"We shouldn't have run like that," the Weasel was still grumbling as the Dry Bandits' truck inched slowly up the lane toward Grizzly Farm, a small convoy of their new hired associates right behind them "I had the diamond right in my hand when you dragged me out the door!"
"No problem," Larry reassured him, "It was just a gut reaction. This time we know not to just panic if we see anything monstrous in the closet."
They pulled up behind a snow bank that was out of sight of the front porch. Up on top of the roof, unseen by the would-be intruders, Homer Honker had already spotted them with binoculars. He turned down the stairs and honked his nose three times in a row. Down below, Emmett nodded at the signal. "They're here, guys!" he shouted down the main stairs in turn, "Better get ready!"
There was a loud bustling as dozens of Muppets and humans ran about to their first stations. "Kermit, I think we're throwing the whole story out the window here," Scooter expressed his feelings to the frog as they positioned themselves underneath the front window, "If this is supposed to be a nice heartwarming story on helping a family learn to live, we can't just go about slamming the bad guys like this."
"Attention everyone," came the voice of an all-too familiar voice over a megaphone, "This is your old friend Doc Hopper speaking. I hate to be impolite, but you all have thirty seconds to hand over the fabulous Baseball Diamond to us, or else we'll be forced to do something like this to you."
A spray of warning fire peppered the windows, forcing everyone down to the floor. "Or then again, maybe we can do this without ruining the story," Scooter added.
"So what's it going to be?" Hopper inquired, "The diamond or pain?"
Kermit held up a radio to his mouth. "All right Gonzo, send out the first wave," he instructed the whatever, knowing full well that at this point there was no going back.
Outside, the thieves were reloading their weapons. "So what happens if they do give us the diamond anyway?" the Snake asked his bosses.
"Simple, we go in and shoot them all anyway," Bitterman told him, "I've wanted their heads for years, and no bunch of…"
"Hey look up at that," Bo pointed at the sky. A large flock of chickens was soaring over the farmhouse towards them, clucking out "Ride of the Valkyries." "Go on, fly!" Gonzo cackled in delight from the upper bedroom window as they all flew by him, "Fly my pretties, fly! Now dive!"
The chickens dove toward the invading party. The next thing anyone knew, they were being hit with a barrage of egg bombs. They groaned and dove for cover. Pa Gorg took refuge behind an elm. "So, the Enemies want to play rough with us, do they?" he asked out loud to no one in particular, "Well, they'll find that the Gorg Empire shows as little mercy to them as they show to us. CHHHAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGE!"
He charged toward the front door, waving his sword wildly…and promptly became the latest person to slip on the icy patch, landing with such a thud that the entire farmhouse shook on its foundation. "Careful of the icy patch!" everyone inside shouted.
Pa heaved himself up. "Got to be more careful," he told himself. He stepped backwards and yelled "CHHHHHAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGE!" again. This time he took care to leap over the icy patch, but Dr. Teeth threw open the door before he could knock it down. Pa continued charging across the den, into the kitchen, out the back door—which Queen Peuta threw open for him—and across the river and over the snow hills, oblivious to the fact there was no longer anything in his path. Meanwhile, the egg barrage continued on his allies. Bo scrambled under a bush. "I think they're more prepared than we thought, Larry!" he informed his partner.
"So tell me something I DON'T know!" Larry shouted at him, "Well have to sneak in the back way. Go and take cover behind that snow bear over there."
"Right," Bo crawled out with his arms protecting his head. "You'll protect me, right snow bear?" he told the cold figure before him. Then he frowned at it. "Wait a minute, you look a lot like…"
Without warning the seemingly inanimate snow bear sprung to life. "Happy birthday!" Fozzie shouted, producing a birthday cake from seemingly thin air and throwing it in Bo's face. While the thief sputtered and wiped the cake out of his eyes, the bear threw open the storm cellar door and climbed down into the basement. "How's it coming with the phone lines, guys?" he asked Ernie and Bert, who were examining the lines one at a time.
"We're still working on it, but it's going to take longer than we originally hoped," Bert shook his head, "They definitely did something to the lines when they were down here."
"It would also help if we knew which lines were which," Rizzo remarked, completely tangled up in the phone lines, "You mother put too many down here. Take this one for example," he held up a heavily frayed wire, "This one's nearly shot. If this was used extensively…"
"Look at this plug," Ernie noticed one lying on the floor, "Maybe if we just plug it back in, we'll get the phones back up."
