Chapter Text
A young woman walked down a sidewalk to her family business.
She had long, dark hair, and gray, almond shaped eyes. She was wearing tortoise shell glasses, gray slacks, and a purple dress shirt. She always wore a slightly sour look on her face. As if she were silently judging you for your favorite animal being a salamander.
Her name was Hazel Petrovich, she was 22, and worked at her family’s optometrist practice.
As she was thinking about her college classes in the coming months, she made eye contact with her neighbor; Augustine Johanssen. He was more than just her neighbor, he was her enemy.
His family ran the rival optometrist office. Which happened to be two doors down. They were the only two eye doctors in town, and their rivalry was bitter.
The tension between the families was so palpable it could be cut with a stale chicken nugget.
She was conflicted. She knew he was supposed to hate the Johanssens, and everything they stood for. But Augaustine was different. He was charming, intelligent, and didn’t have a mean bone in his body. The eccentricities that once struck her as silly, were now…endearing.
Like how he sat at the pond and had tea parties with ducks, or how he threw glitter and rose petals at rude people, and even how he always carried a tuba with him at all times.
She had never even spoken a word to him. He truly looked like a weird, but good guy. She saw no actual reason to dislike him. (Except of course for his detestable family)
He smiled at her, and she gave him a confused look back before turning away.
She tried to brush off the strange occurrence as she unlocked the door and sat at the reception desk to start the day's work. It was a normal morning. They opened at 8:00 AM sharp, and had their first appointments of the day. A man who needed an updated prescription, a young boy who came in for contact lenses, and a woman who was concerned that she couldn’t read the subtitles on Naruto.
At 12:30 she closed the office to get lunch from the nearby Sonic, when the unexpected happened. As she was waiting for her mediocre cheeseburger and reading a book about the myth of the great river chicken of North America (a terrible fowl who supposedly plagued the lands centuries before), when Augustine came up to her on the patio. She tried to not notice him. But he walked up to her and said,
“Hey, is this seat taken?”.
Taken aback, she mumbled,
“Uh, no. I don’t think so.” and he sat opposite of her (with great difficulty due to his tuba). They started to talk about her book, the weather, school, and food. Before she knew it, they were eating together.
They were laughing and talking, and Hazel said,
“you know you’re a pretty funny guy, I don’t understand why my family hates you so much.”
Augustine looked down and signed sadly. “My grandparents say our families used to be friends, but that your great, great, great grandfather fell in with the wrong crowd, and screwed us over”.
“That’s weird” replied Hazel, sipping on her cherry limeade.
“My family sometimes mentions old ties to the Wisconsin Cheese Mafia. But they also say your great, great, great grandfather was in on it too.”
“I wonder if both stories are true?” He said, staring pensively into space.
“Or if neither are true.” countered Hazel.
“Well, no matter.” He said.
“Even if any of the stories are true, they were probably some dumb drama blown out of proportion”.
“Yeah prob-" Hazel began to say, but whatever she was about to say was cut off when she exclaimed "OH FRICK! WHAT IN THE EASY BAKE OVENS IS THAT!!!!”
While pointing at the glowing purple vortex that had appeared behind him.
Suddenly a cowboy wearing a large hat, and chewing on a piece of wheat, mounted on a light brown horse jumped through the portal!!! They came to an elegant landing.
Hazel and Augustine were in shock, trying to figure out what happened. Finally Augustine asked “Who are you!?! And how did you get here!?!”
The cowboy scowled and said,
”I’d’ve thought you’d’ve recognize’d your great, great, great uncle, August!”
“I’m here to maintain the fam’ly name! You can’t just go ‘round with that petr’vich mule!”
The look of utter confusion on Augustine's face was replaced with horror and recognition. Not unlike the look you would have when you realize that the weird man staring you down at the train station was actually your three archenemy raccoons in a trench coat.
"Wait. UNCLE SYLVESTER THE 1ST?!?!”
Both were quite startled at this recent development. It’s not every day a time traveling cowboy tries to interrupt lunch with your supposed rival. This was shaping up to be a very strange day already, but it got even weirder.
Suddenly, they heard a loud galloping sound from behind them. It sounded like two coconuts banging together. But it wasn't.
The three of them looked on in shock as a large, dark figure turned the corner. It was the 44th president of the United States, Barack Obama. Riding a unicorn, and wielding a green pool noodle!
Finally, Uncle Sylvester regained his composure as he drew closer and said, "What ‘n tarnation are you doi’n here Mr. president?!”
Obama looked at him sternly and said, "I'm here to stop you, Mr Johansson! As you know, they have been destined to fall in love, and defeat the Great River Chicken! And let me be clear. If they don't, time and space as we know it will collapse."
The cowboy gasped. “What! It can’t be waki’n up this early, the prophecy said 2012, and you said it was a typo!”
“It was a typo, It said 2022!”
