Rayman: The Island of Loss - Chapter 3
Characters created by Michel Ancel
Written by Andrew Kaiko
Here's the third chapter of my Rayman fan fiction. I do not own the characters and all related subjects with the exception of Wanda Woodoo and any other characters introduced within. Rayman is © 2002 Ubi Soft Entertainment. The character of Rayman and all other characters and subjects are all trademarks of Ubi Soft Entertainment. All rights reserved.
Chapter 3
"Good evening, ladies, gentlemen, and whatever you other strangers are. Welcome to this evening performance of that, uh, Jazz Piano Guy and featuring the Woodoo Sisters. They're good. I guess. So, uh, let's all get excited and make a round of sound for, uh, uh, those guys. Yeah. Woohoo. Okay, I'm gone now."
The unenthusiastic MC left the stage, and only about five people in the audience clapped. Rayman was one of those five, and because of that, made a lot more enemies on board the Island of Loss, headed for Planet Z. Everyone was crowded around the stage in the center of the bottom floor underground. Rayman had been doing nothing but lying on his back looking at a fairy-fly on the ceiling, so he thought a little entertainment would ease him for at least a while.
The 'Jazz Piano Guy' appeared to be a Ray Charles figure that was playing music on an old baby grand. The Woodoo Sisters, so apply named, Rayman discovered, by their signature 'Woo-doo!' scat that they used quite frequently, were a triad of snake-like ladies whose species appeared to be related to Sam the Swamp Snake, another of Rayman's friends. Only here, they each had developed four limbs on their upper region with a hand attached to the end of each one, with extremely long fingers and a ring on one of the hands. They had no legs, and walked and danced around by crawling like a caterpillar. They each had elongated lips with an overbite, a fully formed head, and were dressed in outrageously huge wigs and shiny jewelry!
And to Rayman's surprise, contrary to how they were introduced, they were REALLY good! Professionals! How in the world did they end up here underground a run-down floating island?! And if this was so good, how come everyone was reacting to it as if they were watching a children's school play?!
At the end of the performance, the MC went back on-stage and announced that the Sisters had made an album on sale at the store to their right. Rayman's experience since his days looking at his reflection were so down- and-out until he heard the delightful singing of the Woodoo Sisters, that he made sure he got a copy of that album. In the meantime, he would just have to hang ten and deal with his intruding thoughts. He couldn't control these thoughts, somehow.
-
Rayman was hanging out in the café two days after the Sisters' performance. He was still far from fine- he didn't have near the amount of energy even to make a decent punch at someone, his head felt lighter and it was harder for him to keep it balanced on the top of his body, and his helicopter hair didn't get any use since about a month ago. He normally trained four times every week for about 20 hours in total, just to keep his skills sharp, but that was back in Neotopia, and he could feel himself getting weaker the longer he stopped training!
He glanced slowly to the right of him just to take a gander at the variety of creatures who sat at the table. There was a red giant mosquito who was drinking a red substance of some kind, and-
A Woodoo Sister?!
A Woodoo Sister was sitting at the very end of the café, oddly transfixed on a napkin she had in front of her! Rayman recognized her as the green and dark blue one with the white and black wig that made her look like the bride of Frankenstein. With troubles aside for the moment, he gathered the courage to scoot over to her and try to strike up a conversation.
"Um, excuse me, Miss, but, uh-"
She shot a sudden glance at him.
"Uh, you're one of the Sisters, right?"
"Small talk doesn't resolve your inner insecurities when making an impression on a lady. Just tell me what you want." She was in an irritable mood, but Rayman tried his best, nonetheless.
"The Woodoo Sisters! Wow, I've never heard anything like that title in my life!"
"Yes, it's called a Last Name."
"No, no, I mean your songs! They're all great! I've been listening to it yesterday for the longest time! Why did you choose to perform HERE, of all places? You deserve to be down there, in Neotopia!"
The lady seemed to soften up a bit as she slowly turned toward the shrimp as she said, "You're name's Rayman, right?"
Rayman suddenly froze. God, it's obvious she knows about me! Stop acting so hesitant! "Um, yeah, you've heard of the things I've done."
"You're very brave." That would've brightened his day immediately, only she said it passively with no hint of meaning and she continued to be entranced on her napkin. It put a slight heavy sensation in his throat, uh, if he had a throat.
She continued, "I'm Wanda. Wanda Woodoo. My acquaintances are busy preparing themselves for the next performance. Yes, we have another performance in a couple nights."
"Wouldn't you want to help them?"
"They're not my real sisters. Don't tell my agent I said that to an audience member."
"Got it."
She stared again at him, this time with a look of confusion and mystery. "How could I trust you, kid?"
To which he replied, out of instinct, "Because I don't KNOW your agent!"
They both stared at each other awkwardly for about five seconds, and started laughing! They just sat there laughing for about 10 minutes! Rayman really needed the joke! Wanda then dried her eyes and said, "I'm really sorry! I'm in a bad mood."
"Yeah, me too."
"Everyone here is in a bad mood. And that's NOT a generalization."
"Yeah, what's the deal? I know everyone here is anticipating this Planet Z, but why? Are they tired of their lives? Do they have control over their decisions here?!"
Wanda ordered two plum fruit juices and said, "We're all here not only to get a new life, Rayman, but because we all have another thing in common. We all have a case of IADS."
Rayman's mouth flew wide open, on account of hearing someone actually mention the disease out loud. "So- that tired-looking MC- and that guy I met in the race back on Neotopia-"
"What guy?"
"I ran into a somewhat filthy guy while I was competing in a race. He was the same species as I am! And it was right after I first started feeling weak!"
