“Silence of the Snarves”
By RD Rivero
**final version**
WARNING:
All animals and animal-like creatures depicted here were subjected to
harm, torture and other acts of harsh cruelty.
The author also wishes the reader to know that several, unnamed humans
were also lost in the production of this story after a series of very graphic
and unusual ‘accidents.’ Reader
discretion is advised.
“I am a man, more sinned against than
sinning.”- King Lear.
In the central office of
The tension in the room was
unbearable. A deep, long yawn echoed
through the room and in that brief, passing moment of levity, no one took
notice of an interloping secretary. She
had entered unannounced and tackled on the bulletin board the newest wanted
poster. Its letterings glistened in the
bright lights, its ink still wet and runny.
The mug shot was that of-
One of the gathered deputies got up on his
feet- the slight disturbance caused his colleagues to quickly turn to face him
only to return to their previous composure with a few irritated sighs. A couple of officers even dared to glare at
Mandora menacingly. Carefully, almost on
tiptoe, the arisen deputy sneaked toward the water cooler. Filling his cup only halfway, he eased
himself into a more comfortable chair besides the tall, clear water bottles,
sipping the cold drink slowly.
The phone rang and in an instant everyone
who was anyone was on their feet. Letting
it ring three times- as was the arranged custom- it was Mandora who answered
the call:
“Hello?” she asked, waiting for the unknown
man’s bizarre accent to answer.
“You again?” the informant asked. “Are you the only cop in that station?”
Watching her underlings swirl about softly
in the room, readying the recording equipment, she retorted with unsuppressed
authority: “This is no time for
chitchat, buddy.”
One of the rookies made frantic
gesticulations, imploring her desperately, wordlessly that indeed she should
keep the strange man on the line talking for as long as possible.
“Well,” he spoke, with unreserved ego: “I guess you wouldn’t be interested to know
where I found him this time.”
“No, no, I didn’t mean it that way,” she
said, trying not to sound too weak, too polytonal.
“I mean, I know where his base is,” he
continued to mock her, poking her verbally, “I know what he’s up to- what he
wants to do.”
At that moment another deputy picked up the
extension. He set up the microphone and
began to record the call. Yet a third
officer was already working on the trace.
“I didn’t mean to upset you, but this is an
important matter.”
“Don’t get your pantyhose in a knot, lady,
I wouldn’t leave you hanging. Besides,
we need each other, don’t we? You need
what I know and I need your, check, hehehe.”
“Yes,” she sighed and rolled her eyes, “we
have your money- in cash like you requested.”
“And what about the IRS?”
“We need him alive for that one.”
“Oh, well.”
He paused for a moment and then began to whisper. “I found him in by a spaceport near an old,
Wollo village.
“You saw him?” She prodded.
“Saw him?
I’ve been having a few, talks, with the professor.”
“Are you serious? Stay away from him- far away,” Mandora said,
sternly. “That man is dangerous.”
The unknown caller on the other end of the
line laughed heartily: “Danger, lady, is
my middle name.” His perverse mirth and
maniacal egotism unintentionally betrayed his repressed, British accent.
The cop on the extension began to write on
a blank sheet.
“This twenty-five million credit’s the
easiest money I’ve ever made!”
The officer displayed what he had
written: “Safari Joe?”
Mandora nodded in agreement.
“I don’t see what you are so afraid
of. This, madman, is nothing of the
sort. So he’s a little spacey and
spooky. So he keeps talking about the
Thundercat’s missing genitals, so what?
He’s, normal, I’d say. Why, I’m
having dinner with him later tonight.”
“You shouldn’t have made contact! You’re in terrible danger!”
“Danger” a new voice asked. Everyone in that spacious, well-lit looked
on, aghast in shock and horror.
“Mandora? Is that you?”
“Dr. Rivero?” she asked in a squeaky,
girlish voice, biting her lip.
“Mwahahahahahahahahahahaha!”
A thunderous crash rang in the distance and
in its wake the call came to an abrupt end.
“Did you get a trace,” she asked, whipping
away the sweat off her brow.”
“A partial one only. I got it down to Third Earth.”
“
The room then came alive with the sounds of
frantic phone ringing and shouting. From
the chaotic mess Mandora stepped aback.
She grabbed her deputy by the arm, dragging him from the seat upon which
he had reclined.
“I’ve got to warn the Thundercats.”
“Wouldn’t it be safer to stay here?”
QuickPick belly ached, letting his cup of water fall on the floor, spilling its
contents.
“Come on, we’re going to get to the bottom
of this!”
The two passed by the wanted poster as they
fled the room and its maddening crowd.
Only then was the picture printed upon it clearly in view and it was
none other than Dr. RD Rivero. The mug
shot was so old he had hair. Below his
face the caption read: “Price: 25M Credits. Wanted, dead or alive, for murder, torture,
physical and mental abuse, child pornography and exploitation, general
pornography, abuse of animals and animal-like creatures, slander and libel and
for the performing of unnecessary, bizarre experiments--”
The list was five pages long.
“Woof!
Woof, woof, woof!” the big, green dog called as he entered the top-floor
apartment. The penthouse was dimly lit-
the particular of its features lost to the senses- and cluttered with shredded
books. The canine set the bulky, brown
grocery bags on the granite, kitchen counter.
By random chance he looked into the sink: in the basin, angled into
crumpled baking trays were long, sharp knives, covered to the hilt with
blood. The stench of death and decay
came to his acute senses.
He moved through the darkness into the
daylight of the main hall. To his left
was a series of windows, old and out of shape, open to incredible views of the
ancient spaceport at the heart of the city.
A door to his right creaked open by the slightest force of the gentlest
breeze.
“Hey?
Hey, boss, it’s me.”
A thump answered Fianna amidst the
omnipotent silence- the dog stepped closer.
“Boss?
You’re not still mad, are you?”
“Mad?” the strange man appeared from the
shadows, his face obscured grotesquely in the darkness of the hall. “Mad, my loyal mutt? I, mad?”
He stepped out of the doorway into a slant of light. “No, not I.
Every since my accomplice turned good and my allies went off on their
own, you alone have remained my truest friend.”
“Woof, woof!” the canine said,
tail-wagging.
“Am I not your caring master?” He threw a bone-shaped snack at the imposing,
three-hundred and fifty pound beast. “Am
I not merciful?”
“YUMMY!” Fianna said, letting wet bits of
partially-chewed food fall to the floor.
“It’s different. What’s in it?”
A bright smile came to his face. “Never ask.
Really. You don’t want to
know.” He turned and stepped back into
the room. “Come, we have much to
discuss.”
“I hope this won’t take long,” the half-man,
half-dog said, “I’ve got a poodle to get home to, you know.”
“Yes.
Don’t worry, it will be, quick.”
