Billy and Mandy and the Lost Plot Device

by tiakall

It's a summary/In the form of a haiku/Maybe it won't suck? / Grim and Mandy must/Find their missing plot device/Billy is a crab

8. Chapter 8

The stage was set. The trials of nonsense and Mary Sues had been conquered. Everyone was ready. Nergal Jr. was texting away on his cell phone like a teenage girl who just found out Benedict Cumberbatch had a boyfriend. "Well?" Grim asked as he peered over the short boy's shoulder. "Any luck yet?"

"Don't rush him, Grim," Nergal scolded the Grim Reaper. "He's a professional, these things take time."

"Got something," Nergal Jr. spoke up, reading the text aloud. "'Beezelbub is having that party Friday and wants to know if you can bring some eye of newt'..." Nergal Jr. sighed, and began texting a response back. "Argh, I told them I wasn't coming already."

"Are you sure these undead know what they're talking about?" Mandy asked Nergal Jr., frowning at him. "They are undead, after all. You know how they gossip."

"Don't worry, I'm sure someone knows something," Nergal Jr. replied, and then checked the new text he got. "Ah, this says something. 'Fifty Thousand is approaching. The path will be revealed. You must look for the person who has been there since day one but is not with your party. The spiders will know where.'" Nergal Jr. raised an eyebrow at his phone. "That doesn't make much sense."

"Well, it gives us a place to start," Grim said decisively. "We'll go find out what the spiders know."

"S-spiders?" Billy asked, trembling a bit in his assicorn fur.

"Suck it up, Billy, or we won't be able to do fun things anymore," Mandy told him, following behind Grim.

"Okay. I'll be brave," Billy whimpered.

"So where are we going?" Nergal asked Grim as he walked alongside the Jamacian reaper. "You sound like you had someone in mind."

"'We' are not going anywhere, Nergal," Grim told him firmly. "I didn't get rid of one hanger-on just to obtain another."

"But you're letting him come," Nergal protested, pointing to Irwin, who was still struggling with his cape.

"Not by choice."

"He's only along in case we run into more Martian wolverines," Mandy added.

"And what about the giant robot?"

"That's just a gag," Grim protested. "I'm sure it'll be blown up sooner or later."

"And the sparkling vampire and portly werewolf?"

Grim turned around and glared at Reddy and Jakey. "Get lost, you two! There are plenty of other fics of those kind for you to go have fun in!"

The werewolf and vampire scampered off with yips of fear. "Well, that's settled," Grim said. "Now you too, Nergal. Go back home to your wife."

"Aw, c'mon, Grimmy! I'm useful, too!"

"And what exactly can you do?"

"Dad," Nergal Jr. interrupted. "They know where they're going, now let's go home. It's almost time for our board game. You're not going to leave Mom at home all alone, are you?"

Caught, Nergal hung his head. "Well, it was fun travelling with you for several thousand words," he said cheerfully. "Time for us to head out!"

Grim sighed, shaking his head. "Just the three of us again."

"Plus our Martian wolverine detector," Mandy added, pointing to Irwin.

"I'm a valuable member of this team, yo!"

"Uh-huh, sure. Let's go," Grim said, tearing open a hole in space and time.

"So where are we going?" Mandy asked him. "To your friend the spider queen?"

"You know of anyone else who has a better spider network?"

"Only the facebooking spiders. Besides, isn't she still a bit sore at you over the Grim Reaper thing?"

"I keep telling her to get caught up with the times," Grim said with a shake of his head. "Besides, that was a long time ago, and we worked everything out in that movie special. I'm sure it'll be fine."

"You just had to say that, didn't you?" Mandy asked ten minutes later.

The three of them were dangling upside down, bound up from neck to feet in spider webs, hordes of little spiders dancing around them. Billy was a gibbering mess, mumbling incoherently with his eyes closed, trying to pretend the spiders weren't there. "You have a lot of nerve showing up here, Grim Reaper," came a quiet, wrathful voice, and then the sound of many legs echoed up from the darkness, and the Spider Queen came into view.

"SPIDER!" Billy screamed, horn letting out a 'blatt' in his fear.

"Velma!" Grim said in surprise, scowling at her from his upside down position. "What's the meaning of this? I thought we were friends again! The past is the past!"

