by TheTimeTrust, T5 and Grimm
Sometime later:
"The ol' black rum's got a hold of me
Like a dog wrapped round my leg!
An' the ol' black rum's got a hold of me
Will I live for another day?
Hey... Will I live for another day?"
"What the hell is that racket up there?" Shirley Francis said as she passed by the eighth floor on her way to the rooftop, where the guys told her she'd be safe.
Shirley stopped the elevator and got out on the eighth floor. She immediately felt a chill and shivered uncontrollably as she followed the sound of really bad singing.
She walked into a room that looked like an old-fashioned tavern or pub (the former tenant must have been a retired tavern owner or something, she figured), and she saw Pete Glover literally beside himself.
"What the--?!" She knew, of course, that one of them was Perverse Pete, Pete's evil twin, but to look at the two of them singing and clanking two large jugs of dark Guinness ale together, one would think they had been separated at birth.
The two Petes began singing loudly again to some music playing from a CD player ripped off from someone's apartment:
"We'll rant an' we'll roar like true Newfoundlanders,
We'll rant an' we'll roar on deck an' beloooooooowww!
Until we strikes bottom inside the two sunkers,
Whennnnn straight through the channel to Toslow we'll gooooooo..."
"Uh, hey... Pete?" Shirley said finally after nudging herself back to reality.
"YAH?" the two answered at the same time, as if in stereo.
"You, uh... you okay in here?"
"Ah, I'm fine, lass!" said the real Pete. "'M introducin' me boy Pete, 'ere, ta the finest stout on the planet an' the wunnerful music o' Great Big Sea! 'E's having a grrreat time, ain'tch ye, boy?"
"Aye! Anudder round fer all of us!" shouted Perverse Pete. Shirley cringed visibly as she saw all the bruises and cuts he was covered in from the Petes' earlier so-called battle. He looked barely able to stand, let alone continue drinking.
Pete poured himself and Perverse Pete another tall one, and the two clinked their mugs together and chugged them down.
Perverse Pete started singing loudly (and badly) to the music again:
"I'm a son of a sea cook, I'm a cook in a trader
I can dance, I can sing, I can reef the main boom!
I can handle a jigger, I cuts a fine figure,
Whennnnnnn-ever I gets in a boats standing room!"
And then he collapsed in a heap on the floor.
Shirley looked at the real Pete.
"Ye're all right, me old son," said Pete, "but ye should know that NOBODY outdrinks a TRUE Newfoundlander."
And somewhere else, in a dark place best forgotten, both Ma Kalunga and K'tl strangely felt a great urge to buy a box of Guinness.
With the heavy hitters out of the way, the remaining doppelgangers were quickly rounded up and prevented from using their abilities by Naecken, Turkish Stringfellow, and M'xy.
"So, uh, what do we do with these guys now?" Danny Hearn asked, scratching his head.
"We definitely need to find out who sent them," Sam Dawson answered.
"LET ME DO IT!" Dirk bellowed from where his concussion cannon still sat. "I'M GREAT AT INTERROGATION!"
"He's great inside the terror gates?" M'xy pondered. "I know! Dance for me, puppets!"
And with that, the doppelgangers began dancing and whirling around like insane puppets.
"The great and powerful M'xy strikes again," Lance Lorenzo uttered as the others looked on in bewilderment.