He pushed the plug into the nearest outlet. Immediately Rizzo, who was still holding the exposed part of the wire, was hit with a massive electricity surge. Smoke poured from the rat's ears, and his eyes glowed with light as he let out a shriek and fell shaking to the floor. "Nope, wait, that's not the phone line," Ernie realized, "This goes to the refrigerator. My mistake."
"T-T-T-That's e-e-e-e-e-e-e-easssy f-f-f-f-f-for y-y-y-y-y-y-you t-t-t-t-t-t-t-o s-s-s-s-s-s-s-say!" Rizzo stammered, still vibrating.
Outside, the egg barrage stopped. Covered in yokes, Hopper hefted the megaphone again. "Go, go, break that door down and rip them apart for this!" he shouted at his henchmen.
"Let's go boys!" Sledge shouted at his fellow farmers. They rushed the front door and started chopping it in with their axes. Within ninety seconds it was completely destroyed. Larry pushed his way past them. "Aha, the diamond!" he exclaimed, noticing it lying on the coffee table. He advanced toward it….
Only to have Sprocket grab it in his mouth at the last second. The dog flung it toward Robbie in the corner. Robbie dribbled it away from the advancing Dry Bandits and company as if it were a basketball—all while the Electric Mayhem played "Sweet Georgia Brown"—and passed it like a basketball to Charlie. The muskrat spun it on his finger and passed it between his legs to Herry. The monster assumed a pitcher's stance. "Curveball over the plate!" he announced, tossing it up in the air.
"I GOT IT!" Bo jumped up on the couch and took a mighty swing at the diamond with the piñata bat…and absolutely walloped Larry in the face with it. "Uh oh," he whimpered upon seeing what he'd done, "Sorry Larry, I didn't…"
Growling in utter rage, Larry seized the bat off his partner and began walloping Bo right back. "One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, nine severe blows to the head, ah ha ha ha ha ha!" the Count counted them all, followed by the usual lightning storm.
"Hey, they're getting away with the diamond!" the Pop-Eyed Catfish leaned out of his bucket and gestured with his fin at Yolanda the rat, who was carrying the diamond toward the fireplace. "Get back here with that, you rat!" Larry yelled, running after her. He scrambled up the chimney after her, only to find himself completely stuck about halfway up. Unable to move, he could only flail his arms toward Yolanda, who tossed the diamond off to several more rats waiting inside the chimney. "Bo, do somethin' useful and get me outta here!" he screamed at his partner.
"I'm coming Larry!" Bo obediently ran over and peered up the chimney. "Where are you, Larry, I can't see a thing," he commented.
"Right up here, dufus!" Larry berated him. He groaned as the rats tossed the Baseball Diamond out the top of the chimney and scrambled out.
"I'll have to get some light, Larry," Bo dug out a cigarette lighter and started clicking it.
"Hey Bo, do you smell something?" Larry's brow furled. There was a loud hissing sound clearly audible throughout the chimney. "It smells a lot like…"
And then he realized what was about to happen. "Bo, NNNNNOOOOOOOOOO!" he shrieked a few seconds too late as Bo ignited the lighter, triggering a massive gas explosion that sent the taller crook flying through wall and across into the barn, and sent Larry rocketing up the chimney in a massive fireball. "Well that'll light up his life," Waldorf remarked as he and Statler observed Larry's fiery trajectory over the horizon from the front window.
"He should know these things always happen to hotheads," Statler agreed. The two of them broke into hard mocking laughter.
The Riverbottom Gang rose up from behind the sofa, where they'd taken refuge from the blast. "They took it upstairs to the roof," Chuck stated the obvious to his associates, "You go outside and cut them off, "I'll go up there and see if I can stop them."
He ran hard up the stairs to the second floor, only to stop short at the top. For Fozzie had appeared wearing a familiar baker suit and false mustache. "Thirty-eight 50-pound barbells!" he announced grandly, holding up a set of plates with them on. He handed them to Chuck before his cousin could react. Chuck strained under the weight of the barbells and toppled backwards down the stairs, dropping barbells everywhere. "And that's the song of 38!" sang almost seven dozen hidden voices from around the house.