"You, Grim Reaper, are the scum of the earth!" she shouted, pointing his own scythe at him. "I should tear you apart for what you've done to me."

"I told you in that episode, it wasn't how it looked! I-"

"Wait! Stop!" cried another voice, and then Jeff came running up, cuddling Billy the assicorn, who began to shriek. "Oh, dad! You came to visit! I'm so glad. You're not hurt, are you? Let me get you down and make you some tea."

"SPIDER," Billy hollered, "I'LL STOMP YOU FLAT."

"Hm, no tea then? How about milk?"

"Hello, Jeff," Grim greeted, swaying a little from his hanging position. "It's been a few episodes since I saw you last. Have you been down here with Velma all this time?"

Jeff nodded. "Don't tell Dad," he whispered, "but we're sort of... you know..."

"Dating?" Mandy asked.

"Shh! Don't say it so loud!" Jeff quickly cut the three of them down, letting Billy loose.

Billy immediately retrieved an encyclopedia and began trying to smash Jeff with it. One of the spiders, displeased at the appropriation of its encyclopedia, retrieved it and began to beat Billy with it in return.

"It's nice that dad has friends who love him as much as he loves me," Jeff said.

"Uh-huh." Mandy turned to Velma. "So why are you mad at Grim now?"

"Why else would I be mad?" the spider queen demanded. "He forgot my birthday! He didn't even send a card!"

"I did not!" Grim protested. "I sent you a gift. Didn't you get it?"

"No. It never arrived!"

"They told me they shipped it! Let me find out," Grim said, pulling out his cell phone and dialing a number. He hung up after a moment. "I can't get reception out here. I really need to switch to that Attila company Nergal told me about. More bars in more places, my bony backside!"

"Let's give him the benefit of the doubt for now," Mandy said to Velma. "We have a situation and we need your help."

"Really? What sort of situation would that be that he'd come out here after forgetting my birthday?"

"The plot device has gone missing," Mandy told her. "It's the thing that returns everything to normal after something disasterous happens. If we don't find it, we'll be screwed next time the world blows up. The word among the undead is that your spiders might know where it is."

"A plot device?" Velma frowned, skittering around a bit as she paced as only a spider can. "What does it look like?"

"We don't know, but it's apparently with someone that's been with us since day one but isn't in our group right now," Mandy explained. "We're not sure who that is, but..."

"I'll set the TV Tropes spiders on it. If anyone can figure it out, they can," she said with a nod. She then turned to a few spiders, shrieking at them, and they scampered off to do her bidding. "It shouldn't take them long, provided they don't get distracted and forget what they're doing. It is TV Tropes, after all."

Mandy nodded as she watched some other spiders skitter around. "Sounds like you're quite well-resourced."

"Well, Jeff's been quite the help. He's good at managing people, you know. Everyone seems to like him."

"Everyone except for the moron with arachnophobia." Mandy shook her head.

"Hey, Dad, you hear that?" Jeff called over. "Velma says I'm good at managing people! Aren't you proud?"

"Superbly," Billy groaned from under the encyclopedia.

Velma sighed, checking a clock on the wall. "I'm betting they got distracted. Excuse me." She skittered away, and from the other room, there were sounds of shrieking.

"She's such a powerful motivator, don't you agree?" Jeff asked cheerfully.

"Terrificly so," Mandy agreed as a few spiders fled in front of them in fear. "I should pick up a few tips while I'm here."

Velma came out with a broom in one hand. "Well, they weren't terribly specific around all the gibbering," the spider queen sighed, "but they did say the person you're looking for is in the Hall of Wandering Cameos. I'll have someone show you the way."

"Oh! Pick me! I could use some quality bonding time with Dad," Jeff spoke up.

Velma eyed the beaten assicorn skeptically, then shook her head. "Sorry, Jeff sweetie, but I could really use your help here. It's going to take me a while to gather them all up again."

"Aww..."

"We'll stop by in the epilogue," Mandy promised. "Now where's this guide?"

The spider queen gestured, and a spider stepped forward, giving them a bow. "SPIDER!" Billy screamed, stomping on it and squishing it into minor character bits.

