35 - The Sun Goblet of Sacrosan

THE ONE OMLETTE THAT'S SACROSANCT

Captured by the psychoitc Karl Simpson, Ben Chatham reasonably expects her second incarnation is about to be violently cut short in a brutal, drawn-out orgy of pain, blood, death and torment.

When she's stripped naked, it just looks like a variation on the theme. When she's given a dressing gown, it's mildly surprising. When she's given a sofa of reasonable comfort to sit on, it's outright odd. And when she is given a bowl of green olives, bottles of absinthe and a CD player with Webern on it, Ben is out and out baffled.

However, Ben being Ben, she simply downs all the absinthe until everything goes hazy and misty. She thinks about her unwilling sex change and is too busy feeling sorry for herself to realize Karl has set up a huge, Monty-Python-style 100 tonne weight hanging precariously above the sofa.

Ben is mildly unsurprised when the Green Absinthe Fairy from "Euro Trip" appears in front of her, blinks and mutters, "This is MAJOR LEAGUE fucked up!" and then flies off to find something more interesting.

Just as Karl cuts the rope holding the weight, a strange CGI vortex engulfs Ben and then regurgitates her on the hard flagstone floors of what looks like Cardiff Castle with some tinfoil scattered over the place.

Ben looks around with drunken worry. "You know, this kind of thing wasn't normal last time I checked," she muses as an inscrutable figure in the robes of a Chinese Mandarin (or an immortal Celestial Toymaker) glides into the room and sits at a simple, unfussy throne that in no way suggests feelings of inadequacy or desires for penis enlargements whatsoever.

"Welcome," said the bearded Chinese man politely.

"Are you my conscience?" asks Ben, completely pissed out of her head.

"No. I am not your conscience."

"My inner femininity?"

"No. Not that either."

"My sense of self-preservation and super ego?"

"No, I am..."

"Got it! You're my intellect."

"Nonsense, if I were you're intellect I would be in the form of a heap of molten ferret droppings!"

"You're my inner molten ferret droppings?" Ben asks.

"No, I am not! I am Fu Manchu!"

"So you're my inner Yellow Peril Evil Chinamen Stereotype?"

"No. I am a magician."

"Called Fu Manchu?"

"Yes."

"You didn't like, just happen to arrive on Earth in prehistoric times and create lots of legends about oriental criminal geniuses that infected human culture aeons after you then, then?"

"No."

"Oh. That makes a change. Are you into black magic?"

"I am a benign magician."

"Nine of you? Man, I must really be out of it, I can only see one of you..."

"I mean," Fu Manchu complains, "I am a magician who only wants the best for his people! I'm not a bad magician! You're thinking of Lokar the bad magician! He has cast a spell on my city which has brought pestilence and death!"

"So? Don't you have a binding spell?" Ben mumbles, falling asleep. "Don't you magicians watch TV?"

"TV?"

"Where am I, anyway? Looks like Cardiff..."

"It is not Cardiff!" Fu Manchu snaps. "It is the planet Ayseedeeseebeeheffgee!"

"LOOKS like Cardiff..."

"IT IS NOT FUCKING CARDIFF! You are in my strange, mystical castle on an alien planet!"

"Looks like a normal, un-mystical castle in Cardiff..."

"WELL, IT ISN'T!"

"Kay. Whatever."

"I have brought you here for a special task."

"Huh? Who are you again?"

Fu Manchu growls. "I'm the Good Magician, you retard! My enemy has cursed this city and everyone in it is at risk!"

Ben opens an eye. "So, why not just leave the city then?"

"WHEN I WANT YOUR OPINION, I'LL FUCKING KICK IT OUT OF YOU FIRST!!!" Fu Manchu coughs self-consciously and smoothes down his robes. "But, come now. Let us not be unpleasant. I often enter a sacred trance..."

"Why's it sacred?"

"... What?"

"Why's the trance sacred?"

"It just IS, all right? Anyway, I saw the God of time and space in his TARDIS box, small to the unbeliever but capable of carrying an infinite number of souls! And I saw his most bravest of assistants on the planet Earth, and so I have brought YOU to me! You, Rose Tyler, will save my world!"

"Mnoro."

"What?"

"Notro."

"WHAT?!"

"I'm NOT ROSE!"

"WHAT?!?"

"I'm Benjamin Chatham."

"Who?"

"I'm the Doctor's bravest assistant."

Fu Manchu pulls out a copy of a Doctor Who funfax and looks through it. "Benjamin Chatham? No... Sally Sparrow, Rose Tyler, Adam Mitchell, Jack Harkness, Mickey Smith, Jacqueline Tyler, Donna Noble, Martha Jones. No Ben Chatham there."

"That sucks."

"But my spell was to summon a blonde female pop singer who travelled through time and space with the Last of the Time Lords."

"That's me."

"BUT I DON'T WANT YOU! I WANT ROSE!"