There was a cracking of wood as Larry staggered back in over the broken door, his clothing in complete tatters from the blast. "No more Mr. Nice Guy!" he shouted, "So long, chump!"
He pointed his gun at Fozzie, who was without any cover on the stairs, but all of a sudden Cookie Monster popped out of nowhere and swallowed the gun. "You, you!" Larry sputtered at him, "That cost me fifty bucks off my Guns 'R' Us Discount Card!"
"Me need daily iron intake," Cookie burped, "Part of new nutritional guidelines."
"Here's the iron intake for you!" McMooch aimed a bazooka at the monster—only to have it eaten up in a flash by Animal. "Tastes just like chicken," the Electric Mayhem's drummer commented, rubbing his stomach in content.
"GET THEM ALL!" Larry roared. He picked up a large jagged piece of wood and chased Cookie and Animal toward the kitchen, only to activate a tripwire as he went through the doorway that activated a set of blowguns set up above him that fired a set of darts into his rear. "OOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWW!" he shouted, hopping around in pain.
"Maybe he should take the point and leave now," Statler remarked to Waldorf upon watching this latest predicament.
"I think he already gets the point," Waldorf pointed at the darts in Larry's rear, causing the two of them to laugh hard again.
Outside, Bitterman knocked hard on the door of the Gorg's carriage. "You, Pinky," she demanded to Ma, "You're not doing anything. Get out there and help break inside."
"But that's my husband the king's job," Ma protested, "I'm supposed to hold down the fort on…"
"DO IT!" Bitterman shrieked.
"Oh why do I let myself get talked into these things?" Ma grumbled but she still dutifully trudged over to a tree by the west side of the house and inched up it. It started groaning under her weight. "It looks like the bathroom's unoccupied," she called out loud once she was level with it.
"Well then, open up the window and outflank them!" Bitterman shouted impatiently.
Ma reached out for the windowsill and pushed the window open once she was in place. But then Wembley appeared on the ledge. "Hey Gorg!" he shouted as he stuck out his tongue at Ma. Ma shrieked in terror at the sight of him and let go of the branch, falling to the ground with a colossal thud. "Ma, are you all right?" Junior ran up to her.
"Of course I am, Junior," Ma brushed herself off, "Something broke my fall."
"GET OFF ME YOU FAT OAF!" came Bitterman's muffled voice from underneath the Gorg. The businesswoman squirmed out form underneath Ma and kicked her in the shin. "You're useless!" she degraded the self-appointed Queen of the Universe.
"Hey, is that any way to talk to the Queen of the Universe?" Junior asked in his mother's defense.
"Why are you just standing around here?" Bitterman demanded to him, "You get in there and help them get the diamond or else!"
Meanwhile, Bo stumbled back in through the hole in the wall he'd created during the earlier explosion, looking completely frazzled. No sooner had he set foot in the den again than Scooter suddenly appeared dressed as a director. "Well, I was wondering when you'd show up," he berated a thoroughly confused Bo, "This commercial isn't going to wait all day to be done. Come on and get in your position, we're going to do this in one take."
He dragged Bo into the exact center of the den. "Makeup please," he called out.
"MAKEUP!" Animal sauntered up and threw a pan of makeup into Bo's face. Scooter handed the stunned Bo a script. "Just read the part in yellow," he informed him, "And the faster the better."
He strolled behind a camera Janice was operating and announced, "Action!" Bo glanced down at the script. "I hate Wilkins Coffee," he said in an absolutely flat line reading, "I would destroy every cup of it if I could."
The door to the closet swung open. "Well destroy this," announced Wilkins, aiming a large cannon at Bo. A loud explosion shook the room, and when the smoke subsided there was another Bo-shaped hole in the wall. "Cut, print it," Scooter told Janice.
Upstairs, Bunsen and Doc were stirring a large mixture together in a vat. "Are you sure this is the right formula for the instant Unmeltable Ice?" the human asked.
"Absolutely," Bunsen said confidently, "Beaker and I have perfected this inside Muppet Labs over the last week in the event just such an emergency as this would arise."
"How incredibly convenient," Doc mused, "Well, we might as well see if it works; I hear company coming."
