FIC: Logical Conclusion (A-Team movieverse, genderswap)
TITLE: Logical Conclusion
RATING: PG
GENRE: Crack
FANDOM: A-Team movieverse
WARNINGS: Crack
SUMMARY: The A-Team meets their female counterparts. Sort of.
None of them except Murdock had expected it to work. And even he hadn’t expected it to work like this.
The inter-dimensional teleportation device was perfectly functional. How, no one could figure out. It didn’t even appear to have a power source. It was just bits of cardboard, string, paperclips and old macaroni noodles haphazardly glued together. Yet when Murdock poked it and instructed it to “Do your thing”, it emitted a blaze of brilliant blue light from which four confused beings stumbled.
It was clear that, as the pilot had predicted, they were the A-team of another reality. That, unfortunately, was without question. It was also clear that this wasn’t going to be the mind-boggling, ego-boosting experience one would hope for.
For starters, they were all girls. Ladies. Women. Face was naturally intrigued by this development, as it took the “fuck or fight” possibilities to a whole new level. However, his hopes of being wowed by a sassy, kick-ass version of himself with huge tits and legs that wouldn’t quit were quickly dashed.
It seemed that while their A-Team was the epitome of all things brash, ballsy, and overall in-your-face masculine, this alternate version was the complete reverse.
It… it wasn’t great.
The four women were huddled on the floor, clinging to one another. At least two of them were crying. Lady-Face, Lady-BA and Lady-Murdock were dressed in skimpy cocktail dresses and heels, made up to the nines. Face didn’t think there was an inch of real skin showing through their makeup, even on their suspiciously-flawless arms and legs. Lady-Hannibal was wearing a business skirt and blouse, but had undone enough buttons to reveal some impressive cleavage. She too was in ridiculously impractical heels.
“Who are you?” asked Lady-Hannibal, shielding the other women slightly despite the obvious tremors of fear wracking her body. “What do you want from us?”
“Oh my god,” moaned Lady-Face. “I’m gonna get raped!” She started sobbing dramatically without actually crying, saving her false eyelashes from premature departure.
"It’s okay,” soothed Lady-Murdock. “You don’t know that for sure.”
Lady-Face glared at her. “What, you’re saying I’m not pretty enough?” She huffed. “I could SO be raped. Look at me.” She gestured to her perfect body, curled on the floor and still displaying those incredible legs and breasts that Face had noticed. “I’m in, like, the MOST amount of danger here out of anybody.”
“Nobody’s getting raped,” said Hannibal, too bemused to sound overly reassuring. “Calm down. You ladies aren’t in any danger.”
Lady-Face seemed to take that as an insult, but the four women allowed themselves to be helped to their feet and led to the sofas in the living room.
“Would any of you like a tissue?” offered Face gallantly as they settled down. “Water? Tea?”
“I’ll have an ice-water,” replied Lady-BA, smoothing down her perfect fringe so it framed her face just so.
“Sparkling with lemon,” was Lady-Face’s order.
“Can I have a spritzer with lime?” asked Lady-Murdock.
“Green tea, please,” said Lady-Hannibal. ”I’m detoxing.”
Face blinked. “Uh. I’ll see what I can do.” He wandered into the kitchen, hoping that plain waters with ice would suit everybody.
Hannibal and BA stared at the women with a fair amount of trepidation. Murdock was the only one who didn’t seem too fazed. He bounced on the balls of his feet eagerly.
"What are your names?” he asked excitedly. “I’m Captain HM Murdock, that’s Corporal BA Baracus and the legendary Colonel Hannibal Smith, and the pretty one in the back is Lieutenant Faceman Peck. We call ourselves The A-Team.”
BA scowled. “We don’t call ourselves that. The media stuck that on us. Damn cheesy if you ask me.”
Lady-Hannibal’s eyes widened. “But we’re The A-team,” she protested. Ah, now they were getting somewhere! Maybe this alternate reality wasn’t so different after all. The ladies must have been undercover. “We’re a singing group,” Lady-Hannibal continued. “Well, the girls are. I’m their manager.”
