Firebird

I don't know if I'll get a chance to say this to you guys in time, but I just want to wish you all a Happy Holidays. Let's all have the Kurt Angliest Christmas ever.

- 42 Zombies

Coffee.

Mordecai opened up the cupboard and removed his usual mug (Benson had been getting on his case about drinking straight out of the pot lately.) He poured himself a cup and sat it down at the table.

Cereal.

The Soggy Oak Nuts were all out. The only cereal left in the pantry was the crappy shredded-wheat stuff that Benson liked. Mordecai groaned and poured himself a bowl.

Milk.

Mordecai opened the fridge. No milk. Confused, he closed the fridge and opened it again to see if the milk would appear. Then he realized this was stupid and chastised himself for even doing it. The young slacker moved a few things around, but nothing changed; there was definitely no milk in that fridge.

Why was that?

Mordecai and Rigby stood in the grocery store, a petty amount of cash on hand. The milk had accidentally been kept past the expiration date, and Benson had sent them out on an emergency errand to get some more. Mordecai had wanted to go straight to the dairy aisle.

Rigby had dragged him over to a skill-crane.

"Dude, you're wasting your time," Mordecai advised after Rigby's sixth straight loss, "nobody ever wins those things."

Rigby scoffed as he put another quarter into the machine. "Whatever, man. I'm totally winning that blow-up guitar."

Mordecai looked at their dwindling funds, which Rigby had taken as soon as they arrived at the machine. They were down to a less than two dollars, more than enough to buy a quart of milk. If Mordecai stopped Rigby now, they could avoid a lecture from Benson.

Reverse psychology might work.

"Man, this thing's for babies," Mordecai pointed out, "you don't want to waste your time on this thing, do you?"

No reaction. Rigby just put another quarter in the machine and pressed his nose up against the glass. He pushed the button and the claw lowered, barely grabbing on to the blow-up guitar that Rigby wanted so much.

Mordecai became desperate. "Come on, man! Benson's going to get pissed if you blow all of the money on this dumb game," he pleaded.

"Relax! I'm awesome at these!" Rigby bragged as he put another quarter in. "This time for sure."

They wound up spending all of their money on the skill-crane. Rigby never did get that guitar.

"What are you doing?"

Mordecai snapped out of his flashback when he heard Benson's voice. His employer was standing in the entranceway to the kitchen, staring at Mordecai suspiciously. Mordecai instinctively stood in front of the fridge, as if to hide it.

"Uh… nothing, Benson," Mordecai said. His eyes darted around nervously. "I was just, you know, getting some breakfast."

Benson's suspicions weren't dissuaded by the admittedly pathetic lie. The gumball-machine walked up to Mordecai and shoved him aside. He opened the refrigerator door and looked inside.

…

"Where the heck is the milk?"

Mordecai winced as Benson stared him down. "Well, the other day, when you sent Rigby and me to get milk—"

Benson groaned. "I knew I shouldn't have sent you idiots!" He exclaimed. "What did Rigby do?"

Mordecai faltered. Rigby was on thin ice as it was. "Actually…" he said, pulling the story out of thin air, "it was me. I spent the money on some chocolates I saw."

Benson raised an eyebrow. Though he seemed skeptic at first, he quickly bought the story. "Well, that money's coming out of your pay," he said sternly. "Now, you'd better figure out a way to eat your cereal without milk. We've got a lot of work to do today."

Once Benson had left the room, Mordecai groaned. Great; first no milk and now he wasn't going to get paid as much. Mordecai sat down and began eating his cereal. It was dry and it hurt his mouth.

He looked at his cup of coffee, an idea formulating; a dumb idea, but an idea nonetheless. He poured the contents of the cup into the bowl and went back to eating.

This wasn't much better. Mordecai was pretty sure that this was actually worse; he couldn't even taste the cereal, and the coffee was way too bitter. Regardless, he continued to spoon it into his mouth.

"Mordecai!"

The sound of Rigby's footsteps coming into the kitchen were audible long before he entered the room. From the sounds of things, he was in a hurry, down and running on all fours as he ran into the kitchen. He had a newspaper tucked under his arm, and when he reached Mordecai he slammed it down on the table.

"Dude, you've got to check this out!" Rigby said excitedly.

Mordecai looked at the newspaper with a raised eyebrow. "Dude, since when do you read the newspaper? You don't even read."

