Robin Hood: Cats in Tights
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The world was spinning.
This, in and of itself, wasn't unusual in any way. The world usually spun
for this particular author. It was strange if it wasn't spinning. However,
on this occasion, the world was spinning awfully fast. It was making even
her stomach churn. And that was quite unusual.
"Is Drapes coming around?"
"I is she think."
"You know what's really sad? I actually understood that. Remind me to avoid
you in the future unless absolutely necessary."
Ayanna identified the two voices as belonging to RD and LD. It was rather
amazing that three little letters, when put together in a certain way, could
strike fear and terror into the hearts of those around. Or at least
confusion, if not fear and terror. Maybe even bewilderment. Astonishment
came to mind, too, actually. And now that Ayanna thought about it, there was
almost an amused condescension associated with those letters. And more than
that--
"She's even hyper when she's thinking," came a whisper.
Ah. ??i ? was there, too. Now if only she could figure out how to pronounce
that...
"Okay, she's awake. I can see her twitching from over here. Somebody get
her
on her feet."
Ayanna decided she'd be thinking long enough and jumped to her feet on her
own. "Ha!" she crowed. "Thought you could get me up! Thought you
could make
me to stand! Thought you could tell that I was awake! Well, you were WRONG!
I did it all by myself!"
RD arched an eyebrow. "Congratulations?"
The cheetah bounced happily around the room. "Thank you, thank you, thank
you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you..."
"LD, fetch me my elephant gun."
"Why don't you just produce it from behind your back?" Benni wondered.
"Because it's not princely."
"Oh."
In the meantime, the insane lunatic had wandered over to a rather convenient
gun cabinet and taken the enormous firearm out. Twirling it at arm's length,
he pranced back to RD. "Found I gun your."
"Thanks," RD growled, aware that he'd also understood that sentence.
This
was becoming serious. Pushing thoughts like that aside, he shouldered his
weapon, drew a bead on the frolicking cheetah through the scope, and--
"NO!!!"
Glass shattered above him as a feline form came sailing in through a stained
glass window. Behind her, a golden figure clutched his head and moaned.
"NO! That is NOT how you catch dinner. You have to surprise it!"
"Tygris?" Ayanna stopped jumping off the walls long enough to see that
Tygris was sprawled on top of RD with an elephant gun held firmly in her
massive jaws.
"Rrr ubb ahhh riii?" she asked around the gun barrel.
"Huh?"
"Tygris!" Chanur dropped in beside the tiger and glared at her
sternly. "You
were supposed to land on the table and grab the steak, not the gun! How can
you ever become a real predator if you don't know the difference between
meat and metal?"
"You guys came here looking for food?" Ayanna asked. "So did I!
And I
almost--"
"Hang on, Ayanna!" another voice cried out. The great doors that
barred the
hall shuddered once under the force of a massive attack, shuddered again as
the attack was repeated, and then splintered as a green nincompoop came
barreling through with all the force and power of a Sherman tank. Behind him
raced a teeth-snapping Thundera Tiger, a mushroom-holding and
mushroom-taunting Peachyra, a warding-fiercely-against-mushroom-evil
Kamanchee, a bleary-eyed Tygra, a sword-swinging Lion-O, and a
running-into-walls-while-deep-in-thought Lynx-O.
"Demons and ministers of evil, defend us!" RD whispered.
"That's it!" Fianna roared. "Nobody butchers Shakespeare,
especially Hamlet,
in my presence!"
"Tygris? Chanur?" Peachyra questioned. "What are you doing
here?"
"Chanur was going to show me how a real predator hunts," Tygris
explained
after dropping the elephant gun. "And I thought I heard something funny,
but
then I decided I hadn't, and then--"
"You were hunting in a castle?" Thundera Tiger interrupted in
disbelief.
"We were stealing steak."
"THAT'S NOT HUNTING!!!" the bengal tiger roared.
Chanur sniffed imperiously. "I'd like to see you do better."
By this time, RD had managed to scramble away from all the intruders and
toward a strange, electronic box on the castle wall. Preparing himself for
evil work, he whistled sharply and caught everyone's attention. Well, almost
everyone. Peachyra was making circles with her mushroom, Kamanchee was
looking for somewhere to hide, and Ayanna was running figure-eights around
two columns.
"Now that you're all here," the evil dictator began, noticing the few
who
were not paying attention and resolving to do something evil about it later,
"I have a few words to say. First of all, you can do nothing in this land.
None of you relate to the people, and none of them will listen to you.
They're all under my control."
"Oh, they'll listen," Lion-O promised. "They'll listen because we
have
something you don't. Tell them, Kam."
Kam looked away from Peachyra in surprise. "What?"
"Tellthem!"
"Oh yeah." Kamanchee strutted forward and assumed his most dignified
English
position. "You see, unlike some other Robin Hoods, I can make truly
authentic British cake."