The news flopped onto the floor of the room like a dead fish. Murdock’s eager expression faltered. “Uh, what?”
“As if you haven’t heard of us,” scoffed Lady-BA. She turned, and the men could see that her spikey hair was shaved around one side, displaying tattoos down her neck. Stars, hearts and a kitten with a ball of string vied for attention on her mocha skin. “We’ve been in the top-five album charts for three years running.”
“Would have been number one if it weren’t for that bitch Gaga,” griped Lady-Face.
“Aw, she’s nice,” protested Lady-Murdock. “I love her wigs. They’re so pretty.”
Face returned just in time to hear that statement and seriously considered turning right back around again. Steeling himself, he brought over the tray of drinks. “Sorry, ladies, we only had tap water.”
Four lips curled in disgust. “Pass.” Lady-Hannibal spoke for all of them.
Murdock tried to get things back on track. “So, you’re in a band?” he asked. “Called, um, The A-Team?”
“Yeah,” spat Lady-Face. “Weren’t you listening? God!”
Face felt irrationally guilty at the way Murdock’s face fell, even though he wasn’t the one who’d been rude. He stepped in. “I’m sorry, we’re in the Service and it’s a little hard to keep up with popular music when you’re stationed overseas.” As predicted, his dazzling smile and the ‘serving your country’ line softened the women’s hearts. They veritably cooed.
“Aw, I’m sorry,” said Lady-Bosco. “We didn’t mean to be rude.” She batted her long lashes at them. When she spoke, her tongue-ring flashed in the light. The men gulped.
“I’m Briana,” Lady-Bosco continued, “But you can call me Bri-Bri.” The four men exchanged glances. Yeah, they wouldn’t be doing that.
Bri-Bri pointed to the others in turn, starting with Lady-Face. “That’s Tilly, but the papers call her Curves.”
“Yeah, which I hate,” said Tilly. “’Curvy’ is such a euphemism for ‘fat’ these days. They should be calling Christina that, not me.”
“Oh my god, she’s put on so much weight since the divorce,” agreed Lady-Murdock. “Did you see her at her fragrance launch? I was like, ‘Oh, you really think you can pull off a strapless dress with those arms’?”
“Totally,” agreed Bri-Bri before continuing the introductions. “Anyway, that’s Mandy.”
“Oh, sorry!” giggled Mandy, twirling her hair absently. Her smile was innocuous and vacant, like she was genuinely pleased to be meeting them but there was nothing going on behind her eyes. “Hi!”
Lady-Hannibal addressed the men herself. “And I’m their manager, Johanna Smith.”
“Yeah, but we call her Madonna.”
Hannibal was afraid to ask, but: “Why?”
Tilly shot him a look, like she wasn’t sure if he was being sarcastic or not. “Because she’s our sassy superchick inspiration. You know?”
“The Madonna to our Britney,” elaborated Mandy. She giggled. BA realised that each of her perfectly-manicured nails was painted a different colour.
“2001 Britney,” clarified Bri-Bri. “Not weird breakdown Britney.”
“Aw, she’s getting better!” protested Mandy. “I felt so sorry for her when she cut off all her hair. Imagine being depressed AND ugly. It was so sad.”
Tilly nodded sympathetically. “Yeah. At least when you’re having your crazy moments, you still listen to your stylists.”
Mandy giggled. “You’re my stylists.”
“I know.” Giggles all round.
Face left and carried in some chairs from the dining room table so he and the other men could sit. This was going to be a long afternoon.
Murdock, bless him, still tried valiantly. “So what kind of music do you guys play?” he asked gamely as Face steered him into a chair.
Face didn’t know why his friend bothered. It seemed like these women were their polar-opposites in more ways than one. Face didn’t like to blow his own horn (okay, that’s a total lie) but he and the guys were good people. They weren’t perfect, but they were loyal and if the shit with Morrison had proven anything, it was that they had their morals and values on straight. They made mistakes but they meant well and tried to do right by other people. These women didn’t look like they’d cross the street to tip their Perrier over you if you were on fire, probably because they’d be too busy looking at their own reflections in shop windows to notice.
