Every Dog Has It's Day
Part One
Tygra lay on a bed in the
Across the room, on a chair and a patch of floor beside the chair, were Fianna
and Sher Kahn, their visitation rights being restored after Tiger had extracted
promises (at claw-point) of good behavior from both.
Kahn reposed with the relaxed ease of his kind, unoccupied and without needing
to be. Boredom was alien to the energy-conservative feline, who was content to
remain inactive until the need arose.
Fianna, like all canines, had an innate ability to fall asleep at will, and in
the most awkward places. The room resonated with his snores. The nurses had
forgone the usual antiseptic mist in the room, figuring that the caninoid's
Guinness-laden breath would be adequate to deter even the stoutest germs.
Suddenly the door slammed open, making all four occupants jump skyward.
"What the hell?!" Thundera Tiger bawled, but got no further as a microphone
was shoved into her mouth.
"April O'Neal, Channel Six Happy Time News," the jumpsuited redhead
announced. "Do you have any comments on Tygra the Thundercat's
condition?" Behind her, a frumpy girl in a blue sweater and black skirt
struggled to steady a large TV camera.
Tiger's eyes flared green and she bit down, shearing off the end of the
microphone, then spitting it out on the floor. "No comment," she
said. "Except that I warned the press corps that anybody coming in here
uninvited was subject to folding, spindling and mutilating!"
Without missing a beat, the reporter whipped a fresh microphone from out of her
back pocket. "Then perhaps you'd care to comment on the rumours
circulating that you have been fooling around on Tygra?"
"WHAT?!" TT bellowed, outraged.
"Isn't that Lady Thundera's line?" Kahn asked Fianna quietly.
"People seem to say 'what?!' alot when I'm around," the caninoid
replied. "In just that tone of voice, too."
"Oh, don't act so innocent, Mister Sher Kahn!" the reporter said,
turning on the Siberian. "Stealing away Thundera Tiger's heart while her
loving Tygra lies wounded!"
"WHAT?!" Kahn roared.
"See what I mean?" Fianna quipped.
The reported than produced a photograph of the two tigers walking side by side
in the forest. TT was visibly limping.
"Being a little rough on her, Kahnnie-poo?" O'Neal sneered.
Kahn stared at the picture in bewilderment, then burst out, "That's a
scene from Fianna's 'Cause and Effect'!"
"So now it's porn is it?" O'Neal accused.
"Hey! I don't do lemons!" Fianna squawked.
The reporter rounded on TT again. "How about...this?" she said,
producing a tape recorder and hitting play.
There were scuffling sounds, then Kahn's voice could be heard saying excitedly,
"I got your back!" TT's voice was next, crying out "Sher
Kahn!" The reporter clicked the tape off triumphantly.
"That was from 'RD Saves the Day'!" the tiger protested.
"You sure sounded happy to see him," the reporter said, nodding
towards Kahn.
"I WAS ABOUT TO BE SHOT!" Tiger bellowed in fury.
"Call it what you like," the reported grinned. "Finally, explain
where you two went in Mundania these last few weeks."
"What are you talking about?!" Tiger roared. "I had schoolwork,
exams-"
"Playing doctor?" O'Neal said snidely. "You both dropped off the
TCATGR radar at nearly the same time. Kahn came back first, but perhaps it was
because you tired of him."
"I did not!" Tiger howled.
"Then you admit it's an ongoing relationship?"
"GET OUT OF HERE BEFORE I USE YOUR INTESTINES FOR A YARN BALL!"
"There you have it folks," the news hound said, turning back to the
camera. "Vehement denials in the face of evidence, the mark of the
miscreant caught in the act. This is April O'Neal, ace reporter for Happy Time
News. Back to you, Cheezey."
Then the pair burst out the door, inches ahead of Thundera Tiger's claws.
"Wow," Fianna said, "That was diffraaaa!"
"YOU!" TT roared, springing across the hospital room. She tackled the
caninoid, overbearing him to the floor, then stood on his chest, glaring down.
"This is YOUR fault! YOUR stories! YOUR crap about RD and LT!" she
complained.
"It was not!" Fianna protested.
"Um, guys?" Kahn said. "Has anybody besides me noticed that
Tygra is gone?"
TT turned her head. True enough, the tigeroid had vanished.
"That's it," she said quietly. Somehow, this icy tone bothered Fianna
more than the roaring. "I have had it with your antics, dog-breath. You
mess up story lines, slam around like a maniac and now, you've jeapordized my
tiger! Again!"
"You are OFF Team Tiger, Fianna! I want your doggie bag packed and you out
of the Warrior Maidens' village before sundown, or I'll mangle you so bad even
your poodle won't recognize you!" Then she bounded off the caninoid's
chest and out of the room, Sher Kahn hot on her heels.
In their abscense, Fianna sat up slowly, ears drooping sadly.
"But I really didn't do it," he whimpered to himself.
********
"Woe! Woe is me!" Tygra moaned as he staggered along the hospital
basement. He'd meant to slip out the door after making an invisible escape from
the hospital room, but the sedatives were confusing him, making him press
"B" on the elevator keypad instead of "L" for the lobby.
"Betrayed!" he groaned. "Betrayed by the only tiger I'll ever
love! Thrown over for that miserable quadraped Sher Kahn!"
He was quiet for a moment as tears ran down his face. Then he said, "I
suppose it was inevitable. Foolish of me to think a true tiger could love a
half-breed like me. I should be happy for her; I AM happy for her. I just wish
I could have been the one to make her happy."
"Oh, I wish I was DEAD!" he yelled in grief.
"As you wish, so be it," he heard from behind him, then a rag was
pressed over his face. Tygra struggled as the stench of chloroform filled his
nostrils, but in his weakened, drugged state, he was no match for his unseen
opponent. In moments, he was unconscious.
