?”

 

Zarkov jerked his head towards where the sweet wrapper had been, then jerked it towards the lizard man and raised his eyebrows even further, as if to say... well, you know.

 

“No, I don’t know!,” said Flash.

 

(Huh?)

 

“Follow the lizard man!,” said Zarkov.

 

And so they did.

 

Except Dale, who collapsed in a corner, totally shlozzled.

 

 

 

9. In which Barin and Vultan have a bit of a chinwag.

 

Prince Barin, now Emperor Barin, rightful heir to the Mongonian throne, was beginning to regret teaming up with Vultan. Moreso, he was beginning to regret saying Vultan’s hawk men could live on Arboria, since their Sky City was destroyed. Hawk men live in the sky, tree men live in the trees; allowing one to live in the other’s domain is a recipe for disaster. For example...

 

Barin was sitting on his imperial throne, a simple affair made from a carved tree stump, drinking herbal tea and eating leaf stew, when there was a crash, a flutter, a thump and a skid.

 

“Sorry, Barin,” said Vultan, as he sat nursing his bruised bonce, which had just slammed into the base of the throne.

 

“What is it this time, Vultan?,” said Barin.

 

“Hide and seek.”

 

“Again?”

 

“There’s not much else for us to do here.”

 

“Chill out? Drink tea? Eat leaf stew?”

 

“Don’t you have anything more... meaty?”

 

“We tree men are vegetarian!”

 

“Hawk men are meant to hunt! There must be something on Arboria we can kill.”

 

“Try it and you’ll be banished.”

 

“Spoilsport.”

 

Emperor Barin chewed on a leaf, whilst Vultan picked bits from between his talons.

 

“I wonder what Flash Gordon is up to...?,” said Barin.

 

“That doe-eyed ponce,” said Vultan.

 

 

 

10. In which the ring is found, but not in a way that Flash and Zarkov would have hoped.

 

Fleep, when she realised what was going on, left Krark for ‘Uncle’ Skrunk. Which left Krark doing the full Gollum in the corner.

 

“My preciousssssss-... oh.”

 

In ran Drippt, screeching his lizardy head off, followed by the blond human, who tackled him to the ground.

 

“Tell me where the ring is!,” shouted Flash in Drippt’s slimy lughole.

 

“Flash...” said Zarkov.

 

“What is it, Zarkov?! Can’t you see I’m busy?!”

 

“But Flash...”

 

“The ring, lizard boy! Did you take it?! Where is-”

 

“Flash!”

 

Krark pointed the ring at Flash and said something in Lizardish.

 

“Oh no you don’t,” said Zarkov, who went for Krark.

 

Fleep, who had come back to get some of her stuff - toothbrush and whatnot - bonked Zarkov on the head with her handbag.

 

 

 

11. In which Ming decides it’s time to go.

 

Ming decided it was time to go.

 

 

 

12. In which Dale attempts to recover from an excess of Mongonian liquor, but gets shoved in the butt by the brushes of lizard men.

 

“Boys?,” said Dale, as she slowly opened her eyes. “Boys, where did you-... ooh, my head.”

 

As Dale rubbed her head and reluctantly found her way back to consciousness, she found that she was surrounded by lizard men.

 

“Hey guys,” she said. Then, “Ow.” Followed by, “Have any of you seen Flash or Zarkov?”

 

The lizard men chattered and snickered and skipped around like... well, lizard men.

 

“Two human males?,” said Dale. “About yay high? Blond American football star? Beardy scientist?”

 

One of the lizard men shoved a brush into Dale’s derrière.

 

“Hey watch it!,” said Dale. “I was nearly a princess, you know. Or empress... or whatever.”

 

More posterior shoving.

 

“Okay, okay!” - Dale stood up, but not before nearly falling down again. “Jeez, can a girl not get poo-faced, then lie around on a cool floor feeling sorry for herself, around here?”

 

The lizard men nudged and shoved her some more, with brushes and lizardy body parts.

 

“Apparently not! Okay, I’m standing and everything hurts! What more do you want?”

 

The lizard men started moving and indicated for Dale to follow them.

 

“Wait,” she started, as she started to walk, whilst concentrating on not throwing up. “Do you know where Flash and Zarkov are?”

 

The lizard men chattered and snickered and skipped and shuffled towards the exit of the throne room.

 

“Why am I even asking,” said Dale. “You can’t understand me.”

 

A lizard man shoved her a bit too forcefully, which caused the room to rapidly rotate and Dale to empty the contents of her stomach onto the floor.

 

“Sorry,” said Dale, as a lizard man stopped to clean it up.

 

“Oh well, what have I got to lose?,” she then said, as she was led to God-knows-where by the weird little green folk.

 

...

 

GO HERE FOR PART 2! : https://www.abctales.com/story/pepsoid/fg2-part-2