Author's Note: I know everyone's looking forward to Aleena reuniting with her kids, but be patient. I plan on including that alongside Kipo reuniting with Lio. In the meantime, enjoy this chapter which goes over Kipo's side of the Mute Eat Mute episode. Wolf's side will be explored in the next chapter.
The song featured here is a parody of "A New Way to Go" from the Lion Guard.
Any and all comments are welcome.
"You have literally the worst timing, Jamack." Sonic commented as he had his hands and feet bound by ropes along with his siblings, Kipo, and baby Dave. The five of them rode on the back of a dragonfly with the disgraced Mod Frog at the reigns.
"Tough luck." Jamack said.
"Look, just land us and let us go." Kipo pleaded.
"And then what, burrow girl? Every mute in the city is after you and your little hedgehog pals. But I'm the one who's going to deliver you to Scarlemagne. I'm gonna live like a king when this is over. I can already imagine Sartori shining my shoes."
"You wouldn't hand us to Scarlemagne." Kipo said. "Deep down, you know it's wrong."
"Kipo, look at Jamack." Sonia said. "He looks too desparate to be reasoned with."
"Face the facts!" Jamack said. "It's a mute-eat-mute world. Only the strong survive here."
"Really? Because I know like a hundred mutes stronger than me," Sonic said, "And I can run circles around those chumps. It's almost as easy as running circles around you."
"Not helping, bro." Manic said.
"Look, Jamack, you gotta let us down." Kipo said. "I have to make things right with Wolf. She got really upset over something that isn't even my fault."
"Oh, your friend ran off on you." Jamack said. "At least she didn't snip your tie and kick you out of the only home YOU'VE EVER KNOWN!"
"…Sounds rough." Manic said.
"Wanna talk about it?" Kipo asked.
"NO!"
BANG!
A loud gunshot echoed through the sky and a bullet flew right past Jamack's head. He yelled in surprise shifting his dragonfly around.
BANG!
Another bullet narrowly missed him.
"What's going on?" Sonia asked.
"Someone's trying to take a shot at us!" Manic replied.
"Only one mute has that good an aim." Jamack said. "It's Fang and the Hooligans!"
"Those chumps again?" Sonic asked. "Man, we cannot catch a break with those guys."
BANG!
"WHOA!" Jamack yelled out. "That's it! Gotta fly into the forest so he doesn't shoot us down!"
Through his sniper scope, Fang watched Jamack's dragonfly descent into the thick set of trees below. He lowered his gun with a devilish smirk.
"Uh, Fang," Bean said. "You got better aim than that. Why didn't you shoot them down?"
"And send our targets plummeting to their doom? Scarlemagne wants them alive. This way, they have a better chance of escaping. Onto the bikes, boys. Let's make sure they stay on the right trail."
Once the dragonfly was low enough, Jamack laughed when the gunfire stopped. "Stupid Hooligans. I still got the old magic."
"You sure do." Kipo said. Clutching onto Dave, she and the Hedgehogs jumped off the dragonfly and landed safely onto the ground. They unbound each other from their ropes before turning to run.
"How do you like that, sucker?" Sonic taunted.
"Come on. We gotta warn the others." Kipo said.
Before they could take another step however, Jamack landed right in front of them. "Nice try, kids, but you forget…"
The frog mute was interrupted by a series of martial arts attacks. Sonia surprised him with several strikes with her fists and elbows before sending him down with a roundhouse kick.
"Holy, moley!" Kipo cried out. "How did you do that?"
"I'm a rich girl in a world full of greedy and hungry mutes." Sonia said. "Self-defense classes are a must."
"Isn't it nice when we learn more about each other." Manic asked.
Their celebration was cut short when the ground gave out underneath them all. Kipo, baby Dave, Sonic, Sonia, Manic, and Jamack plummeted down into the ground. They landed shortly into a large tunnel.
At that moment, baby Dave molted into teen Dave. "Ew! Why is it so dark and dusty? I'm not scared. It's just weird." A bit of dust fell on Dave's face making him sneeze. He sneezed so hard, he already molted again into adult Dave.
"What happened?" Kipo asked.
"I think we fell into…" Sonic gasped when he saw something at its side. "A Mega Bunny warren."
Jamack shivered in fright seeing the baby Mega Bunnies sleeping in front of him. "Not the bunnies. Not again."
"Aww. Look at their faces." Kipo said.
"Kipo, don't touch them!" Sonic said pulling her away. "If you do, you'll never get their momma off their back. Remember how we met?"
"Right. Sorry." Kipo said. She grabbed Jamack while he was freaking out and dragged him through an open pipe before the mama bunny arrived.
"I'm just gonna say what we're all thinking. This dirt tastes good." Dave said.
"Dave, I will never compliment dirt." Sonia said. "I'll die before I ever admit that."
The six of them followed the trail of the pipe until they found an opening. They went through finding themselves in a dark, damp sewer tunnel.
"So… about what you saw back there." Jamack said. "I wasn't scared. I was just… Look, promise you'll never, ever tell anyone about this. Ever."
"Ooh. I love making promises." Kipo said. "Almost as I love keeping them."
"You nauseate me." Jamack said. "Who keeps promises?"
"What?" Sonic asked. "You're telling me you want Kipo to tell everyone you got petrified by Mega Bunnies?"
"…Shut up."
"Hmm. Breeze is coming in from the left." Kipo observed. "We should head that way."
