Egon Spengler and the Dartboard of Doom

A really dumb RGB fanfic

By Princess Artemis

www.crosswinds.net/~princessartemis

Ó S.D.Green, 2000 excepting the RGB stuffies.

Mandos and his wife Vairë were sitting around a small brazier that flickered with the faint light of a single burning coal. Mandos, the Doomsayer of the Vala, all-knowing except for what Ilúvatar kept to himself, speaker of prophecy, was bored.

"Husband, why so glum?" Vairë asked as she wove a new tapestry to cover a chilly wall in the Halls of Mandos, the halls of the dead.

Mandos sighed and rested his chin on his arm. He was slouched about as far down as he could get in his throne without falling out of it. "I'm bored, wife. Watching dead Elves all day is dull beyond measure."

Vairë snickered to herself. "It could be worse, you know. You could have to watch dead Men all day long like Nienna."

Mandos blew a raspberry at his wife. Vairë laughed, a sound not often heard in the Halls of Mandos, but not totally absent. "Wait until I tell Manwë that you, o great doomspeaker of the Vala, stuck your tongue out at me."

Mandos rolled his eyes. "Don't you dare." Vairë just grinned.

After a few more moments of silence, Mandos grumped loudly. Vairë sighed heavily; she wasn't all that bored, and she really wanted to finish this tapestry. But she supposed it could wait. "OK, how about we play a game?"

"A game? Like what?" Mandos asked, bored enough to be curious. No one could accuse Mandos of taking anything lightly.

"Darts. I know the perfect board," replied Vairë. "That sound good?"

Mandos sighed again. "Better than nothing I suppose. Get the board."

Vairë immediately stood and left the dark throne room, only to reappear seconds later. "Here," Vairë proclaimed, "the dartboard. How shall we score?"

Mandos stroked his chin thoughtfully. "Perhaps...yes, I think we should score on a humiliation scale. Nothing serious, just stuff that he'll never live down."

Vairë nodded. "That sounds fine. Fatal injuries are off-limits, I think. It's only a game, after all."

"Yes, wife. We should only rough him up a bit. I'm bored, but not bored enough to go randomly killing off Men."

Vairë smiled and set the dartboard up on the stone wall. She gathered three ebony darts, and three ivory. She handed the dark to Mandos and kept the light for herself. "Then let us begin."

With that, Mandos took careful aim, then tossed the dart. It landed square on the left cheek of the dartboard's backside.

* * *

Egon Spengler slept peacefully in his bed. Although he really wasn't the type to sleep in, he had decided to indulge himself today, since it was his birthday. There was no work planned, all his experiments were going fine without him, and the day looked like it would shape up to be pretty free of distress.

That is, all up until the point in time where he swore a very large hypodermic needle had implanted itself squarely in the aft quarter of his port-side gluteus maximus. Egon blinked once.

"Yeeeow!"

The usually calm and collected physicist leapt about three feet in the air, carrying his blankets with him.

"Keep it down over there, will ya?" Peter complained from under his sheets.

Egon muttered something dark as he gathered himself together. He stood and rubbed his backside, surprised to find no long, thin steel hollow tubes protruding from his left butt-cheek. He grumbled then decided to set the incident aside as a freak happenstance, perhaps the vestiges of a hospital-nightmare.

So he slipped his slippers on and shuffled into the kitchen to retrieve some coffee.

* * *

"Nice shot, Mandos," Vairë commented. "Now let me try." An ivory dart sailed through the air.

* * *

Egon calmly poured himself a cup of coffee then looked in the refrigerator for some cream. Just as he picked up the small carton of Hazelnut flavored creamer, he felt a sudden jolt in the hand he held it in. The twitch jerked the carton, just enough to spill most of the contents on the front of his pajamas.

"Hmmph," Egon muttered, then set the empty carton and the coffee mug down so he could clean up the mess.

