Underfist
Chapter 2
Endsville was burning. Underfist had been defeated. Mindy watched from her perch on top of Billy's house as Irwin and the others were led through the streets in chains. In the middle of town a huge coliseum had been built in a matter of minutes due in most part to magic, but also by using the people of Endsville as slaves.
Flying low the witch stayed out of sight of the dinosaur guards leading the prisoners, they were armed with ray guns that made Hoss' hand and foot look like tinker toys. In the parking lot outside the coliseum Mindy saw a throne made from Grim's bones, his head rested on top, and it looked angry and annoyed. "You won't get away with this girl, I can promise you that!" he said, as the person lounging on the throne laughed musically.
"Silly reaper I have already won, your pathetic town was conquered in a mere 3 hours and your precious saviors, your Underfist were helpless against the combined might of our power," the speaker was a stunningly beautiful blonde woman dressed in a short white dress and a tiara, Eris the goddess of discord and chaos.
To the left of the throne Mindy could see a tall green creature dressed in a blue sweater and a tiny red fez and drinking from a carton of milk clutched in a massive stone hand. "Oh how sweet it is too Grim, how long I've waited for this day ever since you left me to die in the Underworld and took Horror's Hand. But now I have it and the rightful title of scariest creature in the whole universe!" Boogey laughed before taking a drink of milk and spitting it in Grim's face.
Beside Boogey loomed a terrifying sight, a large tyrannosaurus made all the more scary by the large metal arms and half robot face. "You are not the scariest fool, I General Rexxor am truly the most terrifying as it was I that defeated the earth monkey Hoss Delgado in single combat. While you failed to catch a fat green elephant and a talking spider,"
Boogey's face grew red at Rexxor's words. "Look you overgrown iguana! If I hadn't stopped Delgado with Horror's Hand you'd need a lot more than just a pair of robot arms and a face mask before he was finished with you!"
The half cyborg dinosaur snarled and snapped his jaws at the Boogey Man. "You dare to insult me! I'll-"
The dinosaur was cutoff by another voice cutting in "You'll do nothing Rexxor, as I command you and your army, as I am the one who brought you up from the savage barbarism you wallowed in like pigs in mud!" the posh British voice belonged to a metallic floating scythe. "Further more I designed and control your metallic implants, one wrong move and I'll shut you down."
Rexxor grumbled as Scythe 2.0 floated over to the throne. "Mr. Reaper it is good to finally see you again after all this time," the talking scythe said sarcastically.
"I knew I should have tossed you into the sun," Grim mumbled.
"Like you and your idiot friend launched me into Space?" Grim scowled as a reaper with an enormous brain stepped up and grabbed Scythe 2.0. "You wouldn't believe what the pain of drifting through the cold vacuum of space for several years will do to your mind"
Half of Morg's brain was black and frostbitten, Mindy fought the urge to vomit. She felt her stomach sink when Irwin, Hoss, and Scarr were led before the throne. Eris smile and sat up straight. "Well Underfist, I know what you must be thinking, you think that since two of your members are still free that they'll stop us and you'll save the day," she said, looking at her nails.
"How did you know my secret thoughts?" Hoss asked, mildly surprised.
Eris laughed softly. "I know everything about you my dear, have you forgotten all those months we shared a bed?" she asked mockingly.
"We dated?"
"Briefly, but it wasn't without its benefits," Eris replied, looking down at him.
Boogey chuckled. "Don't worry about your friends too much Underfools, I have Creeper and the rest of my boys tearing Endsville apart looking for them."
"You'll never get away with this!" Irwin shouted. "Jeff and Fred will save us! Mindy will help them I know she will!"
Mindy felt her heart break as the trio were led away. Flying back towards Billy's house she flew low and kept having to hide as Boogey's pirate combed the city. Finally arriving at Billy's house she opened the basement window and quickly ducked inside. To find Jeff waiting.
"Mindy you're back! Where are the others?" he asked.
Mindy bit her lip as she saw the hopeful look in the spider's eyes. "They've been captured and taken to the coliseum by Eris," she said, before scanning the room. "Where's Fred?"
Jeff pointed to where the green elephant was curled up in the clothes hamper with Milkshakes. "He keeps asking when we can go home but I keep stalling," Jeff said, when he turned to look at his friend Mindy saw two of his arms were missing. "What do we do? They have Irwin, and Hoss, and Scarr, and even dad"
Mindy looked out the window at the roving monsters tearing up the neighborhood, how long until they were found she couldn't say, Creeper passed by the house and immediately her eyes were drawn to a large metal collar with a blinking red light in the middle, apparently Boogie wasn't taking any chances of Creeper turning on him again.
