"I'm pretty sure the sweepers have disappeared," Zero announces.
"Maybe they just went into 'stealth-mode'?" Suggests Cooper as he barges into the tiny amount of space between Lilanna. Johanna sighs and scoots over to allow him more room, but Lils slides a large push-pin from her sleeve and is nearly poking through the fabric covering his upper arm when April suddenly comes tumbling through the center of the group and lands on Cooper. With April unaware of how close her ass was to becoming a pincushion, Lils tucks her secret weapon away.
Lucy arrives in a much more diginified manner than her wife. "I agree that the disappearance of the blinking lights may be a cause for concern. Cooper, would you please flank us on the right and keep watch?" Cooper tries to salute, but April's continued presence on his back prevents much limb movement. "April, you might as well assist him."
"Yes, dear," says April, while removing herself from Cooper's personal space. "C'mon, Coop! We'll be the first to fight pandas!"
"Huzzah!"
Lucy waits until April and Cooper have taken up their posts before continuing. "If The Angel is really sending forces out to locate us, then I'm afraid I've invited you all along on a much more dangerous mission than I initially imagined it would be. . .and I'm sorry for that."
"Don't be sorry," Gabbie tells her.
"Yeah," Nona agrees, placing a reassuring hand on Lucy's shoulder. "We all came willingly."
"And hello! We. Are. Ninjas," Jenn reminds them. "We can defend ourselves just fine, I have no doubt."
"Statistically speaking, the Littles have an excellent record of either overcoming their opponents, or simply holding them off," Iris adds. "The pandas' mortality rate in battle is astronomical, and I find The Angel's continued use of them as her first line of defense to be totally ignorant of the notoriously bad breeding habits of the species."
Unless she's starting to use the zombie kind.Lucy clears the thought from her mind before it can fester there; surely the undead pandas that escaped from Gold's laboratory were hungry and headed straight for the Lollipop Forest upon gaining their freedom. She refocuses herself by pondering how the Lurkers can successfully turn their reconnaissance mission into an assault without adding the chaos of retrieving the Rainbow Castle's animal militaries.
ArrRrrgGhhhhhhh. . .
"Oh no," Head cries woefully. "All of our hard work and he still turned into a zombie!"
"No, no, my love!" Muffin quickly crosses to Gold's bedside with a spoonful of ice chips and places them carefully into his parched mouth. "Just give him a moment to wake up!"
". . .cheesecake. . ."
"He's still obsessed with cheesecake," Head shakes his head in disbelief. "What could it mean?"
"HUZZAH!" April and Cooper yell out his catchphrase together as they charge towards the approaching contingent of pandas. Cooper stretches his arm out to catch one of the beasts in the neck, clotheslining it backwards onto the damp grass. April ducks down to tackle the next panda in the knees, straightening up as her shoulder makes contact with its flabby belly, flipping the stinky bastard over her back. Mother and son clasp their hands and sprint for the next panda like they're playing a hellacious game of 'Red Rover'. Three pandas lying motionless on the ground, and no others in sight, Cooper and April take a moment to do a victory dance involving many high-fives, butt wriggling, and bellybonks.
Saph stares at the scene and bumps Rowan in the arm, "What has got into those two?"
"Cooper is on a constant sugar high," Zero points out. "And April pretty much ate that entire cheesecake on her own last night at supper, so. . ."
Overhearing Zero, Lucy starts toying with a piece of hair that has escaped her pink (and thus very un-spy-like) bow. Her hair is turning white. And she took those pandas out much too easily. Oh no. "Lils!" She beckons her daughter over to her side. "We've got a problem that I really don't have time to fully explain, okay?" She bites her lip, trying to decide what to do. "Keep April away from Angel."
Johanna scoffs from her permanent position at Lils' side, "That's your master plan?"
"Yes. I don't care if we're winning or losing. . .if they come anywhere near each other, stop them."
Johanna is about to say something more, but Lils notices that Lucy is now gnawing on the nails of one hand as the other continues to wind and unwind in her hair, so she spins Johanna around and gives her a friendly thwack to get moving. "We're on it!"