The women giggled again at the novelty of taking to people who didn’t know who they were. It was like coming across one of those remote African tribes where they’d never seen a car or a TV or an i-phone or something.
“They’re pretty diverse,” Joann- Madonna answered Murdock. “They each do solo work as well as the collaboration stuff they do as The A-Team.”
“The A-Team’s about female empowerment,” Tilly somehow said with a straight face. “There’s so much bitchiness between women out there and it’s really important for us to show people that you can be close and supportive of your girlfriends and reach the stars. You don’t have to be in competition.” It sounded like she was reading from a list of pre-prepared answers but her expression was completely earnest.
Hannibal and BA had no idea how to respond to the saccharine ingénues before them. Face bit his tongue (literally) to stop himself from pointing out that the women had done nothing but insult their fellow female performers since arriving in this universe. Murdock wondered if they had names like the Spice Girls and which one Lady-Murdock was.
“Our biggest hit so far is Grrrl (I Got Your Back),” Bri-Bri told them, managing to verbalise the parenthesis like a pro.
“You write your own songs?” asked Hannibal.
The women looked affronted. “Of course!” said Bri-Bri, tossing her hair-slash-shaven-head back proudly. “We ain’t some manufactured auto-tuned bimbos. We’re the best.”
Well, that was something at least.
Face was almost afraid to ask, but he was morbidly curious. “Do, um, do you have any recordings of your s-“
“Guuuuuuuuuurl!” The admittedly smooth harmony caught all the men off-guard and they jumped.
“I got your back!” belted Tilly. How such a strong, incredible voice was contained by so slender a frame, Murdock had no idea. It defied all laws of physics.
“Guuuuuuuuuurl!”
“No need to hide!” Mandy’s voice was sassier, with a bit of an edge to it that hadn’t been present in anything she’s spoken so far.
“Guuuuuuuuuurl!”
“I got your back!”
“Don’t you ever let me see you cryyyyyyyy!” Bri-Bri’s tongue-ring was on full display as she opened wide, holding the note for longer than seemed humanly possible without wavering even slightly.
When she finally broke off, the four women smiled proudly and practically preened.
“That one was produced by Jay-Z,” Madonna informed the men.
“Wow.” There really wasn’t much else to say, so Murdock summed it up. The ladies could sing. That was… good? It was good that they were good at something. Right? After all, the A-team - the REAL one, as he’d started thinking of it in his head - was the best at what they did so it stood to reason that the parallel Team would also be the best.
It’s just… Why did it have to be singing pop songs?
“I know, right?” agreed Bri-Bri as though the team had gushed forth lavish praise. Maybe, in her head, they had.
Madonna pulled a long, thin cigarette out of her purse and lit up without asking. “Their solo stuff’s all a bit different,” she said.
Faces frozen in horror, the men couldn’t even attempt expressions of polite interest.
“Oh?” asked Face, sounding wary. None of their training had prepared them for these kinds of hostiles.
“Yeah. Her stuff’s nasty,” cackled Bri-Bri, pointing to Tilly who feigned a blush with her tongue between her teeth.
“It’s not nasty,” she defended, clearly loving the attention. “It’s sexy. It’s good to have a woman singing about being sexy and not being ashamed to flaunt it.”
“You’re definitely not ashamed,” agreed Mandy, happily sucking on the ends of her hair.
“My first solo album went triple-platinum,” Tilly bragged. “It was called ‘Puppet Mistress’. I still think some of my best songs were on that one: ‘Girl On Top’, ‘Like I Like It’, ‘I Want You(r Body)’,” and how she pronounced that one, no one knew, “’Giddy Up, Cowgirl’, ‘Pull Your Strings’…”
“Which I thought sounded like something rude involving tampons,” interjected Mandy.
Madonna and Bri-Bri laughed while Tilly turned a mock-offended look on her friend. “Oh sure, like yours never sound wrong. I swear that all of ‘Lick’ sounded like some gross blowjob lesson.”
“That really was about an awesome ice-cream cone I had!” protested Mandy. It sounded like she’d had to defend that position before. She turned to the men. “My stuff’s a bit kookier,” she explained.
