"Guaranteed 100% LOLcat free. ...Except for the tagline. No can has."
Billy's mother sometimes where she had gone wrong in life. She had never had any extravagant wants or needs, not like the weirdo next door who had a kink for mummies. She had just wanted an ordinary husband with an ordinary job and two-point-five ordinary kids growing up in an ordinary neighborhood. (A name wouldn't have been bad either, but no sense in being too greedy.) Now look at what her life had come to. Through some chain of events she wasn't sure of, the Grim Reaper had taken up residence in her house, bringing all sorts of hellish creatures and supernatural terrors with him, destroying the ordinary in her son, her house, her neighborhood, her life, and her sanity. She didn't think she could take much more of this. She was getting migraines from the stress, wrinkles around her eyes, and my god, was that a wart? It just couldn't possibly get any worse. That was what she was telling herself as she entered the kitchen and spotted Grim and his grandmother.
"Oh, hello dearie," Grim's grandmother greeted, "you're just in time for breakfast. Here, eat it while it's hot!" She passed over a bowl which had something full of eyes and tentacles in a bubbling, putrid broth which was enough to make Billy's mom turn green. With a shriek, she ran from the room.
"What was that about?" Grim's grandmother asked.
"Don't mind her," Grim said, "she only shows up about once an episode. Oh, I've missed your cooking, Grandmama!"
"Aww, Grimmy, you're too sweet."
Billy's mom made her way to the living room, where her husband and Billy the assicorn were sitting on the couch. Both had equally slack-jawed expressions as they watched television, although one was an ass with a trumpet on his head and the other was only an ass metaphorically. "Billy," his mom called. "would you like some pie?"
"No thanks, mom," he told her with a wave of a hoof. "That tagline's older than Grim's grandmother. I'm trying to stay hip and trendy."
"Oh, I see," she said slowly, feeling her eye beginning to twitch. "What's your new tagline, then?"
"I LIKE," he began, then paused. "Actually, that part might be getting old, too. Hey Grim! I need a new tagline!"
Grim poked his head out of the kitchen. "How about 'Watashi wa orokana assicorn'?"
"That's too hard to say," Billy complained.
"Drat," Grim muttered. "I was this close to getting him to admit he's an idiot continually."
"How about 'I'm obnoxious!'?" Grim's grandmother suggested. "Grimmy used to love that when he was little!"
"Grandmama!"
"I'M OBNOXIOUS," Billy shouted out, adding a bray to the end. "I likes it!"
Billy's mom was at her wit's end. She didn't think she could take any more of it. If one more abnormal person showed up... Just then, the doorbell rang. Storming over, she flung the door open, glaring at whoever happened to be on the doorstep.
The whoever that happened to be on the doorstep was none other than Irwin, since he was due to show up pretty soon. "Uh, hi, Billy's mom," he greeted, withering at the look she gave him.
Billy's mom slammed the door in his face, then whirled around and stomped all the way across the living room as her assicorn son and husband watched in silence. "I've got just the thing for you," Grim's grandmother suggested, offering up a bottle. "How about some good old-fashioned Jamacian spirits?"
The bottle was snatched in a snappy motion, and Billy's mother proceeded to chug the whole bottle before offering it back with the same sharp movement. After Grim's grandmother took the bottle back, she proceeded to storm up the stairs. "Honestly," Grim complained as the door slammed upstairs, "she really should be more welcoming to guests."
"Um," came Irwin's voice from outside. "Can I still come in?"
Billy the assicorn went to open the door, and swiftly discovered he was thwarted by the lack of opposable thumbs. Failing to turn the knob, he opted for kicking the door down. "Irwin?" he called as he stepped outside onto the downed door. "HEY IRWIN!"
"Down here," came a muffled voice from under the door.
"I don't see you," Billy said in confusion, looking around. "Did you turn invisible?"
"NO," Irwin groaned in pain. "I'm under the door!"
"Your mother's a bore?" Billy echoed in confusion.
"No! I'm underneath the door!"
"Whoa, your summer wreath's all tore?"
"NO! I am UNDER the DOOR, YO!"
"Lo, your-"
Grim cut Billy off by punting him off the door, lifting it up to reveal a mostly two-dimensional Irwin. "Thanks, Grim," he managed, fluttering out from underneath the door. "Dude, Billy, what happened? Is this another part of that thing with the brainworms?"
"Nah, I got rid of those," Billy said, sitting down on the grass.
"What brings you by, Irwin?" Grim asked as the short boy reinflated himself to a three-dimensional shape.
"Well, actually, I was wondering if you'd seen Mandy," Irwin said. "You see, I wrote her a poem, and-Where's my poem?" He began fumbling through his pockets for the poem.