Angel splashes the surface of her magical cauldron in frustration, sending droplets of melted chocolate in Irma's direction. "Staring into this thing always makes me angry. And hungry."
A dangerous combination, Irma thinks as she cleans her glasses on the pelt of a nearby panda. "It was only a small group of soldiers, Ang. They were supposed to observe, not engage. . .you can't predict the main battle using just this incident."
"Did you hear Johanna say I was 'panda ignorant'?"
Irma scrunches up her face. "I think it was actually Iris."
"Really? Those two are confusing." Angel crosses her arms over her chest and stares at the swirling chocolate as it attempts to refocus on the scene. "Whichever one said it, they have a point. My panda numbers have been dwindling."
"So what are you going to do?"
"The first Little that appears is going to have to battle me mano-a-mano."
Zoey and Kay manage to drag their squirming bundle of zombie pandas back to the cellar without any further issues, but when they try to push open the door, they discover that Irmangel barred it shut after retreating from the RoombaCat fiasco. Unable to sneak such a large amount of riled up pandas into the Palace through her normal passageways, Zoey enlists Kay's help to snap a candycane off the building's facade, then they stake their monochromatic mass to the ground just out of sight from any passerbys.
But the Onyx is no mere passerby. Lounging in the branches of a lollipop tree, just far enough into the forest to stay hidden, she has been observing this evening's events from the very beginning. The cats are goners. The pandas are grounded. She rolls up the parchment she was sketching on and slides it into her quiver, where it nestles safely amongst her yellow foam arrows. The potential for fun is dwindling by the second! She pulls her blue plastic crossbow down from a nearby branch and plucks the black elastic string that serves absolutely no purpose. Smiling deviously, she places her hand on the grip and whistles for her sloths. "My friends, we must not allow peace to come so easily! To the battle, I say, and with haste!"
"Where is Aproma?" Gold's head is pounding, but he uses his elbow's to work himself into a more upright position for conversation.
"They left hours ago to spy on The Angel," Muffin says as she fluffs a pile of pillows to help support Gold.
Head nods. "Yew has informed us that tragic events occurred in the fields between our strongholds, and we're now on the verge of battle, yet-"
"-we have received no official notice to ready the animal armies," Muffin finishes.
"Mobilize them," Gold commands as he tosses the bedsheets off his body. I helped make the Angel what she is, and now I will give my all to destroy her.
Cooper and April are taking their protective duties seriously, staying well ahead of the Lurkers to intercept any dangerous minions of The Angel before they can inflict harm. Lils and Johanna the pair with caution, taking great care not to give away their location to any enemy spies. . .and rather loathe to startle the warriors after seeing how deftly they disposed of the previous pandas.
"The movies always use some sort of a bird noise to alert each other," Johanna suggests in a hushed tone.
"I'm not much of an owl," Lils replies.
"And I'm not much of a crow."
"What sound do pelicans make?"
Lils' question stumps Johanna. "You know, I have no idea!"
"I can sort of a do a kookaburra call. . ."
Johanna's face brightens. "Ooh, do it! I've never heard a kookaburra! I'll love you forever if you do it now, pleasepleaseplease!"
"Okay. . ."
Lils clears her throat as quietly as possible, and when she opens her mouth again, the most annoying noise in the world starts to be emitted. And it keeps going, on and on, until Johanna has to remove her hands from her ears and slap them over Lils mouth to silence her. "I hate you."
"You said you'd love me forever," Lils' muffled voice responds.
"That was before I knew what a kookaburra sounded like," Johanna says. "That probably alerted everyone within a five mile radius to our location, dwark!"
Moments later, Cooper and April appear from around a patch of wild gummy bear shrubs. Cooper's eyes are wide with confusion, and April looks slightly furious at the noisy intrusion. She begins to stomp towards Lilanna, but before her profanity can reach Johanna's fragile ears, a red lasso tightens around her midsection and she is yanked backwards through the sugary underbrush.
