Disclaimer: Bobby and his ex-girlfriends are all property of Marvel Comics, blah, blah. Even OPAL. Yes, OPAL. BLEH! BLEH, I say! Oh, right, no profit, especially not on OPAL.

Previous chapters can be found at http://bobbysworld.snarkyblue.com/buckshot/xgirls.html
Character backstory can be found at http://bobbysworld.snarkyblue.com/buckshot/girls.html

(oh, and look for chapter 5 1/2, starring Lev! and Dave Foley coming ... uh, soon. oh, and wasn't Shade's story AWESOME? I thought it was AWESOME.)

The Super-Uncanny Adventures of Bobby and His Amazing X-Girlfriends
by ValKerrie

Chapter 5: It's Not Easy Being Green

Opal Tanaka clasped her hands excitedly as she watched the woman in front of her shuffling papers.

Right from the beginning, she had known, in the very pit of her being, that this was a Very Good Idea.

It had started a few weeks ago after she had been fired from the record store for the sixth time, and this time they Really Meant It. Opal had called her pal, Trish Tilby, to complain about the utter unfairness of life.

Then Trish told her all about her Caribbean vacation. Opal had decided right then and there what she wanted to do with her life: become an investigative reporter.

Unfortunately, it was kinda hard to find a job as an investigative reporter with no experience, no education and no references.

Finally, Opal had found a small town newspaper, in need of a new local newshound.

And thus, through a carefully phrased resume and a letter of reference from her dentist, Opal was now employed by the Port Jefferson Tribune. She even had a nifty hat.

"Boss?" she asked, anxiously.

Nancy Hobson, editor of said Tribune, who, for years later, would deny all roles in the hiring of one Opal Tanaka, looked up. "Oh, you're still here? Didn't I give you an assignment, yet?"

"Nope," Opal chirped.

Nancy shuffled a few more papers. "Well, Herb's got the Little League playoffs covered. Marissa's covering the fourth grade spelling bee. Hmm, the high school marching band won sixth place at -- no, that was last week." She shuffled a few more papers and stopped. "Oh. Here's, uh--" a story no one on the staff would touch with a thirty-nine-and-a-half-foot pole, "an interesting one. There's rumors of some sort of ... superpowered group running around town, fighting crime."

Opal gasped. Her big break! And a story like this! Any reporter's dream!

Nancy squinted at the page. "Rufus down at the Fill'n'Go swears they're led by ... this can't be right ... the Silver Surfer. Who knew? Well, go see if you can get an interview with him."

"Can do, Boss!" Opal saluted crisply, and practically skipped out of the office.

Nancy squinted at the page again. "Silver Surfer. Yeah. Right."

"I still don't see why I need a new uniform..."

"We do!" Cloud, Zelda and Marge chorused.

"Of course, you do, mousshka," Mrs. Mellipoulos declared. "You have a very nice tushy, and that other thing doesn't do a thing to show it off!"

"Did she just say 'tushy'?" Lev whispered to Zelda.

"Besides, that thing is hideous!" Cloud replied. "It's got that big X across the front ... what was Jean thinking?"

"HEY! This is a high-quality X-Factor uniform! It's not my fault I ripped up all my X-Men ones. And Jean did not come up with these!"

"Yeah?" Zelda asked, raising one eyebrow. "Who did?"

"Umm ... Cameron Hodge."

"Who was...?"

"Warren's old college roommate."

"Ahh."

"So are you gonna come out and let us see, or what?" Cloud teased, swinging her feet.

"Oh, I'm not coming out."

"Go on, Bobby!" Mrs. Mellipoulos commanded, giving a mighty push.

Bobby stumbled through the doorway, blushing bright pink.

Almost as pink as his uniform.

The girls stared at him.

They didn't know what to say.

"That's ... um, mighty ... feminine of you, Popsicle," Zelda finally managed.

"It's the same color as my hair!" Lev added gleefully.

"Take it off," Marge sniffed. "It's making me question my own femininity."

Bobby scurried back into the other room.