Unfortunately for him, Mandy was standing right behind him with a piece of paper in her hand. She recited:
"Oh beautiful, noble Mandy,
My solemn love and life's devout,
Thy gentle, caring spirit
What in the world, a turnip man
To be continued."
Mandy and Grim both stared at him for several long, awkward seconds. "...It's a work in progress," Irwin admitted.
"Progress this," Mandy told him as she proceeded to shove it down his throat.
Grim sighed as he watched Mandy's hands make impressions on the inside of Irwin's throat. "Look, this is all well and good, but we don't really have the time to play around. We have to find the plot device, remember?"
"A plot device?" Irwin echoed. "What's that?"
"Nothing you need concern yourself with," Grim told him. "It's only the thing that controls our reality and all."
"It controls our reality?" Irwin thought about that, his imagination drifting into a world where he was considered cool and Mandy was madly in love with him. If he could control reality...
Mandy pulled out a giant pin and popped his dream bubble. "Whatever gross and disgusting thoughts you were thinking, forget it."
"Aww, Mandy, you always think the best of me." He turned to Grim. "Can't I help? I could call up Hoss, he's good at finding stuff and-"
"Forget it," Grim stated. "This party of three is all we need. Honestly, we don't even need that much," he added, glancing to Billy.
"I'M OBNOXIOUS," Billy shouted.
"So there will be no more additions to this little party," Grim stated firmly, "and that's that."
"Aww! Why not, yo?"
"Because we're the main characters and you're not."
Abruptly, there was a crack of thunder that smelled faintly of hot dogs and soggy cereal, and then Eris appeared, waving a hand in front of her face. "Ugh! What smells like hot dogs and soggy cereal?"
"Um, I think it's you," Grim said.
"Well, never mind then. I hope you're happy, Grimmy. The were-ducks were a mess. And the smell!"
He shrugged. "I just call them like I see them."
She scowled. "Any way, since I can't seem to make headway without running into this 'rule of funny'," she made air quotes with her fingers, "I'm forced to enlist your help in finding this 'plot device'."
"Stop using your fingers to do air quotes," he said. "It's annoying me."
"Ah, I see the balance of power has shifted my way," she purred.
"Look, I just got done telling another minor character we're not accepting additions. I'm most certainly not making an exception for you, Eris. This story is about the main characters."
"And I'm telling you to let me come with you, or I'm finding a more obnoxious form for Billy," she said sweetly. "Did you forget that he ate my apple?"
"Mandy, I've had a change of heart," Grim told the girl. "I think Eris would be a great asset to the team. Just this once."
"Uh-huh."
"Hey! If she gets to go then so do I!" Irwin protested.
"Forget it," Grim told him. "Unlike her, you can't make yourself useful."
"Well...I can strap a beater to my hand! How about THAT!"
"Please tell me you're kidding," Eris told him.
"Well, we could always use him to test rooms for gigantic Martian wolverines," Mandy pointed out.
"Yes! See? Mandy thinks I'm useful."
"Only in that you're a sack of edible flesh," Grim pointed out.
"I'll take what I can get, yo!"
"So, where do we start looking?" Eris asked. "There's an endless amount of possibilities."
"I think we should start with places we're familiar with," Grim said. "If we're going to find something, chances are it's in a place we've been before."
"What makes you say that?"
"Because that way they can recycle the backgrounds," Grim said. "Let's start with the school. It's got a lot of ground to cover. Eris and I will look around the outside of the building. Mandy, you, Billy and Irwin look around the rooms inside."
"Wow," Billy said as he listened to the snarls and screams inside the room. "What are the chances that we'd have ANOTHER room full of gigantic Martian wolverines?"
"Hm," Mandy looked around, "still no plot device. Did we try Sperg's lockers?"
"Do we have to?"
"Well, well, well," came a voice from nearby. "If it isn't the dork trio. What are you dorks up to? Doing dorky things in a dorky fashion, I imagine?"
"Oh, hey," Billy said as he saw the preppy girl standing in front of them, looking glorious in all her snobbery. "You're...who are you again?"
"Oh, come on, we're in the same class!" the girl shouted. "I'm-" The rest of what she was saying was drowned out in the sudden klaxons of a UFO battle overhead.
A long pause. "I know!" Irwin shouted, staggering out from the room of gigantic Martian wolverines. "Let's look it up on Wikipedia."
They looked at each other, shrugged, then Irwin pulled out a laptop, Billy the assicorn and Mandy looking over his shoulders. "This page needs cleaning up," Billy read.
"Is that really the best picture of me they could find?" Mandy asked, staring at the page.
"Wow!" Billy exclaimed. "My mom has a name?"