RD Rivero lowered the thundercat to the ground. Benni the Traitorous Tiger
joined him, looking down at the unmoving Tygra with bemusement. Both were clad
in Berbil costumes made from tin cans, aluminum foil and spare parts from
defunct Teddy Ruxpin dolls.
"I cannot believe the Berbils did not detect us in these silly
disguises," Benni said.
"Berbils have Windows Ninety-Eight operating systems with Intel Celeron
processors," the Master of All Evil replied. "It's a wonder they can
detect their own exhaust ports without a samoflange, let alone us."
Benni pulled up a laundry cart and helped RD dump Tygra inside. "I do not
understand," she grunted as they heaved the Thundercat inside. "Why
not take his organ now? Then we would not have to lug him all the way
back."
"Benni, Benni, Benni," RD chided. "You have so much to
learn."
"There is a protocol to these things," he said. "First, I must
capture Tygra through a brilliantly executed master plan..."
"Like this one," Benni interrupted.
"Just so," Rivero said with a grin as they pushed the laundry cart
along the corridor. "Then we must spirit him away to the Anti-Tiger Base
for a little terrorizing and torture, just to convince everyone how evil we
are. This gives TT and her cronies time to formulate a rescue plan, while
giving them a sense of urgency about the role they are to play."
"You make it sound like Tygra is certain to be rescued," Benni
groused. They reached the overhead door at the end of the corridor and raised
it to reveal a laundry truck idling outside.
"Don't be absurd!" RD said, as they rolled the cart inside and closed
the door. "I only allow them to match wits against me to demonstrate to
them how hopelessly outclassed they are!"
RD went forward and turned the ignition. As the truck rumbled away from the
hospital he said, "Then we cut off Tygra's penis and sell it to the
Chinese. MWAAAAHAHAHAHAHA!!!"
To Be Continued
********
The second part of Every Dog. As you may recall, RD got Tygra, and I've been
fired! Oh the stress...
Features a special guest star! I
don't secretly stab people in the back...I do it right out in the open!
Every Dog Has It's Day
Part 2
Fianna the Recently-Fired
Nincompoop wandered morosely down the hall of the Berbil Village medical
center. The caninoid had spent a half an hour in Tygra's room after all three
tigrish creatures vacated it, drowning his grief in Milkbones. Now, out of
Milkbones, the dejected dog paced along slowly, considering his options.
"RD would probably have me
back," he thought. "Lady Thundera, on the other hand, would probably
have me ground into weasel-chow at first sight."
Suddenly Sher Kahn charged around
the corner. "Fianna!" the tiger yelled. The caninoid braced for
attack. Tigers were notoriously unpredictable.
"You gotta do something,"
Kahn panted as he skidded to a halt in front of Fianna. "RD has
Tygra!"
"How do you know?" Fianna
asked, suddenly alarmed.
Kahn raised his right fore-leg, and
a tape player dropped out of his armpit. It hit the floor and began to play, in
Rivero's sing-song voice, "I got Tygra and you don't,
nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah-nyaaaah-nyah."
"Well, that's pretty
self-explanatory," the caninoid considered. "But why do you want my
help? TT would turn you into a sofa cover if she knew you were asking me."
Kahn shuddered. "Because it's
only a matter of time before she remembers that I was involved in this, too.
Then my butt's furniture for certain."
"There's only one thing to
do," the caninoid said as the pair came to the lobby and headed out the
door. "We must invade the Anti-Tiger Base and rescue Tygra!"
"Yeah!" Kahn roared.
"Getting killed by RD can't be any worse than getting killed by Thundera
Tiger!"
The caninoid stopped abruptly,
making the tiger have to turn around to come back. "I'd rather not get
killed at all, if we can avoid it," Fianna mused. "What we need is
some cannon fodder."
Just then, they heard a voice speak
from their right, in an accent straight out of a Beach Boys tune.
"Hey furry dudes! Do you dudes
know where we can find a peanut-butter and anchovie pizza in this burg?"
Without looking, Kahn said,
"Tell me that's Keanu Reeves."
"Not in my story, it
ain't" Fianna replied and turned to face the newcomers with a sloppy
canine smile. "Sure guys," he said. "I know just the
place."
*******
"Ah, good! You're awake,"
RD said slyly as Tygra swam back to consciousness.
"RD Rivero, you nefarious
fiend! What are you planning to do to me?!" The tiger snarled.
Tygra was naked, secured spreadeagle
to a wide table, his wrists and ankles firmly bound. His head was secured by
padded leather straps, forcing his gaze directly into a large TV monitor. By
lowering his eyes, he could just make out a large, barrel-like object directly
in front of his groin.
"What indeed, my femme
fatale?" Rivero snickered. "Merely look at the monitor for a fine
demonstration."
Tygra did as bade, and watched as
someone else, someone he knew, was dragged to the table by Shark and Thunderwolf
and secured in similiar fashion.
"Bengalli! No! It's a trap!
Get away, man, get away!" Tygra cried.
Watching over Tygra's shoulder,
Rivero passed a large bucket of popcorn to Lady Thundera. "Don't you hate
it when people do that at the movies?" he whispered to her.
On the screen, Bengalli's head was
forced into the monitor. Shark moved the barrel-like object into position over
Bengalli's organ, snickering about this being a waste of time for so little
reward. Then he signalled an operator off-camera and the lights dimmed.
"You should know now that we
are applying a tremendous vaccuum to the barrel, drawing blood into the member
to give it maximum enlargement," Lady Thundera whispered in Tygra's ear.
On the screen, Bengalli was in obvious ecstacy, despite the danger he was in.
Reminds me of the time Lion-O
got it stuck in the vacuum cleaner,
Tygra thought, and immediately felt guilty for it.
"Of course, it must be
prepared for shipping," Rivero said. "So we quick-freeze it for
freshness."
On the screen Bengali's ecstatic
expression transformed into one of unimaginable horror and blind agony. His
screams, coming over the speakers, threatend to deafen Tygra.
"Rivero you bastard!"
Tygra raged. "You'll pay for this!"
