Double Doo-Doo Saga
Part one:
Mutant Plants and Alien Ivasions
Written by Anna-mathe with help from her friend Gloria.
Knuckles the Echidna and related characters are property of Sega and Archie Comics.
Zorak and related characters are property of someone else.
Fish and the intelligent plants (but not the fungus) are property of myself.
Colonel Pepsi is property of Gloria.
Zorak looked over at Space Ghost, who was talking in his sleep again. He looked at Brak, who was snoring loudly.
Finally! Now's my chance!
Quietly stepping out of his prison pod, he tip-toed out past both of them and out to the hangar. The Phantom Cruiser was about to go on a new kind of cruise.
Vector was having some problems. If he wasn't so worried about his reputation, he probably would've sought professional help immediately, but his pride stopped him. No, he'd deal with this on his own.
He had poison ivy.
This was not ordinary poison ivy. He'd been taking a short cut through the Mushroom Zone when he'd accidentally encountered the stuff. Unlike normal poison ivy, each leaf was at least a foot in width, most bigger, and it was growing up the sides of the giant mushrooms. It had been pretty much impossible to get through without coming into contact with it at least once, even though the sight of it made his skin crawl.
Spooky. Just spooky stuff. Eeeeeeew!
And as the size of the leaves had magnified, so had the size of the itching, until the point where he was running around like a maniac screaming bloody murder.
The croc wasn't the only one to have discovered the giant poison ivy. Of course, the mushrooms themselves weren't very thrilled with the stuff, but while they considered it a minor inconvenience, others considered it a threat to Island Security.
"Where did it come from?" Sabre asked Locke from within Haven's secret facilities. "I mean, mutations of that proportion don't appear over night."
"I do have a guess as to where they came from," Locke answered with a sour expression.
"Do tell, my son."
"For years, Robotnik's factories were spurting all sorts of chemicals into the air and atmosphere. I think the most logical explanation is that some sort of pollution has been working away at the vegetation for years, and signs of it are just now beginning to show."
"But should that be the case," Sabre said after Locke finished his explanation, "there could be other forms of similar mutations all over the Island."
"All over the planet, you mean."
"How are the mushrooms taking it?"
"They're not happy, but they're dealing with it pretty well."
"Well, why don't you see if they'll do something along the lines of clearing out our hostile vegetation before it mutates any further?"
"Because, knowing them, they'd probably consider it murder."
"Oh. Yeah."
Between the four of them, Knuckles and the other Chaotix had found just about every itch remedy in existence for Vector, but nothing seemed to be helping his state any. The poor guy was about to go ballistic with agony.
"Uh, do you think maybe a doctor could do something about it?" Charmy suggested.
"Heck no!" Vector adamantly insisted. "I refuse to let any of those overpaid quacks go poking all over me!"
Knuckles crossed his arms and glared at Vector appraisingly.
"Well, fine then, if you wanna stay that way . . . "
"Don't you go pullin' that reverse psychology stuff on me, man!"
"Huh? What're you talking about?"
"Don't even!!"
"What?!"
Vector threw his arms up in defeat.
"Fine, fine! Where's the nearest Stat-care?"
"Er, if you say so."
Locke had been right to assume that not only the Floating Island was having sudden trouble with plant life.
"You're telling me that plants have been assaulting people?!" King Acorn asked in surprise/disgust.
"Yes, sir!" Geoffery replied, still amazed himself. "Just within the eastern border of the Great Forest. I was personally attacked by a giant wildflower while looking into the matter"
"Exactly what matter had you been looking into?"
"Well, we've been getting some very strange reports of unusually large plant growth in certain areas all over the planet. That was the closest sight, so I thought it couldn't hurt to check it out." Geoffery rubbed the large bump on his head. "But it actually hurt quite a lot."
"Mm hm. And, er, how dangerous are these giant plants?"
"It's hard to say. It depends on how angry one makes them."
"And how does one make a giant plant angry?"
"Simple. Step on one of their friends."
The king shook his head.
"This is insane. So you're telling me that first, we get giant plants. Next, those giant plants start attacking people?"
"Yes, sir! They appear to have great intelligence!"
King Acorn twiddled his thumbs for a moment.
"Until now, the only known intelligent plant life has been the Brobdingnagian Fungi on the Floating Island."
Geoffery blinked.
"Giant mushrooms?"
"Yes, giant mushrooms. I recommend you see what they have to say on these new matters."
"Yes, sir, I'll get on it right away."
