Heroes and world leaders weren't the only ones having meetings in Dunwyn that day. Mary was right; Clayton and Mechanicles had retreated to Dunwyn, the run-down slum-like section of the city where no decent citizen would venture into, but was the perfect hiding place for those two. And unfortunately, they were not alone.
At the end of a cobbled street with broken stones and gutters filled with trash and filth stood a small shack with broken glass in the windows and a door just barely hanging on its hinges. The royal building inspectors of Dunwyn had declared this building as unsafe; no one was supposed to go near it. If they could look in now, they would see a cluster of villains from across the Disney Sector of Toon World. Disney villains worked together better than most other bad guys and this was not the first time they had joined forces for a common goal. Still, evil beings are generally not team players, and as they crowded inside the shack, listening to the report of their companions' failed mission, they argued hotly amongst themselves.
"…and then those horrible, dirty children destroyed my beautiful creation," whined Mechanicles, gently rubbing the head of his robotic centipede as if it were a lap dog. "We had no choice but to retreat."
"The bottom line is you failed miserably," said Jafar, the sinister ex-Grand Vizier of Agrabah. His black robes made him look like a towering shadow. The eyes of the snake staff in his hands glowed blood red as he gazed down at the cowering Greek inventor.
"I knew this rusted hunk of junk wouldn't be able to do the job," spouted Dr. Facilier, a thin, tan skinned voodoo witch doctor. A wave of his hand and a puff of purple smoke filled the air. The smoke acted like a screen, allowing everyone to see how easy Tony had been able to rip through the belly of Mechanicles' centipede. The picture changed and showed Mary's fight with Clayton. Facilier pointed his staff at the fuming hunter and said, "And this one didn't do any better."
"It wasn't my fault," raged Clayton. He swept his hand through the air and dissipated the cloud of magic smoke. "It was that new Toon Master and his companion. We had not been warned that they would be here."
"Stop making excuses," said Gaston, a big game hunter like Clayton. His red tunic fit closely to his skin to better show off his muscular physique. There was a look of madding superiority on his face. "You call yourself a hunter? You couldn't handle two children. Now, if I had been there, I would have found these Gummi Bears things and defeated the Toon Master."
"If you had been there, you'd have spent all your time admiring yourself in the water," said McLeach, a third hunter. Unlike both Clayton and Gaston, McLeach was not as physically fit; he even had a bit of a potbelly. He was still a formidable tracker though and preferred to catch his prey using traps rather than stalking them. "I'd have had those Bears by now. I bet their pelts are worth quite a bit on the black market."
"This arguing is pointless," snapped Yzma, the decrepit old woman who longed to be an Empress. Her face cracked into a hundred wrinkles as she spoke. "We're wasting our time on a wild goose chase. We can't even be sure these Gummi Bears exist."
Duke Igthorn, the deposed knight of Dunwyn, stepped forward and venomously defended against Yzma's accusation. "I told you; they are real. I've seen them with my own eyes."
"So, all we have is you're word," said Yzma skeptically. She knew the word of a villain was useless.
"My word and my ogres'." Duke Igthorn gestured behind him to the half dozen ogres who had accompanied him to the meeting. The big, hulking brutes weren't paying the slightest attention to anything that had been said. Instead, they were having a grand time hitting each other over the head with stones and wood planks.
"Stop that right now, you idiots!" screamed the duke.
"Sorry, Dukie," the ogres said in unison. They reluctantly dropped their toys…on their feet and began hopping about in pain.
"Oh, I'm sorry," drawled Yzma. "How could I doubt such intelligent creatures?" She turned to the assembled crowd and said, "Do we really want to rely on someone who surrounds himself with buffoons like that?"
"As opposed to your henchman?" asked Igthorn. He pointed over to Kronk, Yzma's large, but dim lackey. Despite a dubious classification as a villain, Kronk was actually quite gentle and did as much to prevent Yzma's evil schemes as he did to help them along.
Right now, Kronk was standing over a greed-skinned ogre who was rubbing his injured foot. "You know, you really should soak your feet in warm water with some bath salts. That's what I do whenever my feet get sore after playing Kuzco-ball. It's a game kind of like football, expect you don't really use your feet very much. You catch and throw the ball with your hands, but you can't call it handball because there's already a sport called handball where you're not allowed to use your hands. It's confusing."
Yzma looked at Igthorn and reluctantly said, "Point taken."
"Don't worry. The Gummi Bears are real." Every turned to the back of the building where a teenage boy stood casually with his hands clasped behind his back. He was gazing out the window, his dark blue eyes sharp and intelligent. The tiniest hint of a breeze leaked through the cracked window glass, ruffling his jet black hair. He turned to face his audience and said in a smooth voice, "They are real and all the proof that you need is right here." The boy held out a small glass vial filled with a liquid of deep purple-red. Stamped on the glass was the Gummi insignia, the same one as on a Gummi medallion.
"Ah yes, the fabled Gummi Berry Juice," said Jafar. He reached for the vial, but the boy calmly kept it out of the sorcerer's reach. "We've seen that the juice does work, but its effects are extremely temporary. How can it help us with our plan?"
"I have a friend who has been working on that." No sooner were the words out of the boy's mouth when there was a knock at the door. All the villains tensed at the sound, except for the boy.
