A/N: Another chapter! :) Please enjoy and review!
Fungus whistled happily as he closed up shop and sent his door back to the door vault after an eventful day of making children laugh. He was much happier now that both Waternoose and especially Randall were out of the way. Of course, he had been concerned when news broke out that Waternoose had escaped, but he never expected to see that old crab monster's face again.
"Nice work today Fungus!" he heard Mike call from the station next to his.
"To you as well, Wazowski!" he said cheerily.
"Want to come to the employee's dinner party at Harryhausen's? Mike invited.
"Of course! I just need to turn in some paperwork, don't wait up!" Fungus replied as he turned to retrieve his paperwork.
"Alright, see you there bud!" Mike's retreating footsteps sounded.
Fungus sighed and looked around. All of the other 'laughers' had left the Laugh Floor a little early for the party with Sullivan's permission and Fungus was the only one left. Fungus turned back towards his looked around his file folder containing his paperwork.
He deadpanned the surface of the desk, but didn't see it anywhere. He started flipping through some papers and other miscellaneous items, muttering to himself, "Where'd it go? I swear it was here a second ago…"
"Looking for this?"
Fungus saw, out of the corner of his three eyes, a large menacing shadow that had appeared out of nowhere. He froze and slowly turned around.
"Waternoose!" he growled. Waternoose chuckled and held up Fungus' paperwork.
"Give it here you jerk!" Fungus lunged for it, but Waternoose easily held it out of his grasp.
"Tut, tut, is that any way to treat an old friend?"
"You're no friend of mine." Fungus stated.
"Ouch, that hurt." Waternoose mocked.
"It was supposed to." Fungus replied, not catching on to the sarcasm.
"What happened to the Fungus I used to know? The one who would go along with anything? The one who would do anything that was asked of him without question?"
"That Fungus is long gone." Fungus snarled bravely.
Waternoose sighed. "Look Fungus, I'm not here to fight." he said, holding out the paperwork to Fungus.
Fungus eyed him suspiciously before snatching it back. "Then what do you want?"
"I need your help."
"I'm not going to help a criminal."
"Come on Fungus, any friend of Randall's is a friend of mine."
Fungus glared at him. "Randall was not my friend."
"Oh, but you could've been. I agree that Randall can be tough on the outside, but he's not all bad."
"Wow, that means a lot. Coming from you." Fungus replied sarcastically.
Waternoose ignored that comment and went on. "Come on Fungus, other than myself, you knew him better than anyone else. I need your help to fix the Scream Extractor."
Fungus' eyes almost popped out of his head. "No way! That thing was totaled by Sulley and should stay that way. Besides, get with the times Waternoose, we make kids laugh nowadays."
"I'm aware. If you're not going to help me willingly, I'll make you help me with force." Waternoose growled dangerously.
Fungus felt his brief streak of courage drain away and he backed up. "N-no!"
"Ah, there's the Fungus I know…" Waternoose advanced on the small red monster, an evil grin creeping up his face.
Marra yawned and blinked sleep from her eyes. She rolled over, about to fall back asleep when she heard furious barking.
"What the…" she muttered and got up.
The barking continued and there was desperate scratching coming from Kimmie's room. Marra jumped up, fearing for Kimmie's well being and ran down the hall to Kimmie's room. Max continued to bark and scratch and Marra felt her heart sink.
Something was very wrong.
Randall came to groggily. He blinked open his eyes and looked around. Sunlight flooded into the room and he realized he had been out for a while. Max was at the door, barking and scratching at the door to get out. Last night's previous events came back to him. Kimmie! He jumped up and whipped open the closet.
"Dang it!" he snarled as all he saw was Kimmie's clothes.
Waternoose had been one step ahead and had deactivated the door. Randall slammed the door shut and cursed. Max's barking continued and he heard running footsteps. Suddenly there came a knock on the door.
"Kimmie? You up?"
Randall cursed again. It was Marra. Before he could do anything, she came in. Marra looked around as Max woofed and started tugging at her.
"What's up with Max? Where's Kimmie?"
"Um, she might be in the bathroom."
"I just went past it, the door was open."
"Don't you have more than two bathrooms?"
Marra put her hands on her hips. "Randall, what's going on? You're hiding something. Where's Kimmie?"
Randall's face drained as realized he was going to have to tell not just her, but all the kids the truth. But being himself, he turned to defending himself by insulting her rather than just coming out with it. "You're pretty slow if you couldn't tell I've been hiding something since the day I came to this dump!" he hissed.
Marra scowled at him. "Randall, what's your problem? You can't have done something that bad."
Their voices had attracted the other children, who were now all peeking through the doorway curiously.
"What's going on?" Grant asked. Randall panicked and disappeared.
"He disappeared! Find him! Don't let him get away!" Marra growled, lunging at the space he had just been. Randall dodged her and made a dash for it but ran right into Simon who had moved when he wasn't looking.
"I've got him!" Simon dove for him, head-butting him in the stomach, and sending the both of them slamming into the wall.
"Ow!" Randall hissed and with all his might, he threw Simon off. "Let go of me, you little twit!" he snarled at a dazed Simon.
