A/N: Devil's advocate says: if anyone has anything against duel identities then don't read this chapt—
Devil-gurl666 says: Damn it! Don't give it away!…well to the readers, just read the chapter and find out for yourself… (to Devil's advocate) I'll deal with you later…
Enjoy!
Disclaimer: We now own 3 and a half characters! (Rinj, Craig, Mandy Who's introduced in this episode , and Foxy Penelope…sorta…)
SWEET SAMPETRA SEASON 1: Episode 8: The One With Foxy PenelopeRasconza, Captain of the rebellious Wave Brethren was a normally optimistic mammal. After months of resisting Ublaz's tyranny, the fox had come to the conclusion that you had to be fairly buoyant if you wished to attempt to overthrow an insane, moneyed emperor-pimp without hanging yourself in despair. But at the present time, the noose of rope that kept the Bloodkeel moored to the jetty was looking awful friendly.
Sure, all had seemed well after Sagitar's whole treachery scheme but Rasconza had come to realize that a not-so-bright teenage rat in hot-pink heels and a score or so of her always faithful male rat groupies weren't going to win him the war against the affluent pine martin.
And to only adjoin to these distressing revelations, the Rebellion had official ran out of food provisions. He had discovered this when he'd been lounging casually in his hammock (which he'd finally got the hang of sitting in), observing the calm, serene turquoise waters that encircled the Isle of Sampetra and he'd a raucous, ears-splitting screech erupt from the ship's galley.
Assuming it was a maiden in danger by the high pitch of the scream, Rasconza obeyed the conscience every male of the species possessed that was yelling at him to save the lady and sprang from his hammock, flitting through the Bloodkeel's claustrophobia-inducingly narrow corridors while nearly killing Grewja as he surged past. In seconds he found himself standing in the galley's doorway.
"Is everything alrigh— he began but stopped in mid sentence because, to his utter dismay and repulsion, the "maiden" turned away from the open fidge in which she'd been looking in to reveal that she was not really a maiden at all—well atleast the ugliest maiden Rasconza had ever laid eyes upon— in other words, Barranca.
"Rasconza!" The ferret hissed. "We are in the midst of a crisis, why did you take so long to help?"
Rasconza frowned. "The same reason why you scream like a girl" He answered. "Now what's this so-called crisis?"
"It is…" Barranca began; the fox raised a questioning eyebrow.
"What's with the pause?" he asked. Conva's little bro gave him an exasperated look as if he was stupid. Like I'm the stupid one, Rasconza thought ironically.
"It was for dramatic effect, but you ruined it."
"Oh."
"Well, anyway, I think it's actually best if I show you."
Still melodramatic as ever, Barranca slammed open the fridge door while striking a pose. To Rasconza's horror it was completely empty. The spotless, plastic, white shelving was void of the usual leftover pizzas and six-packs—well more often twelve-packs—of seaweed grog that plagued the refrigerated compartments.
"Okay, shut up for a second" Rasconza told the teenage ferret who was in the midst of humming the music from Psycho obnoxiously. He fell into silence, though the fox could hear him sulking something about him having no appreciation for the performing arts.
"H-how did this happen?" The Rebel Crew Leader managed to stutter through his initial shock.
"My sources tell me that Ublaz apparently poisoned all the edible plant and fruit life on the rebellion's side of Sampetra and bribed the Domino's delivery guy not to come anymore." Barranca said in a conspiratorial stage whisper. Rasconza gave him a wry look
"What sources?"
"I have spies everywhere Rasconza" He said dangerously "Don't mess with the Barrankstah."
"Anyway, on a more important note," The fox continued, still feeling a little weirded-out by Barranca's suspicious behaviour "What exactly are we supposed to do so that we don't starve?"
"Oh, so now the almighty Rebel-leader needs the help of the dumb kid?" Barranca waited for him to come up with some witty come-back but he remained quiet. "Man, Foxy-Loxy, I think you're finally loosing your slyness, but I'll help you since I cannot let the rebellion fall into Ublaz's large, tendony hands."
"Yeah just don't call me Foxy-Poxy or whatever it was. So what are we going to do?"
Barranca gave him one of what Rasconza liked to call "his stupid childish grins".
"Why, we do what all foodless miscreants do." Barranca pointed out the small, round side-window in the galley that gave a surprising good view of Mad-Eye's fortress. "We steal from the guy on top."
Night had settled upon the Isle of Samptera, filtering out all the long shadows of dawn and smothering the entire island in darkness. Cloaked by Ublaz's palace's gargantuan silhouette, Rasconza and Barranca slinked (or at least the fox slinked, Barranca sort of ambled) across the palm tree scattered hills that marked the Rebel Crew territory's border. Though their trek through the tropical forest was uneventful, the two eventual burglars soon encountered their first dilemma at the palace gates, where the creepy Lask Frildur lurked amidst the pallid mist, his pale reptilian eyes restless.