"I don't know Jeff, I just don't know," she said. Wondering how it had all come to this.
4 months ago
"How much are those nachos?" Fred asked the vendor of the nacho stand for the 6th time.
"5 dollars," he replied, barely hiding the anger in his voice at the green elephant thing.
"And how much are those chili fries?"
"Also 5 dollars, now are you gonna buy something or just keep asking how much everything is?"
Fred scratched his head with his trunk. "Um, can I borrow 5 dollars?"
Jeff walked out of the frozen yogurt shop carrying for cups of the delicious frozen treat, a cup of chocolate and mint for Fred, Orange for Irwin, Lime for Scarr, and tootie fruity for himself. "I wonder where Fred ran off to?" his question was answered by a loud crash and he looked to see Fred being stuffed head fist into a trashcan by an extremely angry guy wearing an apron. Walking over Jeff poked Fred's foot, causing his friend to giggle and kick his feet. "You ok Fred?"
"I didn't get any nachos, yes," he said, before Jeff heard the sound of Fred chewing something. "But I did find some green pizza in this trashcan, yes."
"That's cool Fred, but I have your frozen yogurt-"
At the mention of frozen yogurt Fred began to rapidly kick his feet back and forth, causing the trashcan to fall over. "I want frozen yogurt! Yes" when his feet touched the ground Fred ran towards where Jeff was standing, but missed and ran into a wall and fell down. "Why do I taste copper? Yes"
After several minutes of pulling Jeff finally managed to pull Fred free and the two made their way back to base.
Irwin was finishing up his history report on the Endsville Donut Riot of 1996 when the door opened and Jeff and Fred came in with the frozen yogurt. "Thanks yo," Irwin said, as he began to eat his treat.
"Where's mine?" Scarr asked, as he came into the kitchen.
"Fred has it," Jeff said, pointing to Fred, who had eaten his already and then began eating Scarr's yogurt.
"Why you little!" Fred screamed and took off running with Scarr right behind him. "You're only making this harder on yourself when I catch you!"
"I see you didn't get my frozen yogurt," Hoss said, sitting down at the table.
Jeff shrugged. "The Color Purple isn't a frozen yogurt flavor Hoss, sorry"
The monster hunter shrugged. "It's ok spider, I'll just eat this history of the Endsville Donut Riot of 1996," before Irwin could stop him, Hoss balled the pages of his history report and began to eat it. "Needs more donut in it."
"Hoss! That was my history report!"
Before anything could escalate any farther the alarm began to go off, and the team was forced to quickly suit up, as the computer screen turned on to reveal Mandy. "Underfist, I have a mission for you and-"
"- is it a mission at the petting zoo? I like going to feed the goats and the rabbits, but not the chickens cause some kid in a green jacket always takes them all for himself, yes"
Mandy reached through the screen and slapped Fred. "No, your mission will take you out into the desert, as we have reason to believe that monster chickens genetically created during the Cold War are still alive."
"Didn't you Grim, and Billy cook them all in that volcano yo?" Irwin asked, referencing a failed field trip.
"We did, but it looks like we missed some as people have reported seeing giant chickens in the area, so I need you morons to go find out what's going on out in that volcano base. Dismissed"
"Visualize what you want your magic to do before you fire the wand," Enchantra had been teaching Mindy how to better control her new wand's magic and not end up creating monsters every time she used it to do magic. Waving the wand Mindy fired a spell at a tree, but; at the very last second a squirrel scurried down the side and was hit and in a bright flash of magical energy what was in its place was a piece of cheese with a bushy tail.
Mindy looked up at the older witch. "At least it didn't turn into a-" the cheese suddenly began to quiver and shake before a bright pair of red eyes grew out of the top and long stringy arms and legs popped out of the shifting mass of half dairy product half squirrel thing. Now mobile the cheese abomination ran off into the nearby bushes and vanished. "- Nevermind."
Enchantra squeezed the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger while silently counting to 10 in her head. "Ok, let's take a break and try again after lunch."
Mindy looked down at the wand. "I don't get it, I never had this problem when I used my broom to cast spells!" she exclaimed, tossing the wand down, almost immediately a coldness quickly filled her body like she'd been dropped into a pool filled with ice. She felt her legs begin to weaken and nearly fell on her face. Her arms began to spasm as a cold sweat broke out on her forehead. "What- what's wrong- with-"
Reaching down she grabbed the wand in her quivering and unsteady hands, and like magic she felt perfectly fine. Wiping the sweat from her forehead Mindy plopped down on her butt and looked at the wand. The power she felt flowing into her hand felt good. Clutching the wand to her chest Mindy stood up. "This wand is making me stronger, I can feel it. I need to get better using it."
