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Chapter Text

[Manny appears]

Manny: Shut up! Prepare for the show. [Disappears]

A toy soldier was moved up toward several others on an imaginary battlefield.

"This is it, women! Steady...here it comes!" said the person who was playing with them, who moved a toy monster toward the soldiers and imitated roaring.

That person was a 9-year-old girl named Billie, who had orange hair and a noticeably big bulbous nose. She wore a white T-shirt with a blue stripe in the middle, a dark blue skirt that went toward her knees, a pair of white socks, a pair of red and white tennis shoes, and a red baseball cap on her head; and was happy to be using her imagination and spreading joyful laughter everywhere on such a lovely day. She made the monster attack the other soldiers, a toy tank, and a toy plane, imitating them screaming and begging it to stop. "Aaah! Eeek! No! No! Aaaah! Aaaah! Stop attacking, Ms. Monster! We only wanted to be your friend!", she said as she moved the soldier in her hand toward the monster. "Oh, I'm sorry," she said in the monster's voice, "let's make up!" Billie made them kiss each other, giggling elatedly afterward. "Yaaaaay!" she yelled excitedly, setting the two figures down and throwing her hands up in the air, having finally resolved the conflict and saved the day.

Just then, a ray of light appeared near the monster, slowly moving in between it and the soldier. Fearing what would happen next, Billie gasped. "That's what happens when the monster melted the foolish soldier's brain..." said a voice as the light was angled directly toward the soldier's head, sealing her fate and setting a much darker tone for the story to continue.

The voice's owner was a blond-haired boy named Manny, who was holding a magnifying glass. He was around Billie's age and height; had his hair styled like devil horns; wore a pink T-shirt sporting a flower with blue petals and purple disc florets, a pair of matching pink shorts, a pair of white socks, and a pair of black tennis shoes with white laces; and carried an eerie air of darkness wherever he went. Ready to add his gloomy words to his and his friend's story; he summoned this darkness from the deepest depths of his imagination; directing it to smother the soldier, the monster, and the army on the cobblestone battlefield. He concentrated his firepower on the soldier's head, which began to melt from the solar power from his magnifying glass, finishing his contribution to the story with, "...with its heat ray vision."

The light continued further down the soldier's body until it went slightly below her waistline and Manny blew on her, causing her smoking remains to drop dead on the battlefield. "Awww," a saddened Billie said, taking out three more action figures, a man and two children around two fifths his height, "she had a husband and two kids!"

"She's better off now," Manny said back, looking through the magnifying glass one more time and reducing the soldier to a smoldering pile of melted green plastic. Billie sniffed and wiped her nose, and the melancholy look on her face was suddenly replaced by her usual cheerful smile. "How are you today, Manny?" she asked excitedly, ready to have some more fun with him.

But Manny stood there unamused, crossing his arms and giving his friend a long hard stare from his stone-cold eyes, waiting for her to obey whatever orders he thought of giving her. "You will take me to see Ms. Snuggles," he commanded, tapping his right foot on the floor.

"Ms. Snuggles?" Billie said, confused. Then she thought about it and realized what Manny was talking about. "Oh, it's her tenth birthday today!" Then she paused, zipped toward her friend, leaned close to his ear, and whispered "That's like a jillion in hamster years!" before zipping off to lead him to her house. Manny looked the other way, still not amused.

The two friends walked through the door of Billie's house, went upstairs, and entered her room. They walked across the space to see her hamster Ms. Snuggles, who was standing in her exercise wheel in the cage, barely making it move as she tried to run without aggravating the arthritis in her wrists and slightly above her right hip. She was very old and had really grayed fur (except some black strands sticking out of her darker spots and a few elsewhere) that had gotten messy over the years, sported a curled whisker on the left side of her face, and wore a blue party hat with a green stripe and a yellow topper. Apathetic at what day it was today, she continued trying her best to exercise as Billie watched her enthralled and Manny stood there equally apathetic. "It looks like she's about ready to kick the bucket," Manny said as the hamster kept trying to do a full rotation on her wheel.

But Billie, who had apparently let Manny's words go right through her ears, tapped on the cage and excitedly said, "Happy birthday, Ms. Snuggles!", startling her hamster. Then she turned to Manny and asked, "Hey, wanna see her do a trick?", lifting the lid off the cage.

"No," Manny responded as his friend took the hamster out with her hand.

But Billie, still not listening to Manny's points, held Ms. Snuggles close to her face. "Ms. Snuggles, kiss-kiss!", she shouted, excited to see this trick. But Ms. Snuggles, who was certainly not in the mood to be ordered around to do any tricks, started growling and hissing at her owner, her mouth foaming with furious saliva. She moved and shook around violently, preparing herself for an attack, and then jumped up toward Billie's face, attaching herself to the latter's big nose with her teeth while Manny stood there annoyed at his friend often missing his points. "Good girl!" Billie said, proud of her pet for performing that trick for them.

But Manny, still not amused, pointed his finger at Billie. "That was more of a bite than a kiss," he said frustratedly, while she pulled Ms. Snuggles off her nose and set her back in her cage a little carelessly. Ms. Snuggles panted heavily, struggling to catch her breath.

Then, suddenly, an eerie green light appeared in the center of the room, capturing Billie and Manny's attention and filling the vacuum inside the room with a dark shade of red and an uncanny sense of fear as if death was knocking on someone's door. It rotated around the center of the room like the Solar System around the Sun, yanking at anything within its reach to get it to join in at the center and giving a jolting feeling to the two kids and the hamster who started to feel its grip on their skin and hair/fur, and coalescing to create a bright sphere of light yellow light; while five foreboding green ghostly apparitions joined at this center to create a swirling effect that looked similar to the Milky Way galaxy rotating sideways like Uranus on its axis. The apparition galaxy whispered ominous things to all in its proximity, urging them to look inside it and see the life (or whatever) that awaited them when they came inside, as it continued to rotate for the next several seconds before it fell to the floor, as Billie and Manny braced for what would happen next. The effect turned into a column of bright greenish yellow light with green ghostly rings rising upward that emanated from a cloud of dark green smoke spreading out from where it had hit the ground, signaling the gloomy times that were impending upon those present. "What's that?" Billie asked, pointing at the column.

Manny walked up to it in response, sticking his finger in, observing the resulting ghostly flame for a few seconds, and then tasted it (extinguishing the flame). "It seems to be a swirling vortex of pure evil coming out of your floor," he said, taking a few steps back while Billie walked up next to him. He took another taste of the vortex a few seconds before it subsided and dropped completely to the floor. In its place stood a curved black five-pointed star shape that gave everything a far-from-relaxing bright blue glow and rotated counterclockwise (the opposite of the direction its points curved) for a few seconds before coming to a complete stop.

A tall black shape with a curved end emerged from the star shape at the bottom, rising higher before sputtering and forming a curve in its length. It continued going higher and higher until it reached its full height; frightening Billie into breathing heavily as she backed into the wall; and then turning around, jumping toward it, and latching onto it with her teeth (forming a crack in the process). The shadowy shape finished taking form as Manny watched, acquiring a pair of fearsome red eyes and forming a hood onto its head, and then unfolding two arms from its sides. These arms were very bony, had really oversized sleeves like a mage's robe, and the left one held a shadowy scythe with a bend in its snath's length (shaping it like a hockey stick minus its grip and blade), ready to find the next harvest for the day. This could only mean one thing: the Grim Reaper had arrived.

She emerged from the shadows of the vortex, ready to take her next victim's soul and fulfill her duty for the day. Looking through the sockets of the skull poking out of her black robe with a red inside, she spied Ms. Snuggles several inches in front of her, advancing upon her cage. The hamster jumped up and froze terrified as the personification of death took the lid off the cage, the latter grinning evilly at the former while she reached in there to grab her.

Billie, oblivious to what was going on around her, was pleasantly surprised to see this otherworldly being standing right in front of her in her very room. "Oh, oh, look!" she said, pointing her finger at the reaper. "It's Santina! It's Santina Claus!"

The Grim Reaper heard Billie's words as she held Ms. Snuggles by her tail and the hamster shook herself in an attempt to get free, taken aback by what the big-nosed girl had said. Her malevolent grin was instantly replaced by a look of shock, and the eerie glow disappeared from the room. "That's not Santina, you stooge," Manny said, frustratedly walking toward his friend. "That's the Grim Reaper."

But Billie just stood there, still confused. "Do I still get presents?" she asked the skeletal figure, rubbing her forehead above her right eye.

"Uh, well..." the Grim Reaper repsonded in a deep Jamaican-accented voice, thinking it over and still holding Ms. Snuggles (who had stopped trying to fight back). "No. Actually, I'm here for the hamster."

"Oh boy, oh boy!" Billie said, jumping up and down at the thought of her pet getting some nice Christmas presents on her birthday. "You brought presents for Ms. Snuggles?" she continued, grabbing the reaper's robes and dragging them toward her.

"No," Grim said, pushing the girl off of her with her scythe and knocking her to the ground. "I'm taking her away." She dusted the lower part of her robes using the hamster's body.

"To the North Pole?" Billie asked, still oblivious, and poking her head up.

"No." Grim began to reply, looking away. "I..." she continued, but Ms. Snuggles pulled herself up and bit the skeletal figure in the tip of the metacarpal bone, causing Grim to scream as she spun it around rapidly like a bike wheel on her radius and ulna. Ms. Snuggles jumped inside her owner's shirt and tried to find a comfortable place, which caused Billie to dance around briefly. "Look," continued Grim, walking over toward a desk on the other side of the door, "I'm just doing my job. But I'm afraid it's curtains..." She made a slitting motion across her atlas and axis with her left hand. "...for Ms. Snuggles."

Billie, still not getting Grim's point, stood there, trying to wrap her brain around this argument. "You got her curtains?" she asked, scratching her forehead with her left hand.

Grim face-palmed herself as Manny walked over beside his friend and cleared his throat. "You'll have to forgive Billie," he said, as Billie rubbed her left eye with her thumb. "She's an idiot."

"Look!" Grim said, waiting for their terrified reactions. "Aren't you two scared?!" She tried to think of how to scare them, starting with an irritated "Boo! Blah!" But the two kids just stood there, not fazed by her attempts, while Ms. Snuggles popped out of Billie's right sleeve. Grim scoffed in response, thinking of what to do next. "Oh, come on!", she said a little exasperatedly, "I'm a walking skeleton!" She pulled up the lower part of her robe to show her legs and pelvis. "Isn't that scary?", she continued, pacing around and becoming more irritated with each passing second.

"Hey!" Billie interrupted, grabbing the scythe. "Can I see your hockey stick?" She snatched it out of the Reaper's hands, struggling to regain her balance as she walked backwards. When she stopped, she looked at a toy robot with treads for wheels, claws for hands, blue eyes, an orange dome surrounding its face, and an antenna. She aimed the scythe like a golf club, ready to smack the robot toward a hole-in-one. "Fore!" she yelled as she took a good strong swing, sending the toy flying across the room, hitting Grim in the face, and knocking out one of her teeth (which made her rub her head and close her left eye).

"Ms. Reaper," said Manny, taking Grim by the hand as the latter continued rubbing her head and leading her to the tea table to the other side of another door, "you are truly a horrific and powerful figure and..." He pushed a stuffed animal out of one of the chairs, while Grim sat down. "I respect that," he continued, walking toward another chair across from Grim and jumping into it. "However, I cannot allow you to take Ms. Snuggles." He poured a cup of tea.

"How dare you give orders to me!" Grim thundered, pounding on the table with flat hands. "I have powers you can't possibly imagine!" she continued as she menacingly got into Manny's face and pointed her finger at him, which went downward almost immediately after she said this.

"Tea?" Manny asked nonchalantly, clinking his cup against the teapot.

Grim picked it up and looked inside for a few moments. "Oh, thank you," she said, her fury replaced by a relieved smile. She tried to gulp down her tea, but it went right through the big hole in her mandible and spilled right onto her lap. Her happiness quickly changed to shock, embarrassed at the puddle on her robe.

However, this relaxing moment was cut short by Billie still playing with the Reaper's scythe (and trying to regain her balance again) as Manny poured himself a cup of tea. She made a hole in the table with the blade, briefly swinging onto the snath and then letting go. "Aw, you stained your dress," she said, landing on the floor upright.

"It's not a dress!" Grim yelled, the fury returning in her voice as she wrung out the wet area. She took her scythe from the table and ordered, "Now give me the hamster!", as she stretched her right arm out.

Billie removed Ms. Snuggles from the inside of her shirt, reaching out to give the reaper the hamster. But Manny stopped her by grabbing her arm and saying, "No!"

"No?" Grim replied in disbelief. "Well, why not?!"

"I'll make you a deal," Manny said, climbing on top of the table and putting his hands behind his back. "We will play a game with you. If you win, you can have Ms. Snuggles."

Grim raised her right brow ridge at this idea. "Ooh! Ooh! Can she have me too?" Billie asked, waving her hand in the air as if she were in class and she really wanted the teacher to call on her.

Manny hesitated as Billie pointed to herself and touched her nose. "Yes," he said, "and if we win, we keep Ms. Snuggles."

The Grim Reaper stood there, elated at the game she was ready to play with them. She laughed evilly for a few seconds, and then said, "I love games, and I never lose," brandishing her scythe and gleefully anticipating the outcome and the prospects of taking the gray hamster's soul.

"Neither do I," Manny said in reply.

"Hmmm..." Grim said, thinking about the wager one more time, "if you win—which you won't..." She got into Manny's face one more time for a few moments on the last three words before she pulled back. "I'll be your best friend forever." She walked over toward the cage again and opened a purple portal with her scythe, laughing maniacally. "Follow me," she beckoned them in there, briefly resisting the air sucking her inside before she was completely enveloped.

The other three watched this happen, also anticipating the game they would play. "Gulp," Billie said, as they were also sucked inside with some resistance from their bodies (which briefly stetched out before they returned to normal and were completely enveloped by the purple light).

The portal led them to another dimension, where everything was a much redder hue, foreshadowing the high stakes Billie and Manny would have to place their bet upon in order to keep Ms. Snuggles' soul. The sky was very red and cloudy with a swirling texture in these clouds that added some curved highlights, the ground was very hard and rocky with a pink light to reflect back to the eyes, and there were purple curved arches everywhere (some of which were transparent at the bottoms). The area had the smell of a mix of yesterday's homework, cold autumn air, strong coffee like the kind Manny liked to drink with his breakfast, stamps to be sent on their envelopes with their ink and return stickers, pencil shavings, hand sanitizer from a porta-potty long overdue to be dumped toward the septic trucks (and the porta-potty itself), a collection of old records covered in dust, a hint of burning rubber from trees, and a tinge of murky river water; while the air tasted like a combination of stale bread, month-old orange juice, burned plastic, old newspapers, long-expired dog food from rusted cans, and soggy pancakes with six-year-old freezer burn; and the only sounds that could be heard were faint conversations and monotonous classical compositions in pianissississimo. The purple overhead light made itself known as it opened fire upon the ground below; spitting out two human skeletons, followed by two sets of muscles and organs and two more of skin and other features (which landed on top of the skeletons to form Billie and Manny); and a hamster skeleton followed by its organs, muscles, skin, fur, and other features (which formed Ms. Snuggles, who landed in Billie's hands, when it finished).

Grim walked up to the three mortals while this was happening. "Welcome to Limbo," she said when the process finished itself, walking backward to demonstrate what they would be doing, "where we'll be playing my favorite game..." She stopped near two stacks of six decorative calaveras each, then came back to them, stopping in front of them again. She tapped her scythe on the ground; which tranformed into a stick with five sections of green, yellow, and red that she caught with her hands. "Limbo!" she continued, walking over to the calavera stacks. "How low...", she challenged as she put in the two top skull decorations, "can you go?"

She started the game by walking toward the stacks with a dance in her step, leaning backwards 90° at her sacrum when she reached the stick, and easily going under it as she went through it. When she had cleared the first challenge, she leaned back upright, turning back to the two humans and the hamster. "Your turn," she dared Manny, laughing maniacally as he walked under it without having to lean. When she saw this, her evil grin was replaced by a look of shock and slight enlightenment when Manny cleared it. "I think we need to make a slight adjustment," she pointed out, moving the stick downward to the third calaveras from the top. Then, leaning over toward Billie, she patted her on the head and told her, "Your turn," laughing maniacally again as she leaned back over.

Billie dropped the hamster and ran toward the limbo stick, with Ms. Snuggles running after her. She did a little dance when she stopped, and then leaned over and managed to make it under without much effort despite her giant bulbous nose, while Ms. Snuggles walked up through the skull decorations on the stack to her owner's right. The big-nosed girl did a victory pose and bowed before an unamused Grim and Manny, who had their arms akimbo and crossed respectively. Grim grunted frustratedly, walking toward the stacks and placing the limbo stick in the mouths of the second calaveras from the bottom, more intent than ever on getting her victory and Ms. Snuggles' soul. "That should do it," she said, proudly anticipating the kids' loss that would soon come.

Billie ran back toward the stacks and the stick, eyeing the latter and seeing how low she would have to go in order to clear that challenge. "Gosh, I can't go that low," she said worriedly.

"Ah, but I CAN," Grim replied, ready to see the three mortals' scared reactions she had been waiting for for the last several minutes. She leaned down 90° at her lateral malleoli as she prepared to walk the other way through the stacks of calaveras. Shortly after her toes had passed through, she taunted at Manny, "Oh, uh...any last words before you lose?"

"Just two," the noseless boy said, looking down at Grim's skull. "Kiss-kiss."

Ms. Snuggles, who was still sitting in the top calavera on Grim's left, heard these words and prepared herself to do another trick, ready to attack her next target. Grim looked up at the hamster as she went foaming with rage again, shaking violently again before she jumped down into the reaper's right eye socket, causing the latter to scream as Billie slammed her teeth and eyes shut.

"Oh! Oh! Get it off of me!" Grim cried, standing up, moving around, and struggling to get the hamster out of her face as the two kids watched. She turned backward, shaking her head to get the hamster out, and then trying to shake her off of her right pointer finger (which caused her to lose her balance and knock the limbo stick loose). When the reaper stopped, she waved her arms in order to keep her balance, but she fell flat on her back, surprised and embarrassed at her loss.

"You lose," Manny said, walking up to the vanquished Reaper.

"But...but...th-this isn't fair!" Grim wailed as Ms. Snuggles emerged from her left eye socket and jumped out toward the two kids.

"A deal is a deal," Manny replied, holding out his hands for Billie's hamster to jump in. "We keep Ms. Snuggles," he continued as Grim got up and Billie walked up next to him.

Billie grinned, ecstatic her hamster would live to finish her birthday. "Yeah," she agreed elatedly as she walked up to Grim, "and now you're our best friend forever!" She jabbed Grim in the pelvic area, wiggling her finger around.

