World 2-4: The Basement Face-Off

"The Pure Heart is near… I feel its tremors so much more strongly down here…"

"In a basement?" Phred questioned.

"Shh! Let her finish!" Rachel commanded.

"Actually, I'm done…" Tippi said. There was a silence which was soon broken.

"Ah! Hooray! Woopee! Thanks for coming to look for me!" A mysterious voice echoed to the Heroes. They looked around for someone, but didn't find anyone.

"Who said that, just now?" Tippi asked. Merlee revealed a hologram of herself to the party; she was hovering. Red sunglasses hid her eyes while her hair bore no sign of humbleness with its near-semi-circle style reaching all the way down to her feet... or the bottom of her dress. A red dress shrouded her body and made her look pencil-thin. A white collar veiled her face up to the sunglasses. One noticeable feature that could not hide was the fact she had ears; she proudly wore a pair of bubble-gum pink earrings with a star, similar to the one in Merlon's brooch, in the middle.

"Beautiful, mysterious Merlee! Mistress of the house, it's me! So glad it's you I see!
So long I've waited for you. Your arrival is well past due.
But we cannot meet like this, oh no, for something's amiss.
An evil one is after me, and safe and sound I cannot be."

"Where can we find you?!" Phred asked, worried she would disappear at any moment.

"In the basement do I dwell, mazelike rooms are my cell, you will find me, I can tell…
And… If you do, take care… For… your eyes… may err… Trust nothing… foul or fair…" She started to vanish, but the team knew she was mustering all her strength just to withhold the connection.

"No… I cannot…last… My power…is……fading…fast…The distance… is too vast… Are—" But she vanished before she could finish.

"She's gone?" Rachel asked.

"She's gone… I can't help wondering if that apparition really was Merlee, though. Why do you think she was telling us to be careful when we find her?"

"Search me." Phred said. "C'mon, we got a charmer to find!" Everyone ran down the stairs and found two doors at the end of the hallway.

"Crap! Which door do we take?" Rachel asked.

"Flip a coin?" Phred suggested. They agreed and said that the first door would be heads and the second tails. Heads won.

~*-SPP-*~

Boos filled the first room, which were soon mincemeat. The second room held a single Growmeba. They took care of that too. Phred flipped the coin again and the top door (tails) won this time.

~*-SPP-*~

They entered a pink room. Something suspicious was up with the room so Phred quickly flipped into 3-D with his companions. He found some flip blocks at the other end of the room and struck each one. They finally reached the top when someone greeted them.

"Ahh, yes, how very nice… Thanks for coming! Thank you twice!" Merlee sang.

"What? Weren't you in trouble?" She ignored Phred's question.

"Mysterious and so lovely, mistress of the house you see… it's me, Merlee!
I shine on, such is my lot, a sun to those fate to me brought…
And I knew that soon I'd see you buzz on by, little bees. Hee hee hee hee hee!"

"That is NOT Merlee!" Phred yelled.

"Why do you say that?" Tippi asked.

"She ignored me. And the only person we know of that ignores me is Mimi."

"You've gotta point, but we can't just accuse her. We need proof!"

"…Fine." Grumbled our reluctant Hero of Prophecy. The team walked closer and Tippi spoke.

"We've come seeking the Pure Heart…"

"Oh, yes, of course, I know! The Pure Heart for Phred! …And Co.!
For you, yes, I'll gladly part with that purest Pure Heart.
Mmm, but there is a wee fee: yes, yes, ten million Rubees! Quite a bargain, you agree?
So, folks, if you'd be dears, sign this dotted line here, and it's yours, free and clear!"

"Hell no, you lying, conniving son of a—"

"PHRED!" Rachel prevented him from loosing his mind. "We refuse politely."

"If you lack the Rubees now, a smallish loan I could allow. You can work it off somehow.
Just sign here, my dear…"

"We still refuse. We have worlds to save and no time to work off a loan. We already wasted time with that Mimi character."

"…Ok, here's what we'll do. Have I got a deal for you!
Sign up for a loan, and boom! A free gift! Away with gloom! A Super Mega Ultra Shroom!
Just sign here, my dear…"

"We need that Pure Heart for free… what about that do you not understand?" Tippi, beginning to get aggravated, asked still cool and collected.

"Ugh, fine, you bargain hard, I'll also throw in Breadward, a Pixl made of oats and lard.
Isn't that so nice of me? I'm the best, don't you see?
Here, dear, sigh and cheer…"

"Who wants mule feed?" Rachel asked before Tippi could respond.

"NYAAAAH!" Merlee's voice faltered and sounded like someone else's. Someone they knew was behind the plot to slow them down. Someone green. Rachel and Tippi stopped denying Phred.

