Next chapter! Let's do this! (Btw, Collin's back!)
While the Illiteracy Cult was being beamed up, it was silent.
Although everyone seemed to be screaming or yelling something, nothing could be heard.
Bart in particular seemed to be extensively explaining something.
Salsa looked like she was still coming to terms with her life and Eva was joining her.
Jim was attempting to eat the bagel.
Joe looked like he was just screaming.
Guac was saying something that was probably along the lines of avocado themed curses from her mouth movement.
Dimitri was thinking about what he would have for dinner.
Then as they neared the spaceship, their bodies grew longer as they picked up speed until the phased though the bottom of the craft to the inside.
They all landed easily on green carpet, standing as if they hadn't moved an inch.
Then suddenly they could hear themselves again and the room was filled with loud girly screaming and avocado profanity.
Once everyone realized they had reached the spaceship, they quieted down.
Except for Bart, who finished her speech by loudly saying, "And that's how I became friends with Satan and almost blew the world!"
It was quiet as everyone stared at her.
"Wait, what?" Eva said raising an eyebrow.
Bart brushed off her confusion with a hand wave, "Oh nothing, I can tell you about it later."
"Dàjiā hǎo!" (Aka: "Hey guys!") The giant phone was back.
"How did you find us?!" Dimitri exclaimed.
"Naneun amsoga natanagi jeon-e nabchidoeeossda. Geuleona amudo nunchi chaeji moshaessseubnida." (Aka: "I was kidnapped before the cow appeared. But nobody noticed.") The phone said this nonchalant.
Dimitri frowned, "What?"
Eva pulled out her phone, "Don't worry. I'll translate."
After a few awkward seconds, Eva spoke up.
"Okay so the phone- Heck, it's an Apple phone, so I'll just call them Siri- said this: 'Hey guys.' and 'I was kidnapped before the cow appeared but nobody noticed.' "
Siri nodded, which looked odd since they're a phone.
"Je devrais vous assommer maintenant, avant que les extraterrestres me mangent à la place." (aka: "I should knock you out now, before the aliens eat me instead.") Siri said before a sudden green gas came up from the previously unnoticed vents in the back of her phone case.
"What's going on!?" Salsa exclaimed covering her mouth and nose.
"Is this poisonous?!" Guac said trying to get away from the vents.
Eva used her translator. "Siri has been sent to knock us out! Cover your mouths and noses everyone!"
The teens slowly started to collapse as the gas entered their lungs.
"Screw, you, Siri…" Dimitri mumbled before falling unconscious as his vision turned black.
Eventually, it was bright again, and Dimitri became conscious again and aware of his own existence, and almost regretted it as he looked around, and found himself in a gigantic cage.
In a kitchen.
Full of giant walking rainbow chickens.
"Um." he said, hoping that somebody would jump out and yell "Happy April Fools!"
The room was large and towering, and the chickens were far larger than he was. There was a big Panera bag next to his cage, filled with lots and lots of bagels, labeled "BAIT" in large Sharpie.
Well, that explained something.
A few little baby rainbow chickens stopped by his cage.
"Ooooo, earthlings for dinner?" squealed one, hopping up and down.
"The Martians are more crunchy." complained the one in the back.
"Hey, at least it isn't fried asteroids again." said one optimistically, cocking its head at the prisoners.
"Bleh." all the rest said in agreement.
All he wanted to do was scam people on a stupid street corner. Was that too much to ask?
He didn't have much time to contemplate his own increasingly bizarre life path before Joe piped up.
"Aren't people supposed to eat chickens, and, like not the other way around?" asked Joe.
"Mommy!" shouted one of the little baby chickens in a tattling voice, "Dinner is calling us chickens again!"
"Just let them know we are aliens, dear." shouted the mother from the kitchen.
"Yeah, what she said!" shouted one in agreement.
"Not chickens!" said one.
"Chickens are ridiculous and stupid and get fried in the oven!" shouted another.
"What sort of decent chef fries food in the oven?" muttered Guac.
The Billies murmured in agreement.
"Where else would you fry food?" one of the chickens said in confusion.
"In the fryer?" suggested Dimitri.
"I always fry my green beans in the bathtub." said Bart, with a rather confused look on her face, "Where else?"
Salsa raised her eyebrows slightly.
