Robin Hood: Cats in Tights
__________________________
"You're supposed to do what with this?"
Thunderwolf grimaced, eyeing the instrument of Fianna's destruction. "I
told
her that a mace would work just as well. Maybe even better. But she was very
insistent that we had to use this. And even I'll admit that she knows her
stuff when it comes to killing."
Shark scratched his head and sniffed at the sack TW had been given. "I
don't
get it. What's so deadly about a bunch of mushrooms on a string?"
"That's what I asked."
"And she said..."
"She said that this would take Fianna and Tygra out of the picture."
Shark folded his arms across his chest and frowned. "But mushrooms? These
aren't even poisonous mushrooms. She really said this would kill Fianna?"
"Yes." Thunderwolf suddenly stopped and thought about it. "Well,
no.
Actually, she never did say that. I kept asking her how this would kill him,
but all she would say was that this would eliminate him from the story."
"Which is like killing. I guess," Shark mused. "Maybe they're
hallucinogenic?"
"Wrong kind," TW said. "No, these are just your garden variety
mushrooms."
"You mean underground variety."
"What?"
"Commercial mushrooms aren't grown in a garden, they're grown
underground,"
Shark explained.
"What does that have to do with anything?"
"Blessed be the fungi. Blessed be song and note. Blessed be the silly me
who
needs someone to quote."
TW and Shark looked up from their mushrooms in surprise as Zhie, this time
with full minstrel costume and mandolin, pranced into their conversation.
"I don't want to know," Shark murmured.
"Okay, Zhie, I'll bite," TW growled. "What are you doing?"
"Of messages and muse, I sing. Of messages and muse." Dr. Zhie leaped
into
the air with the intention of performing a beautiful double axle and and
ended up landing on her head.
"That's going to hurt in the morning," Shark observed.
Zhie glared at the icthyoid and imperiously regained her feet,
surreptitiously dusting off the dirt. TW picked up her mandolin and began
unstringing it.
"These would make great garroting wires," he noted, examining the
individual
strings with a critical eye.
Zhie seized her instrument and wires. "I can see that my talents will be of
no help here," she snapped.
"I wasn't done looking at that," TW rumbled ominously.
"I once knew a cat," Zhie growled. "And he was all fluff. His
ramblings and
cursings were just a big bluff. The Lord of the Thundercats, with no outside
help, could beat up and tie up and kill this sad whelp. He spent all his
days with a moldy old fish, and they--"
"YOU ARE ONE DEAD CHEETAH!" TW roared, springing for the doctor. Shark
was
right behind him and Zhie's cheetah reflexes barely enabled her to spring
out of range before certain disaster descended on her skull.
"He lost all his battles for his brain had no wit," Zhie taunted from
a
safer distance. "And all that he said was a truckload of--Aaagghhh!"
"You were saying?" TW asked pleasantly with a dangerous smile as his
hands
closed around the cheetah's throat. Behind Zhie, Shark smacked his lips in
anticipation.
"Minstrels are neutral," Zhie managed to croak.
"Neutral? Shark, do you know what that means?"
Shark nodded. "No repercussions when you tear her head off."
Thunderwolf's smile widened. "That's right. No repercussions. Not that we'd
worry about them anyway, but..." TW suddenly broke off and looked up. Eyes
narrowed, he stared into the surrounding forest, then turned to Shark as
though to say something. But he never got a chance, because charging out of
the underbrush came...
"GET DOWN!"
TW shoved Zhie to the side and launched himself at Shark, slamming the
icthyoid to the ground. Overhead flew eight hundred pounds of raw feline
fury complete with foaming mouth and insane roar. Hitting the ground with a
solid thud, Sher Kahn pivoted and turned, tail lashing violently from side
to side. Another roar shook the surrounding forest and the siberian's eyes
flashed with crazed anger. His hindlegs bunched slightly, and then he
charged again.
TW was moving long before the second charge. The moment Kahn had hit the
ground, the lion had rolled off a startled shark and moved into a battle
stance. Evaluating the situation with the mind of a tactical genius in a
split second, he leaped forward and rolled. His movements carried him
beneath Kahn's pounce and as soon as the tiger was above him, TW lashed
upward with a powerful forearm blow to Kahn's ribcage. Yelping in surprise,
Kahn found himself thrown to the side. Recovering instantly, he snarled at
TW one more time and then vanished back into the forest. Thunderwolf
watched him going, alert for any sign that the tiger was circling to come at
them from a different angle.
"You might have warned me," Shark groaned. "There's usually some
foreplay
involved."
"It was a spur of the moment thing," TW replied, still listening for
Sher
Kahn's return.
Deciding that discretion was the better part of valor, Zhie grabbed the
remains of her mandolin and left.
* * * *
"Maybe...maybe if we got someone drunk," Spark murmured to herself,
thumming
through yet another ancient book of spells, "REALLY drunk, they could act
like Imhotep and Imhotep would show up because he wouldn't want anyone
impersonating him and then I could use Tatiana's spells and get control back
and..." Spark eventually trailed off and shook her head. "Or
not."
Putting the spellbook on a counter, she rubbed her eyes and stretched. "I'm
tired," she decided. "And I'm hungry. Time for food." The Aztec
checked the
time and decided that the feast upstairs should be winding down by now. That
meant no LD, limited RD, and relative peace and quiet. Confident that she
could eat without having to deal with a psychotic teenager and an evil
dictator arguing about sentence structure and lunacy, Spark left the arcane
workroom for the banquet hall.
Reaching the main door after a few minutes, she reached for the handle to
pull it open but before she could reach it, it flew open in her face. She
recovered just in time to get out of the way of a flying Grune clad in
nothing more than a pink G-string.
Shocked, appalled, and thoroughly disgusted, Spark decided that food really
wasn't as important as she'd thought it was and turned to leave.
Only to come face to face with flashing eyes, razor-sharp teeth, and a roar
that shook all of Riveroland Castle to its foundation.
"HELP!!!"
____________________________
TBC