"Idiots, the lot of you! Turning down such a coup! None of you have a clue!
Here it is: your last shot! Sign right now, on the dot!"

"NEVER, MIMI!" They all shouted at once. Just then, the real (yet apparitioned) Merlee appeared.

"Good choice, for my sake… This Merlee's a total fake… Listen not! She is a snake!" And as soon as she appeared, she disappeared.

"Mimimimimimimimimimimimi… No point in trying to fool anyone now…" The fake Merlee found herself shrouded in purple smoke and Mimi stood in her place. She wore her trademark yellow polka-dot dress with the red ribbon around her neck

"Gee, lookee here! The girl you thought was a handmaid or a Merlee impostor… she's actually the faithful servant of Count Bleck, master impersonator Mimi! Golly, I was hoping we could settle this peacefully, but TOO BAD!"

"…Can we still?" Phred sheepishly asked.

"NO! Now let's make things ugly for you! TRUE MIMI, COME FORTH!" She cracked her neck. So much that it spun until the ribbon caught the neck and lit up on top. Legs started popping out of where her neck used to be. They grew so long that her now limp body hovered and hung from her head, which served as the main body part. She had become a giant green spider. She chanted her name.

"EEEEEWWWWWW!!!" The girls protested. Merlee appeared again.

"Please, my friends, beware. A barrier protects her there. In fact, it's everywhere.
I think attacks may well be useless against such as she."

"Attacks won't work? Ugh… What shall we do?" Tippi asked in protest to anyone who was listening. The spider startled everyone with one more 'MIMI' shout. Merlee disappeared, but said to keep looking for her. She then said if they could, the magic could cease to exist. Finally, she pleaded that they hurry.

"RUN!" Phred yelled.

~*-SPP-*~

They found themselves in the same drab-y basement rooms. At the far end was a slit thin enough for everyone to fall through with Slim. Doing so in the nick of time, for Mimi entered the room, they walked through the door. From there they left the door selecting to the coin. They were almost at the end when they followed the wrong door back to the slit room. From there, though, it was just a matter of remembering the sequence and not going through the bad door again. Luckily, they didn't.

~*-SPP-*~

"SHROOM! We need one after that giant Boo." Rachel was the lucky one to gain everyone a level up. The attacks went up by one. Cheers went on for seconds; Mimi appeared. They quickly saved and ran into the nearest bathroom: the girl's.

~*-SPP-*~

"Quick, which stall do you think she is in?" Tippi asked frantically. Phred chose the fourth from the door randomly and a rumble emitted from it.

"Hee hee hee hee hee!" The familiar, yet still mysterious voice said. Everyone knew that was the real Merlee. She popped up from the toilet, with a fly buzzing around her head and her glasses were upside-down to convey sadness and worry, and started to rhyme.

"Found me! The real Merlee!
I shine on, such is my lot, a sun to those fate to me brought…" She jumped off the toilet and walked over away from the gang.

"The real Merlee? Truly? In a place like this?" Tippi inquired.

"Well, duh! It's not like a giant, insane spider-girl is chasing her… Oh, wait, THERE IS!"

"Rachel… So why are you down here?" Phred asked.

"I'm afraid that Mimi freak was too robust, and I too weak…
The Pure Heart I quickly took and hid where she would never look…
But now you're here; hooray! This bad tide will turn today! Soon that awful Mimi pays…
You and I can now join up to teach that tiny, bratty pup a lesson: now let's power up!"

"Then hurry!" Phred and Rachel urged. Too late.

"Ooh, I don't think so…" A raspy voice proclaimed off screen. The green girl appeared out of nowhere behind Merlee.

"MIMI!" It screamed. It continued to utter her name, but it walked over above the charmer. The ground rumbled as she did so, and when she stopped, lights flashed and the countenance of Merlee floated up into the body of green. The screen whited-out for a few seconds, then revealed two perfect Merlees.

"Stop pretending to be me! Everyone knows you are Mimi!" The one closer to Phred said. "Come on, friends! Attack! We can drive her back!"

"What is this you talk about? You're the faker! And a lout!
Don't be fooled by her act! Get her now! Now! ATTACK!" The second one cried. The first started to jump up and down.

"It's me! The real Merlee!" The second one followed suit, naturally.

"No, it's me! The true Merlee!" The first stopped and turned to Phred and Rachel, who wore faces of resembling being dumbstruck.

"Look at us very closely. One of us has real beauty… and one is fake as can be."

"Oh, please, you make me gag. I am hot; no need to brag. And you… well, you're a hag."

"Grrr! What a fib-maker! You're such a fake faker!"

