Thank you knew reviewer! I've been on holiday for three weeks, but now I'm back and, evading the lure of playing Metroid Prime: Hunters for the rest of the holiday, I've instead come and written a new chapter (hooray).

I'm aware that the opening is somewhat cliché. But if you laugh at that, I know I'm good.

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Chapter 8, In Which Salami Amok Hunts the First of Mother Lung's Generals.

The Furry Bolrat is a small, mostly blind creature that lives in the caverns of Chibis. They stand about 30cm high, possess a stubby tail and four flat feet (not much in the way of legs); they're barrel-chested, unintelligent and have a disproportionately large appetite.

They are also very, very furry.

Wawkgrr was a prime example of Furry Bolrat. He had a chest you could store rum in. He had perfected the 'flat-footed traipsing gait' (the traditional walking style of the Furry Bolrat) to an art-form. Not only was his tail stubby, it stuck out at an angle that made stalking predators embarrassed. He also had enough fur to outfit a small army of Supermodels (and with the galaxy as it was, SUPERmodel really meant something).

His fur was very long and very straight. It had to be. Furry Bolrats were notorious for killing off any of their Skangle (the official name for a family group of Bolrats) whose fur was too short, too messy or in any other way unsatisfying.

Wawkgrr was also stupider than a brick made of marshmallow. This was also a very satisfying trait in a Furry Bolrat. Wawkgrr had been watching a particular door for 11 months. Every day, from dawn until dusk, he'd stand outside the door, waiting for someone to come through it, so that he could grab them and carry them triumphantly back to the Skangle, where he'd be praised for his excellent hunting prowess and unfathomable patience (the latter being very important to Furry Bolrats when it came to hunting). He understood that doors were made to be walked through, and, he mused, sooner or later, someone was bound to walk through this one. For of course, why would there be a door there at all if no one was going to walk through it?

The only thing that puzzled him was how someone would walk through the door. All his research on the subject suggested that walking through solid objects was a very difficult thing to do, and he would be quite impressed to witness the event himself.

And so for 11 months he'd lurked by the door, just waiting. For 11 months he'd listened to the lazy, northern accents of the air turtles as they circled above him. For 11 months, all was still; day after day he watched the door remain firmly solid. Day after day he returned to the Skangle, unsuccessful, but too thick to consider not coming back tomorrow.

Today, it would be different.

To Wawkgrr's great surprise, the door opened. Suddenly it all made sense.

A creature with two arms, two legs, and what appeared to be a very complicated shell stepped through the door. Wawkgrr saw the fact that the creature was totally furless as a personal insult. But then it hit him: this was his moment. This was what he'd waited 11 months for! This was his time to shine! This was his moment of glory!

Failing to notice the over-excited Furry Bolrat, Salami Amok stepped into the room and tripped over it.

Wawkgrr's fur stood up on end, he omitted a growl that reverberated deep in the barrel of his chest, and he twisted round and latched his teeth into the creature's shin. For the greater good, it may have been better that he didn't understand the word his catch announced at that point.

Salami Amok was already none too pleased, and having a small, ugly and very, very furry creature latch on to his shin like it was top of the food chain really took the biscuit.

Making angry noises, he began swinging his foot around wildly until the Bolrat lost its grip and crashed through a door at the opposite side of the room, which instantly closed.

VVVVVV

Wawkgrr skidded to a halt on his back in the centre of a raised circular platform in the middle of a very shiny room. By the time he'd flipped himself back over, a glass tube had lowered from the ceiling and trapped him on the platform. A voice spoke in a language he didn't recognise. "Welcome to Bozo Shave Room #78. Bozo Shave Rooms have been used by the planets most influential leaders for over three hundred years. Do you want to shave Yes/No?"

"Aroo?"

"You have selected 'Yes'. Please select your shave setting from lengths one to five, with 5 being a trim and 1 being a close shave."

"Wawk!" announced Wawkgrr, puzzled by the strange voice.

"You have selected level 1. Close shave. Please remain still while the operation commences."

Brightly coloured laser beams filled the inside of the tube. Wawkgrr's screams echoed throughout the caverns of Chibis.

VVVVVV

Salami Amok, meanwhile, was finding out that when air turtles were shot with 5 kilograms of high-speed uncooked rice, they instantly stopped moving and began looking around, trying to work out what was going on. This provided the bounty hunter with the platforms he required to reach the top of the cavern, where a door stretched back over the treetop challenge. Passing through, he found himself in a cavern much like the one below, except devoid of the net. Several creatures drifted lazily over the mud and, with experimentation, Amok found that by firing rice from the Rice Beam into the mud, he could distract them long enough to use their backs as stepping stones.

He slipped off of the second creature he attempted to stand on and, finding the mud to be only a few inches deep, proceeded to tramp through it as it messed up the feet of his powersuit.

