Never Trust A Chicken Man: Part Five

Also by extreme_fj0rd

The hallway beyond was utterly empty, and Bo and Harriet had at least expected a tad bit more of their authors, so they were disappointed.

     "Empty?" Harriet whined, glancing around the barren space. "This is so dumb! I just want to find my ray gun, find your stupid Lupe and that Yurble, and then get out of it here. Honestly. This plot is getting old, and it's really not fun when you're the character stuck in it."

     Bo nodded. "You're right, Harriet," he said, walking a few paces forward.

     "I know, I'm always right - I'm a Mary Sue like that," Harriet replied.

     "Mary Sue?" inquired Bo.

     "The perfect character, no flaws, that kind of thing."

     "You? A perfect character? Yeah. Right. If anybody's the perfect character, Harri, it's ME, Bo. Plus, you only were written in a few parts ago; I've been here since the beginning! The BEGINNING!"

     "First off, don't call me Harri. It's Harriet, only Harriet. Plus, YOU definitely are not the perfect character. Look at all your flaws! Your stupidity! Your annoying personality! Your sheer ugliness!"

     "I'm not ugly," huffed Bo. "You're pretty ugly yourself, you know."

     "Pretty ugly is an oxymoron. It doesn't make any sense."

     "Hey! Don't call me an oxy moron! 'Cause I'm not an oxy - whatever that is - and I'm NOT a moron!"

     "Oxymoron is a word. I'm not calling you an oxy moron."

     "Of course it's a word! And you called me it!"

     "I did not!"

     "Did too!"

     "Did not!"

     "Did too!"

     Just then, a sinister voice from behind Bo and Harriet slithered, "What are YOU two doing?"

     The duo immediately turned around to find the source of the voice.

     "Sloth!" gasped Harriet.

     "Sloth?" asked Bo.

     "Mr. Chicken."

     "Oh."

     "Anyway," Harriet went on, "how did you find us?"

     "Oh, it's quite easy to read THEIR minds after they've been writing us for five parts."

     Bo nodded in agreement. "Yes, it certainly is."

     "Oh, if it's so easy," said Harriet slickly, "what are they going to do next?"

     Bo smirked. "They're going to… they're going to have you open the door that just appeared across the hall, and inside find Marco, Yasha, and your ray gun."

     "And what am I going to do about this?" Mr. Chicken inquired impatiently.

     "You're going to confess that you actually don't want Harriet's ray gun, or our pets, and then we're going to crash into a wall, and when we wake up, we'll all be at mine and Yasha's house back in Neopia Central," Bo said.

     "Even me?" asked Mr. Chicken.

     "No, not you, because the villains never come with the good guys."

     "Oh, okay then." Mr. Chicken sighed.

     Harriet just happened to turn around, and across the hall there was a metal door she hadn't seen before. It didn't have any words on it.

     "Bo," she hissed to Bo, "distract him. I'm gonna go inside and see what's in there."

     Bo nodded and began to distract Mr. Chicken with a jig he had learned from the Techo Master a few years back. Meanwhile, Harriet had opened the unmarked door and slipped inside.

     Within the unmarked door, there was a tidy, perfectly square room. There were two cots on the far wall, adjacent from each other. Yasha sat on one, and Marco sat on the other. In between them, on a steel nightstand, was Harriet's ray gun.

     "Come with me," Harriet hissed, beckoning towards Marco and Yasha.

     "Aren't you… aren't you evil?" asked the Yurble, standing up slowly.

     "I used to be," admitted Harriet. "But not anymore. Now pick up my ray gun, give it to me, and then we'll go. Bo's just outside, distracting Sloth."

     "Sloth?" asked Marco and Yasha at the same time.

     "Mr. Chicken. Anyway, come on now. Hurry!"

     Yasha stood up, and Marco picked up the ray gun. Then the three of them slipped out of the room and into the hallway, where Bo continued to dance around as Mr. Chicken watched in confusion.

     "What are we going to do now?" Marco whispered.

     "Wait for Mr. Chicken to confess, of course," Harriet said as they watched Bo dance. "Bo predicted it."

     "Yay, Bo!" said Yasha loudly.

     Bo tried to turn in the middle of a jump, and crashed into a wall.

     "Oops," Yasha whispered. She ran over to Bo. "Are you all right?" she asked.

     Bo made no reply.

     "Now look what you've done!" Yasha screamed dramatically, standing up to face Mr. Chicken. "My owner's hurt and all because you kidnapped us!"

     Mr. Chicken, to everyone's amazement but Harriet's, began to sniffle. "I-- I-- I didn't want to," he said soulfully as tears poured down his cheeks. "I didn't want to kidnap you! And I didn't want to take Harriet's ray gun either!"

     Meanwhile, Bo, unseen by any of them, sat up and watched Mr. Chicken intently.

