As always the standard disclaimer applies: I do not own the Happy Tree Friends; they are the property of Mondo Media. In addition the character of Fresko the Feline belongs to Deviant Art user Yoshi Lord. I own only my own characters and this story.

Now here's chapter 58:

58 – INTERLUDE

There wasn't very much for Barry to do at that time; Sniffles was in constant close quarters with the Mole learning the basic secrets of the teleport technology and the Mole's security system was more than up to the task of protecting him. So Barry took Loco's advice and had a rest; more accurately he took a vacation. Those days he was at the Animal City he put away all of his cares from back home and spent his time walking about the city, reacquainting himself with the place and with old friends and acquaintances he hadn't seen in years. He didn't slack off on his combat practicing, however, and Loco, getting up in the morning, would often find him out on the back deck practicing his skills. One look was all Loco needed to know that Barry had progressed enormously as a fighter since he had last seen him a year earlier.

Meanwhile other things were taking place in other places. Just as this chapter heading is "Interlude" you've probably guessed that nothing much of any importance takes place in it. That may be but the unimportant things that do happen in this chapter will lay the foundations for much more important action to follow later so PAY ATTENTION! (Okay, now that we've gotten that out of the way...)

As mentioned earlier Sniffles was spending all of his waking time in the Mole's private laboratory learning the details of teleportation. However the Mole didn't walk him through everything; he gave Sniffles the plans and written texts regarding how it all worked and made Sniffles experiment with what he was given so that he would learn how to build a teleporter on his own.

Back at Metramegopolis Cuddles was having a similar experience learning the secret technology that allowed the city to fly. Robot and Virgil adopted a similar approach to the one the Mole used with Sniffles, but their approach had to be more hands-on simply because the systems that allowed the city to fly and kept it floating after take-off were very extensive. It was necessary to take Cuddles all around the city and show him many different parts of it that even most of the city residents never saw. Kevin often assisted with this, knowing more about many of the secret places of the inner city than almost anyone else.

Down on the lowest level of the Flying City, in the P.O.W. camp Tony and Anna Ride were debriefing the prisoners recently transferred over from the Animal City, but few of them had anything of consequence to say. Almost all of them were mere foot soldier Marauders and the Rides felt that quite a lot of them, far from actually being evil, were merely misguided in their loyalties and could potentially be rehabilitated and eventually released. Mayor King, however, was not so sure, and kept as close a watch as she could on the P.O.W. camp.

Zarkwon Du and Dunster were another matter. So far they had been kept in separate cells from each other and were unable to communicate, but both were intent on escape. Zarkwon Du, in particular, held in close confinement as he was, wanted not only to escape but somehow to get his hands on the teleport technology that had been used to send him to his current location. With that in his possession he could make his way back to the Marauders and hand XL-Jack-3 a device that would not only help the Marauders a lot, but would also ensure a place for himself in XL-Jack-3's most inner circle.

XL-Jack-3 was in the process of gathering all of his forces together and beginning the long march east, following the path that Metramegopolis had taken. On the first day of its flight the Flying City had put so much distance between itself and the Marauders that XL-Jack-3 knew it would take a considerable amount of time to catch up with it. And even when he did, as long as the city was still airborne it could escape again just as quickly. Knowing this, he didn't hurry with his preparations. Once the city was located he decided to keep his forces far enough away from it so that it wouldn't perceive any immediate danger, wait for it to land, and then, once it had done that, prepare for a new massive assault against it.

In all of this time neither XL-Jack-3 nor any of his henchmen had discovered the tiny bug that Petunia had placed in the hole in the lower part of his left leg, but it was still there, relaying data back to the Mole's scientific teams in the Animal City who, under the leadership of Flaky and Nutty, were struggling to decipher what the data meant. In this they were being helped by Nutty's findings. Ever since the night when Petunia had placed that bug Nutty had been ransacking his library of technological arcana for information from the Before Times about the XL-Jack series. Just recently he had found some important information from that time which could very well turn out to be crucial.

And in the prison where they were being held Lifty and Shifty were getting bored and impatient as they waited for the Mole to give them their mission so they could get out of there. Actually they intended to run as soon as they were released but, unknown to them, the Mole was already taking countermeasures to prevent them from doing just that.

As for the other characters in this story (and everyone else in either Metramegopolis, the Animal City, or the main Marauder camp), they simply went about the normal business of living; Emily waited back at Metramegopolis for Barry to come home; Fresko, not having much to do, but not being summoned to return home, was doing a bit of relaxing himself, although he never neglected his own exercises which he took with Flippy and Splendid on a regular basis. Toothy, Dane, Robot, and Handy each went about the business of governing their respective communities (Toothy, Dane, and Robot in collaboration with Mayor King, Handy on his own). Toothy was also briefing the Buddhist Monkey on the expected arrival of the raccoon brothers; the Buddhist Monkey was not exactly thrilled to be given charge of those two but he consented.

In other words life was going on, with all of its usual tedium and wonder. However everyone knew that this interlude of relative calm wouldn't last forever and it was just a question of what would happen to break the status-quo yet again.

(To Be Continued)