Double Doo-Doo Saga
Part two
Angry Chameleons and Fuzzy Pink Echidnas With No Heads
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 Cartoon Network.
Colonel Pepsi is property of Gloria.
Changeling is property of my mother.(Hi, Mommy!)
Other characters are property of myself.
It was the middle of the night of the Floating Island.
Zorak looked around Rainbow Valley and sneered.
"Hey, what's up with this?!"
"What? What's up with what?" asked Colonel Pepsi, who was juggling around his dish of soap scum.
"The sensors said that there was life in this valley! But there's no one here! There's nobody to conquer!!" Zorak stamped his feet. "We better not have come all this way for nothing! Oooo, why I'm gonna - "
"Hey, Zorak!" Fish interrupted.
"Yeah? What?"
"Sensors say that there appears to be a large population residing in that direction!" she said, pointing.
"The same sensors that said there was a large population residing where we're standing?"
"Yeah, but this is an even bigger residing population!"
"Fine then! We'll go over there and conquer them! Hoohoohoohaha!"
The three of them took their two ray guns and one large and dangerous clump of soap scum and headed off in the direction on, you guessed it, Echidnaopolis!!!!!
As they left, Zorak mumbled, "Still, I wonder why the sensors said there was someone here. Oh well."
Once they were out of sight, a large group of chameleons who had been invisibly watching appeared out of the woodwork.
"Goll dang it!!" one of them angerly shouted. "They landed on my house!"
"Help!" came a voice from under the Phantom Cruiser. "They landed on me!"
They rounded up the entire chameleon population of Rainbow Valley. This meant war!
"And they're heading for Echidnaopolis!" pointed out a chameleon named Changeling. "They're already stuck dealing with a bunch of sentient poison ivy. Who wants to let 'em know that now we have an Alien Invasion to worry about?"
"Ha! They're not even gonna make it to Echidnaopolis!" retorted another named Shadow. "Not if I have anything to say about it! They landed on my house!"
"Help!" begged Shift. "I'm still stuck under this thing!!"
"Oh. Whoops!"
The chameleons dragged Shift out from under the Phantom Cruiser.
"So what do we do with this thing?" Changeling asked, gesturing to the stolen space craft.
Shadow considered.
"I suggest we take the parts and build toasters. In any case, we don't want those three mantisses to get it back."
"Why not?"
"Because we don't want them to get away until we're through with them!" He cracked his knuckles. "Say, Changeling, where's your uncle?"
"Espio? Uh, he's still dealing with the sentient poison ivy thing. So're the rest of the Chaotix."
"All righty then! Looks like this one's up to us!"
They all began to chuckle cruelly.
Ivy and the other intelligent plants were almost finished with their scheme.
"Okay," Ivy said, scanning over his clipboard. "So here's the plan. The weeds go in first, because you can't keep them from growing wherever they want. They report back the basic layout of the echidnas city. Then the vegetables" and a large congregation of them began to cheer "are our first wave of attack. They can go in and do their stuff. We all know how dangerous vegetables can be!" There was a series of evil giggles. "Heh heh. Then we send in the weeds again to join them, and them the trees." The trees were equipped with battle axes for an ironic effect. "And, last but certainly not least," Ivy concluded, "the flowers come in to finish them off, with their arsenol of explosives and automatic weapons that we found in that underground chamber!" (That's the Grand Conservatory, in case you wonder) "Any questions?"
"Yes!"
"Huh?" Ivy asked, startled. "Who said that?"
"I did!" It was one of the giant mushrooms. "Want I want to know is, could y'all keep it down? We're tryin' to sleep!"
"Dang fungus," Ivy muttered under his breath.
"I heard that, pretty boy!"
Constable Remington had his troops load up their trucks with all the weed killer they could store.
"The moment those plants make a move," he quietly assured Knuckles and the Chaotix, "we'll be ready."
"Let's just hope so, mate!" Geoffery huffed. "I'd really hate to think what would happen if those mutants got to the city!"
"Shut up!" Espio hissed at them. "They're already here! Don't talk so loud. You never know where one might be hiding!"