Onyx plucks a striped stick from a nearby sapling and places it between her lips. She sighs, nostalgic for the days of nicotine's calm, not the frenzied sugar high of this ridiculous forest. She peers into the branches above to locate her three-toed friends, but the effort is unnecessary because they've barely moved from the position they were in fifteen minutes ago. Why didn't I recruit the two-headed cats? She rests her back against the trunk of an immense lollipop tree and starts to slide down into a sitting position, but is halted halfway when her shirt gets snagged. Leaning away from the trunk in an awkward squatting manner, she hears the velcro-y sound of fabric disengaging from a sticky surface. Of course I would choose to rest against the only tree in the area with a fucking wet spot. She angrily crunches through the cherry-flavored sugar stick and waits for her army to catch up.
Squeak squeak
Click Clunk
"Hiss!" Kitty slides off the bicycle's seat and lets the useless hunk of metal crash onto its side. She falls cross-legged to the ground beside the rented tandem and stares sourly at the chain that has once again fallen off the sprocket while she was trying to switch gears.
"A bicycle built for two usually works better with, well, two."
Kitty leaps to her feet in surprise, not expecting to run into anyone in the woods at night. "Hiss!"
"Whoa, whoa! Don't be scared," Onyx tells her soothingly. "I'm a friend. And I'm quite capable of fixing your bike if you'll allow me to ride along for a little ways."
"Do you like cats," Kitty asks suspiciously.
"Well, sure! Who doesn't like cats," Onyx responds enthusiastically.
"Prylla." Hiss.
"I don't know who or what that is. . ."
"My nemesis. I am going to attack her during the battle and slice off her lips and her ears and her nose and her eyebrows and her eyelids and her fingernails and her fingertips and her kneecaps and each hair on her head-"
"-that last one would actually be more painful if you just scalped her," Onyx awkwardly interjects. "Because the individual hairs aren't going to feel any pain, so. . .you know what? Nevermind. We're heading in the same direction, and that's all that matters! Partners?" She bends to lift the bike upright and reattach its chain.
"Meow!"
"Good enough for me."
Cooper has nearly finished chewing through his licorice restraints by the time Lilanna returns to the site of April's kidnapping with the rest of the Lurkers. "Awww," he complains as Lils unwinds the last loop from his wrists. "That was really delicious! I wonder if the Palace makes it themselves? I might have to place an order for a batch!"
"Cooper!" Johanna flings brightly colored confetti into his face to get his mind off of sweets.
"Sorry, not sorry," Lils can't help saying under her breath. Johanna turns to her and raises her open palm again. "Oops. Carry on."
Lucy appears and offers him her hand. "Get on up, Coop. We've lost precious time." Lils and Johanna both hide their heads in shame. Lucy looks at her motley crew and sighs. "It would probably be safer to proceed as a group now." She starts to lead the way towards Caesar's Palace, the outline of which has become illuminated by a flickering orange light on the side opposite of their approach. Her mind is chanting hurry hurry hurry, but her voice remains calm. "Keep a steady pace, weapons at the ready."
"Zoey, I forgive you for all of your treachery!" Angel jumps up and down with a sparkle of murderous glee in her eyes. "I asked for a Little, but you and Kay captured the Little!" She giggles maniacally and skips a happy circle around April.
"Yep, the original Little," April yawns and rips a hunk of gummy bear from her hair. "Feel free to kneel at anytime."
Angel bypasses her usual poking method, and takes a full swing at the back of April's legs with her bamboo scepter. It's unclear to those in attendance whether the cracking sound that echoes off the Palace's outer wall is from April's knees hitting the stone pathway or Angel's bamboo splintering to pieces. As Angel throws her broken scepter into the nearest fire barrel, Irma steps between the two matriarchs, speaking to April first, "Angel wishes to end this feud with a one-on-one battle, and since you are the first of your party to appear before her, do you agree to partake?"
April chuckles and stares into the firelight reflected off Irma's spectacles as she responds, "Sure. Sounds like a real hoot." Angel has returned to circling, but her merriment has been replaced by a menacing glare. "What are the weapons?"
"Bamboo with a beat."
April and Angel both look at Irma with confusion, asking in unison, "What?"
