8~
The camera crew peeled away from the apron of the stage in small groups, huddling in the corners of the room, and still shooting, but making sure they were nowhere near the action. They resolved that their telephoto and zoom lenses were going to get a workout this day.
Dinky didn't wait for permission. He saw a table near him, scooped it up in a massive hand, and flung it at the Racers and their table.
Big reached out an arm and intercepted the object with his fist, smashing it into sections that tumbled and slid across the stage. That was all the provocation he needed.
With a bestial roar, Big bounded off of the stage, followed closely by his partner, Little, who hissed in fury. Big collided with the incoming Dinky, but Big's momentum caused the villainous cowboy to backpedal and then keel over into another table, crushing it flat.
The rest of the Rottens scattered out of the way of the battling behemoths and swarmed around the foot of the stage, attempting to climb up it.
"We're going to be overrun!" Sergeant Blast bellowed, then ordered his comrades, "Split up into teams!"
The rest of the Racers split away from the long table, and broke off into two groups, heading in opposite directions to head off the flanking Rottens.
Dread and his group closed in on the first Racer group. He set his sights on attacking Penelope first. A beaten woman might dishearten and demoralize the other Racers, when they saw what a Rotten was capable of.
However, he must have telegraphed his intentions, because Peter leaped ahead of her, arms up in classic turn-of-the-century boxing style.
"You'll not touch her, you base cur!" Peter roared.
That distracted Dread, forcing him to concentrate on Peter, but before either man could come to blows, Daisy's voice called out, "Sorry, Dread, darlin', but she's my dance pardner!"
Daisy appeared behind an equally distracted Penelope, lifting her in a crushing bearhug, and then, in a run, leaped off the stage, driving the woman to the floor below.
Daisy stood and brushed herself off. Penelope lay dazed and still, the air completely knocked out of her.
"Penny!" was Peter had time to say, before one of Orful Octopus's purple tentacles whiplashed around his neck, lifted him with ease, and threw him past the side curtains, left of the stage.
Laughing, Dread stalked in after him.
The magician, who called himself The Great Fondoo, casually closed with his target, the Racer who seemed to be a threat to him alone. With an almost dismissive flick of his wand, the table's bulk was flipped aside, revealing Pat Pending, preparing himself for battle, via desperate improvisation.
The professor reached over and grabbed one end of the table cloth and yanked it free from under the overturned table.
This cause Fondoo to hesitate, amusedly. What on Earth would the professor do with a table cloth when he was caught dead to rights?
The answer came in instant. Pat, with effort, flapped the long cloth into the magician's face.
Pat flapped again, but this time Fondoo was ready for it. He stepped back, raised his wand and pointed it at the bothersome cloth.
From the cloth's center, a flame was born, that grew into adolescence, adulthood, old age, and then, a consuming death, blasting the cloth in seconds.
Fondoo and Pat both tilted their heads away from the raw heat and floating bits of burning fabric, but when Fondoo recovered, it was in time to see Marcie, now on stage, throw an Insta-ice capsule, hard, at his wand hand.
The capsule cracked open against his wand, spilling out liquid that painfully froze and expanded across Fondoo's clenched, and now immobilized, hand.
Never having seen Marcie before, he stared angrily at her, wondering if she was, in fact, another magician, working on the Racers' behalf. He stared too long at her, however, and it soon became a moot point.
Pat stepped forward and let loose a surprisingly hard haymaker that had the magician spinning off the stage and into a table, down below.
The strange-looking family, known as The Creepleys, decided, as a unit, that a frontal assault on the stage was folly, and instead, fell back to the sitting area of the ballroom again.
Sergeant Blast, Private Meekly, Rufus, and Lazy Luke, holding his jug of moonshine, clambered down from the stage to engage The Creepleys...which was just what the family wanted.
Mr. Creepley kept his hair-covered eyes on the Racers' approach, and unbuttoned his suit jacket.
His wife, Mrs. Creepley, simply flexed her thin fingers, casually, but her targets couldn't see, from their distance, the slender threads of venom that dripped down from under her sharp, long nails.
As for their son, Junior, he cautiously stepped back from his parents, waiting for his opportunity.
"Frontal assault, Meekly!" Blast yelled, as he and the private rushed after the patriarch.