"Okay, here's the plan," Rasconza whispered after a moment's pause, obviously very proud of how clever he was, "You come up behind Lask with a big stick and hit him repeatedly on the head till he drops, while I sneak into the fortress and grab the grub."
Barranca looked genuinely puzzled, "But what if he wakes up again?"
"Then hit him again."
"And if he wakes up again?"
"Then hit him"
"And if he wakes up again?"
"Then hit him!"
And if he wakes up again?"
"Then hit him!"
"And if he wakes up again?"
"Then hit him!"
"And if he—"
"THEN HIT HIM GOD DAMMIT!"
"Okay, okay geez…"
Groping around the ground for a moment, Conva's little bro finally clutched a rather broad branch, and, wielding it in both paws above his head and with a hollering shout, rushed forward to where Frildur's shadow was barely visible in the fog.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!"
Whump.
Silence, then… Barranca did a little victory dance of joy.
"Oh yeah, oh yeah, I got him! Oh yeah, Oh yeah…"
"Shut up, little freak," Rasconza passed him and clambered over the black, vine entangled gates, then dropped noiselessly into the dark courtyard, leaving Barranca to stake-out at the lizard's limp form.
As the fox tiptoed through the palace grounds, an odd suspicion bristled his fur. It was way too easy, surely even a horny maniac like Ublaz wasn't stupid enough to post only Lask Frildur as a sentry. He shook his head. He was probably just getting paranoid, according to Barranca it happened when you were the "head honcho" for too long. Whatever, who cares what that retarded little ferret said anyways.
Rasconza forced his way (with some difficulty) through the heavy oak double front doors with a thunderous crash that made him freeze in mid step. Someone must have heard that, he winced, as the raucous bang echoed off the high vaulted ceiling, making a crystalline chandelier shudder. But he heard no approaching footsteps, or voices, and after waiting for what he deemed a sufficient amount of time he ascended the grand marble staircase with one paw resting on the banister, feeling every inch like the royalty he so obviously was not.
However, he was so indulged in his fantasies of wealth and fame that he did not notice Ublaz's personal servant, Mandy, (who the mad-eyed emperor was rumoured to have had an affaire with, but then again didn't he have an affaire with every girl, in Groojaw's opinion?) shuffling timidly down the ivory-stoned stairwell. With his head in the clouds, the fox dreamily drifted right into the unfortunate stoat, who gave a piercing scream at the sight of the rebel fox and proceeded to wrench an ornate torch from it's wall-brazier and brandish it threateningly at him.
"Stay away, you…er…ruffian!"
Rasconza decided to try to coax her into not raising the alarm, "I won't do you—uh, I mean do anything to you, just let me go by and…", he put on his best roguish freebooter look (a.k.a. his "game face"), "…And no-one needs to get hurt."
Mandy appeared anything but reassured with her eyes wide and her trembling paws still clutching the torch tightly. The rebel leader had held his tongue so long before curiosity got the better of him.
"Hey, what were you doing up in the emperor's private quarters anyway?"
She faltered considerably before answering defensively, "What business is that of yours?" then with a triumphant smile she pulled out a sleek walkie-talkie from her flirty little maid's-dress and muttered;
"Intruder alert, we have a rebel in the building."
Before Rasconza could say "stupid-little-biotch", he was surrounded by a score of armed-and-dangerous Lizard Monitors with snipers aimed at his heart…
Barranca's boredom was overtaking him. Where was the fox anyway? How long did it take a guy to run inside, snatch a meal from the fridge and run back out again? Though these thoughts were running through the ferret's mind, he didn't get the suspicion that the plan was going astray. Not, that is until he decided to take a better look the unconscious form of Lask Fridrul.
To his dismay, instead of finding himself staring at the hideous, scaly, reptilian face of Ublaz's top Monitor Lizard, he found himself goggling wide-eyed at the ratty, overly-buff features of second-in-command Trident-rat Craig, and his grotesque lip-piercing.
"Man I'm in a lot of shit when Rasconza finds out." He gasped. He heard steady footsteps approaching from the northern entrance to the Castle. He threw himself in what he thought was a cool super-sleuth-ish manner behind the nearest shrub just in time to see Lask himself, perfectly conscious, come sauntering acrossthe courtyard with a sceptically moving, struggling body-bag in tow. His worst fears were confirmed when a fiery red fox tail poked out of the sac's top.
"Nevermind, guess Rasconza's the one in a whole lot of shit now." Remarked Barranca, hiding an apprehensive yet mocking smirk. His grin evaporated instantly though as Craig began to stir, his eyes flickering.
Time for me to make my great escape, Barranca thought. He'd have to regroup and come back for Rasconza later.
