Hey guys! Me again. Hopefully this chapter is a bit meatier than the last one, which I felt was kinda underwhelming. You guys seemed to like it though, and I hope you will like this one as well!
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The next day...
Once again, the sun rose above the mountains, although it rose a bit later than the day before as autumn ticked ever nearer. The leaves were beginning to change color a little bit, and the grass underfoot was wet and sparkling with dew.
Bill was perched on top of Kryptos, already heading towards their destination of the Mystery Shack. He didn't feel like walking that morning.
Or, in layman's terms, he felt like being lazy.
Kryptos was too wary of Bill's wrath to bring up the fact that the triangle-turned-bird's claws were currently digging into his eye socket. He had to keep the eye squinted in order to avoid it getting accidentally (or intentionally) clawed out.
Thanks to this, he couldn't actually see where they were going despite being the one doing all of the walking. So Bill had to periodically call out warnings like "Turn left, there's a tree right in front of you, you idiot!" or "THAT'S THE WRONG WAY, MORON!"
Mostly, though, Bill just chattered incessantly about his plans for revenge.
"First, I'm going to rearrange their faces so hard they'll look like Picasso paintings! Then I'll level the building."
Once the Shack was in sight, Bill hopped off Kryptos and sauntered as much as a bird was capable of sauntering over to a window. He tried to jump onto the window sill a few times, getting increasingly frustrated, before Kryptos picked him up and set him on the sill, at which point Bill began pecking at the window in an attempt to break it.
He could see someone inside. Question Mark. Perfect. The dumb one. Of course, they're all dumb, but he's basically ultra dumb.
Bill turned to Kryptos, who was still on the ground. "Go under the porch and wait for my instructions. Don't let anyone see you." he ordered.
Bill watched his underling slip beneath the wooden porch and out of sight, and then resumed pecking at the glass. How strong are these windows? I'm not even scratching them.
At least I'm getting that human's attention. Hey, he's coming outside! And he's coming this way—
And then Bill tripped and fell off the sill onto his back. He picked himself up only to see the human standing right above him.
What then ensued was the rather comical sight of a grown man wearing a pair of oven mitts chasing a little bird around in circles for a full five minutes.
"It's okay, birdy, I'm gonna help you! Hold still!"
Much to Bill's chagrin, Question Mark didn't seem to be getting that worn out. He, however, was. Damn it. Why is it so hard to fly this thing? If I can't fly I lose the element of death from above! And where's the fun in that? Plus in this body they could just kick me in the face while I'm stuck on the ground-
His thoughts were interrupted as he tripped over a tree root and felt the stupid human grabbing him with the oven mitts. Crap!
"Easy there, birdie." The man was saying, lifting the bird up to get a better look at it. "I've had birds hit the window before. I know this one wildlife rehab guy and—what the-" Why's it got eyes like that? That's not normal. This ain't good. This really really ain't good.
Bill could tell he'd still managed to spook the man by his facial expression. He smirked. Maybe this wouldn't suck after all. "What's up, Question Mark? Miss me?" He squawked, laughing as the man shuddered in horror, only to have the wind knocked out of him when the man dropped him on the ground a moment later.
About a minute later, Bill was stuck in a cardboard box that had a breathing hole poked into it with a pencil. "You think a cardboard box can keep me contained?" he shouted, "You're even dumber than I remembered!" In truth, though, he couldn't figure out how to escape the cardboard prison. The only options would both take too long. And he didn't exactly feel like eating cardboard.
He could hear Question Mark picking up a phone. Bill already knew who he was probably calling. Considering neither of the two were anywhere near the Mystery Shack, it was probably the older Pines twins.
This day was turning out to be less invigorating and more humiliating for Bill the longer it went on.
Meanwhile, Soos was frantically dialing a phone number. He wasn't entirely sure how long the cardboard would keep the demonic beast contained. It might look like a tiny bird, but for all he knew, that was probably a trick meant to lower his guard, and after what had happened with Weirdmageddon, he definitely wasn't taking any chances.
The man anxiously waited for the distinctive sound of someone on the other end of the phone line picking up.
Elsewhere, somewhere on the Oregonian coastline, sure enough, someone did pick up the call. The brothers were unloading some machinery off their boat prior to an oncoming squall and the sky was already getting dark.
"Please don't tell me you're still having that raccoon problem, Soos. I told you that-" Stan was abruptly cut off mid-sentence by what sounded like "MRPINESWEHAVEASERIOUSPROBLEMBILLCAMEBACKWHATDOIDOOOO?!" coming from the other end of the line.
"I have no idea what you just said."
A few feet away, Ford could see Stan's facial expression change from one of confusion and mild irritation to one of concern and shock. "Are you sure?" his brother was saying into the cellular phone. "You are 100% absolutely sure it's him?"
There was a pause, and then Stan looked up. "Hey, Poindexter, you're gonna want to hear this. It's not good news."
"What is it?"
The old man sighed. "Sounds like Bill came back."
Almost as if on cue, a flash of lightning flickered in the clouds above them as a clap of thunder rang out.
"And we should probably get out of here before we get zapped."
Back at the Shack, Bill listened intently to the humans' phone conversation. He could tell what was being said on both ends of the line thanks to the fact that Stanford was now shouting at the top of his lungs.
"Put it in a birdcage or something. Do not let that bird escape! And make sure it doesn't have any friends running around anywhere."
Yeah, good luck finding Kryptos. If he's smart he'll have flown the coop by now.
And how dare they try and cage me! DAMN THIS STUPID CARDBOARD JAIL CELL!
"What do I do if I find one?"
"I don't know, just...don't let it out of your sight!"
In the time it took ol' Question Mark to run into a pet store in town, buy a bird cage, and get back, Bill had managed to knock the cardboard box off the table and was now attempting to move it out the door. The demon-bird had gotten his cardboard prison wedged between the leg of the table and the wall, and couldn't figure out for the life of him which way he was supposed to be going.
"Aha! You have just opened the box of your doom, Question- Hey! What are you doing? Put me down, you-"
A Clink! interrupted Bill's squawking as the cage door slammed shut and locked.
"I'm gonna go wash my hands now."
Bill surveyed his new surroundings, seething with rage. He was in a cage probably meant to hold a canary. The bottom was lined with newspaper, which he was fairly certain wasn't something you were supposed to put in bird cages, but then again, what did he care about that? The cage was otherwise completely barren save for a water cup and a food dish hanging off one of the walls and a tiny perch hanging from the center.
Bill sat on the newspaper-covered floor and sulked.
Outside, Kryptos was huddled up beneath the front porch of the Mystery Shack, trying to avoid being seen.
And also trying to avoid getting soaked because it was raining again.
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And that's that for chapter two!
Sorry it took a while. I've been busy with other things. Mostly college.