Mr. Creepley opened his jacket with simultaneous flicks of his hands, revealing a vest bejeweled with row upon row of throwing knife handles. With deft and practiced swiftness, he let loose two blades before his jacket closed over the vest again.
The two soldiers stopped their run in a skid, and dropped to the floor, their military training giving them the merest time to evade the glittering death that flew at them.
Blast turned over on his back when he heard the knives bury themselves in the stage's apron behind him and Meekly, and saw Mrs. Creepley standing over him, a toothsome, victorious grin on her face.
She raised her arm, hand clawing the air, and slashed at Blast, her nails hooking and shredding into the sleeves of his uniform tunic.
A table cloth was suddenly draped over the woman, and she began to claw at it, as she was grabbed by Meekly from behind and carried away from his commanding officer.
Mr. Creepley slid out two more knives, drew a bead on Meekly's back, and threw.
Before they could slice into the private, they were deflected to the floor by Rufus' thrown axe, before it bit into the floor, itself.
Hissing in anger, Mr. Creepley threw two more blades, but Rufus, knowing that saving Meekly made him vulnerable to reprisal, grabbed a chair and held it out, blocking the knives. Then he threw the chair at the little man.
Mr. Creepley dove to the side, throwing a blade as he fell. Rufus, running to his axe, saw the throw, tucked and rolled to his weapon, and, standing, deflected two more knives thrown his way, with the broad head of his axe.
So busy was the knife-wielding maniac in trying to kill Rufus, that he failed to notice Blast creeping unsteadily behind him, and clouting him hard on the back of his head with his helmet.
As Mr. Creepley fell over, his son, nervous that the battle was swinging in the Racers' favor, gave a loud whistle.
The sound of tables and chairs swatted aside like toys heralded the coming of the boy's pet octopus, smashing his way towards his family.
Rufus, and a now weaker-looking Blast, turned to the monster cephalopod, brandishing axe and helmet alike.
Orful lashed out a tentacle, slapping Meekly into the nearby tables, freeing Mrs. Creepley, who then climbed out from under the cloth, eager to envenom again.
Blast tried to keep one eye on the octopus, and one eye on Mrs. Creepley, before Junior decided to make his move.
The boy, seeing that his pet was having a hard time closing on Rufus and his lightning swift axe, pulled a blowgun from one of his pockets and targeted Rufus with it.
He blew. The poison dart flew towards the lumberjack, but it was the sergeant that took the hit, in his shoulder.
Blast fell to one knee, in an attempt to stay on his feet, the boy's venom compounding the damage Mrs. Creepley's own poison nails did earlier.
Junior slipped another dart into the blowgun, and was about to fire again on Rufus, when Blast lurched into a run towards the boy and smashed the bamboo tube from his little hands with his helmet.
Blast leaned against a table to catch his breath, while Junior fled to a far corner of the ballroom, hoping Orful and his mother could defeat these stubborn Racers.
Rufus swung at one of Orful's tentacles, keeping the beast back a respectable distance. When he heard the soft approach of Mrs. Creepley, he turned slightly, but that was more than enough for Orful.
A tentacle knocked his axe away enough off-angle to get more of his steel-grip limbs inside Rufus' defenses, wrapping and securing the French Canadian's wrists and ankles, and soon his torso, holding him steady for his mistress, as she approached and calmly extended one of her venomous hands.
She cupped the man's face in her cool palm, finger nails softly stroking on his cheek, threatening to clutch and cut into it.
No amount of French curses could have given Rufus the strength, or the leverage he needed to break from the octopus' grasp, as he struggled against the thin woman's touch.
Mrs. Creepley released his face and raised her hand, ready to rake poisonous furrows across its surface. Orful, chuckling deeply.
Then, Mrs. Creepley gasped and stiffened, then she fell over by the remaining supporting tentacles of her surprised pet.
In her bony back, the sea creature saw a dart, standing tall and deep, launched by a recovered Private Meekly, the found blowgun held fast in his fingers.
A sound like rapidly boiling water issued from the creature, a sound of rage. He squeezed Rufus' chest, and the logger could feel his ribs slightly flex under the constricting tentacle around his torso.
Orful put more strength into his crushing attack, determined to finish at least one Racer today, when something struck the back of his fleshy head/body with surprising force, making him loosen his grip of Rufus.
