“What the hell, man?! Is this how you welcome all of your visitors?!” yelled Paulo.
“It’s okay, ladies. He’s cool,” Kyle explained to the Sexy Ninja Brigade.
“Damn straight, I’m cool.”
“What are you doing here, Paulo?”
“Dude-bro! A bunch of WarLizards totally attacked Marshmallow Meadows! They’re taking werebadgers hostage and forcing them to go all clairvoyant and shit.”
“And you escaped?”
“Yeah. Roberta’s uber maternal instinct kicked in and she’s one scary werebadger to fight right now. It’s actually really hot…. Anyway, she’s holding down the fort and watching the kids. She kicked me out—I mean…she sent me to find you.”
“Why Kyle,” asked Latisha, with an obvious judgment in her voice.
“Because Tabitha was with them.”
“WHAT?!” chorused Kyle, Latisha, and the rest of the Sexy Ninja Brigade.
“I thought she was on Piñata Isle? What is she doing in the Marshmallow Meadows,” wondered Kyle.
“I don’t know, dude, but Tabitha was the one giving orders to the WarLizards,” recounted Paulo.
“But I totally just killed Hydranus. I kicked him in the nuts. I watched him die.”
“That’s harsh, dude.”
“It had to be done…. It had to be done.”
“But now that Hydranus is dead, who are the WarLizards taking orders from?” wondered Latisha.
“I’m telling you guys, it’s Tabitha…” reminded Paulo.
“Okay, but why?” pondered Kyle, his interests uncharacteristically focused. “Latisha, I’ve been wondering: What was Tabitha’s official reasoning for leaving the Sexy Ninja Brigade?”
“I don’t see how that’s relevant,” Latisha began.
“Anything could be at this rate. Spill it, sister.”
“Fine. It was a little after she kicked your ass in the Universal Fighting League Championships—“
“SHE DID NOT KICK MY ASS!”
“Yeah she did, man. It’s time to face the facts,” responded Paulo.
“Anyway, after she trounced you, she was in a really weird mood. She was distracted, edgy…she looked kind of ill. We figured it was just a major hangover from the sheer amount of serious celebratory boozing we did that night, but a few days passed and she wasn’t improving. One day, she pulled me aside and handed in her resignation. I begged her to stay, but she said she had to leave. She said it wasn’t up to her, anymore.”
“…I don’t get it,” admitted Kyle.
“Me neither,” said Paulo.
“I don’t know what happened to her, but whatever it was; it was serious enough to get her to retire. I tried to sleuth what might have gone down, but being a ninja and all, she was pretty good at covering her tracks.”
The party spent a few moments reflecting in silence and staring off into respective distances.
“…Hey, Kyle?” asked Paulo.
“Hmm.”
“…Did you upgrade your hover-zebra?” he asked, gesturing to the vehicle parked in the middle of the living room.
“Yeah! I got the new Primal Package,” said Kyle, running over to his prize to point out its new features. “The racing stripes really do make it move faster!”
“Sweet! Did you go with cheetah or panther blood? I’ve heard that the panther blood is way more fuel efficient, but it doesn’t compare to the kick that the cheetah blood has.”
“I went with cheetah. It’s so sick, dude. Want to go for a spin?!”
“Totally!”
Latisha stepped forward and simultaneously back-handed them both so hard that they were lifted from their feet and rotated twice before hitting the ground, not unlike a Power Ranger. “FOCUS, people: Tabitha, WarLizards, King Zombie, remember?!”
“Owwww,” whined Kyle.
“Oh yeah,” confessed Paulo.
“Oh YEAH!” yelled Kyle as he looked at the floor in front of him and saw his iPhone charger smiling back up at him. “Witch doctor!”
“What?” said a flustered Latisha.
“I was going to go see the witch doctor who gave me the crappy ring! Well,” Kyle said as he hopped onto his hover-zebra, “catch you guys later!”
“Wait,” exclaimed Paulo. “You promised me a ride on that thing! I’m coming with you!” Paulo hopped onto the back of the transport.
