"Hoo hoo, stop, cut it out, that tickles!" Sam had strain to avoid breaking down into laughter. The Snake was slithering around under his clothes, "frisking" him. They were standing in the middle of large hall in the middle of Jareth's castle, with the stairway maze all around them. Both Doc Hopper and Wander McMooch had he and Miss Piggy at gunpoint, and goblins milled around all over the room, armed to the teeth. Escape seemed rather unlikely.
"Do you see Henson's will or not?" Jareth shouted impatiently from an apparently legitimate staircase along the roof of the hall.
"Nope," the Snake popped his head out from Sam's shirt, "No ssssssssign of the will on Klubb, bosssssss. All he'ssssss got issss thissssss contract for the other Muppetssssssssss."
"Search the pig!" the Goblin King pointed at Piggy.
"I'll handle this," the Weasel stepped toward Piggy.
"HIIIIIIIYYYYAAAAA!" Piggy karate chopped him into the wall. Interesting," Sam confided in her, "Maybe it's just me, but I thought you'd do something a little more, well, racy."
"I probably would, but the brass would never permit it," Piggy told him.
"Uh, I think she's yours, Chuck," the Weasel dazedly told the head of the Riverbottom Gang.
"Never mind!" Bitterman pushed her way past the Weasel, "I doubt Henson's will's going to show by midnight, when Muppetville becomes legally mine."
"Legally ours, angel cakes," Jareth swooped down and put an arm around her. The two of them eyed each other with goofy love expressions. "I may throw up," Sam confided in Piggy.
A loud clang rang out from the wall. The Lizard had been chopping away at it for the last half hour or so, aided by light from a lamp the Pop-Eyed Catfish was holding up in its mouth. "Careful you fool!" Jareth berated the reptile, "We need to just take out the weak spot so that we can better break the spell!"
"What weak spot?" Sam asked, hoping Jareth would succumb to the usual temptation of villains and relate the whole plot to them.
"Henson never trusted me," Jareth seemed all the willing to oblige him, "He put up this magical force field to keep me away from the Muppets. Fortunately, the spell runs out if a specific weak spot is breeched, and I've figured out its location. Then I'll be able to come right in and enact Operation End the Magic."
"So that's what this whole thing is about? So you and Bitterman could get your hands on Muppetville?" Sam inquired. He liked them even less now.
"You think it's just the two of us?" Bitterman asked him, a strange edge to her voice, "And you called yourself a great detective? Darling, why don't we show them who else is a limited partner in Bitterman International, Muppetville Development Division."
"With pleasure," Jareth waved his hand up at the ceiling, which immediately became transparent, revealing a tier of seats. "I don't believe it," Sam was shocked at some of the people he saw up there, "The Skeksis? Sam and Side Sleaze? Nicky Holliday? THE GORGS? Why, Pa?"
"The universe is undergoing change," Pa Gorg said down over the loudspeaker, "I've got a throne to protect."
"Still delusional," Sam shook his head. Then he noticed the last person up there. "Miss Finch?"
"It was an offer I couldn't refuse, Klubb," the social worker told him, "Do you have any idea how hard it is working on a civil servant's salary? Now I'm set for life."
"As you can see, there are many willing to assist us in this venture of ours," Jareth told Sam, "And I wouldn't think of rescue, Klubb. Not just my legions, but also Garthim, crystal bats, demons, trolls, and other creatures of the night heavily guard this castle. There will be no one to stop us this time."
A bus exited the tunnel from Muppetville, causing Oscar to shift around in his can. A tall figure wearing a low hat and dark glasses stepped off at the bus stop across the street. "Oscar?" came Kermit's voice from underneath the huge trench coat the figure was wearing, "What happened here?"
"What does it look like, I had an accident!" Oscar growled, hauling himself out of the can.
"Oscar!" Telly came running back up the road, "I forgot the number for the police."
"You what?" Kermit threw aside his disguise, revealing he'd been wearing stilts, "Will somebody please tell me what's going on here?"
"Jareth took Detective…" Telly started to say, but it was then that a familiar Studebaker zoomed around the corner and crashed into the trash cans. "Fozzie, I told you to fix those worn-out brakes!" Gonzo shouted.