"Try again, Mrs. M!" Cloud called.

"Yep. Saw him with m'own two eyes."

"Let's start at the beginning, Mr.--?"

"Jes' call me Rufus."

Opal blinked, and scooted closer to the edge of the grease-coated object Rufus had introduced as a chair. "Er, okay ... Rufus. Have you lived in Port Jefferson long?"

"All muh life, honey!"

Yeah. Nice Southern accent, Opal decided. "And ... have you ever witnessed any sort of strange activity before?"

"Well, this town is famous fer it's Silver Surfer sightin's, y'know?"

"No, I really didn't."

"Oh. Well, the missus said she saw him when she was goin' to the grocery store, once. He wuz standin' in the frozen food aisle, tryin' to choose b'tween the Stouffer's Lasagna-fer-One and the Sirloin Dinner."

Opal blinked. "You're so lying."

"Am not!"

"Are too! I've had Stouffer's Sirloin Dinner, and believe me, the Silver Surfer would never eat it!"

Rufus blinked. "Er, maybe he hadn't had it before."

"But even the picture looks nasty! And I'm sure the Surfer has much more discriminating tastes."

Rufus scratched his head. "I wouldn't know about that, ma'am."

Opal nodded curtly.

Silence.

"Oh, right. Um, tell me about the more recent sighting."

"Well, this ragamuffin in an' ol' ski-mask comes in, demandin' all my money. An' a Slurpee. A cola 'un. And right then, I knew it was Moose Beasley, y'know, Clara's youngest boy? I been kickin' them Beasley boys outta here for near 'bouts twenty years, and I was about t'show Moose the business end of muh 12-gauge, when it happened. The Silver Surfer busts his way in, complete with three beauty-ful wimmen. An' a tank. I dunno where he found the tank, but I'm thinkin' I want one. It'd scare the Beasely kids a lot more'n ol' Bessie, knowhatImean?"

"Not really."

"Anyhoo, Silver Surfer takes one look at ol' Moose, and goes, 'Hey, are you a Beasely?' Then Moose goes 'Uh ... nope.' Then the Surfer goes 'Are too,' and they go on like that for about ten minutes. One o' the girls keeps hitting the Surfer an' tellin' him to shut up, and the other two, one who looks like she done lit herself on fire, an' one who's kinda sparkly both turn normal an' buy Slurpees. Then whoever's in the tank starts whinin', and Moose finally slips up when he tells the Surfer he's gonna sic his brother Rocky on him if he doesn't stop talkin' trash about the Beaselies."

Opal blinked. "Yeah?"

"Yup. Then Silver Surfer took Moose's mask and gave 'im a wedgie. Then they all left."

"Oh," Opal said. "Um ... thanks."

"No problem, darlin'."

"I don't like this one, either," Bobby announced, squirming.

"Yeah, there's something ... not right with it," Cloud agreed, wrinkling her nose.

Mrs. Mellipoulos frowned.

"I think it's the icicles across your chest," Marge said slowly.

"I thought they would go with his power, or something," Mrs. Mellipoulos excused.

Lev looked up from her magazine, and stared at Bobby for a minute. "They emphasize your nipples."

Bobby hightailed it back to the sewing room.

"What can I do for you, little lady?"

"Thanks for agreeing to meet with me, Officer Ratchit."

The portly policeman eyed the box of donuts sitting in the would-be reporter's lap.

"You, uh, had some questions for me?"

"I did," Opal said, letting the box fall open, and the delectable scent of jelly-filled goodness waft across the room.

"Well, you just go ahead and shoot! Metaphorically, of course."

"I've heard that you actually arrested the Silver Surfer several years ago."

"The Silver -- oh, right. That guy. Yeah, I guess."

"What did you bring him in for? Did he kill someone? Was it grand theft auto? Did you book him?"

Ratchit squirmed uncomfortably. "Well, actually, it was, um, all a big coincidence."

Opal blinked. "A coincidence?"