Fianna entered the room. The skylight above was the only light the
madman’s study ever received. The place
was far better kept than the rest of the home.
Spotless and immaculate, there was not even a speck of dust on the
least-read bookshelves. Everything was
in its proper place, for amidst the chaos of that abandoned warehouse- the kind
of warehouse all devious masterminds conducted their business- that one chamber
was the sole repository of order and reason.
The Evil One was rummaging through a large
tome, not paying much attention to what the dog was doing. The canine stepped on another bone-shaped
snack that had been inadvertently dropped and eagerly reached down to pick it
up. Grabbing it in his paw, he looked
forward and saw a new rug on the floor before him. Tan and irregular in shape, it was certainly
not a normal mat- no, it was more like a hide, a-
A bust of
“So, you’ve met my new trophy?” he asked,
knowing the answer already. “How do you
like it?”
Fianna was speechless.
“He was a tracker, out to turn me in for
the reward, I suppose.”
“In the name of-”
“Oh, stop, surely by now you cannot be
shocked. After all I’ve done. My loyal Fianna, I am the MummRa to your
MaMutt. Did you get me the supplies?”
“Yes,” Fianna managed to say. “Yes, and in the grocery bags like you wanted
it.”
“Good.
No one will notice- or care for that matter.” He shook his finger: “Onto the work of vengeance, that
never-ending toil of evil.” He set the
open book on a tabletop. On the open
pages were cut and pasted pictures of the Thundercats. “Mine enemies,” he said with pride. “Look how they partake themselves! Here is arrogance, here is vile hypocrisy
unmasked. Look, look, Fianna and see how
they celebrate their domination of Third Earth- my MASTER’S rightful
realm. Who made them the absolute
authority? And who said that good was
greater than evil? Where were they when
I-”
“When you, boss?”
The madman stood silent, his eyes
transfixed on his new throw-rug, his mind scoring up the past, imagined crimes
the beloved Cats committed against him.
Fianna looked on, blank-faced, while that
strange, cow-toothed human ranted:
“Now is the winter of their discontent-
made glorious summer by this son of Clawdus.
The violent, storm clouds that had once rained upon those planet-killing
Thunderians now are the knitted brows that bound and revel with the delights of
heaped-on, victorious wreaths. And I?”
he said, arching back, “and I, in this weak time of peace, I have no delight
left but to prove myself a villain.”
The looming dog said without
hesitation: “I think you need to take
your medication.”
“You may be right. I am evil,” he rubbed his chin, “I’ll
fail. But before my inevitable end, I
want to indulge myself in a bath of blood and gore. That’s why I need you to kidnap Thundera
Tiger. I need her to lure Tygra here,
into my trap.”
“Easier said than done,” the canine quipped. “Just how am I supposed to do such a thing?”
The madman reached into a drawer and pulled
out a stout creature, yellow and red.
“It’s a baited snarf,” he said, dangling it by its tail. “I found a witch doctor in
Deep in the bowels of Cat’s Lair, Liono and
Cheetara lay entangled in bed. The torn,
stained sheets barely covered their heaving bodies. The calm, blissful scene was interrupted by
the loud and persistent ring of the lion’s cell phone on the table next to the
bed. Thinking that it was only the alarm
clock, he reached out and tapped it with the blunt end of his fist. The sound did not go away- and then it
occurred to him that he had no alarm clock in that ‘special’ room he and his
mate often visited on their down time.
“What?
What is it?” she groaned.
“It’s the phone,” he said, rubbing his
bloodshot eyes.
“Pick it up, before the others hear it and
find this place.”
He peeled back the blankets that covered
him and Cheetara. Looking at her nude
body, he was suddenly but not unexpectedly aroused. He grabbed the phone:
“Liono?” Mandora’s screeching voice echoed
through the receiver.
His arousal waned instantly.
“Mandora?”
“Liono, this is important.”
Cheetara, more awake then than before,
crawled onto Liono’s body. She looked at
him in the way he remembered she used to look at him when he was younger, much
younger. She bit her lip with an air of
curiosity and, peering down to his waste, she began to-
“Yes, Mandora, what, what is it?” he asked,
struggling to keep a steady voice.
“Remember I told you how Rivero broke out
of the prison a few months ago.”
“What’s the latest on him?”
“We believe he’s on Third Earth.”
“What!?” he stood, breaking away from his
mate’s attentive hold, her- “Rivero, on Third Earth! No Thundercat is safe!”
“I’m on a ship going down there right
away,” she said. “I’m not sure exactly
where he is, but we’re thinking Carthage Space Port.”
“I’ll get to the bottom of this-”
“Be careful, Liono, you know how dangerous
he is. He wants vengeance.”
“I understand,” he said. He hung up and looked at the foxy
cheetah. “We have work to do. Rivero is on the loose!”
“Hey, boss!” Fianna said, bypassing his
customary bark. “You’re going to love
this,” he shut the front door as he dragged a large, bulky object inside.
“What is it, my loyal canine?” The black-clad physicist appeared from the
overlooking, plant-covered balcony. He
saw the mangled sack the dog had brought in.
“Fianna? What have you done?”
The green dog answered: “Why bring you Thundera Tiger, when you can
have Tygra instead.”
The madman’s eyes widened. “But how?” he asked, looming over the
contorted bag. “How did you grab Tygra?”
“See, I found Thundera Tiger and him in the
woods. I guess it’s mating season or
something ‘cause all the Cats are sleeping around with each other. Anyway, I arranged for her to find the snarf
during her hunt and she fell for it.”
“Silly Tigie, I knew she could never resist
an easy meal. So much for tiger
superiority.”
“She brought it to Tygra and they both ate
it.”
The two laughed maniacally.
“Excellent, excellent! Bring him into the laboratory!”
[Cue dramatic fanfare]
Entering through the crack of the bulky,
reinforced door, the two evildoers found themselves in the penthouse’s
venerable chamber of horrors. Unlike the
rest of the apartment, it was more than adequately well-lit. A flat, metal table marked the center of the
room. Dials and blinking buttons,
coupled with their odd, whining noises, overpowered them as they tried to take
in the complexity of the scene. Even the
Evil One was taken aback in awe at the assemblage of instruments that awaited
his eager, twitching fingers.
Tygra was torn free from the bag and placed
on the table where he was restrained with Thundrainium chains. The madman stripped the tiger because Fianna
was not that kind of dog. Before the
‘experiment’ was to begin, the evil doctor made a few measurements.
“Two feet, eh, Fianna?”
“That’s what I heard-”
“Try two millimeters.”
“No wonder we never saw them in Exodus.”
“We?
Fianna? I thought I was the only
one that perverted.”
“Well, no, I mean, I wasn’t looking.”
“I’m just pulling your tail.”