“Hold it, Captain ADD; what about Tabitha?” questioned Latisha.
“Can’t you take care of it? We’re kind of busy,” Kyle said dismissively.
“No. Tell you what: I’m going with you to the witch doctor. Maybe he can give us some advice about what happened to Tabitha. And then once we’re done with your stupid little quest, I can make sure that you stay on task.” Straddling the hover-zebra, she turned to the rest of the Sexy Ninja Brigade. “I want 3 to stay here and monitor the apartment. You 8 will run recon on Piñata Isle, the Valley of Hugs and Rainbows, and any other of King Zombie’s haunts; I want to know about any and all communications he’s having with the WarLizards. You 2 will go underground and find out some of the scuttle: who are the WarLizards reporting to, what is Tabitha’s rank, why are they after the werebadgers? The rest of you, go to Marshmallow Meadows and back up Roberta and the rest of the werebadgers, unlike this deserter here,” she said motioning to Paulo.
“She kicked me out. I’m a lover, not a fighter…” whined Paulo.
“Yeah you are. 27 kids and counting, right? Ha ha!” Kyle said, while offering Paulo a high-five.
Latisha smacked Kyle on the back of the head before Paulo could reciprocate. “Alright, ladies: Move out!” The ninjas disappeared in their cloud of strawberry-smelling smoke. “That means you too, Kyle.”
“Oh.” Kyle kicked the hover-zebra into drive. He flew out the giant hole in the wall and toward the mystical, tropical forests of the witch doctor, while all three passengers balanced awkwardly on the far-too-small vehicle.
The Primal Package was thoroughly being put to the test as the overweight hover-zebra ripped through the night sky.
“WHOOOOO!” yelled Paulo.
“I told you it was badass!” exclaimed Kyle, turning around to look at Paulo and Latisha. Latisha’s face bore a look of frustration and annoyance, topped with a slight sprinkle of fear. Unbeknownst to Kyle and Paulo, or for that matter, any member of the Sexy Ninja Brigade, Latisha was scared of heights. But as the new leader of the Sexy Ninja Brigade, she couldn’t know fear, fear must know her…but Kyle’s flying was making that difficult.
“Check this out!” Kyle yelled as he sent the hover-zebra into a controlled spiral dive. Latisha held onto Paulo with her mighty kung-fu grip, trying with all of her might to contain a scream of terror that so desperately wanted to be let out.
Kyle leveled out the zebra just as swiftly as he entered the dive. “THAT WAS FREAKING SWEET!” yelled Paulo. He and Kyle gave each other a thunderous high five, a high five so powerful that even the gods were jealous that they weren’t part of the gesture.
Latisha continued to hold on for dear life. “Are we there yet?” she said, almost vomiting all over Paulo.
Kyle looked down and surveyed their surroundings. “Umm, actually, I think we passed it.” Latisha glared at him. Kyle turned back around in order to break her terrifying stare, just in time to see a tip of mountain closing in fast. “SHIT!” Kyle exclaimed.
Kyle whipped his hover-zebra hard to the right, just barely avoiding the mountain. He let out a sigh of relief and looked back at his terrified passengers. “Maybe we should land,” he said. He landed in a small ice clearing.
“Where are we,” asked Latisha in a frustrated tone. Kyle and Paulo looked around.
“I think we’re on the Frozen Sunshine Pass,” said Paulo.
Kyle put his hover-zebra back in his secret compartment and walked around. “That means we’re close,” said Kyle.
“But I thought you said we passed it,” said Latisha, getting increasingly irritated with Kyle.
“We did, but there’s more than one way to go somewhere. Unfortunately, taking the Frozen Sunshine Pass is much more dangerous than the way we passed.”
“Then why don’t we just fly back and take the safer way?” said Latisha, who was totally ready to add the back of her hand to Kyle’s face.
“Ummm, well….” Kyle hesitated. “Unfortunately, after entering the Frozen Sunshine Pass there’s only one way out. Luckily for us, it’s the way we need to go.”
