Chapter Text
A baby elephant with abnormally large ears woke up from his night’s rest when he heard a strange noise coming from outside. He peers through an entrance of the tent, only to see a red comet wildly coming down from the sky and landing in the middle of the circus grounds not far from where he is currently sleeping in the elephant tent.
Curious at the sight, Dumbo looked down to his new friend who is a small brown mouse dressed up in a red marching band uniform to see if he also saw the comet like he did, but he was still sleeping.
The baby elephant decided that he and his new companion should check it out in the morning before his big debut.
—
The next morning after he wakes up, Dumbo tries to get his new friend up to no avail. Frustrated, he picks him up with his trunk to put him on his head so that the circus mouse would slide down on his trunk as a hammock of sorts and then go off with his sleeping friend in tow.
Dumbo uses his trunk to smell where the comet is at. But on his way there, he comes across an old woman still in her pajamas who came out of a purple caravan he walked past.
“Why hello there little one,”
She said to the baby elephant, completely unfazed by his large ears unlike most of the humans he has encountered thus far.
“Did you also see that strange comet from last night?”
In response, Dumbo nodded.
“It’s quite unheard of that a comet would land on this good earth let alone our circus grounds.”
But then she finally noticed the circus mouse sleeping on Dumbo’s trunk.
“Say, isn’t that Timothy?”
The old woman remarked, seamlessly recognizing him.
Dumbo is surprised at what she just said.
So that’s what his name is
He thought to himself as he looked at his sleeping friend.
“Harold the ringmaster’s daughter, Brittney isn’t gonna be too happy that you somehow took him. She can be quite overprotective over that little mouse to the point where she’s essentially his mother.”
Dumbo wants to confess to the old woman that this isn’t what it looks like and that Timothy is the one who came to him by his own accord. But alas, he couldn’t talk back to her much to his dismay.
So instead, the baby elephant takes off to continue his search for the comet’s crash site, leaving the old woman behind.
—
Dumbo finally arrived at where the comet landed and it was in a large bale of straw.
Dumbo took up Timothy with his trunk and brought it to his face so that he can nuzzle him into an embrace for a moment before putting him on top of his head so that he can investigate the comet inside.
It ended up taking the baby elephant quite a while before he uncovered a crimson muzzle in the straw bale.
Curious, he touches it with his trunk.
But the comet is starting to wake up from its slumber and the bale shifts and stirs as Dumbo tries to coax it out of the pile the best he could.
A mutated arm with a silver blade sticking out burst out of the pile and it had a claw in the place where its right hand should be.
Now completely out of the straw bale, the comet was revealed to be a rather large crimson beast of what appeared to be flesh and metal with his left mutated arm revealed with a long four-fingered hand unlike the right arm.
He stares at the elephant with its wedge-shaped head with eyes that are more like two shades of light orange pupils on a red-orange background.
Despite its twisted appearance that jumps straight out of a young circusgoer’s worst nightmare, Dumbo can’t help but feel empathetic towards the beast.
Is he also born different just like me?
Dumbo thought as he stared back.
Vakama is bewildered yet curious about what he is seeing right now after he got forcibly woken up.
Unlike the beasts in Metru Nui and even in the new island home that he and his team intended to bring the sleeping Matoran to, the pair of Rahi before him appears to be completely organic.
The gray Rahi’s long nose is akin to that of the chutes back in Le-Metru and its ears were so huge that they dragged into the ground.
The smaller Rahi who was sleeping on top of the gray Rahi’s head appears to be wearing strange clothes.
Curiouser and curiouser
Vakama thought to himself.
This is at this moment that Timothy finally chooses to wake up from his deep sleep. “Say Dumbo, what’s with the commotion-”
The circus mouse froze in fear at the sight of the strange beast before him and Dumbo. But yet his friend doesn’t seem to be scared, but rather sympathetic to it much to his surprise.
“How did you manage to speak, Rahi?”
The strange crimson beast asked Timothy, being just as bewildered as he was.
“Wahi?”
Timothy spoke, confused.
“But who and what are ya exactly?”
The beast then responds,
“Well Rahi, my name is Vakama and I am a Toa.”
He paused for a moment before begrudgingly added.
“Well, used to be anyway.”
Vakama then crouches down so that he can take a closer look at Timothy.
“But where exactly am I and how can I get back to Metru Nui so that I can rescue the Matoran?”
“Well, you’re at the current stop of the WDP Circus. I don’t think Dumbo and I have ever heard of this Metru Nui place before.”
Timothy answered.
“Dumbo?”
Vakama replied.
“He’s my friend of mine,” The mouse explained as he came down Dumbo’s trunk “Ya see, Dumbo is born with those big ears and is in turn, being mocked as a result. But when his mother, Mrs. Jumbo tried to protect him, she got thrown into that clink over there.” Dumbo then points to where his mother is currently being kept, which is a locked-up cell wagon located on the far edge of the circus grounds. “After she got locked up, Dumbo is left on his own devices. Not even the other elephants would accept him as a member of their herd.” Timothy continued “But that’s where I come in,” He then realized what he’s been neglecting to tell Dumbo ever since they first met, so he turned to him and remarked. “Say, I never really gave you my name did I?”
Dumbo shook his head sideways in response. “Well, I might as well kill two birds with one stone with this one, hehe.”
Dumbo lifted his trunk so that Timothy is between both him and Vakama and then he does a little twirl while holding his hat with his right paw and proclaims.
“The name’s Timothy Q. Mouse, at your service!”