"Oh no, Tygra," Rivero
chuckled. "My black market contact, Wan Hung Lo, will pay. And handsomely
at that."
"Oh! Oh!" Lady Thundera
exclaimed. "Quiet down now, this is the best part."
"Ah yes," Rivero said
with a satisfied grin. "Extraction."
As Tygra watched in horror, the
camera cut to a scene of a snarf in a high-tech control booth. The little
creature laughed maniacly, then pressed a series of buttons.
The camera returned to the weakened
Bengalli. The white tiger moaned piteously as from somewhere the sound of a
compressor swelled.
Then there was a bang, and suddenly
the barrel was six feet away from Bengalli, who looked down in horror at the
great gaping hole in his pelvis where his manhood had been. The tiger screamed
in pain and grief as a great gout of blood rushed from the hole, followed by
another, then another.
As the swells of blood grew weaker,
so did the young tiger's screams, until finally, both came to a stop.
Bengalli's head lolled backwards onto the bench, his face rolling towards the
camera, his dead eyes staring directly into Tygra's.
"NNOOOOOOO!!!" the
thundercat wailed. "You killed him!! Why?! WHY!?"
"Money, you idiot,"
Rivero sneered. From a cooler beneath his seat, Rivero produced a long, thick
white tube ornamented with black stripes. It was covered with shrinkwrap and frost.
"This will fetch a good
twenty-grand to the right people," Rivero said with a chortle.
"It would have been
twenty-five," LT pouted, "If he hadn't been circumcised. Such a
waste!"
"NOOOOOOOO!" Tygra
wailed.
********
The afternoon sun blazed down on a
recently-overturned patch of earth at the bottom of a shallow ravine. Looking
down on the disturbed soil was a peculiarly-constructed bird. Fat, flightless,
with oversized eyes and a muddy coloring, it was a singularly ugly creature.
It's bulbous body, no better suited to walking than it was to flight, stumbled
and sent it headlong into the ravine.
Righting itself, it waddled to the
rectangular patch of ground. It paused, then produced a loud grating
"Honk!" of a call. It looked at the turf expectantly. When nothing
happend after several moments, the creature clawed at the ground with it's
axe-like beak and bleated again, still to no avail.
Finally it went to one end of the
sector, squated down and urinated copiously onto the soil. The yellow-brown
liquid gushed forth, soaking the ground completely. After about thirty seconds,
it righted itself and moved off, resuming it's original positon.
Suddenly the ground burst open as a
gagging, retching, mud-smeared face hove into view. Spitting out mingled soil
and bird-piss, the creature shook it's head, making it's dangling eyeballs
clack together loudly.
"I'm blind!" it yelled in
it's squeaky rodent voice. It's hands flew to it's eyes, discovering the orbs
hanging from the sockets at the ends of thier optic nerves. Immediately it
stuffed the eyeballs back in it's skull and blinked several times to clear
them.
"Ah, that's better," the
creature remarked. "But where am I? What has happened to me? Who--"
"Honk," the bird bleated
behind him. The muddy creature turned to face the animal.
"You!" he cried.
"You must be an ambassador of vengeance from the next world, bringing my
spirit back to seek vengeance on my destroyers!"
"Honk," the bird said.
The creature crawled out of it's
grave and turned to the bird. "No longer shall I be known simply as, 'The
Weasel'! Henceforth I shall be called by my true name, John Dead, the Undead
Hero!"
"Honk," the bird
remarked, and shat noisily on the ground.
"Now, my spirit guide of
vengeance, grant me a costume befitting of a grim destroyer of evil!" the
weasel demanded. Instantly the mud vanished and he was clothed in full-body
Bunny-Ra pajamas, blindingly pink.
John Dead the Undead Hero examined
his costume, sighed and said, "I can see we are going to have to work on
this."
TBC
********
Dedicated to Tatiana, one of my
favorite punching-bags :)
Every Dog Has It's Day
Part 3
Tatiana whistled merrily as she
strolled up the sidewalk to her house. Fianna's cry of "What did you do to
my poodle?!" echoed pleasantly in her mind.
He'll be weeks getting that blue
dye out of her fur, the
undead sorceress chuckled. She pushed open the door to her house and stepped
inside and knew instantly that something was wrong.
It wasn't the blood on the counter
- that was her own, left over from her previous encounter with the Poodle. Nor
was it the open kitchen drawer - that was where TW had taken the can opener to
let Shark out of the container the fluffy white terror had stuffed him into.
No, it was something else, something she couldn't quite place. She threw her
newspaper on the table and advanced carefully into the room.
"Ah-HA!" yelled the John
Dead the Undead Hero as he sprang in from the dining room. Waddling close
behind was something similar to a duck cross-bred with a turkey.
"Honk!" it bleated.
"What the hell?" Tatiana
said, then her eyes widened. "My tablecloth!"
The weasel avenger threw open his
arms and gestured grandly. He wore a poncho of black vinyl, ripped up the sides
for arm holes, cinched at the waist with a knotted strip of the same.
"Now your tablecloth of evil
shall serve the needs of grim vengeance!" the rodent declared.
"And my pancake makeup from
'Haunting'! My mascara!"
"Look just like Brandon Lee,
don't I?" the weasel bragged.
"You look like a scrawny pro
wrestler," Tatiana fumed. "What in the name of the ASOE do you think
you're doing?"
"I am John Dead the Undead
Hero, come to avenge myself on RD Rivero and his accomplices with grim
vengeance!"
Tatiana crossed her arms and leaned
against the fridge. "This would be as opposed to fun-and-partying
vengeance, I gather? Hey wait a minnit, that name makes no sense."
"What are you saying?"
the weasel asked.
"'John Dead the Undead Hero'?
It's not logical. How can you be dead and undead at the same time?"
"Foolish female!" the
rodent warrior proclaimed. "Everyone knows you must first be dead to be
undead!"