* * *

Manwë wandered into Mandos' throne room, where he barely missed getting nipped by a dart. "What are you two doing?"

Vairë grinned. "We're just playing a game of darts." Mandos shrugged.

"Sounds fun," Manwë replied.

* * *

Egon sat down at the kitchen table to drink his coffee. He had finally cleaned up the mess; it had taken a little longer since another strange twinge in his hand had sent the Simple Green spray bottle flying, which subsequently broke, forcing him to clean up the contents of that as well as the creamer.

Just as he took a sip of his coffee, Ray snuck up behind him and clapped him on the shoulder. Egon jumped in surprise and spluttered the coffee all over the kitchen table.

"Happy birthday, Egon!" Egon nodded in silent thanks. Ray went over to draw a cup of his own, then sat down opposite Egon. "So what do you want to do today?"

Egon shrugged. "I'm not sure yet." Just as he said it, his arm jerked forcefully downward, as if hit by an invisible object. Unfortunately, the coffee cup was up-ended in the process, spilling the hot liquid in his lap. Egon was not prone to exaggeration on any account, but he was certain the temperature of the coffee was significantly higher than the average ambient heat in the ninth circle of Hell.

He screamed, of course. Then, in perhaps an ill-conceived and instinctive attempt to get the blazing hot liquid off, Egon quickly stripped off the nightgown he was wearing. It helped a little, but not enough.

Fortunately for Ray's continued ability to see, Egon stopped just short of the full monty.

Unfortunately, at least for Egon's dignity, Janine took that moment to make her entrance. That was probably what short-circuited the impromptu strip tease. It didn't stop her from laughing until her sides hurt, though.

Egon's shoulders drooped and he sighed.

* * *

By now, Tulkas, Oromë, Yavanna, Aulë, Nienna, Lórien, Ulmo, Estë, Vána, Nessa, and several Maiar had joined Manwë in watching Vairë and Mandos' game of darts. That was pretty much the entire pantheon, and by some rare alignment of the planets, all of them were bored out of their minds.

Why watching Vairë and Mandos throw darts at a dartboard with a Man painted on it was so amusing, none of them could properly answer. But it was, and they were bored, so they took ever bit of entertainment they could.

* * *

"Don't be ridiculous, Egon. You aren't cursed," Peter insisted after Egon had stormed into the bunkroom clad only in his choneys and shouted something about bad luck.

"That has to be it," Egon grumbled from the shower, where he was preparing to clean himself off. "I don't usually make a habit of stripping down to my unmentionables in front of Janine."

Peter supressed a bark of laughter. "So you do, sometimes?"

"PETER," Egon growled, "you know that's not what I meant."

"Well that's what it sounded like, Casanova."

Egon apparently decided not to dignify that with a response. Peter heard the shower turn on, then the faint strains of hideously off-tune singing began to drift from the restroom. Peter rolled his eyes, then thought perhaps he should tape record it.

Just as he settled on the plan, Peter heard a loud cry from the bathroom. "Egon?" he asked loudly, "you OK?"

When he didn't get an answer, Peter got up off his bed and went to the bathroom door. He put an ear to it, but heard nothing. Hoping Egon hadn't slipped and hit his head in the shower (and knowing him, that's exactly what he would do), Peter carefully opened the door and peered inside.

He quickly shut his eyes after seeing more of Egon's birthday suit, no pun intended, than he had ever really wanted. Egon usually took hot showers, thus providing enough steam to blur the essentials, but not today.

Egon was standing under the shower head, shivering from head to toe. Peter closed the door, then said through it, "What's with the cold shower? Or do I want to know?"

"I-i-it-it w-w-as-s-sn-n't s-su-su-supposed-d-d t-to be a a c-c-cold-d sh-show-wer...." Egon chattered.

"Well than why are you freezing? You're like one big goosebump."

"I-I d-d-don't kn-kn-know...the-the w-water w-wa-s-s s-s-sudd-dd-dden-nly c-c-col-d-d...."