"See, there was this family that lived in town for a while. The Smiths. And their house blew up. And I knew that punk had something to do with it, but he fed the judge some line of bull about fighting Communists, and he walked."

"Would you happen to have the Smiths' address?"

"Well, little lady," Ratchit said, leaning back in his chair. "That's police business, see? The lot's still empty. Pretty dangerous for a sweet young thing like yourself."

"Oh, of course. Officer, you don't mind if I ... eat in here, do you?" Opal took a big bite of an angel cream, chewing luxuriously.

Officer Ratchit swallowed dryly. Hey, what was crime scene confidentiality between friends?

"I don't know about this," Bobby said, tugging on the edge of his cowl experimentally. "I've never had a mask before."

"Oh, you look so handsome," Cloud cooed.

"I really don't like this much stuff around my face," Bobby continued, whining slightly.

"Now, Bobby," Mrs. Mellipoulos scolded. "You have a Secret Identity to protect. You're going to need a mask of some sort."

"But I'll be all iced-up!"

"But what if you have to ... un-ice?" Mrs. Mellipoulos protested.

"I've never had a mask before!"

"You've never had a secret identity before," Zelda reminded him.

"Yes, I have! I've always had a secret identity."

"No, Bobby, you haven't," Zel pointed out. "Back when we were kids, I think Bobby was your secret identity. You lived at school, hung out with superheroes all day ... Vera and I were the only ones you were fooling. And not very well, at that."

"And when you were in college, you weren't superheroing," Cloud added. "You've always had it one way or the other."

"But now you've got Bobby Drake, mild-mannered accountant, and Iceman, heroic leader of Iceman's Angels," Marge pointed out. "Wouldn't want anyone to recognize you."

Bobby blinked. "That's so -- so--"

"True?" Lev suggested.

"Unfair."

"But true," Marge pressed. "Besides, I think the mask gives you an air of mystery."

"Oh, and that's just what he needs," Lev grumbled. "'An air of mystery.' Sheesh."

"Really?" Bobby asked hesitantly, glancing in the mirror at the way his hair flopped over the edge of the navy blue cowl. "I guess it does look good ... but it's weird to look in the mirror and not see me."

Mrs. Mellipoulos frowned. "Mousshka, it's still you, no matter what you're wearing. It's just a little more mysterious you."

Bobby nodded slowly. "Yeah. A more mysterious me. I think I like it."

Opal nudged a piece of charred brick with the toe of her sneaker. She couldn't believe no one had ever cleaned up this mess.

The Smiths' house was nothing more than a largish heap of rubble, overgrown with weeds and dandelions.

"This is getting me nowhere!" she announced to herself. "I'm trying to conduct a serious investigation here, and no one in this stupid, rinky-dink town cares enough about the Truth to even notice when such an obstruction of--" Opal's heroic monologue, inspired by a little too much late-night Lifetime, was cut off by the whir of a weed-whacker next door.

Angrily, Opal stomped over to the fence, and leaned over the rails.

"HEY, I was waxing poetic over here, you..."

As the owner of the weed-whacker turned, Opal trailed off.

William Drake stared at Opal Tanaka, mouth hardening into an angry frown.

Opal Tanaka gaped at William Drake, face freezing into a mask of horror.

William revved his weed-whacker.

Opal ran like the wind.

Elsewhere in the fine not-quite-metropolis of Port Jefferson, a man sat scheming.

A dark man.

A scary man.

An evil man.

A man who had that cool hair thing going where the top was dark and the sides were grey, just like Reed Richards and J. Jonah Jamison.

But we won't see too much more of him until next chapter.

In a not-entirely unrelated incident, the Port Jefferson FoodFair was under assault.

Yes, assault.

And it wasn't even a Beasley.

Well, technically, Jake Beasley was there at the time, pricing pork rinds, but more on him later.

No, for the second time in its existence, Port Jefferson had attracted a Real Life Supervillian.

Not a very ambitious Supervillian, to be sure, but everyone has to start somewhere.

