"Hey. Hey! Ness! Wake up!"
*snort* "What…no…don't eat me…I…I told you…I got *Yawn* rabies."
"I'm not some art professor's sketching of his mother-in-law. It's me, Yoshi. We're here."
Pikachu snorted. "You're a talking lizard that's always hungry whose family is one giant rainbow. If anything, your entire species manifested through the collective unconsciousness of all those stoners in the 60s."
"Oh, is it time for another thrilling discussion of existentialism? I'd be more wary of throwing stones in glass houses, Pikachu. Satoshi Tajiri probably thought of you when he saw a rat chew through an electric wire."
"mmmmmpppphh," said Jiggplypuff.
"No one cares about you!" scoffed Yoshi. "No one's gettin' Jiggly with it! You're just like every other two-bit Pokemon whose only fame was one annoying characteristic! Yours was to sing. Very. Very. Badly."
Jigglypuff's eyes teared up before bursting out into a flood of tear-rific proportions.
"Calm down, Yoshi! Look what you've done," scolded Pikachu. "She's not going to stop."
"I don't care!" replied Yoshi. "She had to learn that people with no talent should just stick to being critics."
"How will they know unless they try?" asked Pikachu.
"You mean like American Idol?" Asked Yoshi. "Every year, for every adequate and ticket worthy audition, thousands of lame-ass hacks and wanabees, with their larynges crushed and replaced with a metal grinder, show up to desecrate beloved songs. And if it wasn't their mirror cracking singing that had people cheering on Simon, it was their prima donna attitude. Can you believe what they say after they're rejected?"
'I'm going be a star no matter what they tell me! I don't need a multinational network to get exposure!'
"Most of them probably thought that diving headfirst into concrete blocks was going to be the next extreme sport."
SNNNNNOOOORRREEEE.
Yoshi gave an insubstantial kick to Bowser's enormous gut. "How does Bowser get any sleep at night? It sounds like he's being suffocated by a trash compactor."
"Wha…that doesn't make any sense," said Pikachu.
"You face doesn't make sense!"
"Neither does that statement. In fact, your face probably makes the least amount of sense."
"No it doesn't. I eat a lot."
"Yeah, you do. But you don't need a long snout. I would understand it if it were lined with teeth, but you don't have teeth. You don't even chew."
"So?" asked Yoshi.
"That makes the snout superfluous. You could sever your snout and other than being a slightly more hideous monster and an absence of a sense of smell, you'd still lead the same life as before."
"Well….uh…you see…it's…because…"
"Guys, settle down," pleaded Ness. "You act like we've been in here for years. It must have been, what, only three hours?"
"I can't believe they managed to pull this off," said Pikachu. "What government agency would actually allow this to happen?"
"Oh, I don't think there hauling us to a government facility, guys," said Yoshi, who was looking out the barred windows of the vehicle.
They all looked at what Yoshi was focusing on and felt doom well in their hearts. It was the standard foreboding facility of doom: high concrete walls with strategically placed watch towers that surrounded a hill upon which the facilities were situated. But it was the gates that drew their utmost attention. The gates held no symmetry of design. It was more of a mash of rusted iron than an actual gate. Inscribed above the gate upon a granite slab were four words:
Krusty's House of Madmen
"That is so politically incorrect," commented Pikachu
"At least one of us is going to end up dead," said Yoshi.
"That clown will put his name on anything," noted Ness.
Mmmppph, chimed in Jigglypuff.
Bowser just snored.
As they came closer to the gates, the mish-mash of rusted iron began to twist and move. Remarkably, the entire construct began to untwine as if by magic. Once each thread of twisted metal became free from one another, it drew back, allowing a clear entrance for the van. What made it more eerie was that there was not a sound made throughout the entire process.
"Oh, man," said Yoshi. "Dark magic! It is worst than I thought. There's going to be demons, devils, monsters, and insane people roaming the halls who will suffocate you with a pillow before throwing a large control panel through a window and then run off into the sunset!"
They all stared at him.
"You know," said Yoshi. "'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'?"
They kept staring.
"It was made into a movie with Jack Nicolson!"
Yep, they're still staring.
Yoshi frowned. "Doesn't anyone read classical literature?"
No one put up a hand.
"Okay, whatever, I'm just going to sit here and -I don't know - try to control my bladder."
And so they calmly awaited their fate, each of them controlling their own bladder to the best of their abilities. Of course it was a lot harder to do so when they glanced through the rear window and watch the mish-mash of iron silently reassemble itself back into a dark and foreboding gate.
The playback of Krusty's laugh over the P.A. when the gate was sealed didn't help either.
Okay, so where have I been?
To be honest, I lost interest and college was very demanding. As for Rise of Champions, I'm sorry, but it'll be on the back burner for an indefinite period of time. The time and effort to fulfill the scope that I first intended is too much and...well, to be honest, I'm not happy with it so far and it just wasn't enjoyable to write it.
As for the Odd Job Squad, I'll either take it down or rewrite it completely.