Dare they ask. “Oh?” Face managed again, just as nervously.
“Yeah.” Mandy nodded. Her eyes were definitely off, but where Murdock had a spark about him, a contagious energy fuelled by passion and genius, she had nothing. “I’m pretty off-beat, kind of crazy.” The men braced themselves. “My albums are usually a lot of concept stuff, like one time I wrote one about how good new socks feel. Every song was a different stage of the sock, you know? There was ‘Brand New’, and ‘Day Old’, and ‘Wearing Thin’…” Mandy shrugged and gave a vacuous, lopsided grin. “Some people who reviewed it thought it was a metaphor for a relationship or something.” She giggled. “But it was just about socks.”
Murdock looked like he didn’t know whether to be offended or burst into tears. His hand was fisted in his hair and he kept pulling it rhythmically.
“Uh, what about you?” Hannibal asked Bri-Bri. He didn’t really want to know, but he could tell that the other three men were close to crying, leaving the room or murdering everybody and he wanted to keep the conversation flowing so those things (hopefully) wouldn’t happen.
“Whatchu think?” Bri-Bri asked him with a strong accent that definitely hadn’t been there before. “I’m gangsta, boy.”
BA’s knuckles cracked.
“I mainly work with boys from the ‘hood, you know? Kanye, Jay-Z, Marshall.” (Hannibal placed a steadying hand on BA’s knee.) “I’m doing a lot with Nicki Minaj right now. She did vocals on ‘Bling It On’ and ‘Kiss With A Fist’ on my latest album.”
Face, who had been rocking himself and tensing up, suddenly sprang to his feet. Sensing his motives, Murdock scrambled to stand between him and the women.
“No, Face!”
The conman tried to move around, but Murdock was too quick. “I have to!” the conman beseeched.
Hannibal and BA got to their feet as well. “You don’t need to do this, Face,” said the Colonel in a placating tone, holding his hands with palms out.
“Come on man,” agreed BA. “Just leave it.”
Face shook his head and pushed Murdock out of the way. “I can’t! I don’t want this any more than you do, but… ARGH!” He let out a frustrated roar.
Stomping forwards, Face halted in front of the bemused group of women. After a slight hesitation, he grabbed Tilly’s arm and pulled her to her feet.
“Come on,” he said gruffly through gritted teeth. She threw a confused look at Madonna but didn’t protest as Face dragged her to his bedroom.
Twenty minutes later, the pair re-emerged. Tilly was smoothing her hair down and ducking her head to hide her smudged makeup. Face looked a little shell-shocked. They were both walking on very wobbly legs.
As soon as Tilly sat down, the other women encircled her and helped her touch up her makeup, tittering and whispering. The men stood and stared at Face.
Hannibal was the first to ask. “Well, Lieutenant?”
Face let out a sound that was something between a groan and a wheeze. His eyes were glazed, mouth slack. “It was…” He shook his head numbly. “I don’t even know.” He opened and closed his mouth soundlessly a couple of times before turning his unfocused eyes to his friends. “I think it was good. Amazing. Mind-blowing, even. But…”
He turned his head, and they all followed his gaze to the group of women. Shallow, beautiful, vapid, selfish, sexy, talented, incredibly annoying women. Face’s teammates sighed and clapped him on the back in understanding.
“Don’t do it,” Face told them solemnly. “It’s not worth it. The conflict… It messes with your head.”
“Don’t worry, soldier,” Hannibal told him. He squeezed Face’s shoulder. “Thank you for taking that bullet for us.”
The blond whimpered and sagged as his knees went out from under him. Murdock and BA quickly ushered him into a chair.
“Can they go now?” Face asked meekly. “Can we put them back where they came from?”
Hannibal nodded. “I think that’s for the best. Murdock?”
“I’ll take care of it, sir,” said the pilot earnestly. “I’m sorry about all this, guys.”
“It’s alright, son,” answered Hannibal. “Just get them back to their universe and let us never speak of it again.”
“Agreed.”
The four men shook on it. The Lady-A-Team was sent back to their world and it was never spoken of again.
