Sesame, DC

[muppetwriter]

Thrilled to be finally writing this series again after nearly 10 years! Hope everyone enjoys the first story! There will be more to come later!

How Do You Get Back to Sesame Street?​

Elmo woke out of a fun dream of a carnival that looked like Sesame Street but filled with rides and animals rather than buildings and people (and monsters). He knew such a silly but fun version of his home could never happen in reality, but he loved Sesame Street all the same for what it was.

Only Elmo was no longer in Sesame Street.

When he opened his eyes, he found himself inside of an unusual cage with glowing pink bars. They were beautiful to look at, reminding him a lot of cotton candy, which his carnival dream gave him a hankering for. Unfortunately, these bars were definitely not made of cotton candy. He touched one and received quite a painful shock that made his red fur stand up.

Elmo didn’t like this cage at all. It made him feel more trapped than it was designed to make him feel.

Why would someone put Elmo in a cage, he unhappily pondered. He might have been a monster, but he was a friendly monster – not the type to hurt anyone.

“Elmo!”

He heard Big Bird’s voice speak out near him. He looked up to see other cages of various sizes inside of a black-lighted room. Inside these other cages were his friends Big Bird, Oscar the Grouch (whose trashcan was trapped along with him), Telly Monster, Grover, Cookie Monster, and Count von Count.

Surprised to see them all there, Elmo wondered aloud, “What’s happened to Elmo and his friends? Why are they locked up in cages?”

“I don’t know,” said Big Bird, who was just as sad as Elmo. “I was just sleeping in my nest before my bedtime, like I normally do, and when I woke up, I’m inside this cage like all of you.”

“T-The same thing happened to me!” Telly exclaimed.

“Same here!” Grover cried.

“Ditto.” Oscar echoed from within his closed can.

“Me dreamt of flying saucer cookie that me tried to eat,” said Cookie Monster. “But cookie was too big for me to eat and saucer cookie ended up eating me! It was most traumatic nightmare of me life!”

Big Bird found Cookie Monster’s recollection of events rather proverbial. “I don’t think it was a nightmare, Cookie Monster. I think what happened to you happened to the rest of us.”

“You mean we have been abducted by cookie aliens?” Grover presumed. “Oh, I’m gonna need therapy after this.”

Telly’s anxiety began to rise. “I-I don’t like being in a cage. I don’t like it! I want to go back to Sesame Street!” He then gasped upon realization. “Oh, no! W-Who’s gonna feed Chuckie Sue while I’m away?”

“It’s O.K., Telly.” Elmo reassured – more for his own benefit than Telly’s. “Everything’s going to be alright. Telly will see. Telly, Elmo, Big Bird, Cookie Monster, Count, and Grover will get back to Sesame Street. A-And Telly will get to feed Chuckie Sue again.”

“Elmo is right.” Count said. “This must be one big misunderstanding.”

“I knew you were going to go there.” Grover remarked of the vampire’s statement.

The automated whoosh of a sliding door caught their attention as one opened just at the far end of the room, flooding in a bright white light into the darkly lit room. A female figure dressed in a black suit of armor – that Elmo thought made her appear like a knight – entered. The black armor was completed by a helmet that completely shielded her face, although there were a pair of “eyes” built into it that lit up, giving her a very eerie appearance to the characters.

The only physical trait of her that escaped from the black metallic suit was a blue and pink ponytail protruding from a small hole in the back of her helmet. Her heavy boots emitted hollowed clanging as she walked across the metal floor, her glowing eyes scanning each of the caged Sesame Street residents inside the room. She stopped on Elmo, lifting her right forearm and entering a command into a keypad built into her gauntlet.

Suddenly, the bars of Elmo’s cage vanished into thin air, leaving nothing between him and the armored woman. She reached in and roughly grabbed him by the back of his neck, her steel fingers painfully gripped into his furry red skin. To the cries of his friends, Elmo was taken out of the room by their armored captor, into the blinding light that enveloped them in their exit. The door shut behind them, drowning out the cries of the other contained characters.

Once his eyes managed to adjust to the new fluorescent lighting, Elmo could see doors to several other rooms that he and the mysterious female passed down a chromed, oval-shaped corridor. He glanced up at his imprisoner, getting a closer glimpse at her suit. It was scratched and cracked in a few areas. He spotted a nameplate on the left side of the breastplate labeled “Col. Mars.”

“Elmo likes your name, Colonel Mars.”

