Chapter 6: A Frosty Reception
"Cor, blimey, this place is real snazzy!" Dingodile said as he gazed around the futuristic Dingo's Diner, taking in the decor of the parallel version of his own restaurant. "Looks like my future self—"
"Alternate future self," Coco corrected him without missing a beat.
"—Has really moved up in the world," Dingodile went on, beaming at the seats padded with red fabric, the polished surfaces of the tables and the digital boards that displayed meals, drinks and the prices of such.
"Eh, it's a little bit too modern for my tastes," Tawna said, glancing over at the bar. "It looks a lot like Dexter's Diner from that Star Wars movie… right down to the robot waitress," she concluded as the waitress, who was indeed a robot, approached the table where Tawna, Crash, Coco and Dingodile were seated, Aku Aku and the Quantum Masks hovering around the shoulders of the quartet. Lani-Loli gave a sharp gasp and floated back nervously at the sight of the diner's mechanised employee; the reality phasing mask was, as always, extremely paranoid about potential dangers and threats.
"Bzzt! Welcome tuh Dingo's Diner, folks! What can Ah - Bzzt! - git fer ya?" the waitress asked in a Southern accent that sounded like it was coming through a mechanical filter (which it almost certainly was).
"Oh, n-no, we're good, thanks!" Lani-Loli babbled, hovering behind Crash's head to obscure himself from view somewhat. "Come on, Crash, let's get outta here," he whined fearfully into Crash's ear, prompting the male bandicoot to roll his eyes. He reached behind him, grabbed the mask in his gloved hand and brought the neurotic spirit's vessel around, holding Lani-Loli tightly to make sure that he didn't suddenly bolt out the nearest window. The other masks chuckled knowingly.
"Lani, brother, do try to simmer down, hmm?" Kapuna-Wa told him, the time warping mask smirking in knowing amusement at Lani-Loli's continued trembling. "I know we're not in Kansas anymore, but that's no reason to get your particles in an anomaly!" she concluded with a light laugh.
"Relax," Akano said, casting his brother a firm but reassuring look, the dark matter mask's deep, threatening voice making Crash and Coco tense slightly; the Bandicoot siblings still found the purple Quantum Mask's demeanour very intimidating. Akano had an exceptionally strong sense of justice, but that combined with his borderline evil-sounding voice could make even the most casual of his one word comments sound quite menacing to those who didn't know him well. Lani-Loli trusted him implicitly, and that was good enough for Crash and Coco, but even so, the marsupial duo tried to avoid being left alone with 'Old Dark Matter Himself', as Lani-Loli affectionately called his brother.
"What's the point of getting worked up, anyway? We're all going to die sooner or later," the more negative of Ika-Ika's split personalities chimed in, his tone dripping with depression. The gravity mask then flipped over in mid-air, his more cheerful persona taking the reins. "Oho, pay no attention to old misery guts. He's just as nervous as you are, Lani-boy." He then flipped over again and his negative persona inputted, "Not nervous - just miserable." The mask then sighed gloomily and cast his gaze down towards the floor.
"What's the house special?" Tawna asked the waitress. Dingodile chuckled knowingly.
"That's my girl - wastes no time, gets right to the point," he said affectionally, making what could only be described as 'goo-goo eyes' at Tawna. Coco pulled a face and Crash looked away, almost letting go of Lani-Loli in his disgust. Even Aku Aku looked decidedly uncomfortable by the dingo-crocodile hybrid's display.
"Less sweet stuff, more food stuff," Tawna declared, though she returned Dingodile's gaze briefly, sending a flirtatious wink his way.
"I'll have a root beer!" Coco said eagerly, raising her hand. Everyone stared at her. "What?" she asked. "It's non-alcoholic!"
"It's called sarsaparilla," Tawna told Coco, "And alcoholic or not, it's still not really meant for kids. Maybe you should start with a nice pink lemonade," she suggested, Crash nodding in approval.
