Rachel sinks her claws unnecessarily deep into the bark as she ascends to her favorite lookout branch high up in Yew's greenery. He has the freedom to spend his days and nights waxing poetically, chasing April's squirrels and Lils' chipmunks from his branches, and swaying his long limbs high into the air. . .but in order to see anything beyond the Castle's wall, Zoey and Rachel must be his eyes. So he grimaces and bears it, because there is no use arguing with a cat - especially this feisty ginger specimen. "What disturbance can you find, my keen-eyed friend?" A soft purr tumbles down through his branches, the message it carries sending a shiver through Yew's core as he repeats it quietly to himself. "War, you say? That is certainly no laughing matter. . ."
"Don't you think it's kind of funny how we all live in castles and palaces, but no one is called 'Queen'?" Muffin ponders out loud as she positions the slide of Gold's blood on the microscope's stage, adjusts the focus, and peers into the eyepiece.
"You are my queen!" Head reminds her as he goes about checking Gold's vitals just as she showed him to do, writing the steadily improving numbers onto his clipboard. "My Bulgarian Ice Queen!"
A sigh nearly escapes her lips, but she manages to hold it in, the same as the words she'd like to say - I want to be a goddess. Instead, she announces with a smile, "The filtration is working! This sample shows considerably less zombie-blood activity than the previous two!"
"Fantastic!" Head embraces Muffin in a celebratory hug. "You're so much more than a beautiful queen. . ."
Say that I'm a goddess.
". . .you're. . ."
There's nothing more powerful than the ability to bring someone back from the brink of death.
". . .a smart, funny, talented and beautiful queen!"
I am a goddess.
Angel pushes Irma and the bedcovers roughly off of her body and reaches towards her nightstand to silence the audio loop of souls screaming. She rolls herself out of bed, stops long enough at the dressing table to brush through her hair, then continues down the hall to the last door on the left. Dark now - a reflection of the world outside the Palace - the room boasts a wall of windows by which she can gaze upon her kingdom all day long.
Until the damn Littles built their gaudy castle of rainbows in the middle of her view, that is.
Smashing a fist into the giant red button protruding from the wall, a bank of computer monitors rises from the hidden compartment in the floor, and pitchblack curtains swoosh over the windows to hide the glow of the two dozen high-definition screens. Irma adjusts her glasses and steps behind Angel, peering at the screens as Angel types in commands that pull up various surveillance cameras from around the Palace. Pointing at an image in the top left corner, she asks, "What's that?"
"My monster truck."
"And that?" She points to another screen.
"My newest amped up pandaglomping gun."
"How about this?"
"That's a Little!" Angel pulls the image up larger. "At least, I think it's a Little. . .they add family members so quickly, it's insanity. Who does it look like to you?"
Irma gives Angel's chair a shove backwards so that she can peer closer at the screen. "It moves kind of Cooper-ish. . .but you'd think his armor would pick up some reflection from the moon, wouldn't you?" Angel makes no reply, so Irma asks again, "Wouldn't you?"
"Oh, so now that you've pushed me into a corner all the way across the room, now you want my opinion?" Angel crosses her arms grumly. "Irmathis and Irmathat. . .you're one bossy cat lady, you know that?"
"And you're one pain in the ** panda," Irma mutters beneath her breath as she crosses the room to Angel, grabs hold of the chair's armrest, and starts dragging her parabatai partner back to the screens.
A fluttering of the pale light they've been guiding themselves by causes the dew-covered lurkers to pause. As one, their gazes lift to the sky, searching all around. . .and landing on the moon's silvery facade at the very moment the shadow passes through the light again.
Lils whispers loud enough for the group to hear her, "What was that?"
"A bat," Johanna answers. "Don't you have bats in Australia?"
