Conan fanned his face in the sweltering sun. It was so hot. He was sunbathing on top of the local Beika McDonalds. "Dang... it's so hot," said Conan. "I bet the Locked Room Beetle is roasting his little guts out somewhere." He sat up, towel completely drenched in sweat. The towel immediately wrinkled to a crisp in the direct sunlight.
"Global warming sure is a b***h huh?" he said, throwing the remains of the towel off the roof. They fluttered down like burnt paper into the busy street. He climbed down a rickety ladder and walked into McDonalds.
"Honey, I'm home," said Conan. "Rev up those drink machines, because boy am I thirsty for a good old Orange Juice."
Ronald, clown man, looked up from wiping the plastic counters with a special grease and chemtrail compound. He frowned. "Ruu," he said. "Ran ruu ran ran ruu."
Conan stepped backwards on the grimy tiles, his back against the Happy Meal stand's plastic cover. His face twisted into a wide-eyed smile. He was sweating buckets but now the sweatdrops were slightly more visible on his head thanks to the animation budget. "What did you just say?"
"Ran. Ruu. Ran. Ran. Ruu."
"You're joking."
"Ran."
"Why would you do that!? Why would you take THAT off your menu!? You know that I need it! I NEED IT!"
"Ran..." Ronald sighed. "Ran ruu ran ruu. Ruu ruu ran ruu ran ran. Ran ru? Ran ran ru. Ru ran... Ru ru ran."
Conan clenched his fists and bit his lip. "Ch.. Chikushouuu..."
Ronald hung his head in shame.
Conan then stopped cringing and stood straight up, looking down at the ground, frowning like there was no tomorrow. He reached his hand inside the Happy Meal stand through the secret passage and pulled out a toy bow tie. "So," he said, "you think our relationship is a game, huh? Just another... another little Monopoly house? A branch of your company? Something you can bail out on when the stocks go down!? Well! See how you like this!" He snapped the bowtie in half and stomped on the remains until they were nothing more but plastic shards laying around like an occupational hazard. "You disgust me, Ronald McDonald."
He left the restaurant. Ronald crawled into the men's bathroom and locked himself in the big stall. He laid on the floor. He felt nothing.
Storm and Akai were on a mission to rescue the world's most perfect orange from an orange refinery in Florida. Waiting on instructions from their superior, they sat in Akai's truck right outside of the factory gates.
"These oranges sure are refined," said Storm, watching the orange fumes rise from the smoke towers above. "And I crave the vitamins and minerals within them." He smiled.
"That'll have to wait," said Akai, winking with his mascara on. He tightened his knit hat. "The perfect orange... has to be delivered to our Master. He cannot rest without it, knowing that because of a capitalist system, it is intended to be squeezed into natural Florida orange juice, which will definitely give someone super powers if they drink it."
"What will he do with it?"
"Make it into juice and give it to someone he knows instead of a random Florida Man."
"Good thinking."
Akai's phone rang. He picked it up. "Head Memer speaking. What's your favorite color?"
"Shut up," said Conan. He was trying to hold in his sobbing on the line. "Just shut up for a moment and let me tell you what's going on."
Akai was stunned. Conan usually tolerated his memes. He complied.
"There's a .. there's a problem with one of our head OJ suppliers."
"Who? Minute Maid?" It just had to be them. They lowball all the time in soul deals. Scum!
"No... I... It was... well..." He sniffed. "You know... him... clown man.."
"MCDONALDS!?"
No way! No way! No McFreakin' way!
"No way!" said Akai. "No possible way. What happened? Is Ronald okay?"
Conan just let it go and sobbed into the phone. Akai almost swore that he could feel tears coming through the phone line.
"Hey, man. Just tell me what happened. It'll make you feel better."
Conan sniffed again. "Okay..okay.. Ronald... cut off OJ from the breakfast menu. Which means no OJ at all... it wasn't bringing in enough revenue, he said.. Right in front of me as I came in to have one... Why, God!?" He broke into ugly crying. Again. Can't blame the guy.
"I'm... I'm sorry," said Akai. "What do you want me to do?"
"Get him..." said Conan. "But first, bring me that jewel of an orange. I'll elaborate from there."
"You got it, buddy." Akai hung up. He looked at Storm. He looked pale.
"What happened to Ronald?" he asked.
"He's dead to rights," said Akai. "He took off OJ... off the menu."
