Chapter Four: Villains Anonymous


"I would like to call this meeting to order." Scrooge, the organizer and patron of the Villains Anonymous, otherwise known as VA, said. He cleared his throat and continued, "Why don't we start with-"

Sergeant Winter, Baskerville, Tina, and Panic burst through the wall as if it were no big deal, because you know, people burst into walls on a regular basis. The cinder blocks that made up the wall were made of Styrofoam because if you're smart you would know never, ever, ever to throw yourself against the wall but, hey that cartoon physics for you.

"Ah," Scrooge said with excitement, "you're here just in time. Where is Mister Hades?"

"Hades," Winter replied, "is unable to attend, he's been caught up in business, shall we say."

Scrooge nodded, "Alright then, take a seat anywhere you like."

The Revolutionary War Sergeant led his horse to the back of the room. It was one of those rooms that you see in schools: long in length and width, covered with beige tile flooring and blinding florescent lights which were arranged in rows. At the front of the room stood a desk and behind this desk, some three feet away was a chalkboard and projector screen that could be rolled up. Hanging on the ceiling was a projector that only worked three times a year and directly below this projector was a circle of chairs, nine to be precise. Going clockwise, starting at the top, picturing the circle as an analog clock, sat Scrooge. To Scrooge's left was Amos Slade who was busy petting his dog, Chief, who sat down on the floor next to his master's chair. To the left of them was Prince John, who, like always, was sucking his thumb from boredom. At three o'clock was The Red Queen of Hearts, who at the moment was busy fanning herself with a miniature red fan. At six o'clock, directly opposite from Scrooge was Gladstone, who was busy trying not to crash from his morning coffee. At eight o'clock sat Scar who was occupied with filing his claws and trying desperately not to crush the chair that was underneath him. Three chairs were vacant, one at nine o'clock, one at ten, and the other at eleven. Tina, Panic, and Winter walked over as soon as Baskerville was secured in the back and sat down in said empty chairs. Tina sat next to Scar, Winter next to Scrooge and Panic took the middle seat.

"Alright," Scrooge said, "now I see we have new members, let's take a moment to introduce ourselves." He cleared his throat again. "Hello, my name is Scrooge, I'm an alcoholic, oh, sorry, wrong meeting, I'm an ex-villain."

"Oh Hurrah for you!" Scar said sarcastically, "Way to rub it in."

"I was only saying it because it's true." Scrooge said, turning towards the lion with slight egotism in his voice. "Anyway," the duck said, "let us continue."

Scar rolled his eyes and along with everyone else said, "Hello, Scrooge."

Amos cleared his throat as well and said in a thick Oskar accent with a slight tinge of bourbon on his breath, "Hello, my name is Amos Slade and I'm an alcoholic villain."

"Art thou at the wrong congregation again, Mister Slade?" Prince John asked.

Amos turned towards him and laughed, "You sure do talk funny."

"That's because he's cynical." Scar replied, "He isn't a true lion."

Prince John turned towards Scar, giving him that superficial kingly glare that only superficial want-a-be kings like himself can give. "What is that suppos'd to cullionly?"

Scar rolled his eyes and got down from his chair, he was about to crush it anyway. "My dear sir," he said, as sarcastically as he could, hissing a bit at the sir part, "I have no idea what you're saying, frankly, no one does!"

The lion stalked his motionless prey, letting his tail move from side to side, and something in his head told him that Prince John was a gazelle. A big gazelle with fresh tender meat on the inside. Breathing in a moment and closing his eyes, Scar daydreamed he was back in the wilds of the savannah, smelling the grass and the fear of mindless creatures.

Fear. The one thing Scar still managed to carry.

Prince John slowly stood up in his chair. His eyes darted from left to right as a beads of sweat slowly but gently poured down his face. His heart raced a little, and he felt like running, but then that would mean that Scar would be proven right. Prince John knew that he wasn't a true lion, just an anamorph who looked like one.

"Nay, nay," Prince John said, "thou're right. thou're right all the time Scar."