"Of course we have bats-"
"-but contrary to popular belief, not all of our wildlife is ten times larger than the rest of the world's," Estoma finishes. Lils sticks her tongue out at Johanna, Johanna swats at Lils. . .but before their part in the evening's mission can devolve into a scene reminiscent of roly-poly lovebugs volleying insults and utter cuteness back and forth, another disturbance of the moon's light silences everyone once again. The stomp of a hoof and a soft whinny put to rest any crazy ideas of man-sized bats.
"Unicorn?" Cooper asks hopefully.
"Not unless he's secretly taken up skydiving," April responds. "This thing just dropped out of the sky, and your unicorn has no wings. . ."
"I CAN'T. I JUST CAN'T. NOPE. NOPENOPENOPE," announces the mystery equine.
"Oh, for Pete's sake!" Zero groans.
"I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE, YES I DID! PETE'S MY BAE!"
"Saph, would you lower your voice and climb down off of Castor? This is supposed to be a secret reconnaissance mission," Zero begs quietly.
"SORRY," Saph stage whispers as she and Rowan slide off the pegacorn's back and sprawl out in the grass like the rest of the lurkers. "Do you have a couple of spare lights?"
"They're calling in the cavalry!" Angel announces, her eyes comically wide as she watches events unfold on the screen.
"It's time," Irma says.
Angel looks up at her quizzically, "Time for what?"
"To fire up the Roombas," Irma replies.
Angel smacks both hands into her forehead and drags them down her face, "Oh, no. . ."
"Oh, yes!" Irma bounces excitedly on her feet. "Grab the sweaters, we're going to WAR!"
"I need more brains!"
"Sorry, can't help you there, dahling," Zoey responds, focused more on the odiferous panda three meters in front of her than the words coming out of Kay's mouth. "Oh, wait, you meant rodent brains for the pandas? My bad!" She uses her foot to scoot a half full pail towards Kay. "Help yourself!"
Scooping up a handful of small, grayish-pink organs, Kay throws them rapid-fire quick at a grouping of pandas who are milling about. One up high, one to the far left, another to the right, and one rolling on the ground; one zombie panda pounces on the grounder brain instantly, followed in short order by the other three, who each snatch a tasty treat out of the air right before they fly past. Zoey's jaw falls open in awe. "You surprise the shit out of me on occasion!"
"Thanks, Master!"
Meewwwwl!
HISSssssSssssss!
"Oh, my purple! Why for blue's sake are these greening cats being so orangey problematic tonight?"
"First of all, watch that colorful language of yours! It's hurting my brain." Angel wrestles another cat paw through the tiny sleevehole of a custom-made Gryffindor sweater. "Second, they're cats. What cat have you ever met that likes wearing clothes?"
"Rachel doesn't seem to mind. . ."
"Yeah, okay, but where is that fearless feline leader of yours? Huh? She's becoming more difficult to locate with each day that passes!" Angel swats at a cat that just tried to gouge her cheek, and gives it the most ferocious hiss that she can muster.
Flustered by Angel's inquiries - because she truly has no idea where her beloved ginger pussycat has been hiding - Irma distracts herself by walking down the first row of RoombaCats, powering up each machine with her foot as she passes. Cats immediately start bumping into one another and spinning in all possible directions. She rubs her hands together, a gleam in her eye as she watches her dream come to life. "They're purrfect."
Angel sets the last cat on its Roomba, taps the power button, and watches the furball spin in counterclockwise circles for no apparent reason. "This is going to be catastrophic. For us."
"Okay, someone help me out here. . .do you see a bunch of little red blinking lights ahead of us?" Gabbie points to an area in which there is indeed a multitude of rather erratically moving light emitting diodes. "What do you think they mean?"
"Vampire bats!" Johanna exclaims.
"What is your obsession with bats, dwark?" Lils asks, eyeing Johanna with both brows arched, making the other girl lower her head in embarrassment.
"Fire ants!" Zero bleats.
"Fire ants are not actually on fire, I regret to inform you," responds an unfamiliar voice.
"Hello?" Zero glances over her shoulder in hopes of locating the voice's owner. "Who are you, Ms. Ant Expert?" A brush of fabric and a light touch to her elbow shows that the owner has located her first.