"Yeah, not both at the same
time! Trust me weasel, I've been a revenant alot longer than you. People are
gonna tease you for that."
The weasel stared as her. One of
his eyes popped out to dangle absently on his cheek until he reached up and put
it back in. Then suddenly, he smiled.
"In that case, I shall change
my name! No longer shall I be John Dead the Undead Hero! Henceforth, as in my
favorite movie, I shall go by the name of the fearsome spirit of revenge that
summoned me back from the grave!"
"Henceforth, I am...the
Dodo!"
Tatiana slapped her forhead with
her palm. "Whatever," she said, admitting defeat. "Next
question, why are you in my house?"
"Seeking my foe, my eternal implacable
enemy, my nemesis, my--"
"RD Rivero, right?"
Tatiana sighed.
"Uh, yeah. And pants. I need
pants," the weasel added.
"So if I give you pants and
tell you where the Anti Tiger Base is, will you go away?"
The weasel looked at her blankly.
As she waited for the Dodo's two brain cells to argue out her proposal, she
looked over to the table and saw her newspaper. The front page had a picture of
a familiar green nincompoop on it, under the caption, "First Shark, then
Fianna...Who Will Be Canned Next?"
Tatiana smiled as inspiration
struck. "How about this?" she said. "I happen to know that
Fianna and Sher Kahn are heading over to the ATB right this moment, to do
battle with RD himself. I bet they could use the help of an undead hero."
"Yeah! At last, the Dodo will
command a team of mighty allies to exact their mission of grim--"
"Yeah, yeah, vengeance,
right," Tatiana said, then snapped her fingers, producing a map from thin
air. She laid it on the table and began describing the route to the Dodo.
Within the hour, she'd given up and
decided to take him there herself.
********
Fianna and Kahn approached the
entrance to the underground bunker that housed the Anti Tiger Base. Thick steel
doors sealed the entrance completely. Kahn went to them and gave an experimental
push, then said, "I don't think we're gonna get in this way,
nincompoop."
"Just a sec," Fianna said
with a sigh. He produced his palmtop and began to type. He stopped, waited a
moment, then closed it and put it away.
"What was that about?"
Kahn asked.
From the doors there came a loud
click, then the massive sheets of steel separated in the middle.
"Just cutting a deal,"
the caninoid said enigmatically, then shouldered the doors apart enough for
them to squeeze past.
They moved quickly down the hall,
as quietly as they could, which was not very, as Fianna's chainmail baldric
tended to clink as he walked. Kahn looked warily at the cameras tracking their
progress.
"You think they know we're
here?" the Siberian asked. They rounded a corner and were confronted by
Lucifer Daimou, Bengalli25 and Slinky Avenger, all three armed with Pointy
Sticks (tm).
"I'd say they do," Fianna
remarked, coming to a halt.
"WOOOhooowaaaaahOOOO!"
Slinky cried. "Surrender, Team Tiger rejects! We have you
outnumbered!"
"No you don't," Kahn said
matter-of-factly. "We outnumber you. You surrender."
This completely confused LD. The
insane youth dropped his Pointy Stick (tm) on the ground, looked at his
companions and counted off two fingers on his left hand. Then he counted two
fingers on his right hand and said, "No, I think we're even."
"You forgot to count
yourself," Benni chided him.
"Darn it, now I gotta
recount!" LD grumbled, then began ticking off more fingers. In a moment,
he was wrestling off his sneakers and adding his toes to the calculations.
"Even without LD, we are still
even, and we have Pointy Sticks (tm)!" Slinky crowed.
"Surrender!"
"We have weapons too,"
Fianna smiled. "Nunchucks and swords, sais and a bigger stick!"
Four figures seemed to melt out of
the walls of the corridor, producing the weapons as they were called. At first
glance they might appear to be tubby humans, but a second look revealed their
true natures.
"Mutant Ninja Turtles!"
Slinky cried in dismay.
The four terrapin warriors oriented
on the lizardette as one. Michaelangelo spoke for them lot of them.
"BABE!" he cried. Slinky screamed and ran for it, four sex-crazed
reptiles hot after her tail, figuratively and literally.
Benni looked after the departed
reptiles, then looked at LD, who was grouping his toes in sets of two. Then she
looked at Kahn, who was idly inspecting the two-inch long claws on his right
forepaw. When she looked at Fianna, the seven-foot-tall caninoid smiled and
cracked his knuckles, the popping sounds echoing around the hall like gunshots.
"At least I know when I am
outnumbered!" she yelped and fled.
"What about him?" Kahn
asked the caninoid, indicating LD.
"Easy. Hey LD!" When the
insane teen looked at him, Fianna said, "What's the formula for
circumference of a circle?"
"Pie-Are-Square," LD said
from rote memory.
"Are they? I thought pie are
round," Fianna queried.
"Oh, they are?" LD said
shakily, then slumped against the wall and began to suck his thumb.
"You are one merciless
bastard, you know that?" Kahn growled as he and Fianna resumed the hunt.
The caninoid only smiled.
Unbeknownst to the two adventurers,
after they had rounded the corner another figure slipped into the corridor. The
newcomer took only a moment to ascertain that the thumb-sucking youth curled
into a fetal ball on the floor was no threat, then took off in pursuit.
TBC
********
LET THE BATTLE BEGIN!!!!!
Every Dog Has It's Day
Part 4
RD Rivero smiled. On most days,
Rivero's grin was enough to cool the blood of a horny teen on prom night, but
today it could have sheeted the Great Lakes with ice thick enough to drive on.
RD was feeling very, very pleased
with himself. The prepartions were in place, and he had tremendous confidence
in the team he'd assembled. From his control room overlooking the warehouse-size
Extraction chamber, he had a clear view of all his toys.
Tygra was still strapped to the
table, the Penis Plucker 2001 positioned over his groin, ready to fire.