"Hey, I'm not some little kid who can't make her own decisions!" Coco stated, pouting in annoyance. "I build doomsday devices and dismantle them just for fun! I know Karate! I have an IQ of a hundred and sixty at least, and I— Oh, my gosh, they have a Junior Jumble on the side of the kids' meal box!" she suddenly cried excitedly, seeing an image of the restaurant's signature kids' meal come up on the digital menu display. "And the sauce is arranged on the burger patty like a smiley face! Oh, I am so having that for lunch!" she declared, causing everyone else at the table to burst out laughing, including the robot waitress (though she was likely only laughing to simulate sapient behaviour and appear less artificial).
"Crikey, you kids are a riot!" Dingodile exclaimed, chortling. "Were they like this back in your universe?" he asked Tawna. "You know, before they bit the… big… one…? Uh-oh," he finished in an awkward murmur, realising too late that he was being insensitive again. Tawna's laugher instantly faded and her expression became one worthy of Ika-Ika's pessimistic side.
"By the Ancients' hairy beards, why'd you have to go and put yer big clodhopper in it like that?" Kapuna-Wa exclaimed, rounding on Dingodile. "You don't just go and be remindin' someone of their loss, ya daft ninny!"
"Thank you, Kapuna-Wa, but I don't need anyone to speak for me," Tawna said, getting to her feet and taking the coil of rope that ended in her grappling hook in hand, swinging the end of it once, twice before casting it up towards the ceiling, looping the end around the overhead smoke alarm and proceeding to swing clean across the restaurant, causing one of the patrons at a nearby table (a young male lynx) to stop in mid-bite, a chunk of his burger falling out of his open mouth in awe at the spectacle he had just witnessed. Tawna then proceeded calmly towards the nearby restroom, quietly pushing the door open and stepping inside.
"Nice going, Dingus-dile," Coco declared coldly while Crash scowled disapprovingly at his former adversary. "She's probably gone to cry her eyes out in there!"
"Oh, bollocks, I've really done it now, haven't I?" Dingodile said with a sigh, slapping a hand to his forehead. "I'm just no good with the ladies, at least not in the long term." He then noticed that the robot waitress was still standing beside the table. "What're you gawking at?!" he barked at her, prompting the android to turn and speed away on her one wheel. Once she was out of earshot, Dingodile sighed once more. "Crikey, how am I supposed to fix this?" he asked no one in particular.
At that moment, the restaurant's automatic sliding doors opened and Barista Garnet stepped in, looking somewhat crestfallen. Coco was the first to notice her. "Hey, guys, look!" the brainy marsupial said, glad to have a distraction from what had just transpired. Crash followed Coco's gaze and waved to Garnet, smiling brightly and inviting her over. Garnet gave a small, almost half-hearted smile in return as she started over. Coco and Crash moved closer to the window to give her some room to sit down.
"Hey, guys," the anthropomorphic bat said with a noticeably forced air of cheerfulness as she took a seat. She then glanced around curiously. "Where's Tawna?"
"Uh…" Dingodile started uncertainly, but Crash and Coco both flashed him warning looks, shaking their heads frantically, prompting the dingo-crocodile hybrid to remain silent.
"She, um, had to step out for a bit," Coco told their newly arrived associate, casting a filthy look in Dingodile's direction as she spoke. That was all it took for Garnet to get the gist of what was going on. She bit her lip uncomfortably.
"…Oh. Is this, like, a bad time? Because I can go if it is," the bat girl said, starting to rise to her feet once more. Coco put a hand on her shoulder.
"Hey, no, it's alright. We're glad you could join us," the bandicoot girl told Garnet with a warm smile. "C'mon, sit down and take a load off. The drinks are on Dingodile," she said lightly, almost dismissively. If Dingodile was at all taken aback by that notion, he didn't show it, smartly keeping his mouth shut. After all, it was him opening his mouth in the first place that had landed him in the hot seat. Garnet, on her part, smiled and sat once more, only to leap up a moment later, her eyes wide.
"HOLY FRICK, WHERE DID THEY COME FROM?!" she shouted wildly, pointing at Aku Aku and the Quantum Masks. Crash, Coco, Dingodile, Aku Aku, Lani-Loli, Kapuna-Wa, Akano and Ika-Ika all looked at each other, and then they burst out laughing once more, the latter having flipped over to his positive persona again.
"You seriously didn't notice them when you walked in?!" Coco exclaimed, guffawing. "Oh, man, that's just…! You're something else, you know that, Miss Garnet?"