The hall gasped. Kamanchee smiled and started to turn away when something
else caught his attention.
"Ah, you must be the Maid ??i ?. Rumors of your beauty have traveled far
and
wide, but they hardly do you justice."
"Now he's saying it," RD murmured, glancing over at LD who was amusing
himself by spinning in circles until he fell down. "How do they do
it?"
"The name is Benni," Benni responsed sternly, but her eyes were
softening
slightly.
"Kam! She's on the other side!" Thundera Tiger hissed.
"Oh, right." Kamanchee straightened and bowed. "To be continued
later."
"Enough!" RD shouted. He began punching numbers into the electronic
box.
Finishing, he turned around and gave them all a smile that could have sent
TugMug running for cover. "Behold my army. And tremble before my
wrath."
"Getting a little theatric, aren't we?" Fianna asked.
At his side, he felt TT stiffen. "No. Not really," she said.
"By Jaga," Tygra gasped behind them.
A large portion of the castle wall opened up, revealing hundreds of
potential characters. But there was a difference between these potential
characters and the potential characters they'd faced in the past. These were
becoming actual characters. And they were all changing into...
"NOOOOOOO!!!!"
One hundred and thirty-five Grunes all clad in a pink G-string smiled
menacingly and began to advance.
* * * *
Sher Kahn butted his head against the bars of his cage, imagining that it
was the bars and not his skull that he felt start to give. The dark clad
figure who'd remained in his room since the tiger had regained consciousness
had watched in total silence. His partner in crime had left after a while,
having thought of some plan that would rid them of Fianna and Tygra. Sher
Kahn was a little hazy on the details. Pounding one's head against metal
bars for four straight hours had a tendency to do that. But he knew it
involved Thunderwolf, Shark, and a mushroom.
"And I thought TT hated mushrooms," he moaned, ramming the bars yet
again.
"How did they get into the story?"
He turned around in the cramped quarters of his cells as much as he was able
and then started ramming a different set of bars. This kept up for a few
more minutes and then the door opened. Kahn looked up hopefully, thinking
that maybe someone on Team Tiger had found him and a set of keys. But no
such luck. It was the second of his captors returning.
"I cannot set things in motion until the groups separate again," she
reported.
"I will not manifest until those two have been eliminated," her master
warned.
"I know. I have an idea. We'll have to use Kahn again, though, so you'll
have to summon Imhotep."
"He does not belong here. He is not of the Thundercat world. It goes
against
my--"
"Forget your stupid teachings and just call him. We need his meat to drug
Kahn and we need his power to control Kahn once he's drugged."
"Very well. But I warn you not to push me. If you fail in this, the
punishment will be severe."
"I will not fail, master. For I, too, am a master."
Sher Kahn had now backed into a corner of his cage, certain that he was
going to be in serious trouble within the next few minutes and equally
certain that he couldn't do anything about it. He was right on both counts.
A hand suddenly emerged from a dirt wall, grasping and bloody. It was
followed by an arm, then a shoulder, and then a torso and head. Kahn
wrinkled his nose in disgust as the smell of rotting flesh filled the tiny
room. Working his way completely into the room, a walking corpse surveyed
the occupants and roared. A contest of wills seemed to ensue, and eventually
Imhotep roared again and turned toward Sher Kahn.
The siberian would have backed further away had he been able to. A bony hand
reached through the bars of his cage. Kahn quickly slapped at it and shifted
positions. If he'd understood the previous conversation correctly, the meat
from this disgusting monstrosity would basically make him a slave to their
wills. He couldn't afford to use his teeth, reducing him to paws and claws.
Which wasn by no means an inadequate weapon.
The hand came at him again and again he batted it away, but this time, the
corpse's other hand came as well. Faster than even Ayanna, the hand seized
Sher Kahn by the back of his neck and twisted.
Though he weighed in excess of 800 pounds and was nothing by solid muscle,
Kahn found himself flipped onto his side. The hand not pinning him down came
toward his face and he struck out again. But the angle had changed and he
couldn't get his forepaws high enough. Bearing gleaming teeth that could
crush bone and rend hide, he snarled warningly, fighting the instinct to
bite and knowing he fought a losing battle. The hand was too close. It was
in his face. He could smell the meat on the carcass and he couldn't remember
that last time he'd eaten. In a wild fury of anger, rage, hunger, and pure
feral instinct, Sher Kahn struck out and tore a sizable chunk out of the
mummy's arm.
Imhotep immediately released him and stepped back, watching as the
realization of what he'd done flashed through the tiger's eyes. Sher Kahn
roared and slammed his body against the bars of the cage, but the damage had
been done. His vision dimming, Kahn assaulted the bars one last time before
falling heavily to the floor.
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TBC