Grim shuddered at the new life she'd have to face now that she'd lost the game she loved so much, and to three inexperienced mortals (two children and one hamster) no less. "No..." she sniffled with tears in her eyes, "this is impossible!" Then, as the other three watched her break down and put her hands on her ribcage, she burst out, "I am the Grim Reaper!" She threw her fists in the air, and continued, "Master of the forces of life and death!"

"Not anymore," Manny replied, with a firm look in his eyes. Then, shortly after, he ordered Grim to reopen the portal back to their dimension and go with them there, which she did reluctantly, still sore about her loss.

That night, Grim was sleeping with both of her new "best friends," still feeling miserable about having lost her freedom and worried about what the upcoming day would bring.

Her body was in Billie's bed, wearing a pair of pink pajamas, holding the covers for comfort and to secure her sanity, and anticipating the ever-energetic Billie making her entrance at any moment. The door opened, and sure enough, the big-nosed girl was standing inside, wearing her baseball cap and a pair of sky blue footie pajamas, and ready to have some more fun before bed. She bounded in, with a skip in her step, and then jumped inside her bed, giggling and hoping to bond more with her new skeletal "best friend." "See?" he said excitedly. "Being our best friend is pretty fun, huh?" Grim crossed her arms, unamused. "And the best part is," Billie continued, hugging Grim's body, "you can sleep over at both our houses!" She grabbed the pillow on her side of the bed, bursting out "Oh, pillow fight!" and hitting Grim in the atlas repeatedly.

Meanwhile, in Manny's bed, Grim's skull was lying down and feeling the impact of Billie's blows, writhing and jostling around in pain. After a while, this took a lull, and the skull turned to look at Manny, who was wearing a pair of short mint green pajamas and matching slippers and reading a book in bed. "I loathe you," she said stonily as Manny looked back at her, just as the pillow beatings resumed. The noseless boy smirked at this torture while Ms. Snuggles popped out of Grim's right eye socket one last time. "Why me?" Grim cried one last time before she went to sleep, dreading the less-than-ideal life ahead of her starting tomorrow.

Although this was a humiliating loss for the Grim Reaper; it was the start of a strange chain of supernatural events that was set to begin tomorrow; which would involve her, her two "best friends," and a parade of others they would encounter; opening up a lot of unusual opportunities. Maybe Grim's new life wouldn't be so bad after all, but for now, it was time to go to bed and take in everything new that would happen. There was, after all, some excitement still to be had, even with everything Billie and Manny would put her through.

Chapter Text

It was a beautiful day today—the rip currents were creeping up toward the city and its green grass, the skyscrapers stood proudly over the citizens and all the buildings who bowed (and curtsied) before them, the birds were chirping quietly in the sky, and the cars' motors were humming in almost perfect harmony with each other. The sky was very clear with a few clouds to mark this beautiful day, expressing hope for more days like this to come. However, there were dark gray clouds concentrated in one particular spot, where something sinister was about to unfold.

An island with a rock shaped like a bunny's head lay under that spot, looking upon the city that the occupants were planning to overrun. The mouth was open, ready to gobble up all it saw in its domain, and housed a temple that reminded everyone to worship the leaders of the organization that was ready to swarm from this mouth; while a satellite stuck out of the right eye like a worm from an apple, setting its sights upon domains further than the island it occupied. There was also a lookout tower to the head's left, prepared to fight back against any intruders (be they heroes looking to save the world, rival villains looking to conquer it instead of the sinister organization on the island, government officials trying to get this organization to comply with their countries' laws, or just people who encroached upon the property without permission), and the whole rocky structure was surrounded by palm trees for miles outward. Sharp craggy rocks surrounded the island, representing the hopes dashed should these aforementioned intruders come and try to find out more secrets about the place that could be used against the evil organization, and the ripples alternatively swallowed and spat out these rocks and the island to show the trouble these intruders were about to get into. This was Bunny Island, the home base of Evil Con Carne, an organization led by the malevolent Mexican supervillain (and former playgirl) Hectara Con Carne, who aimed to take over the world at any cost (and find the rest of her body that was lost in an explosion she had been presumed dead in for some time).

Hectara was standing in a large room with her underlings, preparing to make a speech to the world leaders to get them to hand control of the planet to her. Her brain (which had been genetically modified to have black bead eyes and thick black eyebrows and to be able to say its thoughts out loud) stood atop the head of a former circus bear named Boskova, who had purple fur, wore a big white dress shirt (which had been cut away except its collar and cuffs with black buttons) and an elegant black bow tie, and had Hectara's stomach attached to hers. Standing in front of her were Hectara's lead mad scientist, Major Dr. Anhedonio J. Ghastly, a tall pale-skinned man with short red hair who wore a pink rubber suit with short sleeves and red highlights, a pair of black boots, a pair of matching black gloves, a pair of black-lenses goggles that made his eyes appear blue, and was in charge of building the various gadgets for Evil Con Carne; and her light brown pet Chihuahua Enriqueta Jr., who was always ready to prove her owner wrong when Hectara claimed she had no talent; while the others were eager to see how their boss's speech went. Boskova held a camera up to where Hectara's brain was, showing the world their new future ruler whose evil knew few bounds.

"Attention, League of Nations," Hectara began as the camera's vision was transmitted directly to their screens, "you will lower your defenses and turn control of the planet over to me, Hectara Con Carne." Boskova moved the camera toward her mouth and began to sniff, smelling something delicious that she really wanted to eat (when Hectara would allow her to, anyway). "If you do not comply by six o'clock, this..." Hectara continued, but the camera turned again to see Ghastly, Enriqueta Jr., and two more henchmen (Hectara's paramilitary commander General Regina Skarr, who had a noticeable scar on her blind left eye, and one of the many soldiers under their command; both of whom wore uniforms with blue shirts and hats and black belts, pants, and boots) standing in the view. "Hey!" Hectara yelled furiously, desiring to continue her speech. "Point the camera at me, you doo-doo! ME!!!"

At their headquarters; the League of Nations members were seated in their chairs; watching this floundering threat (it was pretty powerful, but the focus was fluctuating) as the camera's view turned to Boskova's free hand, then to her mouth again, and finally toward her butt. They began shrugging and muttering amongst themselves, questioning its power, with one of them asking, "What control of the world?"

Back on the other side, Hectara continued issuing her ultimatum. "Ahem," she began again once Boskova turned the camera toward her brain. "Yes. So...turn over control of the planet to me, or I will be forced to use my Doomsday Device!" Boskova turned the camera toward this device; which looked like a huge red gun with a satellite pointing the opposite way of the barrel, housed a missile sticking out of this barrel, was powered by blue electricity riding up two pylons, and stood atop gold-colored gear machinery; on her command. "With this, I can reduce your cities to smoking rubble," Hectara continued as Boskova zoomed in toward the device, and then the camera's view went back to her brain. "You have six hours to meet my demands." Then suddenly the camera went out.

Hectara had delivered a pretty powerful speech, but she was not pleased with it, and especially with how Boskova had handled the camera. "Oh, that was horrible!" she yelled, her brain flailing around in its container. "Bad Boskova! Bad bear!" she continued, smashing the bear's spirit and making her look down at the ground, and shocking Major Dr. Ghastly. "These days I wish my real body hadn't exploded!" she finished as Boskova scratched the back of her neck, both of them very stressed out by the experience.

Just then, General Skarr noticed something on the screen where she was standing. "I hate to be the bearer of bad news, sir," she began, turning toward Hectara and showing her a green military helicopter flying in the sky toward the lair, "but the League of Nations has sent a team of crack commandos to stop us." Her expression became determined as she thought about how to stop this new threat.

"Commandos?!" Hectara said in shock, her brain perking up in alarm as Boskova stared off into space. "How can we stop them from kicking our butts, General Skarr?"

"Hmmm..." General Skarr thought, rubbing her hand on her chin and trying to find a good solution. "Cover our butts with our hands, sir?" she joked, putting her hand behind her back with her other touching her butt.

"Hmmm..." Hectara replied, thinking it over, as Boskova scratched her nose. After a few seconds, she rejected that possibility. "Major Dr. Ghastly!" she shouted at Ghastly, turning her brain towards him. "Suggestions?"

"Well, chief," he began, scratching his chin. "The best thing to do in these situations is to..." He got an idea. "Listen to your gut!" he shouted, pointing his left index finger upward.

Hearing this, the stomach, aptly named Stomach, growled silently, crestfallen at not having eaten all day. "I'm hungry," it said, Boskova looking down and empathizing with it, as she also hadn't had any food since she and Hectara had woken up.

"Ooooh!" Hectara said, hungry for power, as she turned her brain toward the device in full rage mode. "Boskova, quickly!" she ordered, her impatience growing by the minute. "Activate the Doomsday Device!" But Boskova's desire for food made her boss's words go in one of her ears and out the other, as her eyes widened, her mouth hung open with a huge smile and her tongue sticking out, and she started running on all fours toward the room across the hall from them. "No, wait, the Doomsday Device is the other way!" Hectara said, trying to redirect the bear toward their means to stop the League of Nations, but Boskova kept running toward the room toward a beehive to get some honey. "No, there is no time for that!" Hectara continued, as the bear stopped, licked her lips, and took the hive off of the hook. Frustrated at the bear's disobedience of her commands for some honey, Hectara yelled at her, "No, Boskova! I command you!"

Skarr looked at her boss, worried about something she had seen on the screen where she was standing. "Sir, I..." she began, but she was interrupted. The wall behind her was blown up, sending her and two of Evil Con Carne's soldiers flying in different directions.

A group of muscular brown-haired women in military uniforms; which consisted of olive green jackets with rolled-up sleeves and two chevrons on each sleeve, matching green pants and helmets, white athletic bras, and black belts and boots; ran through the smoke; ready to follow the League of Nations' command to stop Evil Con Carne from capsizing the world under their control. They boldly made their way inside the building, unafraid of the soldiers employed by the evil organization they were about to take down, since they were much shorter and probably less powerful anyway. Their leader stopped, briefly observing the situation, and then giving the rest of her squad the all-clear to go ahead with a loud "All right, commandos...let's...ROCK!!!!!!" The rest of them ran further into the buliding in a single-file line at the last word, ready to use everything at their and the League of Nations' disposal to finally bring the occupants of Bunny Island down to their knees. The battle to protect (and take out) the Doomsday Device was on!

One of the commandos cornered one of Evil Con Carne's soldiers against a wall, kicking her in the head with her boot, while another commando punched another evil soldier twice in the face, sending her flying across the room.

Meanwhile, in the room with the honey, Boskova was still eating her honey while Hectara was still trying to get her out of the room, the latter desperately giving orders to her soldiers. "AAAHHHH!!!" she screamed, looking at the commandos approaching her precious Doomsday Device. "GUARDS!" she ordered. "Protect the Doomsday Device!"

But the soldiers of Evil Con Carne knew it would be a daunting task to do, especially with the commandos' strength compared to their own frames, as one of them was sent flying through a screen in the same room as Hectara and Boskova. Two more looked through the doors leading to the weapon, too freaked out to do anything as two other commandos started destroying the device (one jumping up and down on top of it and the other hitting it repeatedly with a huge slab of cement). "¡Ay caramba!" Hectara yelled sadly as she watched her meticulous plans go up in flames, one of the commandos repeatedly punching something on the wall, another hitting one of the Evil Con Carne soldiers in the head with a chair several times, a third breaking one of the control panels with a baseball bat, and a fourth throwing another soldier to the floor so hard it made a hole surrounded by huge cracks in the cement.

The commandos' leader approached Hectara and Boskova (who was still blissfully munching away at her honey) and pulled back her fist, prepared to end the world domination plans of the evil mastermind once and for all. She punched a hole through the container resting atop the bear's head, pulled out the brain (breaking the spinal cord in the process), held it in both her hands like a tasty sandwich, opened her mouth, and began chewing on it for a few seconds (afearing Hectara for her life all the while) before her watch started beeping. When this happened, she spit the brain out across the room (where it landed a few feet in front of Boskova's feet), and glanced at her watch, which read 12:00 in black digits. "LUNCH BREAK!!!!!" she yelled at her fellow commandos, prompting all of them to run out of the hole they had made in their infiltration.

"Oooohhhh...can't feel...my legs..." Hectara said as this happened, one of the commando leaders' teeth still sticking out of her brain, as it struggled to stand.

When the battle was over (well, the first part), the interior of Bunny Island was in a state of severe disrepair. The soldiers were heavily injured (one even needing a crutch for her left leg), the walls were busted, the big globe was cracked, the control panels were demolished, electrical cords were sparking, a few fires were blazing in the room with the globe, and there were a few holes in the floor that people could easily fall through. Skarr poked her head above one of the tables (which was knocked over in all the commotion), looking at Ghastly (who was sadly looking at the room fall apart all around him) carrying Enriqueta Jr. through the rubble, but a huge chunk of the ceiling fell on top of her and seemingly crushed her.

Boskova had eaten nearly all the honey in the hive in the other room, but she was still hungry. She shook the hive up and down, hoping to get as much as possible out of the structure, as the bees flew around her. She looked inside the hive, eyeing the last bit, turning it at different angles and pondering about how to extract it from where it was. "Can I have some honey, too?" Stomach asked, also growling for its fill after Hectara's speech.

Hectara, meanwhile, was fuming at both of them. "Aaaargh...that is it!" she yelled, forming the end of her spinal cord into the shape of a fist as she stood her brain as upright as she could. She crawled toward Boskova like a worm as the bear put the hive on her head like a hat, fed up with the bear not obeying her commands to the letter. "You good-for-nothing waste of fat!" she furiously shouted at the bear, pointing the end of her spinal cord at the latter like a hand as Boskova gulped and recoiled in terror. "You're FIRED!!!" Boskova looked away to her right, her teeth chattering at these two words.

Major Dr. Ghastly gasped at his boss's behavior, covering his mouth with his hands. "But, chief!" he protested, holding his hands out. "You can't fire your own body!"

"Boskova is not my body!" Hectara fired back at him as Boskova began to cry. "She's just a big, stupid animal that you stuck me to!" She turned to her lead mad scientist. "Major Doctor," she continued, "I order you to construct for me a new body, a body with which I will dominate the world!"

At her last word, a few flashes of lightning ignited outside Bunny Island, echoing throughout the structure and beyond.

About 50 minutes later, Hectara's brain container (which General Skarr held in her hands) had been repaired, the soldiers were still badly bruised (some with broken bones), and Major Dr. Ghastly was looking at a machine with closed doors, awaiting the completion of his boss's new body. He put his hand on a knob, starting to turn it clockwise, when Hectara piped up from inside the container. "Major Dr. Ghastly!" she shouted, anxiously waiting for the opportunity to show up the League of Nations when their crack commandos returned. "Is my body ready yet?"

"Oh," Ghastly said in response, still mentally reeling from Hectara's harsh words toward the former circus bear. "Boskova's not completely useless, chief," he argued back, turning towards his boss. "I think she deserves another chance." He smiled, hoping to get Hectara to accept her ursine carrier again.

At his word, Boskova climbed up a structure standing in front of a door, briefly struggling to keep her balance as she stood on her two hind legs. "Ready, Boskova?" Major Dr. Ghastly asked excitedly, clapping his hands. Hectara and Skarr were unamused, but Ghastly didn't seem to care. "You'll love this, chief," he continued, looking back at the brain in the container and then turning his attention back to Boskova. "All right, Boskova, do your trick!" he coaxed, clapping his hands and jumping up and down. "Come on, do your trick, Boskova! Oh, come on. Do it for Daddy!" Ghastly elatedly put his hands on her cheeks, making noises like a baby trying to speak coherently. "Yes," he continued, thinking of how to impress Hectara and get Boskova back on her good side as the bear looked in another direction. The mad scientist ran to the cabinets, looking through the smelly drawers which hadn't been sanitized or had their contents sorted for many months, and then catching a whiff of exactly what he needed: a piece of bacon. He pulled it out of the drawers, returned to where Skarr and Hectara were standing, and then looked back at the bear. "Oh!" he encouraged, waving the bacon up and down at Boskova. "Would you do it for a piece of bacon?"

Boskova got excited, a grin cracking across her face and her appetite awakening again. She looked longingly at the meat, saliva building up in her mouth, and started mentally preparing herself to do a trick she'd done in her former circus. "Bacon is a tasty snack," Stomach said, also prepared to get enough food to hold her for at least until the commandos' attack was finished.

"Do your trick, Boskova!" Major Dr. Ghastly said happily, still waving the bacon at the bear. "DO IT FOR THE BACON!!!"

In response, Boskova pulled out a red unicycle and boarded it, pedaling across the beam that connected the structure to another on the left, the tire and pedals squeaking all the while. She briefly lost her balance in the middle, the tiny miners in her heart attempting to excavate the structure for any gold they could find and unearthing several microscopic butterflies in the process, but she continued pedaling, persevering to reach the other structure. When she got there, she looked at the bacon in Major Dr. Ghastly's hand, ready to get her long-awaited snack and recognition for her contributions to Hectara's work. "Good girl!" he shouted, throwing the bacon toward her, which she caught with her mouth. But just as she caught it, she lost her balance on the beam, plummeting to the floor and landing on her back with a big crash.

"Stop wasting my TIME!!!" Hectara yelled, furious at this performance. "I am never going to need to unicycle across a tightrope!" Boskova crawled toward her, the bacon sticking out of her mouth, worried about her boss's next words. She looked at the brain nervously, terrified of what might happen to her tenure, the brain signals enticing which also released toxins that staled the fatty bacon strip. "The only thing I need to do is RULE! THE! WORLD!!!!!" Hectara contined, her brain hitting the glass as she punctuated her last three words.

"Yes, sir," Major Dr. Ghastly replied dejectedly, his attempts to help Boskova seemingly ending up in vain. He walked over to the machine where he had been standing, ready to give his boss her new body, and pulled a lever that activated a mechanism in the opaque metal tube to its right.

The covering began to lift up with a mechanical whir, keeping everyone in anticipation like a magician preparing to reveal their next magic trick to their audience, and slowly revealed two robotic legs underneath.

"Oh...it's beautiful..." Hectara said, her brain's eyes growing wide with joy at the sight of having an unbeatable body as the rest of the body was revealed.

"This is the B1000 Full Body Replacement System," Ghsatly began, showing his boss her new blue and orange robotic body in all its glory—magnetic feet, right fist of silver titanium, built-in plasma cannon on the left hand, "muscular" torso, neck stub, and even two rockets in its butt—as everyone stared at it, Boskova included. "It features enhanced strength, titanium armor, plasma cannons, a rear-mounted rocket array, and side airbags."