"And that's why you shouldn't have eaten my history report Hoss," Irwin said as Jeff parked the Fistmobile.
Hoss stood up and stretched. "Your right Irwin, that 4 hour discussion really opened my eyes to your feelings," he said, tightening his metal hand.
Scarr scoffed as he loaded several blasters onto his belt. "It made me want to retch," a tugging at his shirt caught his attention, and he looked down to see Fred.
"Can I have a blaster too Scarr? Yes," Scarr fought the urge to slap the elephant thing, before reaching into his pocket and pulling out a pop gun with a cork jammed in the end.
"Here, don't shoot what little brains you have out," he said, tossing the toy to Fred, who immediately pulled the trigger, sending the cork ricocheting around the cabin, before it came to rest in Scarr's good eye. "My eye! I'm blind!"
The rest of Underfist exited the Fistmobile as Scarr continued crashing around blindly in his pain. "You think Scarr will be ok?" Jeff asked, looking back at the Fistmobile. "I don't think it's safe to leave him alone out here."
The volcano loomed in front of them and seemed to stretch up into the night sky as a full moon climbed high above them. Hoss looked around, before receding his metal hand and pulling out a flashlight, and bringing out his blaster. "He'll be fine, as long as there aren't any Were Moles around here," he said, as he walked towards the volcano.
Irwin jumped on top of Jeff's back when a coyote suddenly howled. "This is creepy yo," he said, as Jeff reached up and patted him on the head.
"There's nothing to be scared of out her Irwin," Jeff said, as something quickly ran behind him in the darkness. "Right Fred? Fred?"
Turning around the two were surprised to see Fred had vanished. Hoss turned around and sniffed the air. "You smell that?" he asked.
"Pee?" Irwin asked.
"No, it smells….. Like chicken," Hoss suddenly fired a shot from his wrist blaster into the darkness, and to Irwin's horror the flash reveal several large and very ferocious chickens. "Who's your Colonel?!"
Jeff acted quickly leaped up into the air, causing Irwin to accidentally fly off, and only saved himself by changing into a bat at the last second. His moment of respite was short lived as large eggs began to whiz past him. He ducked and weaved several before one finally found its mark and hit him. Irwin went into a tailspin and bounced off the roof of the Fistmobile and then came crashing to the ground, the egg that hit him landed nearby and Irwin was glad it hadn't broke when it hit him as the yolk began to sizzle and eat a hole in the ground.
As he shakily sat up Irwin felt his stomach sink as several large shapes came toward him from the darkness. The door to the Fistmobile bust open and Scarr hopped out firing a blaster in each hand. "Get away from him you clucks!" he shouted, as one of his shots hit one of the monster chickens, causing it to be disintegrated. "Irwin! Get up quickly and fight!"
Standing up Irwin transformed into his mummy form and began firing bandages that wrapped the chickens up, allowing Scarr and Hoss to blast them. Raising both of his hands he summoned a wave of scarab beetles to swarm the monstrous poultry, after several seconds the chickens retreated towards the volcano. "Good work Irwin," Jeff said, as he popped several scarabs into his mouth and chewed them like candy.
"Where were you?" Irwin asked, as Jeff snatched several more handfuls of scarabs out of the air. "Why didn't you help us?"
"Gee Irwin I'm sorry," he said, looking ashamed. "I was trying to find Fred, I hope those giant chickens didn't get him."
Hoss came over and flicked a beetle off of his shoulder. "They probably grabbed him when they first found us," he said, turning to look at the volcano. "It looks like we have a second objective now, they've taken one of our own, they made this personal. Will we let them get away with this?"
"No!" Irwin and Jeff shouted together, Scarr only crossed his arms.
"What? He shot me in my good eye," he said, before groaning in defeat. "Fine, lets go save him."
"Jeff, radio President Mandy and let her know what happened, Irwin, you fly up and take a look around and make sure those putrid poultry are really gone, Scarr, you and I will set up a perimeter of auto turrets to guard the Fistmobile, we don't need those chickens or Jehovah's Witnesses making off with our wheels."
"Your sure they captured Fred? Ok Jeff, I'm sending you some backup," Mandy said, nodding to the two figures standing in front of her desk, both bowed before walking through a portal Grim opened with his scythe. "Make sure to be on your guard, those chickens are dangerous, I feel like there's something else going on here. Report back once the mission's complete. Mandy out."
Mandy hung up the phone and leaned back in her chair. "You ok Mandy?" Grim asked.
"I don't know how, but I suspect those chickens aren't back by accident," she said.
End Chapter 2