"Iris is the name I generally respond to," she says. "Pleasure to make your acquaintance! I believe those lights denote a grouping of electronic machines that were sent out to sweep for foreign objects."
"Foreign objects." Zero scratches her head in thought. "Like us?"
"Exactly," Iris agrees.
"Damnit, why are the pandas suddenly so agitated?" Zoey grumbles and kicks the empty brain pail out of her way as she paces in front of Kay.
"It looks to me like Angel has finally allowed Irma to use the RoombaCats!"
"What the fuck is a RoombaCat?" Zoey stops her pacing. "And how do you know so much more about the happenings in this Palace than I do?" Kay simply shrugs in response. They both watch as the zombie pandas begin to meander lazily towards the crazy cats.
Her face suddenly contorted with worry, Kay hesitantly asks, "They couldn't possibly still be hungry, could they?"
A few moments tick by as her question registers with Zoey. "Ohmygod! We can't let them eat Irma's cats! I'll be grounded forever!" She grabs a length of rope from their pile of training tools and tosses one end to Kay. "Quick, help me corral them!"
"Ooh, kitties!" Brooke splashes over her embankment in excitement. "Slim! Shady! Wake up!"
Slim yawns and stretches her branches to the sky, asking, "Wha? What time is it?"
"I don't care what time it is," Shady says, hunkering down and shaking her leaves in a disgruntled manner. "It's still dark, therefore I'm going back to sleep."
"But look at them," Brooke gurgles. "Aren't they just the most super-cute little bundles of love ever?! They're wearing Hogwarts House-colored sweaters!"
Curiosity winning over annoyance, Slim peers through her foliage at the hordes of quietly yowling felines slowly making their way past. "Huh. That's certainly different."
"Everything's 'different' in this crazyass place," mumbles Shady.
Brooke can no longer contain herself; she cascades over the bank and starts to rush towards the RoombaCat army. "Here, kitties kitties kitties! HERE, KITTIES KITTIES KITTIES! I want to pet you!"
Slim's roots strain to break free of the soil holding her near the bank, but Cooper has been tending to his saplings lovingly, and they are well entrenched in their new homes. "Brooke, NO! Remember Miffy!"
"'Miffy'," chuckles Shady. "I had almost forgotten about Miffy. What a silly name for a-" She stops mid-sentence, remembering Miffy's fate. "Oh, shit! Brooke!"
The yells of the two young trees are drowned out by the frightened meows of hundreds of cats as Brooke flows effortlessly through the field of Roombas, frying their circuitry - but not before the machines simultaneously deliver electrical shocks powerful enough to knock out the entire fleet of kitties, their strength tragically magnified by the lovingly-made uniforms of static-enhancing yarn. To make matters worse, two dozen lumbering pandas are steadily approaching the scene, seemingly in an attempt to attack the cats. Slim and Shady glance at each other questioningly at this development, noting that both the cats and pandas were approaching from the Licorice Palace.
"Why would one faction of The Angel's army try to eat another?"
As Slim tries to come up with a logical answer to her sister's question, Zoey and Kay suddenly come sprinting into view. They run around the group of pandas - Zoey working clockwise and Kay taking the counter-route - drawing the monochromatic thugs closer and closer together each time they duck under one another with their end of the rope. Tying the ends together in an exceptionally large and complicated knot, Zoey rests her forearm and head on Kay's shoulder to catch her breath; they appear to be debating their next move.
Still confused by all the nocturnal activity, Shady starts shaking her leaves again. "What the hell is going on?"
"Ha! HAha-HA!" Angel laughs into Irma's face. "Your RoombaCats didn't even make it past the battleline before being thwarted by the Littles!"
"Yeah, yeah," Irma says glumly. "Quit your gloating already. . .your big, dopey pandas are going to have to pick up the slack now."
"Oh, they will!" Angel marches towards the door. "C'mon Irms. . .I need my bamboo scepter from the throne room, then I'll show you how a battle is won!"