THE FANTASTIC SIX BILLION

At the fight, Cheap Shot took down the plant as Walrus Man and Freaky Kid's thoughts walked around aimlessly and attempted nothing fancy, although Walrus Man was attempting to cause some sort of ray to come out of a remote control for a Tonka Truck.

The cave was slightly more... crystalline, here. It seemed to have a reverberate sound from somewhere. There was a thin bridge to the left, and a path leading down to the right. Ahead of them was were the remains of the plants.

* * * * *

Scoop anxiously sucked on his thumb, willing it back to growth. Perrywinkle was tough - and he couldn't take him one-on-one. Fortunately, Perrywinkle wasn't coming after him.

There was a noise further down, and suddenly the dirt wall in front of him burst open. The other two members of his crew, Two Steps Ahead Of You Man and Unbelievable Man were there.

"Hey, Scoop. We held a meeting about what to do about your influenza."
"What?" asked Scoop.
"Yeah... we didn't have a meeting." said Unbelievable Man.
"Sorry," said Two Steps "I was thinking ahead to our plan that ends up with a three-course lobster dinner."
"I won't ask... how did you guys get here?"
"Realizing you would be here over three years ago, I teleported myself here with a time-machine, unfortunately, when I got here, the machine hadn't been invented and it disappeared."
"That explains your odd disappearance. You know, I got caught while you guys were away."
"Cool."
"Yeah. Perrywinkle's trying to kill me," he displayed his thumb "and he got my Easy Bake Oven, too."
"Where is he? I'll rip his nose off."
"He'll eat you before you do that."
"I'm already there."
"No you're not."
"Well, I was..."
"Let's go."
The three headed out the tunnel into an interesting triangular room. Here was where The other two superheroes had forged a base. Scoop told them of the plan to have a total weather domination station.
"We'll rest here, man. We've gotta figure out what to do about these weather guys."
"Zzzz..."

* * * * *

Perrywinkle paced back and forth, chewing on whatever had been baked in the oven. Ping-Pong and Barber Boy ran in. "Boss! What is it?"
"Seems to be a muffin containing pineapple and carrots."
"Oh... well we gotta find Scoop. Let's go."
The three walked out, surprisingly ignoring the gaping hole in the floor. Scoop was clever, but they were tough and lucky.

* * * * *

Scoop sat up suddenly.
"You idiots! Superheroes don't need sleep."
"I had breakfast going already."
"Well, let's have that meeting we already had, then."
Unbelievable Man woke up, heard the conversation and decided that he was probably still asleep.
"The first thing on our agenda... hey! Where's the agenda?"
"I threw it out. I thought the meeting was over."
"Well, I think we have to discuss Perrywinkle's Ploy."
"Already have."
"NO-WE-HAVEN'T."
"Sorry."
Unbelievable Man sat up again.
"You want us to use Perrywinkle's Ploy? P.P.? We'll be the laughing stock of Superhero teams."
"Fine, the first thing on our agenda is looking for a better name for Perrywinkle's Ploy."
Unbelievable Man started giggling.
"Okay - so now that we've defeated him."
Scoop smacked Two Steps.
"We. Have. Not. Done. Anything. Yet."
"Yes we-"
"NO."
"Sorry."
"Okay, let's call it Operation Kill the Bad Guy."
"Has a nice ring to it." said Unbelievable Man.
"So how do we stop Perrywinkle's Ploy?" asked Two Steps "I thought we already had."
"We'll have to trap him somehow. There are more than fifty superheroes out there..."
"But they're dying quick. Remember what happened to Nostril Boy?"
"Poor guy. Was a good superhero, but when Perrywinkle was through with him, his intestines had been ripped out and used to strangle him. Sigh..."
"I can't believe you actually said "Sigh". Oh, yeah... let's avenge his death!" said Two Steps.
"Gives us a reason, I guess. He was part of our team."
"Yeah - FOR NOSTRIL BOY!" shouted Scoop.
Unbelievable Man stared.
"Yes, ahem, well... about Perrywinkle's team..."
"They're an evil group of weatherpersons!"
"Yeah - they control the elements of nature. How can we fight with that?"
"The three of us can take Perrywinkle when he's alone..."
"But he's never alone. He's always attended by at least two henchmen."
The three sat in silent contemplation, except for Two Steps who was going to the washroom before he'd begun to eat his pancakes.
"I've got it!" cried Unbelievable Man "We need more superheroes to join our cause!"
"Thanks, genius. How are we supposed to get them, though? You lost Two Steps' time machine in the process of coming here three years ago - we're the only good superheroes left in the universe!"
"Unless we go back in time..."
"I just explained why we can't."
"Oh... yeah."
They continued to wait in silence, knowing that their deadly opposition stalked only minutes away. How would they ever manage to save themselves, and the universe?

* * * * *

The market place was filled with bustling people, all dressed in togas and some were juggling and entertaining others for shiny stones. There were three shops visible to Perrywinkle. A potion shop, the food stand behind him, and a clothing store, featuring many togas.
Unfortunately, as a superhero, he did not bring any money...

As Perrywinkle lumbered into the confusion, a sneeze - a familiar sneeze, quite like the allergic reaction Scoop had to the old bamboo prison had sounded like. This was no coincidence, as always, and the he began stalking towards the sound, scratching his stomach as he went.
He bashed his fist through a wall to find not but three small children playing, and now staring horrified up at him.

Perrywinkle shouted and munched down a kid. Scoop needed to be found soon. He stomped down the road, cracking the ground. Finally, it collapsed beneath him, landing him in an odd pit with three different directions to go. The first headed back in the direction he'd come, the other two seemed to lead towards a foul smelling odour and another that lead straight ahead.

Or, he could just climb out and continue on his way, albeit lighter steps, mind you. After all, no one likes to fall through the road twice.

The foul smelling odour reminded Perrywinkle of Evil Ma Woman's cooking. He hated it. The tunnel behind him seemed fairly happy, but smelled quite nice, and the tunnel ahead of him smelled like dirt.
Taking the path behind him, he ended up in the toy store again.

As Perrywinkle stepped into the foul smelling tunnel, he was hit with what can only be described as a swamp 'thing'. It jumped around the darkness and the villagers looked on, slightly surprised.
"Oh look, someone's finally found our plumbing problem again."

Perrywinkle used his belly to bounce the creature across the tunnel and smash it into the wall. The creature was stunned for a moment, but began to leap around again - much like the giddy idiot it was.

Letting out a low chuckle, Perrywinkle hammered the creature into a rock, completely flattening it.

As he continued down the tunnel, the stench became more hideous. Perrywinkle looked around uncaring, but not seeing Scoop, decided this might as well be the place to go. There were two tunnels further in, leading left and right.

* * * * *

Scoop followed the mole without fear. Unbelievable Man sighed, and waited for Two Steps to finish breakfast. The mole lead him further and further down, to a small little nest of other moles.

"Well," said Scoop "Stone-burrowing moles. This is odd."

But it wasn't. Quite natural, really. Before he could say anymore, the mole turned around and said "What's that?"

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