Chapter 5

Bedlam at Breakfast

Eddie let out a massive yawn, before opening his eyes to the early morning once more, quite happy to have woken of his own accord this time, instead of being shot on the nose with small stones.

As anyone does upon awakening, he took a few moments to gather himself out of the morning amnesia, the wonderful few moments when you open your eyes not yet seeing what they receive before you remember the follies of yesterday or in some cases what you did last night.

He looked around at the secluded patch of bare ground the herd had found, behind a rocky outcrop, away from the overcrowded clearings on the other side that were now filled with hundreds of sleeping animals.

The sun hadn't even appeared yet, leaving the entire area bathed in a shadowy glow emanating from over the distant hills where it would soon rise.

Fortunately Eddie was a possum and, even though he'd managed to change his sleeping patterns to night instead of day to suite the rest of the heard, he still possessed the ability to see quite clearly in the cold dimness of his surroundings.

His brother, Crash, was still asleep and snoring very loudly next to him, just like the rest of the herd, except he was hanging upside down, and most likely dreaming about something food related as far as Eddie could tell, from the constant drips of saliva that were falling from his mouth, forming a small puddle on the ground below.

Eddie, reached over and pushed his brother's mouth shut to stop the snoring and drooling, holding it in place for a few seconds to ensure it remained that way before reaching up, grabbing onto the branch from which he was hanging and sleepily climbing across to the tree trunk before sliding down to the ground.

He paused for a moment thinking about what to do until everyone woke up, before walking over to the nearby stream and flopping down onto the bank.

First he took a small drink from the stream, which had turned to be just as the falcon, Marlon, had told the herds, fresh, drinkable water, before he leant backwards and sat down staring at his reflection in the slowly flowing stream and contemplating the events of yesterday.

It had started out pretty early, with Crash attempting yet another of his, usually exciting, daredevil antics but this particular one had turned out be completely ridiculous and suicidal. He'd launched himself off a cliff, repeating the catapulting trick he now called the flying possum that he had previously failed, except this time he hadn't had the help of a boring mammoth, who had been eager to impress their sister, to launch him. This had ended up with him landing in the leafless forest that surrounded the cliff, apparently knocking another young possum named Mikey out of a tree. Luckily Diego found them soon after Eddie did, but Crash had been too quick to pick a fight with the tiger and his relentless taunts had led Diego to accidentally hit Eddie, knocking him unconscious. From that point on everything was a bit hazy; he couldn't even remember how they'd ended up leading the remnants of the valley inhabitants under the guidance of that same Mikey guy and his surprisingly mild minded but egotistical, falcon bodyguard.

The sun was now beginning to peak over the hills bathing Eddie's back with warm sunlight as he sat pondering everything that had happened.

'Yep yesterday was a big day, but what do I do today, Ellie's not gonna want us out of her sight at all cause of Crash, why'd he have to do that one, we should have rolled around in the mud and tried scaring the aardvark kids again. That was fun the first time, hey, that's sounds like something, I'll tell Crash when he wakes up, they'll never know what hit 'em," Eddie sniggered quietly, with this first, of what would surely be many, chances for mischief today and lay back to continue his train of thought.

Eddie lay by the stream for some time thinking about the day before he was jolted back to reality by loud roar issuing from behind him. Tt could only have come from Diego and from the sound of it he was angry, prompting Eddie to ask himself, "What has Crash done this time."

Leaping to his feet Eddie spun around to see what the heck had ticked off Diego so much, a question that was answered almost immediately as he faced the herd.

Diego appeared to have been bound and tied down, very tightly, with several climber vines, Manny and Ellie were struggling to get up after apparently waking up to find their trunks tied together. Sid let out a girlish yell, Eddie noticed that the sloth had been painted with what appeared to be honey and his fur was now crawling with very nasty looking ants.

It was complete pandemonium, Sid was running around the area yelping and trying to brush the ants off but only spreading them further and pushing them deeper into his fur, Manny and Ellie kept getting up, overbalancing and falling over again, while Diego bit and struggled at his bonds trying to rip them but they'd been placed just out of reach of his jaws, all the time more and more animals were appearing from around the rock to see what was going on.

Crash was apparently the only animal not currently bound, tied or slathered in honey and was rolling on the ground at the edge of the dirt patch, laughing uncontrollably at the hilarious spectacle in front of him.

Eddie ran over to him, diving forward to avoid being stepped on by Sid who dropped to the ground and began rolling in a desperate attempt to crush the ants, only ending up having his fur coated in a thick layer of dirt.

"Crash, what did you do," yelled Eddie, grabbing his hysterical brother, who was now practically crying with ecstasy, and trying to hold him still.

"Wha- oh Eddie hi," exclaimed Crash, wiping away a tear with huge grin on his face.

Still chuckling but somewhat calmed by Eddie's arrival, Crash now clutched at his chest attempting to catch his breath and trying desperately to hold back fresh waves of merriment.

"Did you do this Crash, did you pull this prank?" asked Eddie who couldn't help smiling but tried to hold back his own laughter.

"No, I dunno who did it but whoever it was I love them so much I could kiss them right now, hey wha-" Crash began to talk to someone behind Eddie but couldn't continue, breaking down into another fit of hysterics.