Garnet looked baffled at the reception she was getting, and then, after a moment, she started to laugh along with the rest of the group, scratching the back of her neck sheepishly, feeling rather silly.
"Heh. Sorry. I guess I have a lot on my mind at the moment," she admitted, and proceeded to tell Crash and company about her encounter with Neil Cortex and the events that had followed (though she made sure to leave out the part where she'd had a panic attack in the decontamination chamber, already embarrassed enough at having failed to notice the spirit masks floating around her).
"Another version of Nina Cortex. Hoo, boy…" Coco exclaimed. "I met a version of her in another dimension not too long ago, whooped her butt in an E-sports tournament. After the match was over, I told her that she gave me a good match and held out my hand for her to shake, thinking we could be friends. She looked at my outstretched hand and said, 'Put that thing away before I break it off.'"
Dingodile sniggered at that. "And you tykes think I'm crude," he said.
"Yeah, she sounds almost as bad as the Nina from my timeline," Garnet said, chuckling somewhat darkly, instinctively rubbing at her neck where alternate 2008 Nina had strangled her. "It's hard to believe that Neil is so nice. It's almost like he's… I don't know, the 'anti-Nina' or something!" She then sighed sadly. "I just wish he hadn't run off like that."
"I'm sure you'll see him again," Coco assured her. "In the meantime, let me introduce you to our friends, the Quantum Masks, as well as our longtime mentor. This is Lani-Loli, Akano, Kapuna-Wa, Ika-Ika… and Aku Aku," the brainy marsupial confirmed, gesturing to each mask in turn. "Aku's done a lot for Crash and I over the years, and the Quantum Masks are the very reason we can even be here in the SNaXX Dimension. Long story short, they're a good group," she concluded with a good-natured chuckle.
"I'll drink to that," Kapuna-Wa said, "And speaking of which, how 'bout we order a round before we all forget again?" she suggested, glancing at the robot waitress, who had just brought the nearby lynx fellow another strawberry milkshake.
Soon, the Bandicoots, Dingodile, Garnet and the masks were all munching on burgers, fries, salads and ice cream sundaes, Tawna having rejoined the group. She looked a little less crestfallen now, having perked up somewhat thanks to the chocolate-caramel swirl sundae she had just finished. She still wouldn't meet Dingodile's gaze, though, even after he apologised for reminding the adventurous bandicoot woman of her troubled past.
"Give her time," Coco whispered to him while Tawna was distracted talking to Garnet. He nodded and continued munching on his triple beef burger and saying nothing, still looking guilty and somewhat worried.
"…And so I said, 'That's not the end I was talking about!'" Tawna told Garnet, causing the bat girl to burst out laughing. "His face turned as green as nitro when he figured out what I meant!"
"Oh, that is disgusting!" Garnet cried between bouts of mirth. "You really don't mess around out there, do ya, Tawna?"
"Nope. Life's too short to play it safe," Tawna stated. "Gotta cast your grappling hook towards adventure and swing headlong into it. As long as you don't do anything too stupid, you'll be better for the experience."
"Indeed, sometimes the best way to learn is by doing," Aku Aku agreed. "Something that Crash knows all-too well. Remember the time he tried to drink an entire thick shake in one breath? He ended up passing out cold and couldn't stand to look at vanilla ice cream for a week!"
Everyone except Crash laughed, the male bandicoot looking embarrassed. He picked up his soda, slurping it noisily through the straw, careful to keep his rate of intake steady, especially after having choked on that Wumpa Whip the day before. Lani-Loli, thankfully much more relaxed now after a heaping helping of fries, floated lazily around Crash's shoulder, looking decidedly contented.
"Mmm, mmm!" Kapuna-Wa exclaimed, having just finished her meal. "There's nothing like a veggie burger with spicy sauce to perk an old gal right up! Still not as good as the ones in Texas, but it gets the job done. Oh, I remember when…" And she was off, reminiscing about the 'good old days'. Crash and Coco caught each other's eye and chuckled knowingly.