“That doesn’t make any damn sense!” yelled Latisha. “Let’s just fly out of here!”
Paulo walked over to Latisha and put his claw on her shoulder to calm her down. “We can’t,” he said. Paulo reached into his pocket and pulled out a coin and threw it into the air. The area of sky around the coin began to freeze and turned into a swarm of ice bats that proceeded to shred the metal coin in an instant. “This entire area works like one organism. The sky prevents things from leaving in order to feed the creatures that dwell here.”
“What creatures dwell here?” asked Latisha.
Kyle gulped and pointed down the path they needed to take. “Ummm, well in order to get to the witch doctor, we have to go down that path.”
“So?! What the hell is down that path?”
“The Abominable Snow Crab…it’s kind of like the witch doctor’s guard dog…except it’s a gigantic evil fury crab monster thing…. Please don’t hate me!” Kyle immediately protected his face, preparing for the inevitable bitch slap of doom.
Latisha let out a groan of frustration, pulled out her katana and began storming down the path.
“Wait for us,” called Paulo.
“Of all the incompetent, self-serving, moronic…” began Latisha as continued forward, in fact not waiting for them.
Paulo was about to speed up his pace, when Kyle pulled him back so that there was a considerable distance between themselves and the ninja.
“Paulo, I’ve been thinking,” Kyle began.
“Uh oh.”
“I KNOW! That was the second thought I had after the first one! Anyway, why do you think Latisha is so angry all of the time?”
“Is she really like this all of the time?”
“Yeah, actually, there’s usually more bitch-slapping.”
“She did seem awfully good at it….”
Lost in their conversation, they did not see Latisha single-handedly eliminate a giant, dreaded Blizzard-Lizard that dare stand in her path.
“I’m thinking daddy-issues,” posited Kyle.
“No, usually that manifests in a lack of self-confidence or a superficial, overbearing amount of it. Violent tendencies tend to relate similar esteem issues, but from a different source,” said Paulo, knowingly. “Mommy-issues? Maybe she’s trying to live up to her mother’s man-eating standards?”
Latisha won a battle with a family of rabid Frost-Ferrets before them, without either noticing.
“How about a bad break-up?” continued Kyle. “Maybe some man had done-her-wrong and she’s still bitter? Girls are kind of lame like that; they can’t get angry at things they love, so they misplace their emotions and take it out on the next available target. They’re too delicate.”
Latisha, trapped in a headlock by a mammoth-sized Nor’Easter Bunny, was in danger of being decapitated by its mighty brawn, until she stealthily stabbed it in its face with her blade and continued to brutally maim it.
“What if it’s her time of the month,” whispered Paulo, still unaware of the battles before him. “Like, all the time?”
“Eww! Gross, dude!”
“I’m just brainstorming here….”
“Well, brainstorm away from that thought.”
“Fine! What’s your best guess, genius?”
Kyle and Paulo silently pondered while staring at the ground and not at the Snow Titans that Latisha was barraging with home-made Molotov cocktails and melting loudly and spectacularly before them.
“Oh. My. God. I’ve got it! I figured it out, Paulo,” squealed Kyle.
“What is it? What is it?!”
“LATISHA,” called Kyle ahead of them.
She stood dramatically among the melted mass of Titans. She was covered in cuts and other creatures’ blood, her hair was being tousled beautifully in the winter wind, and her breath came in heavy puffs of steam due to her recent exertions and bite of the cold. “What,” she said flatly.
“WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU GOT LAID?”
Paulo’s jaw hit the ground with such force that all networks of tunnels built by ants in the tri-county area collapsed and trapped all of the occupants inside, ensuring them a slow, painful, agonizing death. “Dude, you did NOT just go there,” he managed once he re-hinged his jaw. “She’s going to kill us. A lot.”
“Last night. By your mom,” said Latisha in a deadpan. “Now come on, I think we’re getting close to the witch doctor.” She pointed ahead of her to where the frozen tundra abruptly turned into a tropical forest.