And Sylvia "ArtiChoke" Lowell, gifted with the semi-amazing ... well ... kinda-spectacular ... well ... better-than-average ability of Veggie-kinesis, pretty much HAD to start at someplace that had veggies.

All truth be told, she wasn't much of a super-villainess.

She wasn't tall and statuesque with huge ... tracts of land, exemplified by her daring costume.

She didn't have long, flowing hair of a color not normally found in nature.

She didn't hold an animalistic sexual magnetism.

Sylvia Lowell was 5'3", weighed 180 lbs, wore coke-bottle glasses and had rather tangly hair. The only evil costume she could come up with was a pair of not-too-dirty jeans and a "Turnip and Give Blood" t-shirt.

But she did have a nice evil cackle. She'd been practicing.

"OHOHOHOHOHOHOH! Bow before my might, PEON!" she announced, thwacking a bagboy in the head with a bag of frozen peas.

"You shoulda let her have the double coupon," one checkout girl whispered to another.

ArtiChoke plopped down on one of the checkout counters, and rested her chin in one palm. "What next ... what next ... I need to ask for a ransom!"

"Winner," one of the stockboys mumbled. He was promptly beaned with a bundle of carrots.

"YOU!" ArtiChoke announced, pointing a stalk of celery at one confused storegoer. "Go down to the police station, and inform the police that I will not let anyone go until they give me..." she pondered for a moment, "A million dollars. And a Cadillac."

The chosen woman scooted out the door, smoke rising from her orthopedic hush puppies.

Unfortunately, there was a reason that storegoer was confused.

And that's because said storegoer was Ethel Poons, third grade teacher, and Most Senile Person in Port Jefferson. She had worn the same pair of stockings since 1972. Her roll sheet still contained the names Robert Drake, Judith Harmon and Julius "Rocky" Beasley, as well as William and George Drake, Madelaine Bass and even Huntz Ratchit. Her shopping cart contained sixteen Hostess Fruit Pies and a ham hock.

Approximately three steps out of the grocery store, Ethel Poons forgot about the entire hostage situation.

I need a Slim Jim, Opal Tanaka decided, as she stood at the street corner, waiting for the little red hand to turn into the little white man.

"We're never going to find any crime just wandering around the city," Bobby hissed.

"We might," Zelda put in hopefully. "And we're definitely not going to find any crime sitting around your apartment."

"But we can sleep sitting around my apartment," Bobby replied. "And where's your exosuit, anyway? You aren't fighting any crime without it."

"Pocket dimension," Marge put in.

"Come again?"

"I'm storing it in a pocket dimension for easy access," Marge replied. "Just a fraction of the host of cosmic powers I possess as Daughter of Oblivion."

"Sweet."

Suddenly, Lev let off a giant snort. The snort of one trying to hold in an enormous amount of laughter.

"What's up?" Zel asked, leaning over towards her friend.

"Look at the pants on that girl," Lev managed. "You could hide a compact car in them!"

Zel promptly let off a hoot of laughter, followed by Cloud and Marge.

Bobby squinted at where they were pointing.

Short girl.

Dark hair.

Gigantic slacks.

"Oh, shit," Bobby announced.

Need to grade those papers ... need to grade those papers ... And mustn't forget the letters the little one wrote to President Nixon ... they'd just be heartbroken if I forgot to send them... Ethel Poons thought to herself.

She stepped up to the curb, and glanced at the girl standing next to her. "Oh, it's so nice that hoop skirts have come back into style!"

Opal blinked.

"What the hell are you doing, Drake?" Zelda hissed, trying to turn around, while Bobby kept trying to maintain his position behind her.

"Hiding," he hissed. "Keep it down! I don't want her to see me!"

Fortunately, there was no danger of that.

"Are you one of those Weight Watchers people?" Lev asked, one eyebrow cocked. "One of those 'I lost forty pounds in one THREE WEEKS!' people?"

Opal's mouth dropped into a horrified O. "I never--"

"How do they do that anyway? Big machines? Like a vacuum cleaner?"