"Yeah, definitely better than the food at Evil Public School," Garnet mused aloud. "That's just one of several reasons why I wanted to learn how to make quality coffee. I thought that if I couldn't prove my worth as a soldier, then maybe I could prove my worth as what would eventually become my namesake - a barista, but the other Brat Girls weren't having it. They quickly grew jealous of my brewing skills, which were developing fast thanks to The Villainess' Guide To Exquisite Coffee, and they were determined to find fault in my coffee, even if that meant actively sabotaging my blends or breaking the cafeteria's brewing equipment to try and keep me from making it altogether. I eventually decided that I'd had enough of how they treated me and that I wanted out. Out of the school. Out of being a minion of evil. Out of everything that my life had been since I was first cloned! I finally got my chance when the higher-ups began recruiting extra help at the Ice Prison, the school's subsidiary where the Titans were kept as reserve bioweapons. I volunteered to journey there without hesitation, thinking that I could slip away into the icy wilderness on the way and find somewhere - anywhere - where I could live and blend coffee in peace. Of course, nothing in life ever goes quite the way you expect it to, and boy, did I find myself on the broad side of the unexpected…"
Path To The Ice Prison, Frozen Coast, 2008
The air was chilly, the breeze peppered with the salty brine of the sub-zero sea surrounding the icy glacier that the four Brat Girls walked upon, bulky backpacks on their shoulders. BG-2187 walked in stride with her peers, BG-1342 and BG-6578, the former occasionally snickering to herself at some inside joke that only she was privy to, the latter glancing around nervously. Very nervously. She kept peering over the edge of the glacier, only to let out a nervous gasp and quickly scramble back into formation, her eyes wide.
"Ugh. Bring the minion who's afraid of heights, they said. It'll be funny to watch her flip out, they said," the leader of the patrol, BG-0085, muttered to herself bitterly. BG-0085 was one of the more intelligent Brat Girls; cunning, resourceful and very much in charge of whatever group she was assigned to. Her aura of authority had earned her the nickname 'Alpha' among her peers. Her current squad, meanwhile, were often referred to unfavourably as 'Wimp' in BG-6578's case and 'Screwball' in BG-1342's case. BG-2187 didn't have a nickname, her superiors having deemed her as 'not even good enough to slap a demeaning label on'.
Wimp took another fearful glance over the side and BG-2187, starting to grow fed up with this nonsense, grabbed her fellow Brat Girl by the wrist and pulled her away from the steep vertical drop.
"Stop looking at it if it makes you uncomfortable!" the coffee enthusiast told her fretful peer.
"Y-You're not the boss of me!" Wimp stammered in response before taking another peek into the chasm. This time, she let out a frightened yelp as something in the dark depths of the chasm, something with glowing red eyes, stared back up at her.
"No, but I sure am," Alpha said, rounding on the group. "Get a grip, Wimp, or so help me, I'll throw you into the abyss myself!"
Screwball snickered softly at Wimp's expense, the latter just letting out a sad whine worthy of an injured puppy as she slunk back into formation. BG-2187, despite being just as annoyed at Wimp's antics as everyone else present, put a comforting hand on the cowardly Brat Girl's shoulder. Wimp looked at her in surprise. BG-2187 smiled reassuringly at her… only for Wimp to wrench herself from her fellow Brat Girl's grasp with an indignant 'Hmph!' sound. "I don't need your pity," she stated coldly before adding in a quiet mutter, "And you shouldn't be giving it, anyway."
BG-2187 felt saddened as she watched Wimp turn away, shift the weight of her backpack and continue marching. In truth, she knew that Wimp was right; a minion of evil had no business showing compassion to others, and yet, she couldn't help but care for her fellow minions - well, some of them, anyway - even if they didn't think much of her in return. It made her second guess her desire to escape from being a minion, to be a deserter in the line of duty. Then she reminded herself that for all the compassion she might have to give, she'd never receive any in return at Evil Public School. She couldn't live out her whole life like that, her talents going unrecognised, her loyalty to her kin going unappreciated, her very existence being taken for granted… She'd put up with it long enough already.
"There it is, girls!" Alpha announced as the group rounded another pillar of ice to see their destination erected before them in the great bowl-like valley below. It towered out of the frigid water, a great spire of ice and stone, windows of iron bars lining its walls, jagged icicles and thick layers of snow coating its surface:
The Ice Prison.
"Whoa," was all BG-2187 could say; she hadn't expected the frost-covered fortress to be quite so big.