Thunderwolf and Shark patrolled the warehouse, both eager to crack some Team
Tiger heads, particularly if the heads were green and doggish. Slinky, LD, and
Benni were on guard in the compound. And of course, his Mistress of All Evil in
Denial, Lady Thundera, was on guard nearby, poised to defend her beloved
evildoer should the need arise.
The only missing component was
Fuzzball, who'd excused himself to tend to Mundane matters. But before leaving,
the evil snarf technical genius had wired the entire system to fire
automatically, triggered by one big, fat red button in the middle of the command
console.
RD checked his watch. He'd left a
clue for Team Tiger to find, but for some reason the Team's leader had failed
to respond. With the deadline for delivery to Won Hung Lo at hand, it seemed he
would have to give up his fantasy of dis-membering Tygra right in front of
Thundera Tiger.
But his disappointment was mild.
Tygra's manhood was going to fetch at least a cool half-million on the Chinese
black market; that knowledge was a considerable balm.
"Prep for penis
extraction," Rivero announced over the loudspeaker and pressed a series of
buttons to arm the vacuum pump, the liquid nitrogen guns and the pneumatic ram.
From below, Thunderwolf and Shark gave him a couple thumbs-ups as the indicator
lights on the massive machine glowed in readiness.
Rivero reached for the trigger,
then paused. He turned the gain up on the external microphone and listened for
the sound that had caught his ear: Tygra screaming and begging for mercy.
"It's good to be me,"
Rivero smiled with a beatific grin, then reached again for the trigger. Then
the door to the control room slammed open.
"Freeze, Rivero!" Fianna
barked as Kahn charged in beside him.
"Only after the vaccuum has
been on for about two minutes," RD replied mildly, moving his hand away
from the button. "Extraction about five seconds after that."
"Did you really think we were
going to let you do this?" Kahn growled.
"I don't think you have a
choice," Rivero said with a smile.
"Uh-oh," Fianna said as he
felt the press of an obscenely large gun barrel in the small of his back. He
looked to his right and saw an identical weapon aimed at center mass on Kahn.
"May I kill him now,
dear?" Lady Thundera said from behind the caninoid. "I've wanted to
do this for soooo long, heh heh heh."
"So do I," Benni said,
cocking the hammer on her own elephant gun. "I owe these two for
embarrasing me downstairs!"
"I could never kill my
ex-dog," Rivero smiled. "Of course, my scruples do not apply to you,
darling. Only wait until after we've finished our business with Tygra, so the
nincompoop can suffer the humiliation of failure and defeat before he
experiences the agony of death."
"As for Kahn," Rivero
said, turning to face the tiger. "Just keep him under guard, assistant of
mine. I think it would not take too much work to modify the Penis Plucker 2001
to work on a full tiger, as opposed to these humanoid types."
Rivero smiled and reached for the
button.
*******
Tatiana completed her spell of
teleportation. The verses of instantaneous travel had been altered to place the
Dodo right next to the green nincompoop while simultaneously depositing Tatiana
in the vicinity, at a sufficient distance to watch and laugh, while not being
sucked into any confrontation herself.
She finished with a flourish and
they both disappeared.
********
Thundera Tiger had been suprised to
find the Team Tiger camp abandoned, even more suprised to find the door to the
ATB hanging open. She charged along the corridor, listening for warning signs,
nose attuned to the trail.
The scents were bewildering. She
picked up tiger, nincompoop, and curiously enough, turtle. She was so wrapped
up in the experience that she nearly tripped over LD, who was sitting in the
corridor with his shoes off, reciting the multiplication tables and getting
them all wrong.
Then she caught a wiff of a very
familiar scent.
"Tygra! Mommy's coming!"
she yelled and she raced onward towards the strengthening smell.
*******
RD's hand rested on the button when
all hell broke loose. With a loud pop, the undead weasel appeared in the middle
of the room, facing Rivero.
"Bllauuughhhpthh!" the
Dodo screamed and pounced on the evildoer. Rivero, taken completely by suprise,
was overborne and driven to the ground, struggling to keep the rodent's snapping
jaws away from his throat.
Fianna whirled, grabbed the barrel
of LT's elephant gun and redirected it downward between her feet. Reflexivly LT
fired, filling the room with a deafening roar and blowing a wide hole in the
floor. She looked at the caninoid, who smiled and waggled his eyebrows, then
released his hold on the gun. Lady Thundera dropped through the floor and
disappeared with a shriek.
Benni, momentarily deafend by the
shotgun blast, glanced away at the two old foes. When she looked back, Sher
Kahn had disappeared. "Where did he--" she began, then the Siberian
completed his fifteen-foot vertical leap by landing hard on the traitorous
tigress's back. Benni hit the floor, both her breath and her consciousness
knocked out of her.
Rivero struggled to hold the Dodo
at bay as the weasel drove it's sharp incisors towards his throat. Suddenly the
pressure was gone as the rodent was lifted away. Rivero looked up to see Fianna
holding the rodent warrior by the nape of the neck.
"BLAUGHTHPPT!" the weasel
bellowed, clawing the air in Rivero's direction.
"Quiet down, you," Fianna
said, then shook the weasel hard enough to stun it.
Rivero took stock of the situation
as he got to his feet. The tide had turned, and a good Master of All Evil knew
when to exercise the better part of valor.
"This is not over," RD
told Fianna, his tone serious. "I see now that you are indeed a member of
Team Tiger. No longer shall I mourn your departure, dog of Thundera Tiger! When
next we meet, it will be as opponents!"
"Then what did we meet as this
time, sailor scouts?" Kahn asked. Rivero shot the tiger a look and
disappeared.
"Okay," Fianna said,
dropping the weasel on the deck. "Let's get Tygra and get out of--"
"FIANNA!"
"Here," the caninoid
muttered as he and Kahn went to the glass window of the control booth, stepping
around Benni and the weasel. Far below stood Shark, Thunderwolf and Tatiana. TW
had his hands behind his back, a malevolent smile on his face.
"You know what a circus geek
is, dog-breath?" Tatiana called. "Turns out my two friends here in
the FMD have been working on an act! Tell us what you think!"
