Chapter Four: Chug Yamazaki

Chug Yamazaki, a.k.a The Kid, was driving out to his cabin in the woods for a quick rest stop. He had been driving for six hours and was really looking forward to just falling down on the couch and sleep. His alarm and security systems had been going on and off since late last night and his guards had informed him of six small intruders. He checked his video footage and found what appeared to be dolls, or puppets, hand carved that were alive.

He knew they were alive because scanners showed that neural energies were emanating from all six of them. Strangely enough, only one of them could be understood. Chug had sent messages to his head security to find out whatever they could about them.

So far, all he had found out were their names, one was injured and the one he could understand had a bit of a temper. Though even that looked put on.

Then his scanners showed another problem. Negative energies were building up around his cabin enough to make a small portal. He scanned the fields for possible positive energies that would counter the negative ones and found a similar but very small amount of positive energy not far from his cabin. He messaged ahead and notified all guards to find and secure the positive energy and told them about the negative ones that were building up.

He decided to head there in the morning so got a four hour sleep for the six hour drive.

Of course, when he finally arrived and opened the door he didn't expect the place to be covered in flame retardant dust.

"Somebody's been playing with matches." he mumbled, yawned and headed to his room instead while texting on his phone.

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The puppets all remained quiet and as still as possible when the newcomer entered. Six Shooter immediately recognized him from the photograph they were looking at last night.

But before any of the puppets could come out of their hiding spaces, the living room became swarmed with spiders and snakes. Then he heard squeaking and looked towards the kitchen to see some mice and rats. A large snake, a python, dropped from the ceiling and landed on the table with a heavy thud then started hissing, getting the spiders, rodents and other snakes' attention.

It hissed loudly and used its tail to point at a group of tarantulas and hissed at them, then pointed at a group of small green snakes and then at a group of large rats and hissed. It seemed like it was communicating with them. Afterwards, all the groups dispersed; the tarantulas, green snakes and four of the largest rats went towards the small opening they had come through last night and disappeared. Then some dark brown snakes with brown spots along their backs and about ten of the rodents all headed down the hallway, the rest remained in the kitchen and started disappearing into the cabinets and cupboards only to re-emerge with brooms, dusters and dustpans. Then the large python jumped back up to the ceiling and disappeared.

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The Kid wants this place cleaned as quick as possible. The negative energies have been disabled for the moment but are starting to build again near the garage. Whatever this energy is after it has become clear that they want the energy from inside the trunk! So, Arachnids, you have trapping and sensory duty outside. Jerry, Martin, Tim and Turner go with them. Gardeners, take surveillance with the raptors. Boas and rats to the chemistry lab and start mixing jello and instant freeze for the traps underside. The rest of you start cleaning, I have to head back to the garage.

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Torch peeked out from his hiding spot and saw a group of snakes and rats enter the bathroom and enter a cupboard under the sink, talking about making jello and some instant freeze.

Check the scorpions' inventory while you're at it so we can be sure they have enough ammunition. Jessie will be sending a sample of the green stuff we found in the trunk for analysis. He heard a black snake say, while a mouse was writing down everything it was saying. A small yellow snake with blue eyes closed the cupboard door and then the sound of something similar to an elevator descended and then all was quiet.

'Shit! The formula!' he thought and squirmed his way out from his spot to tell the others that their formula was found but stopped dead when a hidden door trapped him. The intruder closed the other door, locked it, started the bath and then proceeded to undress.

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Six Shooter was watching, amazed at these creatures. Some of the mice were using small feather dusters to sweep up the white dust from the counter tops, a snake and two rats were using a small portable vacuum (dust buster) to clean the couch, some snakes were using a small dust broom to sweep the carpet, some rats and a few other snakes held dustpans, all hissing and squeaking at each other.

He watched some snakes coil up fast, gathering the dust into a pile and then scooping it up and placing it in a grocery bag.

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Meanwhile, under the couch . . . .

"Well, it looked like Torch wasn't lying about the spiders." Tunneler said.

"That may be, but I didn't see any gigantic ones that were bigger than Six." Blade said.

"It shouldn't really be a surprise anyway, I mean we're in a cabin in the woods. There's bound to be spiders and snakes crawling all over the place." Tunneler said as a snake with a Dust Buster passed by.

"Yeah, intelligent spiders and snakes." Blade hissed.

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In the bathroom . . . .

Torch was starting to get frustrated by the newcomer who had put on some music while he soaked in the tub. It became apparent when he heard some splashing before the newcomer entered the tub that he was having a bubble bath. He groaned inwardly, wanting to get out of here soon, or at least bang his head on something. Then he heard what sounded like a vacuum cleaner coming from the living room.

"Jessie, do you have a reading of the negative energies?"

Torch went silent.

" . . . Ok, send it off to Kegs so he can compare them to the ones he found at Bodega Bay. Then do a global timeline reading to see if it came up anywhere else before. Any luck on the green stuff you found? . . . . Organic? . . . . Fascinating. . . . Ok, break down its composition to find out for sure and then see if you can duplicate its basics. After we've dealt with the negative build up we'll experiment with it, see if it's compatible with any of my own. I could use a major distraction."

'We're fucked. We are so fucked.' Torch thought, burying his head in his arms.

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Two hours and forty-five minutes later. . . .

The puppets were finally able to come out of their hiding places when the cleaning crew left. Jester and Tunneler crawled out from under the couch and helped Blade. Six Shooter shuffled out from the behind the plant and Pinhead stood up and turned around to face his brothers, causing Jester to laugh.

"Pinhead, you have dust all over your back side." Tunneler said and started dusting Pinhead.

"Guys, you should have seen what I did!" Six exclaimed excitedly, jumping out from behind the potted plant and scaring they daylights out of them, then proceeded to tell them about the large python giving orders to a bunch of spiders, snakes and rodents.

"A python giving orders to bugs and rats?" Blade asked, a bit skeptic.

"I'm serious. It landed on the table and started hissing and pointing at the groups and then jumped up and took off." Six said.

"Snakes can't jump." Blade said and turned around to climb up the couch when a large hairy spider dropped out of nowhere, snatched him up and took off, his hat spinning off his head.

"BLADE!"