"It's so… tall," Wimp summarised, swallowing nervously as she stared at the Ice Prison, clearly hoping that she wouldn't have to climb to the top of it.
"Nothing gets by you," Alpha said, rolling her eyes, the patrol leader unimpressed by Wimp's statement of the obvious. "Alright, fellow minions, let's head down there!"
A short while later, the Brat Girl patrol stood inside the Ice Prison, Alpha having exchanged nods with the guards, who had consisted of another Brat Girl and a Ratcicle with an NV on its head, the latter having been standing at attention while the former had been close to dozing off where she sat, only to leap up and try to look vigilant and professional at the sight of the approaching patrol - an illusion that was immediately shattered when she had dropped her megaphone on her foot, causing her to hop up and down on the spot in a fit of pain. Alpha had chosen not to acknowledge the incident out of respect for her fellow Brat Girl of relatively high ranking, but Screwball had been sure to snicker mockingly at the guard. Wimp and BG-2187 meanwhile, had done their best to avoid making eye contact with either of the guards, something that had caused Wimp to walk right into the Ratcicle and let out a panicked gasp. The Ratcicle had growled threateningly at her, but had done nothing more, the NV keeping it from acting aggressively without orders. Once that little encounter was over, the patrol had made their way into the heart of the prison, where they were now setting down their backpacks and checking the settings on their megaphones, Screwball hugging hers to her chest as though the sound amplifying device was a cherished teddy bear.
"Take five, you lot, but don't do anything stupid!" Alpha told her troops. "I need to go and speak with the Warden. BG-2187, you're the least hopeless of the three of you… or so I keep telling myself. I'll leave you to keep these two," she said, pointing at Wimp and Screwball, "In check until I get back. Don't mess it up." With that, the patrol leader walked off, leaving BG-2187 to survey her fellow minions. Screwball was still hugging her megaphone, occasionally letting out little vocal noises that signified contentment. Wimp sat down cautiously on the cold, hard floor, unzipping her backpack and pulling out a muesli bar, tearing the wrapper open and taking a small bite of the processed rectangle of raisins and nuts, keeping her gaze downcast as she chewed. After a moment, BG-2187 moved to sit down beside Wimp, soon producing a muesli bar of her own from her backpack.
"You doing okay?" she asked quietly as she unwrapped her snack.
"Don't," Wimp pleaded. "I don't deserve sympathy. I'm a pathetic weakling and should be treated as such."
"And I thought I lacked confidence," BG-2187 said, biting into her muesli bar, chewing thoroughly and swallowing before commenting once more. "You really shouldn't view yourself so poorly. Just because others say you're pathetic, that doesn't make it true."
"Have you met me?" Wimp asked bitterly, letting out a sad sigh. "The sooner I return to the Mojo flow, the better."
BG-2187 suddenly felt a strong urge to slap Wimp in the face, but it wasn't anger that fuelled this desire. "Hey!" she barked sharply, causing Wimp to flinch in alarm. "Let's have no more of that negative talk, um, soldier. You gotta set a good example for the other troops." She then leaned close to Wimp's ear. "Especially since some of them," she whispered, jerking her head in Screwball's direction, the less sophisticated member of the group now trying to gnaw at the tip of one of her pink boots while it was still on her foot, "Aren't exactly playing with a full deck."
Wimp, who had just taken a woeful sip of hot chocolate from her thermos, let out a snort of laughter before she could stop herself, the flavoured warm milk spurting out through her nostrils.
"Well, you've got me there," she admitted, allowing herself a reluctant smile. "Hey, 2187? Thanks. I think I needed that."
"Even we minions of evil need a morale boost now and then," BG-2187 told her. "Hang in there, okay, Wimp? In fact, you know what? We should come up with a better nickname for you."
Wimp shook her head. "I'm used to it," she assured BG-2187. "Some of the Brat Girls back at the school get called much worse; I got off relatively easy. Besides, if you're gonna have a label slapped on you, you might as well reclaim it, make it your own, you know?"
"Ah, and turn a negative into a positive," BG-2187 mused, nodding approvingly. "Now that is the right attitude to have, Wimp," she said, putting a hand on her fellow Brat Girl's shoulder.
