PART 3
"You needed my help to steal a pancake truck?"
Niro dug his paws into the steering wheel. He was twitching from being in such proximity to so many pancakes. "But the legends, Tai, the legends..."
Tai shook his head, then held up his hand. "Shh... what's that?" They were currently parked under a bridge. Dramatically, the two's eyes slid to the glass of water sitting in the cup holder.
Ripples ran through the surface.
"We have to get out of here..." Niro said, his voice the faintest whisper. Both of them sat rigid with their backs pressed tightly against the seat.
The lumbering pound of paws drew closer.
As silently as possible, Niro fumbled the keys into the ignition and turned. The starter lurched and died. A bit more frantically, he tried again. And again.
Giant white paws showed themselves in the mirrors.
"YIIIIIIPPP!!!"
Screaming, Niro gave the starter a dramatic turn and the engine roared to life. Flooring the gas pedal, the pancake truck burst into daylight as the bridge shattered to a million pieces.
"Must go faster! Must go faster!!" Tai pointed out helpfully, wedging his body into the back seat cushion as far as possible.
"I'm trying! I'm trying!!!"
The truck buzzed down the highway, weaving in-between smashed cars left-and-right. Suddenly the paws in the mirror disappeared and a shadow loomed over them.
"Abandon ship!!" Niro opened the door and rolled out on to the pavement.
Tai sat mouth agape for a moment, then fumbled with his safety belt and ducked out his door, painfully rolling on the pavement several times. The truck sped on, and he looked up in time to see the giant foxtaur fly over his head and finish the second half of his giant fox-pounce, crunching the truck into nothing as its contents spilled into the air. The monster reared on its hind legs before bounding off happily.
Tai picked up one of the flattened cakes that landed by his head. But it wasn't a pancake... it was... a waffle with a paw-print indentation?
"The legends were true~!" Niro fell to the ground and raised his paws skyward. "It's raining waffles!"
"That... that doesn't make any sense!"
Niro looked serious for a moment. "Legend states that waffles were born from a pancake that had been stepped on. That giant foxtaur is a giant well of toon physics. Just put two-and-two together..."
Tai's eye developed a nervous twitch that day which never really went away the rest of his life.
----
"MEW HA HA HA HA!!!!"
Pontos was late in retuning to the city's center, and pushed his way through the crowd. KaiAdin was in his prince uniform, which meant he had a Brilliant Plan on par with Lord Julian's. Or he had drunk coffee. Or both. "Oh, gods..."
"I shall stop the giant foxtaur!" Kai mewed triumphantly, "By striking the luddite down with the impregnable aura of TECHNOLOGY!!" As he said the last word, he lifted an object into the air that shown with a radiance so bright, all of the crowd shaded their eyes from the intense shininess.
It was the KaiPad.
"I.... I have one too..." Traxer muttered as he touched the tips of his fingers together and shifted his eyes, "... you know..."
Kai spun and flipped his cape. "Now watch and learn, as I singled-pawedly defeat the giant four-footed menace with SCIENCE!!!"
"SCIENCE!!" Dr. Richardson jumped on the platform with Kai and screamed in approval.
Kai shifted his eyes, then pushed the scientist off. "My limelight!"
"Sorry."
Kai then pointed dramatically. By now, most of the crowd had donned sunglasses so that the KaiPad's brilliance would not blind them. With dexterous paw-fingers, he traced out complicated patterns upon the KaiPad, which sparked and glowed with swirly technological luminance. Traxer immediately went to the app store to purchase whatever program Kai had. Suddenly the ground shook, and a giant metal kitty head with blue hair rose from the river, parting the waves in theatric anime fashion. Tallyn found a dark alley away from everyone else to curl up and hide in and was not able to be coaxed out for weeks.
"MEW HA HA HA HA!!!" Kai bellowed as he jumped fifty feet (15.24 meters) straight up and landed on top of the head. It was a giant kitty mech, painted a brilliant orange, save the blue headtuft. It had a face that looked somewhat like this:
>:3
Kai slipped through the hatch and fell into the control room, where he took up the levers and pushed the blinking buttons. The roar of engines sounded, and the machine bellowed a deafening electronic "MEWMEW".
The crowd parted in panic as giant metal kitty paws tore through the streets. "I shall save the city," Kai's voice rang out, amplified over the loudspeaker, "with KITTYPOWER!!"
With that, the jet boosters kicked in, and the KaiMech blasted over the buildings in a bounding leap.
Virmir was distracted tearing apart a parking garage when the KaiMech landed behind him. He shuffled his four feet to turn, giant fluffy tail taking out a bus on the way.
"Giant luddite fox!! FEEL THE TASTE OF TECHNOLOGY!!!" Kai's voice projected menacingly. The twin gun ports on either side of the mech fired rockets with orange kitty heads.