"Shut up!" Rigby retorted hastily. "Man, do you want to hear about what I found out or not?"

Mordecai weighed his options; either listen to Rigby, or continue eating this horrible coffee-cereal. He made the smart decision and pushed the bowl aside. "Go ahead, man," he said.

Rigby smiled and began to flip through the pages of the newspaper. "Okay, dude, did you know that people sell things in the newspaper?"

Mordecai stared blankly at Rigby.

"Well, dude, check it," Rigby said proudly. Mordecai looked down at the newspaper, which was open to the classifieds. Rigby had circled a block of text with a high-liter. Mordecai had to squint to read it. It said:

1980 Firebird Custom

Nice paint-job. Car-phone. Runs 'good'. $500

Mordecai looked at Rigby questioningly. "A car?" He asked. "You want to buy a car?"

"Yeah, man!" Rigby said enthusiastically. "I found a picture of it online. It looks totally sweet!'

Mordecai slumped back in his chair. "Why do you even need a car? Benson lets us use the golf-cart if we need to go anywhere, and you can't even drive."

Rigby scowled at his friend's argument. "Man, the golf-cart is lame!" He said. "Besides, I was thinking we could both go in on this thing; you know, we each pay half."

"What?" Mordecai asked, shocked. "Dude, I don't even want this thing! It sounds totally lame!"

"No way, dude! It's got a car-phone!"

Mordecai pointed at the advertisement. "Man, why is 'good' in quotation marks? Why are they selling it for so cheap? You never think about anything, Rigby!" Mordecai put his hands to his face, frustrated beyond recovery.

Rigby glared at Mordecai, angry at his idea being shot down. He wordlessly grabbed the newspaper off of the table and tucked it back under his arm. He turned his back on Mordecai defiantly and began to walk away, doing his best to make a statement.

Just as Rigby was halfway across the floor, Mordecai felt some regret. He groaned.

"Hey, wait!" He called out.

Rigby turned around. He stared Mordecai down, still upset.

Mordecai sighed as he prepared to apologize. "Look, I'll go with you to look at the car." He offered reluctantly. "No promises, though."

Rigby crossed his arms and nodded solemnly. "Hmm, hmm," he mused wisely, "I knew you'd see it my way."

"Well… it looks cool."

Mordecai had to admit that the car did have a nice paint job. It was azure-blue, with sweet hot rod flames. It was sleek and shiny, and looked like something out of a movie. The wheels were chrome, and the tires were white. The only weird thing was the antenna ball.

It was a smiley face. Not the typical, yellow kind, either, but an ugly one with eyes tight shut and a sloppy, pencil-drawn mouth. Still, the rest of the car's exterior more than made up for that one fault.

The interior was another story.

The floor was littered with garbage and old food. The seats were made out of nasty, moldy fabric that looked painful to sit on. There was a milkshake from 1997 in the cup-holder. Part of the steering wheel was missing.

But, on the plus side, the car-phone worked.

Rigby pressed his face up against the car's window and looked inside, his excitement dying a little. His face contorted in disgust when he saw something move on the floor. He quickly backed away from the car.

"Yeah, the interior needs some work," the car's seller admitted. He sat in a lawn-chair beside the car, which was parked in a vacant lot. From the looks of things, Mordecai and Rigby were the only people who had come by to even look at the car—the lot hadn't been disturbed for quite some time.

Mordecai groaned. He had known this would be a waste of time. Sure, the car looked cool, but from the looks of things it needed some serious work.

"I'll tell you what," the seller offered, "I'll knock off fifty bucks. That's 450 dollars. What do you say?"

Mordecai looked at Rigby, and the two bunched together in order to privately conference. "Okay, so it's not as cool as I thought it'd be," Rigby admitted, "but, dude, he's practically giving it to us!"

"Giving it to us? Man, I could probably make a car for 450 dollars!" Mordecai exclaimed. "This thing's a piece of crap!"

Rigby scoffed. "Man, when are we ever going to get a deal like this again? You just don't want to be your own man; you want to have to ask Benson to use the golf-cart all the time, because you love him."

Mordecai was about to offer a clever retort ("Your mom loves me") when a familiar voice rang out.

"Hey! Mordecai, Rigby!"

Mordecai's back was turned, so he was taken by surprise. Slowly, he turned around, not sure of what to say. He rubbed the back of his head and smiled meekly at the familiar figure standing on the sidewalk beside the vacant lot.