A table leg fell to the floor behind Orful, just as his human opponent fell in front of him.
The octopus swiveled around to see who had attacked him, and saw Sawtooth decimating another table with his powerful incisors, freeing its legs to put in a pile, and throwing one of them, end-over-end at him.
Orful slithered towards the beaver, already considering devouring the pest in front of Rufus to teach the burly fool the price of defiance against his family, but he stopped suddenly upon seeing Clyde and his criminal cohorts walk up beside Sawtooth, and pick up table legs, calmly hitting them against open palms.
The cephalopod looked at the mobsters and read their body language easily. They looked very comfortable, as they spread out and flanked the beast, showing in their eyes, the years and hard experience in using such improvised weapons on the mean streets of the past.
"Okay, boys," Clyde growled. "Let's show dis calamari how da Mob handles disrespect. It's kneecappin' time!"
"But, Clyde," voiced associate Rug-Bug Benny. "Octopuses don't have kneecaps."
Clyde was unperturbed. "Den we'll keep hittin' it 'til somethin' breaks!"
And with that, the Ant Hill Mob drove Orful back to crash chaotically into a set of tables, charging into the defensive forest of tentacles, bashing at them whenever they grabbed a comrade, and smashing them painfully against Orful's body, whenever they saw an opening, threatening to brutally break through his protective mantle.
Even Sawtooth jumped into the fray, sinking his teeth into rubbery octopus limbs wherever he could.
While Rufus slowly stood up and caught his breath, he saw the pile of table legs Sawtooth left behind, and had a good idea.
On stage, the Slags were doing their best to fight off the fast-moving, pressing attacks of the smaller and dirtier fighting Daltons.
What started, for the cavemen, as an aggressively successful first move with their clubs finding painful contact upon the compact cowboys, quickly turned defensive, when the Daltons slipped into their pockets and employed the old tactical standard for turning tables in a fight, brass knuckles.
Suddenly, the Slags found themselves sore from opportunistic blows and backpedaling all the way to the edge of the stage, using their clubs as makeshift shields.
Stopping at the edge, and hesitating on their next course of action, gave the eager Daltons the moment they needed. With a well-timed strike, both brothers' steel-enhanced fists rocked the two Slags off the stage and down onto a table that Jason just happened to have been hiding under.
Jason, curious at to what had hit his hiding spot, peeked out from under the table cloth to see the two hominids grunt weakly and lie on their hirsute backs, in a daze.
The boy looked up to the stage and saw the triumphant Daltons slap backs in congratulations, pick up the fallen Slags' clubs, and then hop off the stage to promptly beat them to death with their own weapons. As ignominious a death as the cowboys could devise.
Jason stretched out from under the table and gave the Slags reviving slaps on their faces. As the brothers came to, Jason quickly belly-crawled between them and whispered quickly in their ears.
Both Slags managed to get to their feet just before the Daltons arrived to face them, and Jason slinked back under his table. Both sets of brothers circled each other warily.
"Anythin' ta say before we make you two extinct?" asked Dirty cockily.
"Shoot, Dirty," Dastardly joked. "how'd ya know what they were sayin', if'n they had anythin' ta say?"
As the cowboys laughed, Rock and Gravel stopped maneuvering and looked at each other, gave a grunt of determination, reached over, and began to tousle each other's hair, hard.
The Daltons' laughter died away as they saw the strangest thing happen between the cavemen.
As the Slags frantically rubbed each other's heads, the strands of their coarse body hair began to lift and separate slightly, and a nimbus of soft blue electricity started to crackle throughout their bodies and arc between them.
When the Slags were satisfied that they achieved the desired effect, they balled their now glowing fists, and rushed forward faster than the Daltons could react.
Taking a page from their opponent's book, the Slags struck both Daltons in the face at the same time with their static-charged punch.
The strength of the charge, combined with the brutal impact of the synchronous blow, lifted both Daltons, and sent them tumbling through the air, to land in a crashing heap against a pair of tables, their cloths draping over the dazed brothers' bodies like funerary shrouds.
Jason braved the surrounding sounds of violence, to come back out from under the table in time to happily collect the victorious back slaps from the Slag Brothers, who hooted in fraternal triumph.
"I'm glad it worked, too, guys," the boy said, relievedly.