The ferret climbed the black iron tangles that made up the front gate and dropped over the other side, running as fast as his short legs could manage towards the infamous border of palm trees. He only paused for a moment when a sudden blissful thought occurred to him.
Now that Rasconza is captured, that makes me the temporary leader of the Rebel Crew.
He literally skipped back to the Bloodkeel in his merriment.
He pushed open the door that led into the crews' quarters to find Groojaw seated unaccompanied at one of the long tables. The pyro-ferret looked up at Barranca bemusedly.
"Why so smug?", the expression on his features suggested he thought Barranca had gotten lucky with some chick or something. Conva's kid bro could have snorted, Yeah, in my dreams, Groojaw.
"Guess who got promoted to Rebel Leader."
"I got no clue. Wait, let me guess… Sagitar turned on Rasconza and killed him and now she's the new leader?"
"No, I'm the new head honcho!"
Groojaw gave him a mock congratulatory thumbs-up and said in a monotone drawl, "You dawg."
"I know, isn't it great? Finally I get my revenge on that Foxy-loxy! Muhahahahahahahahahahaha!"
Groojaw rolled his eyes, "We're all gonna die."
A sudden scream shattered the silence followed by a deafening crash from the captain's cabin. Barranca rushed over to the door, but Groojaw slid infront of him, barring his way.
"You don't want to go in there."
"Why not?"
"Okay, you know Sagitar can be really fierce sometimes, right?"
"No kidding."
"Well, her and Rinj are having a cat-fight in there."
"Whoa, that's not gonna be pretty. But why?"
"I don't know. Something to do with the "grog-and-table-incident"…"
Barranca gave a knowing smile. "Oh, that.," then twisted it into a determined scowl. Time for me to be the debonair gentleman who saves these damsels-in-a-mess.
"Onward my dear pyromaniac, into the fray!" Barranca swung the captain's cabin door open, and was greeted by Rinj smashing an antique china pot on his head (what an antique china pot was doing in Rasconza's quarters was absolutely beyond him).
The Latino rat's emerald eyes shot him a poisonous glare, "Keep out of this, little worm," she ducked and Sagitar's trident-prongs embedded in the wall where her head had been moments ago.
"Stop fighting over me, it's too distressing!" Barranca called, and the two of them froze, the ex-chief trident-rat raising a juke-box over her head, ready to be hurled, the corsairess clutching a picture frame infront of her, as a shield.
Both spat at Conva's little bro, perfectly synchronized as though rehearsed, "WE'RE NOT FIGHTING OVER YOU!"
Barranca folded his arms over his narrow chest, matter-of-factly, "You're just both in denial. Well anyways, Rasconza's being held prisoner by Ublaz, and killing each other isn't going to help his situation."
They gazed at him blankly for a while, before Sagitar jumped up, a mischievous smile crossing her features.
"I've got a plan!"
"Hold on," Rinj examined the picture (one Conva had taking a while ago of Sagitar standing with one arm around Rasconza's lean shoulders), then cast it disdainfully on the floor, "If you're going to save him, I'm coming too."
Sagitar flashed Rinj a smile Barranca could only describe as"frightening".
"Oh, you can tag along if you want, skank. That is, if you can keep up with me."
The black rat's only response was a defiant toss of her head.
Barranca decided to break the ice, "So what's this ingenious plot of yours, Sag?"
The former trident-rat leaned close, and whispered it to him. He couldn't say that he didn't relish her lips being so close to his ear. By the time she had finished explaining he felt a grin twitch on his features.
Sagitar slinked off to her room, saying she'd be back, and leaving Groojaw, Rinj and Barranca in a suspenseful silence. After what seemed like an eternity, with everyone getting very agitated (Groojaw was tapping his foot, Rinj was cursing profoundly in Spanish and Barranca had started humming the Starwars theme song very loudly), A figure casually entered the captain's cabin.
She was a vixen of bold, fiery red fur with tar-tipped ears and tail. She cut a sleek, sultry figure, in an outfit of black leather with matching cat-boots. Conva's little bro thought the best way to put her appearance was as, well… foxy.
"Sagitar…?" He asked sceptically.
"I was her," she slipped off her elongated muzzle to reveal that it was actually fake, then re-adjusted it, cocking one hip seductively.
"But for now the name's Penelope. Foxy Penelope."
To be continued…A/N: Devil-gurl666 says: Will Sagitar be able to save Rasconza from the clutches of the evil (and dead sexy) Ublaz? Or will the emperor see past her ingenious desguise? Well if you can't take the suspense then...tough, 'cause Chapter 9 ain't up yet!…
Devil's Advocate says: I think Rasconza's hotter then Ublaz (I always like those roguish bad boys).
Devil-gurl666 says: (sigh) geez, when will my fateful advocate learn that it's the rich bastards that will get you somewhere, not the skinny little po guys…(shakes head sadly) oh well…