AN: I'm not dead, and neither is this fic!
-Crow
Daniel, The Warlock of the West, sat in front of an enormous glass bowl filled to the brim with a purple, fruity-smelling liquid. On the surface of the liquid was an image of four travelers following the bright red brick road to his castle.
"So… it seems the Wizard is finally making his move." He mulled, before suddenly sitting up, "With the help of DAVID! Of course! That smiley bastard is always fawning over that arrogant wizard all the time. It'd make sense that the Wizard would order him to help assemble a team to come and overpower me. But who is the mastermind, eh?"
"S-sir?"
He sighed, "Yes, Pikeman?" The monkey-human-hybrid was quaking in the doorway.
"You seem a little… uh… I think you… er…" Pikeman tried.
"Use your words, Pikeman." Daniel smiled coldly.
"You've got a little… something… " He mimed picking something on the side of his face.
Daniel absently mimicked the position and felt a small scrap of something flaky. He got up and went to the mirror, surveying the damage. Not bad this time, just a few flaps of skin peeling off of his face. He mushed them back in place like softened clay before turning to the servant.
"Thank you, Pikeman. I sometimes forget how time flies when I'm using the scrying potion. Those pesky fumes." He said with his usual unreadable smile.
"R-right, sir. Fumes." The monkey laughed unconvincingly before coughing into his fist and standing straight, "Sir, I've mobilized the taskforce to eliminate the intruding party at your command."
"Very good, now I want you to take both squadrons and debilitate them. But don't kill. I wish to collect them… later." Daniel instructed. His face then took on its unblinking smile, "And remember, Pikeman, for everyone who dies that isn't supposed to, the one who leads replaces them."
The monkey-boy paled to the point where even his zits lost their red color. Everyone there knew the last time that happened.
Everyone knew what happened to Chucky.
No one ever spoke of it again.
"N-n-n-no, sir! Of c-course, sir!"
"Good," the Warlock purred. "Now go."
"Right away!" The monkey expanded its large, black, eagle-like wings and flapped its way ungracefully out the open window, screeching. The screeches alerted the others and soon the sky had six winged minions gliding their way towards the oncoming children.
Daniel watched them fade in the distance.
*chitter chip*
He smiled somewhat genuinely as he turned to see the tiny, cute furry animal hop on a nearby end table. It was fluffy and adorable and cute and had an eyepatch and a tiny-but-very-much-lethal saber strapped to its side. This little demon-trapped-in-cuteness was instrumental in the usurpation of the lands from its previous ruler; Mark, the King of the Squirrels.
"Hello, Damian."
*chipchipchipperchit*
"Yes, I have something very important for you, understand?"
*squeaker*
"Good, I sent Pikeman to distract the group, but I want you and your squad to… aquire the one with the blue hooded jacket. The rest you can leave to Pikeman and his ilk, but I want you to bring me that boy alive."
The squirrel saluted. *squickity*
"I know you won't fail me." Daniel agreed as the squirrel chittered, bringing forth its brethren as they scampered through unseen holes and passages to beat the flying idiots.
He gazed into the gnarled forest at the edge of his territory. "Soon, Max, soon you and your Hood-Dee will be mine."
"How much more walking do we need to do?" Nikki whined.
"However long it takes," Max shot back. "We've been walking all day, we can keep it up."
"Hey, I've been meaning to ask you, when did you arrive here, anyway?" Nikki asked.
…
"Uhh..." Max frowned. As far as he knew, the sun hadn't even set. Hell, it was still around noon/2:00 in the sky (despite the dark clouds brewing from the Warlock's region). Had it really only been one day?
"This morning?" He guessed.
"Wow, it's been some day, huh?" Neil commented, "It's kinda surreal when you think about it."
Seriously, what kind of adventure happens all in one day?
Why didn't they need to sleep?
Or eat more?
Or use the restroom?
…
…
"What's that?" Space Kid said, ending the inner monologue (of the author) on the inconsistencies of fiction vs. nonfiction.
They looked up at the sky to see six weird, bulky birds flying from the West.
"The Hell…?" Max squinted at them, trying to make them out. They definitely had wings, but… the bodies were vaguely human… and not…
"They're coming this way!" Nikki shouted, unsheathing her claws. Neil panicked and grabbed the first thing he could; a stick off of a tree.