"I did," Fozzie admitted, "That's why I haven't got any."
"Anyway," Oscar picked up, "Jareth's going to basically kill all of us."
"He what?" Kermit strode over, jumping off the stilts.
"That's what Miss Piggy said before he grabbed her and Klubb," the grouch said, "Took them back to his castle."
"Good grief!" Kermit exclaimed. "This is serious! And what are you doing here?" he turned to his friends in the car, "I thought you were staying hiding? Detective Klubb told you to stay at the Sinclairs."
"It was too boring," Rizzo protested, "Besides you were gone too long. What happened?"
"It's a long story," Kermit said, "Right now we've got to get to Jareth's castle."
"But that's in a completely different dimension, Kermit," Telly pointed out as they ran up the road after the frog, "I don't even know where the entrance is."
"I do," Kermit told him, "Jim gave me an exact description of how to get in to the goblin world, and how to circumvent the labyrinth. "Hey, buddy, hold up!"
A steamroller had been driving up the road. "Stop!" Kermit jumped in front of it and waved his flippers. "Yeah, whatdya want, mac?" the driver shouted at him.
"Take us to the Creature Shop building," Kermit asked him.
"What do I look like, a subway?" the driver growled, impatient, "I've got a busy shift, frog!"
"A shift you're not finishing!" Oscar threw the driver out of the cab. "All aboard," the grouch called out. Everyone climbed up. "Floor it Oscar," Kermit instructed him, "We've only got till midnight if everything I've been told is right."
Oscar hit the gas, and the steamroller took off…i-n-c-r-e-d-i-b-l-y s-l-o-w-l-y. "Well, if nothing else, we might break a world record for slowness before we all die horrible deaths," Gonzo rationalized.
"I think I can see a snail moving quicker than this," Rizzo looked over the side.
"Turn left here," Kermit directed Oscar. He prayed they'd be in time.
"There we go, clear through," the Lizard announced from the wall. He managed to crack a hole through it, from which the sound of laughter could be heard wafting through.
"Very good," Jareth lauded him, "We've now ruined Henson's defenses. We can now proceed with the operation."
He strode over to a large steel framework that was hiding a very large object of some kind. "Is it ready, Professor?" he asked.
"Just about, keep your shirt on," came a strident Jewish voice from inside the metallic frame.
"You have ten seconds, Professor," Jareth warned him.
"OK, I guess we can cut a corner or two here, just tighten this rivets here; good, all done," Professor Max Krassman climbed out from behind the scaffolding. "You too?" Sam was amazed at who was among the bad guys for this caper.
"It's a significant raise over my usual stuff, and since Bitterman International is a large patron of the Mad Scientists Union Local 839, which I'm shop steward of, why not" Krassman said, mopping the sweat form his brow. "Well your highness, it's all ready to roll," he told Jareth.
"Good," Jareth patted the mad scientist on the shoulder. "You see, Detective Klubb, this little creation," he gestured up at the scaffolding, "marks my retirement from the Muppetville judiciary. I'm retiring to take a white collar position with Bitterman International, once the massive rezoning and revitalization of Muppetville is complete."
"Company COO, am I right?" Sam stepped forward, but McMooch gestured with his gun to go back.
"You catch on quickly, detective; yes, I'll be my beloved Rachel's right hand man," Jareth gave his love's arm a series of disgusting kisses. "Seriously, what can you two see in each other?" Piggy had to know.
"He's rich and powerful," Bitterman emitted moans of delight from the kisses, "Just the way I like the men in my life."
"Boy, and I thought your tries for Kermit were weird," Sam asided to Piggy.
"WHAT?" offended, Piggy kicked him, "Don't you dare talk about the love of my life that way! When he shows up, he'll prove to you and everyone we belong together!"
"If he shows up," Doc Hopper sneered, "And if he does, I'll cook him into a frog leg special."
Kermit was in fact at that moment pulling up in front of the Creature Shop. "Oscar, you know where Jerome Crystal lives," he told the grouch as he hopped down to the street, "He's been working on a special device over the last few months that can get people through the labyrinth quickly without cheating. Tell him I need it, then tell him to call everybody; we're going to need serious help on this one. I'll leave the device you need outside the entrance; once you get it open you should be able to get everyone through. As for me, I'm going in."