She offered no response to the furry red monster’s compliment, which disappointed Elmo, who always received a “Thank You” whenever giving someone a compliment.

Mars carried him to a circular room with a long, glowing table at the center and four cylindrical pods situated at end-to-end walls. Elmo noticed three women contained in the three neighboring pods – their names displayed in holographic form above them.

One was for a “Genevieve,” a long-haired blonde in her early-twenties wearing a small, tight-fitting green jacket with a small pink, red, and white scarf, a very small and loose white tank top that bore her midriff, and denim shorts that were cropped high above the thighs. Her clothes were something Elmo had seen before but certainly never worn by any of the girls around Sesame Street.

The pod to the left of Genevieve’s was for a woman ten years older by the name of “Natalie,” who had long black hair and appeared to be Native American from her dark complexion. Her clothes were much more “revealing” to Elmo than Genevieve’s, consisted of nothing else but a short brown sleeveless top tied close to her bosom, baring much of her toned torso, and jeans shorts not much different from the ones Genevieve wore.

The third woman, situated in the pod to the right of Genevieve, appeared to be much older – possibly in her mid-forties. From the holographic display above her, she went by the name “Sarah.” To Elmo, her clothes seemed better suited for someone much younger than her, as she wore a white sleeveless top that showed off her well-structured arms and blue skinny jeans. Elmo figured her to be Hispanic from how she looked like a distant relative of Maria’s with long light brown skin and hair.

And the last pod, just beside Natalie and reserved for a woman named “Alicia,” was…empty!

It had been left opened, much to the horror of Colonel Mars.

“What the…!” she exclaimed in an automated voice.

That was when a tall figure snuck up behind her from the shadows and caught her in a sleeper hold. The grip she had on Elmo’s neck was released in concurrence with the surprise attack. He landed on his feet to the cold steel floor and looked up to see what was happening. His rescuer – a beautiful and statuesque African American woman with long light brown hair, dark brown eyes, and a strong, athletic physique – had her long arms muscled around Mars’s neck. The armored woman’s feet hovered a few inches from the floor, lifted off them by her taller and stronger aggressor.

The hold did its job, causing Mars to slump down to the floor and fall asleep.

Elmo’s rescuer, who he figured to be the one named “Alicia” that somehow managed to escape her pod, crouched down over Mars and snapped her gauntlet controller off her armor. Donned in dark grey yoga shorts and a light blue sports bra with white tennis shoes, she looked more like a superhero than Elmo saw her as.

“You alright, Elmo?” She turned to him and asked, surprising the furry red monster in how she accurately knew his name.

“How does Alicia know Elmo?”

Alicia giggled. “I grew up on Sesame Street, man.”

“Elmo hasn’t seen Alicia around Sesame Street before.”

“Oh,” uttered Alicia, who realized the context of her account. “I mean that I grew up watching the program.”

This only confused Elmo even more, yet he did not bother to go on any further about it. He watched Alicia carry the unconscious Mars up over her left shoulder, surprising him again with her amazing strength. She placed Mars into the opened pod and locked her in.

“Help me get the others free.” Alicia beckoned, and Elmo obliged.

Genevieve, Natalie, and Sarah were released from their pods, wobbling out onto the steel floor and balancing themselves on the glowing table in their recovery from stasis.

“Elmo helped Alicia get her friends free. Now Alicia help Elmo get his friends free.”

Her face lit with childlike wonder at his request. “You mean the other characters from Sesame Street are here?” She squealed excitedly. “This is the coolest moment of my life!”

She followed Elmo back to the room where his friends were still caged but soon freed, thanks to Alicia’s tinkering with the gauntlet controls. Big Bird was the first to express his gratitude to the woman. “Thank you, ma’am,” his yellow feathered form towering over her; she began to understand how everyone else felt around her. “But, uh, can you tell us where we are?”

Alicia frowned. “That’s the big question of the day, Big Bird.”

TO BE CONTINUED...​

 

[The Count]

Okaaay, I'll be intrigued to see how this connects to the DC realm overall, but we'll probably need more fic to make sense of it all.

Hope to read more soon.

 

[tutter_fan]

(insert very dramatic sting here) DUN DUN....... DUNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

: This is a special MUPPET NEWS BULLETIN!!!!! Someone named Alicia has rescued Elmo and his friends from Sesame Street. They currently have no idea of where they are, and to be a bit off topic, she is a fan of Sesame Street. (at this point, the Sesame Street sign drops on him) ***KLONK!!!***

 

[muppetwriter]

Brace yourselves for more craziness!