Except for every time Murdock and BA wanted to tease Face about something.
THE END!
RATING: PG
GENRE: Crack
FANDOM: A-Team movieverse
WARNINGS: Crack
SUMMARY: The A-Team meets their female counterparts. Sort of.
None of them except Murdock had expected it to work. And even he hadn’t expected it to work like this.
The inter-dimensional teleportation device was perfectly functional. How, no one could figure out. It didn’t even appear to have a power source. It was just bits of cardboard, string, paperclips and old macaroni noodles haphazardly glued together. Yet when Murdock poked it and instructed it to “Do your thing”, it emitted a blaze of brilliant blue light from which four confused beings stumbled.
It was clear that, as the pilot had predicted, they were the A-team of another reality. That, unfortunately, was without question. It was also clear that this wasn’t going to be the mind-boggling, ego-boosting experience one would hope for.
For starters, they were all girls. Ladies. Women. Face was naturally intrigued by this development, as it took the “fuck or fight” possibilities to a whole new level. However, his hopes of being wowed by a sassy, kick-ass version of himself with huge tits and legs that wouldn’t quit were quickly dashed.
It seemed that while their A-Team was the epitome of all things brash, ballsy, and overall in-your-face masculine, this alternate version was the complete reverse.
It… it wasn’t great.
The four women were huddled on the floor, clinging to one another. At least two of them were crying. Lady-Face, Lady-BA and Lady-Murdock were dressed in skimpy cocktail dresses and heels, made up to the nines. Face didn’t think there was an inch of real skin showing through their makeup, even on their suspiciously-flawless arms and legs. Lady-Hannibal was wearing a business skirt and blouse, but had undone enough buttons to reveal some impressive cleavage. She too was in ridiculously impractical heels.
“Who are you?” asked Lady-Hannibal, shielding the other women slightly despite the obvious tremors of fear wracking her body. “What do you want from us?”
“Oh my god,” moaned Lady-Face. “I’m gonna get raped!” She started sobbing dramatically without actually crying, saving her false eyelashes from premature departure.
"It’s okay,” soothed Lady-Murdock. “You don’t know that for sure.”
Lady-Face glared at her. “What, you’re saying I’m not pretty enough?” She huffed. “I could SO be raped. Look at me.” She gestured to her perfect body, curled on the floor and still displaying those incredible legs and breasts that Face had noticed. “I’m in, like, the MOST amount of danger here out of anybody.”
“Nobody’s getting raped,” said Hannibal, too bemused to sound overly reassuring. “Calm down. You ladies aren’t in any danger.”
Lady-Face seemed to take that as an insult, but the four women allowed themselves to be helped to their feet and led to the sofas in the living room.
“Would any of you like a tissue?” offered Face gallantly as they settled down. “Water? Tea?”
“I’ll have an ice-water,” replied Lady-BA, smoothing down her perfect fringe so it framed her face just so.
“Sparkling with lemon,” was Lady-Face’s order.
“Can I have a spritzer with lime?” asked Lady-Murdock.
“Green tea, please,” said Lady-Hannibal. ”I’m detoxing.”
Face blinked. “Uh. I’ll see what I can do.” He wandered into the kitchen, hoping that plain waters with ice would suit everybody.
Hannibal and BA stared at the women with a fair amount of trepidation. Murdock was the only one who didn’t seem too fazed. He bounced on the balls of his feet eagerly.
"What are your names?” he asked excitedly. “I’m Captain HM Murdock, that’s Corporal BA Baracus and the legendary Colonel Hannibal Smith, and the pretty one in the back is Lieutenant Faceman Peck. We call ourselves The A-Team.”
BA scowled. “We don’t call ourselves that. The media stuck that on us. Damn cheesy if you ask me.”
Lady-Hannibal’s eyes widened. “But we’re The A-team,” she protested. Ah, now they were getting somewhere! Maybe this alternate reality wasn’t so different after all. The ladies must have been undercover. “We’re a singing group,” Lady-Hannibal continued. “Well, the girls are. I’m their manager.”
The news flopped onto the floor of the room like a dead fish. Murdock’s eager expression faltered. “Uh, what?”
