Welcome to the Jungle

Out in the jungle, Baloo was doing a quick look over his plane. "Damage isn't too bad, just some scratches. We're lucky the trees caught us instead of breaking. Becky will probably do more damage to me when we're late. We could probably take off again if we can keep our weight up on the canopy, but… how do we get home?" Baloo asked. "I have no idea where we even are!"

"Maybe we should climb down and see if we can find someone who can at least tell us where we are," Kit suggested. Baloo looked at how far up they were. He was not looking forward to that climb. "We might be able to get help getting the plane out of the tree too." He wasn't sure about the idea of trying to skip over the leaves like they were water.

Karnage was starting to come back around when he heard someone shouting. "Hello! Heeeeeello? You in the weird boat, are you okay?"

"Other than smashing my handsome face, I am fine," he answered with a groan, sitting up to see who was calling to him. There was a small amount of blood on his face from a cut above the eye he had gotten in the impact.

He locked eyes with the weirdest looking individual he had ever seen. If he had to describe the woman standing on the shore, it would be as a less hairy version of Louie's aunt. Her clothing was even strange, a sort of draped design that Karnage had seen a few times at various international markets. He had never seen someone wearing one before. He figured that was what the animals of the country that made those clothes must look like.

Her mouth was hanging wide open and her eyes were as big as dinner plates. She had only gotten a good look at him when he sat up. She dropped her basket of fruits that she intended to take to the village to trade on the ground. Finally, she let out a horrific scream of "Yaksha!" and took off running in terror, leaving everything she had been carrying behind on the river shore.

He was initially confused, before deciding that must be the local word for pirate. He thought her response has been entirely appropriate if that were the case. He was annoyed that he had to get his legs wet getting out of the plane to dislodge it from the rock it had been stuck on, before using a small amount of engine power to bring it to the shore. He was also utterly baffled to find himself in a jungle. He wasn't aware of any jungles near Cape Suzette. What in the world had happened? Worse, what were his crew getting up to in his absence? He thought about flying up again but decided that might be unwise as he didn't know if he was in hostile territory or not. He could remember seeing a poor-looking village out of the corner of his eye, but he'd been more worried about crashing than the village itself to remember which direction it was in.

Elsewhere, a panting Baloo had finally reached the bottom of the tree. Kit had climbed down significantly faster and was looking around in wide-eyed wonder. "This place is amazing," he said as a butterfly went fast his face.

"But where IS it?" Baloo asked. He fell the last couple of feet, but fortunately landed on his soft bum.

"Maybe we should split up and see if we can find help?" Kit asked.

"Splitting up sounds like a bad idea when we have no idea where we are."

"But splitting up means we can cover more ground, and if one of us gets in trouble, the other is still out there to help them."

"Ooookay," Baloo slowly and reluctantly agreed. "But only on the condition that you don't go further than you can see the Sea Duck. Otherwise we might get lost and never find our way out of here," Baloo said.

As Baloo was walking through the jungle, pushing thick foliage out of his way, a familiar looking orangutan suddenly dropped down in front of him. He was not only shocked to see his old friend; he was double shocked that his friend was completely naked. He got a triple shock when a bunch of Louie's monkey friends dropped down from the trees, all similarly in the nude. "L-Louie? What are you doing here?" he asked, averting his gaze. He even held up his hand in a blocking gesture.

"That's King Louie to you, Baloo," he said. "You got some man threads and you didn't think to share them with me?" Louie asked in annoyance, tugging at Baloo's shirt.

"Hands off! Just because you lost your clothes doesn't mean you can have mine!"

"Finders keepers!" one of the monkeys laughed as it snatched the hat right off his head.

"Hey! Give that back!" he shouted. Watching the monkey with his hat, though, distracted him enough that two more monkeys could swiftly move in and steal his shirt.

"Losers weepers!" the monkeys laughed.

"Now I'm really mad! Get back here!" Baloo shouted, chasing the laughing and hooting monkeys. They were moving quickly through the trees, and he was having to crash through the branches and shrubs on the ground.

"Oh boy, boss, he really mad!" a monkey taunted.

Baloo tripped and tumbled into a ravine. By the time he recovered from the fall, the monkeys had vanished into the trees, leaving behind only their echoing laughter. Too late, he realized that in his blind chase after the monkeys, he had gotten out of sight of the Sea Duck. He was lost.