They never got to finish this increasingly strange conversation, as a deep male rooster voice came from the living room "Alice, Annie, Anastasia, get down here!"
"Yes, Papa!" they said in unison, and skipped off on their little chicken legs, and calling over their shoulders "Bye-bye dinner!" and "You better be extra-crunchy, earthlings!"
Eva watched them leave. "I would almost call them adorable if they weren't planning to eat us."
"We have got to get out of here." said Salsa, eying the bars on the cage.
"I was not planning to become earthling-sauté." mumbled Billee.
"Guacamole burrito." swore Guac.
"Maybe I can help?" a small voice said.
Everyone jumped in surprise, and turned to see Collin outside of the cage.
"Collin!" Salsa gasped in surprise.
"Oh yeah, I totally forgot you existed," Dimitri said.
"No offense." he added when he saw Salsa and Guac glaring at him.
Collin frowned and turned towards the others.
"Aaaanyways, I found the escape pods on the edge of the ship, and I know just how to distract the chickens when they are supposed to be cooking you!"
"And," he added, lowering his voice, "if everything goes wrong I grabbed your flute weapons and some knives from the kitchen!"
He popped out five piccolos and ten small kitchen knives into the cage from his toaster tray.
"Good luck." he whispered, grabbing a Panera bag. "I have a plan."
"There's our little Collin all grown up." said Billee with tears in his eyes.
"I'm so proud." sniffled Billy.
"HE WAS SO LITTLE" said Billie, wiping his face with Kleenex he pulled from his pocket.
"Panera bags." mumbled Salsa thoughtfully.
She caught Eva's eye. "Are you thinking what I am thinking?"
Eva shot her a knowing smirk.
Dimitri looked at them in absolute confusion. Girls. He thought to himself, I will never understand them.
Meanwhile, a very large rainbow hen was heating a vat of hot oil over the stove.
Almost time. She thought, satisfied as little bubbles were shooting to the surface like small comets.
She looked at warming oil, and at the 5 minute timer she had set, as was specified in the recipe.
Five more minutes to live.
She could already taste the fried edges of earthling in her mouth. Her stomach grumbled.
What the heck, screw this. She turned off the timer, and turned to the living room.
"Annie, Alice, Anastasia! Time to eat!" she shouted.
"What about me?" rumbled the deep voice of the rooster.
"You too, Bill!" she shouted.
"That's better." he said.
"And bring dinner!" she added.
"Sure thing!"
As he promised, Bill brought in the cage with the small earthlings within.
"LET US GO!" exclaimed Jim, pulling at the metal bars.
"Dude, I can't believe we even share a name!" said Billy, shocked.
Billie began "Yeah, that's the worst— AAAAAAHHHHH!"
Bill had shook the cage to shut them up. "Quiet, small and crunchy earthlings."
"Actually, I think I'm fairly stringy—" began Dimitri, before Bill shook the cage again, making everyone scream again, and hold on tighter for dear life.
"Sorry, guys." winced Dimitri, rubbing his head, and feeling fairly useless for a main character.
"When will we cook them, Mommy?" asked one of the little baby chickens adorably.
"Right now." she said confidently, "Bill, hand me the cage."
Come on, now would be a really good time, Collin! Please PLEASE move your small metallic butt! Thought Dimitri desperately, as the cage became suspended over the hot, bubbling liquid.
C-c-come on, c-c-come on—
WHOOSH!
Collin flew into the room gracefully, holding a bag from which a delicious aroma was emitting.
Bill and his wife turned around.
"What is that delicious smell?" the hen asked, cocking her rainbow head to one side.
"What's that?" "Oooo, smells really really yummy!" "Mmm Mmm!" chirped Annie, Alice, and Anastasia.
"These are called bagels, strange aliens!" exclaimed Collin.
Bill set down the cage next to the hot oil, which was uncomfortably hot, but of course none of them complained. A few more inches to the left and it could have been much more uncomfortable for them.
Collin pulled out a perfectly sliced, toasted, and buttered bagel, and tossed it to the little baby chickens, who giggled and scuffled over the bagel.
"Let me taste some!" "What could this be?" "Mmmmmmmm, it smells... buttery!"
Collin grinned, and his eyes flickered over the cage, where Salsa was desperately trying to pick the lock with a bobby pin.
Right.
"Want a bagel?" offered Collin to the mother hen.
