Night of the Living Pickle

Ech: Now, we can just skip past the boring part where we all talk and get straight to the disclaimer since this is a new story.

Roo: Good ol' TTE owns nothing but the idea for this story. Wart, Changeling, and Laigon belong to TurquoisePhoenix, Eledor belongs to Powerof the Wol, and the Spyro characters belong to VivendiUniversal.

Antiroo: Unfortunately...

Roo: Right. Whatever. End of disclaimer. On with the story!

Wart walked around the lair of his boss and master, Meowra "Changeling" Swiftclaw. He was ugly, green and bumpy, almost as if he was a gigantic pickle with wings. He saw that all of the torches in his home at Castle Changeling were presently lit, meaning that somehow she was still alive. "But wait, what's going on? I thought that she..." he started, before he saw her shadow appear in the doorway to his left. She was carrying a grocery bag, which was weird because she usually forced Wart to get the food or had Laigon steal it.

Changeling was rounding the corner with her grocery bag, not yet noticing Wart. Wart hid himself from her behind one of the many pillars that kept Castle Changeling erect, making sure that she didn't see his tail. She turned her head, her turquoise hair flowing around and revealing what she had in the bag: lots and lots of pickle jars.

Wart knew that everyone considered him nothing more than a pickle with wings, even his evil boss. He had to escape somehow, get away from here, before she saw him. He crept slowly away from his pillar, hoping that she didn't notice his footsteps as he escaped the castle. He started to tiptoe, just as Changeling turned to look away from him. The worst part was over. All he had to do was make it down the hallway, just a few more steps!

"I know you're there, Wart. Now get back here before I'm forced to get ugly!" Changeling shouted, hurting Wart's eardrums with her loud and malicious tone of voice.

"It's too late!" Wart yelled back as he ran away from her, "You already are!"

"Argh! That's it, Wart! You've defied me for the last time! Cucumis draco!"

Wart may not have known Latin. Heck, he barely knew Dragonish, but he recognized those words. He knew just what was happening as he floated backwards towards Changeling: He was turning into a pickle! Changeling laughed maniacally as Wart came closer and closer, decreasing in size every second. "No!" the tiny Wart yelled in a high-pitched voice. "Don't put me in the jar! Anything but the jar! Heeeeeelllllllllp!"

Changeling screwed the jar shut as Wart yelled at her from the inside. "Let me out of here! Don't think I won't tell everyone else's lackeys about your past at the villains' convention!" Snickering, Changeling brought Wart and the pickles into the kitchen. "I'm not afraid of you, you poor excuse for a dragon. They all know already!" The evil cat shoved the pickle jars into the fridge on the top shelf, then started muttering to herself about locking her drawers.

The fridge door shut, and the light went out. Wart was now thinking about how he would get out of the fridge, and thinking that Laigon would kill him if he found out that he accidentally slipped to Changeling that he'd been going through her old pictures. He was about to start banging on the inside of the jar again when suddenly, the light went back on and the door opened.

"Oh, my Meowra, oh don't you cry for me. 'Cause I know where you keep your pictures and I sell 'em to magazines." It was Laigon! Wart watched from his vantage point on the top shelf as Laigon grabbed the bread, brought it to the table, and went into the cabinet for a plate. "And he won't even bother to close the fridge!" Laigon put two slices of bread on his plate, followed by a trip back to the fridge. Wart knew what it was for: Laigon's favorite honey roasted ham.

"Ah, let's see." Laigon took four or five slices of the meat out of the package and threw them onto his bread. Next, he went for the mustard, dumping about half the bottle on top of the meat and bread and making it into an unrecognizable mass of yellow. "Jeez, he could've left me some!" Wart said to himself. From what Wart remembered, Laigon would be closing the fridge now. His sandwich was finished, why wouldn't he?

"Hmm, it looks like Changeling bought some pickles. I guess I'll just have a few." Laigon walked back toward the fridge, and to Wart's dismay, picked up the very jar that Wart himself was in. He unscrewed it and put his hand inside, feeling for the pickles inside. He grabbed the one that sat next to Wart in the container and put it onto his plate next to the mustard blob. "Maybe I'll have one more, for my sandwich." He reached in again and instead of picking out a pickle, picked out Wart!

"Let me go! Laigon! Hey!"

Laigon looked at the pickle on his plate, confused at the fact that he heard Wart's voice. "I need to lay off Changeling's tonic. It's really screwin' me up." He put Wart onto the sandwich, and laid down the other slice of bread on top of him. The mustard dripped down Wart's sides, onto his muzzle, and all over his small wings. Laigon sat down at the table, ready to eat his ham and pickle sandwich.

"No! No, Laigon! Stop!" Laigon took up the sandwich in his claws, holding it and looking at it hungrily. "I've been waiting for this a long time..." He took the sandwich ever closer as Wart watched him open his mouth. "Stop! Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!"

Wart woke with a jolt in his bed, home in Avalar. Eledor was asleep next to him, snoring away like it was common in her family. "It was a dream." Wart realized. He got up from his bed and ran to the bathroom. He looked in the mirror quickly. His scales were still there, gray as they were since they defeated Changeling two months before. He splashed some water on his face, to wake himself up.

"I've gotta stop eating those weird pickles before I go to bed. I–AAAH!" His whole body was green again, covered in warts like before. In the mirror behind him Changeling held an ax, poised to kill him instantly. "AAAAAAH!"

Again Wart awoke with a start, but this time he and Eledor were cuddling, assuring him that he was surely home. Before he drifted off to sleep again, he promised himself one thing: "No more mustard."

The End

Antiech: Well, that was quite a ridiculous story.

Antiroo: I still say that Pickle Boy is #1!

Wex: We all know that, Antiroo. Man, I feel sorry for him, the only altercations that happened to us were to our DNA.

Platypous: Well hey, review! You know TTE likes those, no matter if they criticize him or praise him.

Princess Aquaech: Just don't flame him! Bye!