"Do I really say 'yo' that much?" Irwin wondered.
"Yeah. You kind of do."
"Hey!" the preppy girl without a name shouted at them. "You're not listening to me! And you, narrator, I DO have a name, you nerd! It's-" This time, she was conveniently drowned out by a stampede of buffalo through the school hallway that miraculously trampled only her. The lesson, kids, is to not call your narrator names. :)
Irwin twitched from where he had also been run over by the buffalo. "How come I was hit too, yo?!"
The narrator shrugged its gender-neutral, invisible shoulders. Irwin did seem like an easy target.
"Hey, I don't see her on this list," Billy pointed out. "Maybe she's AN IMPOSTOR!"
"What? I am not, I go to class with you, you dweeb! My name is-" Oh, look, what an ill-timed practice note for the marching band.
"Maybe she's from that show that never got off the ground," Mandy said.
"Hey!" Skarr popped in long enough to protest. "There's nothing wrong with a little evil!"
"Go back to your own show!" Billy told him, giving him a swift kick in the rear.
"Oh, wait, there she is." Mandy pointed. "At the bottom of the page."
"I'm at the bottom?!" she questioned, aghast.
"Mindy," Irwin read aloud. "A girl who attends school with Billy and Mandy. She thinks she's hot stuff but she's really not. Secretly, she likes hanging out with nerds and doing strange things with manatees." Irwin looked at Mindy in a new light. "Really?"
"It's all lies!" Mindy protested. "Who wrote that?"
Somewhere, the narrator chuckled wickedly and went off to vandalize the page for Adult swim.
"Now that that pointless exercise is out of the way," Mandy said, tossing the laptop over a shoulder and hitting the cat from Chapter 1 with it, "what do you want, Mindy? We don't have time to pander to your need for attention today."
"And what is so important that it could be more important than me, hm?" Mindy wanted to know. She was then struck by lightning for no apparent reason.
"Oooo," Billy said in awe. "Do that again!"
Obligingly, the lightning struck twice.
"Remind me not to piss off the narrator, yo," Irwin whispered to Mandy.
"Let's get going," Mandy said to the boy and the assicorn. "We have a plot device to find."
"Oh, a plot device?" Mindy commented. "That's not so much. My dad's got three of them."
"I'm sure he does."
'What if she's telling the truth?" Irwin pointed out. "We could go ahead and return everything to normal right now."
"You dolt," Mandy told him, "it's only chapter two. That's far too early to find a plot device."
"It's okay if you're jealous," Mindy said. "I can understand. After all, I imagine everyone must want something so plotty and so device-y. I bet you'd feel pretty lucky if I gave you one, huh?"
"Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah!" Billy agreed, nodding his head in rapid succession.
"What's the catch?" Mandy questioned suspiciously.
"Oh, it's nothing too serious," Mindy remarked with a casual air. "You just have to beat me at a little contest, that's all."
Mandy narrowed her eyes. "What kind of contest."
"The only kind of contest that can happen between two women, of course," Mindy declared. "A war of love!"
"A war of love?" Irwin and Billy the assicorn echoed.
"That's right, boys. Now, this is our target," and she pointed down the hallway, where Sperg was attempting to stuff Pudd'n into a locker.
"We're going to make Pudd'n fall in love with us?" Mandy echoed.
"Of course not, that'd be too easy," Mindy snorted. "We're going to make Sperg fall in love with us."
"I think I'm going to be sick," Billy declared, looking a little green.
"Don't do it, yo!" Irwin shouted. "Think of our future together!"
"The first one to get Sperg to buy them a candy bar wins," Mindy told Mandy. "Well, are you up for it? Or are you going to chicken out?"
"I never back down from a fight," Mandy replied, staring Mindy straight in the eyes. "And I never lose."
"There's a first time for everything," Mindy shot back.
"Oh, I can't bear to watch," Irwin groaned, burying his face in the nearest object-another gigantic Martian wolverine. His screams faded into the background as Billy followed the girls.
"Mandy, it's not too late," Billy told her. "I'll distract him while you run."
Mandy gave him a deadly look in response. "I don't run away, Billy. Not from anything. Fear is not a word in my vocabulary."
"But what about the ice skaters?"
"We've been over that, all right? I just don't trust the way they spin, that's all."
Sperg laughed to himself as he walked away from the locker, tossing up a few coins of pilfered lunch money. "Ladies first, so I guess that means me," Mindy said to Mandy as she strolled up to Sperg. "Heya, big boy."
"Huh?" Sperg looked over at her.
She leaned against a locker, batting her eyes in what might be assumed to be an attempt at a seductive manner. "You're looking good today. I just love a man who can stuff another man into a locker."