He reached the other side of the room, shot the power door with his Pwoar Beam, and stepped through. He found himself face to… knee, with a standing Bozo statue. It glared at him murderously. (You're getting mud everywhere. Do you know how hard it is for me to clean this place?) Salami Amok ignored the disgruntled monument and stepped past it. Had the statue had the necessary joints, it would have tried to stop him. (Do you even know where you're going?)

The bounty hunter paused, thoughtfully. "No." He continued on his way.

Had the statue possessed the necessary joints, it would have turned to face him. The only joints it did possess allowed it to stand up, sit down and do a short, but very entertaining Bozo dance called the Alkee-Calkee Tonga. (Well, I was going to tell you how you could bypass the space parrot security system and reach Mother Lung, but if you're not interested…) It let that hang.

Amok considered. "Oh well, I'm sure I'll work it out."

The statue looked puzzled. It hadn't been made for audiences as tough as this. The Bozo's had never quite grasped the concept of 'bad moods'. It considered doing its dance, but decided that it might not be suitable. (Uh… Aren't you meant to apologise at this point and beg me to tell you?)

"Go erode yourself."

The statue was somewhat taken aback. (Well, how about if I just tell you then? I mean, the only reason I was made at all was to tell you… well, that and the parties.) It sighed reminiscently. (Oh, what days those were. If you want I'll dance for you afterwards.)

Salami Amok sighed. It had never been quite satisfying, arguing with the statues. They never seemed to get the concept of it right. But even they were better than the Bozos. "Fine, fine… But no good-old-day talks."

The statue discarded its current trail of thought, and made a hasty rewrite of the conversation that would follow. (Yes, well, uh,) It stalled, (Well then, uh… I mean…) It bounced up and down on its knees and was glad the hunter was still behind it. (Well, the uh, the parrots secured Mother Lung and the mermoids… That is to say, there's this big metal place to the east of here. Someone said you went there; saw the big statue with the purple eyes, yeah? Well, behind that is the big metal place with the mermoids and Mother Lung. Well, ya see, the statue is a statue of the first of Mother Lung's generals… Are you following this?)

"Mother Lung's first general has three eyes and a beak."

(Something like that, yeah. Well, there are two generals and two statues; one of each of them. And when you find and fight the general, the statue moves and lets you past. Got all that?)

Amok hadn't, but he had an idea that the statue was getting close to resorting to the 'back in my day' speech. "Right, so to reach Mother Lung, I have to…"

(Find and defeat the two generals.) It finished, satisfied. (And I can tell you where to find the first.)

"The one with three eyes and a beak?"

(That's the one. See, you go back to the passage to arrived at Brisket in, with the neevils, and just before you come to the shrine to The Awesome Elvera, Goddess of Beef, starting form here that is, you'll find a room with lots of those blocks of, uh, mud. And if you smash the… mud, with your bombs, you'll find a shaft that leads to the lair of Rayd, Mother Lung's first General.)

And so, Salami Amok began his hunt for the first of Mother Lung's generals. Well, that is, after getting the statue to repeat the instructions 9 times before he worked it out. When at last he understood, Amok had one last question.

"So, you got any upgrades or anything I can use?"

(Is the gift of knowledge not help enough?)

Amok considered. "Not really, no."

The statue looked awkward (Well, if you like, I know this dance…)

VVVVVV

Having watched a very entertaining dance and bothering a couple of air turtles, Salami Amok emerged at the top of the shaft with the wooden staircase. He descended quickly to the cavern floor and entered the cave with the cottage. With renewed vigour, he sprinted across the farm yard sending chickens scattering in panic, leapt madly onto the cottage roof, scrambled up the top with the help of the Supreme-o Grip, leapt off the top and landed with a muffled thud on top of one of the fluffy cloud-like creatures that had been eating the petunias in the garden.

Looking rather embarrassed, the hunter climbed off of the dazed animal, sidled through the gate, closing it carefully, and stepped into the lift that carried him once more into Brisket. Behind him, the reality functions whirred and the gate swung open.

Brisket

At the bottom of the shaft that had carried Salami Amok up to the room where he'd discovered the Long Beam, the neevils waited. Since their last disastrous confrontation with the bounty hunter, they'd been planning and, despite an unpleasant interruption by a pile of bondals, they were at last, ready. Every neevil in the colony, from the oldest to the youngest, the greatest warrior to the biggest sissy, were hidden in cracks and behind rocks in the passage. Every one of them had been told the plan over and over again until it was chiselled onto the insides of their exoskeletons. For the last few hours the signal had been repeated until they would have recognised it from fifty miles away or written in Morse code.

In the centre of the cave sat the pride and joy of the colony: a Bozo energy tank. The trap was baited. Their plan was perfect.

This time, the hunter would fall.

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Be afraid!

But not so afraid that you can't write a tasty new review. isn't letting me edit this chapter properly for some reason, so if there's any punctuation mistakes, especially round the statue's speech, just ignore it?