Mean Floyd was charging up the hall at them, ax raised. The two inventors dumped the vat's contents onto the floor in front of the farmer. Mean Floyd immediately slipped on it and slid past them and out the window, where he flew out onto the middle of the river. As fate would have it, Pa Gorg was charging back across it at the same time, and the ice could not support their combined weight. The two of them broke through the ice with a loud splash. Seconds later they remerged, sopping wet. "Looks like you and the Silly Creature are all washed up, Gorg!" Red taunted them from the banks.
"I'm gonna thump you good, Fragg---!" Pa and Mean Floyd started to charge at her, but within seconds they'd both frozen solid. Upstairs, Bunsen and Doc exchanged high fives. "A most successful test," the Muppet proclaimed, "Let us now see if we can get that tin roof sundae tosser to work as…careful there, Beaker."
For Beaker had slipped on the patch of Unmeltable Ice and fallen sideways over the staircase railing, where he landed a cactus that had been set up for the bad guys. "MMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEPPPPPPP!" he shrieked in pain.
"Fresh meat!" Lardpork noticed the hapless lab assistant was open and vulnerable. He lunged toward him with his own ax…but failed to notice the sawed-through floorboards in his path. Lardpork fell through the floor into a large vat of…GLUE?" the farmer shouted, taking note that he was now covered from head to toe in it.
"That's right, it's a sticky situation," remarked Oscar, who was positioned nearby wearing a handyman's uniform. The grouch speared Lardpork on the end of his paperhanger and pushed him against the wall. "Three purple conkers playing with glue," he sang out as he rolled wallpaper over the farmer/robber, "One got stuck up, and then there were two."
"GET ME OUT OF HERE!" Lardpork shouted at the top of his lungs, straining without success to tear free from the wall.
The basement door slammed open. "There's one," the Weasel pointed at the grouch, "Let's rip his head off!"
The entire Riverbottom Gang charged down the stairs, not noticing the jacks spread out all over the floor until it was too late. "OOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWW!" they shrieked, hopping around in pain. "Oh and by the way, I've got a little going away present for you guys too," Oscar told them. He leaned around a support column and ordered, "Five tossed salads, Private Telly!"
"Yes Sir, Commando Grouch," Telly yanked a rope that launched several catapults of salad at the Riverbottomers, who retreated hastily. Except for the Pop-Eyed Catfish, who was accidentally kicked out of his bucket by the Weasel. "Hey Chuck, guys, don't leave me here!" he pleaded them to no avail, as they slammed the door shut on him. "Chuck!" he moaned, flopping out onto the floor and up the steps, "Water, quick!"
Upstairs, Larry pulled the last of the darts out of his rear. "All right, that's it you filthy…!" he growled, storming back into the living room. Sam was now in his path. "You will cease and desist these actions of yours immediately, or face a consequence worse than death," the eagle informed him.
"Oh, I'm really scared!" Larry taunted him.
"You should be," Sam tossed the Baby at Larry. "Not the Momma!" the infant dinosaur shouted, whacking Larry over the head with a heavy metal snow shovel.
"Stop it you miscreant!" Larry shouted, ramming his head into the wall in a desperate attempt to make the Baby stop. It was to no avail, however, for the Baby kept walloping away at him with ever more excited cries of, "Not the Momma, not the Momma, not the Momma, NOT THE MOMMA!"
Bo stumbled back in through the latest hole in the wall and noticed his partner's latest predicament. "Don't worry Larry, I'll save you!" he shouted, hurling the Baby to the ground and jumping up and down on top of it. "Again!" the Baby shouted in delight.
"Hey guys, look what we've got up here!" Gobo called down, cradling the diamond in his arms on the upper railing. A blast of gunfire from the Dry Bandits made him dive behind the diamond in safety. "Come on you guys!" Larry yelled at the salad-covered Riverbottom Gang as they trudged into the room, "There's our payday!"
The six of them charged up the stairs at Gobo. "When we get through with all of ya, they ain't gonna be able to…uh oh!" Bo's dire threat fell silent early. For Fozzie-as-the-baker had reappeared again. "Sixty-three polished anvils!" he announced, shoving his platters with the anvils into Chuck's arms again and once again causing him to fall down the stairs under the weight, this time taking his fellow gang members with him. "And that's the song of 63!" everyone sang out.
"Sixty-three thousand dollars, that is!" Earl said gleefully. He was filming the thieves' latest mishap with a video recorder. Fran walked up and tapped her husband on the shoulder. Earl Snead Sinclair, what do you think you're doing?" she had to know.