While they were staring, Skarr stepped forward, and Boskova put her nose against Hectara's container, blocking her view. "What are you looking at?" the leader of Evil Con Carne said, furious at the bear's presence. "You're fired!" Boskova began bawling her eyes out, utterly destroyed inside, but Hectara didn't care, and wanted to try her new body out as soon as possible. "Shoo!" she commanded, looking at the bear with fire in her eyes. "I never want to see you again!" Boskova ran away wailing, making a hole in the wall and shocking everyone in the process.

"Poor Boskova," Major Dr. Ghastly said sympathetically as his colleagues stood there frustrated and eager to get their plan back on track, but suddenly they were interrupted.

The alarm went off, signaling another attack to come.

General Skarr walked over to the system, still holding Hectara's brain in her hands, and looked at the screen, which read "DANGER!" in green letters and "PELIGRO!" in identical green letters below that. As soon as she reached it, it changed to a picture of the commandos' helicopter in green outlines, with the text "commando alert bla bla bla" written above it. "Those accursed commandos are back from their lunch break," she said, looking back at Major Dr. Ghastly and the injured soldiers.

Incensed at this, Hectara saw her chance for revenge, tiny veins of fury rapidly swelling in her head. "Let them come," she commanded. "I think they're in for a little surprise." She laughed evilly as more thunder and lightning rose above Bunny Island, signifying the dramatic showdown between good and evil (or, in this case, evil and good), and determining the most intense turning point of their war that had yet to be recorded in historical accounts.

Just as General Skarr had said, these commandos were back for the second part of their battle with the malevolent Hectara Con Carne and her organization of evil. They blew another hole in a different part of the wall, entering the room the same way they'd come in the first time, and stopped when they were all inside. They began looking for their opponent again, trying to find any sign of her brain or stomach, the leader rubbing her helmet. While they were searching, several orange lights came on in the darkness, the smell of freshly fashioned metal and a whirring sounding similar to a train's whistle ganging up on them, signaling the beginning of the latest battle between Evil Con Carne and the League of Nations. "Looking for me?" said a voice in the darkness, piercing their concentration.

It was Hectara Con Carne, the organization's leader, with her brain perched atop the B1000 Full-Body Replacement System. She had her eyes blazing with determination (in a similar orange to the lights), her weapons all primed and inspected (including the rear-mounted rocket array), her metallic parts all new and shiny, and (most importantly) her mind set on world domination at any cost. The commando leader looked at her with a mix of shock, fear, terror, and confusion; trying to think of a plan on how she and her squad could defeat their newly powered opponent in their rematch; when suddenly...

"It's the brain!" shouted another commando, who was standing to the right of the hole, pointing at Hectara in all her and her new body's glory. "GET HER!"

With these three words, the battle was on.

One of the commandos tried charging at Hectara from up front, but the villain stopped her with a left overhand punch, knocking her out hard. Another tried attacking the left arm, but she was disposed of just as easily with a spin move that knocked her back several feet. Getting a huge surge of pride in her new fighting abilities, Hectara took one step forward, but a third commando advanced upon her, hoping to take the bodiless villain by surprise. However, Hectara sensed this and dodged the commando's punch, returning fire with a right upper kick. Almost immediately after, a fourth commando charged with double overhead fists, but Hectara grabbed her before she could land this attack and threw her backwards into one of the control panels. Finally, a fifth commando approached, expecting this sort of thing to happen to her as well, but Hectara took the former by surprise by grabbing her right nipple with the robot's right hand. "What the...?" the commando said, shocked, as the cerebral evildoer spun her hand around like a drill and twisted the nipple dozens of times, sending the commando spinning at a dizzying speed. Hectara eventually released her, sending her flying toward one of the walls, screaming loudly, and creating a huge hole in it.

Hectara smiled triumphantly at her performance (well, not exactly, since she didn't have a mouth, but close enough). "This is like shooting monkeys in a barrel!" she chuckled, activating the plasma cannon in her left hand. She fired at several of the commandos, creating multiple holes in the wall, and hitting one or two in the face (one landing near Ghastly and Skarr). She continued firing, walking up and down one of the doorways with her magnetic feet, and delivered painful hits to two more commandos (one in the belly and the other in the head), creating a hole in the floor in the process. When that was done, she jumped back on the ground, having apparently secured her victory, but the commandos weren't done yet. Their leader snuck upon her, hoping to succeed where one of her subordinates had failed, but Hectara dodged that surprise as well. She raised her right fist, hitting the commando in the face, and sent the latter slowly falling to a painful knockout.

"Let's get out of here!" another commando yelled in terror, leading everyone out the hole they had made. "Retreat!!!" They all recovered from their brutal beatdown, running for their helicopter.

But Hectara wasn't done with them yet. She really wanted to test out those rear-mounted rockets, and she wanted to make certain the commandos couldn't threaten her or her organization ever again. "No one retreats from Hectara Con Carne!" she yelled at the desperately evacuating squad, turning around and aiming her butt at them. She laughed maniacally as she prepared the two miniature weapons for launch, ready for some fire-farting action.

"No, chief!" Major Dr. Ghastly protested, fearfully seeing the scale of damage his boss was about to with the attack he had planned to be used when all else had been worn down. "Not the rockets!" He shook his hands in desperation, trying to get Hectara to abort the process, but it was too late. Hectara had already made up her mind, and she was going to secure her victory, no matter the cost.

She fired the rockets at the commandos and their vehicle, hoping to stop any future attempts by the League of Nations to send them in to do this dangerous job, but instead of a nicely secured victory, what she got was a disastrous boom.

Boskova, who was sitting on a stone eagle head and still bawling her eyes out at having been fired, was the first to notice this explosion, her sad thoughts being interrupted at the structure being torn apart in the distance. She looked at this, horrified at what might happen to her employer despite the latter's abuse, and tried to fight back her tears, but she eventually lost the battle and continued sobbing as the commandos' helicopter continued flying back toward their homebase.

Meanwhile, Hectara's brain and the B1000 Full-Body Replacement System were hanging from one of the exposed wires, futilely struggling to get their owner back up again. "Help! Help!" she yelled, waving her feet as she dangled for her life.

"Chief!" Major Dr. Ghastly responded, getting on his hands and knees to look at the ground below his employer.

Boskova was still crying, both about being fired and the horrific damage that Hectara would soon suffer, thinking about how she would live her life now that her job and employer were gone (or, in the latter's case, soon to be gone). A few moments of sadness, fear, and terror gripped her heart while this was happening; threatening to spiral her mind out of control; when suddenly Hectara's screams broke her thoughts again. "HELP ME!!!!" the cerebral/robotic villain yelled again, more terrified than before. Knowing she had to act fast, the bear stood up and mounted her unicycle, navigating the extremely challenging and damaged landscape to reach her destination.

"Help me!" Hectara yelled again, more desperate than ever to get back to resume her plans of world domination.

"Oh, just pull yourself up, you big baby!" Skarr retorted, aggressively waving her hand at her employer.

"I can't!" Hectara responded, struggling to get herself back up on the wire before she gave up. "This body is too heavy!" The weight of the body caused the wire to slowly tear apart where it was connected to one of the rocks, in turn pulling the weight further downward. "Aahhh!" she screamed, foreseeing the gruesome explosion that was almost inevitable for her down below. "I'm slipping!" She hung on with only her right pinky finger, which was slowly sliding down the wire, and began closing her left eye in anticipation at what would happen once she was no longer around to keep Evil Con Carne running with her brain.

But just as she was about to start meeting her doom, help arrived. Boskova broke through the wall on her unicycle without much effort or resistance from the structure, her heart beating faster and harder than an Olympic runner's footsteps, and looked down at her boss's brain. Using the focus she had developed when she was training before every show her former circus put on, she approached the line with determination, thinking of all the bacon she and Stomach would be able to eat when they were done with their mission (and seeing the bottom of the brain's container as more strips of bacon), and balancing on the wire without her focus or her balance wavering. Just before she reached the falling body, she stopped and leaned down, grabbing the container with her left front claws and unscrewing it from its place on the body's neck. "Boskova!" Hectara burst out, surprised at her ursine carrier's return after all the mistreatment she had suffered at Hectara's hands (even if she didn't have any actual human hands at the moment).

When this was done, Boskova held the brain container in both of her hands, turning her unicycle around as the B1000 Full Body Replacement System fell onto the ground below. She quickly pedaled back without holding the handlebars, elated at having finally gotten some acknowledgement from her employer. "Boskova, you rescued me!" Hectara said, happy to live to conquer another day. "Oh, after all the terrible things I did to you..." she continued as Boskova put the brain back on top of her head, Boskova's huge excited toothy grin replaced by a relaxed one with a closed mouth and her tongue sticking out. "I've been a pretty bad guy."

"We're all the bad guys, sir," Skarr pointed out, standing next to Ghastly with her hands behind her back.

"Yes," Hectara acknowledged, "but I owe Boskova my life. I shall no longer be bad to my..." She stopped for a moment, trying to think of the right word to address her minions by that didn't sound demeaning. "Friends." Then, looking up at the sky from Boskova's head as if saluting the American flag during the Pledge of Allegiance, she solemnly closed her eyes and continued, "I pledge never to yell at you again. Now, let's go dominate the world...together."

But that pledge would very soon be short-lived, as Boskova got so excited she waved her hands in the air and sped through the doorway in front of all four of them, too wrapped up in her happiness to notice that the doorway was too tall for Hectara to fit through on the unicycle. "Ow!" Hectara yelled as she felt the impact. "¡Estúpido bear! If I had hands, I'd STRANGLE you!!!" she threatened, exuding heavy venom with every word (each one more so than the last), but Boskova didn't seem to care as she continued exuberantly pedaling through the destroyed parts of Bunny Island. "Ouch! Oh!" Hectara yelled as she hit the top of another arch, the anguish slowly replaced by gloom. "I think I'm getting a concussion..."

And that was the end of one of many battles fought by Evil Con Carne and the League of Nations, with the former winning thanks to a certain unicycle (as much as Hectara wouldn't want to admit it, that was still the case). She was ready to get back to her world conquest plans as soon as Bunny Island was repaired and upgraded, thinking of all the fun she'd have fighting her opponents (whether they be more League of Nations commandos, rival villains, or otherwise) when their full power could be on display for all to see and cower in terror. For now, it was time to celebrate their victory and maybe go out for a special treat, making sure to get Boskova lots of honey and plenty of bacon. After all, Boskova wasn't completely useless, and she definitely wasn't that "good-for-nothing waste of fat" Hectara would call her on a regular basis, and her circus tricks could always come in handy in whatever situations would come up. Plus, who knew unicycling on a tightrope would be necessary for world domination?

Chapter Text

It was a pleasant morning in Endsville—the sun was shining a bright vivid yellow, the sky was colored like an Easter egg, a few clouds meandered here and there, birds chirping happily, the fresh smell of soil flying inside the houses by a breeze as soft and cool as silk, and the general sense of calm that spread around the air for everyone in town. That is, except a few people who would experience an especially weird and frightening turn of events that would lead to a big change in how their lives were conducted.

Billie's father Glenn had woken up bright and early that morning to take care of doing some housework, happy to be with his family and experience the bright day with them at his side. He'd put on his favorite outfit—a purple polo shirt with short sleeves, a matching pair of pants, and a pair of red dress shoes—to match this good mood, and he'd made certain to keep them in tip-top condition for this joyful experience. He began humming a merry tune to himself, thinking about all the fun times they would have together on this day, especially since they were all free to do what they wanted without the demanding constraints elsewhere on the calendar. He also walked happily to the closet full of cleaning supplies with a spring in his step, his footsteps fluttering daintily like a tap dancer on the stage without the distinct sound in their shoes, lost in his happy fantasies about the laughter and smiles they'd share at breakfast and throughout the day. But little did he know that an unfortunate mishap would ruin his day and kickstart everyone's involvement with the supernatural, intentional or unintentional.

He grabbed a spray bottle and a rag from the closet, ready to exile all the dirt he could find on their precious knickknacks and other treasures laying around the house. He then went back to the room he shared with his wife Harriet, who was still asleep, looked around the space, his vision sharp like an eagle looking for its prey, and carefully analyzed each and every treasure that was lying around. Most of them were clean, some of them had a little grime clinging to their surfaces, and there was one picture in particular that was mostly obscured by the dust and dirt sticking to its surface—a picture of the family happily standing together, whose occupants were desperate to see the outside world through their seemingly elated faces. Hearing this, Glenn skipped over to the nightstand, moving carefully to avoid disrupting Harriet in her sleep, and applied his spraying weapon to the surface, agitating the dirt with the rag to facilitate the operation. "Clean that right up," he said, shining the glass surface and making the photo's inhabitants genuinely happy again.

Meanwhile, Harriet was snoring loudly, also looking forward to the happy day but not really feeling the urge to get up this early and see the sunrise outside. She continued sleeping, still engrossed in her sweet dreams of her and her family's fun time together, but Glenn was undeterred. He sprayed her with his spray bottle, hoping to get her to share in his happiness, but the jet of particles just felt like a nice comfy breeze brushing across her face. "Time to get up, Harriet," he said, poking her with his finger.

"Yeah..." Harriet responded, trying to get a full sentence out, but her sleepiness overpowered her and pulled her back into snoring the early morning away as her husband left the room to check on Billie and do some vacuuming in the hallways.

When he finished his vacuuming, Glenn took some laundry and walked down the hallway, hoping to get his daughter excited for the early hours of the morning. He arrived at the door, anticipating the huge smile on her face when he told her about all the fun things they had planned for today. "Billie, time to wake up," he said, knocking on the door, but there was no response. "Honey?" he asked, knocking again, but again, no answer from Billie. A flurry of confusion gripping his mind, he opened the door to his daughter's room and walked through the doorway, creating an escape route for the light in the hallway to creep up onto her bed. "Good morning," Glenn said, trying to sound excited despite a pang of worry gripping his chest, but once again there was no response.

However, some weird snoring noises came from Billie's bed, which awakened a new question in Glenn's mind. My daughter doesn't usually snore this loud or deep, he thought, his eyes wandering across the room like those of a traveler without a map to guide them. I'm not really sure what's going on with her. I sure hope nothing bad happened to her last night, because I don't know what Harriet and I would do if it did. Oh well, let's go over there and see what's happening.

Glenn made his way over to Billie's bed, carefully navigating his steps around the various things—clothes, books, toys, video games, and more—that littered the floor. "I just can't understand how a little girl can make such a mess," he said when he arrived, still trying to hide his worry and confusion under a mask of excitement for the day to come, and indicating the mess with his left hand, "and then sleep the day away." He thought about that for a moment, hesitating for a bit as he turned toward daughter's window. "Rise and shine, Sleepenstein!" he shouted as he opened it, hoping this would give him the giant and excited smile he was anticipating he would see from her when she woke up.

But instead, he got an annoyed and groggy voice creeping out from under the covers, warning him of all the chaos that would soon follow. "Do you realize what time it is?" it said, cuing two skeleton hands to come out from under there and reveal their owner poking her head out at the person who had disturbed her sleep.

Glenn gasped in horror at this sight, throwing the laundry in the air and letting out a loud screech. "AAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!" he screamed, his body shaking rapidly like an overloaded washing machine on triple extra high speed.

"AAAAAHHHHH!!!!!" Grim screeched in response, her bones similarly tingling.

"AAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!!" Glenn yelled, throwing his hands up in the air.

"AAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!!" Grim shouted back, pulling the covers further back to reveal the rest of her body down to her pelvis and then covering herself up to the bottom of her nasal cavity.

"AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Glenn screamed, his arms flailing rapidly as he fled the room in hyperdrive terror to tell Harriet about the scary sight he'd just seen.

"What the heck just happened?" Grim said in a perplexed and exasperated tone, sitting up and placing her head on her head to soothe her headache.

"Oh, that was just my dad," Billie responded, emerging from the covers wearing her pink pajamas and a flame of untidy red hair. "He's funny," she continued, giggling at the chaos the screaming had caused.

"Yeah, a real hoot," Grim responded, unamused at her dimwitted red-haired "best friend's" comment, and starting to anticipate the further chaos this encounter would cause.

"H-HARRIIEEEEET!!!!!" Glenn screamed in panic, running toward the kitchen, where his wife (who had put on a white T-shirt with orange sleeves, a similar blue skirt to their daughter's, and a pair of reddish brown dress shoes) was reading the newspaper, an electric sensation zapping through his body as he tried to tell her about Grim.

"What? What is it?" Harriet asked in shock, her eyes widening as she looked up from the entertainment section of the news.

"M-m-my..." Glenn began, but the storm of pandemonium in his mind obstructed the rest of his words.

"Glenn?" Harriet responded, prying for a straight answer, but Glenn kept wailing unintelligibly and succumbing to the panic's electric effects. "Glenn!" she yelled again, this time breaking the electrocution and somewhat stabilizing her husband's stress levels. "Now, slowly," she continued, holding out her hand like a traffic cop, "what the heck are you trying to say?!"

"B-B-B-B-B-B-Billie!" Glenn wailed, tears spilling from his eyes as he held his hands into fists and tried to keep still.

"Yes?" Harriet continued, digging deeper into Glenn's mental mine.

"Our daughter!" Glenn spit out tearfully, holding his hands out as if confusedly shrugging his shoulders.

"Yes?" Harriet asked again, a smile forming on her face as she cocked her head to the left, knowing they were getting somewhere.

"Our daughter has turned into a big, spooky skeleton!" Glenn yelled, throwing his hands up to the sky and then burying his eyes as the waterworks increased their pressure.

Harriet got out of her chair to comfort her husband, ready to get to the root of the problem. "Our poor skeleton daughter, Billie?!" she said in a genuinely sympathetic and mock-panicky voice as she hugged Glenn, and then moved in front of him valiantly like a knight protecting the residents of their village, holding her left hand in a fist in front of her and grabbing her husband's left hand with her right. "Let us go to him," she continued, turning back to Glenn, and then dashing off with him in tow toward their daughter's room.

While the valiant duo were making their way toward the highest room in the tallest tower of the castle they had stormed (obviously, they were actually running up one flight of stairs, but the intent was still there), Grim was trying on various robes, which she had stored inside Billie's messy closet. She held her usual black robe in one hand, and a dark gray one in the other, looking at which one would suit her best for the day. She liked both of them a lot, and each had its own aspects that fit well with this crazy day's aesthetics, but she still wasn't sure which one suited better. She stood by the closet, still completely naked, weighing the pros and cons of wearing each robe as she looked back and forth at each one.

However, the door suddenly flung open, knocking her into the closet. Billie's parents had arrived to look for their skeletized daughter. Harriet walked inside the room, tears streaming from her eyes and running down her fat black-haired head, standing bravely despite her mental turmoil as Glenn stayed behind and held out his hands to defend himself against any threats prepared to befall him. "Oh, Billie!" Harriet said, looking around the room to find any sign of a skeleton in the closet, literal or figuratively, as a couple tears hit her white T-shirt with orange sleeves. "Let me see what's become of you!" But what they saw shocked them beyond many words, further clouding their investigation.