"What!?" Storm gaped at Akai. Akai noticed a tiny piece of celery in between Storm's teeth. "Ronald wouldn't ever do that... he knows how much of a big deal this is to Conan!"
"I know. Something's fishy about this thing."
"What if he was... blackmailed?"
"We'll see. There's still a chance that he really did do it for the money. But for now, let's just get the orange... That's what Conan told us to do."
"Okay, partner." The truck flew up and over the gates, and clumsily landed on a helipad on top of one of the buildings.
Akai and Storm got out of the truck. "Strike three. That's the last time you practice driving on a mission," said Akai.
"Dang it!" said Storm. He stuck his hands in his pockets in an attempt to feel more like an angry teen. "I passed all my AP exams and you just penalize me for a wobble. I see how it is."
"Chill out," said Akai. He put his arms behind his head like a cool relaxing Japanese dudeman. "You know that this truck is my baby... Oh, here's the official."
A short man in glasses with a Coconut Head bowl cut scuttered up to them. "Authorization?" Akai flipped open his FBI badge. "Good, good. Order of business?"
"Client E1 requests that you return to him a specific orange, the Perfect Orange. It has been mistakenly transferred here."
"The Juiceman... so it seems, so it seems." The man scribbled it down directly on his clipboard. There was no paper. "This Perfect Orange - how does it look?"
"You'll know it when you see it," said Akai. "It arrived at 9:30 AM, so it shouldn't quite be processed yet..."
"Good call, good call. I will check." He scurried away and down the stairs.
"Funny dude," said Storm.
They waited for a couple of minutes.
"Is he okay in there?" said Storm.
Akai looked at his watch. "I don't think so. We may have been too late, come on." He ran down the stairwell. Who else would be after this orange? What kind of crazy enemies had Conan made this time over nothing but simple oranges (praise cone our ethereal sovereign forgive me for my derelict words)? His boots ran sparks down the stair rail behind him as he slid at lightning speed like an invisible skateboard stunt. "50 Stunt Points!" floated next to him in airbrushed neon green text. Storm ran after him.
Akai skidded to a stop in front of a metal door with a tiny window in the middle. He took a look through. It was a massive factory room, painted Home Depot Orange, and vibrant oranges went down a conveyor belt to get their innards squeezed out and into a giant vat of what was most likely Florida Orange Juice. He rattled the door handle, which was locked. "Dang it!" he said.
"It's a fire exit, it says right above it," said Storm. Akai looked up. "No dice!" said Storm. They ran down further flights of stairs until they reached the bottom. The funny dude's corpse laid facedown, half submerged in a large amount of orange juice.
"S***!" said Akai. Frick! They didn't get to him in time. No one deserves this. He trudged on through the thick pulpy waters and attempted to open the next nearest door. It was labeled R&D. It was lodged by the orange juice flood, but not locked. "Come over here, Storm," said Akai. They both shoulder-rammed the door together, and it opened up, Storm stumbling forward from the sudden release. He leaned over what appeared to be the edge of another vat of orange juice, like peering into the heart of a volcano. Akai grabbed his arm and he got a hold of himself, then stepped back, gasping in shock and terror.
Akai sniffed the air. "It's pulp-free OJ." The moonshine of orange products. This stuff was the type of thing to be behind maximum security, so what was it doing behind a couple of unlocked doors? There were several more vats full of the stuff. throughout the entire warehouse-sized room. And... he turned around. Most of the orange juice had dripped through the grated floors and down below. But where had it all come from, just sitting in that hallway?
"Dude, look at that," said Storm, pointing to one of the vats farther away from them. It was nearly full to the brim with OJ, as opposed to the others, and it was bubbling over. Orange steam rose from it. "Huh... why's it boiling?"
Akai noticed something all of the sudden. The walls were more grayish starting about at the height of the door... No, it was reversed - the walls were stained a sort of yellow-orange down past the door's height. That's it. That's what it means. That means... "We gotta get out of here right now!" He ran out and Storm followed quickly. Akai turned around and slammed the door behind him, leaning against it as hard as he could.
"What are you doing!?" said Storm.
"Watch through the window," said Akai. Storm leaned towards the glass. The strange vat was overflowing now with orange juice. Other ones were also starting to show the same behavior.
"Oh.. oh I see.." said Storm. "You really know when to make like a tree and split.. you saved our leaves."
Akai tried really hard not to laugh at the stupid pun but he failed massively. Then, halfway through his chuckle, he realized something. "I think, I think we're being tracked." He looked up at the cameras. "They just tried to kill us. That's how he died." The vat room completely flooded while he said this, turning the window's scene into a blanket of orange.