“Boss, sometimes you can go too far-”
“Far, my green one? I’m not yet done with this part.”
From another drawer that were fast becoming
as numerous as certain, notorious red buttons, the master of evil revealed a
large, cigar-shaped object. He turned
around to see Fianna setting up the equipment that he had brought in the day
before.
“So how’s the lighting?”
“It’s fine,” the canine answered, adjusting
the focus on the camera.
“Mare sure you take the lens cap off- this
is the sort of, experiment, that can only be run once.”
Fianna removed the round cover with a flick
of his finger. The black, plastic sheath
dangled from a thin thread.
“Huh, oh,” Tygra said- the sedatives and
Silky fruit mixtures were starting to wane.
“Good, he’s waking up. I want him to be alert for this one.”
“Riv...Rivero...you,” he mumbled.
The Evil One hurried over to Tygra’s side
and, in a mock game of peek-a-boo, taunted the restrained Thundercat. Scared out of his wits, the tiger promptly
wet himself.
“Thundera,”
“Tigie? Yes,” he said, smiling, “I missed
her. Who else could stalk me like that tigress- oh, to be on her leash! If only
she was a biped, what a woman she would have made!” He looked down on the
restrained tiger. The grin on his face
transformed at once into a glare of intense and absolute insanity. “It’s time-
for your suppository.”
Fianna turned away, his master readied the
instruments, pouring in the nitrate and tightening the cap.
“I am the Terror that flaps in the Night.”-
DarkWing Duck
“Oh, Liono, I’m so sorry,” Thundera Tiger
pleaded. “We were in the woods and we
are a snarf-”
“A snarf?” Liono interjected in a fleeting
moment of insight. “But there are no
snarves on Third Earth- besides Snarf and Snarfer.”
“It must have been Rivero- surely there is
no one else more devious,” Mandora harped.
“You two ate the snarf and what happened next?”
“We fell asleep. I didn’t think anything of it at the time- we
had spent the whole night- well, you know.”
The others mumbled- they had no idea Tygra
was interested in women, let alone odd, talking tigers. (Oh, oh, I’m going to get it for that one!)
“I fell asleep and when I woke up he was
gone and I was having hallucinations. I
was seeing the things that I remembered Tygra was telling me about when he had-
ah, never mind that. Anyway, he’s gone.”
“And-” Mandora was about to say more when
Liono’s cell phone rang.
“La-lalalala-lalalala-lalala,” its annoying
signal sounded. He fumbled to get it
from his claw shield.
“Hello?” their fearless leader asked. “Yes?
OK, she’s here.”
“What?
Who is it?” Cheetara asked in a somewhat jealous tone.
“I don’t know, but it’s for TT.”
“For me?”
The red tiger pranced over to the head of the round table.
“Said he was a fan of TWSE.”
“A fan!
Let me have it!” she pounced on
him and snatched the cell phone in her jaws.
She let the phone fall onto the floor and angled her head to
listen. “It’s me!”
“Do you like cat movies?”
“Cat movies? Who is this?”
“Mwahahahahahahahahahahaha!”
Her deep, penetrating eyes widened.
“I know that evil laugh anywhere! It’s RD!”
“Hey, guys,” Snarf said, bolting into the
room unannounced. “A wildly attractive
female Mutant dropped this on the front door.”
“What is it Snarf?”
“It’s a videotape. At first I thought it was one of Panthro’s
movies but- it’s different.”
“Play it- it’s probably part of Rivero’s
head game.”
The cassette was promptly entered into the
nearest VCR and played. Immediately a
picture of RD Rivero was displayed. He was wearing a red robe and smoking an
unlit pipe. He lay down his glasses and looked directly into the camera.
“This is your Evil Author speaking. You remember me, don’t you? Yes, I’ve been
away and we have so much to catch up with. I think I’ll enjoy having this
little talk with you. Why, Tygra and I
had the most interesting conversation not to long ago- we discussed a certain
story written by a certain tigress I know.
Oh, what was it again,” he reached out of a drawer and pulled out a few,
hastily printed sheets. “And so the tale drew to a close with
The view changed. Tygra was on the metal table, on his side,
the long, cigar-shaped suppository sticking out from his anal cavity. A white
cord hung freely, ironically longer than what other parts should have been. The
cord was lit and the sparkling fire quickly made its way up into the device
that then exploded into streaming colors.
A whole rainbow burst out of Tygra’s posterior.
The forces of the expanding gasses were so
great that they tore the tiger free from the shackles and sent him flying
through the room like an untied balloon set lose. The sparkly light show continued for a few
minutes amidst the omnipotent howl and cackle of MummRa’s Disciple. At last, at the end, Tygra burnt up like a
Roman candle and fell back, lifeless on a cluttered rack of needles and sharp
instruments.
“So, do you like cat movies, Liono?”
Again the madman taunted and again the
video changed: Liono was shackled to a
bed but that time the Evil One had nothing to do with it. No, it was it was-
“Axelle!” Cheetara screamed as she saw her
rival come into view, dressed from head to toe in the shiny leather outfit of a
seasoned dominatrix. “No,” she said,
restraining herself. “No, we all had,
lives, before we bedded each other.”
“It wasn’t my fault, really,” Liono said,
scrambling to turn off the monitor.
She merely glared at him cross-armed and
said nothing more.
“This is no time to fight amongst
ourselves,” Thundera Tiger said- again, as always, the tiger provided the only
voice of reason.
“Aren’t you upset that RD’s killed your
mate?” Mandora asked.
“Well, Tygra may be dead in this story but
he’s alive in others.”
“Hmmm,” Pumyra said. “What will happen
next?”
The others looked at her and shouted almost
in unison: “Intruder! She’s working for Rivero!”
“No, I’m not. What?
Don’t you guys remember me? I’m a
Thundercat! Yes siree
With the Sword at his side, Liono could
have easily been able to find the whereabouts of Dr. RD Rivero with its ‘sight
beyond sight’ and other powers. Having
studied the mystical weapon’s properties for his doctoral thesis, the Evil One
had arranged it so that the young lord’s crutch was useless- except for one,
tiny detail.
“Hmmm, hmmm, hmmm!” LD exclaimed as he
supped in the madman’s dinning room.
“This is great stuff,” the twisted adolescent said. “What’s in it?”
“Never ask- it’s not right to know,” he
answered as he served his student in the evil arts another helping. “I’ve got a, a present for you.”
“A present?
Really? And it’ snot even my
birthday.”
“No, I suppose not.” The Evil One reached
into yet another magically mysterious drawer and pulled out a wrapped-up bundle
of hide. He threw it at the youth and it unfolded next to his plate.
“What is that?” the miscreant teenager
darted back.
“A mask- of me.”
“
“I need you to wear it, wear it and go to
Castle Plundarr- Slinky’s missed you.