Thunderwolf raised his right hand,
and in it was the neck of a singularly ugly bird.
"...honk..." the thing
gurgled.
"My dodo!" Fianna and Kahn
heard the weasel exclaim.
Shark smiled, then smiled, then
smiled more. The ichthyoid's jaws distended as his mouth grew larger and wider,
metamorphing his head into something like that of a great white. He then turned
to face TW, who raised the dodo bird high and slammed it down towards his
boyfriend's toothy maw.
The bird came to rest with one of
it's webbed feet on each of Shark's lips, straddling the merman's mouth. TW
shoved hard, rocking Shark backwards with each push, but the bird resisted,
it's knees bending without buckling.
"HONK! HONK! HONK!!!" it
squawked.
"Do something!" the
weasel yelled at Fianna.
The caninoid looked at the weasel
like it had lost it's mind. "Are you nuts? That's the entire complement of
the Fianna Must Die club down there!"
"You say you're a good dog,
Fianna, well prove it! No way a good dog would let harm come to dumb
animal!"
Fianna looked back out the window.
The dodo bird seemed to look up at him with wide, watering eyes full of fear.
"...hooooonk..." it
moaned, and somehow the caninoid knew it was getting weaker. A few more
seconds, and it was fish food.
"Aw, crap," he muttered.
*******
"Goddam bird, stronger than it
looks," Thunderwolf growled, shoving again. One of the dodo's knees
creaked ominously, eliciting a pained "Honk!" from the weakening
bird.
Thunderwolf grinned. "This
should do it," he said, and braced himself for one last shove.
High overhead, the glass fronting
the control room exploded with a mighty crash. Shattered silica rained down on
and around the evildoers while the room shook from a heavy impact just in front
of them.
Thunderwolf, Shark and Tatiana
shook off the fragments and looked forward to find Fianna, all seven-feet
three-hundred-fifty pounds of him, glaring at them with hard golden eyes. His ears
were flattened atop his head, his postured crouched, his lips peeled back in a
menacing snarl.
"Drop the dodo," he
growled.
To Be Continued.
********
And now, the exciting finale!!
Dedicated to Mittens for that
terrific picture...she deserves to be fed grapes. Bravo!
Every Dog Has It's Day
Part Five
"He's got guts, I'll give him
that," the weasel remarked.
"Yeah, but in a minute we'll
be looking at them," Kahn said. "Been nice knowing you,
Fia--wha'?"
Kahn's attention was diverted as
the keen-eyed tiger caught a flicker of movement by the bay door leading into
the extraction chamber. A closer look revealed Thundera Tiger, slowly creeping
towards the imprisoned Thundercat. She escaped detection because all three
guards were focused on the caninoid.
Kahn grinned, then slapped the
"Release" button on the Penis Plucker 2001 command console. Tygra
slumped out of his bonds, noticed only by Thundera Tiger, who rushed to the
fallen Thundercat and began to lead him away.
Kahn hesitated a moment, trying to
figure out what to do next, help Tiger or help Fianna. With typical tiger
logic, he decided completeing the mission was the most important thing. As he
headed out the door, weasel in tow, he just hoped the nincompoop had enough
tricks up his sleeve to get him out alive.
It was damned hard finding people
who still knew how to play "Go Fish".
********
Thunderwolf, Shark and Tatiana
fanned out into a semicircle, herding Fianna back. The caninoid moved left, always
on guard, keeping their backs to the Penis Plucker. He managed to manuever
himself within thirty feet of the bay door facing the barrel of the PP2001
before Shark got wise and moved to cut him off.
"I've been looking forward to
this for a long, long time," Thunderwolf snarled, a feral hunger for blood
glowing in his eyes.
"I thought you decided
violence was overdone," the green nincompoop snapped.
"Naw, he said violence was
overdone," TW said, jabbing a thumb at Shark. "Personally, I'm all
for it. Oh, here's yer bird."
Thunderwolf shot the dodo at Fianna
like a basketball. The caninoid stood up straight to catch the bleating avian,
putting himself off-guard and off-balance. Instantly Thunderwolf charged
forward, mace raised high to brain the obnoxious dog.
Then a flash of green rocketed from
the open bay door and slammed into Thunderwolf, stopping the insane lion in
mid-stride. It was Slinky Avenger, her legs pinioned around the sabertooth's
ribs, arms around the top of his head.
"Don't let them get me!! Don't
let them get me!!" she screamed.
"Mghdhdph!" Thunderwolf
said, his words distorted by Slinky's breasts crushed against his face.
"Hey, no AC-DC sister! Let him
go!" Shark yelled, grabbing Slinky's tail and trying to pull the
lizardette away from his boyfriend. Finally he succeeded, yanking her loose and
dropping her tail-first on the ground.
"HEY!!"
Everyone froze and looked towards
the bay doors. There stood the Ninja Turtles, weapons at the ready.
"Nobody throws my girlfriend
around like that!" Leonardo yelled.
"Yeah, nobody...hey, she's not
your girlfriend, she's my girlfriend!" Donatello added.
Thunderwolf suddenly developed a
sick feeling in his gut. A look to the side of the turtle warriors confirmed
his suspicions--a trail of dodo feathers floating to the deck, leading right
out the bay door. Slinky had likewise disappeared.
"GODDAMMIIT!!!" the lion
raged, then turned to the turtles. "SOMETHING GREEN IS GONNA DIE HERE, AND
IF IT'S NOT FIANNA, IT GONNA BE YOU!!"
"Uh, they look kinda
mad," Michelangelo said.
"Might be a good time for a
tactical withdrawl, right leader?" Raphael told Leo.
"RUN!" the turtle
commander yelled, and together the brothers turned and bolted out the bay door.
Suddenly klaxons wailed, and the safety gates of the big door slammed down,
cutting off the pursuers.
"DAMN!" Thunderwolf
bellowed and pounded his fist into the door, denting it.