Wanda's eyes widened. "Huh! I met a somewhat filthy lady who was my race a while ago, when I was rehearsing alone in my room! And it was right after I realized MY problem!"
"Did she tell you to, how should I put this? Did she tell you to analyze your purpose in life?"
"Y-Yeah!"
Rayman thought this through for a minute, and said, "I think we need to interview a few people."
-
Globox and Murfy were trekking their way out of the woods and reached a short cut to the mountains.
Globox held the more recent book on the disease and read aloud, "The one single evidence that led scientists to prove the disease obsolete was a series of carved images and words in the high mines of Eternity. Through scientific experiments and careful observation, they were able to prove the disease a fraud when the primitive races displayed signs of maturity and puberty. Legend has it that explorers who ventured downward into the caves heard mystical voices inside their heads once they uncovered the true meaning of the engravings!"
"I wonder why that book never got published! It sounds like a pretty useful resource."
"Oops. That's mines of Immortality!"
Murfy swung backward, facing Globox and blurted out, "That's what it was all along? IT'S ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE FOREST! WE'VE BEEN TREKKING IN THE WRONG DIRECTION FOR A DAY!"
"Why are you yelling at me like that?"
"'Cause all you've given me on this trip was complete misery! You left the toothpaste at home, you had to make a wee-wee stop every five minutes, and you had to consume most of our rations when you were having a stomach ache- "
"Those were delicious!"
"-and now I see you've led us in the WRONG DIRECTION FOR A DAY?!?! This can't get any worse!"
A loud crack and then a boom echoed in the afternoon sky, and it immediately started raining! The rain instantly moistened the ground, and the dirt turned into the wettest mud they've ever encountered!
"Murfy, those were the magic words! I learned about clichés like that when following Rayman in his adventures. These stories wouldn't be nearly as entertaining if the propagandists weren't suffering and-"
"That's enough! You've crushed my patience! Why when I get down to the ground, I-WOAH!" Murfy started to slip and slide back and forth across the mud and was struggling to regain balance! He would've just lifted himself up with his wings, but the momentum of the force prohibited him to. Globox giggled at the sight of it, but Murfy pushed him onto the mud too and pretty soon, both of them were pushing one another out of the way of the incline! The floor was slanted downward toward a sharp cliff!
"GET OUTTA' THE WAY!" Murfy called as he pushed Globox over the edge. Globox managed to grab a thin branch sticking outward over the cliff, and he halted in mid-air, with the grip on the branch his only restrain from falling! Murfy had also gone over the edge, but flew upward to stop himself from falling, and so, he was safe, and Globox wasn't!
"Aaah! Aaah! Aaah! Murfy, help me!"
"Forget it! You can just hang there until you fall!"
"You wouldn't do that, would you?!"
"I would!"
"Oh, no, you wouldn't!"
"I would to!"
"Would not!"
"Would too, and stop repeating it before I get so impatient that I change my mind, you coward!"
"Loud mouth!"
"Glutton machine!"
"Windshield waste!"
"Oh, Mighty Polokus. Please have mercy on this poor soul, for you see, he's an idiot."
Globox backed up to run straight into him, when the branch stopped him and he ricocheted back onto the wall!
"Check that. Don't have mercy on 'em."
"You never had this problem with Rayman!"
"Well, that's because he was easy going! He never disagreed with anything I told him to do, because he TRUSTED me! I guided him through lands he had never even heard of before and he thanked me for that! NOT LIKE YOU!"
"I'm a coward! It's my JOB as a follower to disobey the leader!"
"Really, I don't know how you ever became friends with that guy!" Murfy then turned his back on him and just hovered there in the freezing cold.
Globox dangled onto the withering strand of wood, and stared at Murfy. He had hurt is friend's friend, but he then realized something else! "Murfy. I AM glad of one thing about you. You know what that is?"
Murfy didn't show any response, but Globox continued anyway. "Your persistence. You never give up on anything. Murfy, if you give up on this now, who's going to find Rayman? Who's going to protect the forest?"
Murfy slowly shifted his head, which Globox saw as a good sign.
"I wish I could be like you and Rayman, never afraid of anything and never keeping things inside yourself. You guys have so much in common, but I want to have what you both have. I guess that's why I'm friends with him."
"Globox, you never did or gave anything for me. What would you possibly give me if I saved you?" He was responding! That meant he felt the smallest bit of pride from Globox's praise, so Globox continued.
"I'd say it, but being how traditional situations in these stories occur, I'd most likely be interrupted by this branch breaking and me falling to my horrible death, only to be stopped by you saving me at the last second when you quickly change your mind out of virtue, and then we'd shake hands and suck up to each other for the time being, until the time comes where we have another quarrel about our differences, so, well, I don't think I'm going to say it now."
Murfy scoffed, turned and faced Globox yet again and said, "You really think it's going to happen just like that?"
It all did.
-
Being an Earth Snake, Wanda was able to carry Rayman in and out of holes in the wall unnoticed, which was much quicker than walking up and down the floors. She, as well as her stage sisters, knew many secret passageways that no one else knew about. Rayman discovered their powers- they had pigment chemicals inside their body textures that lighted the way in front of them.
Rayman soon found out that everyone he had interviewed had pretty much the same experience: a somewhat filthier version of themselves planted the pondering question of life's purpose inside their heads, if they had heads. He surmised that the guy he met at the race was a hallucination, which he hypothesized, might be one of the more outrageous symptoms to the disease.
But Globox and Murfy knew the disease was a fake, so were these people real?
"Wanda, I have something to tell you."
"What?"
"I-- I see filthy people! Filthy people who DON'T KNOW they're filthy! I mean, I just saw that same guy walking near the hallway to my room, a moment after he wasn't there, and then he vanished again!"