"Oh, now, come off it, dear! You're a dog from eye to ear! And your breath reeks, I fear." The two started to whisper rhyming insults, which didn't last for too long. The first ran into the second, spinning her away. The second mimicked the move perfectly. (A/N: For obvious reasons, I now call M1 the one who started this out and M2 the second one) M1 repeated the move, but M2 jumped. She giggled. Next, they attacked themselves in midair. After that, they wheezed.

"This is going nowhere, see… Let's let them pick a Merlee and settle it; do you agree?" Phred felt as if he would faint. Rachel caught him.

"Sounds like a good thought. 'Cause I'm the real me (hot) and you really aren't (not)."

"Hee hee hee hee hee… Oh, how much do you amuse! You're a fake! You will lose!" M1 told M2.

"Hee hee hee hee hee… You're fake, you stupid fake! We all know you're the snake!"

"IT'S ON, CON!!!" They shouted together.

~*-SPP-*~

Three Minutes Prior To The Merlee Argument…

~*-SPP-*~

"Thanks again for letting me stay with you, Emiloy." A man thanked as he walked over the threshold. Emiloy gazed at the little man. His Hawaiian shirt did him injustice along with the khaki shorts with its tattered, ripped fringe and his off-white boat shoes that looked two sizes too big for him. But the tan skin and chiseled face made up for those factors and the factor of him being in his fifties.

"No problem Dick. I'm still wondering why you came over here…"

"I thought I already told you five times. …I guess a sixth couldn't hurt. I was minding my own business up in Elm when I saw this tiny, purple speck in the sky."

"Ooh! You mean the Void!" Emiloy said rather happily.

"…The what?"

"It's not a What, it's a Void! The Void!"

"I have a feeling Ray's involved… what happened this time?"

"They got sucked up into a video game… and apparently it's now ruling the ultimate demise of humanity as we know it."

"Who made the game, the Russians?" He laughed at his own joke. Emiloy slapped him.

"You forget I'm 1/64th Russian… Anyway, so there's this thing in the sky called the Void and it's going to bring the apocalypse. And now, Ray, Rachel, Phred, and Ieda are the only ones to stop it. Cool, huh?"

"You do realize that they're trapped inside a game, right?" Dick said as he walked over to the couch in front of the television. "And what is going on here?!" He looked down at the coffee table aghast "It's… It's… a crossword puzzle!" He obviously wasn't paying attention to the Merlee battle on screen right then. "Since when did you do them?"

"Since I got bored waiting for something fun to do on the game." Emiloy stated in an as-a-matter-of-fact kind of voice.

"One, I just lost the game. Two, it looks like you won't have to wait longer because there's a trivia game going on."

"Oh?" She looked up at the screen to see that a box of questions now overwhelmed the majority of the flat screen. "Which one should I choose?"

"Try the birthday one and see what happens." She did and the two women gave different responses: March 25th and May 5th.

"That didn't help… try the nickname question." Again, she obeyed the object of her loathing and, once again, two different answers arose: "Bashful Ghost," and "Odd Porpoise." The next question was what they want most: a crystal ball and a boyfriend. The fourth question made Emiloy hungry again so Dick took control of the asking after that. By the way: strawberries and tangerines. The fifth question was the classic, cliché, and Narcissistic question: What's your best feature?

"The lobes of my perfect ears. They got voted by my peers to be "Lobes of the Year."

"Well, that would have to be my effervescent personality. People seem to love it, see."

"I'm making some popcorn, Dick. Oh, you finished for me?" Emiloy suddenly appeared from the kitchen as she said that.

"Um… yeah. Why?" She shook her head. "Now they have to guess and we wait again."

~*-SPP-*~

The three main characters huddled as they came to a consensus.

"I vote the one farther away…" Tippi voted.

"No way. She wanted a boyfriend. How old do you think she is? I think a hundred." Rachel stated. She voted for the closer one. It all lay in Phred's decision.

"Are you ready?" The host asked.

"Yep. And I want the one with the fly buzzing around her." Moments passed into seconds, which passed into two minutes of silence.

"DING! RIGHT!" The true Merlee spoke (M"?")

"Hee hee hee hee hee… Well, of course, obviously! Nobody could copy me!"

"Stupid-heads… I'd mimicked her perfectly! You know it!... I guess I'll congratulate you… BY TEARING YOU INTO LITTLE BITS LIKE STUPID CONFETTI!" The game show disappeared as quickly as it appeared. Mimi transformed back into herself… but not for long. She cracked her neck again, turning into the spider version of her and pulsed a rainbow of invincibility, and caused Merlee to panic and run out of the room.

"I will cheer from over here! Rah! Rah! Whoosh-bing-bah! Hit her in the knee! …If she has one. Does she?"