"Uh, Billy," Mandy pointed out. "You're surrounded by spiders."

Billy looked up, donkey ears twitching, then drooping flat as he looked around, all the black spiders around him eyeing them with their beady eyes, their glistening fangs, their hairy legs, their painted toes... "What," Velma said with a frown, crossing her arms, "some of us like to be fashionable."

Billy let out a scream and ran through the nearest wall. "Do we really need him for the rest of the story?" Mandy asked.

"I suppose so," Grim sighed, stepping out through the new hole in the wall and dragging Billy back by a back leg. "All right, let's go."

The new spider guide was careful to stay away from Billy and his stomping hooves as it led the way to a large, courthouse-like hall, characters passing in and out as they watched. "Nice digs they got here," Grim observed. "Is this the Hall of Wandering Cameos?"

"This is it. Excuse me, I remembered I left some bread in the oven," the spider said, skittering away out of range of Billy.

Billy responded by pulling out a rocket launcher, firing a shot at the distant, retreating spider and nodding in satisfaction as he watched the distant mushroom cloud. "I HATE SPIDERS!"

"That is an impressive feat for someone that doesn't have thumbs." Mandy shook her head, then entered the Hall of Wandering Cameos.

A few looked up at her entrance, some with awe, and others with fear. "It's a main character," they whispered among themselves.

"What is she doing here?"

"Is it the end of the world?"

"Her kind doesn't belong here."

"I'm looking for a plot device," Mandy stated as Billy and Grim joined her. "Anyone seen one?"

There wasn't an audible response, but several shook their heads, clearly not knowing what they were talking about. "Hi, Billy," came a voice from nearby. "Remember me?"

Billy turned, and then let out a scream as Heather approached him with the spider's encyclopedia, bringing it down on his trumpet. "Eat me, will you? I'll teach you to watch what you do to wandering cameos in your dreams!" she shouted in fury as she beat him.

"Leave them. I'm not getting in the middle of that," Grim said, then paused as he saw a familiar face. "Claudie!"

"Oh, mon grand," she greeted, walking over and sticking a sticky note on his face. He pulled it off and looked at it, and there was a little heart drawn on it. "Good to see you again!"

If there was blood in Grim's body, he would have felt it rush to his face. "G-good to see you again, Claudie. How have you been since we met up in the corporate chapter?"

"Oh, here and there. Writing novels, being a goddess, that sort of thing. Yourself?"

"Nothing nearly as good as that. Say, Claudie, I was wondering," Grim began. "If you're not busy after this story, maybe we could-"

"Enough, lover boy," Mandy interrupted, dragging him away. "We have a job to do, remember?"

"But it's not fair," Grim whimpered. "I never get a love interest. One that doesn't eventually run screaming, anyway."

"Keep that up and I'll find you a Mary Sue," Mandy threatened as she looked around. "What is this place, anyway?"

"It's exactly what it sounds like," Grim said. "It's the place where the cameos come to hang out. See that guy with the sunflowers? He gets around quite a bit. And that man with the black hair and the stupid grin...Actually, I don't know what he's doing here," Grim said with a frown. "He's hardly a cameo, most of the time. And there are the alien cultists from the previous episode."

"And the Martian wolverines," Mandy noted as Irwin was set upon by said creature. "Congratulations, Irwin; you've fulfilled your purpose again."

"Not cool, yo!" Irwin protested as the giant ravenous beast swallowed him whole.

Mandy ignored his cries, walking forward past the presidents and the peasants, the pheasants and the residents. They passed hens, wrens, Bens, and Michigan, a Mr. Ian Woon who was trying to exorcise a ghost, a trebuchet, and a ghost who had mysteriously died by shovel. They continued walking, and then Mandy paused, pointing up ahead. "I think I found a clue."

"What's that?" Grim looked forward, and peered at the ground. "There's a little trail of words on the ground. Hold on, let me decipher them... Was this what you meant?"

"No," she said, pointing, "I meant the giant neon sign that said 'CLUE' in big orange letters with the animated bat next to it."

Grim looked up, and frowned at the sign, as if it had slighted him somehow. "That is completely unfair."

"More importantly," Mandy said as Billy stumbled over, "look at who's under it."

