Part 36
They trailed out of the empty castle, Robin still in his robe, when they were suddenly attacked by a swarm of angry sea-turtles. The bathroom pioneers struggled to fight back, but the kung-fu skill of the turtles was too much for them. They were backed into a corner, Kearbear and Shayde in front, madly trying to kick away the hard-shelled thugs. Back to silverchair stuff
" I wish we had more people!" Shayde grunted. "But we either lost them at that hotel a month ago or...or during that wack concert- Aaah!" A turtle lept onto her. Kearbear was knocked aside and Robin was chucked into a trash bin. The group was spread apart as the turtles attempted to pick them off one by one.
Suddenly, when things were at their worst, a mysterious figure appeared. He slashed the turtle ontop of Shayde ruthlessly and, laughing, helped her up. She dusted herself off and watched him finish off the rest of the evil seaturtles with his superior street-fight style and a large sword. The pioneers regrouped and helped eachother calm down as the strange boy watched them. He was perhaps of 17 or so, with dark dreds hanging loosely and creamy skin. Kearbear caught his dark sunglasses in the right light and noticed, with a shiver, that his eyes were pure white and in deep contrast with his dark eyebrows. piercing ran up his ears and a large tattoo ran above the neckline of his tight black shirt and up his neck. Kearbear edged closer to him. It wasn't a tattoo...
"It's a brand," he said blatantly, pulling up a hand to cover it.
"Oh..." Kearbear backed away, a little embarrassed.
"So! Who are you, good fellow?" Robin broke the tension with a wide grin.
The stranger looked at him and smiled oddly. "Where'd you find that?" he nodded at Robin's robe.
"Oh! Do you like it?" he twirled around. "We found it in the castle over that hill over there...a rather big house, I say. Hey, I'm Robin." he grinned amiably. "And that's Kearbear, and Shayde, Nathaniel, Scars, dreamer, Junta - oh, you'll get to know them all..." he looked expectantly at the dark boy.
He only smiled and said "Pleasure."
They stood around for a moment, expecting something more when Kearbear said, "So, uh, where'd you get the, uh, brand there?"
"It's a slave brand, burned on the backs of those taken in war by the hells."
"Oh..." Kearbear grimaced. "The hells?"
"Ornery bastards. Work for whoever hires them, usually pop stars and such. Use their power in very disagreeable ways...hence the scars." He glanced down at the long, slender scars across his hands. Kearbear assumed they went up his arms, but they were covered by his long sleeves.
"You escaped then?" Scars asked, very concerned.
"Yes, during a slave evacuation when a bunch of renegades were attacking. I'd heard about them...bunch of kids, some with powers, others just little pricks."
dreamer blushed when she realized who he was talking about. "So...what's your name?"
"Flash, son of Starblaze."
"And what bloody planet are you from?" Robin joked.
"Jeta...lightyears away. I'm still human though, just enhanced, if that makes you uncomfortable..." he replied nonchalantly.
"Oh...no. Not at all. We deal with freaks and weird stuff all the time." Robin jumped up on a platform and imitated KelNino's transformation during her version of 'Welcome to the Jungle'.
Flash chuckled. "So you're the ones who lost KelNino?"
"How'd you know?" Shayde asked.
Flash explained, "You see, guys, while I was in Hell, I heard some very interesting things. Britney teamed up with an ugly bear-like thing and decided they would capture the leader of the Bathroom Pioneers. Which would be KelNino. So anyways, then I learned that you all were lured here, so I immediately came to this place to try and save you all. Oh, and, your friend Daniel is having mad straight sex with that bear-like thing Tootie. Just to let you know."
"He is???!!!??? Bloody wanking chimney sweep child! My lover!" screamed Robin as he fell down to the ground and began to bury his head in a hole.
"It's okay Robin, it's okay," said KearBear, "Well, I guess we could use your enhanced help, since you know how to fight off horny, angry, scary, s**tty sea turtles so well."
"Thanks. It's my pleasure. Where should we start?" Flash asked, ready to tackle his new task.
"Well, I suppose we should go get Daniel, wouldn't want Tootie to take over him. Plus, that's just nasty. I need that picture out of my head," said KearBear as she led the pioneers to the old house where they'd left Daniel.
When the pioneers turned the corner to find just what Flash had said, mad straight sex between Tootie and Daniel. "Noooo! I didn't bloody believe it, but it's true! Get a room you wankers!" screamed Robin as he sat down on the grass crying and mumbling, "Guess it's just you and me Fred, you and me. You're my only lover now, and you're just a piece of clay!"
"Come on Robin, Daniel, let's go," said KearBear very impatiently.
"Well, what in hell are we going to do with Tootie?" asked Robin, as a smile came over his face.
"Go ahead Robin, do whatever you'd like," Kearbear rolled her eyes.
Daniel screamed as Robin took Tootie and sat her in a chair. He began by force feeding her Drano, but then decided he'd do something better...he took a stick of fast growing bamboo and shoved it you-know-where. "There," he said, "that bamboo oughta grow about 8 inches a day, all the way through her body."
"Dude, Robin, where'd you learn that?" asked Flash, interested.
"Well, I took this torture class once..." Robin answered.
The group all nodded their heads, then decided to leave. Tootie's moaning was too annoying for them. They then headed to the empty stadium where Kelnino/Axl had played.