"Hey, Margaret," he greeted, doing his best to act casual. As she approached, Mordecai quickly gathered his composure while Rigby wordlessly rolled his eyes. Margaret smiled friendlily, not seeming to notice Mordecai's awkwardness.

"What are you doing here?" Mordecai asked, forgetting why he and Rigby had come to the lot in the first place.

"I was on my lunch break and was just passing by," Margaret explained, pointing in the direction she had come from. "What are you guys doing here?"

It suddenly occurred to Mordecai that saying the wrong thing would either, a) make Margaret think he was a total idiot; or, b) trap him in an incredibly awkward situation (This had happened before. Several times.) Mordecai decided to choose his words carefully.

Rigby didn't.

"We're just buying this car, is all," Rigby said haughtily. Mordecai delivered a quick punch to Rigby's arm and glared at him discretely. While Rigby rubbed his aching arm, Mordecai looked back at Margaret.

The young waitress smiled, impressed. "That's pretty cool, you guys," she said cheerfully. "What kind of car is it?"

Mordecai froze. If he backed out of this, Margaret would probably think he was some sort of liar or something. On the other hand, he really didn't want to get stuck with this crappy car. He stuttered nervously, unsure of what to do.

He had to make a decision.

Skips stared at Mordecai and Rigby incredulously. "You bought a car?" He asked.

Mordecai groaned, more than a little ashamed. The three stood outside of Skips' house; more specifically, his garage. Mordecai and Rigby stood in front of their new acquisition—the Firebird—which seemed to be smoking a bit from under the hood.

It had taken a lot of work to get the Firebird from the vacant lot to the park. It was prone to stopping and stalling randomly, and it didn't seem capable of going more than fifteen miles an hour. At one point a door had actually fallen off, and Mordecai had to reattach it with duct tape.

"Yeah, man; can you help us fix it?" Mordecai asked embarrassedly. Skips shook his head.

"Benson's got me workin' on the cart," he explained, "and even if I could help, I'm not sure there's much I could do with…"

Skips flinched as one of the car's tires suddenly popped.

"That."

Rigby waved his hand dismissively. "Eh, the car's fine, anyway," he said confidently. "I'm sure I'll be able to drive it."

Skips was silent for a moment. "You?" He asked carefully. "You're goin' to drive that thing?"

Rigby noticed the hesitation in Skips' voice and raised an eyebrow. "Yes," he said slowly, "why not? It's my car. I can drive it if I want."

Skips narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. "Maybe I'll take a look at it; just to be safe."

Mordecai and Rigby watched as the yeti skipped over to their new car and began his inspection. He lifted up the Firebird's hood and a cloud of smoke erupted out, obscuring Skips from sight. Mordecai and Rigby coughed as the smog filled the air; their eyes watered and they waved their hands in front of their faces, trying desperately to clear the air.

"Man," Mordecai said in-between hacking fits, "this is all your fault, Rigby! Why'd you have to drag me out to look at this piece of junk?"

"My fault?" Rigby repeated, plugging his nose in an attempt to save himself from the smoke. "You're the one who bought the car! Besides, it's not a piece of junk, it's—"

Mordecai groaned, the full consequences of his actions finally hitting him. "Oh, man!" He exclaimed. "I can't believe I bought this piece of crap! Do you have any idea how many extra hours we're going to have to work to pay for this thing?"

Rigby hadn't thought about that. "Oh, yeah," he said quietly. "Maybe Benson will give us a raise once he sees how awesome this car is?"

Mordecai didn't even bother trying to tell Rigby how stupid that idea was. He just crossed his arms and leaned against the wall of Skips' garage, waiting for the smoke to clear. After what seemed like an impossibly long time, Skips was finally visible again. He was covered in grime and he stood over the hood of the car, examining it intently. He turned away from the car and looked at Mordecai and Rigby.

"Hey, did you guys look at this thing before you bought it?" He asked.

Mordecai and Rigby looked at each other. They weren't sure how to answer the question. "Were we supposed to?" Mordecai asked hesitantly.

"You always look at a car before you buy it!" Skips chastised. "Everybody knows that!"

Rigby rolled his eyes. "Okay, whatever," he said impatiently, "is there anything wrong with the car, or what?"