“As if you haven’t heard of us,” scoffed Lady-BA. She turned, and the men could see that her spikey hair was shaved around one side, displaying tattoos down her neck. Stars, hearts and a kitten with a ball of string vied for attention on her mocha skin. “We’ve been in the top-five album charts for three years running.”
“Would have been number one if it weren’t for that bitch Gaga,” griped Lady-Face.
“Aw, she’s nice,” protested Lady-Murdock. “I love her wigs. They’re so pretty.”
Face returned just in time to hear that statement and seriously considered turning right back around again. Steeling himself, he brought over the tray of drinks. “Sorry, ladies, we only had tap water.”
Four lips curled in disgust. “Pass.” Lady-Hannibal spoke for all of them.
Murdock tried to get things back on track. “So, you’re in a band?” he asked. “Called, um, The A-Team?”
“Yeah,” spat Lady-Face. “Weren’t you listening? God!”
Face felt irrationally guilty at the way Murdock’s face fell, even though he wasn’t the one who’d been rude. He stepped in. “I’m sorry, we’re in the Service and it’s a little hard to keep up with popular music when you’re stationed overseas.” As predicted, his dazzling smile and the ‘serving your country’ line softened the women’s hearts. They veritably cooed.
“Aw, I’m sorry,” said Lady-Bosco. “We didn’t mean to be rude.” She batted her long lashes at them. When she spoke, her tongue-ring flashed in the light. The men gulped.
“I’m Briana,” Lady-Bosco continued, “But you can call me Bri-Bri.” The four men exchanged glances. Yeah, they wouldn’t be doing that.
Bri-Bri pointed to the others in turn, starting with Lady-Face. “That’s Tilly, but the papers call her Curves.”
“Yeah, which I hate,” said Tilly. “’Curvy’ is such a euphemism for ‘fat’ these days. They should be calling Christina that, not me.”
“Oh my god, she’s put on so much weight since the divorce,” agreed Lady-Murdock. “Did you see her at her fragrance launch? I was like, ‘Oh, you really think you can pull off a strapless dress with those arms’?”
“Totally,” agreed Bri-Bri before continuing the introductions. “Anyway, that’s Mandy.”
“Oh, sorry!” giggled Mandy, twirling her hair absently. Her smile was innocuous and vacant, like she was genuinely pleased to be meeting them but there was nothing going on behind her eyes. “Hi!”
Lady-Hannibal addressed the men herself. “And I’m their manager, Johanna Smith.”
“Yeah, but we call her Madonna.”
Hannibal was afraid to ask, but: “Why?”
Tilly shot him a look, like she wasn’t sure if he was being sarcastic or not. “Because she’s our sassy superchick inspiration. You know?”
“The Madonna to our Britney,” elaborated Mandy. She giggled. BA realised that each of her perfectly-manicured nails was painted a different colour.
“2001 Britney,” clarified Bri-Bri. “Not weird breakdown Britney.”
“Aw, she’s getting better!” protested Mandy. “I felt so sorry for her when she cut off all her hair. Imagine being depressed AND ugly. It was so sad.”
Tilly nodded sympathetically. “Yeah. At least when you’re having your crazy moments, you still listen to your stylists.”
Mandy giggled. “You’re my stylists.”
“I know.” Giggles all round.
Face left and carried in some chairs from the dining room table so he and the other men could sit. This was going to be a long afternoon.
Murdock, bless him, still tried valiantly. “So what kind of music do you guys play?” he asked gamely as Face steered him into a chair.
Face didn’t know why his friend bothered. It seemed like these women were their polar-opposites in more ways than one. Face didn’t like to blow his own horn (okay, that’s a total lie) but he and the guys were good people. They weren’t perfect, but they were loyal and if the shit with Morrison had proven anything, it was that they had their morals and values on straight. They made mistakes but they meant well and tried to do right by other people. These women didn’t look like they’d cross the street to tip their Perrier over you if you were on fire, probably because they’d be too busy looking at their own reflections in shop windows to notice.
