Chapter 5: The Tomato and the Norris
Part 2: The Norris
It was settled; the first place we would check would be mini-Hollywood. Since the tourist attraction was just outside of Chicago and our mall was close to the border of the city, we found no need to grab a taxi there. Instead, we walked all the whole way. It was a short walk, but, judging by the looks that were being shot at us by the innocent bystanders, we must have looked like a walking freak show. Then again, it was the beginning of November and we were a large group of weird looking people dressed like safari tour guides. Realizing this, I could clearly understand why we seemed so strange to the normal city folk.
When we finally reached our destination, we soon realized what sort of beast we were about to face. Crowds of people and squealing fan-girls were being tightly held back by a wall of burly looking security guards whose only goal was to keep people out.
"Those bloody mongrels!" England snarled once we had all gotten a good look at the guarded gate.
"What? What is it?" I asked him.
"Those are MY soldiers! MINE! Since when does the bloody American film production system have the right to steal my own soldiers? This is an outrage!"
I struggled to hike myself over someone's shoulders to get a better look at the guards. As startled as the dude who I climbed on top of was, I was able to hold on to him for just the right amount of time to get a good look. Sure enough, right in front of the entrance, was a large, tight wall of England's soldiers.
They were the typical statue like soldiers in the red jackets that you would normally see standing in front of some large British house or something of that matter. Every last one of them made themselves out to look just a bit taller by wearing their funky, fuzzy black hats that could have possibly been taller than them. Every single one stood with the same stance; perfectly still with their posture keeping them as flat as boards. Their ape-like overbites, caused by the straps on their hats, jutted out of their faces, adding on to the intimidating looks that they all wore.
"Whoa… those are some mean lookin' dudes," America gawked.
"So, what are we gonna do? Should we just charge in and see if they move?" Zack suggested.
"Absolutely not! That would be a bloody suicide mission!" Britain sternly contradicted.
"Well then why don't we ask them really nice to move and hope they don't hurt us? They might let us in, right?" Italy timidly asked while pathetically slumped on the ground.
"… It couldn't hurt to try," Cloud agreed with a shrug.
"Hmmm… if we were to word it a certain way, we may actually get past," England agreed while tapping his finger to his chin.
"You serious, man?" Zack asked.
"Of course I am! No matter what they have been ordered to do, I'm still the United Kingdom! All I have to do is tell them to step aside and they shall do so!"
"Yeah, not if they see pasta-boy here," America pointed out with his finger pointing down at Italy.
"Why's that?" Cloud asked.
"He's the only one of us that doesn't look or sound either American or British," Zack clarified.
"Oh, I see."
"In that case… Zack! You're the strongest out of all of us. Put Italy in your bag," I ordered.
"If you say so…" he shrugged before Italy willingly wriggled into the large bag and allowed Zack to zip it up. "Now what?"
"Now put the bag on and let's get walking."
"Ah, Italian smuggling. Well played," England commended.
"What, this actually works in your country?" I asked.
"Of course. How else are they supposed to get across the border without sprinting away from the first soldier they see? Italians pull off that kind of crap in every country… Well, accept for America," he replied before shooting a disgusted look towards America.
"Yeah, they can come to my place whenever they feel like! I'm the land of the free, yo!" he proudly proclaimed.
"Aha, that's lovely…" England sarcastically chuckled before angrily shoving a fan-girl to the ground.
Once we had managed to get through the squealing and shouting layers of crazed fans, England struggled his way right up to the first soldier he could get to, brushed the kicked up dust off his outfit and politely greeted the soldier, knowing precisely who the man was. "Ah, Philip! I see you really did travel to the western states! Did you find a nice flat?" The soldier remained silent. "Okay then. Pardon me for asking such a ridiculous request of you, but my four comrades and I have been sent by the director of this motion picture to bring in some supplies. He said that one of the soldiers would belong to my country and, well, I supposed that was quite an understatement," he dryly chuckled. The soldier refused to move a single muscle. "Anyhow, by the orders of the director and the glorious Great Britain, I command you and your men to let us through!"
Without even a mere glance down to look at England's short stature, Philip, along with the rest of his men, took one large step to the side, leaving a small gap for all of us to squeeze past. It was an easy victory, as opposed to our previous thoughts, but we had a new war behind that gate that we would have to face; we still had to find the tomato guy.
"Okay, kid," Zack said as he unzipped the bag. "We're in."
"Oh, good! That bag was getting really hot!" Italy sighed with a sweaty, goofy grin.
"Alright people! Let's cut the chit-chat and go find that shed! We're burnin' moon light!" I said in a pirate like voice.
"Uh… dude, it's daytime! Get your day and night straight, brah," America scoffed.
"I'm fully aware that it's day time! I just felt like saying that since we're on a quest. It made me feel like a pirate for a second there."
"Why's that?"
"Hell if I know!" I shrugged.
"Did one of you say pirates?" asked a man behind us.
"Yeah, but I'm done acting like a pirate now," I said, refusing to turn around.
"Oh, well alright, then," he said.
Without turning to face the man, I asked, "Hey, before you go, by any chance do you know where we could find and enchanted storage block around here?"
"Jungle, tundra, or desert?"
"Desert."
"Well if you're looking for that one than you're looking for storage block six. You should find it a short while down the road, straight ahead," the man replied.
"Awesome! Thanks for the help!" I happily replied as I turned around to politely shake his hand. When I grabbed his hand, I felt the itch of his navy blue, fingerless, wool knitted glove rubbing on my bare palm.
"My pleasure, little miss," the man said with a nice smile. "You take care, now."
"Yeah, you too," I replied, pulling our hands out of each other's grips.
I turned back round to the rest of my possy as I pulled out the map out of my bag. I looked up to my comrades after I unfolded the map to find them all gaping at me like brain-dead monkeys.
"What?" I questioned.
"Dude, do you know who just shook your hand?" America asked with a hyper gleam in his eyes.
"No. I just thought it was a really nice guy with cool glasses and unique gloves… who was he?"
"Dagas, that was Johnny Depp!" Cloud said with a wide eyed stare.
"Whoa, seriously?" I gasped before turning back around to double check that it really was him. It was. I shook his hand. And to think, I could have stolen his glove when I had the chance! "No freaking way! How could I have not noticed that it was HIM?"
"Hah, how foolish of you!" England scoffed.
For a short while, I stood in one place, doing nothing but gaping at him as he walked off. Behind me, I could hear the others laughing hysterically at my expense. But, soon enough, I managed to snap back into my former state and, upon doing so, I remarked with a snarky grin, "Eh, my aunt met him once, too. Said he was a nice guy."
"Say whaaaaaaaat?" Italy chimed.
"Oh, and if you ever run into Mel Gibson, just remember, even PRIESTS think he's one fucked-up dude," I added while walking past the group, a prideful spring in my step.
"Oh, whatevz, man! Let's get to the shed and find the desert guy!" America said before running ahead, cocky as he is, and taking the lead of the group.
"Pfft! Typical American," England grumbled under his breath.