"Tygra's gone," Shark
observed.
"Why the hell not?! Everybody
else is!" Thunderwolf raged. "Who the hell closed that goddamn
door?!"
"Hello?" the three heard
from the PA system. They turned their attention once more to the broken glass
of the overhead control room.
"Hi! I'm Ayanna! Have you guys
seen a bottle of little blue pills lying around?"
From below, TW could make out a
young female cheetah of the four-footed sort. She looked hyper. In fact, she
looked twitchy.
"What pills?" Tatiana
asked.
"Oh I dunno, Prozilin or
Ritlac or something. I don't like 'em, they make me feel slow," there was
a moment of pause, then the PA said, "Oh, look, a button!"
"DONT PUSH THAT BUTTON!"
the Fianna Must Die club screamed in unison, but their cry was drowned out as
the Penis Plucker 2001 behind them roared to life. Before the howl of the
vacuum generator become deafening, Thunderwolf heard the control room door
slam.
********
Fianna did not roll into the Team
Tiger camp until five-thirty the following evening. He opened the door to the
rec room to find Tygra and TT seated watching television, while at the table,
Sher Kahn was teaching Ayanna how to play "Go Fish". The weasel sat
in the corner by himself, looking singularly depressed.
"God, I'm glad to see you're
alive," Kahn exclaimed. "Ayanna's a nice kid, but she's got no
attention span at all."
As if on que, Ayanna knocked all
the cards flying, yelled "Fifty-Two Pickup!", then swatted each
individual card from midair in a dazzling display of speed and control. She
nudged the deck into a pile and smiled at Kahn.
"And quit winking at me,"
the tiger grumbled.
"She's not winking,"
Fianna said. "It's a nervous tick. I see them alot on people when I'm
around. Kinda like that whole 'What?!' thing."
"DODO!" the weasel
screamed as he realized his precious bird was back.
"HONK!" the bird replied
as the rodent dashed up, relieved the caninoid of his burden and raced out the
door.
"Are you really gonna let him
go?" Kahn asked as the cheetah began to chase her own tail in a tight
circle around the deck of cards.
"Sure, why not?" Fianna
said. "Since he got killed and ressurected, I took the opportunity to
expunge all elements of you-know-who from his personality. Hell, in this form
the little squirt kinda grows on ya."
"Ahem," Thundera Tiger
said.
"Yes, fearless leader?"
Fianna said, circling in front of the sofa.
"Kahn informed me of
everything," she said. "I'm still not sure you're innocent, but I
don't think you're all that guilty either. And since you did help rescue Tygra,
I've decided to reinstate you to Team Tiger."
"COOL!" Fianna yipped,
and gave a small jump for joy, the effect of which was to rattle everyone out
of their chairs. "So how are you feeling, Stripes?" he asked Tygra.
"I'm back to normal," he
replied with a grin. "Not too big, not too small."
"Juuuust right," TT
purred, snuggling up to her tigeroid.
"Hmm. I wonder why Rivero
released you from his curse? That's not like him at all-huh?" Fianna cut
off as a news bulletin came on the screen.
April O'Neal sat at her news desk,
ruffled some papers and began to read. "Today in China, a Mister Won Hung
Lo was arrested for trafficing in bogus tiger body parts. Testing showed that
the tiger penis he was attempting to sell contained no less than fifty-percent
human DNA."
The scene cut to an elderly
chinese, kicking and swearing as he was led from his restaurant in handcuffs.
The only recognisable words in the stream of language he ejected was, "RD
Rivero, PHOOEY!"
Team Tiger enjoyed a pleasant
chuckle over this, then Kahn asked, "So where were you all day?"
"I had some errands,"
Fianna replied.
"This just in," O'Neal
said as her head returned to the screen. "Reports are coming in that a
snarf has been seen in possession of a tasp. If you find this snarf, police are
asking that you kill him immediately and burn his body."
"Tasp, tasp," TT
muttered. "Where have I heard that before?"
"Moving on, we have our
special guest correspondent, Cheezey the Lunatac, with a report on consumer
safety. Cheezey?"
The camera shifted to a blonde
lunatac, who pinned the audience with a sinister leer. "A lion, a fish, an
Elvira-Mistress-of-the-Dark wanna-be. Sounds like a lively evening of fun and
frolic, doesn't it? That is, until the Binford Penis Plucker 2001 gets
involved!"
The screen filled with grainy
security camera footage of the gigantic apparatus, air being visibly sucked
into it's barrel. The view panned across to the closed bay door, where Tatiana,
Thunderwolf and Shark were visible clinging to the door by their fingernails,
screaming in terror.
Suddenly, articles of clothing
began to tear loose from the three villians. Boots, breastplates, what appeard
to be a codpiece made from a real cod, and more were all were sucked into the
barrel and disappeared.
Then Tatiana lost her grip.
Flailing, she grabbed Thunderwolf's leg, jerking him away from the door.
Lashing out, he caught Shark's waist. Then Shark lost his hold and all three
began to tumble towards the deadly maw of the vacuum chamber.
The camera cut back to the PP2001,
where the machine suddenly erupted in a plume of ice, then slammed six feet
backwards on it's track. The overstressed metal fractured, and the dreaded
instrument at last fell still as it fell to pieces.
The camera panned back for a
closeup on the FMD club members, lying in a tangle of naked limbs on the
frost-covered floor, groaning and gasping.
Cheezey's headshot filled the
screen again. "Look for our upcoming Fox television special, 'When Sex
Toys Attack!', coming in June!"
Tygra groaned and clicked the TV
off with the remote. "I'm sure RD Rivero will want to contribute some
footage to that special, probably involving me."
"I wouldn't worry too
much," Fianna said with a smirk as he walked towards the door. "I
expect the Anti-Tiger Base has far too much to do already. We shouldn't hear
from them for a while."
Suddenly, TT's eyes widened in
alarm and recollection. "Oh god, Fianna, tell me you didn't..."
