The Stinkularity (or, "The one where Steve Lemieux meets Dr. Zeke and they do American Gladiator stuff and then Steve is forced to rescue the Skunk-a-

I. THE BACKSTORY IN BRIEF

There was just so much good advice coming from the people at LeMoo’s these days. First, one of his employees had suggested that Steve meet with Hessian ahead of their match to talk about rehearsals. When that was revealed to be a resounding success, it had been suggested to Steve that he meet up with a specialist in Oregon who could help prepare him for his first ever pay per view match against Joe Fontaine.

This specialist, the person said, would be able to help get Steve ready for the more “improvisational” style of performing that Fontaine employed. And since Steve wouldn’t be able to rehearse with Joe, he might as well rehearse with someone.

And so, Steve made some phone calls and boarded a plane to Oregon to meet the wrestling’s only lawyer-doctor - Dr. Zeke D. Badguy, Esq. - at his secret underground lab that is definitely not just a basement.

Upon arrival, Steve was greeted by a young man that Zeke had introduced as Johnny Wombat, but who insisted his name was actually Ollie Cade. Ollie was joined by a man named Rick who Zeke introduced as The Dickman. Steve thought that Rick looked like Tom Selleck from an alternate universe where Magnum PI advertised himself as an amateur gynecologist, and then immediately chastised himself for having naughty thoughts.

Ollie and Rick were a tag-team, Steve was told, part of a new generation of evil henchmen that Zeke referred to as “Generation H.” Neither Ollie nor Rick seemed to enjoy this name.

Zeke himself was quite the character, dressed in an old sport coat, a ski mask, fedora, and bowling shoes. None of it matched. He carried a cane though he didn’t seem to need it, and had an odd manner of speaking that reminded him of old Batman reruns.

"So, in order to help you prepare, my minions have constructed an obstacle course of sorts. I think you will find it to your liking. Or maybe not. One of the two." Zeke shrugged. "I don't really care which."

He led the group around to the back of the house into a wide open yard where various ramshackle structures had been pieced together. There were a series of overturned trash barrels, a pile of old dodgeballs, and a balance beam suspended over what appeared to be a pile of old coats.

A chill of excitement shot up Steve's spine and he whispered, "American Gladiators."

"Indeed!" Proclaimed Zeke. "You will run the gauntlet that my henchmen and I have prepared for you, and if you are successful, then the final challenge awaits!"

Steve couldn't control himself, and he began hopping up and down in place.

"If I get to be a gladiator, then there's something I need to do first."

He dug a hand into his fanny pack before fishing out a small container of red grease paint, an applicator brush, and a mirror. With his tools ready, Steve began the task of painting his face, much to the confusion of everyone else around him.

"The hell's he doing?" asked Rick.

Ollie shrugged.

"I'm channeling the raw masculine energy of my new hero, the bravest, boldest, and richest man in the history of PRIME." After an awkward pause wherein the three other men simply stared at him, Steve added, "Timo Bolamba!"

"Who the hell is that?" said Zeke.

"The Jetman," Ollie sighed.

"Oh," Zeke said. Under his ski mask the makings of a scowl was clearly visible. "Dear god why?" # II. IN WHICH OUR HERO IS PELTED IN THE NETHERS BY TENNIS BALLS FIRED AT HIGH SPEEDS OUT OF A TEE SHIRT GUN

Steve stood at one end of the yard, a big dumb grin hidden behind a thin layer of poorly-applied paint. His hopping had stopped, instead replaced by a steady bounce on the balls of his feet as he waited to begin.

"This was my favorite event!" he said, and it was true. They were all Steve's favorite events, which made his statement technically correct, even if slightly misleading. And since being technically correct is the best kind of correct, and also because no one else in the yard really gave a shit, he wasn't challenged on his statement.

"Hello, yes. Wonderful," Zeke said as he took up a position on the sideline. "Now your job is to hit The Dickman with one of the dodgeballs."

"It'll be just like TV!" said Steve. He has started flapping his hands in excitement. "Only instead they had little rocket launchers that were air powered and shot foam rockets and..."

"Yes, well I'm not giving you the rocket launchers. The army doesn't know I have them and we would prefer to keep it that way. Anyway, The Dickman's job is to make sure you don't get near him. So he is going to try and do a big tennis murder on you." He turned to Ollie. "Johnny Wombat! Engage the robo-Dusks!"