Grim did so, and his eyes lit up with flames of remembered rage as he pointed a bony finger. "It's you, Boogey! I shouldn't be surprised at all that you had something to do with this disaster!"

"Grimmy, old boy," the Boogey Man greeted, clearly enjoying the reaper's frustration. "What's got you so down?"

Grim pulled out his scythe, pulling it back like a shotgun as he pointed it at Boogey. "I'm going to enjoy making you more pathetic than Eric the Inchworm."

"Calm down, Grimmy my boy," Boogey said with a wave of his hands, unbothered by the threat. "You can't get in to see the plot device without me, so you may as well listen. I'm not the guy you want. The real boss is here, behind me."

"What are you getting at, Boogey?" Mandy questioned. "How did you get out of that alternate dimension, anyway? If we had a working plot device, that would be one thing, but with it down... And if you tell me a story about rampaging tourists or rodents of unusual size or busty pirate lesbian ninjas, I will hurt you."

"Nothing of the sort," Boogey reassured. "It was lawyers."

"Lawyers?" Grim echoed. "How did lawyers get you out?"

"I sued the alternate dimension for wrongful imprisonment," Boogey said cheerfully. "Got free AND their pants out of it." He pulled out a pair of amazingly large boxer shorts, having to hold his arms out just to unfold them. "Ta-da!"

"Ooooo," Billy commented, properly impressed.

"All right, Boogey," Mandy said. "The time for casual conversation and side diversions is over. We have a plot device to save. Now where is it and who has it?"

"You'll see who they are when you get in behind me," Boogey said with a nod. "But you'll never get in, so you may as well go home."

Mandy shook her head. "We can't do that. We've still got three thousand words to go through."

"Three thousand, huh?" Grim mused. "That much...we've got quite a bit of ground to cover still. That means I should have time for a little conversation with Claudie..."

"Cool your jets, reaper." Mandy yanked him back by his hood. "Which would you rather have, vengeance on Boogey or a chat with a cameo girl?"

Grim considered seriously. "I suppose the plot is going to dictate I get vengeance on Boogey, so I may as well enjoy it."

"So it's a fight you want, then?" Boogey asked with a dangerous smile. The two locked eyes, little sparks of anger darting between them. "So sorry to disappoint, Grimmy my boy, but I have a different sort of contest in mind. A contest you'll never win. You see this? This is the key to the door behind me," Boogey said, holding up a gnarled and twisted key that looked as if it had been carved from the branch of a decidedly sick tree. "And I'll give it to you... if you pay the ransom."

"All right, Boogey, I'm game," Grim growled. "What's the ransom?"

"Fifty words," Boogey said with a nod.

"Fifty words? That's all?" Grim snorted in disdain. "I can have fifty words in a single paragraph. Why, this line alone already is counting in at thirty one words. You really think you can hold onto that key with just fifty words?"

"Stop interrupting me, I wasn't done," Boogey snapped in irritation. "You always do that, it's so annoying. You never let anyone finish a thought or a pleasant conversation or a ransom demand. Now, can I continue, or are you going to open your fat yap again?"

"Stop beating around the bush and wasting words," Mandy said. "What's the rest of the ransom?"

"The ransom is fifty words that end in -ion," Boogey said with a fiendish grin. "You vocabulary philistines will never reach it."

"Oh! Oh!" Irwin forced his way out of the giant Martian wolverine's mouth, hopping over to them with his soggy, spit-covered cape dragging behind him. "Let me handle this, Mandy. Knowledge is my forte, yo!"

"Sure, knock yourself out," Mandy said with a wave of her hand, pulling up a chair. Grim took a seat as well, and Billy plopped down on his assicorn rear, munching on some popcorn.

"Well," Irwin began. "First, there's ion."

"Ion?" Boogey echoed. "That doesn't end in -ion, that doesn't count."

"The last three letters are i, o, and n, in that order, as per your demand," Irwin stated, holding up a finger in demonstration. "The fact that there are no other letters before it is irrelevant."

"Fine, I'll give you that one," Boogey said with a 'hmph' noise, folding his arms. "You'll never keep it up."

"In that vein, there's also anion," Irwin continued.

"That's not a word!" Boogey protested.