"Thanks, 2187," Wimp said, taking another sip from her thermos. BG-2187 smiled and stood up once more.
"Here," she said, passing her half-eaten muesli bar to her fellow minion. She wasn't concerned about spreading germs, given that all Brat Girls were cloned from the same strand of mutated DNA. "You need it more than I do."
"Where are you going?" Wimp asked as BG-2187 started to walk away, picking up her backpack and slinging it over her shoulder as she went.
"Huh? Oh! Um… I should probably check the perimeter," the coffee enthusiast responded quickly. "I'm taking my bag because if I don't, Screwball will probably eat it."
"Don't we have guards patrolling the perimeter?"
"Have you met the guards in this place?"
Wimp laughed. "Fair point. Wait, what do I tell Alpha if she comes back and you're not here?"
"Tell her I've deserted the cause of evil," BG-2187 replied simply, marching forward without looking back. Wimp laughed again.
"Yeah, I bet she'd love that!" she exclaimed sarcastically, grinning. Her grin then faltered. "You are joking, right, 2187? …2187?"
BG-2187 didn't answer, only continuing to walk away in silence.
"…And that's not even the last time she stole my lipgloss!"
"Ugh! She's such a skank! Can we really not just push her off a glacier and make it look like an accident?"
BG-2187 peeked out from behind the pillar of ice she was hiding behind, listening intently as the two Brat Girls on patrol walked through the Ice Prison's chilly halls.
"Nah, no such luck. High ranking guards don't just disappear by accident," the first Brat Girl was saying. "Speaking of disappearing, have you heard those rumours? You know, the ones about the secret Mojo hot spring hidden somewhere in this very prison?"
"Oh, yeah, I heard the Warden's second-in-command talking about that!" the second Brat Girl said. "Something about a an ice wall that comes and goes, opening the passage to the lair of the Magmadon King himself!"
The first Brat Girl snorted. "Magmadon King… What a load! It's probably just some rogue Brat Girl hiding behind an NV-controlled Magmadon, using her megaphone to make herself sound all intimidating and scary. You know, like in The Wizard Of Oz; she's just hiding behind a facade to scare away anyone who might come looking for her."
"Ha! Figures," the second Brat Girl declared, nodding in agreement. "I mean, if I had a whole hot spring to myself, I'd wanna keep it shrouded in secrecy, too."
"What're you, thick? There is no hot spring!" the first Brat Girl exclaimed, giving her cohort a slap around the back of the head. "It's probably just some secret passageway where the aforementioned rogue Brat Girl has stashed a bunch of food and holed herself up in because she's not smart or capable enough to escape outright!"
"Well, she better not have stolen my sandwich cookies!" the second Brat Girl said stupidly. "I went through great lengths to smuggle those into this place; I need my chocolate biscuit and vanilla cream fix to make it through the day!"
"Oh, you are embarrassing," the first Brat Girl declared, rolling her eyes.
"Hey, d'you think anyone else around here might try that?"
"What, stealing your cookies?"
"No! I meant try to go rogue and escape!"
The first Brat Girl looked thoughtful. "Hard to say. I mean, they'd be fools to try; there's no walking out of this place without being noticed, that's for sure. Guards at every entrance, NV-controlled Titans stationed around every corner… and don't forget that Doctor Cortex has got this entire place under surveillance. He keeps banging on about it over the loudspeaker system."
"Do you… I mean, d'you think he's bluffing?"
"Watch your mouth, fellow minion. Comments like that will get you sent back into the Mojo flow the hard way."
The second Brat Girl gulped and chose to remain silent as she and her cohort rounded the corner and moved out of sight. BG-2187 let out a sigh of relief, glad that she hadn't been discovered.
"No walking out of here, huh?" she mused quietly. "That's what I was afraid of." She bit her lip and started forward, walking the the direction the two patrolling Brat Girls had gone. "Come on, you can think of something," she told herself as she went. "Maybe you could slip out during the changing of the guard? Oh, but I don't even know the schedule of that." She sighed. "This is gonna be harder than I thought. Maybe I should just cut my losses and—"
A low growl sounded from somewhere to BG-2187's left and she froze, slowly turning her head in the direction of the sound. She could see a dank, dark cell behind a set of rusted iron bars, a bulky padlock keeping the cell and its occupant secure. BG-2187 could make out a pair of beady, feral eyes watching her from within the shadows of the cell. She swallowed nervously, taking a step back.