"Well Fran, once Pangaea's Most Painful Home Injuries sees the footage of this, we're going to be rich, rich, rich!" Earl rubbed his hands excitedly. It was at that moment that a shotgun blast from Sledge destroyed the dinosaur's camera. Earl burst into tears at the sight of his dream ruined. "I'm going to get me a dinosaur-skin coat!" Sledge threatened, taking aim at the Sinclairs…
Only to be distracted by a loud crashing noise as someone fell through the ceiling. "You will not harm these dinosaurs!" proclaimed Super Grover as he untangled himself from his cape, "I, Super Grover, will defeat you with ridiculous ease!"
"And how do you suppose to do that?" Sledge sneered.
"By the most surefire way of defeating villains there is; hopping up and down and saying 'Wubba wubba,' because it also sounds so nice to say. WUBBA, WUBBA, WUBBA, WUBBA, WUBBA, WUBBA, WUBBA, WUBBA!" Super Grover hopped around circles, apparently convinced beyond doubt that this ploy would work. Sledge laughed sadistically. "Killing you'll be a blast!" he remarked.
"Did somebody say blast?" Crazy Harry jumped out from behind the sofa and pressed down on his plunger, blowing Sledge out the window. Junior ran through the hole he'd left, his club held high. "Oh, I know you Fwaggles are up to no good with this!" he shouted, waving it around, "I'm gonna smack everyone one of you around! Where are you Fwaggles?"
"They're in the kitchen; hurry and you'll catch them!" Jen called out. Junior lumbered toward it and opened the door—and keeled forward as Rowlf's piano fell right on his skull. "Fool!" the Pop-Eyed Catfish gasped from the sink as he hastily filled a drinking glass with water and dove inside, "No one else would fall for something like that!"
But upstairs at that moment, Bo was shoving open doors on the second floor in a mad search for his assailants. "I know you're all in here!" he yelled, 'Come out and fight like real men!"
"They took the diamond out the bathroom window!" Wendell called from inside the shower.
"Thanks," Bo told him. Then he ran into the bathroom and stupidly dove out the window, landing with a thud on top of Hopper. "Did they pass you with the diamond?" he asked his employer.
"Oh dear God," Hopper growled, jumping to his feet and rummaging through the limo's trunk, "Must I do everything myself?"
Back inside, Larry and the Riverbottomers hauled themselves back up out of the anvils. "Now we're going to kill each and every one of you until you die from it!" the short crook shouted, cocking his own gun again, "Let's go get them!"
"Hang on, maybe we better think this over," the Snake mused, but it was already too late. Large globs of tin roof sundaes flew at them from Doc and Bunsen's tosser, sending them skidding onto a table in the hallway. Marvin Suggs popped up with a mallet. "And now, for your listening pleasure, 'Deck the Halls!'" he announced grandly to no one. He started pounding out the tune on the villains' heads to accompanying "ows!"
Up in the attic, Gobo rolled the diamond over to Kermit, who was now sitting with the rest of the humans (they had decided it would be better not to put the children in harm's way). "Now what do we do with this thing?" he asked the frog.
"Leave it over on that trunk there," Kermit instructed him, " Ernie and Bert should have the phone lines up and running by now, so we can let the police come and catch them red-handed."
"What color are their hands now?" the Fraggle asked.
"Bad news, Kermit," came Bert's voice crackling over the radio, "We're going to need more time to get the phone lines back up."
Kermit sighed. "Well, try and get it as best you can," he told Bert, "Tell everyone down there to abandon the house; seeing how mad these guys are now, getting in their way would be dangerous. We'll be leaving too."
"Uh, not that I'm complaining," the Storyteller called from the attic window, "But do you have a concrete way to get us down from here?" There's no tree or wire here."
Kermit ran over to him and looked down at the ground at least three stories below. "I knew I was forgetting something with this plan!" he groaned.
"All right you guys!" came Larry's angry shout from below, "When we get up there, this is what's gonna happen to each and every one of you!"
Machine gun fire strafed the attic floor. Everyone scrambled to be as close to the window—and away from the bullets—as possible. "Anyone get any idea, smart or insane?" Rowlf had to know.
"I've still got the paper towels," Lew Zealand held them up. Kermit examined them. "What the heck," he shrugged, "Women and children first. But we'll need a distraction to buy us enough time."