“Did you just make a ‘your mom’ joke?” said Kyle in disbelief. “…Or are you serious?”
“It was a joke, Kyle! I, too, am capable of humor.”
“I don’t know,” he said, sizing her up.
Latisha’s frustrated look gave way to one of realization. “The Abominable Snow Crab is behind you.”
“See, that’s not funny at all. I don’t think you are capable of humor.”
“No, numb-nuts. Look behind you!”
Kyle and Paulo turned around just in time to see the Abominable Snow Crab’s massive claw bear down on them.
Kyle pushed Paulo out of the way and did a back flip just as the Abominable Snow Crab’s claw came crashing down where they were just standing. Latisha let out a sigh and pulled out her sword. Kyle glanced at her and signaled for her to stay back.
“I got this!” he yelled.
“Sure, you do.” Latisha rolled her eyes and continued to walk towards the vicious crab monster.
“Seriously, let me handle it!”
“Why?! What do you need to prove? Let’s just kill this thing and get going!”
“NO! I have to do it! I have to prove to you that I’m not incompetent, that I have the skills to pay the bills, that there was a reason why Tabitha loved me.”
Latisha sighed and crossed her arms. “Fine.” She sheathed her sword, stepped back and stood beside Paulo who was checking his Twitter account on his iPhone. “What are you doing?” she asked.
“I’m going to tweet about this fight and upload some images of Kyle getting his ass kicked.”
“I’m surrounded by morons.” They both looked on as Kyle used all forms of martial arts on the Abominable Snow. Ninjitsu, Tae Kwon Do, Jeet Kun Do, Buddhist Palm, Mantis, Snake, Tiger, Crane, Drunken Boxing, Karate, Hapkido, sissy slaps…the crab felt Kyle’s wrath and felt it hard. The Crab howled a terrifying howl as Kyle roundhoused it in the face.
“It’s just you and me crab, boy.” Kyle smirked and inched towards the crab. The crab began to wimper. “Uh oh!” exclaimed Kyle.
“Uh oh? Why, uh oh?” said Latisha.
“Look at him, he’s about to cry. I’m sorry little guy…um…big, little guy.” Kyle walked up to the Abominable Snow Crab and began to pet it. “It’s ok.” The crab began to pur like a kitten…and that’s when Kyle ripped that bitch in half.
“What the hell, man?!” yelled Latisha. Paulo just went ahead and threw up all over himself at the site of Kyle totally destroying the crab.
“I don’t got time for bitch crabs. Plus, I’m hungry as shit and Abominable Snow Crabs are delicious…I’m a penguin after all. I do that shit.” Kyle ripped off one of the crab’s giant claws and somehow managed to put the rest of the crab in his secret compartment. “This shit is for later.” He began to drag the claw behind. “So are you guys coming or what? We got a witch doctor to find.”
“Maybe we should wait for Paulo to finish hurling,” said Latisha.
“Blaarrag…corn…when did I have corn?” Paulo looked up at Latisha. “I think I’m g-g-good…blaaaaaargh!” Latisha reeled in disgust.
“You two definitely are a couple of morons.” She grabs Paulo and carried him like a baby to Kyle. “Let’s get going.”
They continued on their way to the witch doctor.
KYLE: THE PENGUIN OF DESTINY...PART 6!
By Celeste Green (written in Courier) and Jeffrey Thomas (written in Arial)
As Kyle unfurled his hover-zebra, the remnants of Tabitha’s ring fell to the ground. He had stashed them away during a sentimental moment just prior to hunting down Hydranus, and now, glistening in the setting sunlight, it caught his attention.
“OH YEAH,” he exclaimed. “Didn’t I say I was going to visit the witch doctor, like, 5 pages ago?! Crap!”