     "Then why did you do it?" Yasha asked.

     Mr. Chicken shrugged, still crying. "I was cast as the cliché villain, of course! You know how it is when you're cast as the cliché villain!" he cried.

     "No, actually, we don't," Marco began, but Harriet muffled his words by placing a paw over his mouth.

     "Yes," said Harriet soothingly, "we know how it is."

     "It's horrible!" blubbered Mr. Chicken. "You have to kidnap pets and owners and steal ray guns and employ Grundos..."

     "Why don't you quit?" asked Bo intelligently.

     Yasha, Marco, and Harriet all stared at him, as much from what he said as the fact that he was awake.

     "You're awake!" Yasha said.

     "What did you say?" Harriet thundered.

     "You're awa-- what?" Marco asked and sighed. "I hate being the character who has to interrupt himself."

     And so the authors mixed up the speech, just so their muses wouldn't get held hostage any more.

     "You're awa-- what?" Yasha asked.

     "You're awake!" Harriet said.

     "What did you say?" Marco finished, and thanked the authors profusely. The authors would like to note that all flowers, cards, and jewelry can be sent to their respective NeoHome addresses.

     "What did you say?" Mr. Chicken asked.

     "You know, quit," Bo said. "I mean, you wouldn't get paid any more, but the hours would be better."

     Mr. Chicken thought.

     And thought.

     And thought.

     And Bo, Yasha, Marco, and Harriet started to get bored, which is equally dangerous to the authors and Mr. Chickenhead, and possibly for the readers as well.

     So, Bo suddenly said, "Goodbye Mr. Chicken. While you think of quitting, we're gonna go."

     Yasha nodded. "Goodbye."

     "Goodbye," echoed Marco.

     "See you later," said Harriet.

     Bo stood up and joined them as they walked away, and not surprisingly, into the wall Bo had crashed into only moments before.

     **

     When everybody awoke at the exact same moment, they all found themselves at Bo and Yasha's Neohome.

     "Wow," said Harriet slowly, "where are we?"

     "I think we've been kidnapped," gasped Marco.

     "Yes we ha- wait, no, this is our house! Mine and Bo's house. You two haven't been here before, I think," explained Yasha, still cursed with Marco's tripping-over-his-tongue speech problem.

     "How'd we get here?" asked Bo in a daze.

     "I don't know; we must've been magically teleported when we hit that wall!" exclaimed Harriet excitedly.

     "Makes perfect sense," said Yasha, nodding.

     "Yup, it does," agreed Marco.

     "So…" Bo said after a quick silence. "I was thinking… would you like me to adopt you two? I mean, I've always wanted a sibling or two for Yasha, and after struggling through this plot with me, I thought you'd be good candidates."

     "Oh, we couldn't do that," Marco said.

     "Yes," Harriet agreed. "It'd be too cliché."

     Bo grimaced. "I'm sorry, but I don't have a choice. If I don't adopt you, the authors won't be satisfied and will write us on for seven more parts…"

     "Oh," replied Harriet. "In that case, I love you Daddy!"

     "Yeah, thanks so much! I was getting sick of being a random character without a home!" Marco burst out into tears; no one else could tell if they were sad tears or happy tears.

     But, never mind the reason of the tears, everyone was happy and it was all gushy and mushy and sweet inside the house.

     Later that day, Bo signed the official papers, and he now owned Marco and Harriet. They were a big, happy family.

     That night, as they ate an ordinary supper, Yasha suddenly said, "Hey… we never did take over Neopia."

     Marco nodded. "She's right! We didn't!"

     Harriet frowned. "You know… that kinda sucks, because that was whole point of this plot."

     "We should still try to take over Neopia so we can save Neopia!" chirped Bo, spearing a green bean.

     "This time, though, let's try a different approach," Yasha said cautiously.

     "You mean no minions or weapons?" gasped Marco.

     "Yeah, no minions or weapons?" asked Bo.

     Yasha shook her head. "No. No minions or weapons. But know what? At the beginning of this whole thing… we had one more thing on our list."

     "What was that again?" Bo prompted.

     "To rent a citadel."

     "Eeee, let's do it!" shrieked Marco.

     "Yeah, let's do it! A citadel would rock! And plus, every great villain has a citadel," Harriet chimed.

     "Mr. Chicken didn't," reminded Yasha.

     "But he wasn't a great villain! He was cliché," Harriet shot back.

     "Let's just go already!" cried Marco excitedly.

     "Okay!" Bo said.

     Leaving their dinner to grow cold on the table, the four left the house, off to find the Rent-A-Citadel Store.

     … oh yeah? And did we mention that they all lived happily ever after?

The End

Authors' Note: HELLO. WE PWN YOU. This is work of completely non-fiction! NON-FICTION WE SAY! So you know, don't take it lightly. IT IS NOT A LIGHT MATTER!