In no time at all, we had reached storage block six. It didn't seem like much of a storage block, let alone an enchanted one. In fact, it was too small to even contain a fourth of a small desert town. Pathetic, if you ask me
"Well this is a bit of a let-down," Zack said while tapping the blunt end of his massive sword on his shoulder.
"Yeah, no kidding," Cloud agreed while scratching the back of his head.
"Hey now, let's not give up yet! There could still be something behind that door!" I said in an attempt to lift some spirits.
"And what in the world could that possibly be? That bloody shed couldn't possibly even contain a small English war plane!" England complained.
"Aw, quit your bitchin', yah tea suckin' Brit'!" America rudely commented while locking his arm in a death grip around England's neck.
"Hey, Meri! You're choking England to death! I refuse to allow a second revolution here!" I sternly warned.
"What?" America asked with a bright smile. He obviously couldn't hear me over England's choking and hacking noises.
"You damned American! Release me!" England choked out, his throat rasping out every word he spoke.
"Alfred Jones!" I screamed at him, fully grasping his attention. "Drop. It. Now."
Instantly, he released his grasp on England's neck, causing England to plummet onto the ground, heaving and gasping for air the second he hit the asphalt.
"Alright, now, if we're all done bickering about it, why don't we at least try to open the door and see what's behind it. Alright?" I suggested.
"Yeah! Let's think happy thoughts about it! And hey, even if it's not magical, maybe we'll get lucky and find some pasta instead!" Italy cried with high hopes as he slammed open the metal door. As soon as the door was opened, a massive gust of sandy wind was blown into our faces, causing some of us to nearly go blind. As the winds began to get stronger, pounds of sand were swept carelessly through the air, enveloping us in a thickening layer of flying dunes. I could feel my heart begin to beat faster and a panicked feeling rising up in my stomach as my body was lifted off the ground by a growing vortex in the heart of the shed.
Suddenly, I heard a high-pitched cry and instantly knew that Italy had been the first victim of the vortex. Soon enough, Zack and Cloud were sucked in, followed close behind by England. The last to go would be me and America, and he didn't exactly want that to happen. I looked to the door frame and saw America clasping on for dear life. Fear drowned in his blue eyes as he held out a desperate hand in the hopes that at least the two of us would be safe from the vortex that had fallen upon the others. These hopes, unfortunately, weren't very smart hopes at all. I did grab on to his outstretched hand, but since he had a larger body weight than I, he was the sole reason why the two of us hadn't stood a chance of saving ourselves.
At last, we had all been sucked in with no means of clawing our way out. Once inside, I squinted and, through the sand, I saw the door slam shut behind us and click as the lock was turned. As if time had stopped, we flew through and endless gust of sand which carried us to unknown lands to the average human.
For a brief moment, I got used to the rhythmic tossing and turning I was enduring in the vortex. But, like I said, it was brief. Unexpectedly, I soon was slammed into an unusually hot surface, my whole body cracking upon the impact. After finally gaining back the feeling in my body, I slowly pulled up my head, praying the while that my neck wasn't about to snap in half. When I pulled it up, I immediately placed it right back down since the motion made my head spin.
As I allowed my head to lie on the warm, sandy floor, I began to look around and assess the damage that had been inflicted. There didn't seem to be any broken bones or bloodshed, that was certain. In one area, I saw Italy shaking sand out of his hair like a wet dog shakes water out of its' fur. In another area, I saw Zack whacking the side of his head to dislodge the sand that had been driven into his ear. In another place, I glanced over to see England carefully brushing the sand off of his expensive British exploration-wear before patting down his messy bed-head as if he was trying to make it look nice. I searched around some more and saw Cloud trying to get the sand out of his metal shoulder guards. And in the last place I looked, I spotted America puffing pounds of sand out of his shirt, cargo shorts, and even his back pack.
Sand, sand, and more sand; that was the only thing on us, in us and surrounding us. Realizing this, I worked up my strength and instantly sprang up to take a good look around me. We had, in fact, been sucked into a barren desert! As opposed to the grey, Chicago sky and slightly smoggy air, the sky here was a bright shade of blue dotted by a blazing sun, letting no cloud be in its boundary. The heat was so intense that you could see heat waves emanating off of the horizon, creating intense ripples out to the unknown distance. Looking about the surrounding area, I suddenly had a realization that sent chills down my spine to even think of it to be true.
"Shit, man, where's the door?" I frantically asked.
"Um, over there," Zack said as he pointed to the closed door. "Why are you suddenly freaking out about it?"
"Because I've watched Monsters Inc. too many times to not know what's going on here!" I called to him as I stormed towards the door. Even though I had clearly heard the door lock as we crashed in, I still wanted to see if it would open somehow. I reached for the lock, turned it open and slammed open the door. Nothing. There was no mini-Hollywood, no Johnny Depp, no guards, nothing! All that stood behind the door was the other half of the desert.
"Shit!" I scowled. In frustration, I circled the door and tried to find a way to open it to where we came. Nothing. Soon, I realized that the rules of Monsters Inc. entirely applied to this defiance of physics. We were on the other side of the door, possibly the other side of the world, and there was no way out unless somebody from the outside opened the door. At least, that's how it seemed.
"Alright guys, I don't want you to freak out about this," I timidly said to the others. "but we're stuck here." The entire group sucked in a sharp, simultaneous gasp. "BUT!" I reassured. "I believe there may be a way out. Obviously, this desert, and the door, are being controlled by an unknown force. All we have to do is finish what we came here for and the door will unlock. Easy-peasy."
"And what if your theory is flawed?" England questioned.
"That's highly unlikely," I replied. "But if my theory is flawed, then we'll probably be trapped here forever."
The entire group gaped at me like I had just openly said that I was going to lob off all of their heads within the next 5 minutes.
"Well, let's get going. The sooner we find the guy, the better," I cheerfully said as I began to march off. As much as they hated it, the group followed close behind me, feeling they were about to face impending doom.
"I just can't! It's impossible!" America wined.
"Oh, suck it up, you bloody wanker!" Britain grumbled with his arms tightly crossed over his chest.
"But I just can't! I swear, it'll kill me if I have to!" he protested.
"What'll be the point of it? I don't think it'll make a difference at all," Cloud objected.
"We'll go faster! I swear to God! Oh, please, bro; my OCD won't be able to handle it if we EVER have to go up hill!" he pleaded. To add emphasis to his plead, he dropped down on to his knees and clapped his hands together in a praying stance. And yes, this was all a big road block caused by America. What exactly was he doing to stop us? He refused to go uphill. Yep: that was it. We had stopped to roast in the burning rays of the sun, with little supply of water to spare, because this lazy wimp didn't want to put effort into going up a few little sand dunes.
I heavily sighed with my hands clenched at my sides. "Whatever, if you have some sort of OCD for it, then fine. We'll go downhill from now on. But you'd better be right about this," I warned in a dominating tone.
"Alright! Downward-ho!" he enthusiastically called out with his index finger held high in the air.
"Heh, that's what she said," Zack quietly whispered to Italy with a giggle or two. Italy joined in with a stifled laugh accompanied by an amused smile.