"What are you talking about?" Geoffery demanded. "They haven't hit your precious city yet!"
"Then that wasn't a talking strawberry that almost had you for lunch yesterday?" Knuckles asked, tapping his foot.
"Oh. That." Geoffery nervously shuffled his feet. Dang. I should stick to surface work. These Islanders . . . yech!
"You're our spy, Espio," Knuckles told the chameleon. "Why don't you go do some spying?"
Espio took the hint and promptly disappeared.
"During the meanwhile," Remington told them, "we have our stealth copters keeping an eye on the Mushroom Zone, so we'll know the moment anything happens."
"Stealth copters?" Geoffery asked, blinking.
Remington blinked back.
"Hey, man, don't be jealous!"
"Yeah!" Vector happily added. "Just because our Island could kick your little Kingdom's royal rear anytime, anywhere - "
Mighty stepped on Vector's foot.
"Put a sock in it," he warned.
Zorak, Colonel Pepsi, and Fish were making their way along the 5-mile journey from Rainbow Valley to Echidnaopolis, with Zorak filling them in on various Nuggets of Joy.
All at once, Colonel Pepsi received a sharp kick in the back and went sprawling on the ground, totally dropping the dish of soap scum, which Fish caught.
"You idiot!" she yelled. "You know how dangerous this stuff is!!"
"B-but, someone kicked me!" he whined.
"Ha!" Zorak snorted. "Are you nuts? There's no one there!"
Right as he said this, Fish also went sprawling on the ground.
"Ooof!" she exclaimed, also dropping the dish of soap scum.
"Hey, come on!" Zorak snapped, catching the bowl. "We don't want to contaminate the place before we conquer it!"
"But someone pushed me down!"
"Oh, shut up."
"But - "
Right then, Zorak also received a sharp kick in a back, and fell right in a large puddle of some greenish fluid that shall remain nameless.
"Yuck!" he sputtered. He glared at Fish and Colonel Pepsi. "All right! Which one of you two jokers . . . woah!"
The bowl of scum which he'd tossed into the air while falling was now floating a few feet above the ground, not having spilled a drop.
"Well that's creepy," Zorak muttered. "Eeeeew!"
The mantisses stood up, and Zorak and Fish were waving around their ray guns, searching for a target.
"Okay, whoever's out there!" Fish hollered. "You're not very funny!"
"Yeah, so come on out where we can see you . . . and turn you into fuzzy pink giraffes with no heads! Hoohoohoohaha!" Zorak added gleefully.
There was no answer. However, the bowl of soap scum began to move. It began to move towards them. They also began to move. They began to move away from it.
"Just how dangerous is that large clump of soap scum?" Zorak whispered to Colonel Pepsi.
"Plenty!" Colonel Pepsi replied in a quavering voice. "One touch of it will give you diarreah for a month and warts!"
"Yuck!"
The bowl continued to move closer, and Zorak took an uneducated guess. He fired his ray gun right beneath the bowl.
The bowl hit the ground as a figure shimmered and appeared as a small, fuzzy pink giraffe with no head.
"Aaaaahhhhh!!!!!" he screamed from a mouth no one could see.
"Anyone else!" Zorak demanded, waving his ray gun around.
"Yes!!" came a shout from above him. Before he could react, Changeling had landed on his head, knocking him to the ground. He quickly grabbed Zorak's ray gun, but Zorak wouldn't let go, and the two of them became engaged of the tug-of-war of the century!
"Oh no!" Fish squealed, and fired her ray gun at Changeling.
"Ahh!" Changeling sputtered, noting this. He let go of the ray gun and bolted, vanishing instantly. Zorak, on the other hand, turned into another fuzzy pink giraffe with no head.
"Whoops. Sorry, boss," Fish said.
Zorak ran around like a headless chicken, waving his long neck in all directions. He ran into the other fuzzy pink giraffe with no head, because neither of them could see where they were going.
"Hey!" Colonel Pepsi shouted in horror. "Zorak's a fuzzy pink giraffe with no head!"