"We've got to find Kelnino..." dreamer muttered as they wandered around.
"And the rest of the group, we lost a lot of them in that wack concert, you know..." Kearbear added. Sure enough, within minutes, they had found a few more of the clan, including Junta, Saurus and Redwing. Redwing looked at Flash rather oddly. "Oh, have I met you before, sir?"
Flash returned the look before a his eyes widened in delight "Redwing?! Saurus! It's me, Flash!"
"Flash!" they embraced quickly and shot into a fast conversation. "Jeezus, boy!" Redwing laughed. "what happened to you? You used to be, uh, pretty conservative..." he looked at Flash's dreds and piercings happily. Flash shrugged and pulled back the neckline of his shirt to reveal the Hell's slave brand. Apparently, Redwing needed no more explanation. He just nodded and muttered "I'm sorry, man."
"Bloody wakning chimney sweep boy! What the bloody hell is going on here!" Robin demanded.
"We used to attend battle school together! Redwing and Flash were team captains." Saurus explained, while giving Flash a playful shove.
"But aren't Redwing and Saurus from the future?" dreamer asked Flash.
"Sort of...is that what they told you? They're really from more of a parallel universe that's a couple hundred years ahead of you, same year, just more advanced. Comprendes?"
The group nodded uncertainly before dreamer asked, "Well, then how'd you meet?"
"There's a special separate universe that all battle-hopefuls are sent, no matter where they're from."
"Like in Ender's Game!...Only not another universe...and not for fighting pop...er, nevermind." Kearbear spontaneously shouted.
"So where the bloody hell are you from, damnit!" Robin was especially frustrated today at the loss of his gay lover.
"This universe, from Jeta...lightyears away."
"Well, how'd you bloody get here?"
Flash shrugged again. "Oh, long process. Takes a lot of pork rinds and chili beans-"
"Pork rinds! Aaah!" Daniel broke down in tears again.
Flash ignored Daniel and continued. "I was in school with Flash when Queen Britney from his universe was still cooperating, but when she got her full dictatoral power, she pulled all her students from the school. That was the last time I saw Redwing and Saurus. It was shortly after that when the Hells invaded the school, so me and the rest of the battle students were enslaved. I'm guessing that Queen Britney hired the bastards to do it..." A strange painful look passed over his face, as if he was recalling terrible memories from his past.
"Flash, you were 14 when he got pulled from the school..." Saurus said.
"Yep, 3 years with those monsters." Flash bit his lip.
"Wait a second here!" Scars piped up. "We've been fighting Britney all this time when it's not even the right Britney! When it's not even our world in danger?!"
"Oh, your world is in danger, all right. The Queen Britney from Redwing's world has planted her clones over the hundreds and thousands of parallel universes."
"Which explains why we keep killing her and having her come back all over again," Shayde laughed.
"Yes." Flash nodded. "Kill the old, and find another in a different universe."
"So we haven't been traveling through time, but rather from universe to universe?" Kearbear wondered. Saurus confirmed her statement.
Flash looked at Saurus. "I'm glad to see you're okay. I heard you got toasted by the evil queen herself."
"I did." Saurus said. "But these great fellows were able to depop me and help me in the recovery. Great people, and they can kick ass on pop too..."
"They didn't seem to do so well with those ninja turtles..." Flash teased.
"Hey! Kelnino is missing! And Ada! And Sky and Junta. They're our power, you know. But we all got separated at that weird Guns concert."
"I'll say, weird as bloody hell," Robin mumbled. They all turned around to look at him. His lips and nose were covered with mud and he was holding a hunk of wet clay in his hands. Nobody really cared to ask what he'd been doing. "So now what?"
Kearbear started. "I think we have to find the others - "
Suddenly, loud screams came from behind the curtains of the stage. "Hey, isn't that Ada and Sky?" A louder angry growl echoed. "And that must be Junta! Hurry, We have to save them!" The pioneers ran forward and pulled back the curtain. Ada, Junta, and Sky were tied together and dangled precariously over a tub of bubbling pig's blood! Daniel let out an ear-splitting scream and attacked the hooded person who was about to plunge Ada, Junta, and Sky into the huge tub. His wild rage didn't allow the mysterious varlet a chance.
"He's stronger than I would have guessed," Kelnino mused.
"I know," dreamer commented. "What the - Kelnino! Where have you been and how did you get back here so fast?"
"I'll explain later. We have to help Daniel kick that guy's ass right now."
It was true, Daniel's adrenaline and flying fists weren't enough. With that, the pioneers jumped in. In seconds, the hooded figure was pinned to the ground by Ben and Chris while Heath and Nathaniel helped Sky, Ada, and Junta get to safety.
"Now let's see who this mystery villain really is, dreamer said, pulling the hood back. Everyone gasped the name in unison. "It's Kid Rock!"
"If it weren't for you meddling kids..." he started. "I'd have - "
"Oh, eat it already," Kearbear moaned "How many times do we have to hear that?!"
"I say! You're right! We're not kids! We're the youth of the year 2000!" Daniel shouted. "We'll make it up to you in the year 2000 - "
"Daniel, it's 2001, honey," Shayde reminded him.
"Oh yes, jolly forgot about that..." Daniel recalled. "So what are we going to do with this Kid Rock fellow?"