"…And that's when I told her to shove it sideways," a familiar voice called from nearby; those two Brat Girls were coming back! BG-2187 gasped, glancing back at the ice pillar she had hidden behind before. It was too far away for her to reach in time and there was nowhere else to hide; she was completely exposed! Thinking fast, she stepped up to the cell and turned around, standing at attention just beside the iron bars.
"Ha! That's telling her, 351! I'll bet she…" the voice of the second Brat Girl trailed off as she and her cohort rounded the corner to see BG-2187 standing a short distance away, keeping her gaze focused forward, pretending to act like a highly disciplined guard. "Hey, get a load of this."
The first Brat Girl, BG-351, grinned coldly. "Looks like fresh blood," she mused quietly. "Probably her first day on guard duty. Just look at how important she's trying to act. Come on, let's show her that she's nothing special."
The duo approached BG-2187. She glanced at them out of the corner of her eye, but said nothing, trying to remain as stoic and at attention as one of those British royal guards she had seen on television.
"Well, well. Check out the new kid on the block," BG-351 said nonchalantly, "Haven't seen you around here before. Just transferred from Evil Public School?"
BG-2187 didn't answer. She hoped that if she remained steadfast, the two Brat Girls would go away and leave her to her apparent guard duty, allowing her to slip away once they were gone.
"Not one for small talk, huh? You know, I bet you think you're a pretty big deal, standing there all puffed up like that," BG-351 said, her cohort tittering beside her. "You think you're all that and a bag of chips just because you got promoted to guard duty from… whatever mundane work you did back at the school. Well, let me fill you in on something, one guard to another," she went on, leaning in close and whispering into BG-2187's ear, "You're no more important than the rest of us."
The second Brat Girl's tittering turned into a fit of mad giggling. "Yeah, that's right! You're just another cog in the machine! That's how that saying goes, right?" she asked her cohort somewhat uncertainly. The first Brat Girl nodded, stepping back before speaking clearly once more.
"You see, my dear, we Brat Girls are clones, which means we're all the same in terms of biology. Granted, your wings are a little smaller than most, but that doesn't make you any sort of special snowflake."
BG-2187 remained silent, but her lack of confidence must've shown on her face, for BG-351 smirked knowingly, putting a hand to BG-2187's furry cheek and stroking it patronisingly.
"There it is. You know, don't you? You know that you're just another minion, no more significant than the rest of us."
BG-2187 reached up, grabbed BG-351's wrist and wrenched her hand away. "And what about you?" she demanded. "Do you think you're all-important? You must do, given that you feel that you can pester your fellow guards rather than go about your job like the loyal minion you claim to be!" she concluded, trying to sound tougher than she actually felt.
"Oho! So she can speak for herself!" BG-351 girl said with mock awe. "Perhaps she'd be so kind as to tell me her serial number? Or maybe she doesn't have one? Maybe she abandoned it because she's actually the rogue Brat Girl I was talking about earlier, hmm?"
"WHAAAAT?!" the second Brat Girl cried stupidly. She lunged forward and grabbed BG-2187 by the collar. "Where did you hide my sandwich cookies?! Talk, you skank!" she ordered, shaking BG-2187 violently.
"Hey, hey! Easy, 254! Give her a chance to speak," BG-351 told her cohort. The second Brat Girl, BG-254, released BG-2187, but kept her eyes trained on the now nerve-wracked coffee enthusiast, as though expecting to find her missing sandwich cookies somewhere on BG-2187's person.
"I'm BG-2187," the small-winged Brat Girl said through gritted teeth, trying to hide her fear with anger, "And I'll be reporting you both to the Warden for this display if you don't get out of my sight right now!"
"Oho! Is that right?" BG-351 asked, taking a bold step towards BG-2187, unholstering her megaphone as she did so. "I think it's time we showed you, BG-2187, if that is your real designation, what it's like to live in the real world," she said, gesturing to her cohort to get her to follow her lead. "Have you ever had two anthropomorphic bats screech at you through megaphones, one in each ear? They say that crossing the sound waves like that creates a pulse that can make the victim's head explode. I think it's time we put that theory to the test."