Ollie sighed, not for the last time, and trudged over to where a long extension cord lay across the grass. He plugged it in, waited a minute, and then walked to the side of the house to reset the switch on the outdoor outlet. After an awkward moment, two Partytron Smoke-o-matic fog machines hissed to life, spewing a faint cloud of smoke into the air.

Zeke waved his cane through the air and announced, "Okay, go!"

Steve jogged forward. Rick aimed his air-powered tee shirt howitzer and fired. There was the sound of rushing air, a dull THWUCK noise, and Steve collapsed onto the ground holding his crotch and making weak "Ooooh" noises.

"Fuck yeah," shouted Rick. "Got 'm in one!"

"My beans," Steve whined. Tears were streaking lines through his warpaint. "I think my beans are broken. Ooooooooh."

"This is an important lesson," Zeke said. "Karl Malone Junior is a sneaky little gremlin with a penchant for punching and pounding private parts into paste."

Ollie sighed. Yes, again.

Rick had slung the tee-shirt-turned-tennis-ball launched over his shoulder and made his way to the rest of the group. "The fuck is Karl Malone Junior?"

"Joe Fontaine," Ollie said.

"Uhh, 'k. And how the fuck we getting 'Karl Malone' outta 'Joe Fontaine'?"

"Because his dad is Joey Malone and...," he paused. "Look, it's a whole thing."

"Yes, yes," said Zeke, waving his hands as if to shoo away the conversation. "The point is that when he is not trying to play the J-golf with you, Karl Malone Junior is going to try and Charles Barkley your Shawn Kemps. Allen your Iversons. Joe Barry you right in the Carroll."

"To Darryl Dawkins you right in the cawk'ins," Rick added, way too proud of himself. "To Manute you in the Bols."

"What?" said Zeke.

"To Detroit Pistons your Denver Nuggets," Rick added.

"I'm going to stand over there now," Ollie said, walking away from the group.

For a moment Zeke stared at Rick, confused. Then he blinked and started talking again.

"Anyway, the point is that you must be prepared for an unpleasant surprise in your underbits," he said. "Karl Malone is sneaky, like a ghost. A penis ghost. A ghost who haunts penises. Spooky, spooky penis gho-"

THWUCK

A second tennis ball hit Steve in the groin, and he yelped like a man who'd just been shot in the crotch by a tee shirt gun.

"Okay, next event!" # III. JOUST IS A FUN GAME UNLESS A GROWN MAN IS THROWING CHAIRS AT YOU

Steve hefted the pugil stick in his hands and tested the weight. It was surprisingly well-balanced despite one of the padded ends looking like it had been wrestled away from a dog. Nearby, Ollie was practicing with one of his own. Unlike Steve, Ollie didn't wear a sparring helmet, and Steve wasn't quite sure how to feel about that.

Zeke blew the whistle around his neck.

"Okay, hello, yes," he said. "Everyone to your places! It's time for jousting."

Ollie extended his hand and offered a warm smile. In return, Steve offered his own hand. But whereas Ollie was strong and confident, Steve was a fish in the dying throes of suffocation.

"Good luck," Ollie said. "And don't worry about me, okay. Swing as hard as you can. Promise that I can take it."

"Okie-dokie, smokey," said Steve.

And then he did something that no one else in the yard expected. He took his own pugil stick in his hands and began twirling it around his body, assuming different combat positions along the way. Interspersed among the posturing were a series of weak karate noises.

Rick looked at Ollie. Ollie looked at Zeke. Zeke looked to Rick. Everyone looked at Steve.

"I took karate growing up," the sandwich maker said. "I got pretty good with a bo staff."

Rick snorted a laugh. "Hear that, Wombat? You're about to get your ass kicked by literal Napoleon Dynamite."

Ollie shot a look back at Rick, but was quickly hurried along by Zeke before he could respond. Ollie vaulted up onto the balance beam after two quick steps, a natural gymnast. By contrast, Steve lumbered up the set of makeshift stairs beside the beam, almost falling off twice in the process.

"Yes, hello, it is now time for the joustings and the stick whackings," Zeke said. "On one side we have the incomparable Johnny Wombat!"

"Not what I'm called," Ollie said through yet another sigh.

"And on the other is Steve Lummox!"

"Accurate," said Rick.

Zeke raised his cane in the air. "When I blow my whistle you will both start the beatings, which will continue until one of you has been knocked off the beam on to the coats below. Okay!"

At the sound of the whistle, Steve took a few careful, shuffling steps forward and jabbed at Ollie a few times with his pugil stick.