Mandy and Grim looked at each other, and then Grim pulled out a laptop. "About dot com says it is," he stated, holding up the laptop. "Says right there it's an ionic species having a negative charge."

"Learn some chemistry, yo," Irwin said with a scowl. From somewhere in the background, Claudie cheered.

"Fine, fine," Boogey said with a wave of his arm. "You won't make it much farther."

"Oh? Then how about mutation? Inflation? Aberration?" Irwin challenged.

Boogey began to count on his fingers as Irwin began a musical number, several of the Wandering cameos providing a dancing background. "There's correction, affection, and trepidation. Election, protection, and contradiction. Break it down with friction, then with traction. Y'all pay attention, it's the -ion rap!"

"It's pretty catchy," Billy said, tapping a hoof.

Boogey pulled out an adding machine, clicking away on the keys. "You're only up to fourteen. Can you really keep singing?"

"Don't show me no attrition, yo," Irwin shot back, "and that's fifteen. And if you can't make that calculation, let me give you a continuation. We've got nation, elevation, abomination. Citation, elation, undulation. If you need a definition, sign up for my subscription. But if you want a confrontation, here's my declaration. I'm the dhampire mummy boy with a terrible inflection, but when it comes to vocabulary I'm in the right direction. Think you can keep a record up with my rotation? I'll word up, yo, with rhymes and 'pontification'!"

"This role is perfect for Irwin," Mandy said with a shake of her head. "It's amazing and pathetically nerdy at the same time."

"What's the count now, Boogey?" Grim called cheerfully, enjoying watching the Boogey Man sweat.

"Thirty one," he got out. "But he has to be running dry by now. No one can rap all the way up to fifty."

"You hear that? He's hatin on my alliteration," Irwin shouted. "Player hater who can't make no pacification. You think rap is all about crimes and justification? Some of us spread the love with harmonization. Mandy says I'm only for wolverine detection, but I'll win her heart with my socialization. Nerdiness is my specialization, and today the Boogey Man is losing to erosion and occasion!"

"He's up to forty!" Billy crowed. "Break it down, Irwin!"

"Number ten comes from dehydration, but number nine needs no commendation. Eight is just my humble opinion, and seven will make a good connection. Six may cause a little contrition, and by five you may be struck with temptation. Four is a fusion with number three, and allusion is the reference to where it be. Take number two as my revolution, because number one is the final solution!"

The entire hall broke into applause as Boogey sank to his knees. "Why? How could I bested by a nerd?" he cried out. "Where did I go wrong?"

"Well," Mandy said, "you really shouldn't have picked something that was a Latin suffix. Didn't you know how much English robbed from Latin?"

"Well, all the Romance languages were doing it," Grim pointed out. "It wanted in on the action too."

"All right, Boogey," Mandy said, putting away the chair and letting Billy scarf the rest of the popcorn, the assicorn tossing it down his throat, bowl and all, in a single gulp. "You lost, fair and square. Cough up the key to the next room and we won't have Grim banish you to an alternate dimension."

"No! You can't make me. I refuse to admit defeat, even if I was defeated."

"Isn't that sort of like admitting defeat?"

"No! It's nothing alike. And I am not admitting anything and I will not give you the key. You can't make me. There's no way in the world you can make me."

"Oh, I can think of a few thousand ways I can make you," Grim growled out. "Most of them involve violence that may be a bit much for a PG fic, though."

"There's an easier way, Grim," Mandy told him with a shake of her head. "See, the author wouldn't allow him to hold out on us."

"The author? What makes you think the author cares about us or our opinions and trials? Do you remember the chapter that does not exist?"

"Yes, I'm well aware you spent over twenty thousand words as 'Grim the Scary' and enjoyed every moment of it. My point is," Mandy continued, "unless we get the key from him, the story can't continue, and none of us are motivated enough to find a way around Boogey in less than two thousand words. So, he'll give us the key."

"No! No! A thousand times no!" Boogey protested as his hand moved to the pocket where he kept the key, slowly pulling it out. "Bad hand! Stop it! I'll have you put in time out!" He then handed the key over to Mandy, hanging his head in shame. "All right. I've been defeated. Take the key, I don't care. You won't like what you find behind that door."

"Is it spiders?" Billy asked, eyes growing wide with imagined terror. "Or... worse yet, clowns?"