In the next story, we get some insight on our tall, lovely friend Alicia via flashback!

The Night It Started

Central City – Alicia’s Past​

Alicia appreciated the idea of thinking her apartment, located on the east coast of Central City, as a modest abode. It might not have been as classy as those from most reporters who worked with her and her best friend, Adrianne, at The Central City Picture News; and they probably had better rent than what she had to pay at the end of every month. But it was home nonetheless – and it was not like she had any place better to go.

On the one evening she and Adrianne both had off from work, the two women decided to go out for a jog together. Next to her job, Alicia’s fitness meant everything to her. If she wasn’t out jogging her legs off, she would be at home hitting the weights. Adrianne was the same. Together, they had to be the tallest and healthiest women in Central City. “Men look to us like goddesses,” Adrianne often told her, which was the truth in the way they were gawked at during the jog from and back to the apartment.

Yeah…big sweaty goddesses, Alicia thought as she and Adrianne jogged up thirty flights of stairs. Why again did they not take the elevator?

She was thankful to return to the cool, air-conditioned atmosphere of her apartment where she immediately plopped to the floor, breathing heavily. Most days she hated how cold her apartment was, especially in the winter. Her cheapskate landlord never got it fixed as he promised her and the other tenants. She was lucky not to have caught the flu in the previous winter season.

“God, we are sweatin’ like beasts up in here!” Adrianne noted, going to Alicia’s fridge immediately after walking in. Alicia couldn’t fathom how her friend and coworker could walk when her legs were practically noodles. “Wow, girl. Your fridge is, like, barren. There’s hardly any food in here. You need to talk Larkin into giving you a raise. You’re workin’ your butt off for scraps!”

Eric Larkin was the editor-in-chief of Central City Picture News. And as right as Adrianne was, Alicia couldn’t bring herself to go right up to her boss and make such a demand. She was too much of a coward in that way – her job meant everything to her.

“I’ll keep it in mind,” she remarked, just as Adrianne approached with a bottle of water she handed over to her. Alicia nearly swiped it out of Adrianne’s hand, her exhaustion making her seem less ladylike. Of course, that was no bother for Adrianne, who gave one unimaginable belch after taking a gulp of her water.

“Ooh! That was a good one.” She complimented on the successful resonance to come from her digestive system.

Alicia managed to peel herself from the hardwood floor and plop down over on the couch in her living room, with Adrianne following suit. She switched on her flat-screen TV. News coverage on the activation of the particle accelerator at S.T.A.R. Labs filled the wide screen with a female, red-coated Asian American reporter speaking from outside the facility.

“Oh, crap, that’s happenin’ tonight?” Adrianne cried.

“Yep, it is,” Alicia despondently confirmed.

“What the heck, man? Why aren’t we covering that? Did Larkin even consider coming to us for this gig?”

“It’s no big thang.”

Adrianne looked to her friend; she wasn’t so easily fooled by that “no care” attitude she had played. “Nuh-uh! I know you got to be just as P.O.’d about this injustice as I am, girl. I’ve had it with this crap. Tomorrow morning, we go right up to that old dude and tell him we quit and are bouncin’ it over to Starling City for our future in journalism.”

Alicia frowned in surprise at her. “Are you serious? Why would you want to give up what we got here for all the mess happenin’ there? I promise you if we jogged up and down the streets of Starling in nothing but our yoga gear, we wouldn’t survive one day – not with all the gang wars and murders. You really want to be a chalk outline at a street corner?”

“Crime and violence happens everywhere, honey – that’s just life.” Adrianne professed. “Besides, they’ve got that hooded guy there protectin’ everybody. Some jackhole gets in your face, just scream and he’ll be there to save your booty.”

“Well, I prefer my booty to be here – right in the safety of my apartment.”

“If Larkin continues to screw us out, you won’t have any apartment to stay in.”

Alicia hated to admit when she was right, but she was right about that.

She switched the channel on her set, not wishing to be reminded of her troubles with the coverage at S.T.A.R. Labs. What replaced it was something more welcoming – a scene from Gremlins, a favorite childhood movie of theirs. Both women squealed with excitement.

“Haven’t you always wanted to own your own mogwai?” Adrianne asked.

“Heck naw! What about those conditions?”

“Oh, yeah. What were they?”

“Never feed it after midnight…”

“…never expose it to bright light…”

“…and never let it touch water.”