He slowly shook a little and continued, "Thither is nay question about that. Nay sir, not a single, solitary question."

Scar, who was annoyed at the Shakespearean Victorian English, approached a bit more and placed his massive forepaws on the edge of the chair, forcing Prince John to jump off the back and land on the other side. Scar then rested his head on the chair's back and continued looking at Prince John as if he wanted to eat him- the eyes narrowing, the jaws were slowly beginning to bite down and ptomaine the action of tearing and devouring. John took the hint however, slowly moved to his knees and began to beg.

"Just doth me one favor," Prince John said, "doth not englut me, f'r I am too pretty to be devour'd and too meaty to be digest'd. If thou catch mine meaning."

Scar laughed, "That was the first thing you said that made sense." Scar moved away from the chair and near his own, not bothering to sit in it again because he saw no point in it.

"Now," Scrooge said, who was eying the two big cats like a hawk, "if there will be no further interruptions, may we please continue?"

"I am Prince John of England," Prince John said as he sat back in his chair, "and I am a royal regent villain who is underappreciated in the canon."

Scar rolled his eyes again and thought to himself, "As you should be."

Tina, who looked towards Prince John at the moment, sighed, "Well you fucking stop with the shaking and the jittering, Jesus, it's annoying. Do you have Parkinson's?"

"What in the ordinary is Parkinson's? I hast nev'r heard of such a thing, would thou care to dilate in layman's terms?" Prince John replied, looking towards Tina a bit confused.

"It's a nervous system disease." Tina said, "It's quite sad really."

"Well, no," Prince John said, "I do not have Parkinson's Diseases. I just have the tendency to get nervous."

Everyone turned towards the lion monarch a moment and said simultaneously, "You can speak normal English?"

"Ay," Prince John said, "only after seven lines of Shakespearean dialogue."

An awkward moment of silence. Panic quickly summoned a demon cricket, known as Anti-Cri-Kee, or Sam, who was basically the evil version of the cricket from Mulan.

"Come on Sam," Panic said, "sing your little song."

Sam stood up on his hind legs, cleared his voice, and did a quick verse of Nessun Dorma in the voice of Pavarotti in the original Italian. When he was finished and out of breath, Sam retreated back to all fours, looked around, and chirped once.

The Red Queen of Hearts cleared her throat and looked around the room, specifically at Tina, Panic, and Sergeant Winter.

"I," she said, "am the Red Queen of Hearts."

Sergeant Winter stood and forcibly stormed towards the Red Queen as if she were the devil. He retracted his blade from his sheath, enjoying the ringing sound of metal meeting beautifully with air. He leaned down, his skull, which was his face, having the full animation and expression of someone who was about to commit murder.

"Remember me, Agnes?" Winter said, placing his blade up against her neck.

Agnes, the Red Queen, looked up at him in fear and also in fear said, "Reggie?"

"It's Sergeant to you," Winter replied as he slowly but surely forced his blade into her scrawny little neck.

"N-n-n-n-now Reggie baby, isn't this a bit drastic?" Agnes said, as a small bead of sweat ran down her face.

"Nope!" Panic said, "It's awesome! Stab her in the neck Sergeant!"

Winter laughed sadistically, his eyes turned vermillion and his heart pounded furiously. He had every intention to kill this woman except when the world's favorite rooster came barging through the door looking madder than the Mad Hatter on his birthday.

"What in the hell do you think you're doing?!" Panchito said with his brow furrowed and his rage meter up so high that I thought a vein was about to burst. He looked up at the ceiling and saw these exact words being typed out when the male chicken stopped.

"First off," he said, "I am not a male chicken, I am a rooster."

So a male chicken.

Panchito nodded rapidly like the Road Roader would do- that is if the Road Runner ever nodded to begin with. "Exactly, now, will you kindly get back to me, please?"

What do you mean?

Panchito rolled his eyes, "What do you mean you don't know what I mean? I mean it's been what, tres meses since the last they've seen of me? Tres meses! That's augusto, septiembre, octobre, and now quince dias en noviembre! Quince dias en noviembre!"