Orful was finding himself in a violent stalemate, striking and swinging at his attackers one moment, and deflecting and sidestepping blows and beaver bites, the next.
In a moment's curiosity, the sea creature looked around for Rufus. Not being abreast of the man's whereabouts made the animal nervous. But what he saw next, actually made him hesitate.
Lazy Luke, looking not so lazy, received the last of the table legs that Rufus had chopped off of surrounding tables, when he ran out of the ones procured by Sawtooth, and was hammering it, with a spare leg, into the last hole the lumberjack had made earlier in the underside of the overturned table Luke was working on.
The jury-rigged tabletop base and table leg bars of a cage took shape in the hillbilly's inventive hands. All that was needed was the tabletop roof, and an animal that needed caging.
"Alright, Blubber!" Luke called out. "Fling that ovagrown crawdad ova here!"
Orful stopped his pitched battle with the seven men and a beaver to notice, too late, a whimpering bear, with the greatest of reluctance, slap his paws on the octopus's bulbous "head", and, like a squeamish schoolgirl with a gecko in her hand, fearfully toss Orful towards the table-cage.
With a heavy plop, the bulk of Orful fell into the cramped space of the cage, tentacles writhing between a ring of table legs for leverage to push the body out.
Before he could find that leverage, however, Luke and an incoming Blubber gave Rufus scant seconds to slam a holed tabletop into position over the leg-bars, before putting their combined weight on it, the logger hammering the roof onto the legs with the side of his axe.
Orful bubbled in frustration and fear inside his prison, while his opponents and his jailors, congratulated themselves on their hard-won and improvised victory.
Penelope stirred on the floor where she was left by Daisy, who had been sitting on a table, patiently waiting for her recovery.
"Boy, it took you long enough. I swear, if'n I new yew Southern Belles had such delicate condishuns, I'd've been even more gentler than I wuz." Daisy scoffed while Pitstop got unsteadily to her feet.
"I wouldn't worry about my delicate condition, Daisy Mayhem," Penelope muttered, gathering her strength. "You'll find, when you're not busy ambushing me, I'm more than capable of dealing with the likes of you."
'Is dat so?" Daisy said, getting off the table and facing her at a tactical distance. "And how you gonna deal wit da likes o' me, Penelope Pitstop?"
"Like I do with any other swamp rat," Penelope answered, shattering a nearby chair with a swift downward kick. "I give 'em a good stomping."
"Den let's dance!"
Reckless, Daisy rushed forward, and felt the fast, jarring, backhanded blow of Penelope's gloved fist connect with her jaw and rock her into a stop, before a white boot flashed out and kicked into the hillbilly's stomach, launching her back into a table.
"Black belt in Karate," the Racer said. "A girl's got to learn to defend herself these days."
Mayhem wasted what little air hadn't been knocked out of her, cursing up a blue streak while she clumsily tried to pick herself up off the table's remains.
Sooey, meanwhile, was standing some distance away, watching the contest with his one good eye, and grunting cheers of encouragement to his mistress.
"Why, you prissy, pink, pedal-pusha!" Daisy yelled, launching back at Penelope. "I gonna crown yew, princess! Jes yew wait!"
Penelope lashed out with a straight jab, but Daisy was ready. She sidestepped it and grabbed Pitstop's wrist with both hands. Then, she violently pulled back, yanking Penelope out of balance and too far forward.
Still holding her arm, Daisy fell back to the floor, and as Pitstop fell over her, Daisy bent her knees and brought her feet up under the Racer's midsection as she rolled with the fall, and then, kicked off, lifting Penelope high over Daisy, as she let go of her wrist.
Penelope sailed forward from the well-executed monkey flip, and landed on her back, upsetting a table some distance from the Rotten.
From her upside-down position, Penelope slid to the floor and, dazedly, saw Daisy, with confident slowness, walk towards her.
"I don't know nuthin' about no Karate, but when ya gots four brothers who like to roughhouse...ya learn ta roughhouse," Daisy drawled. "Willy, Billy, Freddy and Eddie Mayhem ain't gots nuthin' on me, girly."
With a gleeful whoop at the prospect of a worth challenge, Daisy broke into a run and jumped on top of Penelope, before the Racer could finish righting herself.