"No kidding!?" Fish tartly replied.
"Oh my gosh!" exclaimed Shadow, appearing next to the two giraffes. "Shift? Is that you?"
Neither of the giraffes answered, because they didn't have any ears, so they hadn't heard the question. Besides, they were too intent on trying to run each other over to pay any attention.
Changeling had reappeared, and now he picked up Zorak's ray gun.
Aiming it at Fish (who aimed hers back) he asked, "Well? Is it reversable?"
"How the heck am I supposed to know?!" she screamed. "I don't even know what I'm doing here!! I'm the staff plumber, for crying out loud!!!"
"Fish? You're a plumber?!" Colonel Pepsi exclaimed.
"Yes, and don't you mock it, bubba!" she shouted at him.
Changeling took a closer look at the ray gun.
"Oh! Good news, guys!" he said, and about twenty chameleons popped out of nowhere.
"What's the news, Changeling?" asked Shadow, who was trying to keep a hold on the two giraffes.
"We can turn them back after all!"
"How so?" Shadow inquired.
"How do you know?!?!" Fish yelled.
Changeling glared at her.
"Well, there's this big red button that says 'reverse'."
Fish looked sheepish.
"Oh."
"Fish, let me get this straight," Colonel Pepsi said, holding up his hands for silence.
"Yes?"
"You're a . . . plumber?"
From nowhere, Fish grabbed a large and slimy plunger.
"Who do you think brought in all that large and dangerous soap scum?!?!?!?!?!" she screamed.
Colonel Pepsi considered that and replied, "Oh."
Shadow was still trying to hold on to the two giraffes.
"Hey, Changeling, can you change Shift back so we can get rid of these three and be done with it?"
"Sure," Changeling answered. "Which one's Shift?"
Shadow blinked.
"Whoops. Um, I'm not sure."
Changeling sighed.
"Hey, I have an idea," Colonel Pepsi informed everyone. "Why don't we just turn them both back, and then you guys can count to fifty and we'll hide!"
"Huh?" Shadow exclaimed. "You wanna play Ghost in the Graveyard?!"
Colonel Pepsi shrugged.
"Well, I thought it was a good idea!"
Fish grumbled something and Changeling sighed again.
"Fine," he agreed. "We'll do it your way. Put 'em down, Shadow."
Shadow gladly put the two squirming giraffes on the ground, stepped back, and disappeared. Likewise did all the other chameleons in the area except for Changeling. He and Fish both set their rays to reverse and turned the headless pink fuzzy giraffes back into a mantis and a chameleon. They explained the rules, and while Shift and Changeling covered their eyes and counted to fifty, the three mantisses began to look for a place to hide.
"Hey!" Zorak suddenly exclaimed. "What are we doing?! We have them right where we want them!" And he turned and grabbed his ray gun back from Changeling, who was counting away innocently. Immediately, Shadow appeared and kicked him in the head.
"No fair peeking!" Zorak whined, stuck in the green puddle again.
Shadow reclaimed the ray gun.
"No fair stealing!" he retorted. "Now I'd hurry if I were you! The count's still going!"
Indeed, Changeling and Shift were in the high thirties by this time.
The three mantisses realized this and ran off in a mad panic in such a direction that they arrived quickly in Angel Zone.
"Now what?" Colonel Pepsi asked. "How're we supposed to take over the world when there're invisible people around?"
"Simple!" Fish gleefully answered. "While Zorak was occupying the chameleons, I dumped a plastic explosive in the soap scum! The scum's added effect should blow them all sky high right when he hits fifty!"
Right then, they heard an incredibly loud explosion in the direction they'd come from.
Zorak blinked at Fish.
"How's come you were carrying around a plastic explosive?"
She shrugged.
"It's all part of my plan to one day be the universe's most evil plumber! I have to steal the title from some guy named Fred."
"Hah! You want to be more evil than Fred the Plumber? Go on!" Zorak laughed. "Now come on! We've still got a large population to conquer!!"
Locke rubbed his eyes in disbelief.
"Did you see that?!" he exclaimed to Sabre.