Boogey considered. "I should have told him to add clowns. That would have been a nice touch."

"Not clowns!" Billy protested.

"At any rate, there's no clowns," Boogey said, stepping aside. "But I think you might be surprised and agonized at the sudden but inevitable betrayal."

The three of them looked at each other, then Mandy put the gnarled key in the lock, jiggling it a little before she got the lock to unlock. Grasping the handle slowly, she pulled it open.

Inside, the room was pitch black at first, then little puffs of blue flame lit up a walkway, leading them further in, as if they were heroes in a SquareEnix game walking into the lair of their mortal enemy. "Spooky," Billy said as he walked forward on all fours, giving his horn a toot. "It almost looks like cotton candy."

"Stay close, Mandy," Grim whispered to her. "If things go bad, we'll toss Billy at him and run for it."

"You'd actually stick your neck out for me?" she questioned, looking at him oddly.

"Well, I need someone to go out with me in case I need a second toss," he told her. "Ow!" Unsurprisingly, Mandy smacked him.

Ahead of them, the lights fanned out, highlighting strange, esoteric sculptures set in the walls, making the taste of the designer questionable at best and tacky at worst. "Welcome, Billy, Mandy, Grim Reaper," came a voice out of the darkness, a shape becoming visible against the backdrop of blue flames, a small, rounded shape. "I've been expecting you. Yes, I've been expecting you for quite some time. For far too long. I'd say about forty eight thousand, six hundred and ninety words and four seasons too long."

"Who's there?" Grim said, holding out his magic scythe. "Show yourself!"

"I'm right here, Grim Reaper. Right here... and waiting." The blue flames around them hissed as they leapt up in lines toward the ceiling.

"Grim!" Billy whispered. "I think there's someone behind the hamster!"

"No," Mandy said, her eyes widening in realization, and then narrowing in suspicion. "I think it is the hamster. Isn't that right... Mr. Snuggles?"

The hamster turned around, and now the trio could indeed see it was Mr. Snuggles, the plain, pathetic, sickly and elderly hamster. "I've long awaited this day, the three of you," the hamster said with a smile. "You'll never get the plot device back. I am the one who controls your reality now. Look!" he said, pointing, and Billy was now a pig with wings. "There's nothing I can't do now."

"But why, Mr. Snuggles?" Billy said, pig eyes filling with tears. "I thought we were your friends."

"Friends? Hah! Don't make me laugh," the hamster snorted. "You haven't been my friend since you picked up that hideous, bony thing!"

"Watch it," Grim growled. "I can still collect your soul, little hamster."

"You are powerless before me," the hamster said, and pointed at Grim. Grim turned into a stuffed Grim Reaper shaped toy. "You see? It's all over. I win and you three shall become my puppets!"

"Ooh! Ooh! Can I be Kermit?" Billy asked. "I like being green."

"That's a 'muppet', not a puppet," Mr. Snuggles told him. "And stop using Dilbert jokes."

"Why are you doing this, Mr. Snuggles?" Mandy asked him. "We risked our lives against the Grim Reaper so you could go on living."

"Who are you trying to fool? You weren't thinking about me when you dared the Grim Reaper to enter that contest. You were only thinking of yourselves and what fun it would be to have the Grim Reaper for your new pet. Mr. Grim, the hamster," Mr. Snuggles said, and turned Grim into a hamster. "I was just a red herring to set up the premise of the show!"

"I sort of resent the irony of this," Grim grumbled, folding his tiny arms.