Space Kid pulled out a laser pistol.
"What the f*ck?! How long have you had that?!" Neil exclaimed.
"I've kept this safe for countless years, knowing one day, I would need to claim my destiny!" Space Kid solemnly intoned. He raised the gun at the figures;
Put his finger on the trigger;
And shot!
*PEW!*
…
*ZAP! PEW! PEW! ZAP! PEW!* The gun continued to light up at the tip and make a buzzing electrical noise every time it was fired. The kind of buzzing noise you'd expect from a crappy 50's Space-Adventure film.
"It's a f*cking toy?!" Max screamed.
"EAT MY MONOCHROMATICALLY INDUCED PHOTON RADIATION EMISSIONS, BASTARDS!" Space Kid shouted.
The six figures landed and Max finally got a good look at them. They were monkeys… sorta. They had mostly black fur with monkey hands, feet, and tails, but enormous black, feathered wings coming out of their backs. They wore small uniforms that looked like a cross between woodscout, flowerscout, and bellhop uniforms.
And, like everyone else he's met so far, they had a disturbingly familiar, human face.
"Hello, Maxwell." The leader sleezily snided. No doubt, it was Pikeman in his natural state. A creepy-ass gross thing. Ignoring the monkey features, he was the same height and build as his human doppelganger and with the same snake-like yellow eyes, obtrusively obnoxious overbite, and minefield of zits.
Beside him were two other monkey-birds. One was very short, with an eyepatch and a candycane (with dangling, candy-feet indicating it was probably sentient at some point) in his mouth. The other intimidatingly tall and muscular with a stony face. Definitely the rabbit-hole versions of Billy and Petrol.
The other three were surprising.
"Oh, my, gawwwwwwd. Can't we just, like, kill them already?"
"No, you moron, the Warlock said not to kill, like, any of them. Remember Chucky?"
The last sidled up to Neil-crow and ran its gross monkey-finger along his arm, "Oooh, do you work out? Your arm is so… so… itchy."
Neil cringed away from the blonde-haired monkey-girl. Definitely the flowerscouts. The tallest one, Erin if he remembered from the brief interaction at the Diner (where David totally lost his shit and broke a chair over some guy's head), had blue fur matching her unnaturally blue hair back at Camp. The one with magenta-colored eyes and distinctly pink fur had to be Sasha.
And, of course, the blonde-furred one creeping on Neil had to be Tabii (with TWO "i"s; or was it one "eye" now after the fork?).
"Oh, my gawd. Is that, like, Nikkaaaaaay?" Erin-monkey pointed at Nikki-beast, drawing attention.
Nikki snorted in surprise, before clearing her throat awkwardly. "Uh, h-hey guys."
"You know them?!" Neil shouted, scraping the blonde one off of his arm.
"I kinda knew them from back in the Jungle. They had this clique thing I might've tried to join."
"We kicked her out." Sasha added.
"She was like, totally gross." Nikki looked down in embarrassment at Tabii's words, her ears flattened and her snout snuffling quietly. "I mean, she has pig in her. Definitely not Jungleflower Scouting Patrol material."
"Hey, shut the f*ck up, you f*cking half-assed angel wannabees!" Max shouted. He had surprised himself saying that, but they just rubbed him the wrong way. The flowerscouts collectively gasped in indignation and even Tabii jumped back from Neil in anger.
"Enough!"
The Pikeman lookalike sidled past the rest and approached Max. "Let's ignore that little altercation, shall we? Let's start fresh; Hello, travelers! We're here on behalf of Daniel, the Warlock of the West."
"Hello!" Space Kid chirped.
"And, now, we have the distinct pleasure of giving you a traditional welcome; isn't that right boys?" The woodscout clones nodded and chuckled gruffly. "… and girls?"
"Like, whatever! C'mon, let's get this over with. I'm, like, seriously craving a low-fat yogurt right now." Sasha whined.
Neil shrieked as he was suddenly tackled down by the enormous Monkey while the tinier Billy-monkey took out his sharpened peppermint-shank and started jabbing the straw in his legs.
Nikki fended off the Erin and Sasha lookalikes with her claws as they approached, fabulously-manicured fingernails poised for action.