"Wha...?" they said together, looking at the completely normal sight that awaited them. Billie was sitting up in her bed, wearing her pink pajamas, a huge smile on her face, a stand-up lion's mane of red hair flying in all directions over her face and beyond, and she was waving happily at them in anticipation of all the fun times she would have that day.

"Morning, Mom!" Billie said, the butterflies in her heart reaching new heights as the smile stretched wider.

Harriet gasped at this. "Wait a sec," she said, pointing her left finger at the red-haired girl. "Skin...and hair...and..." She turned toward Glenn, who was still freezing in terror at the sight that would soon await them. "A skeleton?" she chuckled, her husband's nerves bouncing off of her brain.

"But I j...but I j…I saw...I-" Glenn stammered, trying to get his words out to explain the truth.

"Did someone forget to take their medicine today?" Harriet interrupted, staring at him in a jocular and vindicative manner (eliciting an annoyed look with hands on his hips in return), then turning her attention back to the room. "Skeleton. Sheesh!" she continued, grabbing the doorknob and preparing to leave.

"But I...I-" Glenn continued stammering, but Harriet closed the door and pushed him to come along with her to deal with other matters.

Billie got out of bed, a twinge of concern gripping her heart, and walked toward the closet to check on the fallen Reaper who was buried under the heap of clothing. "You OK, Grim?" she asked, hoping Grim hadn't broken any of her bones from either one of the impacts that had thrown off her morning.

Grim emerged from the pile, both exasperated and unamused at this question. "Is your house always this fun in the morning?" she responded, stonily staring at the girl standing before her.

"Nah," Billie responded, brushing off her concerns. "Sometimes mom and dad are a little freaky." She twirled her left index finger around, hoping this would keep her day exciting.

"Well, if anyone needs me," Grim said, fully emerging and carrying a towel as she dismissively walked to the bathroom, "I'll be in the shower." She closed the door briskly, hoping nothing and no one would disturb her. But just before she turned on the water, she heard footsteps coming toward the door. Glenn had arrived, holding a stack of clean towels in his right hand to restock the room.

He put his hand to his left ear, hoping to get a response from his daughter or whoever was standing in there, but all he heard was the sound of someone turning on the faucet and redirecting the water to the showerhead. "Billie?" he asked, smiling with concealed nervousness as he leaned toward the door. "Daddy has some fresh towels for you," he continued in his excited singsong tone, turning the doorknob and moving it forward. But an even scarier sight awaited him as he opened the door, and it was beckoning him to come inside the ghastly bubble of no return.

A skeleton's silhouette was standing inside the tub, wearing a shower cap scrubbing its thoracic curve with a wooden brush. It whistled a happy tune, smiling about all the spooky weirdness that awaited it, and hoping it wouldn't end up in the same awkward situation its owner had found herself in the morning. Oblivious to the curiosity of the human standing outside the curtain, she continued whistling and scrubbing her bones shiny clean, excited for all the fun times that would come that day (and some of the adventures she would have with her two "best friends" later on). However, Glenn, curious about the scene happening inside the tub, walked up to the tub, hoping his daughter hadn't turned into the big spooky skeleton he had told Harriet about earlier. He grabbed the curtain and pulled it back, hoping this skeleton was just a hallucination.

Unfortunately for Glenn, Grim was standing right there in the (noncorporeal) flesh, happily minding her own business scrubbing her bones (and unintentionally chipping away at Billie's father's ability to stay calm in this tense situation). She moved around as if she were a dancing animatronic character, her bones clacking a musical tune that matched her humming, the water shining on her bones like diamonds on an elegant wedding dress, and her body tingling in an excited manner that matched all the fun she was looking forward to having that day. Those feelings reciprocated in Glenn (albeit in a much more scary manner), who began shaking in terror at the horrifying sight that occupied his field of vision. He clung onto the curtain for dear life, hoping to keep his soul intact, and screamed at the top of his lungs again, praying for his life to be spared. Grim screamed as well, dropping her brush and covering herself with the curtain that Glenn released in his terror, worrying she had been exposed once again. Glenn ran out of the room to alert Harriet about this new sight, hoping she would believe his suspicions this time.

Billie poked her head in the doorway a few seconds later, wearing a yellow pair of headphones. "Are you finished in there yet?" she asked Grim, taking off these headphones. "I got to go!"

Grim hesitated to answer, her body still shaking violently at the incident still fresh in her mind. "I feel so..." she began, painfully trying to avoid the subject but powerless to stop the urge in her mind, "so violated." She went back into the shower and grabbed her brush, hoping she wouldn't be disturbed for the rest of the day.

Meanwhile, Harriet was in the family room, watching her favorite TV show and hoping for her favorite episodes to come on next. She leaned forward toward the screen to get a closer look as the theme song played, anticipating these titles to reach the screen, and keeping her ears open for these titles to be called out. However, before she could get any clues, she heard her husband screaming her name across the hallway, snapping her out of her trance. "HARRIEEEET!" Glenn yelled, bursting into the room with his hands above his head. "BIG...NAKED..." he continued, pointing to the bathroom door. "BATHROOM!" He jumped in the air in fright, trembling as if he were being electrocuted.

"What is it?" Harriet responded, shrugging her shoulders. "Spit it out!"

"Big, scary," Glenn began explaining as he covered his ears and frantically fidgeted with his fingers, "NAKED SKELETONS!" He covered his eyes in fright, his skin experiencing a painful crawling sensation as he worried about the terrible fates that could potentially befall their daughter in the bathroom.

"Naked skeletons?!" Harriet said, her eyes widening in shock. She looked to her right, a little skeptical of her husband's claims, but still deep in thought about how to solve this predicament. She looked toward the wall, imagining herself face-to-face with the big spooky skeleton who had supposedly abducted Billie from their home, and then thought back to the safety classes she had taken in school. After a few seconds, a thought sprung into her head, harkening her back to the time she had to demonstrate what to do in case of a dangerous intruder in her home, and inserting the skeleton in the place of that intruder. "I'd better get the flail," she said as she walked up from off the couch, a bit resigned but determined to root out the cause of her husband's nervousness and get their happy day back.

When Harriet had gotten the flail from the wall, Glenn directed her to the bathroom where Grim had been showering, hoping for a sign of their daughter's safety. They bravely walked toward the bathroom, their footsteps pounding on the floor as if signaling battle to begin, Harriet in command with Glenn forming the rear of the battalion. They stopped in front of the door, preparing to storm the dungeon to free the red-haired prisoner who had been taken from their side earlier, and reminding themselves of the happiness they would experience once their battle was finally won. But little did they know they would be in for another bone-chilling surprise awaiting them, which would open the door to another world of fear and turmoil waiting inside the very room they had prioritized for their attack.

"Ah-ha!" Harriet shouted, grabbing the doorknob and turning it to the side to unlock whatever sacred secrets awaited her and her cowering husband's eyes. But what they saw was their daughter, Billie, happily dressed and sitting on the toilet as if nothing scary had happened before now.

"Hi, Mom," the red-haired girl said, waving at her parents as she grinned widely from ear to ear.

"Uh, hi, Billie," Harriet replied nervously, smiling as she put the flail behind her back. Realizing she had been led into what she assumed was the same trap as earlier, her expression quickly changed to a skeptical one as she looked back at Glenn. "More skeletons, huh?" she challenged, her voice an arrow flying through layers of cardboard armor as its wearer trembled in terror at the monster hiding out of their sight. Billie just giggled at that, flushing the toilet as if nothing had happened.

Meanwhile, Harriet was walking a horror-frozen Glenn to their room, supporting him as he silently relayed his fears to her. Her hamlike hands held her husband's back as if supporting a wobbling ladder leaning against an uneven surface, her feet hit the ground stalwart like those of a soldier carrying their fallen comrade to the medics' tent, her jet-black hair shone hopefully like a full moon in a starless night sky, and her concerned eyes hung down slightly as if they were bent camera lenses with trouble opening when the machines turned on. "Now, now, it's going to be all right, dear," she said, helping the spooked Glenn climb into their bed in hopes that it would melt his worried expression off of his face. "Rest is what you need." She held out her hands in concern before tucking her husband in.

"Rest is what I need…" Glenn repeated, still shaken up about Grim and Billie running around in their house.

"You've been overworking yourself lately," Harriet began to explain as Billie walked past the doorway, holding out her right hand. "You're starting to hallucinate." She pointed her finger at her brain and tapped it a few times, failing to notice Grim walking not far behind their daughter. "It's all in your head."

Glenn screamed at this statement, desperate to see Billie safe from that big spooky skeleton walking around the house. "A-A-All in my head…" he stammered, trying to calm his nerves and sleep the stress off. "All in my head…all in my-"

Just then, the doorbell rang, causing him to scream in fright. "That's just the doorbell," his wife reassured him, going off to answer the front door.

"It's all in my head, all in my head…" Glenn continued, worrying about what could potentially happen if their skeleton problem wasn't stopped as soon as possible.

At the same time, Harriet was almost at the front door, secretly hoping no one was trying to aggravate her husband's "halluciations" while he was trying to rest. She walked with a happy stride to mask this, wondering if Glenn would find that "big spooky skeleton" standing there should he ever get out of bed and try to check on Billie, and opened the front door as soon as she reached it, hoping no one was there for any unwanted soliciting. When she pulled it open, she found Manny standing there with his hands behind his back, having heard all the commotion and getting ready to see what there was to do despite these circumstances. "Hello, Mrs....Billie's mom," he began, showing a slightly concerned expression toward the overweight woman standing in front of him. "Can Billie...play?"

"Sure. She's in the kitchen," Harriet responded, directing the pink shirt-wearing boy toward the kitchen where Billie and Grim were seated at the table.

Billie was eating a bowl of her favorite cereal while Grim was sipping tea and reading the obituaries in the newspaper, both enjoying themselves and hoping nothing else frightening would upturn their day, when Manny entered the kitchen. The blond-haired boy walked up to Billie's seat, hoping to join in on whatever thrilling and terrifying fun she and Grim had planned out for the day. "Hi, Manny," she said, chewing a huge spoonful of cereal.

"Sounds like your dad's seen Grim," Manny said, giving him a thumbs-up. "So, what's up for today?"

"Hide-and-seek! Hide-and-seek!" Billie responded, punching the table twice.

"Not...quite...what I had in mind," said Manny irritatedly, thinking back to the times it was impossible to find his friend.

"Come on, Grim!" Billie yelled as she continued punching the table, undeterred by Manny's lack of interest, causing her spoon to fall off. "Hide-and-seek! Hide-and-seek!"

"Sure, I'm game," Grim responded, irritatedly resigning herself to whatever her "best friends" had planned for her to do.

"OK, we'll play," Manny said, also resigning himself to Billie's idea of fun for the day. "But on one condition," he insisted, pointing his right index finger up to the ceiling. "Not it."

"Oh, oh, oh! Not it!" Billie yelled, waving her hands in the air.

Grim spit her tea all over the newspaper when she heard both of her "best friends'" words. "Oh, come on, now!" she said, annoyed at having to be "it."

"Come, Billie," Manny commanded his best friend, snapping his fingers at her, "let's hide." Billie jumped out of her seat, excited for all the fun they would have playing hide-and-seek. "Grim, count to fifty."

"Oh, crud!" Grim yelled, slamming the newspaper down on the table.

Meanwhile, Glenn was still in bed, his brain on high alert for any threats potentially befalling Billie despite his attempts to calm his ever-painfully crawling nerves all around his body, and his heart rate higher than ever. "It's all in my head," he repeated, trying to distract himself from the scary skeletons running around in his mental world and get his happiness back on track for the day. "It's all in my head. It's all in my head!" He imagined some scary germs crawling around the house, trying to snatch Billie away from him and Harriet, and attempting to infect her with their contagious tentacles and viral arms. But the germs... he thought as this scenario played in his head many times on repeat. They're real. Yeah. Real germs. Yeah. A thought of skulls and scythes invaded his brain, harkening him back to the sightings of Grim he had managed to capture that morning. Maybe the skeletons... his train of thought continued, trying to process how else his day they're real, too. Oh, so real! He imagined Billie being abducted by that big spooky skeleton to be used for whatever nefarious schemes the latter had possibly thought up. And my poor baby! She's in danger! She needs her daddy! He got out of bed to confront his fears head-on, regardless of what Harriet said about Grim being one of his halluciations or the nerves in his body antsily releasing their tension to keep him tethered to the covers. "I've got to save her!" he said bravely, forming his hands into fists. "Yeah! Billie!" He walked out of the room to save his daughter from the "big spooky skeleton" who had supposedly abducted her from the household and bring peace and happiness back to the family's atmosphere for that day once and for all.

At the same time, Grim was in the bathroom, having finished her exhausting counting to the number fifty and begun her search for her two "best friends." She looked in the shower, but there was no one there. She opened the cupboard under the sink. No kids there. She even looked in the towel closet, but still no Billie or Manny. "Hello?" the Reaper asked, opening the toilet lid. No answer. "Hmmm..." she said, closing the lid, "where the Dickens are they?" She spent a few moments pondering over this, going over the possible rooms they could be. The kitchen obviously wasn't the right answer, because that's where the game had started. Neither was the master bedroom, because Glenn might catch sight of her again and it would mess up Billie's father's nerves even more. She wasn't sure about the living room either, because Harriet was back to watching TV and she didn't want to disrupt this peace. Then she suddenly thought of the place where she had first seen Glenn that morning. "Ah!" she yelled, quickly making her way over there.

She burst into the room, performing a quick visual check. I don't think Billie is hiding in the closet, she thought, analyzing the possible hiding places, because that's where she saw me when her parents entered the room. She thought of maybe going under the bed, but that was where Billie was sitting earlier. The dresser popped into her head, but that was the place where Billie had gotten her clothes for the day. I have some doubts about this place, Grim thought, but let's look there anyway. She ran there, ready to profane her two "best friends'" secret location to the world the minute she opened her dresser drawer. "Gotcha!" she yelled, placing her hands on the knobs and pulling it open for all the world to see.

But she only saw underwear and socks inside, with no sign of either kid anywhere. She heard a mocking series of squeaks from above the cloth, and she looked up to investigate the source. From inside her cage on top of the dresser, Ms. Snuggles was laughing and pointing at Grim, satisfied at the humor the skeleton's misfortune had brought her. "Oh, shut up," the Reaper admonished, closing the drawer to continue her search.

Meanwhile, Glenn entered the living room, looking for his daughter. "Billie?" he called, turning his head to the right. He thought he saw a shadow sneaking up on him, but when he turned to see its source, it had disappeared. "Bil-?" he asked again, hoping his "hallucinations" hadn't turned out to be true, and sweating like a waterfall down the top of his head. "Honey?" he said, turning his head to the left. No one (human or skeleton or otherwise) there.

Then suddenly, he heard someone laugh and something moving at one side of the curtains. Fearful it could be that "big spooky skeleton" he kept trying to warn Harriet about, he ran to the table and and grabbed a Salty Dog figure, ready to take on the threat despite his fear beating his heart at a speed twice as fast as blast beats on a drumset. "B-B-B-B-B-Billie…?" he stammered, hoping his daughter was safe from whatever danger she could be in under there. He ran closer and closer, his head sweating more and more profusely, his heart beating faster and faster, as he rushed to rescue Billie from the supposed skeleton hiding behind there. But what he saw shocked him, albeit in a much more positive way.

He saw Billie standing on top of Manny's head, both completely fine and happy (though Manny was much less demonstrative) to join in the fun they had all planned. "Aw, Dad!" the red-haired girl complained, putting her hands on her hips. "You ruined our good hiding spot!"

"My baby!" he burst out, hugging and kissing Billie multiple times as he dropped the Salty Dog figure on the floor, relieved that the skeleton he had warned Harriet about apparently wasn't real after all.

"Yes, yes, it's good to see you, too, Mr....Billie's dad," Manny said, unamused, as Glenn continued swinging his daughter around in his arms.

"Oh, Billie, Billie, Billie, Billie, Billie!" Glenn burst out, elatedly hugging Billie tighter and happily swinging her around some more. "No hideous germs or spooky skeletons could tear you from my arms!"

But suddenly, a scary silhouette snuck up on them, looking for the two kids. "Excuse me," a deep Jamaican-accented voice said as the finger tapped Glenn's shoulder, "have you seen two...?" The figure turned out to be Grim, who had been looking all over Billie's room without any luck (enduring Ms. Snuggles' taunts all the while) and was just about to start working on the living room to finish her search, which shattered Glenn's happiness (causing him to drop his daughter on the floor). "Ah, there you rascals are," the Reaper said, satisfied at having found them. She hoped Glenn would share in her excitement, but that was not to happen.

Billie's father freaked out at the scary sight, having seen what he thought was the "big spooky skeleton" threatening his daughter's safety. He ran around in circles in the living room, trying to shake her off, but no matter how fast he ran or how many circles he completed, the Reaper couldn't seem to catch a break at this. He screamed for Harriet again, struggling to form a coherent sentence, but his wife was probably dismissing it as another hallucination again. "Oh, come on!" Grim said, unamused at this turn of events, as Billie and Manny shook their heads. "At least I have clothes on this time."

About forty minutes later, Billie's Uncle Sisko had arrived in his car at his younger sister's request, ready to lend a hand to his nervous brother-in-law and help him calm his nerves. He stalwartly sat in the driver's seat, waiting for Harriet and Glenn to come out of the house, humming to himself while he did this. Like his brother-in-law, his peaceful morning had been interrupted when he had heard of "big spooky skeletons" supposedly running around to steal his niece away from her parents, and he was eager to resolve the root of the problem as soon as reasonably possible.

Harriet brought Glenn out the front door, supporting him like a brave soldier helping their fallen comrade toward a troop transport vehicle like she had did when she took him to the bed. Glenn was still frozen in terror, the crawling sensation under his skin reluctant to move toward a place of "hallucination" dismissals again, as he looked all around for the "big spooky skeleton" who had secretly followed them out the door. They reached the car in relief, Glenn's foot reluctantly stepping inside the vehicle as his wife held the door open for him. "Buckle him in, Harriet," Sisko said when Glenn was fully inside. "I don't want him freaking out while I drive."

"Sure, Sisko," Harriet said, calmly strapping Glenn into the front seat.

"We'll, we're off," Sisko responded, ready to help Glenn calm his nerves and get rid of any "big spooky skeletons" still running around in his head.

Billie asked worriedly when her mother exhaustedly closed Glenn's door, "why is Dad going away to visit Uncle Sisko?"

"Well, Billie," Harriet started to explain, putting on a smile to mask her hurt at seeing her husband having to leave their house, "you see, Daddy has..." She put a reassuring hand on Billie's head to try to relieve their worries about this, but to little to no avail. "We'll, he's...uh..."

"Your dad's cracked up, you goon," Manny interrupted, dissatisfied with Harriet's explanation and Billie's slowness at the situation at hand.