"I like bagels." added Bill helpfully.
The mother hen's eyes narrowed.
"This is a trick, isn't it?" she asked.
DARN IT! Stop being smart and just TAKE THE DARN BAGEL! thought Collin desperately.
"Honey, he's offering us food." said Bill reasonably, surprised his wife would be so rude to someone bearing the gift of such a delicious delicacy.
"No, he's in league with the earthlings!" she insisted, not falling for the trick.
"No food?" said Bill, frowning as if he really was disappointed that Collin wasn't his friend.
Collin would have almost felt sorry, had Bill not been prepared to fry his friends alive a few minutes ago.
"Yes food!" said Collin, nodding his head desperately, and trying to look convincing.
"The small android is planning to take our food," rumbled the large rooster gravely "CHILDREN, ATTACK!"
"BAGEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!" screamed the little baby chickens as their war cry, as they launched themselves at the poor little toaster oven.
"NOOOOOOOOOO!" screamed little Collin, feeling his stainless steel sides being scored with the claws of young chickens.
Fortunately, the little toaster oven was faster than they were, and zoomed across the hall, and down into the escape pod room as quickly as his small wings would allow him to.
He hit the giant red "EJECT" button, detaching the small aircraft into space, before suddenly realizing that:
His friends were stranded in the kitchen of crazy rainbow aliens that were likely to eat them alive and
He had no idea how to fly an escape pod.
Crap.
Poor little Collin flew across the control panel, struggling to find something remotely earth-like that he might understand.
After passing a large purple button with a hamburger on it, a few tubes with pictures of doorknobs on them (Collin really didn't know what to make of that.) and what appeared to be a steering wheel, but was locked in place, Collin stumbled upon a keyboard.
YESSSSSSSSS!
He leaned forward and tapped the forward key.
The spacecraft lurched forward.
Alright, I'VE GOT THIS!
Collin jammed the left arrow, effectively halfway-crashing into the spaceship, where Anastasia, Annie, and Alice were watching him with shock printed clearly on their faces.
Wrong left.
He steered the escape pod as quickly around the ship as he could, because he had a plan, and he was going to save his friends, even if they are really just a group of weird human/demigods that he met around a week ago.
He twisted mid-space, and shot straight into the kitchen, spam-clicking the space bar, and knocking in the entire wall, and toppling over the hot oil onto the mother hen and Bill.
"AAAAHHHHHH! WE ARE TURNING INTO FRIED CHICKEN!" they yelled.
(How ironic.)
One last thing to do.
Collin made a sharp turn to the right, and ran directly into the metal cage where his friends were.
"ARE YOU CRAZY?!" exclaimed Salsa.
"WE'RE GONNA DIE!" yelled Jim.
"WE HAVEN'T EVEN SAVED THE WORLD YET!" screamed Eva.
"I'M TOO YOUNG TO DIE!" wailed Dimitri.
"FAREWELL CRUEL WORLD! YOU NEVER UNDERSTOOD ME ANYWAYS!" said Bart melodramatically.
CRASH!
The giant metal bars that had held the Illiteracy Cult & Friends in for so long broke apart on contact.
"FREEEEDOOOOOOOMMMMM!" said Joe waving around his arms like a crazy person, almost falling over the edge of the spacecraft into the massive cold and dark void of space before Salsa grabbed his arm.
WHAT IS HE DOING thought Collin in dismay.
"GET IN THE ESCAPE POD, IDIOTS!" yelled Collin at the group of crazy hooligans that somehow did not die this far through the story, making the Billies dab at their eyes with more Kleenex and reminisce over how Collin has grown. The group hustled into the small spacecraft, Collin shut the door quickly, and then made a turn so sharp that Jim's face smacked the window and the whole cargo of people very nearly fell over.
"When we picked him up in the yard that day, we did not know he was this crazy a driver!" exclaimed Billee, as Collin jammed the space bar once again as they went hurtling towards Earth.
"Next stop: Russia!" Collin shouted on a whim.
"Russia? Why is Russia, of all places, where you want to go?" Eva asked as she tried to push Dimitri off of her and back into his seat.
Collin shrugged, "Because I owe Demeter some vodka over a bet on how much toast I could fit in me."
"Wait, what?" Salsa asked, but before anyone could answer Collin went to light speed as they flew closer and closer to Earth.