Something grabbed Eddie's shoulder, something cold, slimy and wreaking terribly, of what, he didn't want to know, but whatever it was pulled his shoulder and spun him around to face it.

Eddie now found himself staring at what appeared to be a brown, sticky lump with legs that looked vaguely like a possum and it spoke with Mikey's voice.

"Why-the-hell, did you cover me in what I sincerely hope is stagnant swamp mud!" Mikey screamed in Eddie's face, brandishing a fist he clearly wanted to use.

"I-I Di(snort) didn't do-"Eddie sniggered, attempting to answer Mikey while trying to hold back the laughter that was welling up inside of him but found himself unable to continue and collapsed in a surge of hilarity, exactly like his brother.

"Well hardy-ha-ha, morons, now I stink like a dead sloth!" Mikey yelled at the two hysterical brothers, kicking Eddie hard in the stomach before storming over to the stream, into which Sid had just dived, and waded in, beginning to wash the gunk off.

Eddie stood up slowly, still sniggering a little but now grabbing at the area of his stomach that Mikey had kicked, feeling like he would throw up from the force of strike, given where it had hit, and hearing two loud thuds as Manny fell again bringing Ellie down with him.

"Crash, Eddie help, please!" called Ellie trying to pull her trunk away from Manny but this only made the knot tighter.

Although he was loving the chaos, Eddie knew he had to help his sister, she was family after all and he reluctantly obeyed her pleas for help, walking over still clutching his stomach, which definitely felt a little softer after Mikey's kick, to see what he could do.

After a quick examination, Eddie saw that it was a very tight knot that he had thought only himself and his cousin Wilton had known how to do, they had once used it to tie Crash to a branch while he'd been sleeping, but the trouble was Wilton was dead and Eddie knew it. This left only one possibility; that someone other than Eddie or Wilton knew how to tie a knot that they had invented but this was not the time to try to figure it out.

Lucky for Manny and Ellie, knowing how to tie a knot usually meant knowing how to untie it, a feat Eddie was able to perform with ease once they were able to remain still long enough for him to work at it, freeing them from each other.

Once she was free from being tied to Manny by her trunk, Ellie immediately set off toward Crash, who was still laughing his head off and hadn't noticed her approach, and she promptly began to pummel him.

"Ouch, Ellie wai- ow, not there, please, no, ahhhhhhh!" Crashed screamed as Ellie hit him hard, and in a place he wouldn't soon forget.

Eddie laughed unable to stop himself enjoying watching his brother's torment at the hands of their sister, why shouldn't he, Crash deserved it anyway.

"Hey, yeah, no one mind me, I'm just tied on the ground here. Oh did I forget to mention this stupid thing burns!" growled Diego, clearly unhappy at being the only one still trapped by his bonds.

Manny, Ellie and Eddie walked over to see what could be done to free Diego who was growling with pain, whatever the vine that bound him was, it must have been poisonous and this was made very obvious by what Eddie could see of the areas where the bonds lifted Diego's fur, revealing his skin, which appeared to be covered in a painful looking rash.

Eddie's first idea was to see if he could untie the inevitable knots that would have been used to secure the vines, but he was unfortunately unable to see anything even resembling one in the massive tangle that covered Diego, leaving only one choice left that he could think of.

Eddie grabbed a portion of the vine that was stopping Diego from biting it himself, pulled it to his own mouth and prepared to bite through it, beginning to count to three.

One-two-three!

Eddie bit down on the vine, ripping at it with the sharpest of his teeth, almost instantly feeling vine began to break as he chewed and pulled at it, but also feeling another thing, an almost instantaneous, excruciating, burning sensation filled his mouth.

The vine snapped apart within seconds of Eddie biting down on it, but he could hardly care as he ran screaming, from Diego, who instantly began tearing at the vine himself. Eddie ran straight toward the stream which he, upon reaching the water's edge, instantly ducked his head into, gulping down as much water as he could, desperate to stop the burning in his mouth.

His head remained underwater for several seconds before he pulled his head out of the stream and fell on his back moaning, his mouth still burning terribly but his stomach was far too fall of water for him to move.

He heard someone approach from out of the water, and within moments he was staring at Mikey, who had a huge, malicious grin on his face and, Eddie noticed, still smelled terrible.

"Payback's a bitch isn't it," snarled Mikey, before walking away and calling out for Marlon who had yet to be seen by anyone.

Eddie lay on his back, too full and in too much pain to be bothered helping anyone else or to correct Mikey by telling him that neither Crash nor himself had done this to them, but he did wonder, who the heck did do it, who knew something only he and his now, long dead, cousin had known about.

Mikey couldn't believe this, yesterday he'd been woken by Corbin, hit by a flying possum, fought a blood thirsty monster, had part of his tail removed and found himself leading a herd of hundreds, possibly thousands, of animals to a place he only knew the rough direction of but had no idea of the actual path to it.

Today he'd woken to find himself smeared with something he sorely hoped had been stagnant mud and now having washed it off still smelled like a walking corpse, and to make things worse he had no idea where Marlon was.