"Umm ... Lev..." Cloud started.

"What are you talking about?" Opal shrieked.

Lev blinked. "Your pants. They're huge. I didn't know if you were a fatty up until today, and--"

"LEV," Cloud hissed.

"I would have brought a spare pair of pants, myself," Lev went on.

"These are highly fashionable!" Opal screeched. "I look fabulous in them!"

Lev frowned. "You do?"

"Oh, like you're one to talk, you candy-haired freak!"

Lev blinked. "You're not a very nice person, either."

"You'll have to excuse Lev," Cloud began babbling. "She's from, um, another country, and she doesn't understand our customs, and she had a bad hair dye accident and--"

"And she has this ungainly habit of calling out the grotesquely ugly and unfashionable," a falsetto voice from behind Zelda called out.

Opal's jaw dropped, and she made a patented-Opal-Tanaka-Snort-of-Disgust, before stomping down the street.

Relieved, Bobby straightened up from trying to hide behind Zelda's five-foot-two frame. "Jesus, I thought you girls'd never get rid of her. Thanks for the help, Levvy."

"Hmmph," Lev replied, crossing her arms. "She made fun of my hair."

"What were you doing?" Zelda repeated. "Who was she?"

Bobby brushed off his shirt casually. "Um ... old girlfriend."

The other four just groaned.

Ethel Poons blinked. And slowly, something vaguely resembling lucidity (well, resembling lucidity about as much as honey resembles engine lubricant) entered her mind. "I ... know you, young man!"

Bobby smiled painfully. "Hello, Mrs. Poons."

"You're... you're Georgie! Georgie Drake! I never forget a face!"

"No, Mrs. Poons. I'm Bobby. George's nephew." v"No, you're Georgie!"

"No, I'm Bobby. Remember? You failed me in third grade because every morning you marked me absent because you thought I was Georgie? My mother had to come in and talk to you? Remember that?"

"You're Georgie! You were ... you were in the play! You were the rutabaga!"

"No, Mrs. Poons. Rocky Beasley was the rutabaga. I was the yam."

"No, Maddy was the yam."

"Maddy was my mother. She wasn't in that play."

"She was the yam!"

"My mother was not a yam!"

"She was a good yam ... You should marry that girl, Georgie!"

"She's my mother, Mrs. Poons. And I'm not Georgie. Georgie died in World War II."

"He did?"

"Yes, Mrs. Poons. I'm Bobby. Willie and Maddy Drake's son."

"The yam?"

"Yes, Mrs. Poons. I was the yam."

The girls just stared on, transfixed by the conversation.

Mrs. Poons nodded happily, the hamster back on its wheel after a water break of about twenty years. And then something else occurred to her. "Someone's holding up the FoodFair!"

Bobby blinked.

"You better go stop it, young man. Don't think I don't know about your fantastic powers."

Bobby blinked again.

"Oh, I know all about how you left town to go become a superhero! You better go save those people!"

"Mrs. Poons?" Bobby asked hesitantly.

"Well, go ahead, Georgie. Turn into the Incredible Hulk. I've always wanted to see that."

Bobby and his ex-girlfriends beat it down the street.

Opal's entire being was filled with one thing -- rage.

Well, there was still that Slim Jim craving.

But mostly rage. How dare that --- that--

Boy, she could really go for a Slim Jim.

Opal sighed, and realized she was standing outside of some sort of supermarket. She blinked. Perhaps there was jerky within reach after all.

And with the swish of automatic doors, Opal Tanaka entered the Port Jefferson Foodfair Hostage Situation.

Jake Beasley scratched his head. He was confused.

Jake was one of the more intelligent among the Beasley clan, but this situation was still a little too much for him.

"I just to buy my pork rinds and go home," he explained plaintively.

"No!" ArtiChoke replied.

"Why not?"

"Because you are a HOSTAGE! Hostages do not just buy their pork rinds and go home! I tell you what to do! I decide who lives and who dies!"

Jake blinked. "Sylvia, you live next door to me. Isn't this kinda silly?"