"No. They were all invisible."
"But - that mantis plumber just blew up the Island's entire population of chameleons!"
"Except for Espio. He's still in Echidnaopolis. I think."
"You get the point!"
"Hey! They all disappeared right before the thing blew up! For all we know, they're hiding somewhere laughing!"
Locke guzzled another large quantity of coffee.
"I hope so!"
Remington was talking on the phone. Then he stopped talking and hung up.
"Okay, this is it!" he informed everyone. "One of the copters just informed me that the plants are moving out, and they appear to be heavily armed!"
"Heavily armed?!" Mighty exclaimed in disbelief. "With what?"
Remington read off the list he'd been given.
"Three tanks, thirty-seven bazookas, nine homing missiles, one hundred plus grenades, twenty-four machine guns, - "
"Okay, I get the point," Mighty broke in. "Sheesh! What do we do now, Knux?"
"Um!" Knuckles replied. "Let's move out that weed killer before we're all turned into fertilizer!"
Just then, a weed poked in through the floor tiling. It popped up right at Vector's feet, and he screamed accordingly.
"Masks, everyone!" Remington ordered. They all pulled gas masks over their faces and blasted so much weed killer at the floor that the room was filled with a chemical fog.
They looked at each other.
"Okay," Knuckles stated. "This war is officially on!"
Once the plants moved out of the Mushroom Zone, there were two small puffs of smoke, revealing two fire ants, Semper Fidelis and Deo Volente.
"Oh, can't we ever get any peace around here?!" sighed one of the exasperated mushrooms.
"Sorry for bothering you, but we need your help," Deo said. "Those plants that just left?"
"What about them?"
"They want to take over the world! Right now, they're headed for Echidnaopolis, but they'll probably come back here to regroup later on. Can you help us destroy them?"
"Excuse me?!" snapped another mushroom. "Why would we turn on our own kind to help yours?"
Espio appeared next to the two ants.
"They're not your own kind!" he contradicted. "They're plants. You're fungus! No problem!"
"Oh, he's right," mumbled one of the mushrooms. "*Sigh*. Okay, what do you want us to do?"
"Hey!" squealed a different mushroom. "Why are we helping them?!"
"Because it's probably the only way we'll ever get any peace around here!"
"Oh."
Fighter planes loaded with weed killing gas were being launched, and tanks full of weed killer missiles were being dispatched. Charmy was flying one of the planes (after all, who knows the sky better than him?) and Mighty and Vector had gone out with the ground forces. Remington, Knux, and Geoffery were just about to join them when Terri-lu, Remington's secretery, ran up to them.
"Hey, we just got this report in!" she exclaimed, catching her breath. "A few hours ago, an unidentified flying object landed in Rainbow Valley!"
"The chameleons' home?" Remington asked, stunned.
"Yeah! And, just a little bit ago, there was a huge explosion about a third of the way here from there!"
Right then, Semper Fidelis appeared with Espio.
"Hey, we've got the mushrooms on our side," Espio informed them as Semper left without so much as a by-your-leave. "What did we miss?"
Terri-lu quickly repeated her story, and Espio blinked.
"How big was this explosion?" he asked.
"Big!" she replied.
"Oh, crud. Now we have an alien invasion to deal with alongside an uprising of giant mutant plants!" Remington exclaimed, rather upset.
"Yeah," Knux agreed. "As Vector would say, Double Doo-Doo!"
"In any case," Espio urgently cut in, "I think someone'd better go check out what's happening over by Rainbow Valley, don't you?"
"No, we have more important problems!" Geoffery sternly replied.
"Hey, who put you in charge around here?!" Remington bellowed. "Go make yourself useful! I agree with Espio. After all, we can't concentrate all our attention on one invasion and leave ourselves vulnerable to another!"
"Yeah, I guess not," Geoffery mumbled.
"We'll let the others handle the plants for now," Knuckles stated. "Archy, can you get us to the sight of the explosion?"
"Of course!" he replied.
"You three go for it. We'll keep track of things here," Remington said.