He turned and found the other children's angry faces looming over him. "Shows how much you all care about your precious Kimmie if you didn't even check on her last night. Maybe if you had, you would've seen me knocked out on the floor and her gone!" he tried one last time.
The kids all looked unfazed by his insult and just advanced on him.
"What are you talking about you little freak?" Marra hissed.
Grant clenched his fists and looked ready to start beating Randall up while Bree and Simon just glared at him.
"Alright! Alright! I'll tell you the truth!" Randall cried out.
"Ok then, start talking." Bree pointed a pencil she had retrieved from who-knows-where and pointed it in Randall's face.
"Get that out of my face before you poke an eye out."
"That's my plan."
Randall sneered at her, unimpressed, and snapped the pencil with ease. "Ok listen up everyone, make one move and you'll never see Kimmie again!" he threatened.
"Just shut up and explain yourself." Marra snapped.
"Ok, I lied. In my world, I'm a criminal. I wasn't sent here for being the top scarer, I was banished here for kidnapping a kid and trying to use a Scream Extractor on her. Not that you human idiots would know what that is." He added rudely.
The children stared at him with wide eyes, registering what they had just heard. He took this as a hint to go on. "Well, you all weren't here last night, but my partner in crime, though not anymore, Waternoose, paid us a visit last night, knocked me out, and kidnapped her. He has just escaped from prison and wants to go on with our plan to rid the company of uneeded jobs and etc. because he still believes that screams are stronger than laughs. Sooo…" Randall took a deep breath.
"He's taken Kimmie back to the Monster World, probably to use the Scream Extractor on her to prove that we were right and redeem our reputations. That's the whole truth. Happy?" He concluded.
"S-so where's Kimmie?" Bree asked angrily.
"How am I supposed to know? I was knocked out all night and the jerk deactivated the door so I can't get to her." He snapped.
"Well, maybe-"
"Look, the point is, Kimmie's in danger. And argh… I'm going to need all of your help to get her back."
The children looked at each other.
"How do we know you're not lying?" Bree asked.
Randall shrugged. "That's up to you to decide, but every second we stand here and waste time, the more danger Kimmie's in."
Marra sighed. "Ok, what can I do?"
Bree turned to her. "You seriously can't be thinking of helping this little weasel! He's totally lying!"
"And you would just abandon Kimmie based on that belief? We have to believe him, what other choice do we have?" Marra countered.
Bree fell silent.
"I'll help too." Simon volunteered.
"Me as well." Grant agreed.
They all looked at Bree, waiting for her answer.
"You know, I have enough help if you're going to be a little brat and not lend a hand." Randall growled at her.
Bree hesitated for a minute before finally cracking. "Ok, ok, I'll help." she sighed.
"Ok, I'll start coming up with the plan while you all are at school. I may have been away from the monster world for a while, but I still know the time differences and exactly what time the monsters will start scar-ah making kids laugh." Randall said.
The kids all agreed and headed for school.
Randall sighed as the last kid left the house. "Don't worry Kimmie, I'm coming."
Waternoose dragged a protesting Fungus to the secret room where the mangled carcass of Scream Extractor lay.
"Let me go this instant! As soon as I'm out of here, I'm calling the cops!" Fungus growled, managing to catch Waternoose on the leg with one of his thrashing arms. Waternoose threw the sack that contained Fungus against the cold concreate wall.
"Shut it you imbecile." He hissed.
"Ouch! That was uncalled for." Came Fungus' groan.
"Randy?" Kimmie plastered her face against the iron bars of the cage Waternoose had dumped her in.
"Can it, little girl. Randy isn't coming." The giant spider crab monster snarled at her.
"He will come, I know it!"
"Sorry to burst your bubble, but no. He's not."
"He wouldn't just abandon me! He loves me!"
Waternoose snapped his head towards the little girl. "Don't be daft. Randall Boggs doesn't love anyone. He's too selfish, too conceited, and he definitely wouldn't love a human."
"You're wrong." Kimmie stated bravely.
Waternoose grit his teeth and forced himself to ignore her.
Fungus struggled in the sack. "Is that a little human girl?" he asked. He felt a tug and finally the light returned. Waternoose's sneering face came into view.
"Ding, ding, ding, we have a winner." He mocked.
"What are you going to do to her?" Fungus demanded.
"Just extract a few screams, that's all."
"No!" Fungus tried to run towards Kimmie, but Waternoose grabbed him back.
"Tut, tut, can't have you messing up my plan. Now, fix the Scream Extractor." He ordered.
"I'll never!"
Waternoose sighed irritably at the small red monster's lack of cooperation. "Alright, fine. You really want me to take charge of a machine I've never used before? Hopefully I won't do something wrong and cause it to malfunction and end up hurting the girl." He said craftily.
Fungus' eyes widened. "Ok, ok, I'll fix it. But only for the sake of the child." He growled.
Waternoose bared his teeth in an evil grin. "Good boy."
A/N: Well, this chapter was a bit longer, hope you liked it! :D The story is coming to a close! D: Just a few more chapters I think... :'( See you all on Sunday! Please review! LIZARD POWER! :) :) :)