"My name is ARTICHOKE!" Sylvia replied, winging a bag of carrots towards Jake's head.

Unfortunately, at that moment, someone walked through the sliding glass doors of the Foodfair, and Sylvia was distracted at the last second. The carrots nailed Opal square in the forehead.

"Oops," Sylvia blinked.

Perhaps this isn't my day after all, Opal decided before hitting the ground.

"Who would want to hold that place hostage?" Marge wondered, glancing at the little supermarket.

Zelda peered through the glass. "Looks like some girl in a Give Blood t-shirt. Whoa, she just pegged that guy with a tomato!"

"She have a gun?" Bobby asked.

"No! But she can hurl tomatoes with her mind!" Zelda emphasized, clearly in awe.

Lev peered through the dusty window. "Hey, the chick with the big pants is in there!"

Bobby scratched his head. "Are you sure you guys don't want to start superheroing tomorrow, instead?"

"I will not put up with this," Opal grumbled, holding a half-melted bag of frozen beans on her head, as she fumbled through her purse.

"Whatcha gonna do?" Jake asked. They were sitting against the wall while ArtiChoke tried to come up with some more demands.

"I," Opal announced, "am an ace reporter for Port Jefferson Tribune." She pulled out her cell phone. "In a few minutes, this place is going to be packed with cops and reporters. Hello? Yes, this is Opal Tanaka. Tanaka. T-A-N-A-K-A. No, I don't want to place an ad. I work for you! You hired me this morning! Look, there's a hostage situation down at the -- no, I'm not making this up. At the Foodfair. No, I don't know who it is. Just send someone down here! It's news! Of course it is!"

Suddenly, ArtiChoke realized what was going on, and hurled a cantaloupe at Opal's cell phone, which was perilously close to her head.

"OW! That hurt! And you broke my phone!"

Sylvia raised one eyebrow. "You think maybe I care?"

Opal put her hands on her hips, took a deep breath, and prepared for an Opal Tirade.

As it turned out, it wasn't necessary.

A single figure dressed in purple spandex stepped through the large glass windows of the store as through it was no more yielding than air.

"What, exactly, do you think you are doing?" Marge asked, tossing her long red hair over her shoulder.

"Holding these people for ransom. And who are you, anyway?" ArtiChoke screeched.

Marge blinked. "I am Mirage, Daughter of Oblivion, and by extension, I am Oblivion himself."

ArtiChoke blinked. Then she nailed Marge in the head with a mango.

Marge went down like, if you'll excuse the metaphor, a sack of potatoes.

"Just try that again, Veggie-Girl," a voice announced from the entrance.

ArtiChoke turned to see Iceman and three of his Angels outlined in the doorway.

"Ahh. My arch nemesis: Silver Surfer," she growled.

Bobby blinked. "I'm not your arch nemesis. I'm not Silver Surfer, either, for that matter."

"Hah! Play ignorant, if it pleases you, fool!"

Bobby blinked again. "Umm ... okay. But just for the record, I'm Iceman, okay? Can you remember that?"

"And we're the Angels," Cloud put in hopefully.

"DIE!" ArtiChoke screamed, launching a volley of radishes at the quartet of superheroes.

"That's your power?" Lev asked. "To throw small, edible plants? How lame."

"ARRRGGH!" ArtiChoke yelled, hurling a pumpkin at Lev. The alien girl ducked, and the gourd smashed into Zelda's armor.

"Thanks, Lev," Zelda grumbled.

"Sorry," Lev shrugged, obviously not too sorry.

"Look, just let the people go, Syl," Bobby frowned. "This is dumb."

"My name is ArtiChoke," she replied, angrily.

"Um ... sure," Bobby replied, and hurled a chunk of snow at her face. It smacked her in the nose.

ArtiChoke stopped. And sniffled. And burst into tears. "Ow! You put ice in that!"

"I did not!"

"But it hurt! Oh, that wasn't nice!"

"You took people hostage!"