That way, when Liono asks the Sword where I am it’ll send him mixed
signals.”
“Really? Is it that easy to fool the
Sword?”
The evil doer sat back, bemused, “it does
require a certain, finesse, a certain expertise- but it can be done. Remember, it’s an instrument of good, hence,
it can be fooled.”
“Ah,” LD smiled in realization. He put on the mask- and for the first time in
his life he was afraid, no, terrified.
The mask shrunk and hugged tightly onto the very contours of his face.
“Don’t worry, it’s not going to kill you,”
RD said, helping the youth back onto the chair.
“See,” he pulled out a mirror from yet another drawer. “You look just like me.”
“Hey!
Were did my hair go?” the Lunatic writer asked while he studied his new,
artificial features.
“It’s just an illusion, it’s all fake. But don’t take it off, LD, not until my work
is done. Now, go to Castle Plundarr and
reek havoc!”
“Havoc!
Havoc! Havoc!” He got up from the chair, the mirror he held
fell and smashed on the floor. The
disorderly teenager ran about the room screaming about chaos and all things
going amok. In less than a minute the
youth vanished into the fabric of the darkness of the abandoned building of the
Evil One’s headquarters- his cracking voice echoing through the vast, empty
chambers where once primitive factory machines ran unstopped- and then appeared
on the streets below to the horrified wails of fleeing onlookers.
“That boy could wreck this Galaxy just by
strolling through it,” he said, looking at his reflection off the shattered
glass of the broken mirror.
Satisfied that he had the upper hand on
Liono, the doctor grabbed his Fedora and whip and set out to do the work of
vengeance.
“I don’t understand, Mandora,” Liono said,
reholstering his blade. He looked back
in the Thunder Tank. Panthro was at his
side, driving the vehicle, the others were in the back: Cheetara, secretly
plotting her own vengeance on Axelle, Bengali, playing with his precious hammer
and Mandora, oiling up QuickPick.
“What’s the matter? You didn’t break it again?” Mandora asked.
“No, no, not this time, I think,” he
answered, wondering if having used the Sword as a naughty toy as he did that-
“I keep seeing two Riveros.”
“Just what the world needs, two of them,”
Panthro grunted.
“Hmmm,” Mandora wondered, “there hasn’t
been a cloning incident since that Fianna riff a number of months ago.”
“Fianna, that green nincompoop, I bet he
knew about that- ah, I mean, about all this,” Cheetara said, trying vainly to
hide her jealousy.
“We have to catch him, too, I fear he’s
been aiding and abiding
“Don’t I get to speak in this story?” the
strange, robotic deputy squeaked.
“I guess you do now,” Bengali said, rolling
his eyes.
“Well,” the ex-con deputy continued, “I for
one don’t see why you all think this Rivero is so evil. As I recall, he wrote me into a very good
story and has never killed me, as far as I remember.”
“Yes, well, he had me sleeping with him,”
Mandora said.
Murmurs and whispers passed among the
passengers in the vehicle.
“He questioned my masculinity,” Liono said.
Snorting and laughter passed among the
passengers in the vehicle.
“He skinned me alive twice and shacked me
up with Tygra- when everyone clearly knows I’m Bengali’s boy,” Panthro added
with a sly wink back at his mate.
“He’s abused me, too,” Cheetara said but
again held back- knowing that the Evil Author had been very kind to her on
several occasions.
“Well, everyone’s afraid of me and I lost
all my friends ever since that horrible story of his came out. By Jagga- even little kids think I’m worse
than
“And not to mention the Kittens-” someone
else added.
A perverted giggle filled the cramped
interior of the Thunder Tank.
Feeling a certain sense of responsibility,
Thundera Tiger took it upon herself to stalk her adversary, her
arch-nemesis. She knew that being one
hundred percent compatible with the madman One had its advantages. She had a habit of thinking at the same level
as he and to be honest it scared her to know that she and that tiger killer
could have so much in common.
By a crystal-clear brook that snaked
through the tall, brown trees of the great forest, the odd, talking tigress
caught sight of her impending prey.
Above, the sky was white with thick clouds, around her, the woodlands
sprawled out in an eternity of evenly-spaced trees, their green branches ten
feet above the rocky earth- an eerie, earthy mist evolved in the distance.
Thundera Tiger prowled through the thick
underbrush, toward the flickering flames of a makeshift fire, toward the
sitting figure that all the while remained in silhouette.
“Don’t be afraid, my darling TT,” the Evil
One said, looking back. “Come. Sit by me
near the fire. We have much to discuss.”
“RD, you cloaked idiot,” the sensual tiger
came forward, bearing her fangs. “You
killed my Tygra!”
“How now, you must have enjoyed that light
show. Everyone loves fireworks.”
“We tigers don’t do fireworks.”
“Of course, you tigers are so, so-”
“So?”
“So- feisty.” He reached out and dropped a pound of raw
meat on the ground next to her.
“Blood!” she salivated and immediately
began to devour the flesh. “What is it?”
she asked as stringy globs of blood-soaked muscle dangled from her jaws.
“Why does everyone keep asking me
that?” He looked down upon the eating
authoress and sighed: “That Safari Joe character sure had a lot of bulk on him,
I’ll say.”
She eyed him suspiciously.
“TT, why is there this, this gulf, this
breech between us?”
“Gee, hmmm, I don’t know, RD, let’s see-
you’re a cow-toothed human and I’m an omnipotent tiger.”
“We are the two sides of the same coin, one
good, one evil.”
“You kill tigers and I love them.”
“I love tigers and kill them mercilessly.”
“I kill my characters for sound reasons,
you kill them for pleasure.”
“My strong, sleek tigress, you think you
know me so well? I’ve been reading your
TWSE saga. I wonder, why don’t you just
kill Tygra off now, haven’t you emasculated him long enough?”
“Ah, you’re such a human.”
“And you’re such a tiger! Did I ever tell you how irresistible you
are?”
“I think you did- and then Tygra’s genitals
crashed our party.”
“Those were days.” He leaned back on a rock. “We should not be enemies, we should be
friends.”
She rolled her eyes- an awkward yet
graceful feat for a tiger. “Why aren’t
you having this talk with Skat?”
“Her, yes, Skat.” He rubbed his forehead, inching closer. “It seems that she and my old girl friend,
“Old GIRL FRIEND!” Thundera Tiger got up, incensed.
“My sweet, I only have eyes for you- I am
forever on your leash. But, I am a man,
no? I have, needs-”
“Hahahaha,” she scoffed. “I thought that’s what Grune was for?”
“TT, how many times do I have to say
it. Grune and I are-”
““Yes,” she prodded him with her massive
paw.
“Grune and I- are two men from very
different planets.”
From somewhere in the jungle a sudden rim
shot sounded.