Virmir scratched his head confusedly. "I have a degree in computer science, you know... --OOOOF!!"
The rockets exploded on impact with his upper chest, and Virmir was sent spiraling backwards into a skyscraper. Every single window pane shattered, and the mass crumbled on top of him in dramatic, smoky slow-motion. "You will destroy this city NO MORE!!" Kai screamed.
The giant taur climbed out of the wreckage with swirly-toon-eyes, then shook his head and snarled ferally at the robot. Opening his mouth, a surging ball of flame billowed forth. The mech crossed its arms over its face to block the blast, which took out the two buildings on either side of the street. Virmir bounded in front of the mech, then the two locked arms and grappled. The mech was stronger, but the taur had much better leverage, so pushed the KaiMech backwards as its metal kitty feet tore the streets to ribbons.
----
"How's he doing?" Tvorsk asked as he sat next to Pontos and watched the clash of titans on the horizon. At least the park was safe.
"Well, Kai's kicking the tar out of him," Pontos shook his head. "But he's a toon, so nothing hurts..."
Meanwhile Dess had abandoned his mining operation and was busy rebuilding the city as it got destroyed with his small team of volunteers. He was doing an amazing job, and the results were sprawling stone towers with cascading strategically placed waterfalls. It was beautiful, if not a little blocky. He kept passing by muttering how he needed more obsidian, though.
Tvorsk rubbed his chin after the green-haired silver fox raced by on a minecart. "We'll have to try a different approach."
Kit was looking very frazzled, but kept telling people he was okay whenever they looked at him funny. "If only I could conjure a bigger snow storm..."
"We'll need more than that... we'll have to hit him with everything he hates, all at once..."
Pontos whispered. "A Perfect Storm..."
"Right... we'll need to get him to curl up into a fetal position and shrink back... Hmmmm... what else does he hate?" Tvorsk sounded a little uneasy.
"Holidays."
"Music."
"Uhm... he's atheist?"
"Hmmm... anything that's in the popular media, or over-marketed for sure..."
All three of them looked at each other, and went, "Hmmmm...."
----
"I'm an Art Genie!" Tod declared with artistic flair. He quickly sketched out a cartoon fox in thin air, and it sat there and blinked, looking absolutely adorable, water-colored tones and fuzzy tail and all.
"Great!" Pontos said. "I'll need one hundred more."
Tod blinked, then ran his fingers through his hair. "One hundred more?"
Pontos forced a wad of cash into his other hand. "One hundred more."
Tod looked at the money, then grinned. "I'm an Art Genie!"
----
Yurodivy put the phone down.
"Who was that?" Feathertail asked.
"Big sewing order." She wing-shrugged, then walked into her workshop.
"Oh?"
"Yup. Santa hats. Hundreds of them."
----
"You sure this will work?" Kit knocked the side of the big metal box as if testing for structural integrity."
"Yep," Donnie said, busy screwing some gadget back together. Wires and gears stuck out every-which-way. He looked absolutely adorable with his tongue sticking out as he worked the screwdiver. "It's my special power. I can build anything, from anything."
"But... we didn't even give give you any metal! It was literally a gum wrapper, a pencil, and two old shoes!"
"Anything from anything!!"
----
"Sorry to hear about the mech." Tvorsk patted Kai's back.
"Mew... it's okay." Kai's whiskers were a little droopy from his giant kitty-mech falling apart. While it was good for exactly one-thousand beatings, giant cartoon foxtaurs could take exactly infinity beatings, and therefore warranty would not cover the damage. "It was six months old anyway... time for a new one!" His ears perked, and Tvorsk shifted his eyes.
"Anyway!" he leapt to his feet and pointed enthusiastically, "Dessy helped me build a tower!" A glimmering tower of obsidian and glass stood triumphantly where the old business district used to be. All around stood breathtaking castles with flying buttresses and dramatic gardens with flowing waterfalls and blocky trees. The fact of the matter was, Dess built faster than Virmir destroyed. At this very moment he was impatiently waiting for the giant foxtaur to topple another building so he could get on with his next masterpiece.
"We're almost ready," LurkingWolf said as he handed the two their caroling books. Tvorsk took his and shuddered. "We carol all the time back home," Lurking explained. "Helps forcefully spread the misery-- I mean joy, whether you like it or not."
PastaMasta and Xand finished bandaging up 2dogsandaDJ and helped him to his feet. "I'm more of a dagger guy, anyway..." DJ held up his broken ninja sword, leaning on his crutch with the other. Unfortunately he had gotten the idea that trying to cut the tail off the giant foxtaur would cause him to shrink back to normal. It Did Not End Well.
Geary was almost all the way into his otter costume, and was getting a good number of strange looks. "What? Viri HATES otters!"
