There's a lot of Sofia in this one. Also a lot of Duke and ToonyMan.
(looking back through old threads I saw a lot of references to Keroro, mostly in conjunction with Sofia, which is why the second section of this part has him.)
A huge crowd had gathered on an open field by the Bay, milling about restlessly as they waited for Duke to come up on the makeshift stage that had been constructed for that day’s event. Most of them could not help but notice the titanic rectangular object just behind the stage, covered by a tarp. It looked like, and in fact was, a huge cage.
Josh stood on a nearby hill, watching the proceedings while Pablo the spider clambered all over his shirt. He was there for two reasons. Firstly, to make sure everything proceeded as planned. And secondly, to make sure that whenever ToonyMan came back, he didn’t come back with something that would break most of the laws in existence.
Duke walked around from behind the object and mounted the stage. He paused to clear his throat, then stopped when he remembered he didn’t have one. He settled for adjusting his necktie, and began.
“Forumites,” he said. “by now all of you are aware of the danger posed to Earth by the Martians.”
There was a rising cry of ‘lolwut’ as what Duke was saying began to sink in. He raised his hands for silence.
“I know, I know. It seems ridiculous. However the threat is real and very, very close now. The Martian Empire has begun mobilizing battle fleets for a colonization attempt in Texas…” here Duke crouched, and said in a low tone that carried to every corner of the field, “And they say The NME himself will be accompanying them.”
A moment of silence followed this proclamation. The crowd began to murmur to themselves. Some of of them began to edge away.
“But!” shouted Duke. “We have a solution! Ladies! Gentlemen! Um. Penguins! I give you your Baron, and the future King of Texas!”
A Chin, and the Aqizzar attached to it, made its way onstage in a cloud of manliness. The crowd went wild with cheering and applause. Several of the female members of the audience swooned. Most of the male audience did so as well. He nodded approvingly.
One member of the audience, however, did not. “Bah!” scoffed one of the penguins, hefting his gold-tipped walking stick and adjusting his monocle. “King? That way lies madness. And not the good kind of madness, either.”
“Settle down, Prime Minister,” said Duke, as soothingly as he could. “It’s only a temporary measure. With a King in Texas, The NME has no right to lay claim.”
“Hmph,” said the Prime Minister.
“Now, then!” said Duke. “Here is what we’ll do. To become King, Aqizzar must face a trial of manhood.”
“Manhood? Aqizzar IS manhood!” shouted one of the crowd members. There was a roar of assent from the entire assembly. Chaos reigned.
Duke turned to Aqizzar. “They’re not going to go for it,” he whispered. “At this rate, they’re going to make you King without due process, by which I mean slaying the damn dragon.”
The Baron frowned. “Is that bad?”
“Yes,” said Duke. “Without due process, the Martian Empire still has every right to claim Texas. Can you get this crowd to settle down?”
“I’ll try,” Aqizzar said. He gave the audience a look.
The entire crowd went silent.
“Thanks.” Duke prepared to speak again. “As I was saying. A trial of manhood will give Aqizzar the right to be King.”
“Not that I support this idea – very much the opposite, in fact,” said the Prime Minister. “But what manner of trial?”
“It is simple,” said Duke. “The Baron must slay a Dragon.”
“Capital idea!” said the Prime Minister, laughing. “Except there are no more dragons to slay!”
“Is that so? Well, how about this!” said Duke, running back to the cage and whipping the tarp off with a flourish. “I give you PointZilla the Dragon!”
There was a collective gasp. Somewhere in the back of the crowd a baby began to cry. With what could have been a grin, Duke turned to face that monstrosity he and Josh had created.
It wasn’t there. What was there was even worse.
Inside of the cage was ToonyMan, his head freshly ablaze, holding what appeared to be a squirming mass of red and black lizards. They had been wrapped in a few strips of duct tape. Some of them were quite dead, and the ones that weren’t didn’t look very happy at all, much like Duke.
“Where,” he said. “is the Dragon?”
“The Dragon? What, are you blind? It’s right here!” said ToonyMan. He leaned closer to Duke and whispered, “I ran out of glue along the way so I had to stop by a hardware store for tape.”
“No,” said Duke. “Where’s my Dragon?”
“Let’s be honest with each other, Duke,” said ToonyMan, dropping his ‘Dragon’ and clapping Duke on the shoulder. “Do you really want your Dragon?”
“No, but-“
“Exactly!” shouted ToonyMan. “You don’t. This one will do just fine.”
“No. No it won’t. Where is the Dragon?”
ToonyMan looked around sheepishly. “I’ll be honest. I haven’t got a clue.”
Duke rubbed his U. “Then what where you doing inside the cage?”
“I got in through the enormous hole in the back.”
“WHAT!?”
They were interrupted by Josh, running towards them at full tilt. “Guys!” he shouted. “We may have a teensy problem.”
