>> Squat
Reluctantly, and despite the masterclass in subterfuge you've just led, you accept that Ellen Gertie has seen through the veil. She must surely be a sorceress, mage, witch or shaman of extreme power to be able to find the truth like that; perhaps, in another life, you could have been crime fighting partners. You yourself are also a witch, you remember, so having a second magic user in your private investigations, especially one who is such a powerful soothsayer, would render you utterly unstoppable. But that was not to be. You are opposed like night and day, like hammer and cake, like Gertie and morality.
With confrontation at hand and having already secured a full confession from the haggard old puddle of swamp water and hatred, you prepare to take the only logical next step.
Your thigh muscles go completely limp. You stick your bum out, feeling it pull the towel and all contents taut. Your ankles become soft and bouncy and your calves relax as your torso plummets downwards, and your dress-clad-towel-clad rump makes contact with the carpet. Ashley gasps with reverential wonder; this is surely the most powerful and divine squat of your life and times to date. You have become Mrs Fox the Crab King, finally uniting the old foes of crustacean and mammal into a singular combatant who rules both ocean and high society with an iron claw.
"The jig is up, Gertie! You're under arrest for doing all those crimes you just admitted to, plus also for making me dunk buttery crumpets in tea four times. It was horrid!"
"They'd soak up all the tea and become delicious! Do it again!" she cries back, revealing how truly delusional and cruel she has allowed herself to become. She's gone too far.
>> Bonus action: Arrest Ellen Gertie
"By the power vested in me, on the authority of Diane Ingrid Shame, I'm doing an arrest of you. You're really arrested right now. You're so under arrest that all you can see is a silhouette of arrest flying high above you, making inferences on its species by wing shape, the way it flaps or glides, and how high it goes!" you bellow, layering metaphor upon metaphor until you've formed a single, groaning tower of ramshackle improvised dialogue. You start your chainsaw and then draw your gun. With a weapon in each hand you feel ready to make good on your promise of not letting her go freely.
Ellen lunges for the telephone, presumably intending to call up some goons from the rest of the office, but Ashley is too quick for her, ripping the cord from the wall in a single mighty tug; that grocer's strength has come into its own yet again. Wheeling around, Gertie whips two razor-edged doilies from her handbag and slings them your way, carving the air like angry wasp discs. You barely manage to dodge the first doily. It cuts cleanly through the dangling fox taxidermy and sends Mrs Fox's head tumbling to the ground. The second bladed wheel of place-marking is deflected by the angrily whirring teeth of your chainsaw. Gertie merely smirks at you.
"That vicar will never get his money back! He can't even tell the difference between a chicken and an eagle!" she snarls, accurately, dealing a firm psychological blow to your resolve. But although she's quite right that he's an avian delinquent, and by all rights you should be shunning him rather than helping such a person, he is still your client. If nothing else, you've proved to yourself over the last few days that you're a consummate professional, so you have to see this case through. You convey this message to Ellen by stabbing forwards with the chain blade. Unfortunately, your squat renders motion rather slow and difficult. She leaps to one side, leaving your attack to harmlessly carve her desk in twain, but doesn't anticipate the flying kick from Ashley, sending the ashen-eyed, sewage-hearted monster backwards into the western wall of the office.
Leaving the chainsaw safely running, you let go of the handle and grab Drainpipe instead. Ashley forms up alongside you, adopting a squat of her own, and you both place your hands on what would begrudgingly be called a midriff if one were to anthropomorphise a drainpipe.
"Hey, Gertie?" you call out. She looks you in the eye, defiantly. "C'est ne pas un pipe!"
Her face becomes a mask of decay and despair at your devastating one liner, moments before you and Ashley reprise your patented 'Hers and Hers Battering Drainpipe' technique, the most powerful arrest in your arsenal. Crab-sprinting sideways, as best a squat allows, you charge at full force. You and your wife slam Drainpipe's crowned end hard into the chitinous carapace of Ellen Gertie, forcing her through the paper wall and into what appears to be a lavatory. Overbalancing backwards, the waste of a good cardigan falls bottom first into the toilet bowl, the seat of which has been left up, criminally. With a satisfying thunk, and the pained moan of two buttocks made wet from toilet water, the fight is over. Your arrest is done. You've finally defeated Ellen Gertie.
To celebrate, you discharge five rounds from the revolver, into the sink, lights, hand dryer, floor, and Ellen Gertie's desk. The chainsaw roars approvingly, and Ashley high fives you.
A few minutes later, once you've pulled the toilet seat over Ellen's torso and arms like a safety bar on a roller coaster, you plug her phone back in and call Diane Ingrid Shame for backup.
"Not willing to go down without a fight, Ellen Gertie went down without a fight." you tell Diane Ingrid Shame, humbly.