Soon enough, the sounds of their struggles began to blend with the remaining close quarters battle still raging out in the ballroom.
Magic Rabbit ran over to his master, Fondoo, who still hadn't come to from the roundhouse generously given by Professor Pending, and, in fact, was comfortably snoring, by now.
Revenge was first and foremost on the lagomorph's mind, and upon seeing the wretched professor searching around and entering the back stage area…planning to flank Dread as he was dealing with that dandy Perfect, no doubt…the rabbit hatched an idea that was magically malicious.
Climbing up on the magician's chest, Magic undid the clasp behind the bowtie that held Fondoo's cape to his back, then reaching further up, tipped the man's top hat off.
Jumping back down with cape in paw, Magic went to the upended hat, now sitting, upside-down, beside its owner. With a bound, he leaped into the hat, falling deeper than what would be expected for the interior space of a top hat, the cape dragged down into the hat's depths with him.
Backstage, a black, space-defying hole, about the circumference of a top hat, formed over a worktable, allowing Magic and the cape to fall onto the table.
The rabbit heard voices above him high in the stage's fly loft and recognized one in particular. Spurred by that, the rabbit hopped off the table and headed for the ladder that led up to the spanning catwalks.
Dread had thought, earlier, that he had Peter literally dead to rights on stage near the wing, stage-right, where the octopus had dumped him, but the Racer had gotten a second wind and fought him off.
Ever since then, he had been leading Peter on a merry chase back stage, and now, along this swaying, stage light-laden catwalk, high above the stage. With very little room for maneuvering, and a plan to use his own second wind to close with, grapple, and flip Perfect off to his doom, this was a trap Dread could be proud of, under the circumstances.
Dread, stopping at the far end of the service platform, turned to the sound of Peter stomping a distance behind him.
Peter, perhaps foolishly, took a glance over the catwalk and realized just how high he was. Still, the die was cast.
He straightened up and walked forward with more caution, almost knocking over a small pail of chalk used by stage hands to improve their grip on the ropes that crisscrossed and ran all over the loft.
"It's not too late, Dread," Peter reasoned to him. "Call off your Rottens."
"Not likely, Imperfect," said Dread.
"I don't know why you're still taking orders from that Spring fellow. Before all this, you were certain that your dog, Mumbly had sided with the not-so-good doctor, and betrayed you."
"Truth be told, he's not my dog," Dread admitted. "although I had thought about ripping the Hippocratic Oath out of Spring for obviously forcing Mumbly to deceive me like that."
"I don't think he's that kind of doctor," Peter corrected him.
Dread waved it aside. "It doesn't matter. It's all water under the bridge, now that I know that it was Muttley who took his place. I knew Mumbly wouldn't turn traitor on me, or the Rottens."
"How could you be so sure?" Peter asked.
"Because although he betrayed his colleagues on the force, and his fool of a police chief, Schnooker, disappeared...under mysterious circumstances, Mumbly was one of the best detectives out there," Dread explained with what Peter could swear sounded like...pride. "And that kind of loyalty, commitment, and leadership were what he gave to the Rotten cause."
That explanation gave Peter pause, and then understanding. "Leadership? You mean he's your-"
Peter stopped his deducing when he heard footfalls behind him. On the far, opposite end of the catwalk, stood Magic Rabbit.
Dread gave a tip of the helmet to the rabbit in acknowledgement. "Ah, Magic! Welcome! What kind of tricks do have in store for our dear Racer?"
Magic lifted the cape by its flared collar, draped it over a nearby stage light, and with a flourish born from years on the stage, pulled the cape away, and the lamp was gone.
"You're next," Dread informed the Racer.
Far below, in the ruined opulence of the battleground that was once the ballroom, Dinky and Big had fought non-stop, destroying tables and chairs, and demonstrating how nearly matched in power they both were.
None dared interfere. However, Dinky had now outmaneuvered and caught Big in a deadly chokehold. Only the Gruesome's raw strength, in the closest of stalemates, kept his opponent from prevailing. The slightest waver, and the Racer would be dead.
A stage light appeared over the titans and crashed on top of Dinky Dalton's head. His death grip slacken, as did his consciousness, giving Big the avenue he needed to grab the cowboy by the arm, and hammer throw him into the double doors of the ballroom, destroying them as he flew through.