Adrianne giggled. “I’d break that one just so I could get Stripe.”

Alicia laughed with her. It seemed all her woes drifted away with their reminiscing of childhood memories.

Unfortunately, it did not last very long – the signal in Alicia’s satellite cable suddenly shut down, cutting off their program and leaving a “No Signal” warning against a blue backdrop.

“Are you friggin’ kidding me?” Adrianne furiously groaned.

Alicia was more embarrassed than she was furious at this. The ridiculous air-conditioning and near-empty fridge were enough hints to her penniless lifestyle, now the cable decided to take a stab.

“It’s a fault in the dish – there’s always one,” she bemoaned. “I’ll go up there and see if I can angle it. Keep your phone on, so you can tell which one works best.”

“Gotcha.”

Getting back on her still-shaky legs, she forced herself up thirty more flights of stairs to reach the rooftop (there was no other direct access to it). She kept Adrianne on speaker as she worked in angling the dish ever so slightly to the left and then to the right.

“Right there! That’s it!” Adrianne yelled out through the phone. “I can see Gizmo’s cute furry little face as clear as bell now!”

Alicia sighed in relief. “Cool. I’m headin’ on do—”

She stopped at the sound of a tremendous thunderclap that resonated through the entire city. All of Central City blacked out, with the notable exception of a bright yellowish-orange glow emitting directly from S.T.A.R. Labs. Soon thereafter, another bright glow (this one purple in design) shined from overhead, directing Alicia’s attention upward. Some sort of aircraft had its spotlight engulfed on her. She tried to see through it to determine what type of craft it was. Considering the absence in the sound of rotors spinning, it was definitely not a helicopter.

Out of nowhere came an energy pulse that struck her and rendered her unconscious. She collapsed to the concrete of the rooftop structure, her phone skidding out of her hand. Adrianne’s frantic voice cried out for Alicia from the other end, but there would be no response from her best friend.

Present Time​

With the group from Sesame Street joining Alicia, Genevieve, Sarah, and Natalie, there seemed to be enough panic to go around. They all were hysterically talking at once, expressing their collective fears in being unable to determine where they were. The “pod room,” as Alicia chose to call it, appeared to be the appropriate place for the crazed proceedings. They gathered around the glowing table, which served as an impromptu conference table.

After minutes of verbal conflagration, Sarah held two fingers to her mouth and whistled loud enough to silence the group. “Listen,” she said. “Now I know we’re all scared – some of us more so than others – but we’ve got to remain calm and focus.”

“And who put you in charge?” Natalie questioned, seemingly insulted by the woman’s spontaneous self-application in leadership.

“Old age,” muttered Genevieve, with a sardonic shrug. “They always feel like seniority is a big deal in survival scenarios.”

“Excuse me, young lady,” Sarah snapped. “But who do you think you are talking to me like that?”

This harsh exchange only enticed the disorder to return, losing all control from Sarah, unbeknownst to her. Some tried to break up the developing war of words between her and Genevieve, while others once again expressed their woes, specifically Telly.

Alicia, however, could only stand and shake her head at it all.

In the midst of the chaos, she detected a beeping sound that came from somewhere on her. She gazed at the gauntlet she held in her left hand, spotting a blinking green button at the center of it. Apparently, it was the cause of the sudden beeping. Curiously, she put her right index finger to it and pressed.

Before she knew it, a large holographic display of a constellation projected from the glowing table, urging everyone to warily back away from it. A shape formed in the projected array of stars – that of the head of a human male. Its “eyes” surveyed the characters standing in the room.

“New log entry activated. Proceed at your discretion.” It said in a robotic tone.

TO BE CONTINUED...​

 

[The Count]

And so a few of the pieces start to fall.

Mmm, the implosion of the particle accelerator on Christmas from a year and a half ago, would that be 2013?
Nice jab at the anarchy taking place in Starling at the moment, that'd be Deathstroke's doing and his miracuro mercenaries.

When that robotic head appeared in the hologram constellation... Why am I reminded of that scene where the demonhead rose out of misty fog at the Legion of Doom's HQ? Meh, hope the next update will arrive at my inbox when you decide to post it.

 

[tutter_fan]

DUN DUN DUNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!! (special effect of the scene zooming in real fast a few times) WHOA!!!!!!!!! What's next for the special residents of Sesame Street? What's next for Alicia, Genevieve, Sarah, and Natalie?!?!?!?!?!