Gaston, who was closed to the door, peaked from behind the thin curtains draped over the window. "It's him." The teenager boy nodded and Gaston opened the door to allow Lex Luthor and Mercy Graves enter the building.
"Ah, Lex," said the teen in greeting. "I trust you're experiments were successful."
"Indeed," grinned Luthor. He reached inside his suit jacket and took out the red, yellow, and blue balls that he had told Tom and Jim were a present for King Gregor. In reality, the metallic balls were high-tech incubators developed specifically to augment the power of Gummi Berry Juice. Each ball popped open to reveal a tiny test tube inside. The tubes were filled with thick liquids whose colored matched the ball they were in.
"Lex Corp Labs was able to create three different Juice Enhancers." Luthor took the Gummi Berry Juice from the teen boy as Mercy produced two more containers of the powerful liquid. He set all three vials on a table and uncorked them. "The red Enhancer will increase the strength a human gains from the Juice fivefold. The yellow Enhancer will increase magical energy output and the blue Enhancer will increase a person's speed." As he spoke, Luthor added a drop from each Enhancer into one of the vials of Juice. As each Enhancer was mixed in, the Juice itself turned red, yellow, or blue. "As an added bonus, the duration of the Juice's effects has been significantly extended."
"I've received the itinerary of the Summit from those world leaders that are on our side," explained the teenage boy. "The celebration dance on the last night will be the best chance to attack."
"But, we weren't able to find the Gummi Bears to make more Juice," Clayton pointed out.
"Correction, YOU weren't able to find the Bears," said the boy, determined to lay blame where blame was due. Clayton scowled, but said nothing. "However, we still have the Juice provided by Duke Igthorn. He has enough for one dose per villain."
"So don't waste it," warned Igthorn. "That's all the Juice I was able to save from the time I captured that grandma Gummi."
"With this Juice and the weapons promised to us by Zanatos Enterprises, we will easily overpower all the bodyguards and heroes protecting the Summit."
"But what about the Toon Master?" asked Mechanicles. The others muttered amongst themselves. "If this Toon Master is even half as strong as the last one, even the Juice might not be enough to defeat him."
The teenage boy, however, looked completely unperturbed. "I'll take care of the Toon Master myself." He said this with such conviction that no one dared to doubt his word. "Once we have the world leaders as hostages, we can demand that their worlds be handed over to us."
"Then we villains will be able to take over the entire Disney Sector," exclaimed Jafar. Everyone cheered as they all imagined the power they would soon wield.
In the midst of their celebration, there was another knock at the door. As before, all the villains fell silent and even the teenager in charge seemed a bit surprised. He had not been expecting any more visitors. With a nod of his head, he directed Clayton and Gaston to take up positions near the door. Both hunters drew and loaded their shotguns. At the boy's signal, they threw open the door.
Standing behind the door was Abis Mal and Haroud with Amin Damoolah between them. "Greetings, my evil friends!" shouted Abis Mal.
"Quiet, you fool," hissed Gaston as he grabbed Abis Mal and yanked him inside. Haroud followed quickly, dragging Damoolah with him. Clayton surveyed the street to make sure no one had heard Abis Mal's outburst. Satisfied that no one was around, he closed the door.
Once everyone saw who had entered, they groaned in annoyance. Most of them already knew Abis Mal as a blundering buffoon.
"Abis Mal, what are you doing here?" said the teenage boy, his voice rising threateningly. "I told you not to show your face again unless you had something worthwhile to contribute."
The Agrabanian villain trembled as he spoke, eyeing the annoyed looks cast at him. "Oh, but I do, I do." He motioned to Haroud, who threw Amin Damoolah on the ground.
"What is that?" asked Yzma.
"This is a colleague of mine," said Abis Mal. "He's smart, strong, sneaky, and is sure to be of great help to you."
"That lump of dung isn't any kind of help to anyone," said Mozenrath, a young sorcerer with the ability to control the dead. Feared throughout the Land of the Seven Deserts, he may be even more powerful than Jafar.
"You know this guy?" asked Clayton.
"He used to work for me."
"Oh and what a marvelous time I had, Sir," groveled Damoolah, terrified at the sight of his old master. "Sweeping your palace, being your test subject for magical experiments, cleaning your flying eel's litter box; fun, fun, fun."
"And now he works with you," said the boy leader.
Abis Mal quailed when he saw how angry the boy looked. "Actually, he just started today. I hardly know him. He is so fired. You can have him back," he said to Mozenrath.
"Oh, no, no please. Anything by that!" begged Damoolah.
Haroud spoke up. "Amin Damoolah might be a bungler, but he is sneaky and knows how to get into places without detection. It is when he tries to steal something that things go wrong."
"Really?" The boy leader thought about this. "I think I can find a use for you after all."
Damoolah threw himself at the boy's feet, ecstatic that he wouldn't be Mozenrath's slave again. "Oh, thank you, Sir, Your Greatness, Your Excellency, Your…"
"No need for that," said the boy, brushing off the titles Damoolah was placing on him. "You can call me, Rembrant."
3
Looks like the roalty isn't the only ones havinga summit and Who is Rembrant? Keep reading a find out.