"Right!" Knuckles agreed as he, Espio, and Archimedes disappeared in a puff of smoke, leaving Remington and Geoffery glaring evilly at each other.
Weeds were beginning to pop up all over the city. ESTers were everywhere also, though, killing them out on sight, so the plants weren't making very much progress. Outside the city, however, things were beginning to get interesting.
Pea pods were shooting peas at the fighter planes, blasting holes in their wings and making them drop like stones, while they continued to eject the chemicals even while crashing. The poison was taking out more and more of the sentient plants, but the plants were scoring heavy points as well.
Ivy was getting concerned, though.
"How did they know we were coming?" he wondered out loud.
On cue, a stealth copter flew over his head and doused him good with weed killer. Choking, Ivy sputtered the order for the flowers to engage.
"Flower Power!!" they screamed, launching missiles and throwing grenades.
Charmy, who was flying around overhead, was getting sick of the whole thing, so he took his plane and napalmed the whole garden.
"Retreat!!!" Ivy gasped, crawling back to the Mushroom Zone.
Somewhere near Angel Zone, Archimedes, Knuckles, and Espio appeared in yet another puff of smoke. Espio appeared rather distraught over the destruction in the area from the explosion, and he wasn't the only one.
"Just who are these aliens?!" Knux exclaimed angerly, looking at the burnt terrain.
"Well," Archy replied, "I have reason to believe that it may be the work of Zorak, the intergalactic criminal who escaped custody yesterday."
Knuckles blinked.
"Zorak?"
"Yup. A giant mantis bent on universal domination."
"Oh, peachy keen!"
Espio wasn't paying attention to them. He was looking around carefully at the remains of the area.
"Anyone here?" he called out.
"Woah! My aching head!!" came a loud groan somewhere to the right of him.
"Where are you?" Espio asked, heading in the general direction.
Changeling appeared a few feet in front of him, on the ground and rubbing his head.
"Oh, hi, Unc!"
"Changeling? What the heck's goin' on here?!" Espio demanded, helping him up.
"Well, it all started when these three mantisses landed a space ship on Shadow's house."
"A space ship landed on Shadow's house?"
"Yep! Oh, it landed on Shift, too. They should both be around here somewhere. Anyway, the mantis people totally cheated at the game."
"Game? What game?" Archimedes asked as he and Knuckles approached the pair of them. "And, may I ask, who are you?"
"Oh, this is my nephew, Changeling," Espio introduced. "Changeling, this is Knuckles and Archimedes."
"Hi."
"Hi."
"'Ey, mon."
"Anyway, what game?" Archy repeated.
"Oh, we played Ghost in the Graveyard so that both sides would have a fighting chance after turning Zorak and Shift back from Fuzzy pink giraffes with no heads."
Knuckles stared at him.
"Huh?!"
Espio ignored Knux. Instead, he crossed his arms and asked Changeling, "Which way did they go?"
"I dunno! I was counting! I wasn't peeking!"
"I was," said Shadow, appearing right next to them and scaring the socks off Knuckles and Archimedes. "Now come on! Let's go blast the buggers before they hit Echidnaopolis!"
"Too late!" came a shout. No sooner did they turn around in shock than did Zorak zap Knuckles into a small, fuzzy pink echidna with no head.
"AAAAHHHH!!!" Espio screamed, horrified.
"Hey!" Zorak complaimed, shaking his gun. "Why isn't he a giraffe?"
"Duh!" Archy snapped. "Because he's partially protected by his Chaos powers!!"
"Chaos . . . powers?" Zorak repeated, confused.
"Yeah! You just zapped the Guardian of the Floating Island, fool! That was an incredibly stupid thing to do!" Espio yelled, trying not to notice Knux running around like a headless chicken.
Changeling took a quick look around. Then he spotted something that had somehow survived the explosion.
"Stupid how?!" Zorak demanded. "Soon you will all be my slaves!!"
"Aw, slave this!" Changeling shouted, scooping up and tossing a large and dangerous clump of soap scum all over the mantis. Then he quickly wiped his gloves off.
Zorak screamed and ran into the woods.