"Well," Skips explained matter-of-factly, "for one thing, it doesn't have an engine."

Mordecai and Rigby looked at each other and then at Skips. Without wasting any time, they ran over to the Firebird and Skips and peered into the hood to see if what their coworker said was true.

There was no engine. Inside the hood of the car was a glowing, azure ball of energy that floated without touching anything inside the hood. Next to the orb was a tape-player attached to a device that led to the car's undercarriage. Mordecai looked from the car to Skips to Rigby, who looked just as confused.

"What is that thing?" Rigby asked, reaching out to the ball of energy. When his finger was just a fraction of an inch away, he felt a burning sensation and quickly pulled his hand away. Skips slammed the car hood down, sealing the orb away.

"This car you bought isn't supposed to be here," Skips observed. "You need to take it back to where you found it."

Mordecai knew better than to question Skips about these kinds of things. Besides, he was more than happy to get rid of this piece of crap. Rigby, however, wasn't as willing to give up the Firebird.

"No way, man," Rigby said defiantly, "you can't tell us what to do with our car!"

Skips narrowed his eyes, annoyed. "Rigby, don't argue with me about this. I—"

"Oh, what, you're some kind of baby-dealing… video-game trapping… awesome guy?" Rigby insulted (Or at least tried). "You don't know everything! Remember that time at that party when—"

"That was you, and it wasn't a party." Skips corrected. "It was the house. Benson almost fired you."

Rigby tried to come up with a come-back, but Mordecai stopped him, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Dude; maybe we should listen to Skips." He suggested gently. "I mean, the car isn't that great, anyway. We should just return it."

Rigby shook Mordecai's hand off angrily. "No. We're keeping the car." He said. He marched over to the Firebird purposefully, intent on making his opinion known. Not caring what Mordecai and Rigby thought, he reached out and grabbed the car door's handle.

Then the car alarm went off.

Rigby looked around, embarrassed. Mordecai and Skips covered their ears while the alarm whined through the open park air, audible to everyone trying to enjoy their day. Rigby looked around frantically.

"Mordecai!" He yelled over the noise. "Where are the keys?"

"They're in the car!" Mordecai yelled back. Rigby nodded and pulled open the car door. As he deactivated the Firebird's car alarm, it occurred to Mordecai that he had never activated the car alarm. He chalked it up to another one of the car's many issues and uncovered his ears.

"Okay," he said as Rigby crawled out of the car, "maybe now you'll want to return the c—"

A bolt of lightning interrupted Mordecai mid-sentence. For dramatic effects it was very impressive, but otherwise it was terribly inconvenient. The lightning stuck a nearby tree, setting it on fire. Mordecai, Rigby and Skips all jumped back as the sky began to darken.

The lights in Skips' house began to flicker on and off. In the distance, car alarms could be heard sounding off in the city. Sparks of azure energy began to dance in the air, converging in front of the Firebird.

The convergence of the sparks created an explosion of blue energy that knocked Mordecai, Rigby, and Skips off of their feet. As the three groundskeepers looked up, they saw a portal before them. A single, gauntleted hand emerged from the portal, followed by the rest of some imposing figure.

Ernie the Conquistador floated just a few feet above the ground. He looked around, trying to figure out exactly where he was. His body was heavily shadowed by the brightly-glowing portal that stood behind him.

Ernie's eyes finally found the three groundskeepers. He looked at them suspiciously.

"Hey." He said calmly. "Um, I don't know how to say this, but you guys have my car."

Rigby glared at Ernie. "Your car?" He asked angrily. "This is our car! We bought it and everything!"

Ernie raised an eyebrow. Mordecai and Rigby looked familiar to him, but he couldn't quite put his big, blue finger on it. Putting the issue aside for the moment, Ernie reached into his pocket and produced a set of keys attached to an ancient-looking car clicker.

"I don't know who sold you this car, but it's mine," Ernie replied. "I just left it in this dimension and haven't picked it up in a while. Now, give it back."

Mordecai was more than willing to return the Conquistador's car. However, Rigby clutched their set of keys tightly to his chest. It seemed that, despite the blue giant with the cool glove, Rigby was still too stubborn to give the Firebird up.

"No way, man; get your own car!" Rigby ordered.

"I have a car," Ernie pointed out, "but some lame squatters won't give it back, and guess what? They're you; you're lame."