"It's creepy, ain't it? But in order to find out if they actually are hallucinations, we have to find more proof. I haven't talked to my stage sisters about this yet! They're in the dressing room."
She carried Rayman through thin dirty passageways, like a really elaborate roller coaster. She then emerged beside another room on the first floor which had three stars installed on the front of it. Rayman didn't see the other two, but it was like any other singer's dressing room he knew of- lights surrounding the mirrors, clothing and miscellaneous accessories thrown haphazardly around the place. Wanda told him they were in the fitting room behind the curtain trying on some new clothes.
"Girls! I have someone you might be surprised to se-ee!"
Rayman was expecting a stampede of fans crawling over him, but they were both as unenthusiastic about him as the first time Wanda saw him as well. They looked exactly like Wanda except one of them was red and brown and the other was yellow and purple.
"Isn't that the short guy who saved the world one time?"
"No, no, Meryl, that was BEFORE he parted the Sea!"
Rayman raised an eyebrow. "Uh, I never-"
Wanda didn't want to disappoint the sisters, so she acted like he actually did all those things. "Oh, Rayman's a bit modest! Ray, I'd like you to meet Meryl and David."
"David?"
The red one raised her baritone voice. "My dad wanted a boy."
Wanda filled them in on their suspicions and whether or not those people they saw were actually real. They all came to an agreement that the disease they had caught weeks ago might've had them hallucinate, and they also agreed that in the next days before their next performance, they would face these unkempt replicas and talk right into their faces about this while situation.
Rayman knew he would be uncomfortable the whole time, but he learned from past experiences that the best way to solve a problem is to face it head on!
-
"There it is! The Mines of Immortality! We made it, Globox! I told you there was nothing to be afraid of!"
"I knew it all along!"
"Don't push your luck."
They had both spent last night lying on top of one another to shelter themselves from the cold under a wide, thick leaf. Globox, who was accustomed to warm beds, was shivering from the damp weather, so Murfy sacrificed his dignity by having himself cuddled in Globox's arms like a teddy bear. Today was much brighter and warmer in the mountains, and they had just gained sight of the bridge to the mines! Although it was on yet another mountain, just the sight of it made them forget the bruises on Globox's feet as they hurried on over to the bridge!
"Ya' know, Murfy, I wonder why it's called the Mines of Immortality."
They saw all these old geezers mining shiny diamonds below in the quarries, quivering in their loose flesh and saying things like, "Hey, HerbI I wonder why all these diamonds keep getting reburied each and every morning we get back to work! This is takin' forever!"
Globox and Murfy looked across the quarries to see a gatekeeper lying near a thin bridge that led to the enormous purple mountain. They approached the sleeping man and inquired about how to seek access within.
"You come bearing coin?"
"Oh, I knew I forgot something at my house!" said Murfy.
"Mmmmm, coin."
"Then, you only need to answer three questions."
Murfy rolled his eyes. "Oh, it's one of THESE!"
"First question: a riddle. Who of the three people standing here is the wisest?"
"Hey, Globox, can you just eat this guy and get this whole thing over with?"
"Sorry, senior citizens make me gag."
Murfy sighed and said, "Well, that leaves Globox out, so it leaves either you or me. Hmmm, well, you are the one asking ME the question, so you must KNOW the answer, which makes YOU wiser than ME!"
"I told you it was a trick question. You are the wiser one, for it was the first time I ever asked that question, and I did NOT know the answer."
"Uh-huh. Hey, don't start layin' any Einstein on me, man, or I'll just fly over you."
"Second question: You've heard of the legendary hero named Rayman?"
Globox nudged Murfy in the wing, a bit too hard. "This should be easy!"
The gatekeeper continued, "What is Rayman's favorite color?"
"Do you get these questions out of some cheap activity book you play crossword puzzles on while you wait for your stop on a subway train?!"
"Just answer the question," he said as he slipped a thin booklet behind him.
"Heh. We'll, I do remember that time when Rayman was playing ball with the yellow Lums for the first time. He was just a baby then. Oh, he was SOOOOOO adorable! Hmm, I guess yellow was his favorite color."
The gatekeeper answered, "That is correct."
"Wow, that WAS easy!"
"Final question: What is the most surprising and breath-taking irony in the world?"
"You want an answer?" Murfy moved to the right to reveal Globox behind him. "Here. Living proof that you can marry a great wife, father a hundred children and still be extremely stupid." Globox just stuck a pose, as if to exemplify something.
The gatekeeper did not move. "Not valid enough proof. I need some physical evidence."
"Uh, he IS physical evidence! He is the EPITAMY of physical evidence to THAT question!"
Globox brightened and said, "Ooh! Ooh! Wait just a sec!" He turned around, regurgitated something, and turned back to the front holding a wet piece of paper. He put on some glasses and read aloud, "'Dearest Honey Lumpkins, Come home! The kids miss you! I miss you too! OXOXOXOXOXOXOOXOXOOOXOXOXOXOXO! Love, SugarBubble'." To which he immediately ate the paper again, as well as the glasses.
Murfy and the gatekeeper stared like a duo of ghosts. The gatekeeper caught his breath and said, "You may go."
After Globox and Murfy crossed the bridge, the man breathed a heavy sigh, when one of the geezers stepped up to him and said, "Charlie, are you teasin' the tourists again?! That's it! Down to your room!"
"Aw, Pop."
-
Globox and Murfy discovered a series of carved images underneath the mines in a purple cave. They could make out the embossed lines thanks to the eerie purple light reflecting off of the damp floor. The markings were obviously extremely ancient, covered in grain formations and some moss and algae. Nonetheless, they matched the illustration in the book!