"OMG," said Storm. Storm took out his laser gun and shot the nearest security cameras. "That's better."
"Good thinking," said Akai. "We've got to find the person who's after us... and wherever they are, there we will also find the Perfect Orange."
"The... security room?"
"Sounds like a plan. Follow me and watch our backs." Akai opened the door across from the vat room. It was a plain office room with a hallway down it. Easy listening music played overhead. As they walked through the room, they started to notice that a couple of workers were still slaving away at economic data in their cubicles. Akai strolled up to one of the cubicles and knocked on its wall. The young woman at the desk turned around and jumped, startled at the man with orange juice stains up to his knees and a real live gun standing in her doorway. He wasn't here to ask for extra printer paper, that was for sure.
"Hey, relax," said Akai. He pulled out his badge. "I'm with the FBI. Can you give us some information?"
"Um... sure," she said. "On.. what? This is just an orange juice factory. What would-"
"The nature of my investigation does not concern you," said Akai, talking through his clenched teeth.
"Yeah," said Storm, "we're the ones asking the questions here." He crossed his arms and attempted to look cool like a real FBI officer.
"What we're really after is: where is your surveillance room? You know, where the cameras are at?"
"Oh... you know, here's this," said the lady. She took a laminated piece of paper off of her cubicle wall - a map of the entire building. "I don't need this since I only work in here, but it has labels and things."
"Much appreciated," said Akai. "We're out." Storm followed Akai down the hallway to the tune of the peaceful tropical tunes.
Storm looked at the map. "Looks like we're actually not that far away from the security room. Take a left here." They turned the corner and were met with more cameras. Storm shot them down with lasers.
"I don't think that is useful any more at this point," said Akai. "They know that we're coming for them in the security room." Storm put his gun down sadly. They continued on.
They reached the security room. The door was wide open and a bunch of papers were taped to the TV displays that all said "CATCH ME IF YOU CAN LOSERS!"
"They got us!" said Storm. "They've gotta be way far away by now!"
"Wait," said Akai. He tapped his foot in adrenaline-fueled concentration. "It could be a ruse. They could be hiding close by, trying to get us to leave. And then they could do what they pleased with the factory - even flood the whole thing in OJ."
"Dang!"
"Storm, if you're eager for the chase, I won't stop you," said Akai. "But I want to check and make sure. Give me some time for this."
"Fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine," said Storm. He slouched into the security chair. Except the security chair yelled and felt like pants. Storm stood up, startled, and turned to look at the absolutely nothing that had been on the chair. Empty air. "What... was that?"
"Um... is the chair wet?" said Akai.
"No.. there was... something on it?" said Storm. "But I don't know.."
"OH," said Akai. And he shot the laser gun at the ground near the chair. They heard a yelp. Storm tackled the empty space. A person flickered into view.
"Fricking idiot kid being a lazy piece of..." the mumbling continued from the man who had been hidden using an invisible cloaking device, nursing his shot foot.
No McFreakin' way!
"So," said Akai, "you thought you could fool us that easily, huh?"
"It works on everyone else, so, you know, why not?" said the man.
"You're really underestimating us," said Storm. "The squad doesn't mess around when it comes to our mission. Now hand over the orange or I'll have to show you why they call me 'Tumblr User Slopramen'." He punched his fists together.
"Oh... you mean this orange?" He rolled it towards them. Storm scrambled to pick it up. Suddenly, he realized that .. there was something wrong. He felt stupid for having taken so long to realize, but... the orange had been PEELED. Peeled!
"You didn't!" said Akai. "You couldn't have! Only a master could have done that!"
"That's it," said Storm. He rolled up his hoodie sleeves. "No more Mr. Meme Guy!" He lightly punched the man in the shoulder. The man laughed.
"You just don't get it, do you?" he said, smiling. "The new technology... allows anyone.. to handle and peel... Perfect Oranges..." Then he fainted from the pain in his foot (the bullet had only grazed his toe, not actually hurt him that bad.)
"Frickin' wuss," said Storm. "Peeled one of the most powerful fruits but couldn't keep conscious after one little wound? Not action hero material at all... Or villain material.."
"Yeah," said Akai. "It looks like despite the damage it's going to be okay. Let's take this back to Master. Wanna get an airport brand hot dog?"
"You know it!" said Storm. And they headed for Orlando's airport.