Below, Bo clambered up the stairs, the Pop-Eyed Catfish in his hand. "Where are they, Larry?" he yelled, "I've gonna break all their necks!"
"Well, at least somebody finally decides to be useful!" Larry berated him, "They're up in the attic. You're expendable; you and the fish go first."
"Catfish," the Pop-Eyed Catfish corrected him firmly, "You humans are too broad with your…"
"Oh no!" Chuck groaned, for Fozzie-as-the-baker was in their path yet again at the top of the attic steps. "One hundred and fifteen—gasp—rusty—ugh—anchors!" the would-be comedian strained hard to hold onto the trays of anchors. Unable to, he let the anchors cascade forward and clear the stairs of the bad guys. "And that's the song of 115!" everyone in the attic sang out.
"Where are they getting all this stuff?" the Snake muttered weakly from under a pile of anchors.
"Like they said in the last story, they're the good guys; they can find anything they need whenever they want it," the Lizard pointed out.
"Yeah, well as the bad guys we've got unlimited firepower at any time!" Larry drew a set of heavy guns, "Let's chop 'em into little pieces!"
Upstairs, Fozzie slid a safe against the attic door and joined everyone slowly climbing out the window on the paper towels. Perhaps because they were indeed the good guys, the towels were holding up remarkably well under their combined weights. "I don't think they'll bother us for a while, Kermit," he told the frog, "Shouldn't we give the Reisers something to do? They've been pretty much marginalized for the last chapter and a half or so."
More gunfire blasted the door. "Never mind that now, Fozzie, just go!" Kermit pushed his friend out the window. It was only he and Piggy left in the attic now. "Well, Piggy, we did what we could," he told her.
"Well, at least if this is the end, at least we'll die together, Kermie," Piggy told him.
"Indeed," Kermit nodded, "And to be honest, Piggy, if we do get blown away, I am glad to be going out together with you."
"Do you mean it?" Piggy's face lit up with awe, "Oh Kermit, you…!"
The door was kicked in. "Uh, enough sentiment!" Kermit grabbed her hand and dove out the window with her. Seconds later the bad guys swarmed into the attic. "Surrender frog!" Larry bellowed.
"The diamond!" the Weasel ran over to it and cradled it lovingly in his arms, "Well, no need for us to hang around here anymore."
"Oh yes we do," Chuck scraped his claws against the wall, "We need blood."
"Oh Charles, we're down here," Emily's voice wafted up from outside, "And we'll call the police on all of you."
The bad guys ran to the window. "You ain't getting' away that easy!" Larry yelled down, "Come on Bo, we're getting' them!"
"I don't know, Larry," Bo whimpered at the distance to the ground. He hated heights. "Can't we just go back downstairs?"
"And go through all that nonsense again? You might be that dumb, Bo, but I ain't," Larry chided him, "Now come on!"
Down below, Jenny yanked Kermit and Piggy out of the snow bank they'd landed in. "I think you still should have used the paper towels," she told them.
"Hands!" Piggy slapped hers away.
"Did I miss anything?" Rizzo stuck his head out the basement window.
"Not really," Gonzo informed him, "We just left them with the diamond; they're still coming after us swearing eternal vengeance. No big deal."
"Hey wait a minute, are those what I think they are?" Sarah asked Rizzo, pointing at a box next to them. Rizzo looked inside and shuddered. "Oh yeah, believe me," he said meekly, Why?"
"I have an idea," the teenager smiled.
Above them, Bo whimpered like a baby as he climbed out on the paper towels and started following Larry down toward the ground. "Shut it, Bo!" his partner yelled at him, "What're ya, chicken?"
Bo whimpered louder, his eyes tightly shut. "Will you act your age?" the Snake derided him as the Riverbottomers followed him down on the paper towels, "You give us toughs a bad name!"
"Hang on a second," the Pop-Eyed Catfish squinted down on the ground, "It looks like they're doing something down there. In fact it sort of looks like they've got…OH NO!"
It was at that moment Piggy was striking a match. "So long suckers!" she called up toward the attic and held the flame to the paper towels. Within five seconds the fire burned up the entire length of the roll, leaving the bad guys suspended for the briefest of seconds in midair. Then they fell screaming at the top of their lungs three stories to the ground—landing on several mousetraps that had been set up. The snapping of the traps coupled with their screams of pain echoed all throughout the snowy hills. "Nice thinking," Kermit hopped up in the air to pat Sarah on the back, "Effective but not sadistic. All right, let's get out of here."