For the rest of the time that we walked that day, I lead the way with America closely looming behind me to make sure I wasn't leading anybody uphill. It was irritating on so many levels to have him whisper in my ear to avoid any hill up ahead, but the heat was making me too exhausted to interject. After a mere few hours of walking, the majority of us had become tired, sweaty, and pissed at each other for even so much as breathing the wrong way.
At one point, with all spirits and morale low, Italy suggested that we sing some songs. The rest of them groaned and covered their ears. I, on the other hand, gladly volunteered to join in. So, for the next half an hour, (or hour, or two hours, it was too hot to tell) Italy and I both sang several songs that were intended to be joyful, but the only joy it seemed to bring was to just us two. With a happy disposition, Italy and I marched side-by-side at the front of our group, singing our overly-happy show tunes and anthems.
" Draw a circle, that's the earth! Draw a circle, that's the earth! Draw a circle, that's the earth; I am Hetalia! " we both sang together in perfect harmony while skipping through the sand, our arms locked together with glee.
After singing the same song for the longest amount of time, you would assume at least one person would snap. That one person was England. He looked about ready to tear his hair out by the time we had reached the 8th replay of the song. His emerald eyes went ablaze with fury as his feet planted down to the ground, his hands forming into red fists with how hard he was clenching them. "For God's sake, you twits!" he burst out with massive rage. "You can't just draw a damned circle and call it 'the earth'! It has to have continents, oceans and people!"
With that single out lash, our train of tired men immediately stopped in its tracks. We all turned around to silently stare at England with astonishment in our eyes. For a while, we all stayed silent with sudden shock as England furiously panted to gain back the oxygen he had lost yelling at us for no good reason. Since the air around us was starting to get really awkward and sticky with sweat, I turned back around to start walking again before letting go the cocky remark, "Jeebers, England, who jizzed on your nightstand this morning?" No other remark that England could have said back could ever top that. Realizing this, England became silent and merely gaped at me with the others laughing at him as they walked past and continued to follow my lead.
Following that little incident, we all made a pact that if someone planned on singing at the top of their lungs it would have to be a song that everybody could stand listening to. With that, we all started out mumbling a couple national anthems which escalated to eventually laughing through the words when we moved on to the British national anthem. To get a few smiles going, I decided to imitate the Queen of England through standing up like there was a pole up my ass and keeping a straight face as I refused to sing along. Surprisingly, even England could find the sense of humor to laugh at this, most likely because he knew my imitation was dead on.
At one point, we moved on to some music, only known by me, that I felt would be good to introduce to the others. I began to teach them some Owl City and some My Chemical Romance which, with the genre diversity, everybody was pleased. To my astonishment, each and every one of us quickly joined in, as if by instinct, when Italy and I began to belt out Hakuna Matata. We sang out the entire song loud and proud, raising morale through the roof as the verses went by. And for that point in time, it really was our problem free philosophy that lead to no worries for the short rest of our day.
When the day had ended, the blazing sun set low, ushering in a cool, refreshing, silver ray of light from the nearly full moon. Everyone had become completely exhausted by the time the dark sky arrived, but, unfortunately, our work still wasn't done. We were aware that, as hot as the deserts were during the day, the sandy dunes turned brutally cold when the sun was gone. We had no choice in this; we absolutely had to set up camp before we died of the cold.
We all struggled to work together to dig a large pit in the sand for us to sleep in. It took a little over an hour, but it was worth it to finally have a safe place to set down our things. Within the barrier of the huge walls of the crater, we placed down our bags and crouched down to set up our mats and sleeping bags. Much like everybody else around me, I finally realized the true powers of aching bones as the sudden pop of my bending knees quickly brought me to the ground.
As quickly as we could without hurting ourselves any further, we all pulled out our pillows and heavy sleeping bags and prepared our own little personal bubbles in the crater. It was mostly a calm process, excluding the squabble between England and America. Once England had set up his things, he pulled a pillow case over his pillow which bore the British flag on it. This was hardly unusual being that he always used this pillow case, whether it be here or back at home. This wouldn't have been a problem at all… well, only if America wasn't the snarky narcissist that he is. Knowing that England was planning on using this pillow, America had already packed a monstrous sleeping bag with HIS flag on it and a matching flag pillow case that had "I'm the Hero!" printed on it in big yellow letters. Naturally, he had done this to out stage this rival country. This fired up England to no end. They began to loudly argue, shouting out death threats and suggestions of a full scale fight. This all ended the second I pulled out a large wok from under my own pillow. They secluded back to their own areas while I safely placed the wok back under my pillow for the next fight.
At the other end of the crater, I was forced to break some sad news to one of our troops. It pained me to say it, being that I knew he was just as exhausted as the rest of us, but we needed a "watch dog", so to speak. This was the exact reason why we had brought Zack and Cloud along. I hated the thought of saying this to him, but it had to be done.
"Aw, but I'm tired! I can't stand guard with my eyes rolling into the back of my head!" Zack drowsily protested while trying to stifle his incessant yawning.
"I know! I'm so sorry! But that's why I brought this," I apologized as I pulled a Monster Java out of my back pocket. "It's a little warm," I admitted, "but that shouldn't affect the taste."
He sadly sighed. "Alright, if I really have to stay watch…" he groaned as he thankfully grabbed the energy drink out of my hand.
"Don't worry. You only have to stay watch for a couple hours and then you can switch with Cloud. Can you hold up till then?"
He let out a loud, lion-like yawn. "I'll try my best."
"Awesome. Good luck," I encouraged him before clambering back into the crater.
"Yeah… g'night."
I crawled back into my warm sleeping bag and got nice and comfy, but once I did, America called over, "Yo, Dagas!"
"Yeah, what's up?" I whispered, using the last of the energy I could muster up.
"Did you give him an energy drink?"
"Mhmm, why?" I lightly mumbled as my limbs started to go blissfully numb.
"You shouldn't have done that! There's a new epidemic in my country called 'sleep high'."
"Hm… what's that?"
"It's when really tired people drink and energy drink, but it doesn't kick in until the person had dozed off so they start to sleep walk and when they do, they can do some crazy stuff cuz of the extra energy," he frantically warned with his arms flailing in the air.
I yawned, "That aint' gonna happen… you be cryin' over spilled milk…"
"Whatever. Just don't say I didn't warn yah."
"Ffffffff, yeah, whatever you say…" With that, I heard no other sound and my eyes allowed me to drift into a deep sleep.
Late into the night, I felt my extremely chilled nose after being awoken by the cold, sandy wind bitch-slapping me in the face. Like a lot of the people on the earth, I couldn't get back to sleep with a cold nose. Instead, I lay on my back and looked up at the stars, a site I normally couldn't see in the big city. They all seemed so close and vividly bright in a place like this. What, without all of the roads or streetlights or obnoxious Chinese restaurants where the employees can't speak English. I started to quietly snarl to myself as I thought about all of those shitty restaurants that everybody insists on going to on the weekends. As I thought harder, I began to replay the voices of the bitches, who come to my mall every now and then, talking about their dinner plans. "Let's get Chinese food!"
"Yeah! I want rice!"
