Between parts, Kelly is inexplicably confined to doing infomercials at the Crystal Castle, and it's up to a plucky lad and a singing candy machine to return her.
This part spotlights the talents of Justin "Raptor" Barber, who we miss dearly. He really got the ball rolling for the story.
Here is a new story to reply to:
Billy wanted to save a girl, and he heard of this girl, Kelly, who had an adventure and is now being help captive in the Crystal Castle, so he...
- Kate
...rode his hovercycle to the Rent-a-Hero shop. There he chose someone to accompany him on his journey. The Hero's name was Anticlimax.
"I'll need to take a nap first. <Yawn>" Anticlimax said in a dull voice.
After the laggard Rent-a-Hero was done, they began along the road on a double hover bike powered by really bad Nintendo games. Fortunately they never ran out of fuel.
After a while, they came to a singing candy machine and they...
- Raptor
...covered their ears. The theme from Mario Bros. (any of 'em) droned on from the candy machine.
"Shut up!" Anticlimax shouted. The machine shut up.
"Do you know where we can find a girl named Kelly?" Billy asked.
"Oh, Kelly. Poor Kelly. Had an adventure, she did. Shouldn't have tried to tick off my sister."
"Oh...so she's not trapped in a crystal ball, she's trapped in a candy machine!" Anticlimax reasoned.
"I used to be a hedgehog!" the machine snapped.
"Um...where can we find your sister?" Billy (was that his name? I forget) asked.
The candy machine started singing again:
"Informaaation.
Become vegetaaaaation.
Find it written down.
It's a vortex.
A real life portal.
You must go through it nowwww.
Don't be a fool.
Don't be too cool.
Just remember
The magic jewel."
- Hedgehog X
"Uhhhhhhh.....?" Billy was stupefied by the stupidity of the very stupid machine.
"Anticlimax?" he began to ask him what to do but then noticed he was asleep. He whacked him and he fell off the Hoverbike.
"That smarted me!" he snapped as he rubbed his head.
"I doubt it!" Billy replied. "Now, we need to go and find that vortex thingamajig," Billy said. "Right, Anticlimax?"
"I'd like three Zippo bars please." Billy whipped his head around to see Anticlimax asking the candy machine for a very delightful bar of Zippo. Billy started back to the Rent-a-Hero shop, leaving Anticlimax to the singing machine's mercy. He went into the shop and rented a hero named Mykingdomforanose (Read all of it. Don't cheat!).
As they roamed the land searching for the vortex, they came to a hut.
"Do you smell something?" Billy said, as he sniffed the air.
"No." said the Rent-a-hero as he rubbed his very tiny nose.
Meanwhile, Anticlimax was having a nice chat with the singing machine, who was named Maleophonix. They had finished a verse from "Hakuna Matata" when a huge net captured them...
- Raptor
In a flash, what's his name...the singing candy machine and Anticlimax were dragged along the palace floor. The candy machine recognized it and started shouting.
"You turned me into a singing candy machine that can't sing!"
"Silence!" A voice whispered from the shadows. A female figure appeared, about 13 years old, with gleaming green eyes. She looked like a princess. She sounded like a witch.
Mykingdomforanose and Billy walked along. Soon they stopped.
"If you were a vortex," Mykingdomforanose wondered, "where would you be?"
"Written down..." Billy was mumbling to himself, remembering the machine's song.
"How can you write down a vortex?" Mykingdomforanose scratched his head.
"Information..."
"Um...so the vortex would be described...like in a book?"
Billy's eyes grew wide, and sparkled like the Arkenstone (yes, that's an exaggeration!).
"To the library!" Billy yelled, "And the magic jewel!?"
Mykingdomforanose followed along in a daze.
- Hedgehog X
Maleophonix: It means a really bad singer. Let's break it down: Maleo, meaning bad, and Phonics (Phonix) meaning noise.
"All right, we're here!" Billy screamed with delight as they entered the library. He walked up to the librarian and asked, "Which way to the Vortex Thingamajig section?"
"Basement," she murmured as she buried her nose more deeply into the book she read.
"C'mon!" Billy commanded as he pulled Mykingdomforanose away from a stack of books.
"I'm going," Mykingdomforanose said in a congested and squeaky voice. Billy turned his head to see the Rent-a-Hero with his finger stuck up his nose. "What? My finger's stuck!"
"Ugh!" Billy sighed as he ripped the finger from the tiny nose.
Soon they arrived at the Vortex section.
"Start readin'!" Billy leapt up onto a stool and whipped a book from its shelf.
As they sat and read, Billy had a growing feeling of disgust down in his gut.
"Ummmmm...Billy?"
"What!?!?" He was restless. Even more when he saw Mykingdomforanose with paper stuck all over him and mucus dripping from each nostril.
"Heehee..."
Billy whacked a book across his face.
- Raptor
Mykingdomforanose flew back and disappeared.
Whoa, Billy thought to himself.
Billy looked at the cover of the book.
The Long Dark Tea-time of the Soul.
He turned to the back cover.
When a passenger check-in desk at London's Heathrow Airport disappears in a ball of orange flame, the explosion is deemed as an act of God. But which god, wonders holistic detective Dirk Gently? What god would be hanging around Heathrow trying to catch the 3:37 to Oslo? And what has this to do with Dirk's latest -- and late -- client, found only this morning with his head revolving atop the hit record 'Hot Potato'?
Billy looked up to see a head impaled upon a record player. There was a record on the player.
Hot Potato.
- Hedgehog X
Billy didn't know what to do, so he bashed his head on the record player. Luckily, it was a magic record player, and teleported him to the library he really needed...unfortunately, for some stupid reason he never learned how to breathe underwater...
