Chapter 1 The Prince is Coming!
BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP
"Commander Apetrully is in trouble!" hollered Mr. No Hands, the flying man with bound arms, "… again."
"You know, he should already realize that offering gold to pissed animals just never works." The short yet stocky man, Mighty Ray, sighed.
First Squad, consisting of Lin Chung, Mystique Sonia, Jumpy Ghostface, and Mighty Ray, all opened up the hatched to a tube of twists and turns which all lead down to a den where the heroes each land on a turtle tank. The turtles then, in contradiction to their nature, jet off at high speed out of Big Green, a large cool colored dome where animal Kings and Queens and humans reside to protect other humans and recruit more animals against their arch nemesis, an ex-court jester named, High Roller.
As they sped towards their destination, they realized that for six years of fighting for peace nothing has drastically changed. Everyone has gotten so much older, and along with that much more bitter. They understand that there are plenty of animals that have defected High Roller's ranks and joined Big Green, but there is still so much more. They wondered, "How much longer?"
Arriving at Komodo Dragon castle, where Apetrully's signal was heard from, The heroes slowly crept inside the castle, hopefully, gaining the element of surprise to fight these giant lizards.
However, that would be a bit too easy. The element of surprise was in the claws of the komodo dragons. An army of them rose from the shadows and spat out their acid saliva at the heroes. Not only was the saliva like acid, but it was also crawling with deadly bacteria that acts like poison to the body.
"Look out!" Lin Chung exclaimed and the heroes leaped out of the spit's way.
Mystique Sonia held out her long blue tongue and spun it around like a propeller to push away the dragons, but it was futile. The dragons, even though they are not tremendously large animals, they were still too heavy to be blown away. The dragon quickly counterattacked by spitting acid at Mystique Sonia. She was not quick enough to leap out of the way, her hat, Yaksha wrapped his arms around her to protect her, and Jumpy jumped in front of her twirling his jump rope all around him to protect her too. The acid burned the Rabbit King's jump rope rendering it useless.
As the large lizards readied up another acid spit, Mighty Ray managed to disorient them with his lightning powered eyeballs keeping Jumpy and Mystique Sonia safe from them. Jumpy gathered himself together and pulled out his carrot weapons ready to be tossed as grenades or thrown as shurikens. Mighty Ray managed to gobble down enough of his bananas, while giving a disgusted face, to charge up his eyeballs as the dragons pulled themselves together and attacked again.
Lin Chung, being the most skilled, was doing the most damage to the army. While dodging the lizards' spit, the man used his staff like a sniper rifle and shot bamboo shoots out of it, hitting each of the dragons' head and knocking them unconscious. It was only a matter of time before the Komodo Dragon King himself arrived dragging the limp body Commander Apetrully with his jaw. The was much larger than his people, and he had more elaborate designs such as black zigzagged lines circling around his neck, and ankles which contrasted against his dull green skin. The commander looked sick and lifeless, which meant that he was bitten by the king.
Conveniently, the king could speak the human language, "Big Green." he spoke in a dark and hissing voice, "If you defeat me in this small competition, I will remove the venom from your commander and join Big Green."
"It's always a competition." Mighty Ray sighed, "This is getting old."
"I accept." Lin Chung said quickly.
"Good." the dragon king hissed and licked his lips. Two of his pupils came in with two large dish.
The heroes watched in dread. It was two live animals, a cat and a dog, bound and weakened.
"Who ever can finish his meal first, wins." the king hissed.
Lin Chung looked at his plate, into the cat's eyes, "No. I can't." he thought to himself. The king leaned in for a bite and Lin Chung thwacked him away from the dish, "Never! No one should ever hurt any animal! Not like this…"
The king turned towards Lin Chung looking angry and threatening, but calmed down and gave him a warm smile.
He chuckled, "Well, it seems you passed my test."
"What?" the heroes said in confusion.
"If High Roller said that humans have no compassion for us, then you, warrior, would have no trouble devouring that cat in front of you." the king explained, "Since you refuse to eat him, then your heart is full of love for us, animals."
"I would never hurt them or let them be hurt." Lin Chung bowed.
The king bit Apetrully once more, but this time sucked the bacteria coursing though his veins. The commander bounced back to life overjoyed that they managed to convince the Komodo Dragon King to join.
The king agreed to join Big Green as the living poison antidote. Whenever anyone was bitten by something venomous or eaten something poisonous, the Komodo Dragon King will be there to aid and cure.