"I want won-tons!"
"I like pandas!"
"Butter is a carb!"
I shoved my head under my pillow and silently screamed at my brain, "Shut up voices! I hate Chinese food! Yoite and Miharu's Japanese food is just as good! And butter is not a carb!"
Within a second, I discontinued my mental hissy fit and quickly shot my head upright at the sound of a strange noise that came from above me. It wasn't a noise like a scream, nor was it silent enough to be a quiet squeak. But a noise is a noise, and I clearly heard it from behind my muffled hysterics.
Quietly and cautiously, I crept out of my sleeping bag and slowly brought my eyes right above the edge of the crater. The way I was looking at it, the noise started to seem like a sudden figment of my imagination. That theory was very believable being that I have an very vivid imagination. Combined with childhood-based paranoia issues, I decided that the noise was just in my head.
With the thought of the noise already void in my head, I climbed back into my sleeping bag, closed my eyes and hoped for a better tomorrow. As my mind fell back into a zen-like state and my body began to go limp, I-
"AAAAAAAAH!" cried the noise from before. Whatever it was, I waited patiently for the noise to start to come after me in an attack. I hid silently for a while and, while being fully expectant of getting sliced in half or whacked on the head, I was baffled when I heard the sound of metal crushing down from the opposite end of the crater.
Out of curiosity, I raised my head to take a look and saw the strangest thing I have ever woken up to. Zack, unexpectedly asleep, was smashing the flat end of his heavy sword onto England's head. England was now fully awake and screaming cuss after cuss with what little voice he had left after the previous day's trek. On the other hand, Zack was screaming something that I could have sworn I had heard multiple times in the past while smacking away at England's skull like he was playing the ultimate game of whack-a-mole.
"Ah! Ah, spider! Spiiiiiiider!"
"Ow! Damn it- ah! Stop it this insta- ack! Bloody little fu- AAAH!"
"Off! Off, off!" Zack screamed between 3 more whacks. Suddenly, after that, he abruptly stopped and quickly scuttled to a dark corner in the crater. He immediately drifted back to a silent sleep like he had done no act of severe violence. After making sure Zack was asleep, I crawled up to England who was shaking with fear and possible internal bleeding as he lay on the sandy floor.
"Hey, England. You okay, bud?" I quietly asked as I reached out my hand to see if he was okay. Immediately, his hand shot out from under his blankets and swiftly caught hold of my approaching wrist. Glaring up at me with a pair of weak yet ferocious emerald eyes, he snarled at me, "Don't. Touch. Me." He released me wrist and, with that, I retracted my arm back and solemnly crawled back to my sleeping bag. In my little space, I kept a close eye on England until he seemed to have soundlessly fallen asleep. In turn, I contently fell asleep with a warm smile.
Though, the second my eyes shut, Zack instantly went at it again with the sword. I simply shook my head in disgust and left him to have at it all he liked. Thinking of the line of events so far, Zack would eventually stop and then drool a lot in his sleep. This was no crisis and I refused to make it one.
"Ah-hahaha! What tried to mug you in your sleep? Hahaha!" America sarcastically cackled at England while pointing at the mountain of bumps atop his throbbing head.
"Nobody did! I was merely mistaken for… for… ah," he stuttered as his serious face started to turn bright red.
"'A' what? Spit it out, Brit'!" America demanded.
"Hmmm… wha? Spider?" Zack mumbled as he awoke from an interesting night's sleep.
England sighed and slapped his hand to his forehead with embarrassment. "What he said."
"Okay then…" America replied in confusion.
"Yeah…"
"Alright guys. Enough of that. The sun is rising and I'm sure we all want to try to beat some of the heat. Let's pack up and then we can get going. Mm'kay?" I announced as I laced an elastic string around my sleeping bag.
"Kay," they all replied in unison.
Minutes later, we were off once again. The sun had barely risen, and yet we were all sticky already due to the remaining sweat on our clothes from the previous day. An hour later, once the sun had fully reached well over the horizon, the heat had already become intense enough for a simple horsefly to drown in its own sweat.
Honestly, I managed to get to a point in the day where, with the simple blink of an eye, I could see the wardrobe top the winter wonderland of Narnia. Sadly, the second I would dare to blink again, the wardrobe would be gone and I would start to sulk until it came back.
Though, looking around me, I could see I wasn't the only one suffering from horrible insanity. In the back of the group, I found it difficult to stop myself from giggling at America and England who had agreed to trade hallucinations. So now, England was having a sophisticated conversation about economics and politics with the Tusken Raiders from Star Wars while America was having a heated argument with Flying Mint Bunny about what qualifies as fat.
Close by, from what I could tell, Cloud was begging an invisible chocobo for a ride to either Antarctica or the moon. I had absolutely no clue how a chocobo could take him all the way to the moon, let alone Antarctica, but what could I say that would disprove its abilities. I mean, come on! It's a chocobo! Who knows what kind of power it really has!
Zack, on the other hand, wasn't as humorous as the back-of-the-group-debates, but it was still easy to tell that he was starting to go crazy. From what I could tell, his brain had turned into a talking gitchy calculator with which Zack was struggling to crunch some restock numbers with. Sadly for him, the second he would press his mental equals button, the calculator would think he had pressed the clear button which would cause him to start to argue in sharp whispers with his brain.
At this point, their mental pain was my endless joy. Though, when I turned to find some joy in Italy's insanity, I started to get a little scared of both him and myself. What I saw was what seemed to be Italy having a fun chat with his long lost "Grandpa Rome." Not so scary, right? Wrong! What made this freakier than it ever needed to be was that I could see Rome, too!
I blinked a few times to see if it was just my imagination, but, to my surprise, the sleaze-bag was still there, chatting away with his grandson about girls, the summertime, and puppies. Seeing that the guy wouldn't stop talking and his fuzzy 5 o'clock shadow face was still there, I couldn't help but figure that someone would have to get rid of him before I started to chat with the Tuskens. And, of course, the person to get rid of him would have to be me.
While still walking, I casually bent down, picked up a mysteriously discarded large stick from the sandy ground, and walked on. The second I had a firm grasp on it, I held it up behind my shoulder like a baseball bat and turned my head to aim the end of the stick at the old man. With a loud battle-cry to top all others, I lunged forward and swung the stick right through Rome's head.
My eyes grew wide and I forced myself to blink twice at the now widely smiling man who Italy deeply resembled. "Great, now I know where Italy got his stupid grin from," I internally grumbled. Frustrated out of my mind, I swung at him again, and again, and again, but the stick would do nothing but pass right through Rome's head. By now, the others in my group, all accept for Italy, had ditched their imaginary buddies to cheer me on as I swung. Though, even with all my efforts, the old man was still there, smiling like a total goof, even after my arm could swing no more.
"I give… I give!" I cried behind my heavy panting and wheezing as my stick dropped to the ground.
"Ha, ha, ha!" the old man bellowed at my defeat. "You see, Italy? That's how you bring a man to his knees!"