"Hiya," said Steve with every strike.

Ollie made no attempt to block, but instead made a show of recoiling a bit with every weak strike that he endured.

THWACK!

A metal and plastic folding chair flew threw the air. It blasted Steve in the shoulder and side of the head, sending him tumbling off the beam to the stack of coats below.

From his place on the beam, Ollie looked confused.

"Ah-ha!" Zeke shouted. "You will not just be fighting Karl Malone Junior, but also his partner, BIG LORENZO!"

"Who the fuck is Big Lorenzo?" asked Rick, as he readied another chair.

Ollie jumped down from his spot on the beam.

"He means Sid Phillips," he said. "But Sid doesn't work in PRIME anymore. I think he's retired or something. FLAMBERGE is Fontaine's partner now."

Curious eyes peered out from behind Zeke's ski mask.

"Who's that?" Zeke asked.

"Seriously?" Ollie said. "FLAMBERGE? Former Universal Champion? Holds the longest win streak ever?"

Zeke said nothing.

"The lizard guy?"

"Oh!" Zeke said. "Curt Connors. Yes, I remember him."

"What? No. FLAMBERGE is French. Remember the French guy?"

"Ah, yes. My mistake. Curt Connerrrrrrs."

A loud groaning emanated from the pile of coats as Steve rolled onto his belly.

"And why are we throwing chairs at Steve again?" asked Ollie.

"Because!" Zeke jabbed a triumphant finger into the air. "Karl Malone invented the J-golf, which is played with chairs! Steve must be ready for chairs, and also for shenanigans."

"Did I win?" groaned the pile of coats.

"Sure did," said Ollie.

At the same time Rick said, "Fuck no."

"Minions!" Zeke boomed. "Fetch the Henchmobile! It's time for Steve's final challenge!" # IV. STEVE LEMIEUX FIGHTS 100 SKUNKS

There had been some debate over the use of The Henchmobile, which was Zeke’s name for Rick’s vintage Pontiac Trans Am. Zeke wanted something that would get them to the secret warehouse laboratory in a hurry, but Rick has been adamant that they pick another way to get there. The car was a classic, he insisted, and there was no way he was driving anyone in it after the outcome of Steve’s final challenge.

Several minutes later, the group filed out of Zeke’s minivan in front of a warehouse space in an otherwise empty lot.

“Behold, the site of your final challenge!” Zeke proclaimed. He made a broad, sweeping gesture towards the building with his cane. “In there you will face your toughest adversary to date! You see, this is where I conduct my top secret experiments, and right now there is a problem with a device I have created.”

Steve watched all of this in rapt attention, suddenly feeling as though he was about to be cast as the lead role in an action movie.

“If you can regain control of my laboratory and the device contained inside, then you will at last be ready to fulfill your mission and find my blood pressure medicines!”

Ollie nudged Zeke with a light elbow.

“Err, sorry,” Zeke said. “You will be ready to fulfill your mission and defeat Karl Malone Junior in J-golf! But be warned, because the device in question is currently being held captive by the dreaded Dr. Stinkpot and his minions. Tell me, Steve Lummox, are you ready?”

“Flippity heck, am I ever,” said Steve.

He had taken some time on the ride over to try and adjust his face paint, what with it having been ruined by his someone-just-shot-me-in-the-beans tears and from slow kissing a flying chair. The resulting design was somewhere between “antidepressant clown” and “drunken lipstick demon.” Steve didn’t seem to mind.

He power walked towards the door, which Ollie was in the process of unlocking.

“You can count on me, Mister Badguy,” he said. “I’ll get your… umm… what is it that I’m looking for?”

Zeke saddled up behind him and put a hand on his shoulder.

“Hello, hi, yes. You, Steve Lummox, will be the man who returns to me the greatest invention of my life - The Skunk-a-pult!!”

“The Skunk-a-what?” Steve said.

“Okay have fun love you bye!”

And with that, Steve found himself thrown through the open door and into the confines of the warehouse lab. Before he knew what was happening, the door behind him slammed shut, and Steve could hear the click of a lock being reengaged.

He pushed himself up to his feet and fished around in his fanny pack. He retrieved a small flashlight, and engaged the beam.

“H-hello?” he asked the darkness.

He stepped deeper into the room, and for a minute he swore that he saw a reflection of the light in the darkness.

“Hello?” he said again.