Alright, geez, I'll get back to you in a minute.

"No, you have to get back to me now!" Panchito shouted. "What's the point of calling it Panchito without Panchito in it?"

Um….it's called supporting characters.

"Um, it's called screw supporting characters." Panchito turned towards the group and smiled, "Yeah, you guys can go home now. We don't need you anymore. You'll get paid on Friday." He waved somewhat sarcastically.

Scar looked up at me, for apparently I am dead for some- wait a minute, why do you always look up at the ceiling whenever I talk to you guys?

"Eh," everyone, including Baskerville, answered, "it's comedic device."

Panchito, completely forgetting that an anatomically correct horse just spoke, recognized a voice a little bit more familiar. He turned, scanned the group again and saw her. The rooster then smiled, raised his eyebrows a bit and nonchalantly walked himself over to Tina's chair.

"So," Panchito said, "how was hell?"

"Terrible." Tina replied.

"Oh, so it's like that for you too?"

Tina rolled her eyes, "Whatever chicken. Now what have you done to my boyfriend?"

Panchito twiddled his thumbs, "What do you mean by that?"

Tina looked at him and smiled. It was the creepy, 'I'm about to kill you' type of smile. To make matters worse, she twitched her eye and turned her head like an evil owl. "What did you do to him?"

A lump grew in Panchito's throat. To answer would mean death and to not answer would be death. He looked towards Sergeant Winter and sighed, "He's dead and I don't think he's coming back."

Tina's face turned to insane to sickly in milliseconds. "Are you being serious?"

The rooster nodded. "Si, I'm being serious. Terry's gone, and before you say anything no, it's not my fault. It just mostly is."

A tear, several even, fell down Panchito's face. He openly cried in a room full of adversaries and didn't care who saw him. In the middle of sobbing, Tina placed both hands on him and pushed him violently to the floor, kicking him when he was down. Panchito did nothing, he just took the beating, internally saying to himself how he deserved this and deserved that. Tina stood up and kicked him again, this time hard in the torso. Once again, Panchito did nothing in his defense, he just got into the fetal position and cried a bit more- saying a prayer in Spanish before submitting further into his grief.

Tina moved to kick him again, but Agnes rose and helped the rooster to his feet. Scar turned towards Tina and growled. "Have you no mercy?"

"Mercy?" Tina said, "He killed my boyfriend."

"Fiancé actually." Panchito replied as he took the Red Queen's chair.

Tina shook her head, a bit puzzled. "Terry never proposed."

Panchito laughed and pulled out a ring and tossed it in the air. "Congratulations."

The engagement ring was beautiful and simple. A silver band with three diamonds at the top, two smaller ones flanking a larger one. They sparkled with their flawlessness, causing Tina for the first time in her life, to sincerely cry out of joy and happiness. There was no fear inside this woman, there was only the urge to catch this gesture of love and when she did, she simply smiled.

She placed it on her finger and laughed a bit. "Is this true?"

Panchito pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket and recited.

Hey Tina, it's me, Terry,

I've been thinking about you recently and how much I miss you. Living with these crazies isn't so bad, the only one I want to murder right now is the rooster, but that's because well, do I really need a reason?

The house has been redone to his liking and not to mention the cross country trip he dragged me on. That's a story I'm going to have to tell you someday. Anyway, I hope you're doing okay. God knows I need you right now. It's been a real mess. I'm in a real bad spot right now, there's this Scotsman who shot me in the arm. In the arm! I guess he was aiming for my head but missed, I honestly don't know and don't care.

Anyways, the point is, I'm in the hospital and thanks to Senor Idiot's reckless driving I don't think I'm going to make it. So I might as well just say it now. Tina, will you marry me?

I know it's crazy, me being here and you being, well, wherever you are, but I still love and miss you. I know this is the corniest proposal ever, but the ring is expensive, like my life savings kind of expensive. I know I'm probably not the guy you want, but at least you'll get the ring you want, right? That's all that matters in the end really, happiness. I think that's how it goes. See you later…I hope.