“Oh,
“Oh, my stomach, my stomach,” the tigress
wailed.
“They formed a club just for my ex-girl
friends-”
Excited and irate, she leapt unto the Evil
One and knocked him back. “Ex-girl
friends, huh? So why is Skat a member of
it? I always knew there was something
between you two!”
“No, no, it’s not that- she knows certain,
secrets, about me and she and the girls, they, well, they- you know.”
Thundera Tiger nodded and stepped back.
“That’s to be expected, you evil, sick,
evil, twisted man. Why are you doing
this, anyway?”
“My darling, for all this time it has been
my pen that has killed and destroyed those blasted Blundercats. But now, now I want to do the dirty work
myself, alone. I want vengeance. Those happy, smiling do-gooders, laughing at
the end of every episode- I can’t stand it, I can’t stand it anymore! Mocking me and my Master, MummRa. There are
one hundred and thirty episodes, many of them Overgaurdian slaps in the face of
evil. One hundred and thirty wounds,
rents stabbed into the heart of all that is vile and deviant, spiteful. One hundred and thirty wounds- so much to do,
so little time.” He looked at the tiger. She had fallen asleep halfway through
his rant.
From still yet another drawer- odd that in
the middle of the woods there would be such things- he pulled out a half-dead
snarf, none other than Snarfer himself and lay it by the purring Thundera
Tiger’s paws.
“I must be cruel, if only to be kind.”-
Hamlet
Castle Plundarr resounded with the din of a
handful of Mutants hurrying to get the equipment prepared in time. They had
received a top secret call from Dr. RD Rivero earlier that day and were still
only half-done with his orders.
“Hurry you guys! Those Cats will be here at any minute,”
Slinky hollered. She waved her Pointy
Stick(tm) around before the other mutants whose only response was to salivate
at the sight of her scantily clad body.
“Oh, for RatarO’s sake- enough sex already. I mean it, Mutant women are MUCH smarter than
these lazy bums.”
Yes, Slinky, but you are the only female
Mutant I know.
“Couldn’t you have invented more?”
I suppose I could do that but, then, I am a
lazy bum, too.
“Ah! Men!”
She dropped a large box before the lethargic troop of Plunderians. Without prompt they took the objects within
and went about their tasks. The Evil One
had something different in store for the Thundercat’s arrival, something,
special. He knew, all along, that LD
would hop-skip himself to his main squeeze, Slinky. He knew that Liono, that redheaded
dung-for-brains would think he, RD Rivero, Mastermind, would actually set foot
into that sewer- that “Sewer! My home this is!”
Sorry, Slink.
Anyway, back to the story: The Mutants,
under Slythe’s ‘leadership-’
“Hahaha, that was funny,” the female
reptilian chuckled.
Yes, um, under Slythe’s supervision pumps
were thrown into the moat surrounding the castle and were connected, via
massive, internal pipes, into a large, balloon-shaped bag, safely hidden
between the high towers, camouflaged by weeds and miscellaneous stains. The makeshift bladder was strong but its
walls were thin- purposely thin.
Why? You might ask? You will just have to
wait, hehehehe!
“The Thundercats are coming! The Thundercats are coming!” LD stormed into
the main chamber. He had taken his mask
off and was twirling it around like a-
“Like a what?” the youth asked.
I forgot- but it does not matter. You were twirling it around.
“Don’t take it off,” Slinky said, “we want
the Thundercats to think RD is here.”
She took the mask and fit it over the teenager’s head, in the process
bringing his face closer to her- “Oh, RD, stop it!”
OK.
Vultureman came down from the heights of
his ego- no, I meant, he came down from one of the towers. “The duck flies at
The only other two in the room, LD and
Slinky, looked back in confusion.
“What?” they asked in unison.
“I mean, the package has not been
delivered.”
“What?”
“Ah!” he ran his hands through the flapping
feathers of his head. “Ah! I mean, the
bag, up on the roof,” he pointed wildly at the ceiling, “is only half full!”
The two continued to look on, silently but
by their eyes they spoke volumes- of utter disbelief.
The bird man screamed to the top of his
lungs and pounded on the floor with his bare feet. “NEVER MIND!” he stormed out.
“What a weird fellow,” LD said. “I think he needs sex, sex, sex, sex. SEX, SEX, SEX!” He pranced into an empty stairwell. “SEX!” he shouted in glee, hearing his words
echo.
“Teenagers!
Can’t live with them, god, can’t live with them!”
She turned back and looked out the window.
Approaching from the distance, where the
great plains that surrounded the castle seemed to gently roll into the arching
forestry, was a swarming trail of dust- the tell tale sign of the Thunder
Tank’s arrival.
She smiled wickedly, in that menacing way
that only true evil doers can smile: “Welcome to the party, Blundercats! It’ll be a blast, mwahahaha!” Directly below her the moat was almost
nothing more than a deep, muddy trench.
Mangled skeletons and fresher corpses littered the toxic silt. “We’re going to need the gas masks for this
one.”
In a ravine, near the base of the
The giggling of the two youths intermingled
with the babbling of the solitary brook that snaked through the lowlands. She wrapped a finished wreath around his
neck. He pressed a segment of the
garland up to his nose. In that manner
they enjoyed passing their time in each other’s company in the most unusual
ways.
“Nayda,” he said, looking down on his
partly folded legs. “Nayda?”
She looked back at him from the bushes
where she was trimming the withering buds.
“What is it, WileyKat?”
“I have to tell you something- something
important.”
“Oh?”
Her face contorted. “What is
it?” The Warrior Maiden approached him
nervously. “What’s the matter,
kitty-kat?”
“Nayda, you’re going to have to sit down
for this.”
She complied, leaning next to him on the
sloped and pebbly bank of the crystalline stream.
He took her hands into his own and
began: “I have to tell you a
secret.” Tears started to well in his
eyes. “I see RD Rivero- I see him everywhere.” He pointed about the ornate structures of the
wilderness. “We’re in one of his
stories.”
“
“I know- from the moment I awoke I
know. I was French-kissing my sister
back at the Tower. Look at me now,
playing with flowers.”
“No, no, no! WileyKat, that doesn’t mean anything.” She arose and returned to the bushes, trying
desperately, vainly to deny the inevitable.
“You don’t understand, just now, when you
put this wreath around me, I fantasized-” she shook her head, looking away- “I
fantasized that you were, Panthro.”
“But how can that be true? This is a nightmare!
“Listen to what you’re saying!” He shook her gently by the shoulders. “Nayda, you only talk that way under his
influence!”
A twig snapped in the distance- WileyKat
turned to see. He was the only one who
had taken notice of it.
“He’s here, he’s everywhere, watching us as
though we were words, printed on a page and he was writing the lines that we
whisper to one another.”