"What are you looking at, go away you've seen enough!" Diego growled at a group of animals who had wandered over from the main group to see what had happened and were now being chased away by a furious sabre, who had until recently, been tied up with some kind of poisonous weed that had given him a nasty rash.

Crash was limping strangely after having been pummelled by Ellie for laughing at her and Manny, while their trunks had been tied together, instead of trying to help them.

Eddie was now lying next to the stream, after swallowing far too much water in a desperate attempt to stop the burning in his mouth, after having bitten through the poisonous vine that had been used to tie Diego, in order to free him.

"Hey, Manny," Mikey called to Manfred, the large, male, mammoth who was apparently the leader of this little group, "Have you seen Marlon, anywhere, I can't find him."

"No Mikey, I haven't seen him since last night," Manny called back in answer to Mikey's question, as he used his trunk to, carefully, pick up the vines that had bound Diego, and throw them away into the surrounding trees so that no one, especially Sid, could stand on them by accident.

Mikey continued to look up, searching the skies for Marlon, hoping the falcon would turn up soon after just being out to hunt for his breakfast and had escaped this unpleasantness.

Well he was half-right, as he looked east, toward the mountain range from which the sun had risen and was now low in the early morning sky, he saw a large bird who bared a striking resemblance to Marlon.

As it approached Mikey recognised it as actually being Marlon himself and he was carrying something small and furry in his left talon, Mikey didn't really want to look at it but he had to ask Marlon why he had left without telling him.

"Marlon," Mikey called to the falcon as he flew down to land, "Where have you been, you know you're supposed to tell me first before you go on hunts."

Mikey and the rest of the group, including a very sick looking Eddie, watched as Marlon landed and dropped the small thing he had in his talon, amazingly it was a possum, still alive and shaking with terror, which as it raised its head to take one last look at its fate, Mikey noticed was a young female, not much older than himself.

"Marlon, no, you can't eat possums I fo-" Mikey began, but was interrupted by Marlon.

"No Michael, that's your father's promise, I will eat possums whenever I feel like it and you have no authority to order me otherwise, but I didn't bring this to eat. My friends I present to you the perpetrator of your woes," Marlon announced loudly to the group using a wing to point to the possum cowering at his talons, before looking down at it and smiling nastily, "Although I must say, I had to give up my morning hunt for this fugitive, does anyone want me to dispose of it."

"Yes!" Yelled Diego, clearly furious over the rash that the poisonous vines had caused him, which although his orange fur covered it so it wasn't immediately visible, was painful nonetheless.

Mikey also cried out at Marlon, just as he placed a talon over the quivering possum beneath him, preparing to eat it, but to give an order of a very different nature.

"No Marlon, don't, I swear I'll tell the Sky King if you kill her," Mikey yelled at Marlon, desperate to stop him, "I may not normally have power over you but you know, anyone of royalty has power in matters of life in death and you are not royalty."

Mikey stopped, he knew he had won, Marlon had to obey him now or the Sky King would have to punish him, harshly.

As he predicted Marlon stepped away from the small possum, glaring furiously at Mikey, not really angry over the loss of his meal but more for the fact that Mikey had just heavily embarrassed him by displaying the power the young possum actually had over him, especially in front of a bunch of groundlings! Mikey could have just asked, he wasn't actually even interested in the possum anyway, it was just to be a little showy, but no Mikey had gone straight for the power of royalty thing. He could barely control himself, taking up all his mental will just to make sure he didn't attack Mikey for his thoughtless insult right then and there.

Mikey walked over to the terrified female, careful to maintain eye contact with Marlon, he'd only seen him in this kind of mood once before and he had proven wildly unpredictable when like this. Slowly and steadily, constantly meeting Marlon's furious stare, Mikey reached down and pulled the possum to her feet and began to walk her away from the falcon, whispering to her to remain silent and do as he did.

With only a single twitch of his wing as a warning, Marlon's wings flew open to their full extent and Mikey froze, preparing to drop and run toward the nearest source cover he could find.

Marlon took off flying straight at Mikey, who threw the female to the ground as fast as he could and dived away to avoid Marlon's outstretched talons, which only missed by a hairs length, Mikey could tell this apparent misjudgement had been deliberate, if Marlon had wanted to kill him, he would have.

Rolling onto his back Mikey was just in time to see Marlon soaring away as fast as he could fly and something about the manner of his departure told, Mikey that he was not turning back, for anything.

"Whoa, that's what I call jealousy issues," Mikey heard Sid announce from somewhere nearby.

Ignoring Sid's unbelievably inappropriate comment, Mikey found himself returning to almost the same state of mind in which he had been what seemed like only moments ago, counting up the things that had gone wrong so far in the past two days and how he could now add, lost the only person here who actually knew him, to that list.

It had only taken mere moments and an impulsive decision to say something Mikey probably didn't even need to say, for him to successfully lose the only connection that had remained of everything that he had called his life, and now as he got up, he stared at the female possum who had already recovered from being roughly thrown to the ground, and was now looking around nervously at all the strangers that now surrounded, her, the reason why they had all had such a cruddy morning, and thought

'Was her life really worth it?'