"Oh, by turning see-through like you, grandpa? Okay, I'll try it!" Italy exclaimed before closing his eyes and making a constipated face. As he struggled to do as his grandfather had done, and unclear figure shot out of the sand like a bullet. He soared high into the air and stuck the landing like a first class ninja. Like so, he sped past and with a flash of air, I looked down and my stick was gone. The initial shock took hold of me for a while until I suddenly realized that I could actually get irritated over a mysterious figure snatching my stick.
After grabbing the stick, the figure lunged back into the air and stayed high in the sky for an extended period of time, blocking the sun from our eyes for what short time he was there. He soon landed back on the ground in another ninja-like pose, the hand with the stick in it stretched out like he was holding a battle sword. The man looked up, held the stick up high, and aimed it square at Italy's head. I was about to warn him, but before I could, the man had already lunged forward and commenced his attack. With one sluggish movement, he lowered his arm down and lightly plopped the edge of the stick down on to Italy's head, crushing his trade-mark swirl of hair.
With a 2 second delay, Italy clasped his head in his hands and began to run around while wildly screaming at the top of his lungs like a mad man. "Ah, ah, noooooo! Not the swirly sprig! Nooooooooooo!"
From where Italy once stood, the one man remained with the stick still in his hand. Looking him over, I took in all of his features; dark black hair covered by a dusty sheet-like object over his head, emotionless eyes, brown-sugar skin, and a thin layered, long sleeved, white robe to match his head-sheet. I quizzically looked at the man for a while until he turned to look at my baffled face. As he noticed the odd stare I was giving him, he struck a confused look of his own. He silently looked himself over before wiping his hand over his face to make sure there wasn't something on it.
"Egypt?" the America and England simultaneously exclaimed.
"What are you doing here?" England questioned.
"Hm…" he sighed. "A better question would be… what are you all doing here?" he slowly replied.
"Hey man, we asked you first! You tell us!" America demanded.
"…I came here on holiday…." Egypt sternly replied with his arms crossed.
"From what?" England asked in a confused tone.
"… the sand."
I looked around in several different directions. "But there's sand everywhere!"
"Yes… but this is different sand."
England slapped his hand to his forehead.
"I've explained myself; now what are you all doing here?" Egypt asked.
"We were looking for some dude who wants a golden tomato that our boss here found," America said before wrapping his arm around my shoulders with a cobra-like grip. I waved my hand at Egypt in greeting with what little wiggle room my arms had.
"… could you be more specific than 'some dude'?" Egypt requested.
"We have no clue who he is, but he sounds pretty wacky," Zack stated.
"Wacky?"
"Yeah."
Egypt became silent again and contemplated the facts until they started to make sense. "Strange man looking for a golden tomato…" he mumbled. "Yes, I think I saw him yesterday."
"Really, you did?" I exclaimed before leaping out of America's grasp.
He nodded with a vaguely awkward look on his face. "He kinda looked like a famous man…" He tapped his finger to his chin. "… who in the world did he look like…?"
"Mel Gibson?"
"Tom Cruise?"
"Johnny Knoxville?"
He shook his head. "No."
"Dane Cook?"
"No."
"Estonia?"
"Who ever said he was famous?"
"Dance companies?"
"… no."
"Hugh Hefner?"
"No."
"Orlando Bloom?"
"Not even close…"
"Barak Obama?"
"He's just your president. Nobody ever said he was allowed to be famous."
"Jackie Chan?"
"No."
"Will Smith?"
"No."
"Willow Smith?"
"Isn't that the same person?"
"You'd think that, but no."
"Chris Brown?"
"Lady Gaga?"
"That guy on Scrubs?"
"Paris Hilton?"
"Absolutely not. Why Paris Hilton?"
"Hey, don't judge, man. I'm just throwing out names here."
"What else?"
"William Shatner?"
"Anne Hathaway?"
"Sarah Silverman?"
"Conan O'Brian?"
"Jim Carey?"
"Betty White?"
"Jeffree Star?"
"Kim Kardashian?"
"Matthew Broderick?"
"Alfred Hitchcock?"
"Kanye West?"
"Arnold Schwarzenegger?"
"Ben Affleck?"
"Batman?"
"Okay, I think we've gone a little too far with Batman, guys," I said.
Ignoring my previous statement, America threw out, "Your MOTHER!"
"What? My mother is not a famous man…" Egypt retorted.
"She may not be famous, but where's the proof that she's not a man? Hahaha!"
"My God, you are so immature! I can't believe you!" England scolded.
"Aw, cm'on man! It was just a joke! Lighten up!"
"I'll lighten up when you stop being such a fat buffoon!"
For the next five minutes, Zack, Cloud, Italy, Egypt and I quietly watched as we sat in the sand with bored looks on our faces as the two countries had at it and fought about each other's imperfections and the reasons why they do their jobs wrong. After about the 5 ½ minute mark, Egypt snapped his fingers and quietly said, "Right, that's who he looked like…"
"Huh? Who?" I quickly responded.
"How could I have forgotten…?"
"What, what? Spit it out!" I demanded.
"… it was Chuck Norris."
Instantaneously after those words had been spoken, not a single one of us were left not silenced. My eyes widened, my pupils dilated and my face took the appearance of someone who had just been hypnotized by a man with a washer on a string. In a deep, serous voice of fright, I slowly exclaimed, "Chuck NORRIS!"
"Chuck Norris," the group whispered after me.
"Chuck Norris!"
"… Yes, it was Chuck Norris. Would you mind if I gave you directions?" Egypt said.
"Chuck Norris?" I repeated in a high pitch.
"Yes, yes, and speaking of which, you've been searching for him in the wrong direction," he coolly stated.
"Wait, WHAT?" I screamed.
"Yeah, when I saw him, he was headed in that," he pointed his finger over to some small sand dunes, "direction. If you had been going uphill, you would have found him yesterday. But since you were going downhill this whole time, you'll have to double back and walk for another… um, 3 days."
England's jaw dropped, Zack fell to his knees, Cloud slammed his sword into the ground, Italy started to cry, I started to feel my face start to glow red with anger, and America, oh, ho, HO, he was looking down at his twiddling thumbs while whistling a jolly tune.
In my eyes, the fury of a cougar began to rage in my pupils. I tightened my muscles, sprang up, latched my hands around America's neck and began to throttle him, screaming, "You idiot! Your damn compass is broken! You cost us THREE DAYS!"
"I didn't mean to," he choked out
"Like hell, you didn't!"
"Wait, hold on a minute," Egypt interrupted in a concerned tone.
"Not now, Egypt!" I snarled at him.
"I only said that it would take 3 days to walk. I never said it would take that long to tunnel…"
I dropped Meri to the ground. "Pardon?"
"You're forgetting that I still have my dog," he pointed out as he pulled out his small dog, named Anubis, out of his large, brown hiking bag. The dog's name was quite fitting being that his face deeply resembled that of the Egyptian god Anubis.
"Oh em geee! Hiya, 'Nubi!" I affectionately squealed at the tiny chiwawa-like dog.
"Aw, dude, it's so… hairless. But it's so cute!" America cooed while petting the small animal's head.