“Then we must go- faraway if there’s danger
here. Oh, WileyKat, WileyKat, my brave,
spineless, agile, klutz, come with me to the Amazon village. No one will ever know that you’re really a
boy. We will live forever.”
In the vastness betwixt the upright trunks,
a dull, red light blinked and with a slight click it was gone. A screeching whiz soared through the air,
coming, getting closer to the pair.
Closer. Closer.
“Ah!” Nayda screamed and drew back. An anvil had fallen from the sky and had
crashed on WileyKat’s head, shattering it into a mess of bone and brain and
gushing, flowing blood. The unsuspecting
girl was splattered by the carnage. The
near-headless corpse flopped backward, its arms flapping. “Rivero, you BASTARD! You killed WileyKat!”
Deep in the primeval forests, in a
medium-sized hut, the EGO-RDR Group had just concluded its first meeting. In the candlelit main chamber,
Alone in the hut the two began to converse.
“Was it really that long?” Skat asked,
pulling up a stool next to her.
“And without even Viagra!”
They giggled.
“But why did you say he-”
“That’s just to let off some steam,”
“We are only friends,
“Oh, come on!” She slapped her cup down- sprinkles of water
splashed on the folded papers nearby.
“I’ve read the chat logs: sweetie, honey, my dearest. That’s the sort of stuff you whisper in bed!”
“We were never like that.”
“And what about those stories you wrote.
You having a key to his room, you barging in while he’s taking a bath. I read that story all right- it wasn’t a
bubble bath, if you know what I mean.”
“Gross!
No! We have a strictly platonic
relationship.”
“One of these days, Skat,”
Skat stepped up and walked toward an open
window. Large, green leaves drooped down
in her face. Gently she reached out and
pushed them out of the way- a light ruffling filled the air and alarmed the
Queen to look back.
“And what about this nickname nonsense?”
“Oh?” Skat asked. She saw a shadowy figure in the
distance. A faint smile came to her
face. “What nickname?”
“The one you gave him! What is it already?”
“Rivero,” she said, letting the feathery
greens to fall back down, covering the view.
“Rivero?
What kind of a nickname is that?
Hey?” Skat was walking toward the door.
“Where are you going?”
“Um, taking a leak.” The authoress vanished into the bright,
daylight outside.
The hut was built on a clearing of
ankle-high grass that flapped in the cool breeze. The forest was thick around her but only a
hundred or so feet straight ahead the woods opened into a larger valley formed
by the boundary of imposing, distant mountain ranges. The green carpentry that covered the raw
earth was teeming with the vibrant sounds of life- and death- permeating with a
heavy, dense hot air.
She reached an unkept trail that led to a
grouping of rocks where she had seen the mysterious figure.
“Skat, my would-be nemesis!”
“Oh, RD, I missed you.”
The two fell into their open arms in a
deeply-felt hug. She slapped him for
that comment. He smiled, looking
innocently, perhaps too innocently. A
soft, romantic melody played just beyond-
“No music, RD, you don’t want them to think
we’re a couple.”
“All right.
Cut the music.”
The jungles were silent.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t be there to help you
escape. I sent Fianna in my place- I
thought you could use his strength to break down the barriers and stuff.”
“Yes, my loyal, green dog was most
helpful. But why, why, Skat? Why would you join the EGO-RDR, the
Ex-Girlfriends of RD Rivero?”
Skat sighed and tried to look innocent,
too. “Well, I thought I’d just like to
know the, the kind of women your interested in.”
“Why?”
“Oh, I don’t know why. Days wasn’t on- they were too busy
broadcasting your escape- I had nothing else to do.”
“So you joined the enemy.”
“You know I’m not evil. Now, what are you up to?”
The Evil One stepped back to reveal a rusty
catapult. On the metal basin was
WileyKit’s severed head. Ten sticks of
dynamite poked out of her open mouth like cigarettes, their fresh fuses tied
into a single line.
“Wow, how did you get all those into her?”
Skat on looked on in disbelief.
“I guess that was Bengali, or Panthro,
maybe-” the authoress had a confused look on her face- “You know, ‘stretch that
jaw.’”
Again she slapped him.
“Is she still in there?”
“You’re not really going to kill
“Enough, enough!” He pressed his hands firmly against his
ears. “Damn your infective goodness.
Damn it! Ah!” He stormed into the forests and ran far, far
from the scene.
“Hmmm, maybe you can’t kill
The sparkling package crashed through the
open window and, after a loud scream, the hut and all that was within it
exploded in a great ball of fire.
“I did not have sexual relations with that
woman,
“Axelle!” Cheetara shouted- she had held
back her raging jealousy for long enough.
She reached out and grabbed a large clump of Liono’s mane and pulled
back violently. “How could you have done
that to me!”
“You don’t understand,” Liono pleaded. He had fallen back out of his chair and was
on his knees, almost in tears.
“Rowl!
Cheetara’s a feisty-”
“Stay out of it, Bengali,” the spotted
feme-fetal muttered.
Panthro chuckled- the tips of Castle
Plundarr’s towers were fast coming into view.
“Cheetara, my sweet, my darling, my one and
only, it wasn’t my fault.”
“Not your fault! By Jagga!
After all the traps and troubles you’ve gotten into, you expect me to
believe you couldn’t break out of Axelle’s grasp?”
“She chained me and tortured me-”
“You call that torture- oh, you suffered,
you slut! And you couldn’t even use your
Sword!”
“It was- busy at the time. Really, honestly it was.”
“Ah!”
She screamed and kicked him between the legs. “Busy!
Busy boring itself into-”
“You’re calling me a slut?” Liono asked in
retort, in a vain attempt to fight back.
“Who haven’t you slept with you whore!”
“Whore!”
Again she screamed and, twirling about rapidly, she seemed to disappear
into a haze of bright yellow.
“Mandora,” Liono pleaded, “can’t you do
something?”
“You’re their leader,” the monotonic
man-woman quipped. “Can’t you handle it?”
“Not when she gets like this-”
“Can’t you use the Sword or what about
Jagga?” QuickPick added his unwelcomed two cents.
“Hmmm, Jagga hasn’t come to me since that
incident in the bathroom,” Liono reminisced.
“Please, Mandora, please! Pretty
please, please.” He begged before the
Evil Chaser. “I’ll-” he whispered into
her ear- the others thanked Jagga they could not hear what he was saying.
Trying to hide her ear-to-ear smile, she
said, sternly: “Bribery will get you-”
“Oh,” Cheetara sputtered, falling to her
side in a lightheaded stupor.
Mandora bit her lip in glee- at last she
would meet her quota. She reached into
her bag for her summons pad and handcuffs.
“Cheetara, Thundercat,” the officer boomed,
“you’re under arrest.”
Liono began to laugh: “Yeah!