"Oh, wow, rad!" Billie said excitedly, waving her hands in the air.

"Daddy's just going away to rest for a while," Harriet broke the sad news as Uncle Sisko started the engine and drove away to his house, tears welling up in her eyes about the potentially painful process her husband would have to go through to get back to his normal joyful self again. After a few seconds, the car was out of their sight, ready to conquer the psychological problems of its passengers.

"Bye, sweetheart!" Harriet yelled after her husband, waving her right hand with "excitement" to mask her hurt at the situation. "Bye! Bye! See ya!"

"Bye! Bye, Daddy! Bye, Dad!" Billie joined in, excited to hear what the journey had for them.

"Yeah, bye," Manny added apathetically, "Whatever. Bye, bye."

Grim stood in the window, satisfied at having gotten the panic obstacle out of the way and ready to move on with her day. She stood in the window, ready to say her eerie goodbyes and looking forward to having more spooky fun with him (that is, once he saw her past the "naked skeleton" she previously was), a tingle of excitement shaking her bones like electricity zapping through a power line. Glenn saw her doing this, also feeling an electric sensation throughout her body as he screamed and frantically punched the window of her side of Uncle Sisko's car, but no one seemed ready to help him out and run away from the "big spooky skeleton" facing him right now as they continued to wave him and his brother-in-law goodbye for the day.

"Bye!" Harriet yelled after her husband, wishing him a good counseling treatment with her brother.

"Bye, Daddy!" Billie shouted, joining her mother and her best friend in waving after her terrifiedly screaming father and wishing him a better life afterwards.

Grim, on the other hand, was satisfied with the terrifying fun the day had brought her, happily anticipating the fun that would come with whatever other supernatural adventures were ahead on the road. She laughed evilly as she did a thumbs-up, looking back at the house and its occupants, and thinking of ways she could continue messing around with the residents of the mortal realm, which would slowly unfold as time went on. After all, she was the Reaper, and she had the power over death, so what more fun could messing with people’s souls bring?

Chapter Text

[Manny appears]

Manny: It is useless to resist.

It was another exciting day in Endsville today. The sun was shining brightly in the sky (giving the area around it an almost yellowish hue); birds were chattering as they flew around and perched in trees; the sweet smells of flowers, soil, and leaves fluttered around in the gentle breeze; the air’s freshness banished sour tastes in people’s mouths; rays of sunlight illuminated the houses inside and out, penetrated their windows, and smoothed out the jagged chiaroscuros inside the rooms; and flowers stretched their pistils and stamens up toward the sky to receive the pollinators’ tribute.

The people living in the neighborhood were excitedly going about their days, happily conversing about whatever was on their minds, laughing about what the day had in store for them, and bonding with each other over their shared experiences through their chats. They completed their chores inside and around their houses, elatedly exercising their green thumbs with the plants on their properties, absentmindedly feeling around for anything interesting, silently singing to themselves in synchronization with the squeaking of their sponges and rags, and exuberantly running up and down the stairs for more supplies. They also went out to do various errands, looking forward to making new friends, anticipating the fun conversations they would have with the employees of the shops, eagerly awaiting anything that would pique their curiosity, and generally enjoying the fun breeze floating around the space surrounding them. But, for a few people, it wasn’t an ordinary day—it was opposite day.

Billie ran downstairs from her room and jumped toward the door, generating a powerful spring from her feet that propelled her forward as if she were a powerful missile launching from a tank on the battlefield. She flew across the living room and kitchen toward the front door; bounding across the tile, carpeting, wood, and other materials like a sheep prancing around in the fields; and ricocheting off the walls like a ball of Jell-O off a barrier of rubber bands ready to repel any invaders from their land. She landed at her destination like a ton of feathers blown by a giant fan, gracefully leaping up like a ballet dancer with electric shocks in their feet, and briefly struggling to regain her balance as if her shoes’ soles were covered in elastic coating. When she finally composed herself, she skipped a few steps to the door and prepared to take in the exhilarating day that awaited her presence.

"Playtime!" she yelled, excitedly jumping up as she opened the door. “Time to play! Playtime!” She bounded across the cobblestones in front of her house, happily doing front flips like a gymnast on the floor. “Now is playtime. Playtime is now. Playtime!” she elatedly continued, keeping her energy up with her enthusiasm and applying her feet to the ground to launch herself several yards into the air. “Play! Time!” she finished as she reached her trajectory’s zenith, diving headfirst as if she were an eagle swooping downward against the air resistance to grab its prey, and creating a huge shock like a miniature earthquake as she landed on the ground. She didn’t care about whatever pain that may have caused her—Billie’s brain was too occupied with all her fun plans to tend to its carrier’s body, and she wasn’t going to let anything stop her from achieving her goals.

However, the space around her felt the wind escape from its sails, hoping to get some rest from all the chaos its inhabitants were engaging in, and trying to get its message to the big-nosed girl’s skull. “What's the matter?” she asked, confusedly looking around her for answers as she got up. “You don't want to go over to Manny's and play?” she continued, hoping for one person in particular to take her up on her offer to have fun as she indicated the direction of her snarky friend’s house.

“Not really,” a deep Jamaican-accented voice emerged from inside the house, cueing the entrance of its skeletal owner who peered out the doorway and menacingly walked toward her striped shirt-wearing “best friend.” “To be honest, I hate playing with the two of you. You and that wretched boyfriend of yours are bad enough separately, but together...” she continued, remembering the chaos the two kids had put her through with their game of hide-and-seek on top of the unpleasant surprises Glenn had inadvertently sprung upon her with his “big spooky skeleton” sightings, “you're insufferable.” She wiped her brow with her literally bony hands, exasperated at the cyclone of thoughts swirling around in her mind.

“Insufferable?” Billie asked, confused, as she began to walk toward her friend’s house. “I don't even know what that means.” She stopped and turned back toward the Reaper, the poison of the latter’s words starting to penetrate the former’s brain. “Hey, wait a minute!” she retorted, positioning her hands on her hips as if she were calling an important business meeting. “He’s not my boyfriend!” They continued walking toward the house, the tension between them blowing in the breeze and bringing out a less-than-pleasant odor. “He's just a friend, who happens to be a boy, just like I happen to be a girl, and you happen to be a skeleton,” Billie continued, stopping again to more effectively explain her point to the skeleton following her. “It's the differences that make our world so rich, diverse, and wonderful!” she finished, breaking out into a smile and performing a happy dance in hopes that it would get the dour personification of death to see things her way.

“I still hate you, though,” said Grim, dumbfoundedly trying to keep up with her elated “best friend.”

“Don't worry, pal,” Billie happily reassured her, her voice flowing softly and firmly as if it were a masseuse ready to manipulate her conversation partner’s noncorporeal muscles into a comfortable orientation. “Today won't be like all those other days. Today's a special day.” She jumped up a little as if in shock, turning back toward the Reaper. “Oh, wait! I mean, it's not special. It's ordinary.”
“Girl, you are making no sense,” a frustrated Grim responded as they reached Manny’s house, secretly hoping she wasn’t being led into a trap. “Are you that dumb?!”

“Yes. Yes, sir, I am.” Billie responded, elatedly doing a little dance that ended in a spectacular regal bow. “Thank you.”

“OK, then,” Grim replied, resignedly walking toward the front door of her blond-haired “best friend’s” house. “As long as you know.”

Billie bounded up to Manny’s door, hoping to get him to join in their fun and remember their plans. “Knock, knock,” she said, rapping on the door with her fist. “Is anybody home?”

“No, nobody’s home,” Manny said, opening the door right on cue, staring at the two mischievous beings on his porch. “Get out of my sight, both of you.”

But Billie, still in her “opposite day” mindset, zipped in like a cheetah after its prey, her taste buds overflowing their banks. “Yippee!!!!” she screamed, ready to take in all the fun they would have (or not) at her best friend’s house.

Manny turned his eyes back at her, apathetically rolling them and then turning back to the Reaper on the porch. “What are you waiting for?” he asked, motioning Grim inside. “Get out.”

Grim grumbled at her snarky “best friend’s” words and then turned to leave, already having had enough of her two “best friends” harassing her and cutting into her free time. She began walking down the porch, a storm of fury raging in her immaterial veins, her nonphysical skin vibrating more violently than a dishwasher with a malfunctioning circulation pump, her scythe’s blade conducting electricity at a greater level than the key in the story of Benjamin Franklin’s kite, and her fingers crushing its snath with greater force than a crocodile closing its jaws on a tree trunk. She didn’t get very far, though, as Manny stopped her with a few carefully chosen words to pierce her armor. “Hold on,” he said, aiming straight for the Reaper’s noncorporeal heart. “Billie didn't tell you, did she?”

“Tell me what?!” Grim shot back at him, staring through her shadowy eye sockets as if she were a harbinger of darkness ready to consume the world starting with her pink-shirt wearing “best friend.”

“Today is opposite day,” Manny said, motioning the dark being to follow him inside the house.

The three companions walked through the hallways, observing all their surroundings with boredom and indignation (or unrelenting cheer in Billie’s case). The walls were lined with various portraits from different areas, showing the various early 1900s movements from cubism to minimalism to surrealism. The air flowed silently within the space, delivering inaudible soothing classical music to their ears, which helped lighten the occupants’ mood somewhat despite the tension surrounding them. The smell was also lacking in several areas, carrying with it a trace of the mustiness of Limbo and the weakened scents of the flowerless plants sitting in some of the rooms. The air’s long fingers also sent hushed but intense shivers down their spines, causing them to shake slightly as they continued to walk to their destination, and planted the bland taste of overly starched cheese in their mouths, further incentivizing them to reach their planned hideout as quickly as they could go to escape this atmosphere.

Manny looked back at Grim as they continued their way toward the end of the hall, his eyes meeting her sockets as they exchanged invisible dark laser beams back and forth. “On opposite day,” the pink T-shirt-wearing boy explained in a tone reminiscent of the intensity of a jalapeño pepper, “whatever you say means the opposite.” Grim put her fingers on the bottom of her mandible, trying to navigate her way though the storm in her mind. “So when I said ‘get out,’ I meant ‘come in.’ Like this.”

They stopped at the doorway of the living room, which housed a huge TV with a nearly equally huge black screen that stood proudly along the center of the wall, hoping to tempt unsuspecting visitors into losing themselves to hours and hours of entertainment in inescapable universes. It silently whispered promises of endless fun to these visitors, reminding them of the freshness they would experience after long hard days of work, offering them each unlimited wishes through the tingling sensations it pinged at them through its long pointed fingers, and repeating these promises through the huge tiki head to the right of the doorway. Manny was the first to be captivated by this alluring gaze, ready to test his luck at the video game console sitting in front, and as mentally prepared as ever to demonstrate his skills on one of the three huge chicken-foot-shaped controllers plugged into the machine. “Billie,” he commanded, motioning her gaze toward the system. “don't play video games.”

“Oooh, oooh, ooh, YAAAAY!!!!!” the red-haired girl screamed, running toward the system and grabbing the leftmost controller.

Observing this, Manny turned back to Grim, hoping she would understand his point. “Get it?” he asked, motioning her gaze toward the totally (un)exciting sight inside the room.

“Hmmmm…” the Reaper thought, putting her finger on her teeth and moving it up and down as she started to come to a realization. “I think so.”

“We'll see,” Manny replied, walking over to the machine and motioning Grim to follow. “As for now,” he continued, picking up the controller furthest to the right as the TV turned on and the word START appeared on the screen in huge green letters, “let the games…end.” A split screen came on with three cars on a racetrack/city street, each driver driving a different colored car than the others (the cars were red, yellow, and blue from left to right). Billie’s and Manny’s cars were speeding down a street, each trying to outpace the other, while Grim’s was positioned near a set of staircases, struggling to navigate through all the obstacles placed in its path. “Here's your controller, Grim,” Manny said authoritatively, handing Grim the one between him and Billie.

The Reaper reluctantly picked it up and inspected the controller in her hands, scanning all the buttons and sticks convoluting the machine. “I hate this stupid contraption,” she grumbled, inspecting the controller in her hands. She had played a multitude of video games in the underworld ranging from first-person shooters and high-speed car racers to action platformers and plane-flying strategy simulators, and she’d grabbed controllers of all shapes and sizes, but she hadn’t seen or heard of anything like this specific system, and she wasn’t sure what all the various buttons and sticks convoluting the controller even did to people or games. “I can't even figure out how to hold this thing,” she complained, tilting it left and right as if trying to find any errors.

But Billie and Manny continued playing, respectively cheerfully oblivious to and apathetically ignoring their skeletal “best friend’s” technical troubles. “I wasn't ready,” Grim said, hoping to get an answer out of either of them, but to avail. “No fair! Cheater!” she continued, furiously turning to Manny. “I thought we were all a team.”

“Nope,” Billie said, beckoning the Reaper to show her “best friend-ness” to them by joining in.

“Something's wrong with my controller,” Grim rebuked, trying to keep her car from repeatedly crashing into the obstacles (both technical and physical) in the game.
“Mine's fine,” Manny shot her down, stonily turning her eyes to the game.

“Mine, too,” Billie agreed, speeding up toward Manny’s car.

After several seconds of woefully failing to keep her car on course and making dozens upon dozens of wrong moves to do so, the Reaper had had it with the video game in front of her. She stood up, ready to unleash her fury upon the game, wishing she could physically jump in and ruin her two “best friends’” competitive fun. “This game is dumb,” she said furiously, throwing her controller at the TV and then being whacked in the head by its rebound off the screen. “I'm not going to play.”

“You don't have to play video games,” Manny reassured her in his usual deadpan manner, a river of mischievous thoughts crossing his mind as he turned to face the skull staring at him from behind. “You could…do all my chores if you want.”

“I don't,” Grim said irritatedly, leaning toward her blond-haired “best friend.” “I don't want to do all your chores.”

“You don't?” Manny responded, still playing the game and getting a slight speed boost ahead of Billie’s car.

“No, I don't!” the Reaper continued defiantly as she shook her fists at the two kids. “I don't want to do your stinking chores!”

“Good,” Manny replied, catching an occasional glance at Grim as he continued his sentence. “'Cause since today's opposite day...that means you do want to do all my chores.”

“No.” Grim replied, still frustrated but with her energy nearly depleted in her brain. “I meant I don't.”

“So you do,” Manny answered, still refusing to take Grim’s concerns to heart as he continued his endeavors on the track on TV.

“No, no, I…I don't. I…I…” Grim pleaded, waving her hands in an effort to get the kids to listen to her, but they still refused. She jumped up and down to add some desperate flair to her performance, throwing her scythe in the air at random objects to break their cheerful stubbornness, but their concentration’s indestructible metal hull wouldn’t bend or crack. Running out of options, the skeletal Reaper looked down at the floor, slumping her shoulders and holding the scythe with a halfhearted grip. “I give up,” she said, walking out to get started on some chores.

Grim entered the kitchen a few minutes later, looking for something to do to satisfy her “best friends’” “opposite” request to “not do chores.” She gazed upon the piles of dirty dishes and grimy linoleum, scanning every inch of dirt with her eye sockets, catching glimpses of sunlight in various dull nooks and crannies, and reluctantly formed a plan in her noncorporeal brain for how all this could be managed. She walked over to the sink, her sockets sunken, and turned her attention toward the yellow rubber gloves sitting on a stack of messy plates to the right of the sink. She put these gloves on carefully, painedly recounting all the “fun” she’d had with her “best friends” over the past days, and turned on the hot water to prepare the right side of the sink for the dishes it was soon to receive, a glimmer of reassurance flowing through her literal skull that this torment would possibly be over once the chores were all done.

Meanwhile; Billie and Manny were still playing video games in the living room; Manny having taken over Grim’s car, gotten it back on the track, and dropped player 3 out of the game while the Reaper did their chores. They tore across paved and unpaved roads, grabbed upgrades to one-up the other player, narrowly avoided obstacles to gain additional points, and burned the rubber of their wheels faster than hot knives melting softened butter. Billie thought about what Grim had said about not wanting (or, in opposite day language, wanting) to do their chores, racking her brain for a way to properly respond, preparing to address this with Manny, and getting ready to have some real fun that she thought would make the skeletal being happy. “Do you think that was too mean?” Billie asked his friend, hoping he would loosen up on his torture of the Reaper.

“She said she didn’t want to,” the pink shirt-wearing boy responded, a stony gaze painted across his eyes as he sharpened his words at her. “You know what that means.”

“You’re right,” Billie responded, turning her focus back to the race at hand on the screen.

While the two kids were still playing their video game, Grim was in the kitchen cleaning the dishes. She’d taken care of those in the sink, putting them away in all their proper spaces (some of which were hard to find), and she had started attacking the counter. She grabbed a dish with her left hand, scrubbing away every last bit of grime and food with the sponge in her right until it squeaked louder than a dog barking at a dangerous threat in the night, and put it in the dish drainer to experience the gentle warmth of the sun’s rays dry the soap and tears from external sources. She began working on another dish, doing the same thing until the light shined brightly enough to blind even the most acute-eyed eagle from many miles away. When she picked up a third dish, she began working more slowly, grumbling about all the hard times that awaited her in the coming days, both supernatural and mundane, as she tried to take her mind off of all the trouble Billie and Manny were causing her with their “opposite day” schemes. “This bites!” she yelled, moving her sponge across the surface as if it were an eraser tearing through paper. “Those kids don't deserve a friend like me.” She heard the distinct beeping of the video game in the other room, which briefly expanded her eye sockets to the size of inflated balloons to remind her of the torture she would continue facing every day until she was freed from their “best friendship” contract. “Every day I play with them until my eyes bleed.” Her sockets began filling with nonphysical tears, overflowing to the point of breaking the dams of the river they contained.

However, Billie and Manny didn’t seem to care, as they were too stuck in the wondrous video game world (or rather the opposite day/having twisted fun world) to acknowledge their skeletal “best friend’s” comments. They continued trying to one-up each other with their cars, steering past obstacles, taking shortcuts, collecting more power-ups, and picking up gear parts to upgrade their cars to something even more powerful. However, Manny’s eyes started darting around the place, scanning everywhere like a radar gone haywire, and drooping down on the floor, hoping for something more out of life than the purpose they were given. “OK, this is getting boring,” he said to his friend, pausing the game. “Let's go torture the Grim Reaper.”

Billie jumped up toward the screen, her nose sliding down the screen and squeaking as if it were a rag sliding down a window, and then landing down on the ground like a cat exercising its reflexes to recover from a fight. “OK,” she said in agreement, cheerfully walking backwards as she followed Manny (who stonily walked forwards) out of the room.