“I guessed that,” said Duke. “Did you see it get out?”
“No, Pablo did,” said Josh. “He was trying to get my attention, but then Aqizzar arrived, so I was out of commission for most of your speech. He says it’s heading North.”
“North?” said Duke. “Well, then so are we.”
---
Sofia sat atop a tank, rolling through Texas in style. The sun was beginning to rise over the edge of the horizon, casting her armor in a faint orange light. With a frown she triggered her visor and leaned back.
Suddenly a high-pitched voice interrupted her reverie. “Miss Sofia!”
Sofia sighed and flipped her visor back up. “What is it, Sergeant?”
The tank’s hatch popped open and out clambered a waist-high green creature. He was wearing a hat, and with his bulging eyes and floppy hat, he bore a superficial resemblance to a very large frog. “Miss Sofia, the plan has gone forward!”
“Your platoon released the Dragon-thing, then?” said Sofia. “Good…”
“Not so good, Miss Sofia!”
Sofia sniffed. “Why not, Sergeant?”
“Well,” said the sergeant, twiddling his fingerless hands.
“You’ll tell me, won’t you?” Sofia said sweetly, but the look in her eyes was more akin to that of a cat. A hungry one. “Do you want what happened to Giroro to happen to you?”
“No, Miss Sofia! Anything but that!”
“Then you’ll fucking tell me what happened!” she screamed, smacking the Sergeant in the back of the head.
“Yes, Miss Sofia,” he said frantically as he regained his balance. “The Dragon has been released, but in entirely the wrong direction!”
“What?”
“It has headed north, Miss Sofia!”
She paused for a while to let this information sink in. As she did, a thought struck her. “Sergeant, who the hell is driving this tank?”
“Me, Miss Sofia!”
“Then what are you doing up here talking to me?”
Stricken, the frog creature scrambled back down the hatch. The tank, which had been ambling left for the past few minutes, now righted its course.
“Fucking idiots,” Sofia muttered. She fiddled with the receiver on her helmet until it picked up a signal. There was a jumble of static, then voices.
“zzzzat-uys ready yet? If we’re going to lead this thing towards Texas, we’ll have to travel light.”
“Ready? TOONYMAN IS ALWAYS READY.”
“Put your pants on, for god’s sake.”
“Yes Toony. Please.”
“Pants? THEY’RE ALSO FOR PANSIES.”
“The Baron wears pants.”
“FINE.”
“Wait. What the hell is that?”
“Pablo says – oh God. It’s coming back!”
A dim roar came over the transmitter.
“Run! Run, dammit!”
“Run? TOONYMAN NEVER RUNS.”
“We’re the bait. Run for the-”
The signal cut off. Sofia frowned. She sat up and adjusted the receiver.
“-damn it all! It ate Org! Damn you, Pointzilla!”
“What are they still doing here? ToonyMan, get it away from the crowd!”
“How?”
“I don’t know! Just… set it on fire or something!”
“I can only do that to myself!
“I don’t care, just do something.”
“Where’s Aqizzar?”
“He’s probably halfway to Texas already! He can’t help us now!”
“Duke, ToonyMan’s got its attention!”
“Okay. Get out of here, Josh, we’ll wrangle this thing. ToonyMan! Let’s go! Head for the border as quick as you can! Go! GO!”
The voices were replaced by what sounded like a stampede. Sofia decided that Josh and Pablo, to whom the transmitter was attached, must have been swallowed up by the crowd of Forumites, making any further listening pointless. She could still hear the Dragon-thing roaring, but it was getting softer and softer, presumably as Duke and ToonyMan drew it away from the rest.
Sofia reached for the transmitter, dialing in a set of numbers that interacted in no way possible with human mathematics.
There was a click. “ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl- Yes?” rasped a voice out of the darkest reaches of space.
“Cthulhu. It’s me.”
“So I gathered,” came the reply. “What do you want? We have our deal.”
“You’re going to have to intervene a little earlier, I think,” said Sofia.
The growl that followed threatened to shatter her receiver. “What went wrong?”
“My minions are idiots,” Sofia said, casting an irritated glance at the tank hatch. “That’s what went wrong. The Dragon is headed towards Texas now, but there’s no one to restrain it.”
“And you wish me to do this for you? Not a chance, puny human. I promised to help you fight it, not play baby-sitter to a mutant lizard.”
“I have her on speed dial, you know,” Sofia said softly.
There was a pause. “Fine, then,” Cthulhu grunted. “I will meet you in Texas.”
Sofia turned the receiver off and set her helmet by her side. Before long she was asleep, dreaming dreams that, Elder God or not, would have made even Cthulhu wet his nonexistent briefs.
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Topic: Ridiculous Tales of Bay Twelvery (Read 29584 times)