He hefted a popgun. It wasn't the weapon he really wanted, but it would have to do. "Come on, the portal's this way," he told the others as the steamroller slowly inched off.
"Shouldn't we go in wearing disguises?" Fozzie asked, "Maybe they'll just let us through if we pose as door to door salesmen."
"I don't think so, Fozzie," Kermit reached the back wall of the shop and tapped it with a talisman he'd been holding. A magical hole opened up for the to slide through. They were now standing outside the gate to the labyrinth. Thunder was rumbling far in the distance. "There's no way we could get through it in time," Gonzo lamented.
"Through it, no, but under it, I think we can," Kermit was on his hands and knees, "Jim said there was a secret tunnel of some kind that leads directly into Jareth's castle. If we can find it, we might still have a chance. The only thing he didn't tell me was how to open it."
"Well there's nothing here, Kermit," Rizzo shook his head, "Unless the opening's disguised to look like solid ground."
"I don't see anything either," Gonzo admitted, feeling everywhere, "How about you, Fozzie?"
"Nothing except this cute little fountain here," Fozzie innocently touched the water's spout. Instantly, the fountain made a flushing noise and sank underground—and the entire ground began swirling like a whirlpool. "Uh, I think I found the entrance, Kermit," Fozzie admitted after the fact.
"FOZZZZZZZIEEEEEE!" Kermit shrieked as they were all sucked underground and sent zooming through an underground aqueduct at close to a hundred miles an hour.
"So what does this big plan of yours to kill every Muppet entail, Jareth?" Sam asked him, daring to walk toward him again before Hopper and McMooch grabbed his shoulders and yanked him back.
"Let me give you a hint, Detective," Jareth reached through the scaffolding and pulled out a hose. He turned the nozzle and aimed it at the wall, which the dark-colored liquid proceeded to burn a hole in, "Can you guess what I've got here?"
"SAAAAAAAAUUUNNAAAAAAAAA!" Piggy screamed in an over-the-top voice.
"Exactly you pathetic swine!" Jareth crowed triumphantly, "And enough of it to complete wash Muppetville off the map!"
He fired blasts of energy from his hands that completely destroyed the scaffolding. Behind it was an ominous multi-tiered vehicle with water cannons everywhere, most notably on the top of the crane gantry above the driver's cab. "It's the ultimate vehicle of mass destruction," the Goblin King said with an edge of superiority, "Tell them the specifics, Professor."
"With pleasure, your highness," Krassman stepped forward, "Well people, this baby can go from zero to a hundred and forty in five hundred seconds," the mad scientist said, waving his arms around like he was a game show host, "It can seat fifty comfortably and holds a capacity of ten million gallons of sauna," he paused and nodded toward the truck, which the Riverbottom Gang and several goblins were filling up with extra sauna. "I've designed it with one main gun plus eighteen ancillary guns, which pump sauna through at approximately 320 psi. Enough to kill on contact, let me tell you. With tracked wheels, this baby can handle any terrain, and it would take a kill shot unlike any other to stop it. It also features dual side air conditioning, AM/FM stereo, power windows, cruise control, scotch guard, reclining seats, and California emission, the perfect…"
"They get the point, thank you Professor," Jareth interrupted Krassman. "As you can see, people," he told the investors seated in the balcony above, "Your generous donations have given us the ability to produce this weapon against Muppetry. You will tonight see it live on the screens before you."
"Oh boy!" Junior Gorg seemed blissfully unaware of what carnage was about to unfold, "We get to see the Fwaggles die live! I love reality TV, Ma, Pa."
"Junior, don't you realize the ramifications this will have!" Sam protested at the Gorg, "If you wipe out the Fraggles, you'll destroy yourselves! All things affect each other; Henson knew that firsthand!"
"Henson was a fool," Bitterman snorted, "All that matters now is getting ahead in life, not that stupid goody goody do-everything-you-can-for-your-fellow-man rubbish he tried to teach. Well, once we destroy Muppetville, I'll build my new corporate tower there, and together my honey bunny and I will take over the world, won't we?"