"Like that chav slut could help you!"

"Yes, she could, that's the point!"

"Well, the bitch is in another dimension. Get used to it."

"So... you're the only hope for our civilization."

Ben rolls over. "Looks like. But I still don't understand one thing."

Fu Manchu sighs, dispirited. "What?"

"Why is the room spinning?"

"Because you're completely pissed."

"Ooooh!" Ben says and then loses consciousness.

Ben is later awoken by a genie-like figure repeatedly whacking her in the face with a sabre. Fu Manchu paces up and down, brooding.

"Well, since I've used up all my magic, you'll have to do."

"I demand you to stop this idiot whacking me over the head!" Ben shouts, furious.

"I hardly think you are in a position to make demands," Fu Manchu sneers.

"I demand to know why you have brought me here!"

"What part of 'hardly in a position to make demands' did you miss?"

"I demand absinthe and Joe Absolom."

Fu Manchu laughs sardonically for a moment and then grabs Ben's head and smashes it against the wall. "SHUT THE FUCK UP!" he roars, bashing her skull against the brickwork with each syllable.

"Now," he continues an hour later. "The one thing that can defeat Lokar and save half a dozen lives is the legendary One Omlette That's Sacrosanct. Its magical powers allow whoever wears it to command anyone or anything to do their bidding. And, you know, anyone or anything has to DO it. Otherwise it'd just be really unimpressive. Rather like you, Ben Chatham. Isn't that a boy's name? Never mind. You will travel with a group of my roadies to find the mystical artefact, passing through the enchanted woods, the valley of the damned, and the elephant's graveyard from where no market researcher has EVER returned!"

"So you know where it is?" asks Ben.

"No," Fu Manchu admits. "Haven't the foggiest. But no one ever survives the trip to the elephant's graveyard so I just assume that's where it is. No better place for it, really. In fact, the voyage is so mind-blowingly dangerous not even Lokar has tried to get it. Lucky, really or we would all be totally screwed. Few would ever dare to start such a journey and even those brave, fearless heroes were merely talking big to impress chicks down at the red light district. So, Ben, that is what you will do."

"You want me to face certain death?"

"Yes."

"To get you an omlette?"

"Yes."

"An omlette of mystical superpowers?"

"Yes."

"Which you're not actually 100% sure is really there?"

"Yes."

Ben thinks for a moment. "And the survey said... FUCK OFF!"

"But if you're a companion of the Doctor, surely you must be brave enough and strong enough to help me?"

"No fucking way."

"Either you do it or I never send you home!" Fu Manchu shouts, once again proving not so inscrutable.

"Maybe I don't want to go home, Ching Chang Chong!" Ben sneers. "Now I'm stuck in this horrible, hideous and unsmoothe body, my life is ruins! Ben Chatham is now a hero lost to the people at the mercy of the chav scum!"

"OK, I'll turn you into a man," Fu Manchu offers.

"What? You'll turn me back?"

"Yes."

"Brilliant! Do it!"

"AFTER you bring me the One Omlette That's Sacrosanct!"

"Bugger."

[Uh-oh, running out of space! I'll cut to the chase]

Ben refuses to participate in the suicide mission on the grounds that her dressing gown is rather expensive and objects at the idea of travelling in it. Fu Manchu, however, offers Ben replacement clothes and since he's a wizard, Ben's ridiculously ostentateous requests for kinky Ancient Egyptian slave outfits and a posse of young men to wear them, their slim faces enganced with tribal make up is instantly granted.

Realizing she'll never talk her way out of this, Ben sets her mobile to 'vibrate' and drops it down her pants in the hope she gets a wrong number before her horrible disemboweling. Ben joins Aneka, her female guide, and generally feels depressed that none of the sexy men would be attracted to her horrible Britney Spears body.

As the suicide squad walk out through the city, Ben notes a distinct lack of any supernatural occurences, plagues or anything else. In fact, if Ben had two working brain cells, she'd suspect that Fu Manchu was talking bull shit.

Aneka, bored, decides to read Fu Manchu's autobiography, "F.U., Manchu!", and learns that before he became invovled in a pyramid selling scheme of Amway Products, Fu Manchu was nothing more than a humble horse-trader who nevertheless had a degree and was obviously slumming it until a better job came along.

Then, Fu Manchu organized a rave party in the mountains that left him rambling about star gods, and 'maginal powers' of telepathy and remote possession.

"Maginal?" Ben echoes. "Don't you mean, 'magical'?"

"Must be a misprint... oh, wait, I read it wrong. He actually has 'vaginal powers'. Hence the name he made for himself."

"Which was?"

"The Mighty Pussy of Fu Manchu. I had wondered about that..."

"Can't talk, too busy admiring the slim young warriors as the sun glimmers on their well-toned limbs."