"Tinikling," Irma responds. "Follow me."
Muffin lowers Gold's golden helmet onto his head. "It's odd to see you two in armor without Cooper by your side."
"We'll be together soon enough," Head declares confidently. He tries to place his own helmet on so that Muffin can continue assisting Gold, but the plate's bulk prevents him from lifting his arms high enough. "It feels like centuries since I've worn this stuff. . ." Muffin giggles at his grumbling and places a quick kiss on his cheek before unceremoniously shoving his helmet on for him.
Gold taps his mount lightly on the head, and the polar bear rises far enough on its hind legs for him to assess his troops. Squirrels, sugar gliders, chipmunks, polar bears, crocs, boomers. Everyone is accounted for. "Alright, Head. Time to be on our way." He taps the bear with his heals, starting the procession towards the main gate. "We'll be sending back the injured as we come across them, Muffin. Be ready."
Click click
Clack clack
Click click
Clack clack
"Is that a giant clock," Zero wonders out loud.
"No. . ." Iris stops marching so she can listen closer. "I think I hear cheering, don't you?"
"There's definitely a lot more movement near whatever is burning behind the Palace," Zero says, pointing at the orange light as it dances around more wildly than before.
Click click
Clack clack
Click click
Clack clack
"There they are! The chained pandas!" Onyx points excitedly as they near the Palace.
"But the fight must be around the other side!" Kitty starts to pedal harder towards the flickering light.
Onyx pulls a foam arrow from over her shoulder and loads her Nerf crossbow."Just veer close enough for me to rile them up with a few shots, okay?"
"Fine!" Kitty steers them within twenty feet of the huddled pandas. "Yuck, those things smell dead!"
Onyx gets a whiff of them after she sends her first arrow into the center of their mass. "Fuck, you ain't kiddin'!" She manages to hit her targets with two more arrows before they tear their candycane stake from the ground and rip off the rope that bound them together. "Pedal, Kitty! Lead them to the light!" Onyx gets her feet back onto her own pedals to assist. Oh yeah, we're going to have some fun now!
Click click
Clack clack
"Irma-" Angel gasps for breath, "why did you choose such a-"
Click click
"-goddamn stupid-" April snaps as she uses her sleeve to wipe her brow.
Clack clack
"-way for us to battle?" Angel finishes.
Irma gives Zoey and Kay a signal to increase the speed at which they're tapping the ten foot long bamboo poles on the ground. "Tinikling is a popular dance in the Phillipines," she responds to Angel. "Coordination and endurance are the keys to victory, not brute strength. Competitors of drastically different sizes can battle each other on equal ground." A commotion around the furthest corner of the Palace wall draws Irma's attention away. "Excuse me for a moment."
Click click
"Just tell me who ate my horcrux," Angel growls.
April lets out a short laugh. "So you can foster them in this loving family of yours? No way."
Click click
Clack clack
"Yellowing mother-of-pearl!" Irma is being chased back to them by a rambling mob of zombie pandas, but before she can reach the relative safety of fire barrel-ringed tinikling stage, her attention is once again redirected. Coming around the opposite corner of the Palace wall, the Lurkers appear, led by a crazed blonde whose voice rebounds off the stone wall and dissipates over the empty space of the cliff's edge. "APRIL!"
Kitty sees her opportunity for flaying April diminishing. "PRYLLA!" She yells angrily, and jumps off the bicycle to charge for the evil Little that has thrown innumerable banhammers at her, leaving Onyx to fend for herself.
Click click
Clack clack
"You're pretty popular tonight," snorts Angel as she jumps in and out of the bamboo. "Tell me who ate my horcrux already."
Lucy and Kitty collide en route to April and end up scuffling on the ground. The zombie pandas are attracted to the monotonous clicking and clacking of the poles; their speed picks up as they approach the two dancing enemies. Angel and April stop moving moments before the collision occurs.
"Hey, Angel?"
"What?"
"Your soul was delicious."
"You?"
April smiles. "Me."
Angel lets out a howl of frustration as the pandas topple them all over the edge of Peanut Brickle Cliff.