Back in the kitchen, Grim had finished the stack of plates she was working on, and she’d rearranged the pots and pans in the cupboard back in their proper places (except the ones that were still dirty), but there was still a lot of work to be done. She flew around the kitchen and dining room, scanning for anything she might have missed, and swiftly picked up these things to gather on the counter to the right of the sink. She placed several plates in the sink, scrubbing them as vigorously as she had done the last group, and then distributed them in the dish drainer (drying and replacing the ones she’d already cleaned). She began working on another group as soon as that was done, oblivious to her two “best friends” sneaking up on her to put her through more of this opposite day torture, but she was ready to get them back the first chance she got.

“Grim, we're sorry we tricked you,” Manny said with false sincerity in her eyes. Grim looked at them stonily, expecting them to laugh at her, but what she heard next surprised her and yanked the tops of her sockets upward. “You mean a lot to us…as a friend,” he continued, bringing a confused smile to the Reaper’s skull as she looked away from them. “You don't have to do my chores.”

“I don't?” she asked them, happy to get away from their “best friendship” contract for once.

But Billie jumped up and laughed in her face, knowing their trap had worked. “It's opposite day,” she said, shattering the Reaper’s joy, “so you do have to do 'em.”

“Shall we escort you to the lawn mower?” Manny followed up as Grim took off the gloves, dropping them on the sink and floor, and bowed resignedly to her two “best friends.” “Very well,” the blond boy replied to the skeleton’s silent words, placing his hands on his hips, “this way.” The three of them walked toward the shed, each in their usual manner, and got ready to have some more “fun” outside.

Grim found the lawn mower just outside the shed, waiting to be turned on and looking for some fresh grass to eat. It locked eyes with the Reaper, ready to take her on in an endurance contest, and motioned her over to grab its handle, beckoning her to turn it on.

After she’d successfully started the mower, Grim started walking across the lawn, ready to finish some more of her two “best friends’” chores so she could bring this torturous “opposite day” to an end. She walked in a straight line, clearing a path for the lawn to grow at its normal rate, and then went back to work on another path. She did this several times, intersecting the cobblestones each time, pressing on with her work until she started sweating (which was very enigmatic since she didn’t have physical sweat glands) and got tired, stopping the lawn mower when the pressure became too much for her to handle.

The Reaper looked down at the controls and spied something strange she hadn’t seen before (she had seen it on other lawn mowers, but not on this particular one). It was a tortoise walking ahead of a hare trying to catch up to it like in Aesop’s fable, attempting to get to the prized grass-cutting device at the end of the race. She moved her literally bony fingers onto the switch, too desperate to follow the moral at the end of the said fable, and lit the flame inside the motor to resume its merciless carnage across the communities of Poaceae plants laying around in the yard surrounding them.

The mechanical beast roared loudly in its rampage, speedily running across the yard to catch any prey darting away from its metallic jaws. It zipped across the lines Grim had created, creating a new parallel every few seconds, and regurgitating a huge amount of flora that constantly passed through its digestive system as if it were water from a firehose. It began moving in the perpendicular directions as well, creating the bottom of an inverted lattice pie in the process to serve hundreds of people. The Reaper hung on for her life, trying to gain control of her bronco to no avail, and fearing for her skull and topmost vertebrae. Her eye sockets were burning with the flames of fatigue, trying to keep themselves intact as the frontal bone tried to strip itself away from the nasal bone, and creating a throbbing pain akin to a headache at the top of her noncorporeal brain. Before she could do something about it, however, she saw a huge tree up ahead, which literally triggered a tingling sensation in her bones. Knowing she was out of options, she panicked, screaming at the top of her nonphysical lungs, before she crashed into the huge plant like an out-of-control semi truck carrying several tons of explosives in its trailer.

After the lawn was finished, the mower was blown to smithereens, unable to endure another round around the yard. It burned up toward the sky, its smoke drifting upwards toward the clouds, and signaled Grim to emerge from the wreckage surrounding the felled tree. The Reaper did as she was beckoned; walking toward where her two “best friends” were lounging on chairs with lemonade; and looked around her for a way out of this painful opposite day with her cracked skull, torn robes, various bones twisted a little out of place, scythe with a deeply cracked snath, and band-aids in various places on her skeletal body. “The lawn's done,” she said to them, ready to show them the proof they needed for her to be allowed out of this torturous “fun” they were having with her.

“Well, that's it for my chores,” Manny replied in his usual snarky manner, looking at his dog Saliva (who was white with brown ears and some brown and gray spots sprinkled sporadically around her body, and who had come to join them on this beautiful—or was it “gloomy?”—opposite day) and then turning back to his baseball cap-wearing friend.

“Now what?” Billie asked in reply, a huge grin spreading across her face.

“Hmmm…” Manny said, thinking about ways to have some more fun with the Grim Reaper who had spent the last hour or so enduring all kinds of insanity from their minds. “Oh, Grim!” he called to this Reaper, who was crying and sweating in a spot several yards away from them.

“Yes...” the “big spooky skeleton” replied, her mind on high alert for any danger that might arise from her “best friends’” imaginations.

“My little dog Saliva's feeling oh so sad and lonely,” Manny replied with a wave of sadness overcoming her voice, pointing at the panting dog begging on the left side of his chair. “Could you cheer her up?”

“Cheer her up yourself!” the Reaper yelled back, turning away to tend to some pressing mental matters in her damaged skull.

“Oh, Grim!” Manny pleaded before she had a chance to assess the damage, pointing again at his dog whose interest had been piqued at his owner’s words. “Won't you please cheer her up one little kiss ought to do it. You know, you want to.”

“Ugh!” Grim yelled back, having had absolutely enough of her two “best friends” dragging her around in the mud that she still felt on her insubstantial skin. “I am NOT going to kiss your stinky, smelly, drooling mutt!” she screamed in protest, waving her arms around and tightening her grip on her scythe to really illustrate her point.

“You aren't?” Manny burst out quietly, surprised by the Reaper’s reluctance to do as he bade her. “'Cause that means you are,” she followed up, her surprise quickly replaced by apathy as he motioned Grim over to where they were sitting.

“He's right,” Billie added as Grim jumped back in shock, also ready to play along with Manny’s insults. “You said it. Now you gotta do it.”

Grim furiously stood at them in response, imagining how she could get rid of them as quickly as possible. She fantasized them standing nonchalantly in front of her, internally excited to get her to play with them as they dodged her scythe. They ran away, motioning her to come along with them, but she was too wrapped up in her own game to follow along. She continued swinging her scythe, trying to cut their heads off to use in her own kickball game, and laughed evilly while she did so, excited about the high score she would receive at the end of her fun.

This joy was short-lived, however, as she returned to the real world, resigned to the duties the pink T-shirt-wearing boy had assigned her to do. The incident had charged her up slightly, regardless, as she perked her head up a little in hopes that this opposite day would soon end as soon as she did what she was told. “I'll do it,” she replied, walking up toward the drooling dog with shiny white teeth flashing for her presence.

The Reaper looked at the excited canine in front of her, picturing what the saliva would look like once it found its way onto her bones. She examined the latter’s tongue, looking at all of its taste buds for any that could potentially break down her bones, or worse, trigger a reaction that could lead to the dog’s death and burden the Reaper with one more soul to take to the underworld (just like she’d failed to do with Ms. Snuggles’) to make her day harder. She had a lot of experience with dogs—taking their souls, interacting with them in both the mortal and spirit realms, seeing them on all her travels, and even playing Go Fish with a few on occasion—but she hadn’t been commanded to give one a kiss since the French Revolution when a soldier told her to give her starving dog a kiss in addition to her treat. Billie noticed the skeleton’s hesitation, ready to give her “the time of [her] life” (or not, in opposite day terms), and motioned her toward the dog’s waiting mouth. “Go on,” she said excitedly, hoping Grim would respond, “do it.”

Grim reluctantly did as she was told, leaning down toward the dog and staring at the flies buzzing around her jaws. She formed her lips into a painful kiss formation, preparing to kiss her in the loving fashion the two kids desired, but before she could do that, the dog stuck her tongue out and dragged it up the Reaper’s soul, pulling the thin topmost film of its periosteum upward as if she were being waxed without preparation. The skeleton stared stonily at the dog as this happened, finding it hard to keep a straight face, as the saliva found its way into her eye sockets (and a little bit into her auditory meatuses) and Billie cheered them on. When that was done, the Reaper was frustrated at Saliva’s treatment of her bones, ready to stamp her out of her mind. “I am so humiliated,” she said, standing back up with a splatter of saliva dripping from her face onto the ground, hoping nothing like this would happen again today.

However, the kids had something else in store for their “best friend,” and they weren’t ready to give up their “fun” just yet. “All this fun is making me hungry,” Manny said, looking up at Grim’s dripping skull for one more request to finish their opposite day. “Let's eat.”

The three companions arrived in the kitchen moments later, ready to fill their bellies with some actual food (both literal and for thought) from the exhilarating (or, in Grim’s case, exasperating) opposite day that had occurred over the last few hours. They sat at the dining room table, talking about their plans for the coming days (Billie and Manny laughing multiple times at Grim’s sincere comments to make it seem like she meant the opposite), looking at all the interesting things happening outside their windows, and occasionally laughing with each other about the aspects of their “best friendship” they found absurd. They decided to celebrate this everlasting “best friendship” (and also, in Grim’s case, the insanity seemingly starting to peter out a little) with some turkey sandwiches (which had lettuce and mayonnaise also spread between the bread as well), the exact type of bread being decided by a combination of everyone’s votes, and to have any ketchup on hand that people wanted. Grim conjured this food with her scythe, dropping these three sandwiches on everyone’s plates and the ketchup bottle at the corner bordering both her and Billie’s places, and also filling three glasses with water from the metal blade (which was magically sanitized to avoid any illnesses and save her the burden of taking any more souls to the underworld).

“Hey, Grim,” Billie said, grabbing the ketchup bottle as the Reaper took a huge bite out of her sandwich. “Want some ketchup?”

“No,” the Reaper replied, hoping to disarm her “best friend’s” desire for more “opposite day” fun.

“OK!” Billie replied, sending a huge squirt of ketchup Grim’s plate’s way.

“Stop!” Grim shouted, anxious to avoid having to clean up another mess of plates and condiments.

“OK!” Billie replied, lobbing another huge squirt on top of the dish.

“No more!” Grim yelled in desperation.

“OK, OK!” Billie said in response, shaking the red condiment bottle a few more times and expelling about half the remaining contents onto the tainted plate, giggling in her mind all the while.

“Isn't opposite day awful?” Manny commented, smirking at Grim’s misfortune hiding within her eye sockets.

“Oh, it's dreadful,” Billie replied, placing the ketchup bottle back in its original spot “What do you think, Grim?” she followed up, also turning to see the spark of distress in the Reaper’s eye sockets. “Isn't it dreadful?”

Grim just sobbed at this comment while Billie blissfully took a bite out of her sandwich, banging her elbows on the table to punctuate her point. “I hate you so much!” she wailed, briefly staring up at the ceiling and looking in front of her. “I'm so miserable!” She lightly banged her mandible on the wood, turning her eye sockets upward at the light fixtures above them.

“That's good,” Billie replied, still not convinced of Grim’s desires, “‘cause misery goes so great with PIE!” She pulled a pie out from under the table, showing it to the skeleton and motioning her to cut it for her and Manny.

“That's it,” Grim fumed, raising her fists above the table in an effort to add a lot more bite to her bark so she could get her message through to the two kids. “I've HAD IT!!” she screamed, raising her scythe in the air to cut their heads off. Billie swished some of her saliva in her mouth; expecting to finally say goodbye to her brain, face, nose, hat, and what she considered good looks; but what she saw next surprised both her and Manny.

A huge smile stretched itself across Grim’s skull, pushing her maxilla and mandible to their limits (and a little beyond), and tempted its owner with the delicious taste of whatever Billie had silently said was contained within there. The Reaper’s mind was primed to obtain that taste at any cost, even if it meant making some heads roll on the floor, her taste buds overflowing with nonmatter saliva surrounding her rotten green tongue. She made two powerful swings, slicing the pie into half and then each half into half as well, punctuating her intention with a loud maniacal laugh before swiveling the noncorporeal eyes in her sockets downward at the result.

“Hey,” said Manny, a dash of sincerity flowing through his voice and his usual stony face, “thank you slicing the pie, Grim.”

“Yeah!” Billie added, eager to try the delicious filling inside the crust. “We REALLY deserve a nice treat about NOW!”

“Um!” Grim replied, leaning toward her two “best friends” and pointing a finger at them, ready to turn their tactics on them and make her day all the more enjoyable. “You said you deserve pie. That means you don't deserve pie.” She took the pie for herself, intending to get to that tasty filling at any cost. “No pie for you!” she teased, doing a little dance with her hands before blowing a raspberry at the two kids.

“Hold on,” Manny replied, holding his hands out to demonstrate a new tool in his arsenal. “Remember when I said it was opposite day?”

Grim’s smug expression turned to one of confusion as she put her right index phalange just above the bottom of her mandible.

“That meant it wasn't opposite day,” Billie replied, smiling again as she took the pie for herself and Manny. “So you did all those chores for nothing.”

Grim just sat there, dumbfounded at her two “best friends’” words as Billie giggled and the latter and Manny each took a pie slice. She watched them dig into their dessert, one sweet bite after another, pondering over the “fun” they all had that day. She took out a wooden mallet and began pounding it on her skull with her left hand, moving her right index finger up and down where her lips would be if she had skin, and dancing around like a maniac trying to find their way out of the cubic prison they’d been thrown into in their mind. She hadn’t really enjoyed the opposite day the way her “best friends” had with their torture and all, but at least she was having a little actual fun with her silly antics, and that fun was an important thing that mattered—maybe opposite day wasn’t so bad after all, and maybe she was starting to like her “best friends’” antics a little. But would that hold up? Only time would tell.

Chapter Text

Tonight was another ominous night on Bunny Island for Evil Con Carne, and Hectara had some very big plans cooking in her literal brain.

The full moon hung drearily in the sky over a spot many yards away from the island, illuminating the ocean and singing its humdrum songs to the sleeping aquatic life below. The sky adopted a flame-red hue just above the horizon, its bloodshot vision reminding passersby of the nefarious activity poised to happen in the complex. In addition, the waves slowly roiled over the beach, slowly swallowing and regurgitating the rocks with its salty mouth, and caressing them with its bone-chilling tongue.

The island had also been remodeled and renovated to strike terror into the hearts of all of Hectara’s potential opponents, its temple radiating its majestic light for miles in the sea. The mouth gaped wide, the cave inside prepared to unleash its fury upon all invaders who tried to stop whatever plan the former playgirl had in mind. The eyes unleashed invisible flames upon these invaders, their nonphysical noxious gas spreading to their innards and triggering an uncontrollable trembling sensation with their every move. The rocks had also been remodeled to include the body of the island’s namesake, complete with a literal belly for the beast ready to disintegrate all oncoming assailants with a drip of disorienting metaphorical stomach acid.

A few birds were also awake, their eyes drooping heavily from several failed attempts to keep them closed. The TVs in their minds were still on, broadcasting whatever they had heard the day before and ruminating on the still fledgling plans hatching in their brains. These thoughts repeated like a broken record, building up a kind of energy that shot sharp electric shocks up toward their heads. These shocks launched them out of their nests (or wherever they were sleeping that night) and shot their wings toward their full span, forcing them to fly to wherever they could find food or entertainment to last them the night.

One of these birds took off from a distant island, the howling winds gripping their brown wings and barreling them forward across the ocean. They tossed their avian plaything around the area, kicking its breast and pushing its tail feathers in zigzagging motions. The bird felt their eyes spin around in their sockets, their wings rotating around in their sockets as they tried to regain their balance over the rushing cold water. Their wings flapped about 100 times faster than normal, each beat threatening to shatter their bones, as their feet struggled to avoid being submerged in the deep waters below, occasionally feeling the salty spray as it fired its latest grains from the depths of the earth. When the bird was finally able to get back on course, their wings made a lot of random emotions, the bones struggling to stay straight the longer they continued to keep their owner afloat. The bird eventually saw a hole in the distance; where two other birds were situated; ready to fill its small belly with whatever insects, berries, and bits of people’s meals it could find. Little did any of them know, however, that it was one of the evilest lairs to exist on Earth, and one of its inhabitants had some not-so-nice things to fire at them about her employer.

Skarr lay comfortably in her bed, the soft sheets covering her body as she slept soundly, her quiet snore steady and rhythmic. An old film reel about Napoléona and her conquests proudly leaned up against her bedside, the ghosts of its audio riding a twirling updraft that smothered her with the faint hum of battles of a forgotten time. The cool breeze spread itself across the room, caressing her skin with its gentle hand from centuries past, blowing with it the faint scent of dust and old history books that stirred her brain into a play that cast her as the main heroine (or, in this case, villainess)—strong, determined, and undeterred by any threat that stood in her way.

The movie audio painted a vivid picture of her greatest battle—burning cannons launching their payloads over scorched battlefields, cracked pathways of dried soil under a bruise-colored sky, the faint smell of smoke tainting the land, bayonets firing loudly as their owners struggled to obtain the upper hand, the taste of blood permeating the musty gust tearing its way across the desolate wasteland, swords flashing brightly and clanging loudly among all the waste, the muffled cadence of marching soldiers on both sides—and placed her on top of Boskova (Hectara’s brain, Stomach, and all), the weight of battle weighing down on her shoulders as they pressed further into the bleak dreamscape. Skarr held a flashing sword high above her head, the wind stinging her face as it attempted to tear her hat off her head, mightily staring out onto the littered landscape as the former circus bear’s footsteps sent thunderous tremors throughout the land. The three companions advanced through a maze of explosions and barbed wire, navigating through the stillness pushing down upon them like gravity, their eyes gleaming with a stern authority as the sweeping orchestral score encouraged them further down the road. “England,” Skarr mumbled in her sleep, her heart silently pounding with the promise of victory, “a nation of shopkeepers.”

But before the three heroes (or villains in this case) could make it to their destination, their path literally lurched off in another direction.

The dreamer’s mattress rapidly sprung from its sleep, creaking its handles as it turned its occupant 180°, pounding her onto the ground as if it had a mind of its own. She felt a sudden jolt in her body, her adrenaline pumping rapidly through her skin as she was squashed flat onto the floor below, bones cracking and lungs deflating like balloons crushed by boots. She heard another creak as she opened her mouth, the mattress lifting off of her flattened body and allowing for the passage of light toward her figure. The groaning stopped after several seconds, a click echoing throughout the room like the famous Shot Heard ‘Round the World from over two centuries earlier.

The covers slowly rustled off the bed, revealing a plain whitish blue mattress flashing its intricate pattern at the ceiling. The mattress turned itself an intimidating 90° counterclockwise, standing above the squashed general as she winced at the soft needles poking at her eyes. It let out a whoosh of foul air at her as it split in half, revealing a panel of pitch black that threatened to grab her in its gaping jaws and send her off to a world of isolated darkness. It slightly enlarged, these jaws looming in closer, mechanically roaring as it spat out its oily breath at its human prey. After a few milliseconds, the screen quickly sparked on, its colorful light illuminating the room like a rainbow torch piercing the occupants’ sleep.