Light years away, Zorak was having the time of his life, zooming thorugh solar systems in the stolen Phantom Cruiser.
"Ha ha! Finally! I'm free of that dork, Space Ghost, and Brak, the disgrace to space criminals everywhere! Now to get back to my plans of UNIVERSAL CONQUEST!! Hoohoohahaha!"
Dr. Loony was astounded. He'd never seen a case of poison ivy like this in all the years he'd been a doctor.
"Well, how many times have you run into giant poison ivy plants?" Vector grumbled when the doctor said so.
"I do have a solution to all your problems," Dr. Loony said.
"What's that?"
Without a word, the doctor conked Vector up side of the head and knocked him out cold, much to the astonishment of Knuckles and the other Chaotix.
"Hey, someone had to put him out of his misery!" Loony said by way of excuse.
"Excuse me?!" Espio exclaimed. "You just bashed in his brains!" Hypothetical brains, but brains.
"So?"
"So," Mighty replied, "don't expect us to pay for this visit now!" He turned to the others. "Okay, we might as well get outta here. But who wants the honor of waking up Sleeping Beauty over there?"
"Uuuuuuh, on second thought, it couldn't hurt to leave him out for a little longer," Knuckles replied.
"Uh oh," Locke muttered under his breath. Sabre had gone to get some coffee. Locke was still analizing the giant poison ivy with growing interest, until the latest development. This was not good. Not good at all. He pushed a button, and Constable Remington's face appeared in a corner of the screen.
"Yes?" he asked.
"I need you to get in touch with Knuckles and the Chaotix and send them out to the Mushroom Zone immediately."
Remington scratched his head.
"Vector was out there before. He came back with the worst case of poison ivy ever recorded. Said something about mutant plants."
"Mutated poison ivy. I know. However, things have just gotten a bit more serious."
"Oh?"
"Yes. The plants seem to have achieved sentience."
Remington blinked in disbelief.
"Intelligent poison ivy?!"
"Apparently."
"Well well. Here's a twist." Remington gulped, considering what that could end up meaning. "I'll let them know. Um, do you know what caused this?"
"I have an idea. I'll let you know when I'm sure. Locke out." And Locke cut off the contact before the Constable asked any more questions.
Vector woke up, and he wasn't very happy.
Upon opening his eyes, he promptly stated: "Ow!"
"Sorry about that," Knuckles told him. "Dr. Loony got overexcited."
"So I noticed. Hey!"
"What?" the others chorused.
"The itching stopped!"
Before they could figure out just how on Mobius that had happened, Remington drove up beside them in his scooter-vehicle.
"Hey, guys, there's something I think you should know about . . . "
Zorak landed on his home planet.
"Hey, Zorak!" said a mantis named Colonel Pepsi.
"Hi, how's it goin'? YOU BIG DOPE!!!!! You left the refridgerator door open!!!"
"Uh, whoops!"
Zorak shook his head. "Crud. You mean the fridge has been open the whole time I was stuck with that geek, Space Ghost?!"
Colonel Pepsi shrugged.
"Yeah, guess so. Whoops."
Zorak growled.
"Fine! Now you have to pay the electric bill, fool!"
"No!!! Not that!!!! ANYTHING but THAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
"Yes! That! Hoohoohoohaha!"
Colonel Pepsi began to cry.
"Oh, cut that out. So what devices have you come up with for me? Anything delightfully evil?"
"Well, we made this funky ray gun that turns people, or anyting else for that matter, into fuzzy pink giraffes with no heads."
Zorak blinked.
"Euh, okay."
"Oh my goodness!!!!" Mighty exclaimed.
A three meter wide poison ivy leaf turned and faced him, face to face. Then it opened one huge eyeball and stared at him.
Mighty stared back until he began to feel queazy. Then Knuckles grabbed his arm and dragged him on just before he threw up.
"Be careful," Knux warned the Chaotix. "Who knows what these things can do."
He should have kept his mouth shut. The moment those words were out of his mouth, every poison ivy plant within hearing range turned and stared at him. Then they began to growl.
Espio promptly disappeared, and Charmy yelped and looked for a place to hide. Vector groaned, "Oh, not again!!!" while Knuckles and Mighty just sorta stood there.
A particularly large one seemed to be in charge.
"Hey, who're you callin' things?!" it demanded, pulling its roots away from the mushrooms (who were looking mildly surprised) and slowly approaching the 5 of them.