Sensing that enough was enough, Egypt pushed the two of us about arm's length away so we would quit petting his dog. "We should go…" He set the dog down on the ground and quietly ordered him to do something in Arabic. Instantly, the dog sprang up and dove head first into the ground, creating and ever growing tunnel that was just big enough for us to all comfortably crawl through. I found this to be impossible being that the dog was about the size of a medium-sized pig. With little more than a shred of uncertainty, the entire group crawled into the hole with Egypt in the lead, behind his dog, and me close behind him.
For about 2 hours, we crawled as the dog continued to dig its deep pathway, which we didn't mind one bit. We had flashlights and the tunnel was soft and cool so it didn't matter how long we stayed there. There was no sun light to be found, and that was a wonderful thing. But after 2 hours and 15 minutes, the dog started to get tired so we sat in the tunnel for a bit to let the dog drink and eat some beef jerky. (Yeah, beef jerky, you heard me right.)
Anyways, during that time, we sat in the tunnel and chatted over our new canteens of water that Egypt gave us earlier. We talked for a while before the subject of the store came up. Soon, we were laughing hysterically at what we all thought Germany was doing to our poor, unfortunate customers.
At one point in the discussion, Egypt left the company of his dog, crawled up to me and tapped me on the shoulder. I turned my head to face him and he murmured, "May I ask you something?"
"Sure! Shoot!" I said with an enthusiastic smile.
"How are we supposed to know which direction to go?"
"What? I thought your dog knew that!"
"No, I tell him where to dig. I need to know where to dig, where north is, and where to start digging upwards."
I gaped. "Are you serious?"
He nodded.
"Aw, damn! Why wasn't I told this before we started digging?"
He shrugged.
I rubbed my head a little before asking America, "Yo, Alfie'!"
"Wazzap?"
"Which way is north?"
"How should I know?"
I scowled at him. "Because you have an internal compass!"
"Oh yeah, well mine can't point north. Sorry."
I slumped over against the wall of the tunnel. "Well that's fantastic."
"Why are you even asking me about it? You're the one with the map."
Suddenly, it sparked in my mind that this was true. I did have a map. A magical map that told us where the tomato guy was at any time as long as he was in this realm. I violently slapped my forehead and swore a little in a few different languages. "Dang, aren't I a dumb ass!" I quietly snarled.
"No kidding," England added before taking a sip of his mystically appearing tea.
"Oh, you shut it!" I yelled at him while shuffling through my bag to find the map. My arms soon emerged from the bag with the rolled up, crusty map in my hand. "I could hold the map and tell you where turn," I suggested to Egypt.
He nodded. "Okay."
About 20 minutes later, we set off once again to go find the man. We made wild lefts and rights as I shouted out the directions to Egypt who repeated them back to his dog in the Arabic translation. We dug for another long 3 hours before the others started to complain about the cramped tunnel and the lack of oxygen and how we were all sick of getting mud and dirt on our hands and knees. It was like sitting behind the wheel of a car that was jam-packed with a bunch of complaining toddlers. Luckily, by the time they had started complaining about how boring all this was, it was already about time for us to resurface.
At the point where I was about to yank out my own hair, Egypt held out his hand in front of my face, signaling for us all to stop. Up at the front by Egypt, Anubis stopped his digging at the sound of his maser's command.
"Yo, what's up man? Why'd we stop?" America asked.
"I can hear him…" Egypt said as his dog's ears twitched a little.
"Mhmm, he should be in the area right above us," I said as I looked at the 2 blinking marks on the magical map representing us and the tomato man.
"Make an immediate U-turn," a GPS woman's voice repeated multiple times from the map.
"Oh, shut it, you stupid map!" I growled while flicking the talking paper.
"I bet that Potter kid could turn it off," England said with a victorious smirk.
"Oh, aren't you just so supportive," I said sarcastically.
"Everybody, grab on to the person in front of you," Egypt interrupted.
"Sorry, man, but I don't want this stinky Brit grabbin' onto by ass," America complained.
"…you have to grab on to something," Egypt said in a more forceful tone.
"Oh, fine!" he grumbled.
"Hey, what's this all about?" Cloud asked as he grabbed on to my ankles which now felt like they were about to pop off.
"We're going to resurface so you need to hang on tight," he warned. He grabbed on to the dog and whispered some more Arabic into his pointy ears.
"So, uh, when are we doing this?" Zack timidly asked.
"Hmmm… about," he looked down at his imaginary watch. "now."
Suddenly, we were shot directly upward like a human power drill or some sort of rocket. We zoomed through the newly dug tunnel at high speeds with our ears popping and dirt flying past our faces. Within 10 or more seconds, I could see the dirt start to get lighter and I could feel the air all around us start to get hotter. Everything around me kept gradually changing until the dirt turned to sand and then suddenly, BASH! We burst through the sandy surface and flew through the air, leaving a gaping hole behind us. Immediately upon the resurface, every last one of us lost our grip on each other, sending us all separately flying in all different directions.
Once gravity took its sudden course, we all found ourselves plummeting towards the desert sand. Out of impulse, I refused to let myself hit the sandy ground, so much like a cat, I forced myself to spin upwards and attempt to land on my feet. With the right position and footing, I landed perfectly on my feet, leaving barely a grain of sand splashing up my pants.
I brushed the sand off my pants, feeling great about my landing, and began to walk off towards where the map had told us to go. Though, I was suddenly stopped short by my fellow explorers who, ironically, landed right on to me, sending a hunk of hot sand down my throat and into my hair.
I sighed. "Easy come, easy go…"
While struggling to get out from under the weight of somebody's ass pressing down on my spine, I saw others heaving and brushing off sand and tunnel dirt off themselves. It was a sad, yet kinda funny moment to see all of them squirm around with sand up their butts.
"Is everybody okay? No missing limbs?" I asked after finally struggling out of the pile of people. The entire group nodded in reply. "Awesome! No broken bones means no hospital bills!" I cheered before shooting my arms up in victory. I slammed them back to my sides as I suddenly discovered a place on my arms that I didn't know could hurt so bad.
"Okay, so… where's the guy?" Zack asked.
"Good question… I don't see him…" I said as I hiked myself onto my feet and held my hand over my eyes like a visor.
"So, you mean to tell us that you dragged us all the way out here for NOTHING?" England snarled.
"No, I'm saying that he's here, he's just not here."
His face instantly turned an angry shade of red before he stomped off and plopped himself down in front of the edge of the hole.
"Well this was a huge let-down," Zack sighed.
"Yeah, bummer…" America agreed.
As I looked all around me, I started to feel like a real shitty person. I dragged all of these people out here just to have them all end up sandy, sweaty and disappointed. Talk about a pointless waste of time and energy.
I let my shoulders sadly droop and apologized in a melancholy tone, "Hey, I'm real sorry guys. I dragged you out here for nothing. This is all my fault…"
"Aw, don't say it like that!" Zack insisted.
"Yeah, man! We totally don't blame you!" America encouragingly said.
"Weeeeeeell…" England started opposingly before Cloud forcefully elbowed his back.
"Well… since there's nothing left to see here, why don't we get our stuff together and start heading home," I gloomily announced. "We should do a head count; Zack?"