"Wow, Murfy, standing in this wet floor almost makes me feel normal for once!"
Murfy tried to ignore him as he studied the drawings. These were they, indeed, but the book did not provide a translation for the images far to the right. It started with symbols that looked like natives with buckteeth and elongated arms, like apes, but not! Next to them appeared a coil with three lines sticking out of the top. It was placed over another set of natives, this time, looking sick. Then followed what appeared to be an evolutionary chart of the natives growing bigger with hair and muscles. Then next panel showed a flock of birds, then times the size of the natives, all carrying them. The next panel showed them all heading toward an upside-down triangle, then a whole bunch of those triangles in the air with the natives in toe toward a small circle. The circle was painted orange.
"So, can you make any of this out, Globox?"
They looked at the artwork for a long time.
"Well, those people in the middle sure do look like they're becoming adults, don't they?"
Murfy's eyes widened and said, "Hey, yeah! What about that coil with the three lines sticking out of it? It looks like a kind of fruit!" He tried to associate fruits he was familiar with the drawing. "It sort of reminds me of a plum, but plums have 16 leaves on the top, not three."
"Who said natives were accurate artists?"
Murfy stared at it again. "Yeah."
"I have no idea what those triangles are, though."
The lines on the upside down triangles were drawn wigglier than the rest, as if the creators intended them to be that way. Natives were going on the flat top of it. Murfy said, "It could be an island, but it's in the air!"
"Again, who said the drawings are accurate?"
"Well, what else could they be?"
"I dunno. I can't think of anything else!"
"Come to think of it, I heard of these rare floating islands in one of the tales I heard as a pupa, but they were just fiction!"
Indeed, those triangles appeared to be floating over land and rising higher and higher, toward the circle.
Globox then made a sudden gasp as he continued to read the book! "Oh my gosh! This says there are a total of 10 sequences in the series! How many do you count?"
"Nine. Why?"
They slowly glanced at the area following the orange circle, to a big boulder that appeared to be causing a dead end. Globox tried to touch the orange circle, but it was too high to reach.
Murfy sighed, flew up to the fifteen-foot-high circle and pushed it. "Never send a blue frog to do a fairy's job!"
Just then, the orange circle responded to the touch by pulling itself inward, and to both of their surprise, the boulder MOVED! It slowly pushed it's way to the right, and a big, BRIGHT LIGHT appeared where the boulder had been. Globox ran behind Murfy for protection!
Inside the nook that followed the orange circle, which they were certain had to be a button, lay one last engraving. It showed natives falling off of the circle, downward toward the ground, and lying there. Globox and Murfy tried to make sense of all this. Then, without making a sound, both of them exchanged horrified looks! Slowly, they fell into a trance, their bodies stiff and upright and their eyes glowing!
An echoed, low voice erupted through both their heads: "When we, the natives of Neotopia discovered the terrible case of IADS, we noticed our muscles had grown, hair had sprouted on us, our voices had deepened, and we were suddenly interested in the opposite sex- an inconvenience for us, for the males and females had been enemies since the dawn of time! So, after a few trifle Romeo and Juliet parodies, we all took desperate action! Using spiritual, magical forces known to only us, we were able to break apart pieces of this planet and have them float us toward another orange planet that we believed would bring us fortune, a better life, and have us forget about our biological changes we were going through. We enlisted native giant blue birds called Stratifours to aid us! But it was a trap! The orange planet caused us pain and suffering beyond our wildest dreams, as if to punish us all for not facing the aftermath of the disease, and so, we all bailed off it, hurtling toward our home planet and to our deaths!"
They needed no more explanations. The hatred for the opposite sex had made them unable to reproduce! The race had disappeared by killing themselves without notice to future races, and so, the rest of history had nothing else to go by on the issue of growing up than by the concept of IADS. Since no one else was around to stop the islands from separating from this planet, islands kept breaking off and heading into space.
No one else realized that the thoughts that were circling in their heads were perfectly normal. No one else realized that they had reached a higher level of cognitive faculties, which they mistook for IADS. No one else had managed to move the boulder and reveal the native's fate. No one else had done or realized ANY of these things, but THEM, Globox and Murfy!
"Great Trousers of Polokus, Murfy! A vision told me the secret of the false disease!"
Murfy tried to act collected out of such a phenomenon and said, "That's not what shocked ME! It's the ending of the story that shocked me, Globox! Everyone who boarded those islands were tricked!"
"Yeah, but now I have a clear understanding of it! I knew it was puberty all along, and that's why I'm still here! And why my kids are here as well!" Globox contemplated. "Then I guess only a percentage of the creatures in this world fell into the idea of IADS. I mean, a set of islands can't hold EVERYONE on this planet, right?" Neotopia was the size of Jupiter.
"That's a good hypothesis. And you know what else this means?"
"I'm thinking the same thing, Murfy. Rayman's on one of those islands!"
They both smiled at each other and gave each other a buddy punch on the back. "I never guessed you would've had enough energy to use your brain to that extent, Globox."
"Hey, why do you think I'm that big of a glutton?"
"Now we just have to somehow catch that moving island and get Rayman! We have to save him from what horrible consequences await him!"
Globox looked worried again. "But how do we do that? How-"
They both thought of the giant Stratifours that they had seen on the engravings! These birds must've been the IADS messengers- carrying victims straight to the location of the floating islands!
They HAD to see one of those birds!
"Got the Lums, Globox? WE'Z A'GONNA' MAKE LIKE A DUO OF GOOD BUDDIES, and SAVE RAYMAN!"
"I do the 'Happy Globox Song' now! 'Happy happy happy SOOOOOOOOOO HAPPYYYY!'"
"Save it for the part where we save 'em, ya big lug!"