"Um, you, I think," Knuckles replied sarcastically. "I mean, what do you expect me to call giant poison ivy plants that appear overnight?"
"Why not call us . . . your worst nightmare?!?!?!?!?!?!?!" it suggested, jumping at them with incredible speed, for a plant.
"AHH! RUN!!!!" Vector yelled at the top of his lungs. "We need major weedkiller here!!!"
"Vector, don't - " Knuckles warned, quickly jumping out of the ivy's path along with the others.
Before he could finish his warning, however, the ivy caught up with the retreating croc and gobbled him up.
"Oh my gosh! He killed Vector!!!" Charmy squeaked in horror.
"You blockhead!!" Mighty shouted.
"Spit him up right now!" Knuckles ordered.
"On whose authority?" Ivy demanded.
"Mine! Guardian of the Floating - " He was cut off as he got eaten by Ivy2 that had snuck up from behind.
"Oh great!!" Mighty exclaimed. "Hey, man, what's your game? Why are you eating everyone?"
"Because your kind have been destroying our kind for as long as you've existed! Now it's time for . . .
of the
Giant Mutant
of Doom
"Um . . . well, why shouldn't we stomp you out?" Mighty demanded, trying to word his way out of this. "After all . . . you make us itch! Aren't we entitled to retaliate?"
"Let me think. No. Actually," Ivy corrected himself, "you are. Of course, in that light, so are we!!"
Mighty had been slowly working his way back to the end of the Zone, and could probably make a clean break for it now, and Charmy was clinging to his neck. However, he was starting to get into this.
"Oh yeah? Well, I'll keep that in mind when I get some mutant powers of my own and we can call this a fair fight!"
"What's so unfair? It's no more unfair than when you stomp out plant life with no intelligence!"
"If plants were meant to have intelligence, they would have been born with brains!!!"
Ivy took a deep breath and pulled himself to his full height.
The mushrooms began placing bets.
Mighty growled, but before he could do anything more than growl, an unseen hand grabbed him and dragged him off. Mighty, surprised, went along.
Espio appeared.
"One of these days, you're not going to have me around to keep you from doing something stupid!" he warned.
"Yeah, fine. So now what? Those darn plants just ate Vector and Knux!"
"Yeah, I noticed. I agree with Vector. Let's go get us some mega weedkiller."
On their way back to Echidnaopolis, they ran into Geoffery.
"Hey, mates!" he greeted them. "You know where I might find Knuckes?"
"Back there," Espio replied, pointing in the direction they'd come from. "Inside the stomach of some giant mutant poison ivy."
"Giant mutant poison ivy?"
"You got it, Bubba," Mighty confirmed. "It ate him, and Vector, too."
"Oh. Well, where can I find some Brobd-brobi- . . . giant mushrooms?"
"Oh, they're with the giant poison ivy," Charmy replied.
"Oh." Geoffery thought about that one.
"Say, what're you doin' here, anyway?" Espio asked. "I thought you had a day job."
"Never. But intelligent plant life has been sprouting up all over Mobius, and most of it is hostile."
"You don't say?"
"Yes, actually. But what should we do about it?"
Espio glared at him.
"I thought you secret service types were supposed to have an answer for everything?"
"Normally, we do. But giant mutant plants are not an everyday occurance. I'd think it would be more along your line."
"Why is that?"
"Well, all this seems pretty chaotic to me!!"
"So what's the latest?" Sabre asked, returning to the Observation Room, loaded down with an awful lot of coffee.
"Well," Locke replied with a sigh, "a giant mutant poison ivy plant just swallowed your grandson."
"It ate Knuckles?"
"And Vector. Crud. This isn't going very well. And now we have the secret service prowling around."
"Oh, remind me to spread around some newspapers. Speaking of which, have you read the headlines?"
"No, what headlines?"
"Well, a notorius space-criminal named Zorak escaped from custody."
"What's his crime?"
"Trying to take over the universe."
"Oh. Well, aren't they all?" Locke grabbed some coffee and guzzled it down. "Anyway, I think we should send the Chaotix, um, the remaining Chaotix, some help." There was a small puff of smoke and three fire ants appeared. Locke crossed his arms and leaned forward. "Hey, guys, you like to eat plants, right?"
Archimedes snorted.
"Um, no. We're ants, not caterpillars."
"Well, plants don't normally eat echidnas and crocodiles, either."
"What, did a plant eat somebody?"