Kit, meanwhile, was shocked to come around a tree and find Baloo already there, completely naked and napping in the sun. "Baloo?" he asked in shock, shaking Baloo's shoulder. "Baloo, are you okay!? I thought you went in the other direction?"

Baloo yawned as he slowly opened his eyes. "Baggy, if you're waking me up from my nap for a stupid reason, I swear I-" be stopped when he saw Kit standing there, looking quizzically at him. "Oh, hello there, kid. What's with the man clothes? You better not have snatched them off a drying line, the man village hates it when you do that," he said through another yawn.

"What are you talking about, Baloo? Where are YOUR clothes?"

Baloo blinked. "I don't know how you know my name, kid, but you must be mistaking me for some other bear if you think I'd be caught dead in a silly get up like a man. Unless it's a party, I can make exceptions for parties," he said, getting slowly up and scratching his back on the tree he had been sleeping under.

"Why do you keep calling me kid? Don't you recognize me? Oh no- you must have hit your head! You've got amnesia!"

"I don't know what amnesia is, but I know what I've got. I call it ants in me-a," he said, lifting up a nearby downed log for a snack.

"Amnesia means you've lost your memories and you're confused."

"No, I think you're confused, kid. I've been living here all my life. Where did you come from?" Baloo then noticed the cub looked incredibly frustrated, and almost on the brink of crying. "Hey, hey," he said, patting Kit twice on the shoulder. "Don't cry, I can't stand to see kids cry. Look, why don't I help you find your mama bear?

Maybe if I take him back to the plane, he'll get his memories back, Kit thought. "Yeah… that would… be helpful. I think she might be… back this way…" Kit said, trying to lead Baloo back towards the Sea Duck. He yawned once again and shambled after Kit.

Meanwhile, the other Baloo was following the trail of broken branches he had made to try to find his way back to the plane. Fortunately, he had left quite the destructive wake in his run. Otherwise he would have had no idea which way to go. He was still beyond confused. Why was Louie there? Why was Louie naked? Why did Louie steal his clothes?! The sooner he and Kit could get out of this looney bin of a place, the better. Rebecca would never believe his story. He wasn't even sure Kit would believe it.

As one Baloo fought his way through the thick undergrowth, Kit and the other Baloo arrived back underneath the Sea Duck. Baloo squinted up at it. "What's up there?" he asked. "Is that a really big fruit?!"

"No, it's…" Kit sighed in frustration. "Just, look, if you'll follow me up there it will be a great vantage point to… um… look for my mom."

"Climb? Naaaaaah," Baloo said, flopping down. "The walk tired me out enough. I need another nap."

"Baloo," Kit moaned. "Fine, you stay right there. Don't move a muscle. I'll be right back," Kit said, starting to climb up the tree. He had to get something to jog Baloo's memory.

"THAT, I can do!" Baloo called back.

As the other Baloo was waiting for the cub to return, he heard a snap. His ears perked up slightly and he stood up, curious to see the source of the sound. It was coming from behind several large leaves. He reached out to push the leaves aside to see what was making the noise.

At the same time, Baloo reached for the leaves from the other side. When they parted the leaves at the same time, Baloo found himself looking at Baloo. Both Baloos tilted their heads in confusion. Both Baloos held up one hand and waved. Both Baloos shuffled left, then shuffled right. Both did spins in place with their hands raised like ballerinas. Finally, one Baloo reached out and honked the other one's nose. Both screamed in unison as a response.

"Baloo!" Kit shouted as he heard the screaming. He immediately slid back down the trunk. "Baloo, what- HUH!?" he asked.

Two Baloos were staring at one another in shock. "It's ME!" they said in unison, both raising their hands to point one finger at the other.

"T-two Baloos?"

"I don't know who this is, but I'm the real Baloo," one Baloo said, shoving the other.

"Keep your paws off me you imposter, I'm the real Baloo," said the other, shoving back.

"This is my jungle, you big fake!"

"That's my plane up in the trees, you cheap knock-off imitation!"

"Wait, wait, stop!" Kit said, getting between them and holding his hands out to keep them separate. "Maybe you're both Baloo."

"What do you mean by that?" both asked in unison, then looked angrily at one another again.

"Baloo, uh… my Baloo… um… when we came through that cloud, is it possible we ended up in another world?"

"Come on, Kit, that thing only happens in comic books," one of the Baloos said with a wave, and Kit was glad to finally figure out which Baloo was his.