Space Kid was up against Tabii, which boiled down to her freaking out as he kept shooting his toy laser around uselessly. Though, to be honest, just the fact that she was being chased by a couple of bits of a person's head was terrifying enough.
Which left Max and Pikeman.
"Well, well, well, Maxwell. Looks like it's just you and m-"
*squeakity squeak squeak squeaker.*
They looked to see a tiny, adorable squirrel staring up at them with two, big doe-eyes. They let their guard down in confusion and adorableness.
Then, the rodent grinned, pulled a sword from behind it and roared!
*CHATTEEEEEERRRR!*
The trees exploded with activity as black, grey, red, and brown squirrels dive-bombed from the branches. They attacked both Max's friends and the monkey-servants alike. Everyone was frantically clawing the tiny creatures from clothes, faces, fur, and… other areas.
Pikeman let out a glass-shattering shriek as one particular squirrel with an eye patch landed right on a certain sensitive spot and clawed mercilessly.
The monkey with bad facial blemishes was overtaken by several squirrels dropping from above while he was too distracted, even as the eyepatch squirrel let go. The bundle of cute/evil chattered angrily at Max and he was suddenly tripped from behind and surrounded by the swarm of rodents.
The human choked as one rodent quickly jammed a rag in his mouth before he could cry out to the others. His arms and legs were quickly secured by tiny, but strong ropes and the tiny paws around him lifted him into the gnarled forest as everyone else was still too distracted to notice.
"AHHH, MY EYES!"
Pikeman continued shrieking as he desperately tried wrenching the retched rodent off of his face.
The squabbling continued for only a minute before the head squirrel chattered loudly, causing the squadron to stop and retreat back into the forest.
"Lemme at 'em. Lemme at 'em!" Nikki shouted, now freed from the masse of squirrels, but was disappointed with silence.
Neil was recovering from the trauma of being pummeled by monkeys one minute, and evil rats with overgrown tails the next. Maybe it was vindictive, but he suddenly had less animosity to animal testing.
Space Kid was still shooting his toy gun aimlessly the entire time, even as three squirrels escaped with the rest out of a hole chewed in his space-suit's pants.
"MY HAIRRRR!"
"MY CLOTHES!"
"MY SCARECROW!" The creepy blonde monkey was grabbed by the other two before she could tackle the Neil-crow down.
"C'mon, girls! This is totally f*cking stupid!" Sasha screeched, dragging the other three through the air back to the castle, screeching about manicures, pedicures, delicate-wash laundry settings, and shampoo… lots of shampoo.
Pikeman groaned as he got his bearings, confirming his other two monkeyboys. His snakey eyes glanced around the others. The geek, the chimera, and the abomination-against-life.
Wait.
"Where did he go?!" Pikeman ordered. He did a quick fly-by of the area and didn't see the blue-wearing kid anywhere.
He landed back in the area and confronted the other two, "He must've escaped when we were attacked! Snake, Petrol! Comb the area and find him! Otherwise, I will tell Lord Daniel that you are just as responsible!"
The other two nodded and the eyepatch-monkey, Snake, spoke, "We will not fail. We will hunt to the ends of the Kingdoms, the Nations, the Arctic Tribes, and the Temples. We will find the Avatar and restore honor to our squadron."
Pikeman was too… just… "Okay, Snake? That's the wrong… That franchise is… I mean, you're- ugh, nevermind! Onwards!"
"Hmm!"
"Yes, Petrol?"
"Hm."
"Oh?"
"Hm-hm."
Pikeman nodded arrogantly, "Oh, don't worry about them. Just look," He pointed at the scarecrow still trying to re-stuff his body with straw, a dejected Nikki-beast sniffing around the ground for a scent trail of her friend, and the terrifying Space-Kid still blindly shooting his toy laser around and screaming. "They're not going anywhere soon."
They flew off, leaving the three companions to try to put themselves back together in silence.
All thinking.
What's going to happen to Max?
AN: Another chapter!
You know, about the timeframe of the Wizard of Oz; in the movie, it seems like it was all in one day (maybe two if you consider the Wicked Witch's castle as 'nighttime'), but I remember long ago, I read the book and they mentioned sleeping.
In case you missed it; Billy is voiced by Dante Basco.