"Here."
"England?"
"Present."
"America?"
"Yo."
"Cloud?"
"Here."
"Egypt? You wanna tag along?"
He optimistically shrugged.
"Cool. And Italy?"
There was a strange silence.
"Is Italy still here?" I nervously asked.
"I don't see him," Cloud replied.
A nervous drop of sweat dribbled down the side of my face. "Aw fuck! We lost Italy!"
"Oh, wait, he's over there," Zack pointed. About 10 feet away from us, Italy was crawling around on the sand like a deranged centipede. I almost didn't know what to make of it, until I remembered why I let him come with us. From the looks of it, and from what I could figure, Italy was searching for some sort of trap door, but it seemed to be more than that. He was searching for the hiding place of Chuck Norris.
Instantly, I ran over to him and skidded down onto my knees, ignoring the contact of the scalding hot sand on my bare skin. Disregarding the questioning stares or the others, I crawled on my hands and knees right beside Italy until he suddenly stopped and spread and excited smile on his face. Following his lead, we both dug through the sand as fast as possible. Soon enough, the others around us began to dig beside us as sand flew through the air, creating a non-metaphorical dust bowl.
After a couple minutes of digging, we all simultaneously "ow"ed the second we all hit our nails on the lid of a metal surface. From my perspective, this had to be the fanciest metal box I had ever seen. The metal was stainless steel with a glistening sheen to it while the edges were lined with pure gold paint. Dead center of the box was, possibly, it's most noticeable feature; a large red button. We all stared at it for a little while and, after exchanging a few uncertain glances, I reached out my hand and slowly pressed down the button… sadly, nothing happened.
"Well, shoot…" I sighed. "I hate to say it again, but I'm real sorry. Looks like we'll have to go home empty handed…"
"It's too bad we couldn't find him," Zack sadly sighed.
"Mhmm. And to think, I thought that Italy was on to something," England admitted before suddenly stopping short in his train of thoughts.
Upon that, a shadow coming from behind me cast its self over everybody in front of me, leaving them all wide-eyed and speechless like a group of brain dead fish. Confused beyond explanation, I waved my hands in front of their faces. The only change that happened was a few of them decided to blink.
"Uh, guys? Hellooooo? What's your deal?" I asked them all with my hands flailing above my head.
They remained silent for a while until a stuttered two words were uttered by them all simultaneously, causing them to seem like a pack of zombies, "Ch-Ch-Chuck Norris!" For a second or two, I figured they were just pulling something on me because they didn't want to make me feel too bad about my fault. I soon decided it would be wise to not believe that to be true when I turned around to find the figure of a large, buff man with an intimidating, brown, bristly beard lightly covering the lower half of his face. With an emotionless expression, he said in a rough actor's voice, "You rang?"
Joining in with the others, we all stuttered the same two words spoken before, "Chuck Norris!"
"Yes, that is correct. I am the one, the only, Chuck Norris… impersonator!"
"Oh God! He's gonna kill us with his chin-fist!... wait… impersonator?" I asked in great confusion.
"Yep, you heard me right. I may not be the real Chuck Norris, but I'm the closest thing to him," he said before reaching his hand out to me to help me up off the ground. He gave me a smile and asked, "Are you Dagas?"
"Uh, yeah…" I unsteadily replied.
"Fantastic! So you're the person who found my tomato! It's so great to finally meet you face-to-face," he said after yanking me off the ground with the force of a real Chuck Norris arm.
"Shit, I think he just dislocated my arm! I thought while looking up at him with a cheesy grin.
"Wait, wait, let me get this straight," England butted in. "You're not the real Chuck Norris."
"Mhmm."
"But you're the world's greatest impersonator of him?"
"Not quite; I'm the ONLY Chuck Norris impersonator."
"How does that work out?" England asked.
"Well… I was born in a small town and, as I grew older, the town started noticing that my childhood appearance resembled Chuck Norris'. By the time I was 20, I looked exactly like him. Later on in my life, I was studied by some scientists and they determined that, even though I'm not the real deal, I'm almost the exact embodiment of him. From then on, any other impersonator of Chuck Norris was illegal and I was dubbed the one and only. Makes sense, bed-head?"
England simply grumbled at what he had taken as an insult.
"Yeah, but besides the DNA, is there any other difference between you and the real guy? Cause I sure don't see one," Zack questioned while looking him over.
"Yeah, man. I wouldn't be able to tell the two apart," America agreed.
"Oh, that's easy! See, his name is Chuck Norris, and my name is Chuck Florris!"
I gave him a weird look. "And that's it?"
"Yep, that's it."
"Well that's totally average," I said sarcastically.
"'Ain't it just?" America agreed.
"Okay, since you're here now, where's the tomato?" Chuck asked with a hint of stifled excitement.
"Uh, it's right here. Take it and never lose it again!" I sternly said while praying that no one group would have to go through what we just did.
"Yes… YES! It has returned to me!" he cried with shimmering eyes as he held the tomato up to the sky.
Suddenly and with no warning, the sun hit the tomato, causing it to grow and grow, until out of the blue, it exploded with a bang, leaving behind a blast of air that violently blew back our hair and created the effect of a quick and violent sand storm. When we looked up, in the place of the tomato was a magnificent, large, golden-feathered eagle. Once Chuck had climbed onto its large back, the eagle directed its beady-eyed gaze towards us. It looked at us for a while, its mindless head twitching while still locked on our freaked faces. It did this until, before taking flight, the large bird blasted out an ear-shattering screech that sent us all flying backwards with the smell of worm-breath circulating around our nostrils. With that, the eagle, along with Florris, took off into the distance, leaving no sign of themselves behind.
I stared at the spot where they once stood. "Well," I sighed, "that was unexpected."
"Oh, bloody hell! If only we had known what that bloody tomato was! We could have flown here! And now we don't have any other way to get home besides walking and digging! This is a disaster! We might as well just drop dead where we stand!" England loudly grumbled while storming about like the pissed Brit' he was.
"Way to cheerfully state the obvious," Zack grumbled.
"Don't be so sad, guys! There's no need for that. Don't you see?" Italy asked with a cheery grin.
We all remained silent.
"It's all good! I've got pasta~!" he cheered.
"You bloody git! We have no more water! Quit acting so happy when there's no hope left! You're not helping, so why don't you just go to hell!"
In response, Italy dropped his canister of uncooked pasta, slumped onto his knees and decided to sulk in the sand like a pouting 3 year old.
I heavily sighed. "England! Making everyone around you feel bad is not helping! All Italy was trying to do was help out a little and there was absolutely no reason for you to bitch at him because of that! Now go sit in the corner!" I furiously scolded.
"Wha- … what corner?" he smarmily objected.
"I said go sit in the corner!"
Grumbling under his breath, he reluctantly stormed off about 10 paces away and took a seat in the sand.
"Unbelievable!" I griped. "He could at least try to help out instead of being such a frump! I bet Egypt could put up a better effort than him!"
"Speaking of which, where is he anyways?" Cloud asked as he scratched his impossibly spiky hair.