"How do you explain that we went from Cape Suzette to the middle of the jungle in the blink of an eye?" Kit asked.

Baloo thought for a moment. "You got me there."

"You are both crazy," the other Baloo said. "I'm getting out of here before the crazy spreads."

"Wait, please, can you tell us where we are?" Kit asked.

"Isn't that obvious? You're in the jungle."

"Which jungle?"

"Does that matter?" the incredulous Baloo asked. "If you have to know… maybe my friend Baggy would know."

"Can you take us to this… um… Baggy?" Kit asked. Baloo did not look like he wanted to. "The sooner we find out where we are, the sooner we can leave!" Kit added.

That seemed to convince the other Baloo. "If it means getting that imposter out of my jungle, I suppose I can introduce you. Follow me," he sighed, shambling off.

As they followed him, Kit whispered, "What happened to your clothes?"

"Louie happened."

"LOUIE?!" Kit asked. The other Baloo stopped and looked over his shoulder.

"What did you say about that no-good Louie?" he asked suspiciously. "You're not friends of his, are you?"

Kit was about to say something, but Baloo cut him off. "He stole my clothes!"

The other Baloo snort-laughed again. "That crazy Louie and his obsession with man things," he said with a shake of his head. "You're lucky that when he saw you had man clothes he didn't try to force you to tell him how to make the red flower."

"The red-" Baloo decided he didn't want to know, and shook his head slowly. He wasn't going to ask.

Karnage, meanwhile, had decided to do some reconnaissance by walking a circle around his plane. He was using his sword like a machete to hack through the jungle growth when he suddenly emerged into a clearing. Sleeping in the middle of the clearing, belly up in the sun, he spotted a familiar face. It was a completely naked Shere Khan.

He was so surprised that he made an unintelligible noise, startling Khan awake. The tiger and the pirate stared at each other. Khan spoke first. "My, my, what DO we have here?" he asked. "It looks like a wolf," he said slowly. He sniffed the air and made a face. "Smells like a wolf. But dresses like a man and walks up on two legs like a man?" he asked, getting up and padding on all fours towards a confused Karnage.

"Khan, so nice to see you again. You are not still mad about the- why are you talking on the four legs?" Karnage asked, easily distracted.

"Why am I walking on four legs? Why are you walking on two legs? I find the latter to be far more unnatural," he said smoothly.

"I appreciate the sunbathing as much as anyone but going nude is quite the bold choice. Have I intruded on your private island?"

"It should be," Khan answered. "Unfortunately, there are too many fools around for me to claim sole dominion. It is my turn to ask a question. Where have we met before?"

"Pardon?"

"You said it was nice to see me again," Khan pointed out. "But I think I would remember someone like you. Where have we met before?"

"I did plundered a bunch of your planes, we were working together to drive up the oil prices, I made your robot pilots look like fools… Any of this ringing the bell?"

"You just said a whole bunch of words but none of them meant anything to me," Khan said dryly. "All this conversation has been doing is making me hungry. I wonder, you walk like a man. Do you TASTE like a man?" Khan asked, moving another step forward.

He was driven back by Karnage's sword, which managed to nick a few whiskers. He rumpled his face up. "Annoying, you even cower behind your tools like a man. Fine, I will let you pass without incidence. You should get back to the dens of your kin before it gets dark. Wouldn't want to be… lost in this jungle, would we?" Khan asked, taking several steps back and seemingly melting into the surroundings. Even though Karnage could no longer see where Khan was, he could still feel Khan's eyes on him. He decided to get back to his plane and get the heck out of there.

Back at the bears, they walked for some distance before they reached a fallen tree with a black panther sleeping in it. "HEY BAGGY!" Baloo shouted, cupping his hands around his muzzle to amplify his voice.

The panther made a face and groaned. "Baloo, how many times do I have to tell you, it is Bagheera, not Baggy. What is so important that you would be out shouting in the middle of the-"

Bagheera opened his eyes and found two Baloos and one juvenile bear in man clothes looking up at him. "Oh, I am still dreaming," he said, closing his eyes again and rolling over.

"Excuse me, Mr. Bagheera?" Kit called. "I know this is a little strange, but we could really use some help. Can you tell us where we are?"

"In the jungle, of course. Bears in my dreams ask stupider questions than they do when I'm awake," he grunted.

"Yes, but… which jungle? Which country?" Kit asked.

"Country?" Bagheera asked. "What is that?"

"It's- nevermind. What's the nearest city?"