"Heeheeheeheeheeheehee… She's a fast one, isn't she? Oh, golly, well, whatever. I'll finish you off first!" Once again, she chanted her name. Phred and Co. ran away from the approaching spider, but he insisted on jumping to make sure she really was invincible; she was. Without warning, a pulse of hearts emitted from the exit door. Thinking something special of it, Phred told Rachel he would try again.

"Don't! We already know she's invincible…" She pleaded. The Hero ignored his girlfriend and damaged the girl. Everyone froze. Including Mimi.

"But…what? WHY CAN YOU DAMAGE ME?!? I'm supposed to be INVINCIBLE!" She mumbled the next part to herself more than to the protagonists. Merlee then called out to the Heroes again through the door.

"Rah! Rah! Whoosh-bing-bah! You can now hit her, dear! For this is no normal cheer!
This cheer is magic, woo! Her magic barrier is through!"

"Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?! When did this happen?!"

"When that pulse of hearts whooshed through the bathroom… which, incidentally, is starting to gross me out." Phred explained.

"What is? The hearts or the bathroom?"

"Which do you think?"

The spider screamed. Phred turned and ran to jump on her again. She lost a leg.

"Oh… I get it… when she looses all her legs, she'll be defeated… According to my calculations, we need to hit her fourteen more times..."

"Easier said than done!" Rachel complained. But it proved a small task for Phred; he hit her three times before Merlee interrupted again.

"Hee hee on you, dearie!
Now you shall see the way a good cheer wins the day!"

The battle continued again for another five hits. The previously daunting task of hitting her came to be easy now that they had the brat cornered.

"Yes! Yes! Our team's the best! GOOO… TEAM!" The charmer, in the only instance of not rhyming in the game (unless 'team' rhymes with 'teams'), cheered faithfully.

"Rachel, do the honors!" Phred suggested.

"My pleasure!" She actually didn't hesitate like Phred thought she would. Our second Hero defeated the big, bad, green spider-girl.

"YES!" Phred cheered as he high-fived Rachel and attempted to show physical appreciation with Tippi but couldn't.

"…B-But how could you… It's impossible… how…" She exploded again, but didn't blow up. She stood on her normal two feet and her body was not dangling or limp.

"Uurr-urrk… Don't think you've beaten me for good, dummies… Nex- OOOOOHHHH!" With the pain too much to bear, she floated up and flipped out back to Bleck's castle.

Merlee reentered the room hastily; she didn't want to stall the Heroes of Prophecy any longer than necessary.

"Fine job on that Mimi, yes! The Pure Heart's safe, evil's repressed.
You know, the tenants here guarded it for 1,500 years, waiting for you to draw near!"

"Is everything in this game related to over a millennia and a half ago?" Rachel asked Phred.

"Yeah, pretty much."

"And finally that duty's done, and I'm ecstatic, for one."

"So… can you give us the Pure Heart?" Tippi asked.

"But wait, ere we finish up, I must tell you something, yup.
So the Light Prognosticus was read by you, yes?"

"Yes… Where is this leading?" Tippi asked for Phred.

"It was written there that I and my ancestors waited by the Pure Heart, staying spry…
But something wasn't written there, and of it you must be aware.
There is another Prophecy: A heart of chaos can only be beaten by four of mystery…
Four Heroes unite, their hope burns forth light to shatter the walls of blight.
That is how despair, it dies, such is what we prophesize here in the home of the wise."

"Four…Heroes…" Rachel murmured.

"I am sure the pair of you, Rach and Phred, you two, are the first of Heroes true.
So then it falls to you, to find the other Heroes two.
I would guess, if I had to, the others might be known to you…"

"Ok, so we gotta look for our two other friends and the other five Pure Hearts… and we can't do that if we're still here, so… can we PLEASE have that Pure Heart now?" Phred tried politely. She thrust the yellow heart of pure over to Rachel. Every Pixl now came out and danced the funny dance Thoreau did when the second of eight was thrust unto Phred. The "End of Chapter" sequence commenced.

~*-SPP-*~

YOU GOT A PURE HEART!!!

~*-SPP-*~

Count Bleck's servant Mimi
had laid a nasty trap for
Phred and friends…

But with the help of Merlee,
faithful defender of the
Pure Heart, the day was won.

But who were the other two
Heroes mentioned by Merlee?

With five Pure Hearts yet to
be found, Phred knew this
adventure had only begun…

Okay, so this is the last boss chapter that's this lengthy. I mean, there is one in Chapter 4, but that has more action than walking and stuff. ...Oh, drat I just- no. I'm not saying it out loud due to a risk of a hidden spoiler.

Anywaaay... next week's the Bleck chapter and guess who tries to escape! Mystery sets in and I update a character's location on my profile. Yay! So anticipate and comment/suggest/flame/guess if you wish!