Vakama is flattered by the mouse’s introduction
Dumbo and Timothy…strange yet cute little pair of Rahi they are
He thought.
Dumbo, on the other hand, learned nothing new since he already found out about his friend’s name from the old lady he met earlier.
Then Timothy put his hat back on his head.
“So where am I, ahh yes. I was in the elephant tent scurrying for peanuts like normal when I overheard the other elephants gossiping about what had just happened earlier that day and when I saw how they treated Dumbo, I knew I had to do something about this.” “So I went over to the elephants to put them in their place, the poor little guy deserves a break ya know.”
Vakama then asks with curiosity.
“But how did you exactly do that since they are so much bigger than you are?”
“Well, elephants are naturally afraid of mice, including myself.”
Timothy answered
“For as long as I lived, I never stopped getting a thrill out of scaring the elephants of this circus and when I felt a little blue, whenever I had a bad day, I could always make myself feel fine and important again by scaring the elephant herd here.”
“After I scared them, I went over to where Dumbo is hiding to try to befriend him. He was quite scared of me at first because of what I had just explained earlier. So I tried to persuade him with a peanut to get him out of hiding, but then he sucked it out of my paws with his trunk.”
Timothy grabbed a spare peanut from inside his hat and showed it to the Hordika. “Say, wanna try one?” He offered as he put his hat back on.
Vakama took the peanut Timothy offered with his blazer claw. Then something is coming out of the claw which quickly turns out to be fire to Dumbo and Timothy’s shock.
The fire that Vakama ignited roasted the peanut to the point where it turned dark. He then blows out the fire and drops the burned nut to the ground.
“The peanuts are already roasted, ya don’t have to overdo it!” Timothy told Vakama, scared of what he was capable of.
Vakama is taken aback by what the circus mouse had said to him, but Dumbo wrapped his trunk around his right wrist as if he was reassuring him despite what he did.
After the initial shock of what the strange beast had done had worn off, the circus mouse resumed telling Vakama.
“I was about to walk away until I mentioned my offer of helping him reunite with his mother.”
Vakama replied
“And how are you two gonna do that?”
Timothy then answered with confidence. “Our plan to send her free is to come up with an idea for an act that Dumbo can do in the circus. So I successfully manage to convince the ringmaster to have Dumbo be part of a new act that he came up with for the elephants. So if the show is successful tonight, Dumbo can be a star, we can get his mother outta that clink, and everything will be alright!”
Just as Timothy is done explaining his plan, Vakama suddenly stands still like a statue as if he is paralyzed by something.
Before Dumbo and Timothy could ask, the latter recognized who was coming toward them.
It’s a young woman who is also wearing a red marching band uniform albeit with small tweaks to set her apart from the circus marching band proper. She is part of his human mother’s entourage.
Scared of what she is gonna do to Vakama on top of what Brittney’s gonna do to Timothy once she finds out that he ran away and possibly falsely accused Dumbo of stealing him, the still-newly formed duo whisks the Hordika away to the wardrobe tent next to them so that they won’t get caught.
—
Vakama finds himself in the center of the middle ring inside a huge tent and when he looks at the ring next to him on his left, he sees a group of seven elephants making a pyramid for an act.
He then saw Dumbo do a small leap before running out of a small tent to get on top of the elephant-made pyramid with his ears tied up to a knot, but then it was undone during it. Thus he trips on his ears and jumps straight into the wooden ball the elephant is standing on.
Chaos ensues with the elephant pyramid struggling to keep its structure as the elephant at the bottom is trying to keep her balance.
It ends up chasing after Dumbo as he was trying to escape, but he once again tripped on his ears with the pyramid crashing into him.
Just before his vision ends, it cuts to the huge tent collapsing in the midst of it.
—
After they get inside, Vakama snaps out of his brief trance. He looked to see that the two Rahi had brought him to a small area inside one of the tents.
“We need to hide inside here for a little bit, Vakama. I don't think the rest of the circus folk would take kindly to ya and who knows what they’re gonna do if you get caught.”
Timothy explained to him.
“Right…” Vakama noted as he sat down in the center of the room. Dumbo went over to one of the tables to grab some ribbons and then went back and started to wrap them around Vakama’s lower legs much to the latter’s amusement. “Say, that’s a great idea Dumbo!” Timothy remarked. After Dumbo is done putting the ribbons on, the circus mouse goes up to the tip of his trunk. “Vakama, just stay right where you are while we try to find a disguise for ya.”
They went to one of the closets to see if they could find something that Vakama could wear, Dumbo reached up with his trunk to grab a ruffled, bright blue bonnet that was hanging inside and then they went back to him.
Dumbo propped himself in front of Vakama to get the bonnet on him while Timothy tied the attached pink ribbon into a bowtie. After they’re done, Dumbo pushes a mirror for Vakama as Timothy puts his hood on. “What do you think?”
“It does look a bit cute on me I suppose, but I think it’ll do its job.” The Hordika said with uncertainty
As Vakama continued to look at his reflection in the mirror, he thought long and hard about his most recent vision.
Are they just gonna react to my visions the same way my former friends did or worse?
Not wanting to repeat the same mistake that he did with his teammates, he decides not to tell Dumbo and Timothy about it so instead he tells them.
“I think I should tell you two, my side of the story after we get out of this tent.”
Timothy went to take a peek at the area outside the tent they were in to see if anyone was coming by. When he sees that there’s no one around the tent at this time, he turns to Vakama and Dumbo.
“Alright, I think the coast is clear now.”
And with that, the trio went out of the wardrobe tent as Dumbo and Timothy just gained a powerful yet dangerous friend.