P.A.N.I.C. If You Know What's Good For You, Part 1

The first meeting of P.A.N.I.C. was utter chaos.

We had villains and heroes and nemeses and sideliners and second string and third string and even a couple fourth string (Sorry Badger, but you know it's true) all mixed up together. That we accomplished anything, let alone actually beat Rakshasa, surprises me even still.

Even when the heroes with rivalries could band together, there was only one hero talking to one villain. That was Quizzer and I, who were both adding Sports-Announcer style coverage to the bitchfights both sides were getting in. I might post some highlights later.

But when both sides stopped fighting, more or less (granted, the villain side never really stopped infighting), the heroes all looked to me expectantly, like, 'Well, aren't you going to get them settled?' And, thus, the heroes made me de-facto leader and spokesperson for the villains in P.A.N.I.C.

Which was kind of like hearding cats armed with high explosives and resentment. You see, we villains are a very egotistical people. The only reason I had as much success as I did was the fact that several of my ex-girlfriends were in the group and we tended to part on relatively good terms. So Dionaea and Icicle and Fallout managed to step up my intimidation a bit. I was also friends with a couple of them, so Jack Knife and Mechanor helped in that department. That still left me with a baker's dozen badguys to get quiet and stop bickering. Long story short, it turns out my bracers are an effective crowd pacification tool if I 'accidentally' put them on 'slightly' higher a setting than I intended and they 'accidentally' go off. (replace accidentally and slightly with put dispersion and power on max, and the second accidentally with held down the trigger for ten seconds)

I asked Mechanor why he was here. His response was "Mechanor was here. Therefore, Mechanor is here." Which I take it to mean, in history, he comes back in time to P.A.N.I.C. Which, if he knows that, why the hell did the scientists get surprised when he went back in time in the first place? And if he knows his schemes are going to fail, why does he even try them?

He responded with a red velvet cake. It's possible that maybe I didn't remove the baked goods subroutine while repairing him. Don't give me that look. Free cakes and pies! I'd be a fool to turn them down.

Anyway, sorry, back on task. So, I was made spokesperson for a bunch of self-obsessed and psychotic whiners while we discussed the best method for beating down Rakshasa and taking back the country. I'd like to say we thought up a daring plan to save everything and neutralize his magic and kick his furry eldritch butt back to the demon world. But really we just argued until we decided to try to find the Scarlet Sorceress.

Which was easier said than done. Remember, she went missing a day or two before the inauguration. Which meant she was probably in Rakshasa's hands. Not even Clairvoyant Lass could get a good bead on her (don't even get me started on her. we had to call her by the full name every time or she got huffy). P.A.N.I.C. didn't really have a magic type person strong enough to find her that way, either. If we had a sorcerer strong enough to break Rakshasa's magic, we wouldn't really need Scarlet Sorceress.

And then Quizzer gave the fatal idea, the one that would rock P.A.N.I.C. to the core and eventually lead us to victory of Rakshasa.

"Has anyone tried going to her house and knocking?"