"Okay, we have enough weedkiller here to destroy a rainforest," Constable Remington informed Geoffery and the Chaotix, after seeing to the situation. "Now, may I ask how you intend to get rid of all that poison ivy before - "
"Before what?!" came a loud screech.
Startled, the group of them looked up just in time to watch Geoffery get pulverized by a giant strawberry.
"Uh oh," Mighty mumbled. "I hate strawberries . . . "
He grabbed some of the weedkiller and threw it at the strawberry, who promptly screamed and fell over, gasping for breath.
"Goodbye *gasp* *gasp* cruel *gasp* world *gasp*," it gasped, gasping. Then it died.
"Yuck!" Geoffery complained, wiping strawberry slober off his uniform. "I say, let's get rid of these things now, before things get even worse around here!"
Light years away, on the Ghost Planet, Space Ghost finally woke up.
"Wow! What a bea-utiful day!!" he said, merrily stretching out his arms. "Good morning, Brak!"
"Mornin', Space Ghost!"
"Good morning, Zorak!"
There was no answer.
"Er, Zorak, I said 'good morning'."
There was still no answer.
"Hey, bug, it's too early in the morning to be rude!"
"Uh, Space Ghost?"
"Yeah? What?!" Space Ghost snapped at Brak.
"Uh, I think ol' Zorak's flown the coop!"
"What?"
"He's gone! Take a look!"
Blinking, Space Ghost looked at the Prison Pod again. Then he blinked again.
"Gee-willikers! He's gone!!"
Knux opened his eyes and took a look around.
"Oh, boy. I didn't think the afterlife would be so disgusting!"
Then, after looking around some more, he realized that he wasn't quite dead!
"Oh my gosh! I'm in the plant's stomach!" Yuck! Could this get any worse? And to top it off, I was talking to myself again!! He tried to move. Oh, great. I think I'm stuck somewhere in the small intestine. Then he thought, Wait, do plants have intestines?
Archimedes was outside, trying to figure out which plants had eaten who, while not making any of them mad. He'd heard Knux talking inside Ivy2.
"Hey, Knuckles! Are you in there?" he asked Ivy's stem.
Ivy2 took a step back.
"I don't know what you're talking about!" he sputtered.
From inside came Knuckles' voice.
"Archy? Is that you? Get me outta here!"
The fire ant raised an eyebrow at Ivy2.
"Don't know what I'm talking about, eh?"
Ivy2 shrugged, which looked pretty weird for a plant.
"Hmm. I wonder how that got there?"
Archy tapped his foot.
"Okay, spit up the echidna."
"What echidna?"
"This echidna!!" Knuckles shouted.
Ivy2 looked uncomfortable.
"Come on, be a good mutant plant," Archy coaxed.
"Well, why should I?" Ivy2 pouted. "I see no reason why I should lose my lunch just because you tell me to!"
"Because," Archy growled, "if you don't, you're going to be in some deep dish doo-doo, dude!"
"Deep dish what?!"
"Spit him out before I burn you to a crisp!!"
"No!"
Archy, true to his word, breathed out a large gout of flame that left Ivy2 sizzling.
"Now what did you go and do that for?" he whined.
"I warned you!" Archy indifferently replied.
"Hey! I'm beginning to feel digested!" Knuckles yelled.
"Now!" Archy snapped.
Sighing, Ivy2 spit up the somewhat messy Guardian, who turned a somersault on the ground and sat up, rather unhappily.
"Yuck!" Knuckles complained, trying to wipe off saliva and other stomach residue.
"Are you okay?" Archy asked, hoping that none of his body parts had disintigrated from Ivy2's stomach acids.
"Yeah, I guess. Hey, where's Vector?"
Ivy2 crossed his leaves.
"I'm not telling."
Archy got an evil look in his eyes.
"Do you want me to go through and burn each one of you into a burning pile of salad?"
"Forget it, Archy," Knuckles cut in. "It's that one over there." And he pointed at Ivy.
"Who, me?" Ivy asked.
Ivy2 shook his giant leaves.
"Listen, why don't you both just get outta here before we start gettin' really upset?"
"How about you let my pal go before we get really upset?" Knux replied.
The ivy plants got together in a tight circle and discussed the situation. They didn't want to end up as sizzling salad, but they didn't want to give in to an animal and a bug, either. Eating the echidna was out of the question, because the fire ant could always force them to spit him out again, and eating the fire ant was also out of the quesiton, because fire ants could teleport; everyone knew that! And so they discussed. And discussed. And discussed.
Finally, Ivy turned to face Knuckles and Archimedes.