Mandy rolled her eyes. "Well, I have had a lot of practice," Sperg declared. "...hey, why are you being so nice to me all of a sudden?"
"Because I can't stop thinking about you and all your big, strong muscles," Mindy purred. "I think we need to get to know each other a little better. How about you, me, and a candy bar? Pretty please?"
"Ha!" Sperg said in derision, shoving her away. "Get lost."
"Why you-" Mindy decided now was the time to switch gears. "I'll give you a hundred bucks to buy me a candy bar."
"Hey! That's cheating!" Billy protested. "Mandy, do something, quick!"
"I'm on it." Walking over, she made eye contact with Sperg. "All right, musclebrain. You. Candy bar. For me. Now."
"Oh yeah? And what will you give me for it?"
She yanked him down by the shirt, pulling his face close to hers and readying a fist. "All of your teeth still in your mouth."
"That sounds like an excellent reward," Sperg whimpered, running off to the vending machine and quickly returning with the candy bar, which he offered her on bent knee.
Mindy looked ready to step in with a scheme to score the candy bar first, but unfortunately for the darling, sweet princess, she was struck by lightning again. "Seriously?!" she protested. "We're inside!"
Mandy accepted the candy bar. "Now get lost," she ordered Sperg, who disappeared in a hurry. Taking a celebratory bite of the chocolate, she turned back to Mindy. "It's my victory. Cough up the plot device."
"You can't make me!" Mindy protested.
"Wanna take a bet on that?"
A few minutes and a wipe transition later, the three were at Mindy's princess cabana, which was a small part of the large estate where Mindy and her family lived. "It's in this box," she said, opening it up.
"Ooooo," Billy said as she opened it, the three peering in.
Peering back at them was a very small man, perhaps a foot tall, glaring at them. "What do you lot want? You're breathing my air. I demand that you stop that at once! It's my air and you have to listen to me because I won't stop arguing til you do."
"Somehow, I find myself vastly disappointed," Billy the assicorn said.
"I can see why she keeps him in a box," Irwin observed.
"You two are perfect for each other," Mandy told Mindy. "Where's the real plot device?"
"This is a plot device," she insisted. "His name is Eric. Isn't he cute?"
"Shut up, you worthless waste of ink and cels," the small man directed at Mindy. "Have you done everything I told you to do? My shoes are not shined, my food has not been spoon-fed to me, and my-" Billy brayed. "-is not wiped!"
"Oh hey, I know what that is," Irwin realized. "It's an Inchworm."
"An Inchworm?" Mandy echoed.
"Yeah. They're very small people that are known for having small...well...you know."
"I know!" Billy yelled. "They have small tracts of land."
Irwin gave him a confused look. "Um...yeah, sure. Anyway, they have really low self-esteem, so they exist by putting down others. Their weakness is not getting what they want."
"Hey! Didn't I tell you to stop breathing my air?" Eric the Inchworm shouted at them as he crawled out of his box, glaring at them impotently. "Do as I say right now, or-"
Billy promptly stomped on the small, pathetic little man, grinding him into the ground with a hoof. "Ahhh," he said, planting his butt down on the ground Inchworm. "That felt good."
Mandy turned back to Mindy. "So cough up the plot device already."
"Please take him," Mindy begged. "Daddy got him for me but he's just so icky. And he never shuts up."
"No thanks. I already have one of those."
"I'M OBNOXIOUS!"
"Yes, Billy," Mandy said with a glare toward the assicorn, "we know. So do you have an actual plot device, Mindy?"
"No, who would want one of those?" she said with a wave of her hand. "They're so last season. I just said that so you'd take the Inchworm."
"Stop talking about me," Eric gasped from under Billy's hoof, "as if I'm not here."
"Billy?" Mandy said to her companion.
He gleefully stomped around, doing a little tapdance on top of the Inchworm. "Ta-da!"
"I'm...going to tell my boss," the Inchworm groaned. "And he'll yell at you."
"That only gets you anywhere if your boss is as tiny of a man as you," Mandy informed him.
"And if he is, I GET TO STEP ON HIM!" Billy shouted gleefully, doing another tapdance on top of Eric.
"Here you kids are," Grim said, appearing on the scene with Eris in tow. "What have you been up to? We couldn't find you at the school."
The woman was being followed by a trail of hedgehogs which were all staring at her adoringly. "I said get," she said, making shooing motions. "I'm not the hedgehog queen you're looking for."
"Thought we found it, but it was a false alarm," Mandy said. "It's about time we tried somewhere else. Where's next on the list, Grim?"
"Well, if we're to get anywhere...I guess we'd better try the Underworld next."