She cuddled up against Jareth. "Indeed," the Goblin King said, ignoring her this time, "For you see, Detective Klubb, destroying the Muppets is only the first step to world domination. Once Bitterman International becomes the leading company in all world products, I'll enslave the population."
"You don't have the powers for that, big boy," Piggy told him off.
"Oh yes I do, you wasted-off mound of bacon," Jareth snorted, "For the last few months, as part of their agreement in our pact, the Skeksis have allowed me to siphon power from the Dark Crystal. I now have abilities even you won't believe. In the long run, I've contracted Professor Krassman to develop a form of sauna that will kill humans as well as Muppets. Every grown-up in the world who refuses to abide by our rules will die by it, while I'll have the pleasure of turning their children into goblins to join my legions."
"All of the precious little children under twelve that the frog claims to like so much will be turned into goblins," Bitterman elaborated on the plot, "Those between twelve and eighteen will be forced to join Bitterman International and work the rest of their lives in cubicles earning minimum wage. Maybe if some of them are lucky, they'll join the board of directors in…"
"Do you here something?" Doc Hopper interrupted. Moments later, the floor exploded in a flash of water. Everyone ran for cover. Kermit, Fozzie, Gonzo, and Rizzo all somehow landed on their feet. "OK, everyone freeze!" the frog yelled, waving the popgun around, "I want to see weapons on the ground now or else….!"
"Oh Kermit! My little tadpole of my dreams! I know you'd come to rescue me!" Piggy threw herself on Kermit and all but killed him with a violent hug.
"Uh, yeah, great, Piggy, now could you stop choking me so I could stop the bad guys?" Kermit gasped for air.
"My love, my passion, I knew it would be fulfilled!" Piggy continued strangling him anyway, "I knew years of work would pay off, and you'd see the fact that we were just made for each other!"
"I'm going to be sick," McMooch groaned.
"And you'll be full of holes if you don't drop that gun!" Gonzo shouted at him, pointing something at McMooch through his shirt that he hoped looked like a gun. "You too!" he shouted at the Riverbottom Gang as they charged toward them, "Reach for the sky or your boss here gets it!"
"You fools!" Jareth berated his deputies as they threw down their weapons, "That's not a gun! That's his finger!"
"It is too a gun!" Gonzo told him, "And stay out of this!"
"You stupid Muppets!" Bitterman roared, "Do you really think coming in here like this is going to make any difference? We're still going to destroy Muppetville anyway, and there's nothing you can do that will stop us!"
"Well let me tell you something Bitterman!" Kermit pried himself away from Piggy and advanced toward the industrialist, his popgun held high, "For years people like you have treated us like dirt! You've called us one-dimensional, edited our shows, and done everything in your power to make us look bad! Well now we're really, really mad, and we're not going to take it anymore!"
"Yeah, everyone join in!" Fozzie leaned out the castle window and called out into the labyrinth, "Everyone repeat after us: we're really, really mad, and we're not going to take it anymore!"
"Fozzie, please!" Kermit shouted at him. The frog failed to notice a goblin inching along the rafters toward a conveniently placed kitchen sink that was directly over him. "As I was saying—and you stay right there, Jareth!" he pointed the popgun at the Goblin King, "Jim always said it only took a small number of determined people to make a change for the better, Bitterman, and even without his will, we're not going to let you take over Muppetville and do as you please with it!"
"And what makes you so sure you're going to win, frog?" Bitterman's eyes glanced up at the goblin starting to push the sink off the rafters.
"Because you've thrown everything but the kitchen sink at us, and look, we're still going!" Kermit shouted seconds before the kitchen sink hit him right in the skull. He shuddered and keeled forward. "Kermit!" Piggy ran to him and started choking him with passion all over again, "Say something Kermie!"
"Anyone catch that Bludger's license plate?" Kermit said slurrily.
"All right, say something intelligent!" Piggy pressed.
"I've had enough," Jareth stepped in, "This little rescue is over."
"Not if we have anything to say!" Rizzo charged toward him.
"But you don't," Jareth fired blasts of energy from his hands that immobilized the rat. Two more blasts froze up Gonzo and Fozzie. "Well, don't just stand there looking dumber than you are!" he snapped at the Riverbottom Gang, "Fetch some irons. We'll be sending the frog and pig out together, just the way they always wanted."