Peter moved away from the approaching rabbit, and closed in on Dread, as he approached.
As soon as he was close enough, Dread latched hands on Peter, determined to hold him until Fondoo's cape enveloped the Racer and whisk him to who-knows-where. An active volcano, Dread was hoping.
Peter, struggling with Dread, divided his attention between both of Rottens, knowing that if he didn't focus on Dread, he might get the upper hand and dash him to the stage, and if he didn't keep Magic in sight, the rabbit would, perhaps, fatally make him part of the act.
Peter, instead, decided to maintain his balance on the jouncing and twisting catwalk, and deal with whatever happened as it came. Which was exceedingly difficult to do, since it felt like having a wrestling match on a tightrope.
The Racer was momentarily forced back a few steps by the human Rotten, and as Peter saw Magic get into position to cover him with the magic cape, he saw the bucket of chalk near his feet.
Peter quickly held Dread off with one hand, bent low to scoop up a handful of chalk and threw it into Magic's face.
The rabbit coughed and furiously blinked back tears as he frantically wiped at the blinding powder.
His vision painfully bleary, his watery eyes, bloodshot by a terrible degree, Magic tried to focus on the shifting silhouette of Peter up ahead, gaining ground on Dread and pushing him over the catwalk's railing, to hang helplessly from it.
He flapped the cape over the still standing figure, even grinning when he heard a surprised "No!" come from him.
Still grinning proudly, Magic could just make out the helmeted man clambering back onto the catwalk, and as the figure removed the helmet, the mammal peered forward, as his vision cleared, in time to see Peter Perfect throw the Dragoon headgear straight into Magic's face.
The rabbit, concluding that chalk was preferable to a bell-shaped helm to the nose, got knocked back, tumbling into the cape, and as it closed over him, the cape folded flat on the platform.
"I'm beginning to see why they have a dog for a leader," Peter said to himself on the walk back to the catwalk's ladder.
In the ballroom, a now conscious Fondoo stumbled amidst still fighting females, defeated Daltons, crushed Creepleys and a caged cuttlefish, calling out to his pet and stage assistant/assassin.
Immediately overhead, a cursing Dread Baron, materialized above The Great Fondoo, and fell on him, followed shortly by a dazed Magic Rabbit and a German Dragoon Officer's helmet, which promptly clouted its owner on the head.
Dinky slowly stirred from where he lay on the floor outside Number Three Ballroom, as passersby watched him nervously.
He had to hand it to whichever Racer did it. Few people could bushwhack him with any amount of success and live to talk about it. But then, if that Racer was still in the ballroom, Dinky knew he had a chance to fix that little oversight.
Groggily getting to his feet, he looked around and saw a few patrons conversing with a pair of security guards, and pointing in his general direction. Obviously, they were going to investigate his little tussle with Big.
That wasn't good. The doctor said no witness, but even Dinky Dalton knew better than to stand his ground and fight off security, for the simple fact that although he may have been stronger than them, he was also unarmed.
Dinky walked unsteadily back.
In the ballroom, both groups of people, tired, bruised and unbowed, faced each other one more time in a central space cleared of tables and chairs, determined to be victorious or die trying.
A whistle from Dinky caused every Rotten to turn his and her head to the sound. It was well-known among them. A signal of warning.
"C'mon, Rottens, let's skedaddle!" said Dirty.
The group broke and ran from the confused Racers, raced to the ruined doorway, and saw the gathering guards,
"Don't worry," Fondoo whispered. "I'll get us out of here."
He raised his wand slightly, pointed at the Rottens next to him, and said, "Invisible."
A force, like ten Dinky Daltons, shoved all of the Rottens together and compressed them into each other, looking as though they were stuck in a tiny, invisible elevator. They couldn't move their upper extremities and could barely move their collective legs.
"Nice work, Fondoof. More like Indivisible," Dread muttered in the crush. "Wait for my signal, and then follow my lead."
When the guards were momentarily distracted by another patron, Dread grunted his signal, and the cluster of Rottens slipped quickly away in the cover of the crowds.
When the guards finally rushed into the ballroom, it was wrecked, and it was deserted.
It wouldn't be for another hour until the guards discovered the rear loading door that Professor Pending had found, back stage, torn off its acid-weakened hinges by a monster's love-tap, sitting useless in the center's back alley.