This time a response came in the form of shuffling, and the beam of light revealed movement in the darkness. A large, shambling mass skulked through the room. Vaguely human-shaped, Steve thought he could make out the silhouette of a lab coat.

“D-d-d-Dr. Stinkpot? Is that you?”

The smell hit him first. It was like someone had taken the entire bread aisle from the supermarket and burned it in a makeshift furnace made of old tires.

The figure inched closer and rose to its full height. In the light of the beam Steve could see a body crudely composed of black and white fur. From what he could tell there were no arms, just legs, a torso, and a cat-like head.

Dr. Stinkpot - now identified as twelve skunks in a lab coat - shambled towards him. Steve turned to run, but found the flashlight beam reflected back at him from the beady, blinking eyes of dozens of skunks. He had been surrounded.

And that’s when the screaming began. # V. STEVE LEMIEUX FIGHTS 100 SKUNKS AS TOLD FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE SKUNKS

The following account is translated from a collection of visual displays, vocalizations, and scent markings. Because there is no true Skunk-to-English translation, there may be errors in the exchange. Also, it’s fucking skunks, so it’s not like we can verify the authenticity here.

Bob, A Skunk: The strange one smelled like Before-Trash, like the meats that aren’t rotten. It was really weird.

Robby, A Skunk: He also smelled like sweat, and failure, and a little bit of the Front-Spray. Which is the spray that The Upright Talls make from their front parts.

Lil Scoots: I LIKE THE OLD CORN!

Bob, A Skunk: I didn’t like the Before-Trash smell. Because he did not turn into trash smell.

Roberto, A Skunk: Sos I’m talkin’ to the other skunks and they’re all like, “Hey, what do we do - you know - with the big weird one ova heah?” And I says fellas it ain’t hard. There’s just one-a him and like a hundred of us. We gets all around him and starts sprayin’. So that’s what we did, except for Captain Nibbles cuz he’s gots a condition.

Captain Nibbles, A Skunk: It’s a glandular thing. I’m seeing a specialist about it in July. Been trying to get the appointment moved up, but so far the vet hasn’t returned my calls.

Lil Scoots, A Skunk: NOT THE NEW CORN I WANT THE OLD CORN WITHOUT THE LITTLE YELLOWS ON IT I DON’T LIKE THE LITTLE YELLOWS THEY GET STUCK IN MY FUR ON THE WAY OUT!

Roberto, A Skunk: But then Flex comes in and does what Flex always does, which is try to take over the situation.

Flex Carpaccio, A Skunk: There was only one thing to do and everyone knew it. The mask doctor made a device that turns skunks into weapons. But weapons we are not! We are gentle creatures, misunderstood by the upright talls.

Lil Scoots, A Skunk: EVERYBODY SPRAYED THE NEW TALL AT THE SAME TIME AND THEN HE FELL DOWN AND I SNIFFED HIM BUT HE ONLY SMELLED LIKE THE FRONT SPRAY HE DID NOT SMELL LIKE THE OLD CORN I WANT THE OLD CORN PLEASE CAN I HAVE SOME OF THE OLD CORN?!

Captain Nibbles, A Skunk: It’s just hard being the odd one out, you know? Everyone else got to spray the upright tall until he became the sideways long, and I just had to stand on the sidelines and watch. Like great job, guys. You did it. I’ll just pretend I’m not hurting on the inside.

Roberto, A Skunk: So yeah, we tied him all up and put him on the thing that the weirdo doc made. Was kind of a pain in the ass because he was so big and limp and we’ve all got tiny little paws, you know? But we did what had to be done. Do I regret it? Nah. But ask me again when I’m older and the answer might change.

Lil Scoots, A Skunk: YOU HAVE OLD CORN? YOU GIVE OLD CORN? # VI. THE END, WHEREIN A MAN IS CATAPULTED INTO THE WALL BY SKUNKS

Zeke, Ollie, and Rick stood outside by the van. In Rick’s hand was the tool they had planned to award Steve should he ever escape from the skunked-up laboratory. It was a steel chair that had been welded to length of pipe, giving the entire thing the look of a jacked-up spatula.

“Do you think he’s okay in there?” Ollie said.

His question was answered by screaming, a loud bang, and then the sliding metal door of the warehouse shaking as if a human had just been bodily thrown against it.

“Fuckin’ doubt it,” Rick said.

After a quiet moment Ollie said, “So, what exactly was the point of all this?”

No one answered.

Ollie sighed, fortunately for the last time today.

“Gimme the keys. I’ll go let him out.”