"Okay, we'll let the croc go as long as you promise to keep all animal life away from the Mushroom Zone. We want privacy!"
"To do what?" Knux asked cynically.
Ivy waved his leaves around in a flustered manner.
"Oh . . . plant things! Now do we have a deal, or not?"
"Fine. Let him go, and we'll keep everyone away, unless you give us reason not to!" Archimedes replied before Knuckles could say anything else.
"Done!" Ivy squealed, and then he promptly hurled up Vector.
Vector looked around and promptly said: "Huh?"
"Now get outta here!" Ivy snarled.
"Fine, we're going!" Archy answered, quickly vanishing and taking Vector and Knuckles with him. "Sheesh. Someone needs more fiber in his diet."
Zorak, Colonel Pespi, and a mantis woman named Fish were just about to test the new ray device on a large and dangerous clump of soap scum, when the wall suddenly blew up, sending the three of them flying across the room.
"Hey! What's goin' on here?!?!" Zorak demanded.
"You!!!"
Zorak gasped.
"That voice ----- it could only be ---"
"Yes! It is I, the universe's greatest superhero: SPACE GHOOOOOOST!!!"
Zorak grabbed the ray gun and zapped Space Ghost into a fuzzy pink giraffe with no head.
"Hoohoohoohaha! It works!" Zorak exclaimed evilly. "Now, to choose the first planet for my conquest!"
"But what about the soap scum?" Fish asked. "I mean, this is dangerous stuff!"
"Load it into the Phantom Cruiser," Zorak told her. "Maybe it'll come in handy while we take over the planet . . . *(insert dramatic drumroll)* . . . MOBIUS! Hoohoohoohaha!! C'mon, let's go!"
"Wait!" Colonel Pespi insisted. "Wait just a moment, I'll be right back!"
"What, what are you doing?!" Zorak snapped.
"I'm going to close the refridgerator door!"
Archy, Knux, and Vector reappeared in EST HQ in Echidnaopolis, right where the Chaotix, Geoffery, and Constable Remington were debating over what to do.
"Hey! You guys are all right?!" Mighty joyfully exclaimed.
"Yeah, just a bit damp," Knux replied, still covered in a bit of ivy saliva.
"I know the feeling, mate," Geoffery agreed, still covered in strawberry saliva. "Did you happen to get wind of how the mushrooms feel about this situation?"
"The mushrooms? What do they have to do with this?" Vector asked, instantly confused.
"Well, until now, they've been the only intelligent plant life on Mobius, so - "
"Not correct!" Archy interrupted. "They are not plants, they are fungus!"
Geoffery blinked.
"So?"
"So what? I just thought I'd point that out. Just in case anyone cared."
"Well, to be quite frank, we don't," Geoffery flatly and rather rudely stated.
"Hey!" Knux snapped. "Don't be rude to Archimedes!"
"Yeah! Whaddya talkin' 'bout, fool?!" Vector demanded. "It's not like you've done anything useful around here!"
Constable Remington had been thinking. Now he came out with this thought:
"Okay, guys, so the mushrooms aren't plants. That could be important."
"How so?!" Geoffery demanded, blinking in denial.
"Simple," Remington replied in a nasty voice, just nasty enough to get the secret service agent all riled up. "We all know how protective the mushrooms are of their own kind. That's why we've been avoiding the possibility of blowing up the plants at their source. After all, the mushrooms can really be evil when they want to. However, considering that the plants are plants and not fungus, we may be able to convince them not to protect the plants, rather, to blow them up into smitherines!"
"Think they'd eat 'em?" Charmy asked.
Knuckles blew off that idea.
"Naw, they prefer to eat hedgehogs."
Ivy, the other poison ivy plants, and a large group of other sentient plantlife had gathered in the Mushroom Zone.
"Okay!" Ivy was saying. "We've got them to leave this area alone. Now we can get our forces together to take over the world!!!!"
"Yay," was the enthusiastic reply.
Not so very far away, in fact, right smack dab in the middle of Rainbow Valley, the Phantom Cruiser landed with a crunch.
"Hoohoohoohaha!" Zorak laughed, jumping out of the ship with his ray gun. Fish followed with another gun, and Colonel Pepsi fell off the ship carrying a dish filled with a large and dangerous clump of soap scum. "We're gonna take over the world!!! HOOHOOHOOHAHA!!!"
To be continued in part two . . .
Angry Chameleons and Fuzzy Pink Echidnas With No Heads