The women giggled again at the novelty of taking to people who didn’t know who they were. It was like coming across one of those remote African tribes where they’d never seen a car or a TV or an i-phone or something.
“They’re pretty diverse,” Joann- Madonna answered Murdock. “They each do solo work as well as the collaboration stuff they do as The A-Team.”
“The A-Team’s about female empowerment,” Tilly somehow said with a straight face. “There’s so much bitchiness between women out there and it’s really important for us to show people that you can be close and supportive of your girlfriends and reach the stars. You don’t have to be in competition.” It sounded like she was reading from a list of pre-prepared answers but her expression was completely earnest.
Hannibal and BA had no idea how to respond to the saccharine ingénues before them. Face bit his tongue (literally) to stop himself from pointing out that the women had done nothing but insult their fellow female performers since arriving in this universe. Murdock wondered if they had names like the Spice Girls and which one Lady-Murdock was.
“Our biggest hit so far is Grrrl (I Got Your Back),” Bri-Bri told them, managing to verbalise the parenthesis like a pro.
“You write your own songs?” asked Hannibal.
The women looked affronted. “Of course!” said Bri-Bri, tossing her hair-slash-shaven-head back proudly. “We ain’t some manufactured auto-tuned bimbos. We’re the best.”
Well, that was something at least.
Face was almost afraid to ask, but he was morbidly curious. “Do, um, do you have any recordings of your s-“
“Guuuuuuuuuurl!” The admittedly smooth harmony caught all the men off-guard and they jumped.
“I got your back!” belted Tilly. How such a strong, incredible voice was contained by so slender a frame, Murdock had no idea. It defied all laws of physics.
“Guuuuuuuuuurl!”
“No need to hide!” Mandy’s voice was sassier, with a bit of an edge to it that hadn’t been present in anything she’s spoken so far.
“Guuuuuuuuuurl!”
“I got your back!”
“Don’t you ever let me see you cryyyyyyyy!” Bri-Bri’s tongue-ring was on full display as she opened wide, holding the note for longer than seemed humanly possible without wavering even slightly.
When she finally broke off, the four women smiled proudly and practically preened.
“That one was produced by Jay-Z,” Madonna informed the men.
“Wow.” There really wasn’t much else to say, so Murdock summed it up. The ladies could sing. That was… good? It was good that they were good at something. Right? After all, the A-team - the REAL one, as he’d started thinking of it in his head - was the best at what they did so it stood to reason that the parallel Team would also be the best.
It’s just… Why did it have to be singing pop songs?
“I know, right?” agreed Bri-Bri as though the team had gushed forth lavish praise. Maybe, in her head, they had.
Madonna pulled a long, thin cigarette out of her purse and lit up without asking. “Their solo stuff’s all a bit different,” she said.
Faces frozen in horror, the men couldn’t even attempt expressions of polite interest.
“Oh?” asked Face, sounding wary. None of their training had prepared them for these kinds of hostiles.
“Yeah. Her stuff’s nasty,” cackled Bri-Bri, pointing to Tilly who feigned a blush with her tongue between her teeth.
“It’s not nasty,” she defended, clearly loving the attention. “It’s sexy. It’s good to have a woman singing about being sexy and not being ashamed to flaunt it.”
“You’re definitely not ashamed,” agreed Mandy, happily sucking on the ends of her hair.
“My first solo album went triple-platinum,” Tilly bragged. “It was called ‘Puppet Mistress’. I still think some of my best songs were on that one: ‘Girl On Top’, ‘Like I Like It’, ‘I Want You(r Body)’,” and how she pronounced that one, no one knew, “’Giddy Up, Cowgirl’, ‘Pull Your Strings’…”
“Which I thought sounded like something rude involving tampons,” interjected Mandy.
Madonna and Bri-Bri laughed while Tilly turned a mock-offended look on her friend. “Oh sure, like yours never sound wrong. I swear that all of ‘Lick’ sounded like some gross blowjob lesson.”
“That really was about an awesome ice-cream cone I had!” protested Mandy. It sounded like she’d had to defend that position before. She turned to the men. “My stuff’s a bit kookier,” she explained.
Dare they ask. “Oh?” Face managed again, just as nervously.
