Madagascar
On that particular Friday morning Marty was not a happy zebra, he had just woken up from what felt like the longest, most elaborate and realistic dream ever!
Marty's dream had been about him and his closest friends at the New York zoo, who are; Alex, Gloria and Melmin, being transported away from the city to an island called Madagascar. Where they did loads of crazy shit and met some lemurs. After which they had flown a plane to Africa with some penguins, met Alex's parents and continued on their journey back to New York, even becoming part of a circus for a while! His next though was that he really should lay off of those special marshmallows that he had been having with his hot chocolates lately they seemed to be having some strange effects on his head.
Meanwhile in Zasgard, Zor continues to train hard for the next Golimpics, which are going to take place in only two weeks. Zor is, as you have probably already guessed, the zebra's equivalent of a Viking god. He even has a brother called Zoki and a father called Zodin, plus a whole host of other zebra gods that live in Zasgard which are not important to this story. Zasgard is the ancestral home of the zebra deities, it consists mainly of large open expanses of pristine grassland dotted with lush watering holes and bounded by a beautiful ocean. At the centre of Zasgard stands the sacred Zumbrara stone, flanked on all sides by six ancient and mysteriously slanted trees. This legendary stone with all it's engravings covering every inch of it, has the power to transport the Zebra gods to any place in the vast expanse of space, including Earth! ;)
After his long training session that morning all Zor wanted to do was meet up with his friends and go to his favourite watering hole to relax by the water and drink himself silly at the bar called the Racing Stripes Inn. Zor found that he was the last of his friends to arrive, they where already relatively tipsy and he couldn't wait to catch up with them. This led to him going straight to the bar to order two double grass and bramble vodkas, that is still his favourite flavour. Due to being the son of King Zodin he was used to getting that he likes. After joining his friends by the water the banter and merriment continued on deep into the night. Little did they know that this drunken night would be unlike any other!
Marty was a zebra who had the strangest group of friends, the sort of ones that would make his crazy dream form the night before seem almost feasible, and that is why he loved them all the more. On this morning Melmin the giraffe was having his third toe infection sorted within one week, also consider that a giraffe only has two toes on each foot! Gloria the hippo was her usual self, getting pampered by the Zoo staff and then jumping right into a large puddle of mud just to reverse all their hard work. Alex the lion does nothing but eat all day and even so he still manages to be the most hyperactive lion Marty's ever met, but then seen as Marty has only ever met one lion that isn't saying much. One of Marty's favourite things to do during the day is run on his tred mill. Since he was little the other animals have always asked him why he loves it so much, the fact is he doesn't know himself it's just the best thing he can think of doing in his otherwise boring Zoo life.
Zor was just proposing a toast to the freedom of the realm when a messenger zebra stormed into their midst shouting out his alarming message, " The Zambrara stone has started to spin and give of a bright light, the noise from the whirling rock was reported to be like a hurricane. This sounded like a job for Zor the hero of Zasgard. Everyone would expect him to be there, drunk as he was this didn't really occur to him so his friends had to prompt him to volunteer. Red faced and embarrassed Zor got up and stormed away from the watering hole with the messenger trying to keep up but failing completely. As dust flew and trees flashed by on his way to the clear bright light on the horizon, Zor couldn't help but think about the burdens and expectations and responsibilities that he was expected to perform and live up to, it was starting to get to him a little.