Terry

When Panchito was finished, Scar was crying uncontrollably and wiped his eyes with his paws.

"That was beautiful. Cliché and boring, but still beautiful." Scar said.

Tina sighed, "Yeah, I guess it was. Rather nerdy of him too." She laughed. "His helplessness really made me fall in love with him in the first place."

"Yeah, he told me the same thing about you." Panchito said as he stood up, "Now, to get to the business at hand. How to kill a Scotsman."

"I'm sorry Mister Pistoles," Scrooge said, "but this is a Villains Anonymous meeting. We're here to educate and rehabilitate not to enforce bad habits."

Panchito looked towards his adopted uncle and smiled a bit, "Yes, and its fine work you're doing to." He walked over and patted the old duck on the shoulder, he then leaned down and whispered something in his ear. When the rooster was finished, Scrooge shrugged his shoulders.

"Eh, what the hell, it might be fun killing a Scotsman."

Prince John, who resumed his thumb sucking, looked over towards Gladstone who was fidgeting as if he hadn't had sleep in years. "What chang'd thy mind so yarely?"

"I'm sorry?" Gladstone said.

"Oh, mine apologizes." Prince John answered as he turned his entire body around towards Scrooge and repeated his question.

"What chang'd thy mind so yarely?"

"What changed my mind," Scrooge said, "was that Donald is involved and he's possibly hurt too."

Gladstone chuckled a bit.

"What was that Gladstone?" Scrooge asked with a furrow of his brow.

"Si," Panchito said, adding in for no apparent reason, but with an equal amount of frustration, "what was that Senor Bigbill?"

Gladstone was taken aback by this. "Bigbill? I'm sorry, I just can't take you seriously anymore."

"You can't take me seriously?" Panchito said, as he advanced towards him in a semi-serious sort of way. "You do realize that it's me we're talking about right?"

"Yeah," Gladstone said with an eye roll. "I know."

Tina turned towards the junior duck, "He ruined your life too?"

"Well, it's more Donald than anything, but yeah, kind of."

Tina smiled, "Do tell."

"No," Panchito said, butting in, as he took an exaggerated step towards them both and stood in between them, "I tell it. If he does it then he'll just lie in your face."

"And you won't?" Tina and Gladstone said in unison.

"I'll exaggerate a little bit less, let's just say that." Panchito said. "Alright, so this is kind of a long story so…to start at the very beginning. When a man and a woman love each other very much and decide that they want to start a family-"

Panchito.

The rooster cringed and lowered his head. "Yes?"

Aren't you supposed to be saving Terry's life right about now?

Panchito sighed, "You and I both know that he's not going to-"

A zipper magically appeared and zipped his beak shut, also, for some reason, Panchito lost coordination of his hands and began struggling to find the zipper even though he could plainly see it. He grabbed his face, his arm, his eyeballs, his brain, the metal of the zipper, but not the zipper itself, and then after about five minutes of discovering every single body part he didn't even know he had, Panchito began to pull his face apart. Literally. It was like a backwards Mr. Potato Head. Eventually, all of the pieces to his face were laid out in order and the rooster with the help of Amos and Prince John, began to piece his head back together, zipper excluded. First was the head (and yes, while his head was detached, Panchito's body ran in circles), then the brain, the eyes, the beak, the cock and finally his voice, which was kept in a small yellow box that was stuffed down his neck. It simply said: "Voice Box".

"Art thou alright, sir?" Prince John asked.

"Si," Panchito replied, "I'm alright." He popped his neck and turned towards Tina. "Story aside, V.I.T.S is right-"

I'm sorry, but what did you call me?

"V.I.T.S." Panchito said, "Voice In The Sky, get with the program man!"

He cleared his throat and continued.

"Anyway, he's right, we have to save Terry, and possibly Donald. I'm willing to let bygones be bygones if you are." Panchito extended his hand and smiled a bit.

"Alright," Tina replied as she shook, "but I'm only doing this for Terry, I'm not doing this for you."

"Wouldn't blame you." Panchito said. "Now, how do you feel about Mexico?"