"I always thought it was more of finding them thoroughly unimpressive, as opposed to hating..." Tvorsk scratched his head.
"No, he HATES them!" After a few more blank stares passed his way, he began jumping up and down. "If I say it enough times, it will become true!!"
LoCk shifted his eyes.
"Make way!" The giant crane beeped and opened its hatch, and one hundred and one Tod-foxes spilled onto the pavement. It was a tremendous pile of irresistible cuteness.
"That's a lot of foxes." Tvorsk commented, taking off his shades.
Meanwhile, Tod had used his last art-djinni spell of the day to draw himself a jet-liner and fly back to Seattle ASAP.
"Hold it!" Fizzie screamed. He bounded out of the crowd and scampered up the Pile of Cute Foxes, planting himself at the very top. He fanned his eight tails out, and his eyes were so adorable that everyone had to look away to avoid exposure damage.
"Perfect!" Pontos gave a thumbs-up. "We're ready. Places, everyone!"
No sooner than the streets were cleared did the lumbering shake of four giant paws tremble the earth. Virmir peeked around a building and his giant eyes went as wide as antique satellite dishes as they took in the bait. "Ooooooo...." He scampered over to the fox pile giddily, which is quite a sight for a taur, and quite another thing altogether for a giant taur. Street lamps uprooted like thin sticks assaulted by his giant wagging featherduster of a tail.
"Now!" Pontos screamed.
High above on one of the newer obsidian towers, Kit poured his spell into the shoe at the end of Donnie's weather magnification machine. (The other shoe served as a crank, which Donnie turned with much conviction.) Snow billowed from the hole at top, and the skies instantly turned dark.
"What's this?!" The giant foxtaur asked nervously as his ears folded and his tail retreated between his legs. He twitched as tiny flakes of white fluff fell upon his massive frame.
"Ooooo oooo ooo a-ooo ooo oooo ooo~!" The carolers sang, stepping out of the shadows into the winter wonderland, the balls of their Santa-hats blowing in the frigid air. "Ooo ooo ooo, a-ooo ooo oooooo~!" Their muzzles rose skyward as they pursed their lips, doing their best impression of The Charlie Brown Christmas Special.
"GAAAAH~!" More windows shattered as the giant foxtaur screamed. He tripped over his own four legs and his giant rear smashed into the ground, front paws digging gouges in the snowy pavement. He looked as if he would pull his own ears off, he covered them with so much force. "It's not Christmas!! IT'S NOT CHRISTMAS!!!"
Dess' giant Christmas tree lit up at that moment (though all the lights were orange, as all he had were torches) and Virmir fell over with a thunderous BOOM, writhing in agony. "NoooooOOOOOOOOO~!!!!!!"
"Ooo ooo ooo, a-ooo ooo ooo~!" the carolers continued, circling the monster. His body contored and shrunk, twitching all the way as snow covered him. After a short moment, there was nothing but a tiny balled-up feral gray fox, who was quickly buried by white powder.
"Okay, okay! That's enough!" Everyone fell silent and Pontos rushed forward and pulled out a frozen dead lump from the snow. "We... we killed him..."
"Oh..." Everyone stood around, scratching the backs of their heads and looking very guilty but at the same time wondering if they could pass on the blame to the person next to hem.
A little jackal burst from the crowd, defibrillator paddles sparking. "Clear!!" Medik shouted.
Pontos dropped the corpse and leapt out of the way.
----
A gray fox sits in a chair, hands on his lap, folded, looking at you with intense sincerity. The camera zooms in, smoothly, professionally. His perfect white cartoon eyes radiate trust, compassion, understanding...
"My name name is Kendo Virmir, and I..." he swallows, "I was a Giant Taurification Potion addict."
The camera angle changes and you are now looking at him from a forty-five degree angle. He turns smoothly and looks at you again, as if he were totally expecting you to teleport ten feet to the right and there was nothing strange about doing that at all. "If you, a family member, or a loved one is suffering from a Giant Taurification Potion addiction, I can help."
"555-GIANTTAURNOMORE" flashes on the bottom of the screen.
"Please call this number right now, and I will send you a free brochure detailing my resort and rehab center. As part of this program, I kindly ask you to bring any and all Giant Taurification Potion you may have with you, so that I can personally destroy it," he shifts his eyes, "myself."
The camera angle changes to its original position again, and he turns once more, because random spontaneous teleportation still does not bother him. "There are, many, many more things in life than smashing cars with your feet. As my dear, dear friends were kind enough to show me..." The camera zooms in slowly, dramatically... "So, very, very many other things to deal with..."
He grins toothily as the scene fades, and monks chant in epic Latin verses against the backdrop of a thundering symphony.
THE END