"Quick!" Changeling said to Shadow. "Do you still have the other ray gun so he can reverse Knuckles?"
"Um, actually," Shadow guiltily admitted, "it got blown up."
Archy looked up at Knux in astonishment.
"Here's a twist."
"We have to stop Zorak!" Shift reminded everyone as he appeared.
"Yeah, but what do we do about Knuckles?" Espio fretted. "We can't just go off and leave him like this! He'd end up killing himself, or destroying the Island single handedly!"
"Certainly not single headedly," Shadow dryly remarked.
"In order to turn him back, we need Zorak's ray gun," Changeling pointed out. "The other chameleons all went back to Rainbow Valley to clean up. It's just us here now. And we've gotta stop Zorak!"
"Okay, hang on!" Archy warned, teleporting them all back to Echidnaopolis.
The place was pretty chaotic . . . no pun intended.
"We're regrouping as fast as we can," Remington told them. "The plants called a retreat just a few minutes ago, after Charmy here bombed them."
Charmy took a sweeping bow.
"Right now, we're working on making repairs to equipment and patching up people who were hurt in that last battle. Also, at this time we have our top scientists working on a formula that will destroy only sentient plant life, while leaving other plants and people perfectly safe," Remington continued. "We can't keep just pushing them back when they show up on our doorstep. We want to wipe them out at their source. It's the only sure way to stop them. At the moment, though, if we try to do that, innocent life may be harmed."
"How long should it take them to develop this formula?" Espio asked. "Because, um, we may need a few of those scientific minds here, if you could spare a couple." He said this while trying to keep a grip on what was left of Knuckles. Whenever he was let lose, he kept trying to dig holes, and he made a terrible mess! "Um, and soon, hopefully."
"Not to mention the mantisses," Shadow pointed out. "What would happen if they hit Echidnaopolis right now and turned half the city into fuzzy pink giraffes with no heads?"
"Also true," Remington acknowledged, and banged his head against the wall. "Crud! I hate days like this!"
Terri-lu poked her head into the room.
"Hey!" she admonished. "You broke the wall!"
"Oh. Sorry." Remington appeared momentarily chagrined, but he recovered quickly, and addressed Archimedes and the four chameleons. "How long do you think it will take for the mantisses to get here?"
"Actually, it may take quite awhile," Changeling answered. "But it's hard to say."
"Yes. We don't really know the full extent of the damage that that large and dangerous clump of soap scum can do," Shadow agreed.
"Well, do you think you could find them and report their progress?" Remington asked. "After all, you guys are definately the best spies we have."
"Sure, we'll find 'em," Shift said, as he, Changeling, and Shadow vanished. Espio hesitated.
"What about Knux?"
"Leave him to me!" Archy said, disappearing and taking the former echidna with him.
"Espio, wait a sec!" Remington suddenly said.
"Yeah?"
"About how many chameleons are currently living in Rainbow Valley?"
Espio crossed his arms.
"And you want to know this because . . . "
"Well, their help in this situation could be invaluable."
"How did I know." Espio shook his head. "My people really don't like fighting, Constable. On the whole, we'd much prefer to stay in our valley and be left alone. The only reason there was such a turnout in the beginning against the mantisses was because Zorak caused quite a bit of damage, but once everyone cooled down, the others all went home and left it to us. I frankly think that they simply don't want to be involved."
"Oh." Now Remington looked puzzled. "Well, uh, we can count on your help, though, right?"
"Oh, yeah, and Changeling and Shift and Shadow. You know. They landed on Shadow's house, and right on top of Shift, so it's still pretty personal for them, and Changleing, well, he just likes the excitement."
"Well, okay. What was all that about large and dangerous soap scum?"
Archy appeared with Knux in Haven.
"Hello, Locke."
"Hello, Archimedes. I see you've brought my son back?"
"Well, he has a slight problem, as you can see."
"Yes, as I can see. Hmm. I guess now, we should try and figure out what to do about it, shall we?"