Somewhere deep in the dungeon of the alien spaceship, the FBI was sitting in a cage wondering what they did to deserve this.
"Why are we in here again?" mumbled Jason in confusion.
"Because the gods have decided to make my life living Hades." Ashley mumbled before slumping against the cage bars.
"And also because Agent 509 decided to go and take the bagel." noted the intern in the back.
"Shut it, kid. That bagel looked real nice." said Agent 509.
"Am I the only one who remembers that we can only eat zucchini, because of the curse?" asked another agent.
"It's literally the top news story across the globe." said another agent, pulling out their phone and scrolling through Google. "Fox News: Zucchiniville Curse: Inhabitants Rioting Over Disgusting, Tasteless Food. CNN: Bakers and Farmers Go Out of Business, No More Customers After Zucchini Crisis. WTOP: Zucchiniville Athena Temple Mobbed After Recent Curse. Washington Post: Zucchini Business Booming After Recent Crisis."
"Wow." said Ashley, "Who know that aliens had cell service?"
She was also amazed at the sequence of events that had prispired in their absence. Usually they never missed this much, especially being a top federal intelligence organization (not freezer burritos, no matter what those undereducated "Illiteracy Cult" kids might say).
"Yeah, you have exceptional wifi connection considering that we are in outer space." said Jason, observant for once.
"Nah, Verizon doesn't reach out here." the agent answered, "I just connected to some random open WiFi network labeled 'Crunchy Earthlings.' Who knows what that's about, anyways?"
"Gee, I wonder." said Ashley sarcastically.
"Crunchy. Wonderful." said Agent 509, leaning back against the cage in joy.
"I bet those aliens even forgot they abducted us. It wouldn't be the first time," Ashley said with a sigh.
"Well, what should we do now?" Jason said asking his superior for guidance.
Ashley turned to see everyone staring at her expectedly.
"Don't look at me. I already have my own book to worry about, solve your own sub-plot." Suddenly a tiny wormhole appeared in the cage and the FBI agents, excluding Ashley, scrambled back in surprise.
"What is that?!" Jason exclaimed.
"That's my ride." Ashley said walking through.
She turned and saluted them mockingly, "You're own your own now. Bye!"
And then the wormhole closed and disappeared as if it had never been there.
The FBI agents looked at each other in confusion.
"Well, now what?" said Jason.
The intern pulled out a bagel. "Want one?"
Jason stared at the bread, before he shrugged.
"Sure, why not," and he leaned in to take a bite, only to recoil as it refused to enter his mouth, almost as if there was an invisible force field.
He glared up at the sky accusingly.
"Thanks a lot, Athena."
Dimitri groaned in pain as he slowly regained consciousness.
I really need to stop losing consciousness so often. This can't be healthy.
He groaned again and blearily took in his surroundings.
He felt hard, damp stone beneath him, and he rubbed his eyes in confusion. The last time he was conscious, large chickens were trying to eat him, and then he was hurtling into space. Then he realized that there was a dragon staring at him.
Well, I suppose my life was good while it lasted. Other than getting kicked out of home by my crazy dad, and maybe never getting to eat burritos again, life was good.
The dragon saw he was awake and growled, its eyes narrowed to slits before it roared loudly waking the others near him.
"WHO? WHAT? WHER— AH! A DRAGON!" Jim yelled and scrambled to hide behind Dimitri, ducking to hide his dirt-stained face and bright neon t-shirt behind Dimitri.
"Where are we? And stop telling Jim," Salsa said as she got into a sitting position on the ground near a groaning Joe.
"Why is it since I've met you people I keep waking up in weird places?" Eva said rubbing her head as she felt a headache coming on.
"At least there's no alien chickens this time." Guac said helpfully as she helped her to her feet.
"Just a dragon," said Joe and the others turned to look at the beast.
"Oh yeah, forgot about that." Guac said thoughtfully.
It was silent as everyone took in the cave and dragon glaring down at them.
"Is that… egg nog?" Salsa asked in confusion.
Dimitri raised an eyebrow and looked behind the dragon to indeed see a tray of eggnog refreshments.
"Yes, yes it is."
A woman wearing a big wool coat and bear fur mittens walked out from behind the dragon and smiled at the frightened teens as she carried the tray over.
"It is much cheaper to get off season. Want some?"
To Be Continued...