The caninoid only smiled and kept
walking.
********
RD Rivero looked around, perplexed.
He'd checked everywhere in the Anti-Tiger Base, but so far it seemed he was
alone.
"Probably off licking their
wounds," the evildoer mused. With a sigh, he headed down the hall towards
his own quarters, intending to salve his own injuries with a hot cup of Earl
Grey and a few poetic submissions to some of his favorite mailing lists.
As he drew near Fuzzball's door, he
became aware of the sound of television playing. He heard Cheezey's voice say
something about "Coming in June!", and decided to investigate. He
went to the door, which slid open immediately at his presence, stepped inside
and froze.
On the recliner watching TV was the
famed evil snarf genius Fuzzball. This was not unusual. What was unusual was
Lady Thundera, Tatiana, and Bengalli25 all clad in next-to-nothing bikinis,
attending to the snarf. LT was filing his toe nails, Tatiana was standing by
with ice cubes and a bottle of Gentleman Jack, and Benni stood behind, fanning
Fuzzball with a gigantic ostrich feather.
"What the hell?" Rivero
said, confused beyond reason.
"Rivero! I was wondering when
you'd show up," Fuzzyball grinned. The females on the other hand showed no
recognition at all, casting loving gazes over the snarf.
"What did you do to the
women?" Rivero asked incredulously.
"This is what I did to
them," he announced, holding up a plastic replica of a Star-Trek class 2
hand phaser. "The news hounds called it a tasp, but it's not. Fianna called
it a 'fun gun'. Alot like a tasp, same basic effect, but reduced strength so
the addiction isn't permanent."
"'Tasp', 'fun gun',
'addiction'?" RD said, growing even more confused.
Fuzzy sighed. "Okay genius,
try to follow along. A tasp is the ultimate weapon. It fires all the brain's
pleasure centers at once; one hit and you'll crave it again until you die. Two
hits will make you the shooter's willing slave, forever. This is a low-power
model. The addiction fades in twenty-four hours, and the battery is only good
for about two dozen shots. Fianna set it up so I can't tamper with it without
destroying it, and keyed it to canine DNA so it can't affect him or his
poodle."
"Very ingenious," Rivero
said. "But how will Mittens feel about your choice of attendants?"
"Why don't you ask her?"
Fuzzy replied, gesturing towards the opposite corner of the room. RD stepped
past the door and looked to find the female snarf recumbant on a plush sofa.
Shark, clad in the garb of an Egyptian slave, was taking a gold chalice of wine
from Fluffy's lips. Thunderwolf, similiarly attired, was swearing as he
attempted to peel a grape.
"Isn't that creating a gender
issue?" Rivero asked.
"They love her like a
sister," Fuzzy snickered. "Hey, Daimou! Did I tell you to stop
flipping channels? What kind of remote control are you, anyway?"
"Sorry, sovereign
overlord," the insane teen whimpered, rubbing his shoulder. "My arm
got tired. Is there anything I can do to make it up to you?"
"Yeah, get up a good head of
steam and ram your head into the wall, then we'll call it even."
LD stepped away from the TV,
lowered his head and charged across the room. His scalp connected with the
wooden paneling with a tremendous crack, making RD wonder it the wood had given
way or the youth's skull. LD staggered back a few steps, then dropped
unconscious on the carpet, blood coming from his ears.
"You wanna hear something
really dumb?" Fuzzy asked Rivero. "I told LD what the tasp did, then
zapped him with it. He fell down, screamed, flopped around, the works, right?
Then he began doing everything I told him to. It wasn't about ten minutes
later, I realized I'd left the safety on." The snarf grinned and added,
"But I didn't see any reason to share that with him."
RD smiled slightly. "It seems
to be a most potent plot device, one the dog has hinted at for years. It is
fascinating to see it in action. I, uh, Fuzzy, NO!"
When the earth stopped moving and
the stars returned to the firmament, RD realized he'd been wrong, so wrong. All
this time he'd believed himself to be the Master of All Evil, when in actuality
he had never been more than a pretender. Fuzzball, yes Fuzzball was the one,
had always been the one. How could he have been so blind? The depth of his
ignorance shamed him beyond words.
"Hey Rivero," the snarf
said, and his voice was golden.
"Yes, my absolute master and
all-encompassing joy?" Rivero said, his own voice a pathetic shade of
Fuzzy's Who was he to dare speak in the presence of such majesty?
Fuzzy put on a pout and said,
"Ya know, you really hurt my feelings over that chat room bullshit.
Remember that?"
"Anything!" Rivero
wailed, throwing himself on the floor at Fuzzball's feet. "Anything for
your forgiveness, anything!"
Fuzzy's pout disappeared as Rivero
sobbed. "Okay okay, I'll give you a chance to redeem yourself. Go clean my
litter box."
RD looked up at the benevolent face
of this snarf-above-all-snarfs, hope rising in his breast.
"With your teeth," Fuzzy
said contentedly.
Rivero squealed with delight and
bolted towards the bathroom. When he was gone, Fuzzy hit a button on his chair
and the TV screen went blank. There was a ringing sound, then Fianna's face
appeared on the screen.
"Okay, I'm impressed,"
the snarf told the caninoid. "It was everything you said and more."
"What are you going to do when
it wears off?" Fianna grinned.
"By then, I'll have enough
incriminating and embarassing material on them, they won't dare touch me,"
Fuzzball laughed. "I saw the tape on Cheezey's news report. You're gonna
pay for that."
"Violence is passe, so I went
for humiliation," Fianna grinned. "We all gots to gets our vengeance
in our own way."
Fuzzy gestured, and Tatiana raised
the snarf's chalice to the dog. On the screen, Fianna raised a bottle of
Guiness stout.
"To Mooncat," Fianna said.
"She said it best. The only thing better than making them pay..."
"Is making them like it!"
Fuzzy finished.
They laughed loud and long into the
night.
The End.
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