Kyle was torn between his destiny on Piñata Isle and the sweet, sweet revenge he was planning to enact upon the witch doctor for his shoddy ring-construction. If he went to Piñata Isle, it was entirely possible that he could learn about Tabitha’s contract and how it linked her resignation from the Sexy Ninja Brigade, the WarLizards’ power over the remaining Sexy Ninja Brigade, King Zombie’s incorporation of the Sexy Ninja Brigade and therefore assumed alliance with the WarLizards, and the greater purpose and plans of King Zombie that somehow benefited the WarLizards, indebted Tabitha, and protected Kyle. All of that information could be clearly and concisely revealed in a very timely fashion if he just confronted Tabitha before she wove a more complicated tapestry by upholding her end of the contract—whatever that was—at Piñata Isle. All of this could be over just as quickly as it began and he could get back to solving the mysterious prophecy of the Elder Breast: “There is another....”
However, he sure loved enacting revenge and neither his better judgment nor his curiosity could cure him of that at this very moment. He unsheathed his iPhone and activated the
Due to the vast amounts of “herbal medicine” he partook in while visiting the witch doctor, his memory of the location had become obscured. But he thought that he may be able to determine the witch doctor’s camp by plugging in the addresses of the cave that held the Crystal Skull and the ring-cursing witch, since it logically had to be someplace between the two. But just as his app was about to reveal the last time he activated the
“Fuck,” he stated simply. “And I left the charger at my apartment. My apartment which was being attacked by a giant robot the last time I left it. Well isn’t this great.”
Kyle sighed a sigh powerful enough to launch a fleet of old timey pirate ships. But given there were no old timey pirate ships in the area, it just conveyed his aggravation audibly to a nonexistent audience. The lack of audience and old timey pirate ships made him somehow sadder…. He set a slow and melancholy course for home; back to the giant mech and the Sexy Ninja Brigade, back to Ryan Gosling, and back to his goddamn iPhone charger.
Kyle straddled his hover zebra and took off into the heavens. The night sky was littered with stars, their light gleaming off the fresh tears on Kyle’s face as he thought of Tabitha…and the impending Ryan Gosling. “Curse you, Ryan Gosling,” he thought. He only hoped that his iPhone charger was nowhere near the
Kyle whipped and raced through the stratosphere to Hovanimals. The building floated high above the
“Hey baby! My hover-zebra needs an upgrade. Maybe afterwards you and I can break it in,” Kyle said in the smoothest player voice any woman has ever heard. The sales associated melted and was putty in his hands. Seriously, the girl died and dripped all over the place. ‘Why the hell does everything get taken so literally in this world,’ Kyle thought, but that mystery was for another day. A pimply teenager took the hot sales associates place.
“How can I help you,” he said with the most monotone and unsexy voice anyone has ever heard.
“Uh yeah,” Kyle said as he brushed the hot sales associate off his hands. “I need to upgrade my hover-zebra.”
“Ok. Do you have a package deal in mind?”
“No, not really. All I know is my hover-zebra isn’t as badass as it should be.”
“Well, I would highly recommend the Primal package. It is by far the most badass upgrade a Hovanimal can receive.”
Kyle was intrigued. “What’s the Primal package?” he asked eagerly.
“Well, we infuse your Hovanimal with cheetah blood and paint sweet racing stripes and lightning bolts on the side of it.”
Kyle’s eyes widened. “DO IT!”
It had begun….
In a magnificent montage, Kyle’s hover-zebra was conveyed on belts, modified by advanced machinery, studied by scientists, tested by professionals, and admired by applauding public. Oddly, the montage did not serve its purpose in relating lengthy amounts of time that the processes would need to take place in a much briefer amount of time, but rather took 6-8 hours to complete. Kyle fell asleep in the waiting room.
Awakened by the pimply sales associate’s visage upon its completion, Kyle fell from his perch of 3 waiting room chairs pushed together. “I demand to see a search warrant,” Kyle screamed as he was ripped from his dream-state.
“Your hover-zebra’s done,” the pimply sales associate relayed in his aforementioned monotone.
The sales associate pointed toward where Kyle’s newly decked out hover-zebra stood. It exuded confidence, it emanated prowess, it radiated badassery; Kyle was ready to return to his quest.