Hectara’s face (or rather her brain on top of Boskova’s head) popped up on the screen, staring down at the former’s paramilitary commander as if it were an eagle circling its prey. The light from her eyes blazed down upon the squashed general, lighting a small fire as if they were lasers preparing to destabilize their target so the ultimate doomsday weapon could be fired. The brain sloshed around in its container, the green fluid rushing past the gray matter as the limbic system threatened to dislodge its usual cyclone upon the glass barrier. The glass also amplified the brain’s eye light, vibrating uneasily as the pressure continued building up against its transparent walls, the clattering chipping away at Skarr’s ears as she struggled to force a groan out of her crushed lungs. Before she could fully process what was happening, however, an all-too-familiar voice launched itself at her, polluting the air with its noxious acid that released electric shocks into her bloodstream that made her skin jump uncomfortably.

“Skarr!” Hectara yelled, her brain dome flashing green light as if it were a siren screaming about some major attack on Bunny Island, prompting Skarr to peel herself off the floor as quickly as she could. “Report to the command center right away!”

“But it's…it’s 2:00 AM!” the paramilitary commander protested; her eyes throbbing, her eyelids drooping, her right eye twitching painfully through its bruising, her gray hair a wild mess, many of her teeth either knocked out or cracked, and her pajamas irritatingly brushing her skin; glancing at her busted watch as her Jell-Oed marrow shook her bone walls.

“Don't you know that tyranny never sleeps?” the de-bodied overlord retorted, the fire from her glare aggressively tugging at Skarr’s skin and clothing as her brain shook its cerebellum and Boskova just stood there smiling as if nothing had happened. “For you see, General, on this very night, you and I will finally…dominate…the world!” Her menacing laugh echoed off of the walls of the room as thunder boomed throughout her lair, freezing everyone inside in a nervous bout of tingling as lightning slashed the darkness with its electric claws, Boskova played along with some movements she’d learned from her former circus, and the camera zoomed back onto the dome atop the bear’s head. “Now, hurry up!” Hectara ordered, her frontal lobe ramming itself against the glass, causing her sleep-deprived paramilitary commander to briefly jump out of her skin as she landed on her butt. “Oh, and bring up some ice cream,” she continued, her temporal lobe jutting upward and her hardened eyes lazily dragging up to meet the thunderstorm above her. “Vanilla.”

“Vanilla is deliii-cious!” Stomach added, rotating its fundus counterclockwise as its muscular coat oozed out some cold and sweet fluid, smiling at the thought of finally getting its long-awaited vanilla treat.

After that, the transmission cut out, the roar of static creeping around the room as if preparing to swallow Skarr whole.

The pigeons in the bunny’s eye began cooing, their voices carrying a tone reminiscent of mourners at a state funeral. They stood on the stone, their eyes pointed upward as if stargazing, and slowly flapped their wings, releasing small bursts of wind in an attempt to disperse the static’s flow. Feeling this yearning air on her skin, Skarr walked over to them, the light in their eyes slowly twinkling in rhythm with hers. “What's wrong?” she asked them, her eyes drooping toward the ground.

The dark blue one hopped toward her, its talons quietly clicking on the slightly cooled rock, shifting its weight around and curling its toes as if testing the heat.

“I'll tell you what's wrong,” Skarr continued, the weary look in her eyes replaced by a hardened gaze accompanied by a furrowing brow and throbbing veins. “I am sick and tired of playing errand girl for that oversized wad of chewing gum and that dipstick bear of hers.” She turned away from them, crossing her arms as she stared at where the screen had stood. “I utterly despise her with every fiber of my being,” she finished, turning back toward her avian companions with an even fierier look in her eyes. “And someday…someday soon, my children…I will make her...pay.”

On the last word, the pigeons began cooing gently, their eyes full of longing as they sang their low-key chorus, the blue one flapping its wings again.

“Oh, I'm sorry, my little babies,” Skarr replied, the flames in her eyes extinguished by rain weighing them downward, “I have forgotten your midnight snack.” She pulled a box of birdseed from her pocket and opened it, the soft angelic chorus of seeds flowing through the air as they tenderly pushed past each other into her mouth. She whistled a merry tune to herself as she skipped toward the birds, her toes tickled by the carpet as they propelled her upward. She stopped in front of the eye hole, leaning over and spitting a small tributary of the seed into each bird’s mouth as if they had recently hatched.

When the feeding was done, she spit the rest of the seed into an empty box, putting on her slippers and shuffling toward the door to her room. The creak of the door mingled with the somewhat oily air that occupied most of Bunny Island’s interior, escorting the general forward as she stepped into the outside world. She imagined the cool taste of this dessert flowing down her throat, her eyes blinking slowly and gazing slightly upwards, but she suddenly heard Hectara’s words ringing loudly in her mind: Tyranny never sleeps. She sighed heavily and trudged onward slowly, her feet softly pounding on the floor as if trying to make a point, reluctantly ready to see what horrible surprises would come today.

Skarr returned from the store with a big orange bucket of ice cream in her right hand, the frosty contents creeping up to her fingers as she stepped into the command center, its familiar globe looming over her with its heavy pale light and slowly beeping signals. She looked around the room for any sign of Hectara and Boskova, the acrylic smell clinging to her shoulders like unshakable fumes, the light casting ghostly rings toward her eyes the cold gleaming walls, her droopy eyes twitching as they struggled to keep still, and the shadows creeping up on her as if they were claws ready to dig into her skin. “Okay, I'm here. They were out of vanilla,” she said, stopping several yards in front of the globe to get a better view of the rooms behind the doors on either side of her. “So I got Rocky Road.”

In response, a furry purple hand reached over and swiped the bucket from the sleep-deprived general, pulling her forward slightly as if she were a plank on a crane’s hook. “Welcome, Skarr,” a familiar voice said, an authoritative air coalescing around them.

Skarr looked up and saw two familiar sets of eyes, dim light flickering from their pupils. “This better be good,” she replied, pointing at a familiar brain in the dome atop the bear’s head.

As if on cue, Boskova slowly hoisted the bucket toward her snout, the saliva in her mouth overflowing its banks. She looked at the contents, the nuts and marshmallows jutting out like Empire State Buildings, her eyes spinning around as if being hypnotized. After a few seconds, she plunged her teeth into the high-calorie dairy treat, drilling into the brown landscape like an Olympic diver in the pool. She snuffed and snorted as she dug further into the frozen sea of chocolate, cold running down her neck and chin, small puddles forming on the floor, but she didn’t pause—instead, she accelerated her pursuits, nuts crunching and marshmallows shouting out muffled cries as she gnashed her jaws like a woodchipper out of control.

“Oh, yes, it’s good!” Hectara burst out, her eyes moving up and down like tiny elevators as they stared off into space and then at the freezing chocolate river on her ursine “body’s” thick purple fur. “Very good!”

“Ahhh!” Stomach agreed as the frost reached its inner workings. “Tasty!”

After a few minutes, the bear had finished diving into her delicious chocolate treat, a waterfall of melted brown sweetness cascading down her chin and onto Stomach’s dome as she stared off into space. “And now,” Hectara continued as the bear licked her lips, “I give you Major Dr. Ghastly!”

As if on cue, the head mad scientist stepped out from behind his boss’s shadow, his dark red suit and its brownish pink highlights glimmering dangerously like broken glass in the moonlight, carrying a large remote control in his hands. “Yes,” he responded, stopping right next to Boskova’s back paws as his eyes sparkled brightly from behind his goggles. “Tonight, we will unveil the world's most destructive weapon!”

He tapped a series of buttons like toy piano keys, each beep echoing like a synthesizer riff as he hummed along too cheerfully for comfort, the melody bouncing through the room like neon sparks slinking through the air.

A huge circular section of the floor sent a slight tremor through the floor as it slowly groaned open, blasting a very bright pale green light from the ground that shattered the acrylic smell.

From this pit rose a pair of two rounded points, their metallic sheen reflecting the same ominous light from the globe, their slightly garlic smell spreading rapidly through the air like fairy dust, and the air from outside reflected toward the four observants as they sliced through. Two taller mountains followed not far behind, their slightly red hue burning intensely as if ready to explode at a moment’s notice, and then a larger landscape, its hill-like bump blasting the cool air even further toward the four. Skarr’s skin began jumping rapidly against her pajamas again as two huge domes crawled up from pit soon after, the much redder hue in their eyes staring at her as if preparing to melt her to nothingness. A tangy updraft flew toward the ceiling above as a gigantic flap similar to a knight’s visor greeted her and her three companions, the foul breath within impatiently tugging at its confines to meet their audience.

“Isn’t it magnificent?” Hectara stated as her eyes welled up with whatever could pass for tears in her brain dome’s fluid. “And it's modeled after…Enriqueta Jr.!”

The metallic monstrosity stared at them with intent eyes, ready to take on whatever challenges awaited them. The huge head scanned around the room for an equally giant fetch toy, its nose rapidly expelling mustard-smelling gas that brought a tingling sensation into everyone’s skin around it. A series of clicks and groans emanated from its comparatively tiny body, each one sharper than the last, like a wind-up toy begging to be released. The legs stood slightly taller than each observer’s body, their paws ticking slowly and deliberately like a bomb impatiently waiting to explode, and their joints screeching like banshees sending shivers down travelers’ spines. The huge tail flicked dust in everyone’s faces as it wagged rapidly, particles zipping toward them like bullets from a machine gum as the metal whined like a deep breath waiting to break out of its owner’s mouth.

Skarr gasped at this fearsome spectacle of a robot, an electric shock flowing through her body as she jumped up from her spot on the ground.

“There's my girl!” Hectara yelled, a different kind of electricity zooming through her brain’s nerves.

A high-pitched bark rang out on cue, followed by quick footsteps as if the floor had suddenly caught fire. A distinct fruity scent approached the three noses (and Hectara’s olfactory bulb)—a luscious blend of mango, papaya, strawberry, and watermelon—and mingled with the acrylic chemicals and mustardy tang, the mix only energizing Hectara’s excitement. A small furry body bounded up toward the huge purple bear. Its owner beamed, eyes glittering with light reflecting from the domes’.

“Boskova, pet now!” Hectara ordered the bear.

The bear scooped the creature into a bone-crushing hug, ruffling her fur multiple times.

As Boskova laughed, Skarr stared coldly at the brain atop her head, her brow furrowing and her eyelids heavily drooping, facepalming as she saw Hectara stare off into space. “You need to change your brain fluid, Hector,” she sniped at her superior, sharply pointing her right index finger at the latter’s brain, “There's only one way to conquer the world.” She clenched her teeth tightly and curled her hands into fists as tiny veins in her head threatened to explode on her.

Skarr stared off into space, the world in her eyes dissolving into smoke and tension within several seconds.

We've got to build massive armies…

She stood atop a high wooden platform, her feet tapping the rock-hard oak and cherry below, observing the throng of dark purple-clad platoons. Huge trucks crunched the ground, their treaded wheels sending spine-tingling tremors throughout the pavement below. Several huge black flags with a distinct insignia (a red lightning bolt on a yellow circle) flapped in the air, the wind distorting them like bedsheet ghosts and shadows looming like giant monsters ready to attack. The sky gave off a flaming orange hue, the smog scratching everyone’s noses and sprinkling the surrounding air with the distinct tang of radioactive metals exploding in water.

…and stockpile missiles!

A series of missiles sped above the horizon, their fiery trails streaking the blackened sky like rainbows after a storm. They flew in a carefully crafted arrangement, eyes blazing with nuclear energy as they accelerated toward their targets, as Skarr (who sat on top of one) directed them into battle formation, the wind stretching her skin like elastic in a hot dryer.

Then, you have to target and destroy every major capital in the world!

Reddish orange mushroom clouds formed above distant cities, one or two at a time, violently shaking the Earth and spreading their poisonous nuclear flavor across the many surrounding miles.

YES! YES!!!

She stood amongst a gaggle of burning buildings, the thunder of destruction rolled through her like music as a huge smile tugging at the corners of her face. She threw her head back, eyes burning the distinct fire of a hard-won victory, and laughed loudly—a low, jagged sound that echoed across the ruins.

ALL MINE!!!!!!

She waved her hands uncontrollably, the toxic air ricocheting as its disease spread rapidly throughout the wasteland.

ALL...

Suddenly, the city disappeared from her view, slowly melting itself into nothingness as the command center returned with everyone inside. “Mine?” she asked, her face blushing as she turned her head back to the other occupants, her skin crawling uneasily and her marrow slightly Jell-Oed.

Major Dr. Ghastly just smiled and looked behind himself, eyes absorbing the light bouncing off the gigantic metallic Chihuahua standing right before them. “Uh…yes,” he chuckled, pulling out the remote he had used to summon the robot and walking over to the dazed general. “Well, we think this will work nicely, too.”

Skarr took the contraption from him, stonily eyeing its controls from top to bottom. “What am I supposed to do with this?” she asked, her brow furrowing and her eyelids drooping heavily again. She grabbed the main lever, frantically swinging it back and forth as if she were playing an old-school video game, her teeth clenching tightly and her skin slightly wobbling back and forth. “Stupid thing...” she grumbled, turning the other way with closed eyes as she dangled it by the lever. “I hate it.”

However, the robot dog wagging its tail even faster, its red eyes heating up even more as the cool musty air rapidly spread further around the room. “All systems are operational,” it told its bosses, paws ticking even louder.

“Oh!” Skarr said, a huge smile forming on her face and exposing her glittering teeth (and darkened tooth gaps) as her lower jaw dropped further. “Now I got it!” she continued, skin tingling rapidly as her eyes widened further at all the buttons and other components in front of her eyes.

“Amazing!” Major Dr. Ghastly agreed as the wind from the machine’s head flipped the tide of the air multiple times.

“Yes, Skarr,” Hectara added, her brain swishing in its fluid as the particles gently tickled its gray matter. “Can you feel it?” The giant Enriqueta Jr. monster’s left shoulder joint suddenly whined loudly, its giant paw lifting itself and creating a heavy vacuum underneath. “Something big is about to go down!” she continued as a fly buzzed past Boskova’s nose.

The bear’s eyes suddenly lit up brightly, their sparkle twinkling rapidly as she began to feel an electric sensation under her skin. Her legs giddily propelled her up multiple times, her feet sending shivers the floor the as she warmed up their springs to go after the tiny insect through the air in front of her.

Skarr also felt giddy electricity in her body, but the sparkle in her eyes was slightly darker and much fierier. She turned her eyes up at the gigantic metal paw, her shock extending itself to the hair under her hat as the vacuum underneath extended its fingers toward her body. Her fingers vibrated on the lever, her knuckles growing whiter the harder she pressed. Her brow slowly furrowed as her smile expanded, the acrylic smell pushing itself past her body as she pushed the black ball forward, the tingling sensation intensifying as the paw craned itself upward above Hectara’s brain.

The paw hovered midair, its joints groaning with a rising metallic wail, like a caged animal clawing for release. A deep shadow spilled over Hectara and Boskova, thickening the air around them as the palm’s weight pressed down, pinning them like prey beneath a predator's gaze. Without warning, the pads slammed downward—earth buckling under the force, a shockwave ripping outward with a hollow boom that sent Major Dr. Ghastly tumbling back. The sudden gust pushed his suit closer to his skin as Boskova, eyes narrowed against the wind, sprang toward the fly in a blur of motion.

“Hmmm…” Skarr said, looking down upon the green letters on the screen below her eyes as the tiny insect brushed past her nose. “Seems to be a lag in reaction time.”

Before she could analyze the situation any further; a huge, furry belly (and a hard glass dome) shot itself at the fly; sweeping the general off her feet, sending the controller flying, and zooming toward the end of the room as if someone had shot a pillow from a cannon. The floor below shook slightly as the belly’s owner ran faster, heavy feet propelling the ursine “body” forward as her heart pounded harder than a war drum advancing upon its target. A high-pitched bark followed close behind, piercing the air as its owner bounded energetically toward wherever it was the bear was going. Tiny veins in Skarr’s head began growing as her eyes widened, tiny fingers crawling throughout her skin as her itchy pajamas scratched against her skin.

About half an hour later, Skarr had gotten dressed in her paramilitary commander uniform, and she was standing with her cohorts and their robot in a street located on a test site on Bunny Island.

The space between them weighed heavily on their shoulders, the tangy scent of rusting steel and the cold, dusty air tickling their noses as they stood firmly on the pavement surrounding them. The wind howled quietly between the structures, the air thick with the promise of mass destruction. Its long, chilling fingers spread through the icy metal, brushing an eerie cold sensation across the occupants’ skin. The windows also reflected the dim moonlight through their heavy glass, stretching out a series of ghostly white forms that made everyone’s spines shake as if they were being electrified, while the rugged pavement expelled a few wisps of rubber tang into their noses, itching their eyes slowly like poison ivy growing behind their eyelids. Boskova slowly stepped in Skarr’s direction, her back paws softly tapping the cracked asphalt beneath them.

“Before we set out to conquer the world, Skarr,” Hectara began, looking up at the fiery sheen emanating from the robot’s eyes and nose and back at her paramilitary commander’s stony eyes, “we must first run an elaborate and expensive training test.” She patted her gray matter against the glass, directing Boskova’s attention toward a red-balled lever on one of the walls.

The bear walked over to this lever, her feet quietly plodding the ground and kicking up tiny amounts of dust. She slowly moved her front left paw toward the lever, her claws gripping its ball and vibrating like a malfunctioning washing machine. After a few seconds, she pulled it downward, activating a series of spotlights that flooded the entire room with brilliant whites, blues, periwinkles, and indigos. “Behold!” the brain atop her head produced, eyes rapidly pulsating like a heavily beating heart.

Skarr looked at the remote control in her hands, her eyebrows pulled upward and her smile flashing her nearly pearly white teeth as the antenna emitted a high-pitched beep. She shot Hectara a quick glance, her skin tingling faster than ever, and turned her attention back to the writing on the screen. “Go ahead,” the former playgirl said, the dome on her head emitting its usual sickly green light, “choose your...weapon.”

Skarr placed her finger on one of the buttons on the remote control, her eyes vibrating faster than ever as her brow furrowed and the corners of her mouth tugged upward, pushing it downward like a lid out of place. The words FLEA BOMBS appeared on the screen in green digital writing, shouting their message in the form of similarly high-pitched beeps, which traveled toward the robot’s ears like the distinct sounds of a dog whistle inaudible to human ears.

In response, the Enriqueta Jr. behemoth’s neck hissed as a few small, round hatches whined open, releasing a sharp chatter like teeth snapping shut. A new set of monsters—a series tiny of small flea robots with eyes like molten nails and triangular teeth clicking in a rapid, eager manner. Their legs twitched impatiently, ready to spring upon their targets, each one humming like a coiled spring moments before the snap.