Yeah! Take her away!”
Panthro began to laugh- he had momentarily
deviated off course to let the drama unfolding behind him to come to an
end. Sadly, ever since Snarf’s lecture
on his porno-habit he had been starved for such perverted entertainment. He nodded, his reflection clear in the inner
glass of the windshield.
“It’s Rivero,” Cheetara stammered. “He’s driving us mad. Look how he smiles as he torments us! Raveling in delight at our tiniest faults.” QuickPick had her on her stomach. He was taking the extra precaution of
hog-tying her. “Can’t you see, it’s his
doing. Rivero and Axelle and all those
other, evil authors. MummRa we can
fight, but not those freaks!”
“QuickPick,” the officer called, “enough of
this. Take her back to my ship.”
“Now?
But it’s so faraway.”
“Now.”
“But we’re still moving.”
“Right now,” she said, leaning forward and
sliding the door open. “Out you
go!” She shoved the odd-looking robot
out of the hatch along with Cheetara.
On the rough road the two tumbled violently
over the sharp rocks. Cheetara rapidly
became a bloodied, half-dead pulp.
QuickPick was torn to pieces, mangled, twisted pieces.
“What a way to go,” Panthro rubbed his
chin.
“What, my blue bundle of hugs,” Bengali
said, sitting next to him on what was Liono’s chair.
“I mean look at all the people who have
died. Tygra, that strange, puma woman,
now QuickPick and Cheetara and who know who else.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“Maybe we can’t beat Rivero. Maybe he’s controlling us and what’s
happening.”
“I don’t know, Panthro, this is real life-
that guy can’t possibly be controlling everything.”
Up, in Plundarr’s tallest tower, Slinky,
Slythe, Monkian, Jackalman and Vultureman were sitting and waiting to spring
their devious plan. LD mumbled gleefully
from above. He was secure in the
rafters, tied and gagged, not because the Mutants derided his company, but
because the mission was too important to risk letting him bungle it. Storing him away like that was deemed safe
and proper.
“Now,” Slinky shouted, “now. The Thunder Tank has about reached the moat.”
“I am the leader here,” Slythe hissed, “and
I will decide when the bag will be released!”
“For crying out loud!” the female Mutant
was about to have a fit. “Vultureman,
you’re supposed to be the brains around here.
Who are you going to listen to?”
The avian kept looking at Slythe, then at
Slinky, then at Slythe again. A faint
smoke teemed out of his head. “Oh, what
does it matter?” He smashed his fist
into the controls and at once the infernal mechanism began to turn its cogs and
wheels.
The large bladder that had been filled
completely with the sludge from the moat was lifted slowly by a flat platform. Once it was about ten feet above the crown of
the structure it tilted toward the incoming Thunder Tank. In response the vehicle stopped and was
starting to head back but the evasive response was too late.
The bag was catapulted toward the bright,
shiny tank and when it hit it burst into a sea of noxious sewage and toxic
wastes. The green, brown fluids seeped
into the cabin of the vehicle through holes that it ate out of the metal. The balloon had held so much fluid that the
Thunder Tank was floating in the goo for a good while, sending the vehicle down
slope from the castle.
The passengers were struggling within. Liono used the Sword to blast a hole through
the sidewall. He and Mandora jumped out
ridding on a thin piece of bulkhead. Bengali had lost his hammer amidst the
clutter in the vehicle that had formed as it tumbled down the hillside. The noxious goo covered his body and melted
him into globs of bloody, fur-covered flesh, pulsating and heaving in the panging
throbs of his slow, painful death. Even
Panthro had been swept away in that river of sludge.
“Well,” Liono said while fireworks and
blasting music played in Castle Plundarr, “looks like it’s just you and me
babe.”
Mandora grunted. She had lost her deputy, her summons pad and
handcuffs- she had lost her dignity.
Liono surfed them to the safety of a ditch
at the outer edge of the woods.
“This isn’t right,” he said, helping her
up, “we’re usually winning by now.”
“Maybe that means there’s even more to
come?”
“Can it possibly get worse?” Liono lamented
while the glaring sounds of the Mutant’s party filled the stillness of
woodlands.
“Oh, yes, mine enemy, it can get much,
worse.”
The two turned into the shadows of the
trees.
“Mandora?” the unseen speaker continued.
“
Out from the entangled leaves appeared the
Evil One, clad in the black garbs of the followers of the Dark Side.
“Liono and Mandora- we meet again at
last.” He pulled out his whip and gently
uncoiled it. “Mwahahahahahaahahahahahahaha!”
Liono meowed: “So come on, RD, get it over with already.”
“I’m trying to, Lion-Ho,” the madman
slashed back, “it’s just not as easy as I thought.”
“What isn’t easy?” the hot head leaned
forward, “being evil?”
“Yes, yes, we miscreants have it hard in a
world were good is always expected to win.
We have our moments, however fleeting and always passing. But now, you see, I intend to make my triumph
permanent.”
The lion laughed: “You can’t be
serious? You can’t destroy me- it’s not
cannon. And besides, what can you do to
me?” He thrust his extended Sword about.
“Don’t make a fool of yourself, cub, we all
know your crutch can’t be used to kill.
Oh, Liono, Liono, can’t you see you’re already defeated!”
“I’ll decide what the Sword can’t do, doctor
evil.” It was the madman’s turn to
laugh. “I’ll shut that cackle up once
and for all!”
Liono aimed his weapon at the dark
author. The blade required only the
slightest thought for it to fire its devastating plasma blast. And just as he was about to do it-
“Ah!” the lion shouted in disbelief.
“Liono?
What happened?” Mandora rushed to his side.
Liono had his arms aimed forward, pointing
at the smiling evil doer- but his hands were empty.
“No!
Without the Sword I’m nothing,” the Thundercat lamented, “not even a sex
symbol. Ah! What gives?”
“Editing mistake- in my favor,” the Evil
One answered.
“All right, pull yourself together, big
boy,” the officer said, slapping Liono on the rear. She stepped up to the escaped
mastermind. “You’re mine, now, buddy!”
“Incredible. Liono hasn’t lost his Sword for more than a
minute and already his women are leaving him!
But, officer, I thought you were going to ‘fool around’ with the cub
later, won’t he be jealous?”
“What are you talking about?” she asked
nervously. “How do you-”
“Know?”
Again he laughed. Crashes of
thunder accompanied his cackle. “Who do
you think wrote the words he whispered?”
“Cheetara was right,” Liono said, aghast,
his head in his shaking hands. It was
becoming clear to him. If only he had
more time to let it all sink in.
“It’s called brains, Lion-Ho,” the mad
author said, pointing to his brow. “That’s what separates us. See, I don’t need no stinking Sword of
Omens.”