"Wait, Egypt's gone?" I feverishly asked.
"Uh… yeah, I don't see him," Zack replied.
"Aw damn! Now we can't even dig home! This is just great! Just great! I-" I paused as my cell phone interrupted my rant. "WHAT?" I screamed into the phone.
"Dagas, this is China. I-"
"Who in the world gave you my number?"
"That is not important!"
"Okay, well screw that; why'd you call me?"
"It's Germany! Japan and Kyoya lost control of him! He's taken over the mall and turned it into some sort of German-ruled hell house! Customers are being frightened away by his freaky German café and we've barely earned a cent in the past two days! It's a disaster-aru!"
"He did WHAT?" I screeched into the phone. Listening closely, I soon heard what sounded like a war zone on the other line. I distinctly remember hearing the horrified screams of my terrified customers screaming things such as, "No more!" and, "I'm going to a new outlet mall! This place is shit!" and, "Noooo! For the love of God, no! not the wurst!"
I gaped, my lower lip quivered, and I could have sworn I felt a horrified tear dribble down my cheek. "Good God, he's started a fourth Reich…" The fact that Germany had more than likely ruined my wonderful business tore me to pieces. Those stinky, stupid customers I had gained over the past year or two; gone! That hard-ass German got rid of most all of them within no more than 48 hours! Now where would all of my fictional characters work? Starbucks? No way in hell! I could never let that happen! Not in a million years!
"Alright, China; what I want you to do is go tell Japan and Kyoya that I want them to close up the mall early- no questions asked. I want all those customers out in the next half and hour; got it?" I barked.
"And if Germany refuses?"
"Um… hit him with a wok."
"Right! I'll go tell them at once-aru."
"Thanks for the call," I thanked him before shoving the phone back into my pocket.
"What was that about?" Zack asked.
"Uh… Kyoya called… he had a question about the shared management at your shop and the book store," I stuttered, my back to him so he couldn't see my eye-brow quivering in disgust.
"Oh, well the management can be pretty confusing, even for me," he admitted.
"Y-yeah, that is true."
"So, moving on, how are we going to get home?" he asked.
"Uh… oh! I have no clue," I moaned, my ass now seated back in the sand.
"I might have an idea…"
"Yeah, and what would that be?" I asked, looking up at whoever had said that. My eyes suddenly started to bug out of my head when I realized; the man who said that wasn't in front of me, but instead was floating above me. I looked all the way above me to find a massive carpet hovering right above my head. Sitting atop the carpet was the figure of a still very apathetic looking Egypt with his dog at his side.
"Whoa! Where'd you come from?" I exclaimed.
He looked up, then turned back to me. "I don't know…"
"Oh, who cares! Let's get the heck out of here!" America hollered, shoving past all of us to get the first seat on the beautifully embroidered gold and purple carpet.
Following his lead, we all quickly made our ways to the carpet, found a seat, and took off into the distant skies, home being the only thing on our minds. I breathed in the scent of fresh air and spread a happy smile as the refreshing gust of wind blew back my tied back ginger hair. I looked up and all I could see was a bright blue sky with no end. It was just plain gorgeous. This truly was the feeling of flying on air.
A few minutes after we had taken off, I nudged Egypt with my elbow and asked, "Say, Egypt?"
"Hmm?" he mumbled.
"Where did you get this carpet, anyway?"
Without hesitation, he replied, "Oh, I stole it from a street-rat."
The minute we got through the door which lead us to mini-Hollywood, we all agreed on riding with style by riding the few blocks home on the carpet. We took a sweep through mini-Hollywood to take a look at all of the sights and said hi to Johnny Depp again before soaring right over the entrance gate, baffling the hundreds of fans at the front. Though everybody on that side of town stared at us like a smile child would stare at a frog, it was still the most enjoyable ride home that I had ever taken.
Within minutes, we arrived back at home sweet home, which, strangely enough, was oddly filled with my regular amount of customers. I hopped off the carpet once it had landed in one of the parking spaces and immediately assessed the damage of Germany's rampage. Strangely, not a store sign was out of place. Although this would be normally taken as a good thing, I couldn't shake that something was very wrong here.
Without a second though, I bounded to my office to make sure nobody I didn't know about was under the store's management. Sure enough, in my fancy leather chair in front of my fancy wooden desk, with her grimy feet placed on the wooden surface of the desk, sat none other than Sunni the Hobo with her little Hitler squirrel calmly napping on top of a stack of my paper work. She had her gaze placed right where I stood, as if she had been waiting for my arrival.
"What're you doing in my office?" I sternly asked.
"Why, managing your mall, of course. What did you think I was doing; juggling melons?" she retorted, a deep edge of cockiness in her tone.
I looked at her with a sudden glare of shock in my eyes. "Why?"
She took a slow breath. "Let me put it this way; say I owned a nice mall such as this. I gotta hand it to yah, you've gotten pretty far in this game to get a mall working this well! Frankly said, the people that you left in charge of this place," she paused to give me a discouraging look directly into my eyes. "yeah, they sucked ASS." She continued. "I just hated to see my technical home being destroyed by a hard-ass German forcing wurst upon your customers and two quiet Japanese virgins who hardly knew how to handle cleaning the shops."
I suddenly changed my stare from a pure sense of fear to great astonishment at what I knew she was trying to get at in her explanation.
"I despised seeing your lovely stores being brought to shambles, so I decided to duct ta- uh, send them to the 'naughty chair' while I took over. I knew that if I were you, I would hate to come home to a messy mall, so I fixed up the place for you. Everything is back to normal and business should be booming by tomorrow," she finished as she took a sip of her Mello Yello can through her pink bendie straw.
I gave her a confused stare. "Wait, wait, wait, why would you do that?"
She took another sip. "Do what?" she asked, an innocent grin snapping across her face.
I began to feel a frustrating snarl coming up my windpipe at a creeping pace. "Help me!" I loudly elaborated. "Why the hell would you help me when you always seem to be trying to ruin my business?"
She took a large, prolonged sip until the can was sucked dry. She casually dropped the scan into the waist basket next to my desk, dropped her propped up feet to the floor, leaned forward with her hands folded under her chin and said to me with a burning sincerity in her tone, "Because I live here too." In the next instant, much like any other day, she poofed out of sight, leaving nothing behind but a thick cloud of smoke.
As dramatic as this sounds, I totally killed the moment with my coughing, sputtering and dire need to open all of the windows and the front door. Once all of the smoke had cleared out of my office and the door and windows were closed, I plopped onto my comfy chair and leaned back at I took in all of my familiar surroundings.
I looked up at the ceiling, lost in all of my newly discovered thoughts. That soon ened when I looked down at the discarded can in my waist basket. I picked it up and slowly began to observe the features of a can that came from my own vending machine. I sighed, vaulted out on my seat, and screamed loud enough for my office to discover that it had an echo, "This is supposed to be RECYCLED!"
(I give partial credit of the chapter idea to SuperDuperGir. She gave me the crazy idea of Chuck Florris when I was in a dry spell and I really appreciate the help in making such a great chapter. You rock, bronie! X3)