Everyone turned…and found themselves facing a multiple-barreled rocket launcher. "Going somewhere, frog?" Hopper snickered, his finger firmly on the trigger, "Did you honestly think we wouldn't come expecting you to try and run for it?"
"Uh, it doesn't matter, Hopper," Fozzie said quickly, "We've already called the cops, and everyone else has already left."
"Move, move, move!" came the shouts as McMooch and the two remaining farmers pushed the rest of the party at rocket point toward them. "Well, it WAS a good plan," Smiley asided to Kermit as they were all merged together and pushed back against the farmhouse. Bitterman strode over to where the Dry Bandits and Riverbottom Gang lay covered in mousetraps. "Well, tell me you at least got the diamond for all your trouble?" she demanded.
"Right here," the Weasel handed it to her. Bitterman eyed it greedily. "Well, get over there and help shoot them all now," she ordered them, "I want them all to suffer for this."
"Happily," Larry led the dazed and very upset thugs over to the group of Muppets and cocked his weapon. "Come on, Ms. Bitterman," Kermit tried one last chance to talk reason into her and the others, "Think this over, would you really get anything from killing all of us? Ask yourself; do you really want to commit cold-blooded murder just for a hard lump of coal?"
"This, a lump of coal?" the businesswoman shoved the diamond in the frog's face, "This is prestige, frog! This is saying I can control everyone! That's what I've wanted, and that's what I'm going to get!"
"What WE'RE going to get," Hopper corrected her, "Stiff me and I take it all."
"And you, Hopper," Kermit upbraided his old foe, "Hiring these cutthroats to terrorize innocent women and children, dragging them into your schemes when they just wanted to enjoy Christmas Eve. It looks like I was wrong when I said I didn't think you were a bad man."
"There's still one way out of this for you, frog," Hopper informed him, "You agree this time to do my commercials, and they all walk out of here unharmed. If not, this'll be a bloodbath like you can't imagine."
"And what makes you think you can play games with people's lives like this, Hopper?" Kermit had to know.
"Because we're still armed and you're not," the restaurateur mocked him, "So what's less painful to you: thousands of frogs on crutches, as you say, or all your friends in pine boxes? You've got ten seconds to decide."
Kermit's head sagged as he thought over this dilemma. He looked upwards with tears in his eyes. "I'm sorry Jim," he said softly, "I'm going to have to go back on my word."
"Huh?" Hopper asked him.
"It's no deal, Hopper," Kermit put an arm around Robin, "I die with my friends. I can't knowingly compromise my morals just to…"
"You know, you're even more stupid than I thought, frog," Bitterman derided him, "You and these idiotic weirdoes have got nothing right now. The Doc here just offered you your last chance at greatness, and you threw it away just like the fool your and your guardian angel Henson is. Your better days are long behind you, and you've got no future because nobody cares about you washed-up has-beens anymore. You're nothing, zero, zip…"
"No they're not!" came an upset shout from the back of the crowd, "It's you guys who're the nothings!"
"What?" Bitterman shoved the crowds aside. She bent down with a furious expression over Christine. "How dare you talk to me that way, you filthy urchin!" she shouted, "I own one of the world largest conglomerates! I'm one of the most powerful people on this planet!"
"And you're still a loser!" Zachary added to his sister, "All you can care about is money! Kermit cares about others! He's more powerful than you'll ever be!"
"They're absolutely right," Alan strode up to Bitterman, looking enraged, "My children are a lot smarter than you, woman. These people know how to help those in need. They've done a heck of a lot for me tonight, more than you and your fat frog killer over there ever have. Because I know now that it never matters how much money you've got, it's what's inside that always matters most. You can kill us all if you want, but we'll still be alive and well for anyone who wants to seek us out. Just like they already are to millions of people around the world. Just like Jim Henson still is. And before I finish this," he slapped Bitterman hard across the face, "Don't EVER insult my daughter like that again if you know what's good for you!"
"Good, nice comeback for them," Gonzo asided to Camilla, "That's the good way to get them back into this story."
Glaring at him, Bitterman stepped backwards toward her allies. "Kill them first!" she ordered.
"With deep pleasure," Hopper and the others raised their shotguns at the Reisers…