The pimply sales associate rang him up at the counter, where Kyle was forced to pay for an exorbitant service fee and unsuccessfully argued not paying the included gratuity charge. His improved mood dampened by his soon to be plummeting credit score, he grumbled as he hopped on his souped up hover-zebra and zoomed away.
Given the increased badassitude of the hover-zebra, Kyle did not feel an impulse to cry. However, his increased speed coupled with his unwise choice to ignore proper eye safety by not donning riding goggles, his eyes watered for reasons of wind resistance. By the time he reached his apartment, it looked as if he had been sobbing for hours and almost began to as the new sight greeted him.
The city surrounding his apartment was in ruins. Smoke curled from destroyed buildings, the populous looted all available merchandise from retailers as they evacuated, and pandemonium reigned the streets. All that was left of the presumed battle were the destroyed remains of the giant mech that were strewn across the cityscape and a giant hole in the side of Kyle’s apartment building. Dreading to find nothing left of his home, Kyle carefully navigated his hover-zebra through the new hole in his apartment wall.
“Latisha,” he called out as he entered. “The unnamed rest of the Sexy Ninja Brigade? Are you here?”
Kyle shrieked like a girl as he was tackled to the ground by 15 ninjas.
“It’s okay, it’s just Kyle,” Latisha said as she ordered her fellow ninjas to stand down.
They backed off and made themselves comfortable within his home. Kyle hyperventilated as Latisha helped him to his feet.
“So did you find Tabitha,” she asked.
“Umm…yes. And then I lost her again.”
“What did you do wrong this time?”
“I didn’t do anything wrong!”
Latisha looked unconvinced.
“…Okay, I did something wrong. I proposed to her with a cursed ring.”
Latisha bitch-slapped him with the force of an army of
“Ow! My delicate features!”
“Kyle, you moronic good for nothing—“
“ButthentheWarLizardsshowedupandsheleftwiththemandwehavetofindherbeforeshebecomesabadguyPLEASESTOPHURTINGME!”
Latisha paused mid-wind-up. “…She’s teaming up with the WarLizards?”
“Uh huh,” whimpered Kyle from behind his hands—err, flippers, eyeing the apartment for his iPhone charger so he could blow this popsicle stand before further beatdowns commenced.
“You mean she did this consciously? She wasn’t under their spell?”
“Um…no? Let’s go with no.”
“This is more serious than I thought.”
“I know, right?! This is super serious.” Kyle had spotted the charger on the floor next to his couch and began inching toward it as Latisha digested the gravity of the situation. Reaching out with his foot—webbed foot, that is—he began to slowly draw the charger toward him. He was so close!
Suddenly the apartment shook violently followed by a loud knock at the door. Kyle sighed as his iPhone charger slid away from him. “Damn it!” he said under his breath. Kyle glanced at the door. Latisha and the Sexy Ninja Brigade posted up on either side of the door frame. Latisha gave commands via hand signals and two of the sexy ninjas broke off from the group and dashed out the window. There was another knock at the door, louder than the first. A large shadow passed by the door and Kyle grew tense. Latisha motioned for Kyle to answer the door but Kyle was hesitant.
“Who is it?” called Kyle. The figure on the other side of the door didn’t respond but knocked again. Kyle inched towards the door. “Who is it?” he called once more and again, the figure didn’t respond but knocked again. Kyle looked at Latisha and she glared at him. Kyle knew it was time to show these sexy ninjas what he was made of. He took a deep breath and put his flipper hand on the door knob. And in a motion that could only be described as god like, he whipped open the door and got into attack position just in time to see the two sexy ninjas sent by Latisha, tackle the figure simultaneously. Kyle put down his fins somewhat disappointed and slightly relieved.
The sexy ninjas dragged the figure into Kyle’s apartment and threw him on the floor. He was shrouded in a tattered hooded cloak. Latisha pulled out her katana and pointed it at the creature’s hooded face. “Who are you and what are you doing here?” she demanded. The creature removed its hood.
“PAULO?!” exclaimed Kyle….
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