Right then, the prisoner inside the dark cell behind BG-2187 let out a very ferocious growl, making the fur of every Brat Girl present bristle.
"Oh, don't mind him," BG-351 said dismissively. "He's just some defective Titan who doesn't respond properly to NV control. We were told to lock him up to keep him out of the way and, well, we like to come back now and them and, shall we say, show him who's boss."
"Y-Yeah, we like, forced him to dance around in a tutu, and whenever he didn't obey, we'd give him a good dose of megaphone chatter!" BG-254 declared somewhat shakily, eyeing the dark cell warily.
"He's no threat so long as those bars remain intact," BG-351 said, her calm, calculated tone really starting to irk BG-2187; she was just so obnoxiously confident and smug.
"Yeah? W-Well, I've got the key to his cell in my pocket right here, and if you two don't back the hell off…" BG-2187 began in as menacing a tone as she could muster, only for her words to fail her as BG-351 produced the cell key from her own pocket and held it up for all present to see.
"Mmm, sorry, sweetheart, but I'm calling your bluff," she said, smiling coldly. "Now, let's make this loud…" she mused, turning up the volume on her megaphone all the way. BG-2187 hastily moved to unholster her own megaphone to try and defend herself, but then—
"RAWRRRRRRR!"
The bars of the cell shook violently as a pair of large, clawed hands of deep blue suddenly rattled them, frost emanating from those lethally sharp talons. BG-254 shrieked in alarm and jumped into BG-351's arms, causing the latter to drop her megaphone and the cell key. Seizing her chance, BG-2187 quickly reached down and snatched up both items, holding the megaphone at the ready and the key towards the cell.
"I'll do it!" she cried wildly. "I'll open it! I'll release him and let him run wild! That's right, I'm crazy enough! …I think," she finished uncertainly. She didn't have time to decide whether or not she was bluffing, however, because one of the clawed hands suddenly reached through the bars, snatched the key out of BG-2187's hand before she could react, jammed it into the lock and turned it, and then…
"Oh, no," BG-254 whined fearfully.
"Oh, no," BG-351 said dully, her pupils shrinking.
"Oh, Ancients, help me," BG-2187 pleaded as the cell door swung open slowly with a great creaking sound, the tall, imposing figure of the Titan still standing in shadow, and then—
"AWGURRRRRRRR!"
The Brat Girls screamed in terror as the Ratcicle raised it arms over its head, roaring in triumph at its escape. It then started forward, frost-infused claws outstretched. BG-2187 fell onto her rear, scrambling back in pure terror, but the Ratcicle stepped right past her, its focus on the two troublesome Brat Girls who had previously tormented it. BG-351 dropped BG-254 onto the snow-covered floor and ran away screaming, the latter quickly scrambling up and hurrying after her. The Ratcicle then raised its left arm before slamming its clawed hand down onto the ground before it, icicles suddenly bursting from the ground in a long, jagged trail that coasted along the floor like soil that a rabbit was burrowing through. The trail caught up with the two fleeing Brat Girls and with an odd popping sound, the pair were suddenly encased in the ice, their faces literally frozen in terror along with the rest of their bodies.
The Ratcicle then turned to face BG-2187, much to her horror.
"Oh, no," she begged, her eyes locked on the monster's beady ones. "Please, no!"
The Ratcicle ran at her, only to stop a few feet away and stare at her, its jagged teeth locked in a menacing snarl. BG-2187 stared back, not daring to move, her heart pounding against her chest, her eyes wide.
After a long, terrifying moment, the icy beast turned away, seeming to have decided that BG-2187 wasn't worthy of its time. It started to walk away, only to stop and sniff at the air, picking up some sort of scent. It then turned to face BG-2187 once more and, after only a moment's hesitation, the creature ran at her. BG-2187 barely had time to scream before she was picked up in one of the monster's bulky hands by the strap of her backpack, which the creature sniffed at curiously. It then grunted before turning and starting off deeper into the cell block, taking BG-2187 with it, backpack and all.
'Oh, no! He must be after the food in my backpack!' BG-2187 realised. 'And once he's finished with it, I'm next!'