“Yeah.” Mandy nodded. Her eyes were definitely off, but where Murdock had a spark about him, a contagious energy fuelled by passion and genius, she had nothing. “I’m pretty off-beat, kind of crazy.” The men braced themselves. “My albums are usually a lot of concept stuff, like one time I wrote one about how good new socks feel. Every song was a different stage of the sock, you know? There was ‘Brand New’, and ‘Day Old’, and ‘Wearing Thin’…” Mandy shrugged and gave a vacuous, lopsided grin. “Some people who reviewed it thought it was a metaphor for a relationship or something.” She giggled. “But it was just about socks.”
Murdock looked like he didn’t know whether to be offended or burst into tears. His hand was fisted in his hair and he kept pulling it rhythmically.
“Uh, what about you?” Hannibal asked Bri-Bri. He didn’t really want to know, but he could tell that the other three men were close to crying, leaving the room or murdering everybody and he wanted to keep the conversation flowing so those things (hopefully) wouldn’t happen.
“Whatchu think?” Bri-Bri asked him with a strong accent that definitely hadn’t been there before. “I’m gangsta, boy.”
BA’s knuckles cracked.
“I mainly work with boys from the ‘hood, you know? Kanye, Jay-Z, Marshall.” (Hannibal placed a steadying hand on BA’s knee.) “I’m doing a lot with Nicki Minaj right now. She did vocals on ‘Bling It On’ and ‘Kiss With A Fist’ on my latest album.”
Face, who had been rocking himself and tensing up, suddenly sprang to his feet. Sensing his motives, Murdock scrambled to stand between him and the women.
“No, Face!”
The conman tried to move around, but Murdock was too quick. “I have to!” the conman beseeched.
Hannibal and BA got to their feet as well. “You don’t need to do this, Face,” said the Colonel in a placating tone, holding his hands with palms out.
“Come on man,” agreed BA. “Just leave it.”
Face shook his head and pushed Murdock out of the way. “I can’t! I don’t want this any more than you do, but… ARGH!” He let out a frustrated roar.
Stomping forwards, Face halted in front of the bemused group of women. After a slight hesitation, he grabbed Tilly’s arm and pulled her to her feet.
“Come on,” he said gruffly through gritted teeth. She threw a confused look at Madonna but didn’t protest as Face dragged her to his bedroom.
Twenty minutes later, the pair re-emerged. Tilly was smoothing her hair down and ducking her head to hide her smudged makeup. Face looked a little shell-shocked. They were both walking on very wobbly legs.
As soon as Tilly sat down, the other women encircled her and helped her touch up her makeup, tittering and whispering. The men stood and stared at Face.
Hannibal was the first to ask. “Well, Lieutenant?”
Face let out a sound that was something between a groan and a wheeze. His eyes were glazed, mouth slack. “It was…” He shook his head numbly. “I don’t even know.” He opened and closed his mouth soundlessly a couple of times before turning his unfocused eyes to his friends. “I think it was good. Amazing. Mind-blowing, even. But…”
He turned his head, and they all followed his gaze to the group of women. Shallow, beautiful, vapid, selfish, sexy, talented, incredibly annoying women. Face’s teammates sighed and clapped him on the back in understanding.
“Don’t do it,” Face told them solemnly. “It’s not worth it. The conflict… It messes with your head.”
“Don’t worry, soldier,” Hannibal told him. He squeezed Face’s shoulder. “Thank you for taking that bullet for us.”
The blond whimpered and sagged as his knees went out from under him. Murdock and BA quickly ushered him into a chair.
“Can they go now?” Face asked meekly. “Can we put them back where they came from?”
Hannibal nodded. “I think that’s for the best. Murdock?”
“I’ll take care of it, sir,” said the pilot earnestly. “I’m sorry about all this, guys.”
“It’s alright, son,” answered Hannibal. “Just get them back to their universe and let us never speak of it again.”
“Agreed.”
The four men shook on it. The Lady-A-Team was sent back to their world and it was never spoken of again.
Except for every time Murdock and BA wanted to tease Face about something.
THE END!