“I thought you meant 3012, NOT 10 FRICk’N YeArS!!!”
“Didn’t you get the email!!?!”
“'PARENTLY NOT SINCE THIS IS NEWS TO ME!!!”
“Okay, well we still have time to prepare before she’s set to rise, but we have to make the most of it.”
Augustine was still in shock, but Hazel managed to say,
“B-but I thought the River Chicken was just a story? ARE YOU SAYING IT’S REAL?!?!”
“All too real, miss Petrovich. And the ancient prophecy foretells that you and Mr Johanssen will defeat her.”
Augustine, still in shock, asked “But how are we supposed to do that!?”
“I brought reinforcements”, Said Obama.
As he said that, a large, white van pulled up and Obama said,
“You two get in, we’ll meet you there.” Then he turned to the south east, motioned for Sylvester to join him (of which he reluctantly
did), and galloped off together at an unexplainable speed.
“What in the tuba heck was that?” Augustine wondered out loud in a daze and Hazel just looked at him and shrugged.
Before they had time to think about what just happened, the back door of the van opened. They didn’t know what to expect, but holy heck they were still surprised! Sitting in the vehicle was Gordon Ramsay, Drew Gooden, Mr Beast, Josh (from let's game it out), Dan Povenmire, and Micarah Tewers. In the passenger seat was Queen Elizabeth the second, and in the driver's seat was Harry Styles.
They awkwardly shuffled in and took a seat. Augustine awkwardly removed his tuba for safety reasons, and sat next to Hazel.
Harry started driving, and not really knowing what to say, Hazel surveyed the room and said,
"Well we’re all here to defeat the Great River Chicken, apparently. Let's introduce ourselves… Augustine, you first."
He looked around nervously and said, “My name is Augustine, I used to be a semi-professional juggler and my favorite color is blue.”
Everyone greeted him, and turned to Hazel.
"And my name is Hazel… I’m an artist, and my favorite color is purple."
They all greeted her, and then introduced themselves.
Hazel was thrilled to meet Drew and Josh. They were her favorite youtubers! And Augustine was ecstatic to meet Micarah and Harry. Under different circumstances, they probably would've asked for pictures or something,
But given the situation they couldn’t fully comprehend that.
They were having a strange day.
Not wanting things to be awkward, Hazel asked,"So how did you all get in this situation?"
Mr Beast said,
"Obama called me and asked for help, so I figured I would make the best YouTube video ever! It's gonna be called, "I killed the world's biggest chicken, and gave it to a homeless shelter!"
Gordan said, "I came with the queen, I'm here to cook the bloody thing as a promotional stunt."
Queen Elizabeth said with a charming smile, "The United States government contacted me, to request my help. So I thought I would do our allies a jolly good favor!"
Micarah said, "I was at Hobby Lobby when I started talking to some strangers about chickens, and they asked if I wanted to help. So basically I'm here for moral support, and chicken expertise. Overall, this day has been a bit weird for me.”
Josh said, “I'm so famous for breaking games, the government asked if I could try to break the chicken. So that's pretty cool."
Dan said," And me, Drew, and Harry are here for emotional support"
"That makes sense." Augustine said while nodding in approval.
"Yeah, sounds like we'll need all the moral support we can get. From what it sounds like the river chicken is no joke."
"Yeah, when Lewis and Clark trapped it back in the day it was one heck of a fight, they had to get help from the military and the navy." Said Mr Beast in agreement.
"I always thought it was just a myth, like how could it actually exist?" Hazel added.
"Totally, it just seemed a bit far out, but here we are I guess." Said Micarah casually.
"Well we still have two days before the rising, so we have time to work on our strategy" Said Drew.
"Yeah, that happens June first, in Leavenworth. Right?"
"Yea-OH HOLY WATERMELONS!!!" Harry yelled, as he slammed on the brakes and swerved to avoid crashing into a snowmobile. They skidded across the road, and crashed through a fence. Time seemed to slow, they all were surprised and didn't have time to think of a plan. But luckily, their fall was short and cushioned by tall grass.
"Is everyone okay?" Harry asked in a daze. He was bleeding, but looked alright.
Everyone grunted that they were fine, and got out of the van. (Augustine made sure to push his tuba out before crawling out himself)
"Well, looks like we're stuck here for a minute." Said Harry.
"We should get you to a hospital, that cut could be bad." Said Dan.
The queen called Obama to explain the situation, and Dan took Harry to the hospital. And then they sat on the side of the road waiting for their ride.
About half an hour later, a minivan pulled up and rolled down the window.
"Get in losers, we're going to leavenworth!" Said Keanu Reeves, with a warm smile.
They piled in and started driving again. Some thinking that this time, they were ready for anything else the day threw at them.
Hazel and Augustine sat unsure, numb, and scared. And he wondered how his plan for today had gone so off the rails. He realized he would now have to go through with his scheme far quicker than anticipated. Whether he wanted to or not.