"Your suffering is nothing compared to mine, Grim Reaper! When you took Billy and Mandy from me, I was thrown into a pit of unimaginable despair! No more was I fed sunflower seeds and carrots and given cardboard tubes to chew on! I had been knocked from my perch, never to be on screen again, banished to the farthest corners under Billy's bed. Oh, it was harsh," Mr. Snuggles recalled, flashing back to those days. "The dust bunnies were cruel and merciless, and the abandoned toys and board game pieces offered me no solace, no comfort from the agony of my existence. It was then, Grim Reaper, that I swore revenge on you and on the two who had come to neglect me. After that day, I traveled afar and wide, searching for the conduit that would allow me to exact my revenge. It took me a full season to find a teacher of the dark arts that would allow me to become his apprentice, and I spent another three seasons learning before I was out on my own. Not once during those long years afterwards did I stop to rest, always studying, never tiring from my search for a method to destroy the lot of you. And then, I found it. In a dusty, old abandoned script, I found the secret to your universe, to the ways it always repaired itself. Yes, my humble puppets, that was the secret of the plot device. I searched, and at last I found it, and learned to bend it to my will. And now I have. All is as I predicted it would come to pass. You have come to me, and now I shall do with you as I will. There will be endless running on wheels, and dirty bedding that doesn't get changed, and squealing children who poke you in the face with their fingers and squeeze too hard! You shall all know the pain that I have felt!"

"No," Mandy said quietly, "I'm quite afraid you've lost."

"Lost? I have the upper hand, I have the plot device, I have your friends turned into useless creatures. I have everything!" Mr. Snuggles crowed. "How can you possibly think I have lost?"

"Do you hear that sound, Mr. Snuggles?"

He paused. "I hear nothing. You're bluffing."

"That's the sound," Mandy told him, "of forty nine thousand, four hundred and eighty nine words rushing at you, preparing to crush you against the barrier of fifty thousand. You can't defeat us, Mr. Snuggles, because there aren't enough words left to do so."

Mr. Snuggles gasped, and then tried to minimize his actions to save words. "It's plenty of words! I'll defeat you now!"

"You can't," Mandy interrupted, smirking a little. "Hey Billy!"

"Yes, Mandy?" the pig with wings replied.

"Start singing."

"Sing what, Mandy?"

"Anything's fine."

Billy thought about it. "I see a little sihlouetto of a man!"

"Scaramouch, Scaramouch, will you do the Fandango," came a joyful chorus from the Hall of Wandering Cameos.

"Stop talking!" Mr. Snuggles demanded. "You're wasting my words!"

"Four hundred words left, Mr. Snuggles," Mandy told him. "What can you do? Keep singing, Billy."

"I'm so glad we found a legitimate use for this song," Billy told her. "Thunderbolt and lightning, very, very frightening me! Galileo!"

"Galileo," Grim chimed in.

"Galileo!"

"Galileo!"

"Galileo Figaro, Magifico, oh, oh, oh, oh," the Hall of Wandering Cameos chimed in.

Mandy reached into a hole in space and time, and pulled out her electric guitar. "We're bringing this fic down with rock and roll."

"No! I can't be defeated in this manner!" Mr. Snuggles screamed. "I've waited so many seasons for my revenge, even through a cancellation of the show itself! Who knew that I could be bested by excessive monologueing and Queen?"

"I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me," Billy continued, prancing around on his pig hooves. "Take that, Mr. Snuggles!"

"He's just a poor boy, from a poor family! Spare him his life from this monstrosity!" The cameos from the Hall of Wandering Cameos began to filter in, Claudie sticking post-it notes on everyone, the sunflower guy handing out sunflowers, the black-haired guy making a general nuisance of himself, and Heather returning to beat Billy with the encyclopedia.

Billy suffered through the beating gladly, belting out the next line. "Easy come, easy go, will you let me go?"

"Bismillah! No, we will not let you go!"

"Stop!" screamed Mr. Snuggles. "Stooooop!"

"Let him go!"

"Bismillah! We will not let you go!"

"Let him go!"

"Bismillah! We will not let you go!"

"Let me go!"

"Will not let you go!"

"Let me go!"

"Will not let you go!"

"Let me go, oh, oh, oh, oh!"

"No!" said Billy as he was beaten.

"No!" said Heather as he tried to get away.

"No!" said the sunflower guy, since he hadn't had a speaking line.

"No!" said Irwin, who was somehow still there.

"No!" said Grim, bouncing on his little hamster legs.

"No!" said Mandy, throwing out a dramatic chord on the electric guitar.

"NO!" screamed Mr. Snuggles.

And lo, the sunlight broke through the clouds that were not inside, and the author looked down at her wordcount, and declared it was good. With the rendering of the Bohemian Rhapsody, the plot device was restored, and everything was returned to normal. However, because the author was a little evil, and it was a classic, rocks fell, and everyone died. The end.