Rigby muttered something under his breath. Mordecai, meanwhile, tried to take the reasonable route and just talk to Ernie.

"Look, you can have the car back," Mordecai said calmly, "it doesn't even run that well, anyways. So can we just—"

"You're really short, you know that?" Ernie asked Rigby. Mordecai realized that the Conquistador and Rigby seemed to be trapped in their own little universe, locking everything else out. Their mutual immaturity had created a social black hole, in which only they could communicate.

"Yeah, well you're… shirtless!" Rigby retorted. Ernie scoffed.

"So are you, man! At least I've got some muscles to show off!" He responded.

Mordecai looked to Skips for help, but it was no use. His fellow groundskeeper was still lying on the ground, seemingly unconscious from Ernie's arrival. Mordecai turned his attention back to Rigby and Ernie, whose conversation had degenerated into childish name-calling.

"Blue loser!"

"I'm not the blue loser! You are!"

"I'm not blue; that doesn't make sense!"

"You don't make sense!"

"STOP TALKING!"

"YOU STOP TALKING!"

There was a clear and sudden change in Ernie's voice when he said his last insult. His eyes flashed red for a fraction of a second as the sheer sound of his voice sent out a wave that nearly knocked Mordecai and Rigby down. The windows in Skips' house shattered, and the clouds in the sky flew away at the sheer force of Ernie's voice.

It dawned on Rigby that acting like a jerk towards the Omni-dimensional traveler might not have been too smart.

Ernie held out his gloved hand and the keys that Rigby held flew, almost magnetically, towards him. Ernie clenched his fist tightly around the keys before putting them, along with the additional set that he was carrying, into his pants-pocket.

"I SHOULD DESTROY YOUR MISERABLE DIMENSION RIGHT HERE!" Ernie screamed. "I… I, uh… ugh. Jeez."

Ernie's voice returned to normal and he shook his head to clear it. "I went a little crazy there." He said with an embarrassed chuckle. "Sorry about that; that's my pure evil side."

Mordecai was too terrified to respond. Rigby, too, seemed shocked beyond words. Ernie took their silence as his cue to leave.

"Yeah, uh… I guess I'll go now," he said, not sure how he should act around two people he nearly scared to death. "I'll be back later to conquer your dimension. Because that's what I do; I conquer stuff."

Ernie raised his hand in the air. Azure sparks danced around him and the Firebird, like lightning-bugs. Mordecai shook off the terror and closed his mouth, which had been hanging open after Ernie's display of power. He looked at Rigby, who also seemed to be coming out of his shock.

Out of the corner of his eye, however, Mordecai saw something in the garage. It was the cart; blue sparks of energy were surrounding it, just like Ernie and the Firebird. Fear for his job overcame fear for his life, and Mordecai looked at Ernie in horror.

"What are you doing to the cart?" He asked in terror.

Ernie shrugged. "I'm taking it with me." He explained. It was simple, really.

Mordecai stuttered at the matter-of-fact explanation. The sparks were multiplying and dancing faster. "Why?" Rigby asked. "You've got your car! Why do you need ours?"

"I'm a jerk," Ernie explained simply. "I don't know; I just feel like stealing your crap. Is that wrong?"

Mordecai was about to explain that, yes; it was, when the sparks suddenly finished their task. They completely enveloped Ernie, the Firebird, and the cart, covering them in a glowing, azure shell. Rigby turned towards the cart try and… do something, he wasn't sure what. But before he could even move, the shells of energy collapsed in on themselves; shrunk down into a small, molecular point, transporting their occupants away.

Everything was quiet for a while. Some birds started singing. Then, Mordecai let out the loudest, most anguished groan he could.

"DUDE!" He yelled. "You HAD to piss of the giant guy, didn't you, Rigby?"

Rigby stared at Mordecai incredulously. "What?" He asked. "Don't blame this on me! He probably would have taken the cart anyway!"

Mordecai threw his hands into the air. "Doesn't matter! Benson's going to fire us 'cause we lost the cart!" With a weary sigh, Mordecai fell to the ground, exhausted by the day's events. "I told you we shouldn't have bought that car."

Rigby looked down at the ground, ashamed. Suddenly, something caught his eye. He looked up and saw it: the portal that Ernie had appeared out of. Rigby's eyes widened as inspiration struck.

"Dude," he said, "I think I've got an idea."

Next Time: Team-Up