"Yeah, no kidding. I've been scarred for life."

The next day, the papers published a story about a strange occurrence where hundreds of thousands of people had flushed at the same exact time, thus causing a chain reaction which caused all the city's showers to be deprived of hot water for at least two hours. Peter and Egon didn't know this at the time, of course.

* * *

About an hour after finishing his freezing cold shower, Egon finally felt warm enough to venture down the stairs. Looking around warily for anything that might cause him to spill anything else on himself, Egon stepped cautiously to the first stair. There was nothing out of the ordinary, so he felt confident that he could make it down the stairs in one piece.

Well, he was right. Sort of.

The instant he was committed to taking the first step down, at the point of no return, the foot he still had affixed to Terra Firma jerked in sudden pain and slipped. Thus unbalanced, Egon became airborne for a short time. As he flew down the stairs, Winston appeared at the base, blissfully unaware of the large blond projectile heading unswervingly for him. When he heard Egon's surprised shout, the black man turned to look up. His eyes widened to the size of saucers, but he didn't have time for anything else.

Egon did make it down the stairs in one piece. Just not one happy piece. Winston wasn't too hot on that point either, as he lay on the ground with Egon draped over his head. "Man, that's gone hurt later," Winston muttered to himself.

Egon grumbled in immense frustration as he picked himself up off Winston. He muttered an apology, then stalked away to the basement.

Winston got up and brushed himself off. He shook his head and turned to go up the stairs, passing Janine on the way.

* * *

The Valar audience cheered Mandos for a particularly inspired shot. Mandos grinned as he strode over to the dart board to retrieve his black darts.

Vairë cast a sidelong glance at her husband, a smirk adorning her features. "Very well done indeed. But I'm willing to bet you a month of cleaning up the cobwebs that my next shot will trump your last." A ripple of awe and a murmur of surprise made its way through the Valar attendance. Mandos stood in silence for a moment. Then his faint smile widened.

"You're on."

* * *

After a moment, Egon decided he didn't really feel up to braving the basement stairs, so he decided just to stay on the ground level. Thinking that perhaps there was some paperwork that he needed to look over, he headed over to Dr. Venkman's office.

He was walking a tad too quickly, just a little, but enough so that when he caught a glance of Janine coming down the stairs with a birthday cake, he only had enough time to register the fact before he ran into her as she took the last step.

He took a faceful of birthday cake as he crashed into the red-headed secretary and knocked them both to the floor. And of course, such was his luck, there were candles on the cake, every single one of them lit.

It hurt a bit, putting the candles out with his face like that. Janine didn't help things when she, in her efforts to get up, accidently kicked Egon in the shin and a few other choice locations with her 3 inch heel.

* * *

The Valar all let out a cheer and began congratulating Vairë on a game well played and for winning the bet. Mandos grumped, then slumped in his chair.

The game had been fun...but he wasn't sure it was entertaining enough to warrant a month's worth of housework. At least he wouldn't be bored for a while...

* * *

Egon sat in stormy silence in the lab as Peter applied some minor first aid to the little tiny burns dotting the physicists narrow features.

"What fate is it exactly that finds it so amusing to toss me around like a rag doll?" Egon growled.

Peter shrugged. "I dunno. Half the time I think the Fate's name is Spengler."

Egon glared at Peter over his still cake-encrusted glasses. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"It means you ask for half the trouble you get into."

Egon sniffed in disdain. "Even if that were true, which it is not, that would not explain the other half."

Peter rolled his eyes. "I don't know, Egon! Why don't I just go ask them for you?"

Egon huffed a little more but decided to drop the subject. It still bothered him. He really would like to know why most of the pain and agony meted out for the Ghostbusters seemed to zero in on him...if he knew, then maybe he could stop doing whatever the Fate's were mistaking for an engraved invitation to visit all manner of trouble on him.

But there really was no way to know.

~ The End ~