Skarr’s eyes twinkled equally fast, their light echoing the clicking, donning a pair of red-lensed goggles as her nose took twitched at the musty twinge in the air. “And with your Dog Vision Goggles,” Hectara continued as the general adjusted the goggles, which emitted a beeping tune reminiscent of 1960s spy movies as a yellow target symbol frantically flew around the lenses, “you will seek out the enemy!”

Skarr nodded her head, her gaze hardening as she scanned the area around her.

She turned her head to the right, the wind howling as the cold crept up on her shoulders. The metallic one followed suit, its eyes flashing like sirens on the prowl. The wall they landed on stood firmly on the pavement, its awning bouncing up and down as it propelled the dust in varying directions. A cardboard bush also stood in front of them, its pulp shaking in the wind as if motioning them to follow them to some secret hideout. Then, before long, a cardboard cutout of a bomber in black clothing emerged in front of the bush, its eyes flaming a kind of urgency as if trying to shout out threats its mouth couldn’t.

The two attackers then turned their attention further to the right, landing upon a narrow space between two buildings with shadows somewhat darker than the surrounding areas. The smell there was even more intense, its weight looming over them like a beast with eager jaws. The surrounding windows gleamed intensely, their light shooting threats at them that created vibrations in their spines. A few seconds later, a cardboard tank emerged from the wall, its tread massaging the ground and its turret locked onto whatever its imaginary driver was seeking inside the lair.

Skarr’s right index finger hovered over the remote, flying across the various buttons to find its target. Her eyes darted toward the screen, each breath heavier than the last as her eyes moved toward each option. She settled on a different grayish blue button (closer to the screen than the last) and gave it a hard stab, her gaze hardening and her smile widening at her targets. The word FIRE appeared on the screen, its huge red letters screaming bloody murder at the soon-to-be cardboard casualties.

The robot heard the signal, its ears perking up as if it were ready to chase a squirrel in the vicinity. Its eyes brightened, heat spreading through the air as if they had been set ablaze, the light inside ready to melt the paper with its radiation laser. Its back right pubis joint screeched loudly, the metal inside unleashing a powerful earthy stench that threatened to destabilize the general’s leg bones as the paw slowly rose upward. The air beneath the paw grew heavier, spreading itself toward Skarr’s head and attempting to knock her hat off as its owner let out a long, quiet groan. After several seconds, the paw started scraping the metal where the flea bots sat, emitting an ear-piercing shriek as it flicked these bugs toward the cardboard enemies waiting to begin their attack.

The first one zipped through the tank, shredding its hull into tiny pieces as it sent an earthquake-level shock into the building’s wall. Another punctured the bomber through the chest, slicing its head and bomb clear off as it impaled the bush with the force of a monster truck’s tires. Cutouts of a general, a sea monster, and a clown popped up in another part of the area, their motors whining in hopes of achieving a victory, but the flea bots sliced through them like wet toilet paper, sending fragments flying all around the surrounding pavement.

“Good shot, Skarr,” Hectara complimented; a bright flame burning in her eyes; beaming as Skarr did the same thing to cardboard cutouts of a purple van, Santina Claus with her sack, and a pink bunny.

Little did she know, however, that Skarr wasn’t done with her operation yet. The general slowly turned her head in Hectara’s direction, musty wind whipping the ursine “body’s” fur as the giant Enriqueta Jr. head followed suit. The goggles zoomed in on the brain, beeping loudly as their wearer’s brow furrowed downward, the robotic eyes rotating counterclockwise as metal flaps cascaded slowly among the glass surface. The ursine “body” appeared as a lumpy green form in these eyes, the lights inside burning brighter than ever as the huge metallic canine’s mouth hung open, spewing the smell of ammonia in the former playgirl’s direction.

Boskova’s grin, however, stayed frozen, still wide and playful as ever. Her eyes wobbled in their sockets, catching phantom light as she scanned the area around her. A fizzing sensation danced under her skin, her tail twitching in little seizures. She suddenly heard a little buzz—the same fly from before brushed past her nose, sprinkling a rotten perfume so strong it glittered on the air. Her eyes quickly widened, pressing forward as if trying to leap from her skull. She tracked the insect like prey, her body quickly tensing for the pounce.

Skarr slammed her finger down again, eliciting a high-pitched wine from the dog’s foot as it expelled a swarm of jittering flea bots. Her lips peeled back, exposing her uncontrollably clicking teeth, her eyes locked and twitching. The tiny projectiles screamed through the air, legs twitching mid-flight, snapping the brittle wind resistance around them as they neared Hectara’s brain. Each one chattered like a deranged insect choir, trails of reeking vapor swirling in their wake.

However, the flea bots missed their target—Boskova lunged for the fly just as they were about to shatter the glass, and they smacked her straight in the butt with a dull whump. She jerked toward the asphalt, jaws chomping loudly, but the tiny insect zipped skyward in victory. The tiny bots pinged off the bear’s fur, scattering as their shrill chirps pierced the air. Skarr’s eyes snapped open as soon as she saw this, her scream cracking through the din as the bots zeroed in on their new target—her brain. She turned her head the other way, but it was too late—the swarm slammed into her rear with the force of a minor explosion, bones cracking and metal plates groaning, as an uneasy grimace formed on her face and her legs split apart on the ground.

About ten minutes later, Skarr had reassembled herself, eyes still twitching as she stood perched on the giant robot’s head.

The metallic Chihuahua lumbered through the buildings, its energetic footprints sending shockwaves through the asphalt as it sniffed the surrounding area. The sky glowed a fiery red echoing the battles in Skarr’s militaristic fantasies, the putrid stench of rubber looming over everyone like an invisible beast tracking its prey. Hectara and Boskova followed a few steps behind, the dust crawling into their eyes like ants trekking through the sand.

Before long, Skarr spied a cardboard car directly in front of them, its sheen reflecting a bright light back to the robot’s eyes. It elicited a slow beep beep beep from the Dog Vision Goggles, sending another yellow target dancing across the general’s field of vision and sending another fizzing sensation bubbling through her skin. Her eyes skimmed across the controller as she scanned for the proper button to use, the wind blasting the stench of hot pavement into her nose as she continued her search.

A few seconds later, her eyes suddenly widened, her pupils taking in the light reflecting off a button she hadn’t explored before. Her teeth chattered rapidly, the sensation rattling her jawbones, the corners of her mouth tugging themselves into a huge smile as her brow furrowed. She slammed that button with her finger, prompting a spine-tingling screech from the jaw as its ammonia-smelling breath slowly swirled around, and sending a powerful blast of fire that disintegrated the automobile prop into crispy nothingness, blasting the ashy smell into the air for all to smell.

“Skarr,” Hectara wheezed, eyelids drooping as if gravity had grown stronger overnight, “you continue your weapon trials.” Boskova rubbed her own drooping eyelids, the world around her slightly blurry, and her nose started to itch from the pungent stench around her. “Boskova and I will be here,” the former playgirl continued as her “body” pointed her thumb at a tree behind them, her voice growing heavier and more slurred with each word, “observing.”

The two of them backed up behind the tree and slumped down, their eyes unable to continue resisting against their droopy lids in spite of Hectara’s earlier words.

“What luck,” Skarr said, her brow furrowing and her frown heavy as she stared at the two snoozing beings right in front of her.

However, a huge smile broke out a few seconds later, her eyes widening and her hair shooting up as if an invisible vacuum was threatening to suck them out. “They're asleep,” she burst out, her tone surreptitious, as she quickly pulled the remote control up to her face. “Now,” she continued, the energy in her skin fizzling out as she sat down on the metal beneath her feet, “what have we got here?”

Her eyes danced across the contraption’s surface, pausing on jagged edges and gleaming metal. Her right eyebrow raised slowly as the wind softly howled in her direction, the hairs bending as the air slowly brushed them. Her right index finger flew over the controls as if it had a mind of its own, the electric sensation in her phalanges tickling the surrounding skin as it began hopping across a few of the buttons.

She lightly pushed on one of the buttons, eliciting a relaxed beep as the words ATOMIC DOG BREATH spread themselves across the screen.

“Hmmm, boring,” she replied, rolling her eyes as she settled on another one.

SCOOT ON BUTT.

“Cute, but no,” she continued, her brow sinking further as she jabbed a third button.

TOXIC GAS.

Her huge smile returned, teeth shaking and sending an electric surge flew through her veins. “Hello!” she burst out, moving her right index finger backward. Her eyes adopted a sharp, fiery light, hardening as her finger clobbered the button again.

The ear-piercing beep flew out of the remote again, sending a literal electric shock through the mechanical monster’s brain as the eyes burned brightly again.

It turned its head in the tree’s direction, its neck popping and hissing loudly as it released a cloud of ammonia-smelling gas into the atmosphere. Its feet tapped the ground slowly, sending soft shockwaves as a shrill, repetitive beep pierced the air like a garbage truck in reverse. The tail rapidly wagged as it approached the Evil Con Carne leader, flicking the heavy odors in all directions as they passed the tree and the sleeping beings underneath. The paramilitary commander turned her attention toward Hectara and Boskova, her grin exposing her frantically grinning teeth as she circled her finger over the button.

After several seconds, she slammed the button, unleashing a cloud of noxiously tangy greenish brown gas that flew straight into the bear’s mouth as the latter yawned and stretched.

Boskova’s eyes snapped open, frantically scanning the surrounding area, but their heavy eyelids drooped down before she could respond. Her pupils fell toward the ground, the world around her slightly blurry, and she started to wheeze a little with her tongue slightly sticking out. “P.U.!” she said quietly, lungs and eyes itching as she inhaled a powerful blast of air, and then blasted the disgusting air back outside, her cheeks and eyes slightly reddening as the veins inside them slightly grew.

Skarr’s fingers trembled around the remote, the plastic glistening with sweat. Her smile wobbling, lips twitching rapidly as the putrid cloud dug itself into her nostrils, its reek of burned chemicals bringing water to her eyes. The air around her shimmered with the oncoming brownish haze, creeping closer like a tiger stalking its prey.

She jerked her head up from the machine, her pupils blowing wide, a loud gasp escaping her mouth, but she was too late. The cloud hit her face with a weightless thud—soft as a blanket, but reeking of death. It slid over her skin like electric static, a jolt stabbing through her spine, and then her skin began to crackle like fire running along telephone wires.

Her skin burned to grayish brown ash within seconds, the remote following suit as it quietly crackled in her palm. A sudden gust of wind swept over the metal beast’s head, and the petrified body tumbled off, crumbling slightly as it smacked the ground.

After about twenty minutes, Skarr had recovered and reassembled herself again, her skin still itchy from the cracks the burns had given her.

She was perched on top of the Enriqueta Jr. robot’s head once more, the metal underneath her slightly bobbing up and down as the robot sniffed the area again. Its footsteps sent quiet tremors through the pavement yet again, the asphalt slowly crumbling under the paws’ weight. The buildings surrounding it were all set ablaze, the smoke polluting the air like a failed barbecue. The fiery stink emerged from the cracked walls and collapsed metal heaps, their mustardy tang stirring a hypnotic tune that tickled everyone’s noses. In addition, the huge red dome eyes burned brighter than ever, the heat fighting against the glass walls to escape the confines. Hectara and Boskova walked a few yards behind the metallic monstrosity, the air stroking their eyes with the sting of poison ivy.

“The tests are testing great, Skarr!” Hectara complimented, the fluid in her brain dome flashing its sickly green light as Boskova’s eyelids grew heavier, “Only 236 more tests to test!”

Skarr’s face hardened in agreement, the corners of her mouth pulling upward and her brow furrowing into the bridge of her nose.

The metal Chihuahua emerged from behind a building, its nose hissing as it released slow drafts of musty air. Its feet tapped the pavement beneath, crunching tiny stones to meal as it slinked further into the view of potential enemies. It whirred its head to the left and white, the eyes giving off an electric sensation as they spread among the thick domes like wildfire. It stopped briefly as soon as its full body was visible, tail flicking the dust in all directions like a hurricane.

Skarr quickly jerked her head back so fast her brain bounced off the back of her skull. The dog responded almost immediately, jumped in front of the building in response, wind blasting against a metal wall as it landed surprisingly silently.

Its rider craned her head downward, the joints in her neck creaking slowly as she stared at the ground, prompting the giant metallic head to follow suit with its own wailing creak. The general looked down at the remote, her eyes twitching in their sockets, stealing occasional glances at the view behind the wall as sweat cascaded down her slightly reddened skin. Her right index finger caressed the shiny metal of the smaller machine, the sparkles flickering quickly as another electric sensation slithered through her limbs.

She finally settled on a button close to the screen, giving it a hard stab with her callused finger. The green words PLAY FETCH popped up on the screen, zipping their signal to the gigantic robot below.

Hectara and Boskova also emerged from behind the building, the former scanning for a vantage point. The latter sniffed the air warily, her nose twitching as the layers of rot and chemicals tangled in her sinuses. The wind howled quietly as usual, swirling with its charred particles, brushing their skin with invisible grit.

But the moment offered no peace—a screech of metal split the air—closer this time—and the stench of ammonia rushed toward them like a thinly veiled threat. The thick air shoved itself against their bodies, nearly knocking them off their feet. Before they hit the ground, a wide maw of steel snapped down on them, the hinges above them groaning as the mechanism compressed like a monstrous trash compactor.

Skarr’s smile exposed her unevenly shining teeth yet again, her finger tingling faster than ever. It jumped across the controller, tapping the flat surface quickly as if it were lit on fire, and settled itself on another button, slamming it hard to the bottom of the contraption. The words BURY THE BONE graced the screen, prompting the same electric sensation in its eyes.

The dog leapt forward with a speed that betrayed its bulk, its landing soft and silent save for a few whirring servos in its joints. It turned its nose toward the ground, sniffing wildly as its familiar ammonia reek slowly swirled into the air. After a few seconds, it raised its paws into the air, the vacuum below them thickening as the joints whirred their usual high-pitched scream.

Several seconds later, the dog slashed the ground open, creating a large opening and digging quickly with quick strokes that shot the dirt backward like machine gun ammo. It descended further toward the Earth’s bottom, its sharp claws tearing apart the asphalt like wet toilet paper, exuding an uneasy energy that shook Skarr around the place. When that was finished, it placed Hectara and Boskova into the opening, the bear’s fur tingling as it scanned the surrounding area.

“Well,” Skarr chuckled as the giant dog flung dirt around the asphalt and hit “Hectara's toy worked pretty good.” She turned around and walked the other way, her teeth chattering and her smile tugging tightly at the corners of her mouth as the robot Chihuahua’s whirring joints launched it in the air. “Good riddance to bad rubbish,” she said, throwing the remote control behind her onto the pile the giant dog had created as it landed softly onto the heavy mound.

Unfortunately, the remote displaced a few small stones, one of them flicking a button very close to the screen. The mechanism beeped to life once more, the words on its screen reading BEGIN SELF DESTRUCT SEQUENCE in neon green font, vibrating like an out-of-control drill.

“Self-destruct will occur in T minus ten seconds,” the robot began, its jaws parting and releasing the usual noxious gas.

Nine…

The controller lay there on the mound.

Eight…

The words FETCH CHEW TOY appeared on the screen.

Seven…

The dog caught up with Skarr, who had thrown off her uniform.

Six…

The robot grabbed Skarr in its jaws, its motors letting out a bloodcurdling whir.

Five…

The robot tossed her upward, the general’s skin tingling rapidly.

Four…

Skarr was suddenly shaken around, her brain thrashing the walls of her skull.

Three…

The general looked out into the ruined landscape before them.

Two…

The giant robotic dog grabbed her by her torso again.

One...

She stared out from her confines, eyes wide and vibrating against their sockets.

BOOM!!! Bunny Island’s main rock was torn apart; fragments of stone, metal, and asphalt flying in all directions as the water blasted itself against the surrounding jagged rocks.

About an hour later, Skarr was back in her room, her body aching intensely and her eyes beating steadily like miniature hearts.

Her right arm was sprawled toward her left, its starchy cast caressing the skin underneath as sweat built up a putrid odor in this place. Her left leg (also in a cast, which Major Dr. Ghastly and Boskova had written their messages on) was partially suspended from the ceiling, its pelvic joint slowly creaking and creating a slightly softer and hotter tingling throughout its owner’s skin. Her head was also partially mummified, the hair itching intensely and the skin underneath the eyes having become more shadow. Skarr looked around her, the world around her slightly blurry, and grabbed the remote control from a pile of half-eaten food and trash, flicking on the TV to a football game happening miles away.

“It is fourth down and one yard to go,” the announcer chirped, his voice’s energy zipping around the room and stirring the energy in Skarr’s body, “and the score is tied with only five seconds on the clock—"

But her broadcast was interrupted by a sudden change in the screen, the blue light hanging over Skarr’s head like an ominous sea monster, flashing the words IMPORTANT MESSAGE in red like an urgent warning.

“Ahem,” Major Dr. Ghastly’s voice rung out, its tone soft like stuffed animals but creeping onto Skarr’s face like a wayward spider. “We interrupt this program to bring you an important message.”

Skarr’s brow furrowed downward as her eyes twitched faster, her mouth opening as if letting out an exasperated groan.

“Greetings, Skarr,” Hectara began, her brain dome flashing that same familiar sickly tint of green as Boskova smiled and waved at the paramilitary commander. “It is my sincerest hope that you get well soon.” The two stood alongside Ghastly in the command center, the head mad scientist’s eyes sparkling brightly behind his goggles, the bear staring off into space with one raised eyebrow, and the former playgirl’s gaze harder and fierier than ever. “Because you've got to work off the fifty million bucks you owe for that robot you broke!” she continued, her top dome flashing like a police siren once again and sending shivers throughout the injured general’s body.

“Hey! You can't do—” Skarr protested, her right eye twitching faster than ever as her hat flew off her head, but she was cut off once more by the static coming from the TV, which then took her back to the football game.

“Who-wee, folks!” the announcer continued, her smile beaming across the stadium for all to see. “You can tell your grandkids that you just won the absolute best play in football history!”

The paramilitary commander just sat there, her eyes beating even more intensely at the chain of events that had turned this night upside down for her.

She heard the pigeons around her cooing that same lullaby no one wanted to hear, the bluish one tapping on her head as if it were a solid rock.

She pulled a box of birdseed out from under her bed with her left hand, emptying the contents into her mouth, and painfully blowing them out as the birds reached over to grab their fill.

This night had truly been a rough one for her, but at least there was some fun she could have the following day. She would have to work off the enormous amount of money she owed Hectara, but it would also open up plenty of opportunities to try better tactics against her boss. And maybe—maybe—someday she would be able to help design a better Enriqueta Jr. robot without the lag in reaction time.