"It's exactly the sort of contradiction you'd expect from someone of her moral decrepitude." she answers. "I'll be there in a few minutes. Good work, Lucy."
You hang up and think about it. Yes, you did do a good job, didn't you?
1. Epilogue
2. Forgo epilogue for a description of a bin
With confrontation at hand and having already secured a full confession from the haggard old puddle of swamp water and hatred, you prepare to take the only logical next step.
Your thigh muscles go completely limp. You stick your bum out, feeling it pull the towel and all contents taut. Your ankles become soft and bouncy and your calves relax as your torso plummets downwards, and your dress-clad-towel-clad rump makes contact with the carpet. Ashley gasps with reverential wonder; this is surely the most powerful and divine squat of your life and times to date. You have become Mrs Fox the Crab King, finally uniting the old foes of crustacean and mammal into a singular combatant who rules both ocean and high society with an iron claw.
"The jig is up, Gertie! You're under arrest for doing all those crimes you just admitted to, plus also for making me dunk buttery crumpets in tea four times. It was horrid!"
"They'd soak up all the tea and become delicious! Do it again!" she cries back, revealing how truly delusional and cruel she has allowed herself to become. She's gone too far.
>> Bonus action: Arrest Ellen Gertie
"By the power vested in me, on the authority of Diane Ingrid Shame, I'm doing an arrest of you. You're really arrested right now. You're so under arrest that all you can see is a silhouette of arrest flying high above you, making inferences on its species by wing shape, the way it flaps or glides, and how high it goes!" you bellow, layering metaphor upon metaphor until you've formed a single, groaning tower of ramshackle improvised dialogue. You start your chainsaw and then draw your gun. With a weapon in each hand you feel ready to make good on your promise of not letting her go freely.
Ellen lunges for the telephone, presumably intending to call up some goons from the rest of the office, but Ashley is too quick for her, ripping the cord from the wall in a single mighty tug; that grocer's strength has come into its own yet again. Wheeling around, Gertie whips two razor-edged doilies from her handbag and slings them your way, carving the air like angry wasp discs. You barely manage to dodge the first doily. It cuts cleanly through the dangling fox taxidermy and sends Mrs Fox's head tumbling to the ground. The second bladed wheel of place-marking is deflected by the angrily whirring teeth of your chainsaw. Gertie merely smirks at you.
"That vicar will never get his money back! He can't even tell the difference between a chicken and an eagle!" she snarls, accurately, dealing a firm psychological blow to your resolve. But although she's quite right that he's an avian delinquent, and by all rights you should be shunning him rather than helping such a person, he is still your client. If nothing else, you've proved to yourself over the last few days that you're a consummate professional, so you have to see this case through. You convey this message to Ellen by stabbing forwards with the chain blade. Unfortunately, your squat renders motion rather slow and difficult. She leaps to one side, leaving your attack to harmlessly carve her desk in twain, but doesn't anticipate the flying kick from Ashley, sending the ashen-eyed, sewage-hearted monster backwards into the western wall of the office.
Leaving the chainsaw safely running, you let go of the handle and grab Drainpipe instead. Ashley forms up alongside you, adopting a squat of her own, and you both place your hands on what would begrudgingly be called a midriff if one were to anthropomorphise a drainpipe.
"Hey, Gertie?" you call out. She looks you in the eye, defiantly. "C'est ne pas un pipe!"
Her face becomes a mask of decay and despair at your devastating one liner, moments before you and Ashley reprise your patented 'Hers and Hers Battering Drainpipe' technique, the most powerful arrest in your arsenal. Crab-sprinting sideways, as best a squat allows, you charge at full force. You and your wife slam Drainpipe's crowned end hard into the chitinous carapace of Ellen Gertie, forcing her through the paper wall and into what appears to be a lavatory. Overbalancing backwards, the waste of a good cardigan falls bottom first into the toilet bowl, the seat of which has been left up, criminally. With a satisfying thunk, and the pained moan of two buttocks made wet from toilet water, the fight is over. Your arrest is done. You've finally defeated Ellen Gertie.
To celebrate, you discharge five rounds from the revolver, into the sink, lights, hand dryer, floor, and Ellen Gertie's desk. The chainsaw roars approvingly, and Ashley high fives you.
A few minutes later, once you've pulled the toilet seat over Ellen's torso and arms like a safety bar on a roller coaster, you plug her phone back in and call Diane Ingrid Shame for backup.
"Not willing to go down without a fight, Ellen Gertie went down without a fight." you tell Diane Ingrid Shame, humbly.
"It's exactly the sort of contradiction you'd expect from someone of her moral decrepitude." she answers. "I'll be there in a few minutes. Good work, Lucy."
You hang up and think about it. Yes, you did do a good job, didn't you?
1. Epilogue
2. Forgo epilogue for a description of a bin