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CHAPTER THREE: BIZARRO CRANKYLAND
<Wulfgar watches in horror as the reality storm absorbs the two golfers, causing them to implode.
Horror?
[Great Purple Head on a pogo stick,] he thinks, [two living creatures, invoked with real emotions, real problems, and friends who are probably wondering when they'll get home have just been flipped inside-out and hurled, screaming through the cosmos! Unbelievable!!!]
"Well, yeah," Wulfgar mutters, "but they were GOLFERS."
[Oh. Then whatever,] he thinks, [So how come the same thing isn't happening to the rest of us?]
Indeed, the four present Crankydestined and the two Conqueror-tainted individuals have been left alone by whatever it is that's wondered what would make a tasty snack and decided on the fabric of space-time. It's as if someone has come along to provide them with a handy Apocalypse Strength Force Field.
Somebody with weird magical powers sufficient to create such a Field.
Somebody who'd be able to know where his "superhero team" was at any given moment.
Somebody who needed his team to survive this, as they had unattended business.
Somebody like…
"I don't want to think," Lord Wreck glares, "what I think I'm thinking."
"Believe it," says the Great Prophet Zarquon. "I'm not quite finished with any of you yet."
So the reality storm passes, the golf course now brings to mind magnified images of insect parts, and Zarquon explains, in a concise and easily understood manner, exactly what the Crankydestined must do now. His words are quite profound and make his pupils think.
"If you'll excuse me," says the Prophet, as he casually causes a fully working shower stall to materialize, "I've got to shave my armpits."
So, the Prophet steps into the shower, closes the door (it's one of those stalls with the doors), and starts singing as the water starts running. And Mayor Bob absolutely snaps.
"WWWWHHHHHHHAAAAAATTTTTT??????????!!!!!!!!!!??????????" asks the Mayor, "No, no, don't answer that. You know what? I'm done. I've had it."
"Woah," Lord Wreck says quietly to himself, "and I thought I was going to loose it first."
Mayor Bob ignores him and, still muttering an cursing, removes the Crest of Baldfaced Lying and, facing that Guam Girl, says, "isn't this nice, though? You like it? It's yours.
"Because," he's Officially Announcing it now, "I have HAD IT. This, what you're looking at, is an ex-Cranky-Digi- Destitute, whatever. No more riddles, no more ridiculous quests that go nowhere, no more falling bass-ackwards into victory. Adieu, my friends, it's been fun. Screw you, Zarquon, I'm going home."
And so the Mayor prepares to leave.
"Are you sure about this?" asks the Prophet.
Mayor Bob turns around very slowly and glares at the shower stall.
"Yes."
A sigh comes from inside the shower, "Okay. I suppose I don't need you anymore anyway. Goodbye."
To Zarquon, Mayor Bob only sounds a muffled "Humph." To the Crankydestined, he says, "see you all when you're back from this mess, guys.
"Oh," he adds, "I have a fifty wager on another angel or somesuch pulling everyone's asses out of the fire."
Zarquon has been silent through this. He says nothing while the Mayor walks off. And then, finally, he quietly says, "bye, Bob."
He says this exactly three nanoseconds before there is a new good-sized crater where the Mayor was standing an instant before. In the crater, in place of Mayor Bob, there is an unusually large strawberry, roughly the size of your average sofa.
It takes a while, but the witnesses figure out, with a chill, what has just happened.
"Uhh…," Kaoru-Dono is the first to catch on, "correct me if I'm wrong but," she shudders violently, "did anyone else just see Mayor Bob get squashed by a gigantic berry."
"Well," Wulfgar doesn't' quite know how to phrase this, "if you saw it too, then that's almost a good thing. It means I'm not hallucinating."
"You ARE hallucinating!" this from the unquestionably empathic Darker Conqueror, "this is the setup of a freakin' CANDY commercial!"
"But san," Guam Girl is quick to point out, "you saw it too."
Darker Conqueror stiffens, puffs up… and relents, nodding.
A very pale Lord Wreck is just staring and staring at the fructus mortem and thinking and thinking about something he's just recently heard.
"Hey, Zarquon," he says, in between nervous twitches, "didn't you say something funny about you didn't need Bob anymore?"