Ivy wasn't breathing very well from all the poison and napalm he'd survived, but he'd be all right. As he lead the other plants back to the Mushroom Zone, though, he began to wonder how they were going to pull off this conquest thing.
Stealth copters?! he thought. They'd been spying on us the whole time with stealth copters?!?!
Finally, they reached their home Zone, but had a rude awakening waiting.
The giant mushrooms were waiting, and they were ready. The moment every single one of the intelligent plants was inside the Zone, they, along with their knives and pendulums, sprouted up all over the Zone, keeping all of them in, and everyone else out.
They weren't going anywhere now.
Remington and Geoffery were fighting again, but Mighty, Charmy, and Vector were tired of listening to them. They were, however, having a most exciting game of cards going on in Remington's office while they waited for further news.
And there to supply that news: the one and only Terri-lu.
"Hey!" she exclaimed, bustling into the room. "Get this! A few moments ago, our local Dairy Market Feul Station and Convenience Store was robbed by two giant mantisses!" Then she looked around. "Where's Constable Remington?"
"Oh, he went to go throw Geoffery out a window, I think," Vector replied.
"What did the mantisses steal?" Charmy wanted to know.
Terri-lu looked at her report and scratched her head.
"Um, they made off with a huge supply of Pepto Bizmol and chewing gum."
"Oh!" Mighty exclaimed as he pieced it all together. "I get it. Zorak got hit with a large and dangerous clump of soap scum, and Espio says the stuff's supposed to give you . . . um . . . problems. Now he must be getting desperate, if he's bumping off convenience stores."
"But what about the gum?" Vector asked. "I mean, just where does gum fit into any of this?"
"Good question," Charmy agreed. "But I have no clue!"
"Me neither!" sighed Mighty.
"Well, that's it then! I'm now officially confused!"
Terri-lu growled about something under her breath.
"What was that?" Mighty asked her. "I didn't quite catch it."
"I said," she repeated with a sneer, "I wanted that gum they stole! Make sure y'all give these mantisses the ride of their lives!"
The three Chaotix exchanged a look.
"At the moment, though, we're supposed to stay on the sentient plant thing," Mighty explained. "Espio's in charge of dealing with the mantisses."
"Does he have an evil mind?"
"Oh-ho-ho, yes!"
Speaking of which, Espio had joined the other three chameleons in seeking out the three mantisses. On a whim, they decided to begin their search in the Angel Zone, and quickly found their hiding place.
Fish had just shown up with a large supply of Pepto Bizmol, and Colonel Pepsi had been right on her heels, loaded down with gum.
Zorak wasn't looking so well. Already, he had a nasty case of the runs and a good many warts. He wasn't looking so happy, either.
"Stupid chameleons!!!!!" he seethed. "How DARE they?!?!?!?!??!?!!? OH! Give me more of the pink stuff! Now!!!!!!"
"What should we do about the chameleons, boss?" Colonel Pepsi asked. "I mean, they could be anywhere! And what was up with that red dude and the ant?"
"How should I know?! Just get out there and do something useful! Oooooooooh."
Fish and Colonel Pepsi exchanged a confused look.
"Um . . . we could go blow up that city where we stole the Pepto Bizmol," Colonel Pepsi suggested.
"Good idea," Fish agreed. "I still have a good many explosives left. We could do some major damage."
"What do you think, Zorak?"
Zorak sneered at them.
"What are you wating for? Just do it! I'll come up with something good and evil to do to those chameleons! Hoohoohoohaha!"
The two mantisses shrugged and left, leaving the ray gun with Zorak.
From their watching place up in a tree, Changeling materialized and asked Espio what they should do now.
"Two of us should go after the other two," he advised. "We don't want them blowing up Echidnaopolis. There are already enough people trying to do that. The other two wait here and get the ray gun from Zorak."
"Fine. Who does what?" Changeling then asked.
On cue, Shadow and Shift vanished, going after Colonel Pepsi and Fish.
"Okay, never mind. Well, Uncle, how do we get at Zorak?"
"Oh, we rely on my evil mind . . . "
To be continued in part three:
Guardians Fighting Mantisses and Plants Conquering the World