The light just kept getting brighter and brighter as Zor continued to race towards his destination. Most of the other zebra folk where fleeing in the opposite direction, only army and healers where following Zors lead towards what now looked like a hurricane of light. With a final flash Zor was falling though what felt like honey, if honey was also as soft as silk and at the same time hard and crushing. There was no sensation like this one Zor was experiencing, with a sudden rush and swooping sensation he hit cold hard dirt, no it was something that smelt much worse. Zor appeared to have landed in a dung heap! After struggling to his hooves Zor struggled laboriously out of his smelly crash mat. With the dung heap behind him there was now time to stop and think about what had just happened to him. He couldn't possibly be in Zasgard because there were no horrible piles of dung there, it was always spread out carefully over the fertile fields or thrown of the edge of the world. After wondering around a while longer, it occurred to Zor that he needed to wait for day to break so that he could finally see around him and investigate more. With day drake came more confusion. Zor found himself wondering around a maze of different types of barriers, some tall black thin intertwining poles unlike any trees Zor had ever seen before, others he just walked right into, because they where like some sort of invisible force field. The weird thing is that he kept hearing all different kinds of animal sounds, but when he ran towards the place where he thought it came from no one would be there. Just as the bird calls. Lion roaring and monkey gibberish was about to drive him crazy he noticed a different background noise which had been going the whole time. A low hum and whizzing noise was coming from of to the left, and above that a dull but quite distinct clattering that Zor knew well. With his heart racing in anticipation Zor dodged another force field barrier, rounded a corner and there in front of him was a familiar face. Those monochromatic features where so like all the ones back home in Zasgard but this one was smaller, less muscular, that the ones he knew so well, like a runt zebra on Zasgard.
Marty had just been running along on his treadmill like he did for an hour everyday for the last couple of years. Now he was almost done and getting to the sweating, panting and just generally looking ridiculous stage, that as when Marty looked up to see a massive, muscles rippling, golden mane zebra standing in front of him. After gasping, loosing his footing, tripping and sprawling onto the moving treadmill, it's fair to say that he was an embarrassing heap of black and white stripes. After collecting what was left of his dignity Marty finally made eye to eye contact with this hulking zebra, who then proceeded to introduce himself as Zor son of Zodin, king of Zasgard before almost breaking Marty's leg with an over powered hoof bump, done by all zebras when meeting for the first time to establish who is stronger, Zor definitely left no doubt about who that person might be.
With his hoof in agony Marty didn't know what to say to this hulking zebra with the end of his tail in the shape of a hammer. The only thing he could think of doing was to host Zor, so he offered Zor a seat on his favourite patch of his pen then gave him something to eat and drink. After a while of talking the two zebras had clicked and where having hilarious banter, clearly the humour in their two different worlds was pretty similar. They went to sleep that night after Marty finished of the conversation trying to explain the days of the week, that that day had been a Sunday and the next would be Monday.
The next day Zor woke up feeling pretty happy the place he was in was peaceful enough and he had made a new friend in this strange world. That morning the Zoo was once again open to the public. Zor walked out into the open there was a gasp from the groups looking on, the news quickly spread that there was an awesome new zebra in the zoo. The crowds just kept building and building. Camera flashes became ever more intensive like a wall of mini lightning strikes. Zor saw all these creatures staring at him from the outside of the enclosure, the noise of shouting and intense light became to much for him. With a sudden whirl of his tail hammer the side of the pen exploded away from him, those people unfortunate enough to be to close where injured badly, a couple where even killed. Obviously this caused absolute pandemonium, which woke Marty from his sleep, when woken from deep sleep Marty was always known to be grumpy. However after looking around at the chaos you can't even put into words how Mary felt, he was dumb stuck and unable to move. He looked on as Zor smashed his way through screaming and running crowds. All Marty's regulars where there, he had seen these people countless times while he had grown up in the zoo, now there was fear on all of their faces and wounds on some of them to.
Zor was quite enjoying himself he hadn't fought such a crowd of easy to pick of enemies in his life.
Marty's brain was telling him to do something to stop this madness but his body wasn't responding. Plus what was he going to do, this monstrous zebra god looked unstoppable. After what felt like an eternity, he went on impulse and just ran at Zor. After leaning into the air he landed on Zor, the contact was solid then searing painful. A gloopy feeling formed between them and Marty felt himself melting into Zor's body. And like that the two zebras became one, two minds in one body. How would Marty get out of this one.
To be continued in the next book of the series. (by some other maniac)