(to be continued)
Characters created by Michel Ancel
Written by Andrew Kaiko
Here's the third chapter of my Rayman fan fiction. I do not own the characters and all related subjects with the exception of Wanda Woodoo and any other characters introduced within. Rayman is © 2002 Ubi Soft Entertainment. The character of Rayman and all other characters and subjects are all trademarks of Ubi Soft Entertainment. All rights reserved.
Chapter 3
"Good evening, ladies, gentlemen, and whatever you other strangers are. Welcome to this evening performance of that, uh, Jazz Piano Guy and featuring the Woodoo Sisters. They're good. I guess. So, uh, let's all get excited and make a round of sound for, uh, uh, those guys. Yeah. Woohoo. Okay, I'm gone now."
The unenthusiastic MC left the stage, and only about five people in the audience clapped. Rayman was one of those five, and because of that, made a lot more enemies on board the Island of Loss, headed for Planet Z. Everyone was crowded around the stage in the center of the bottom floor underground. Rayman had been doing nothing but lying on his back looking at a fairy-fly on the ceiling, so he thought a little entertainment would ease him for at least a while.
The 'Jazz Piano Guy' appeared to be a Ray Charles figure that was playing music on an old baby grand. The Woodoo Sisters, so apply named, Rayman discovered, by their signature 'Woo-doo!' scat that they used quite frequently, were a triad of snake-like ladies whose species appeared to be related to Sam the Swamp Snake, another of Rayman's friends. Only here, they each had developed four limbs on their upper region with a hand attached to the end of each one, with extremely long fingers and a ring on one of the hands. They had no legs, and walked and danced around by crawling like a caterpillar. They each had elongated lips with an overbite, a fully formed head, and were dressed in outrageously huge wigs and shiny jewelry!
And to Rayman's surprise, contrary to how they were introduced, they were REALLY good! Professionals! How in the world did they end up here underground a run-down floating island?! And if this was so good, how come everyone was reacting to it as if they were watching a children's school play?!
At the end of the performance, the MC went back on-stage and announced that the Sisters had made an album on sale at the store to their right. Rayman's experience since his days looking at his reflection were so down- and-out until he heard the delightful singing of the Woodoo Sisters, that he made sure he got a copy of that album. In the meantime, he would just have to hang ten and deal with his intruding thoughts. He couldn't control these thoughts, somehow.
-
Rayman was hanging out in the café two days after the Sisters' performance. He was still far from fine- he didn't have near the amount of energy even to make a decent punch at someone, his head felt lighter and it was harder for him to keep it balanced on the top of his body, and his helicopter hair didn't get any use since about a month ago. He normally trained four times every week for about 20 hours in total, just to keep his skills sharp, but that was back in Neotopia, and he could feel himself getting weaker the longer he stopped training!
He glanced slowly to the right of him just to take a gander at the variety of creatures who sat at the table. There was a red giant mosquito who was drinking a red substance of some kind, and-
A Woodoo Sister?!
A Woodoo Sister was sitting at the very end of the café, oddly transfixed on a napkin she had in front of her! Rayman recognized her as the green and dark blue one with the white and black wig that made her look like the bride of Frankenstein. With troubles aside for the moment, he gathered the courage to scoot over to her and try to strike up a conversation.
"Um, excuse me, Miss, but, uh-"
She shot a sudden glance at him.
"Uh, you're one of the Sisters, right?"
"Small talk doesn't resolve your inner insecurities when making an impression on a lady. Just tell me what you want." She was in an irritable mood, but Rayman tried his best, nonetheless.
"The Woodoo Sisters! Wow, I've never heard anything like that title in my life!"
"Yes, it's called a Last Name."
"No, no, I mean your songs! They're all great! I've been listening to it yesterday for the longest time! Why did you choose to perform HERE, of all places? You deserve to be down there, in Neotopia!"
The lady seemed to soften up a bit as she slowly turned toward the shrimp as she said, "You're name's Rayman, right?"
Rayman suddenly froze. God, it's obvious she knows about me! Stop acting so hesitant! "Um, yeah, you've heard of the things I've done."
"You're very brave." That would've brightened his day immediately, only she said it passively with no hint of meaning and she continued to be entranced on her napkin. It put a slight heavy sensation in his throat, uh, if he had a throat.
She continued, "I'm Wanda. Wanda Woodoo. My acquaintances are busy preparing themselves for the next performance. Yes, we have another performance in a couple nights."
"Wouldn't you want to help them?"
"They're not my real sisters. Don't tell my agent I said that to an audience member."
"Got it."
She stared again at him, this time with a look of confusion and mystery. "How could I trust you, kid?"
To which he replied, out of instinct, "Because I don't KNOW your agent!"
They both stared at each other awkwardly for about five seconds, and started laughing! They just sat there laughing for about 10 minutes! Rayman really needed the joke! Wanda then dried her eyes and said, "I'm really sorry! I'm in a bad mood."
"Yeah, me too."
"Everyone here is in a bad mood. And that's NOT a generalization."
"Yeah, what's the deal? I know everyone here is anticipating this Planet Z, but why? Are they tired of their lives? Do they have control over their decisions here?!"
Wanda ordered two plum fruit juices and said, "We're all here not only to get a new life, Rayman, but because we all have another thing in common. We all have a case of IADS."
Rayman's mouth flew wide open, on account of hearing someone actually mention the disease out loud. "So- that tired-looking MC- and that guy I met in the race back on Neotopia-"
"What guy?"
"I ran into a somewhat filthy guy while I was competing in a race. He was the same species as I am! And it was right after I first started feeling weak!"