"That would be the Man Village, but even my dreams wouldn't be foolish enough to go there. They would skin you and make you into a rug."

"What-what's a man?" Baloo asked. He was imagining a nightmare creature after that introduction.

"You don't know what a man is? What rock have you been living under, brother?" the other Baloo asked.

"I know a man is… a man…" he said, making vague gestures in the direction of his groin. "But I've never heard of Man Village that would make a rug out of your hide. What kind of men live there? Cannibals?"

"You have lived a sheltered life," Bagheera said. "What do you mean, what kind of man? Man, man. There's only one kind."

Still elsewhere, the villagers had come upon the terrified trader. "I saw… I saw a thing coming through the sky. I went to where I thought I saw it landing because I wanted to see what it was. There, I found a strange boat floating on the river. Inside the boat was- was a man with the head of a wolf!" she said as her body trembled. "All covered in fur but wearing clothes like a man. It SPOKE to me! It SPOKE to me in a man's voice! It must be a yaksha!"

"I have an alternative theory," Mickey said. "I think Peter was right. They DID see an experimental flying machine, and whoever is developing it dressed their pilot up like a monster from the local mythology. That way if the locals saw it, they would attribute it to myth and legend instead of realizing they had seen a secret new technology."

"I know a man in a costume," the woman insisted. "This was not a costume!"

"What else could it be?" Davey asked. "A werewolf in a flying machine?"

"I think Mickey is right. We need to find this flying machine and capture it for the glory of the empire. Keep the pilot alive when we find it, we will need him to explain how it works. Go on, get to it," Michael said, clapping his hands together. The villagers looked nervously at one another. "I said, get to it. Or do I have to have a word with daddy?"

"Two machines," Peter reminded him. "The villagers reported TWO flying machines."

"Well, that was a waste of an afternoon," Baloo yawned. He was shambling back towards his favorite resting place, leading the other Baloo and Kit back to their plane. Bagheera was wandering with them, still not sure if he was asleep or awake. He was chatting with Kit about their homeland.

"So… everyone where you came from wears clothes like a man? And walks upright like a man?"

"No, the women wear clothes like women and walk upright like women… I guess…" Kit said. The whole man thing still wasn't communicating between them. "But I guess you've got the principle right."

"And you… fly through the sky like birds?"

"Yep, it's our job."

"And you came here through a dark cloud?"

"Yes."

"Well, it seems to me that, assuming this isn't just the strangest dream I have ever had, you need to fly back into the cloud to return to your own home."

"How do we do that, though? The cloud disappeared when we came through, and we don't know how to find it again."

"You are asking the wrong panther that question."

It was getting dark by the time they made it back to the Sea Duck. "I should make a fire before it gets too dark to see properly," Kit said, starting to gather up some small sticks. The other Baloo and Bagheera looked absolutely flabbergasted. "You can- make the red flower?" the other Baloo finally asked in shock.

"Yeah, one of the few useful things I ever learned from the air pirates," Kit answered.

"What's an… air pirate?" the other Baloo asked.

Kit's Baloo replied with "I envy you for not knowing that."

"But… YOU? You can make the red flower?" Bagheera repeated in shock. "And please, stop speaking that word. It is quite contrary to the laws of our jungle."

"I apologize, but- why is that so surprising?"

"Because making red flower is an ability only man has!" the other Baloo said in horror. "What kind of terrible world do you come from?"

"Did you hear what Baloo just said?" a voice came out of the trees above them.

"Which Baloo?"

"Two Baloo?"

"Oh, what to do!" a monkey asked as it dropped down in their faces.

"You! Give me back my clothes!"

"Okay, you want it, you got it!" the monkey said, and slammed the hat down on Baloo's head covering his eyes. "In trade, we'll take the kid!" the monkey said, grabbing Kit's arm.

"Let go of me!" he protested, but three other monkeys had descended on him. Each monkey grabbed a different limb and lifted him up.

"The boss is going to love you, kid!"

"Yeah, you'll really GO PLACES with us!" another snickered as they took off back into the trees with a kidnapped Kit.

"Baloo, help!"

"Kit!" he shouted back as he managed to pull his hat off his face. He tried to run after them, but the monkeys were too fast, bodily throwing Kit from group to group of themselves."

"You have to help me get Kit back!" Baloo said desperately.

"I absolutely agree. It could be a disaster if Louie gets his hands on the red flower!" Bagheera said.