“I don’t care, Rivero, I’ll fight you to
the end, tooth and nail!”
“Mwahahahaha!” The Evil One took off his had and dropped the
whip into it. “And how can you fight me,
when you’re just a character and I am your author?”
“Hey, “ Mandora began in her monotonic
voice, “whatever your problems with Liono are you can tell them to the
judge. You’re coming back with me.”
“But, Mandora, where’s your summons pad and
handcuffs? You can’t arrest me without
them. Foolish cop lady, you lost them to
QuickPick when you kicked him and Cheetara out of the moving Thunder Tank. Was that a rational thing to do? Look,” he pointed at the dusty road, where
Cheetara and QuickPick’s body parts peppered the trail. “Littering’s a crime against nature, lady,
that’s a fine of two thousand credits,” he scolded, adding a wagging
shame-on-you finger.
“You are a crime against nature, Rivero.”
“So what are you going to do about it? You have no authority on this planet. Why don’t you go away? We were much happier when MummRa was in
charge. How many times did the old mummy
raid the Warrior Maidens? Or how many
Wollows and Berbils did he terrorize asleep in his tomb for millennia? The evil didn’t start until you Thundercats
set foot on this planet.”
“You’re a madman,” Liono scowled, “we’re
the defenders of-”
“And that’s another thing. Who said we needed you to defend us? We can take care of ourselves, thank you very
much.”
“It doesn’t matter- you’re evil, you must
be destroyed!
The black-clad figure rolled his eyes and
put his hat back on in disgust. “If a
fight’s what you want, a fight’s what you’re going to get.”
The ground began to rumble, lightning and
thunder permeated the heavens. A torrent
of voices called through the jungle mists.
As the din came closer it was clear that it was both Fianna and Skat. The pair tumbled into the ditch.
“No, I’m not!” the authoress protested.
“You are too!” the green dog-like creature
retorted.
“I am not evil, I am good. Good, I tell you.”
“Ha!” he looked up from the ground where he
had fallen after Skat had tripped him.
“Oh, hi boss, didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“RD, he thinks I’m evil!”
Again the Evil One rolled his eyes and
sighed. “Skat is not evil, Fianna.”
“And?” Skat prodded.
“And you’re a bad dog. Bad.
Dog,” he spoke dispassionately.
“She is to evil! She turned them back into Chicken
McNuggets! Oh, what will the missus
say?”
“It could be worse,” Mandora began, “you
could be about as well hung as a five year-old, right, Liono?”
“Oh, oh, that was below the belt!” Fianna woofed. “And lately I know what that’s been like.”
“Hey!”
Liono gasped. “I am quite well
endowed down there!” He looked into his
shorts and smiled at seeing his- “Wait a minute. Why am I doing this?”
“It’s him,” Mandora pointed at the evil
author, “you bet your life he’s an evil author!
He’s telling us what to say, Liono.”
“RD is not evil,” Skat shouted.
“No, not this again,” the madman turned
away for a moment.
“Not evil?
He stole my Sword, he’s killed just about every Thundercat there is and
after all that, what? Is he some kind of
teddy bear?” Liono smarmed.
“No, but-”
“Getting witty in your last moments,
Lion-Ho,” the madman shot back.
“RD is evil,” another voice called from the
forests.
“I knew it!” the dark author said. “I knew someone was following me!”
“Surprise!”
Thundera Tiger sprinted up from one of the bushes and trampled him to
the ground. “I’m sorry, my one hundred
percent compatible mate, but someone has to put an end to his story- it’s gone
on for too long already.”
“My sweet, TT, if anyone was to stop me it
could only be you.”
“Well,” the tigress stepped back,
flattered, almost blushing, “it’s not me who’s going to do it, not exactly.”
“What do you mean?”
“See, after our little talk earlier,
Snarfer and I began to realize something- and now I know that it’s true. You’ve done the one thing you said you could
never bring yourself to do.”
“What, my Tigie, what is it?”
“You’re a
“No, no,” the Evil One stood, “that’s not
true, that’s impossible!”
“I’m sorry but it’s true. Think about it, RD, right now you’re writing
about a character who has your name looks like you:
‘Only then was the picture printed upon it
clearly in view and it was none other than Dr. RD Rivero.’
“A character who’s your alter ego in every
way- and is doing what you’ve always wanted to do:
‘I have no delight left but to prove myself
a villain.’
“Someone who’s the main character of this
story and who isn’t a Thundercat even.
Someone who’s so all powerful he can’t be stopped:
‘How can you fight me, when you’re just a
character and I am your author?’”
“No!” the Evil One wailed.
“I’m sorry, but I have to do this.”
From the bushes where she had come from
entered another creature, far more evil, far viler.
“Hot Rocket Baby!” Snarfer screeched at the
top of his lungs and everyone, even Liono had to cover their ears. “RD is a
“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”
RD fell to his knees and began to decay
into pile of dust and bandages. The wind
swept the remains away until only the hat and whip were left. All were stunned silent at the sight.
“Wow,” Thundera Tiger gulped.
“Could it have been so simple?” Mandora
asked.
Liono was about to speak but was cut off by
the sounds of the Thunder Tank’s revving engines. He turned back to see. Upon the Evil One’s demise all had been
magically returned to normal. The mighty
vehicle was all right again. Panthro,
Bengali, Cheetara and QuickPick- indeed, everyone who had died in the course of
the story was alive again.
The flowers were blooming, butterflies were
flapping- the skies were cloudless, bright and blue.
“I don’t believe it. Oh, no,” Fianna lamented. “I’m still part Chicken McNuggets.”
“That’s just what you deserve- I’m going to
get you,” Skat yelled, “and your little poodle, too.” She chased the big, green dog into the woods.
“I guess my work here is done,” Thundera
Tiger said, she turned back to the woods.
“I have a certain craving for take out, stalk, stalk, stalk.” She promptly vanished with Snarfer in her
mouth.
Liono, who was again holding his Sword,
looked at Mandora, nervously, “I guess-”
She reached over to him and dropped her
hotel room key into his drawers with a wicked smile. “Come on, big boy, we can go live in peace
now.” She dragged Liono back to the
Thunder Tank where the others awaited them.
The young lord gave the hat and whip one
last look.
Inside the vehicle, the various do-gooders
high-fived themselves and cheered their leader on. But then, suddenly, the doors and windows
locked.
“What’s going on?” Panthro asked,
desperately trying to regain control of the Thunder Tank. “I can’t control this thing.”
The vehicle began to move apparently on its
own and at top speed toward the edge of a cliff that had magically,
mysteriously appeared from no where. The
inside of the tank echoed with the screams of terror of its helpless passengers
while outside the air teemed with a maniacal cackle:
“Mwahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!”
A pair of hands then grabbed the Fedora and
whip then disappeared into darkness once more.
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