Wanda's eyes widened. "Huh! I met a somewhat filthy lady who was my race a while ago, when I was rehearsing alone in my room! And it was right after I realized MY problem!"
"Did she tell you to, how should I put this? Did she tell you to analyze your purpose in life?"
"Y-Yeah!"
Rayman thought this through for a minute, and said, "I think we need to interview a few people."
-
Globox and Murfy were trekking their way out of the woods and reached a short cut to the mountains.
Globox held the more recent book on the disease and read aloud, "The one single evidence that led scientists to prove the disease obsolete was a series of carved images and words in the high mines of Eternity. Through scientific experiments and careful observation, they were able to prove the disease a fraud when the primitive races displayed signs of maturity and puberty. Legend has it that explorers who ventured downward into the caves heard mystical voices inside their heads once they uncovered the true meaning of the engravings!"
"I wonder why that book never got published! It sounds like a pretty useful resource."
"Oops. That's mines of Immortality!"
Murfy swung backward, facing Globox and blurted out, "That's what it was all along? IT'S ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE FOREST! WE'VE BEEN TREKKING IN THE WRONG DIRECTION FOR A DAY!"
"Why are you yelling at me like that?"
"'Cause all you've given me on this trip was complete misery! You left the toothpaste at home, you had to make a wee-wee stop every five minutes, and you had to consume most of our rations when you were having a stomach ache- "
"Those were delicious!"
"-and now I see you've led us in the WRONG DIRECTION FOR A DAY?!?! This can't get any worse!"
A loud crack and then a boom echoed in the afternoon sky, and it immediately started raining! The rain instantly moistened the ground, and the dirt turned into the wettest mud they've ever encountered!
"Murfy, those were the magic words! I learned about clichés like that when following Rayman in his adventures. These stories wouldn't be nearly as entertaining if the propagandists weren't suffering and-"
"That's enough! You've crushed my patience! Why when I get down to the ground, I-WOAH!" Murfy started to slip and slide back and forth across the mud and was struggling to regain balance! He would've just lifted himself up with his wings, but the momentum of the force prohibited him to. Globox giggled at the sight of it, but Murfy pushed him onto the mud too and pretty soon, both of them were pushing one another out of the way of the incline! The floor was slanted downward toward a sharp cliff!
"GET OUTTA' THE WAY!" Murfy called as he pushed Globox over the edge. Globox managed to grab a thin branch sticking outward over the cliff, and he halted in mid-air, with the grip on the branch his only restrain from falling! Murfy had also gone over the edge, but flew upward to stop himself from falling, and so, he was safe, and Globox wasn't!
"Aaah! Aaah! Aaah! Murfy, help me!"
"Forget it! You can just hang there until you fall!"
"You wouldn't do that, would you?!"
"I would!"
"Oh, no, you wouldn't!"
"I would to!"
"Would not!"
"Would too, and stop repeating it before I get so impatient that I change my mind, you coward!"
"Loud mouth!"
"Glutton machine!"
"Windshield waste!"
"Oh, Mighty Polokus. Please have mercy on this poor soul, for you see, he's an idiot."
Globox backed up to run straight into him, when the branch stopped him and he ricocheted back onto the wall!
"Check that. Don't have mercy on 'em."
"You never had this problem with Rayman!"
"Well, that's because he was easy going! He never disagreed with anything I told him to do, because he TRUSTED me! I guided him through lands he had never even heard of before and he thanked me for that! NOT LIKE YOU!"
"I'm a coward! It's my JOB as a follower to disobey the leader!"
"Really, I don't know how you ever became friends with that guy!" Murfy then turned his back on him and just hovered there in the freezing cold.
Globox dangled onto the withering strand of wood, and stared at Murfy. He had hurt is friend's friend, but he then realized something else! "Murfy. I AM glad of one thing about you. You know what that is?"
Murfy didn't show any response, but Globox continued anyway. "Your persistence. You never give up on anything. Murfy, if you give up on this now, who's going to find Rayman? Who's going to protect the forest?"
Murfy slowly shifted his head, which Globox saw as a good sign.
"I wish I could be like you and Rayman, never afraid of anything and never keeping things inside yourself. You guys have so much in common, but I want to have what you both have. I guess that's why I'm friends with him."
"Globox, you never did or gave anything for me. What would you possibly give me if I saved you?" He was responding! That meant he felt the smallest bit of pride from Globox's praise, so Globox continued.
"I'd say it, but being how traditional situations in these stories occur, I'd most likely be interrupted by this branch breaking and me falling to my horrible death, only to be stopped by you saving me at the last second when you quickly change your mind out of virtue, and then we'd shake hands and suck up to each other for the time being, until the time comes where we have another quarrel about our differences, so, well, I don't think I'm going to say it now."
Murfy scoffed, turned and faced Globox yet again and said, "You really think it's going to happen just like that?"
It all did.
-
Being an Earth Snake, Wanda was able to carry Rayman in and out of holes in the wall unnoticed, which was much quicker than walking up and down the floors. She, as well as her stage sisters, knew many secret passageways that no one else knew about. Rayman discovered their powers- they had pigment chemicals inside their body textures that lighted the way in front of them.
Rayman soon found out that everyone he had interviewed had pretty much the same experience: a somewhat filthier version of themselves planted the pondering question of life's purpose inside their heads, if they had heads. He surmised that the guy he met at the race was a hallucination, which he hypothesized, might be one of the more outrageous symptoms to the disease.
But Globox and Murfy knew the disease was a fake, so were these people real?
"Wanda, I have something to tell you."
"What?"
"I-- I see filthy people! Filthy people who DON'T KNOW they're filthy! I mean, I just saw that same guy walking near the hallway to my room, a moment after he wasn't there, and then he vanished again!"