By the time the group have reached the enchanted woods, Ben has managed to explain her tortured history to Aneka, who is now delighted at the fact she will most likely be dead soon - nothing can be worse than spending time with this transsexual alcoholic snob. She starts jumping up and down screaming, "Hey! Hydro Hogs! Tasty people to eat! COME AND GEEEEEEET US!" into the darkness around them.

"Ah! Fury creatures! Or is it, "furry"? Damn it, this autobiography is either full of misprints or Freudian slits! Er, slips."

Ben runs camply out of the woods as Aneka and the rest of the warriors are greatfully torn limb from limb by the strange gorilla-gram creatures that live there. But as Ben escapes the forest she is confronted by a gigantic, scorpion monster with a long electrocuticing tail. Ben immediately climbs a tree, screaming for the monster to let her live. Luckily, the monster is so stupid it acidentally knocks over the tree Ben is climbing, which then falls on top of the scorpion creature, crushing its tail into its dead and 'stinging' the monster to death.

Ben is very concerned - not only are there splinters in her legs and no one to sensitively remove them and hug him, he also seems to be stuck on an alien planet full of villains from The Mighty Morphing Power Rangers!

It is then she discovers that the uprooted tree has revealed, underneath it, a plate with an omlette on it. Delighted, Ben takes out her mobile and tries to text the Doctor to brag... only to realize she doesn't actually know the Doctor's number! And her phone is a distinctly ordinary one and so being on a world not part of the Archangel Network means she can't call ANYONE to help.

Ben soils herself in a panic attack and to calm herself and eats the omlette.

Just then, two dragons implode into existence breathing fire and charge towards Ben... who then projectile vomits on the dragons.

Remember kids, if you accidentally uproot a tree and find an omlette in the soil, best don't eat it.

The dragons are blinded as Ben is Exorcist-sick and sprays them with semi-digested absinthe that kills them.

It starts to rain, making Ben's body go all slippery and damp because the story's so utterly boring and unengaging trying to get some crap erotic descriptions of a wet, topless Britney Spears can only be an improvement. Anyway, Ben gets bored and heads back to the cursed city of hell and destruction for no other reason than she's a complete moron.

Back at the palace, Fu Manchu is dancing and laughing like a madman when Ben arrives.

Fu Manchu explains through diabolical laughter and acting, that the whole scheme was a trap! Lokar was never invovled and it was just a ruse to trick Ben into finding the One Omlette That's Sacrosanct, and also all the beasts and dragons Ben faced were deliberately placed there to trick Ben into ringing the Doctor for help and thus luring him to Ayseedeeseebeeheffgee! Fu Manchu explains normally he would have simply taken over Ben's mind to directly control her, but it seems Ben is a natural blonde and thus has no mind to control.

Fu Manchu eagerly awaits the arrival of the TARDIS, having used his vaginal powers and eBay account to get his hands on a Interface Cross Dimensional Exorsister Translucer Interface Beamer Device that will either sieze control of the time machine and its occupant or else help Fu Manchu get some washboard abs and pectorals you could crack eggs on.

At this point, Ben reveals she never actually rang the Doctor.

Which means he isn't coming to Ayseedeeseebeeheffgee.

Which means this has been a total waste of time.

"Can I still have the sex change operation?" Ben asks hopefully.

Fu Manchu is furious, and when he discovers Ben ATE the all-powerful egg-based meal of mass destruction, he goes nuts and starts reprogramming the Interface Cross Dimensional Exorsister Translucer Interface Beamer Device to reverse the polarity of the neutron flow.

Ben screams.

Unfortunately, Fu Manchu has recalibrated the Interface Cross Dimensional Exorsister Translucer Interface Beamer Device and thus made it A Totally Random Lightning Conductor, which is REALLY bad luck since the one piece of magic Fu Manchu has not already mastered was the ironically very-simple 'Anti-Random-Electrocution Spell', and thus is fried to a crisp in a cheap negative effect.

Just then a huge, floating head made of ethereal blue light appears. "I am Dai Lucifer," the head announces in its Welsh accented voice. "Or, to use my non-offensive English name, Lokar. Now I am the most powerful of the demon magicians on Ayseedeeseebeeheffgee! And now I have the One Omlette That's Sacrosanct, I shall rule the cosmos assuming I can be bothered."

"But... I ate the omlette."

"And then you threw it up! And I recomposed it from the remains!"

"That is single most disgusting thing I have ever heard in my entire fucking life!"

Lokar bursts into diabolical laughter and wields the power of the omlette, but unfortunately forgot it had been marinating in absinthe and its magical powers instead caused him to dissolve in an even cheaper negative effect than the one that destroyed Fu Manchu.

Ben is suddenly transported by the CGI tornado back to the sofa in Wiltshire.

"And so say all of us!" she says in her ditzy blonde way.

Before a 100 tonne weight drops onto the sofa, driving her straight through the floor as Karl laughs with a childish giggling voice.

The End.