Arriving back to Big Green along with the new member, the Komodo Dragon King, First Squad disbanded and retreated in their rooms almost immediately. Apetrully decided to go back to his room as well, but first he must check to see if he has mail since the Pigeon King came back yesterday with a large stack of mail. The disguised Monkey King collected his mail from the mail room and thanked that he did not have a lot of cries for help from the bullied humans. In fact, one of the letters he received was stamped with an imperial seal. Once he arrived in his room, he opened that mail right away.
When he read the letter, shock overtook him and he zipped towards the meeting room and then arranged a huge conference with First Squad and Second Squad.
"Is something wrong, Commander Apetrully?" Mr. No Hands asked as he walked inside the room with his squad behind him.
"I hope it's something important." Ray scowled.
"It must be important if he had to call BOTH of us into the room." snapped the Second Squad leader, Alpha-Girl Latifa, as she walked in the room with her squad behind her.
"Great news everyone!" the commander said in glee, "The emperor's only son wants to join us in Big Green and reclaim his father's throne!"
"Now?" Kowloon, a karate master of second squad asked.
"Well, it has been a few years so the Prince must be old enough to be able to fight by now." Apetrully explained, "I will mail him back and confirm that he will be able to join Big Green."
"Hold on a second! Is he like a little kid or something?" Mighty Ray asked, "We don't have the time to baby-sit. We're adults!"
"Oh no." Apetrully laughed, "Sure, he… is very young, but he has experience from other countries. I am sure he will fit right in!"
"I don't know, Commander. I imagine royal people as… you know. Not the fighter type." Mystique Sonia spoke out.
"Yeah, we don't need no snobby, snooty brat in Big Green." Alpha-Girl scowled.
"People, please!" Apetrully tried to convince, "I can not deny the Prince."
"I can help!" Mighty Ray perked up, "You say 'Dear Prince, No.' and there. All done."
"I think we should allow the Prince to give us a helping hand." Lin Chung spoke out, "I think the more the merrier. It's been years now and High Roller is still under control of the animals. Since High Roller was once the Emperor's jester, I think with the Prince's help we can find out some things about High Roller that we can use against him."
"That's a good point." Mr. No Hands smiled.
"Well if you put it that way…" Kowloon spoke then thought about Lin Chung's reason.
"Makes sense." Ray nodded.
Both Archer and Hurricane Lee agreed with Lin Chung. Mystique Sonia looked hesitant but agreed as well. Alpha-Girl gave a sour face but had no choice but to agree.
"Then it's settled!" Apetrully said in glee, "The Prince will join Big Green!" he then remembered, "Oh! Mr. No Hands. Alpha-Girl Latifa. Can I speak to you two privately?" Apetrully asked.
"Of course!" Mr. No Hands floated up and along with Alpha-Girl, followed the commander to another room.
The other squad members looked confused.
"What could be so important that they won't tell us?" Jumpy spat, his human language skills finally up to par.
Golden-Eye Husky shrugged, "I don't know."
A few minutes later the three came out all seemingly normal. "Well, that wraps up the conference. Thank you all for coming and when the Prince arrives, give him a warm welcome and treat him as a equal and not a Prince. That is what he asked for in the letter." Apetrully quickly added his last words.
"Well, if he wants to be treated like an equal, then we'll give him the Big Green initiation." Mighty Ray said jokingly.
"I heard that!" Hurricane Lee laughed with him.
"Still I don't know if he'll be ready to fight High Roller." Mystique Sonia said in worry.
"Don't worry." said Apetrully, "He is well prepared and he knows what he is getting himself into."
"I am truly excited." Lin Chung smiled, "I should paint him a picture to welcome him."
Alpha-Girl still felt little irked, "I still don't like this. Just don't put the brat in our squad, okay?"
Ray realized that the inexperienced prince will be put in their squad since Second Squad said they did not want him, "I-I don't want some little kid in our squad. He'll just slow us all down."
"That's enough out of you, Mighty Ray!" Mr. No Hands spat, "When the prince arrives, I expect all members of First Squad to greet him with the utmost respect. Got it?"
"Yes, sir." they all complied.
Even though half of the members of First Squad were still bothered by the arrival of the prince, they started to believe that nothing awful can possibly happen if he is surrounded by such skilled warriors. That thought suddenly calmed the nay say-ers, and they started to feel a slight amount of excitement for the prince's arrival.