"It's creepy, ain't it? But in order to find out if they actually are hallucinations, we have to find more proof. I haven't talked to my stage sisters about this yet! They're in the dressing room."
She carried Rayman through thin dirty passageways, like a really elaborate roller coaster. She then emerged beside another room on the first floor which had three stars installed on the front of it. Rayman didn't see the other two, but it was like any other singer's dressing room he knew of- lights surrounding the mirrors, clothing and miscellaneous accessories thrown haphazardly around the place. Wanda told him they were in the fitting room behind the curtain trying on some new clothes.
"Girls! I have someone you might be surprised to se-ee!"
Rayman was expecting a stampede of fans crawling over him, but they were both as unenthusiastic about him as the first time Wanda saw him as well. They looked exactly like Wanda except one of them was red and brown and the other was yellow and purple.
"Isn't that the short guy who saved the world one time?"
"No, no, Meryl, that was BEFORE he parted the Sea!"
Rayman raised an eyebrow. "Uh, I never-"
Wanda didn't want to disappoint the sisters, so she acted like he actually did all those things. "Oh, Rayman's a bit modest! Ray, I'd like you to meet Meryl and David."
"David?"
The red one raised her baritone voice. "My dad wanted a boy."
Wanda filled them in on their suspicions and whether or not those people they saw were actually real. They all came to an agreement that the disease they had caught weeks ago might've had them hallucinate, and they also agreed that in the next days before their next performance, they would face these unkempt replicas and talk right into their faces about this while situation.
Rayman knew he would be uncomfortable the whole time, but he learned from past experiences that the best way to solve a problem is to face it head on!
-
"There it is! The Mines of Immortality! We made it, Globox! I told you there was nothing to be afraid of!"
"I knew it all along!"
"Don't push your luck."
They had both spent last night lying on top of one another to shelter themselves from the cold under a wide, thick leaf. Globox, who was accustomed to warm beds, was shivering from the damp weather, so Murfy sacrificed his dignity by having himself cuddled in Globox's arms like a teddy bear. Today was much brighter and warmer in the mountains, and they had just gained sight of the bridge to the mines! Although it was on yet another mountain, just the sight of it made them forget the bruises on Globox's feet as they hurried on over to the bridge!
"Ya' know, Murfy, I wonder why it's called the Mines of Immortality."
They saw all these old geezers mining shiny diamonds below in the quarries, quivering in their loose flesh and saying things like, "Hey, HerbI I wonder why all these diamonds keep getting reburied each and every morning we get back to work! This is takin' forever!"
Globox and Murfy looked across the quarries to see a gatekeeper lying near a thin bridge that led to the enormous purple mountain. They approached the sleeping man and inquired about how to seek access within.
"You come bearing coin?"
"Oh, I knew I forgot something at my house!" said Murfy.
"Mmmmm, coin."
"Then, you only need to answer three questions."
Murfy rolled his eyes. "Oh, it's one of THESE!"
"First question: a riddle. Who of the three people standing here is the wisest?"
"Hey, Globox, can you just eat this guy and get this whole thing over with?"
"Sorry, senior citizens make me gag."
Murfy sighed and said, "Well, that leaves Globox out, so it leaves either you or me. Hmmm, well, you are the one asking ME the question, so you must KNOW the answer, which makes YOU wiser than ME!"
"I told you it was a trick question. You are the wiser one, for it was the first time I ever asked that question, and I did NOT know the answer."
"Uh-huh. Hey, don't start layin' any Einstein on me, man, or I'll just fly over you."
"Second question: You've heard of the legendary hero named Rayman?"
Globox nudged Murfy in the wing, a bit too hard. "This should be easy!"
The gatekeeper continued, "What is Rayman's favorite color?"
"Do you get these questions out of some cheap activity book you play crossword puzzles on while you wait for your stop on a subway train?!"
"Just answer the question," he said as he slipped a thin booklet behind him.
"Heh. We'll, I do remember that time when Rayman was playing ball with the yellow Lums for the first time. He was just a baby then. Oh, he was SOOOOOO adorable! Hmm, I guess yellow was his favorite color."
The gatekeeper answered, "That is correct."
"Wow, that WAS easy!"
"Final question: What is the most surprising and breath-taking irony in the world?"
"You want an answer?" Murfy moved to the right to reveal Globox behind him. "Here. Living proof that you can marry a great wife, father a hundred children and still be extremely stupid." Globox just stuck a pose, as if to exemplify something.
The gatekeeper did not move. "Not valid enough proof. I need some physical evidence."
"Uh, he IS physical evidence! He is the EPITAMY of physical evidence to THAT question!"
Globox brightened and said, "Ooh! Ooh! Wait just a sec!" He turned around, regurgitated something, and turned back to the front holding a wet piece of paper. He put on some glasses and read aloud, "'Dearest Honey Lumpkins, Come home! The kids miss you! I miss you too! OXOXOXOXOXOXOOXOXOOOXOXOXOXOXO! Love, SugarBubble'." To which he immediately ate the paper again, as well as the glasses.
Murfy and the gatekeeper stared like a duo of ghosts. The gatekeeper caught his breath and said, "You may go."
After Globox and Murfy crossed the bridge, the man breathed a heavy sigh, when one of the geezers stepped up to him and said, "Charlie, are you teasin' the tourists again?! That's it! Down to your room!"
"Aw, Pop."
-
Globox and Murfy discovered a series of carved images underneath the mines in a purple cave. They could make out the embossed lines thanks to the eerie purple light reflecting off of the damp floor. The markings were obviously extremely ancient, covered in grain formations and some moss and algae. Nonetheless, they matched the illustration in the book!
"Wow, Murfy, standing in this wet floor almost makes me feel normal for once!"