"Aren't you worried about bumping into something?" Manic asked.
"No. There's nothing there to trip over."
"How do you know that?" Jamack asked. "It's pitch black in here."
"It is?" Kipo asked. "But you can see."
"That's because I'm a frog, and frogs have impeccable night vision. Humans can't see in the dark. Yet, you can. So…"
Kipo turned to face Jamack, and that's when everyone took a good look at her eyes. What was once normal human eyes were now purple and cat-like.
Jamack gasped seeing the eyes like beacons in the night. "What are you?"
"I don't know." Kipo said. "I could.. maybe be… part mute?"
"Yeah. It's this whole thing we're trying to figure out." Manic said.
"You're a human and a mute?" Jamack asked. "What kind of freak are you?"
"Finally, something we can agree on." Kipo sat on the edge of the sewer tunnel and lowered her head.
"Uh…" Jamack said nervously, "Do you wanna talk about it?"
"YES!" Kipo answered. "OK. So all my life, I've just been an average person with an above-average reading level, and then, I finally turn 13 and everything just goes crazy! I mean, my dad told me about 'body changes' but nothing like this! I have fur that pops out of my arm and then goes away! Where does it go? And I can see in the dark? And I haven't told anyone this, but I can smell, like, everything. It's disgusting. On top of all that, me, Sonic, Sonia, and Manic are part of a prophecy that says we have to bring humans and mutes together or else the world will be destroyed. Not to mention there's all this other lore about magical music pendants and floating islands and Chaos Emeralds, which in my eyes, is still less of a mind-blowing surprise than me being part mute! But the worst part is that my best friend hates me for it."
"That's the short, intense one, right?" Jamack asked.
"That's her." Sonic said. "Small, but scrappy. She's not the biggest fan of mutes, and the fact that Kipo is part mute kinda ruined her for Wolf."
"Well, maybe she's just scared." Jamack said.
"I don't want her to be scared of me." Kipo said.
"No, not scared of you. Scared of change." Jamack said. "When you spend your whole life believing one thing, and then it's ripped away, you can do some pretty drastic stuff. Not always smart stuff."
"Whoa. Did you just give us life advice, Jamack?" Sonia asked. "That was honestly kinda sweet."
"Uh… don't read too much into it."
After finding a manhole cover, the six of them finally managed to return to the surface, back into the middle of the forest. Kipo's eyes returned to normal after stepping into the daylight.
"So what happens now?"
"Now, I hand you and your friends to Scarlemagne, attain the power I so rightly deserve, and get revenge on anyone who's ever wronged me." Jamack answered.
"Really, dude? After all that?" Manic asked.
"Yeah." Kipo agreed. "I was hoping you'd say 'Now, we turn around, find Wolf, and convince her to let you braid her hair'."
"You didn't seriously think we were becoming friends?" Jamack asked.
"Well, did you seriously forget this?" Sonia said. She jumped up and shot another roundhouse kick, one that sent Jamack back down the manhole he just climbed out of.
"Come on. We've gotta find Wolf." Kipo said putting the cover back on the manhole.
"No problem. Just follow the smell of grittiness." Sonic said.
After recovering from the latest kick, Jamack picked himself up. He was about to jump to give chase, but he stopped himself and sighed. All around him, he keeps seeing all the times Kipo and the others affected him as if seeing his memories from the outside.
"What's happening to me? First, the soul searching. Then they let me go. And now, they open their hearts out to me? I have every reason to keep hunting them down, and now, I feel… something different than that. What's wrong?
Jamack:
Everything's just so different now
So abnormal, and I don't know how
Those kids can't be the cause, can they
Sure, their whole friendliness is kinda okay
But Scarlemagne's the one who makes all the rules
And those who don't follow them all act as the fools
Gah! Why is it so strange
Am I really starting to change
Kipo memory:
You need to do some soul searching
Jamack:
Oh, those words are still burning
Look out for number one. That was my creed
But is it really what I really need
What I really need
What I really need
A decision indeed
For what I really need
What I really need
What I really need
Do I listen to my greed
Or what I really need
Those kids smile. I eat dirt
They get praise. I just get hurt
It's like I'd rather find joy in friends
Instead of taking it for my own ends
I don't know where this light came from
Is this really what I'm about to become
Is this actually a sign that I did everything wrong
All along
What I really need
Kipo memory:
You need to do some soul searching
Jamack:
Oh, those words are still burning
Look out for number one. That was my creed
But is it really what I really need
What I really need
What I really need
A decision indeed
For what I really need
What I really need
What I really need
Do I listen to my greed
Or what I really need
Kipo memory:
YOU NEED TO DO SOME SOUL SEARCHING
Jamack:
WHAT I REALLY NEED
WHAT I REALLY NEED
DO I LISTEN TO MY GREED
OR WHAT I REALLY NEED
Jamack ended his contemplation with a sigh. "Well, I guess there's only one thing to do about this."
Kipo and the others continued to run through the forest.
"Can we get to the others?" Manic asked.
"We have to! We get our friends, then we head to the Mega Dog field! My people, my dad, and your mom will be waiting for us there!"
As Kipo said that, they ran right past a certain bush with three people in it. When they ran past, the Hooligans popped their heads out Fang gave out a wicked smile that showed off his tooth.
"The mega dog field, eh?" he snickered. "Scarlemagne will love to hear this."