"I'm misunderstood."

"This isn't standard, is it?" Zelda asked Cloud skeptically.

"No, not usually."

"You're a ... a ... BAD PERSON!" ArtiChoke wailed.

Lev powered down and picked up the cantaloupe that was sitting next to the broken pieces of Opal's cell phone. And hurled it at ArtiChoke's head.

And that was the end of the Port Jefferson Foodfair Hostage Situation.

"So ... what happened?" Nancy Hobson, editor of the Port Jefferson Tribune asked, leaning against the newsvan.

"Well, the Silver Surfer came in with these girls, and, um, one of them threw a melon at the terrorist. And then she fell over."

"What did the Silver Surfer do?"

"Well ... he taunted her a bit."

"Tanaka..." Hobson sighed, running her fingers through her hair. "How is this news?"

"She took the Foodfair hostage! And the Silver Surfer was there!"

"And some girl took out the terrorist with a piece of fruit."

"Um ... yes."

"And you felt this was a huge, breaking story, and we needed to gather all our reporters here?"

"Yes," Opal replied.

"Tanaka..." Hobson scowled. "You are so fired."

"I'm ... fired?"

"Yup. Turn in your cell phone and your press pass."

"Um, I can't. She broke the cell phone. With the cantaloupe. That's where the girl got it in the first place, you see."

"Then you own the Port Jefferson Tribune $50."

Opal blinked. "But -- but--"

And then, she caught sight of a group of girls and one young man peering over the police tape. "YOU!"

Lev blinked. "Me?"

"This is all your fault!" Opal screamed. "You called me fat and I needed a Slim Jim and then I had to go to the supermarket and she broke my cell phone and you were the one who threw the melon at ArtiChoke, weren't you?"

Lev blinked. "Me?"

Bobby tried to hide behind Zelda again.

It didn't work.

Opal's face flashed red. "DRAKE! Is that you?"

"Mmmaybe..."

"This is ALL YOUR FAULT!"

"But I thought it was Lev's fault."

"Look, are you going to give me the $50 or not?"

"You made me lose my job and now I can't pay my rent and I'm going to lose my apartment and I didn't even get an interview with the Silver Surfer!"

Cloud twitched.

"No," said Marge.

"I don't know what I'm going to do!" Opal bawled.

Cloud's mouth opened slightly.

"Don't even think about it," Zelda warned her.

A big sloppy tear rolled off Opal's nose.

Cloud frowned.

"Cloud, I like you, and would not like to have to hurt you," Lev added.

"WAAAAAAH!"

"Would you like to come stay with us?" Cloud offered with a sympathetic smile.

"Oh, this place really isn't very big at all..."

Marge scooted further down on the couch.

"Oh, and the closets are tiny! I don't know how I'll ever fit all my pants in here!"

Cloud twitched.

"Hmm ... No one minds if I put up my Jan Michael Vincent poster, do they?"

Zelda whimpered.

"But you know, with a little elbow grease ... I think I can make this place into ... a home."

Lev grunted, and turned up the volume on the television.

"I'm sorry, Sean," the announcer was saying. "But the tribe has spoken. Farewell."

Lev looked at Zelda. Zelda looked at Cloud. Cloud looked at Marge. And then the grinning began.

Bobby rubbed his eyes, and tightened his bathrobe. What in God's name was that awful noise?

He opened his apartment door, and blearily peered into the hallway.

Opal stood there, holding a burnt-out torch, and wailing, "But it's not fair! There wasn't even an immunity challenge!"

Bobby just closed the door.

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE! (special e-mail-in coupon!!!)
Well, True Believers, you've had an entire story worth of Opalness to get used to her Royal Skankiness, and it's time to decide. Remember, your vote could be the deciding factor!

Next chapter: Should Opal LIVE or DIE??? >>

Email your answer to me between now and then, and the fans shall speak! No, really!

** and no, no one is allowed to resurrect her as a bitter, one-eyed vigilante trying to patch up where she's gone wrong in life. Not even you, Poi. **

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