Murfy tried to ignore him as he studied the drawings. These were they, indeed, but the book did not provide a translation for the images far to the right. It started with symbols that looked like natives with buckteeth and elongated arms, like apes, but not! Next to them appeared a coil with three lines sticking out of the top. It was placed over another set of natives, this time, looking sick. Then followed what appeared to be an evolutionary chart of the natives growing bigger with hair and muscles. Then next panel showed a flock of birds, then times the size of the natives, all carrying them. The next panel showed them all heading toward an upside-down triangle, then a whole bunch of those triangles in the air with the natives in toe toward a small circle. The circle was painted orange.
"So, can you make any of this out, Globox?"
They looked at the artwork for a long time.
"Well, those people in the middle sure do look like they're becoming adults, don't they?"
Murfy's eyes widened and said, "Hey, yeah! What about that coil with the three lines sticking out of it? It looks like a kind of fruit!" He tried to associate fruits he was familiar with the drawing. "It sort of reminds me of a plum, but plums have 16 leaves on the top, not three."
"Who said natives were accurate artists?"
Murfy stared at it again. "Yeah."
"I have no idea what those triangles are, though."
The lines on the upside down triangles were drawn wigglier than the rest, as if the creators intended them to be that way. Natives were going on the flat top of it. Murfy said, "It could be an island, but it's in the air!"
"Again, who said the drawings are accurate?"
"Well, what else could they be?"
"I dunno. I can't think of anything else!"
"Come to think of it, I heard of these rare floating islands in one of the tales I heard as a pupa, but they were just fiction!"
Indeed, those triangles appeared to be floating over land and rising higher and higher, toward the circle.
Globox then made a sudden gasp as he continued to read the book! "Oh my gosh! This says there are a total of 10 sequences in the series! How many do you count?"
"Nine. Why?"
They slowly glanced at the area following the orange circle, to a big boulder that appeared to be causing a dead end. Globox tried to touch the orange circle, but it was too high to reach.
Murfy sighed, flew up to the fifteen-foot-high circle and pushed it. "Never send a blue frog to do a fairy's job!"
Just then, the orange circle responded to the touch by pulling itself inward, and to both of their surprise, the boulder MOVED! It slowly pushed it's way to the right, and a big, BRIGHT LIGHT appeared where the boulder had been. Globox ran behind Murfy for protection!
Inside the nook that followed the orange circle, which they were certain had to be a button, lay one last engraving. It showed natives falling off of the circle, downward toward the ground, and lying there. Globox and Murfy tried to make sense of all this. Then, without making a sound, both of them exchanged horrified looks! Slowly, they fell into a trance, their bodies stiff and upright and their eyes glowing!
An echoed, low voice erupted through both their heads: "When we, the natives of Neotopia discovered the terrible case of IADS, we noticed our muscles had grown, hair had sprouted on us, our voices had deepened, and we were suddenly interested in the opposite sex- an inconvenience for us, for the males and females had been enemies since the dawn of time! So, after a few trifle Romeo and Juliet parodies, we all took desperate action! Using spiritual, magical forces known to only us, we were able to break apart pieces of this planet and have them float us toward another orange planet that we believed would bring us fortune, a better life, and have us forget about our biological changes we were going through. We enlisted native giant blue birds called Stratifours to aid us! But it was a trap! The orange planet caused us pain and suffering beyond our wildest dreams, as if to punish us all for not facing the aftermath of the disease, and so, we all bailed off it, hurtling toward our home planet and to our deaths!"
They needed no more explanations. The hatred for the opposite sex had made them unable to reproduce! The race had disappeared by killing themselves without notice to future races, and so, the rest of history had nothing else to go by on the issue of growing up than by the concept of IADS. Since no one else was around to stop the islands from separating from this planet, islands kept breaking off and heading into space.
No one else realized that the thoughts that were circling in their heads were perfectly normal. No one else realized that they had reached a higher level of cognitive faculties, which they mistook for IADS. No one else had managed to move the boulder and reveal the native's fate. No one else had done or realized ANY of these things, but THEM, Globox and Murfy!
"Great Trousers of Polokus, Murfy! A vision told me the secret of the false disease!"
Murfy tried to act collected out of such a phenomenon and said, "That's not what shocked ME! It's the ending of the story that shocked me, Globox! Everyone who boarded those islands were tricked!"
"Yeah, but now I have a clear understanding of it! I knew it was puberty all along, and that's why I'm still here! And why my kids are here as well!" Globox contemplated. "Then I guess only a percentage of the creatures in this world fell into the idea of IADS. I mean, a set of islands can't hold EVERYONE on this planet, right?" Neotopia was the size of Jupiter.
"That's a good hypothesis. And you know what else this means?"
"I'm thinking the same thing, Murfy. Rayman's on one of those islands!"
They both smiled at each other and gave each other a buddy punch on the back. "I never guessed you would've had enough energy to use your brain to that extent, Globox."
"Hey, why do you think I'm that big of a glutton?"
"Now we just have to somehow catch that moving island and get Rayman! We have to save him from what horrible consequences await him!"
Globox looked worried again. "But how do we do that? How-"
They both thought of the giant Stratifours that they had seen on the engravings! These birds must've been the IADS messengers- carrying victims straight to the location of the floating islands!
They HAD to see one of those birds!
"Got the Lums, Globox? WE'Z A'GONNA' MAKE LIKE A DUO OF GOOD BUDDIES, and SAVE RAYMAN!"
"I do the 'Happy Globox Song' now! 'Happy happy happy SOOOOOOOOOO HAPPYYYY!'"
"Save it for the part where we save 'em, ya big lug!"
(to be continued)