The answer is as casual as you please.
"Yup."
[Ladies and gentlemen,] we're in the Wreck's brain now, [please keep all hands and personal articles inside the emotional roller coaster until it comes to a full and complete stop. Por favor, las cucarachas entran, pero no pueden saiir.]
And now, aloud, in a voice that would send Chimerqueror packing.
"You…"
"You are," Zarquon has started singing in the shower again, "my fi-yer / the one dee-zie-yer / baleeve when I say / I want it THAT way."
"But we," this is coming from another voice, "are two worlds a-part!"
Wreck looks around with an intensity more appropriate for a cat whose been dropped in a room full of very confused sparrows.
"Can't reach to you're heart," Holy singing fishies, it's Darker Conqueror who is singing now! "When you say, I want it THAT way!"
"Tell me why?" sings Zarquon.
"Ain't nothin' but a heartache!" both Zarquon and Darker Conqueror sing.
"Tell me why? Ain't nothin' but a MIS-take! Tell me why," now it's the Prophet, D. C., and of all the demented plot twists Wulfgar singing!
"I never wanna hear you say," Wulfie's solo part, "I-I-I want it THAT way…"
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
She steps through the time warp and onto some oxygen molecules. They don't give her much support.
"SSSSSHHHHHHHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITTTTTTTTTTTTTT!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!" Mad-Ness shrieks on the way down.
And as soon as she's halfway through her forty-second "Hail Mary", she's violently transposed to an area of sky directly above a large strawberry.
"…Now and at the Hour… what the?"
Squish!
[Freud,] Ness thinks, [would have a freaking field day. What sick freak is responsible for this?]
[I have saved thee, Hyper Izzard!] the thought isn't her own.
[Telepathy?] Ness isn't too shaken by this, [Cool. I'm guessing you're another Sidhe?]
[Yes, I here with Toothy Doggy and Junky Doggy and 'minski- Wombat and Chicky-Moo.]
[More fun phrases to sneak into a slow conversation at random. They're all okay?]
[Aye, but a tad bitty-bit ticked at youm's pet human. Youm… AUUUUGH!!!]
"What?" she's shouting aloud as she's able to see her remaining teammates approaching over a hill that brings to mind an enlarged pillbug carapace, "are you guys allright or not?"
"A disturbance!" the Sidhe is frantic, "C'est Badger- Boyband song!!! Youm must Crankyvolve and use tres hoopy Anti-Baha, Junky-Dog."
"I can't!" King Dog is nearly twice as frantic, "not without… Ah, SHIT! We've lost 'im!!!"
"No MATTER the DIS-TANCE," Ken's layering on the artificial drama, "I WANT you to KNOW! That DEEP down inSIIIIIIDAMEEEEEEEE……."
But his terrible transformation is not nearly as disturbing as the fact that IT also now has Lord Wreck!
"Yew are (dramatic pause) My fiiiiiyer / the one (dramatic pause) Deee-ziiii-yer. You are…
"You are…."
"You are…"
"This isn't fair," says Mad-Ness, "how come only they get to sing?"
But just before the singers get around to the part where they must all stare pensively off into the distance before the big finish, Mendo sees that Zarquon is there.
"YOU!!!" Mendo turns beet red.
The Prophet is completely unfazed.
"You."
Because of this interruption, Zarquon's ill-humored spell has been broken. It's victims sort of stand around awkwardly until they're no longer the center of attention.
They can thank Kaoru-Dono for changing the subject, "You two know each other?"
"Zarking Badger-Sidhe!" Mendo spits, "youm giveth wombats zanybrainy…"
"Cut the crap," the Great Prophet says coolly.
"Apipolai?"
"Cut the crap."
"Mrrgh," Mendo mutters, "vurry walden. THIS LITTLE FREAK IS FULL OF COMPLETE MOOCOW POOP!!! HE'D TELL YOU POOR SCHLUBS ANYTHING JUST SO HE CAN…"
"Wait, wait, wait," Whack-Chick attempts to slow the combatants down a tad, "can we get the less vague version of the story, maybe?"
And so Mendo tells our heroes the incredible story of the Great Prophet Zarquon.
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