Then came the really strange thing: a crystal started talking to him, asking if his name was Ecco...
- X
Ummmmm...
Maleophonix stared at the sleeping Anticlimax, wanting to bash his skull in. He glanced over to see the witch cackling over a boiling cauldron, the smoke enthralling the enchantress in its wispy web.
He noticed a pouch filled with sand just outside the net. He tried to reach for it. But then he remembered he didn't have any arms. At that he wallowed in despair. And then he started to sing. He always did when he was wrapped in sorrow.
As the first awkward note struck the witch, she screamed and collapsed to her knees.
"Help!" Her voice had changed! But then it once again assumed its high cackle...
- Raptor
Maleophonix thought for a moment and then recreated Rufiki's shouting at the beginning of "Circle of Life". Anticlimax shot up.
"Get the Emeralds!" Maleophonix shouted.
"What? Oh, yeah, the magic jewel." Anticlimax got the jewels and gave them to Maleophonix, hoping he would know what to do.
Maleophonix didn't have to do anything. Instantly, he morphed in a purple creature with spikes on his back.
"Maleophonix?" Anti stuttered.
"That's Hedgehog X to you," Maleophonix, er...Hedgehog X replied.
"Ugh!" the girl yelled, "You'll ruin everything!"
"That's the plan!" Hedgehog X smiled.
Billy didn't know what to do. He was in a strange world without a partner (which was just as well, Billy thought) and had no clue about the whereabouts of Kelly.
"Kelllllllllyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!!" he shouted...
- Hedgehog X
...and banged his head against a wall. Luckily, it was a magic wall, and he was instantly teleported to where Kelly was. Unfortunately, he was exactly where she was, and he was trapped too...
- X
Oh, and incidentally, it's Rafiki, not Rufiki. Rafiki is Swahili for "friend".
Ack! Don't remind me about Swahili! I have to do a project on it! Why God?!
"Who the hell are you, you past-expiration-date dairy product that came from a diabetic cow in Michigan!?" Kelly shrieked as she thumped Billy on the head with a toaster oven.
"I've come to save you!" Billy screamed as he waved off the blows.
As Kelly stopped, he took the chance to grab the nearest item: A breadmaker. He waved it at her slowly. He glanced around the room, always paying close attention to the girl trembling in the shadows of the stone chamber.
He saw stone walls interrupted by shelves with kitchen appliances. Tons of kitchen appliances! "What is this stuff?!"
"The mean witch lady trapped me here to forever test appliances for her shopping network," she said. "Why is the sky green, Dada?"
"Oh boy." Billy assumed she had tested many nuclear microwaves...
"I have a new guest!" the witch cackled. The witch (which is a weird thing to say, considering she was a very beautiful teenage girl) came in with a strange purple spiked creature, who was screaming something about cruel and unusual punishment and sisterly love.
"How can they be brother and sister if one's a hedgehog and the other's a human?" Billy asked Kelly, only half expecting an answer.
"Do you believe in God?" was all Kelly replied.
The witch (let's say sorceress) turned to the glass crystal cage, and was so surprised to see Billy she dropped the hedgehog.
"How did..." Before she could finish the lights went out. The sorceress turned to find the hedgehog gone. An emerald flew out of her pocket, and she repeatedly banged her head on it.
Then she went downstairs, screaming, "Don't worry Obelix! I have a replacement!"
Moments later the hedgehog returned, grabbed the emerald, still floating in place, and said, "Need this!"
- Hedgehog X
"I'm so confused!" Billy screamed. He and Kelly banged their heads on a radioactive microwave together. Luckily, it was (you guessed it) a magic radioactive microwave, and...
- Magic X
...they instantly teleported to the TV studio where the sorceress (I'll just say witch, it's easier and quicker) was filming her shopping network.
"And now we have a beautiful item from our magic collection. It's a blender that cuts anything but your flesh. It's safe, watch! Ahhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!"
The shrieks of the girl modeling the blender were quickly followed by a Wrotch! Wrotch! Thwipppp! Crackle! Pop!
Billy rushed out the stage door, pulling the reluctant (Kelly her name was?) Kelly out with him. The sky was dark and tormenting.
He rushed out into the street, but he failed to see the open manhole and fell through it. But...It was a magic manhole! And...
- Raptor
...they found a robot with an emerald resembling the one the hedgehog took, only this one was white.
"Hi, my name is X. My function is to make magic teleporters that take you places when you bang your head on them."
"Cool!" Billy exclaimed. "Can you take us home?"
"Wait!" Kelly shouted. "At least, take me back."
Just then the same hedgehog they saw before walked up. "Need this!" he said, then he looked at Kelly and said, "Hey! So you didn't surgically implant TNT in your head!"
"Nope," Kelly replied, "Where are the others?"
"I haven't the foggiest." The hedgehog shook his head. "We need the Yellow Emerald. I lost 'em all when Kate screamed."
X made a sandwich. "Here's a teleporter. Go ahead, bang!" Instead, the hedgehog ate it.
"Sorry, I haven't eaten since I was the Singing Candy Machine."
"Maleophonix?!" Billy yelled.
"Hedgehog X to you, sir!" Just then, HX's stomach disappeared, "Though Head Detective will fit nicely!
"<Gulp.>"
- Hedgehog X
"Where's Anticlimax then?" Billy said.
"Well, um, you see, we were trapped in this dungeon with no way out and no food and um I..." There was a long pause. "Um, did you see the movie Alive?"
"You didn't!" Billy screamed as HX's stomach growled in reply.
"Well now what do we do?" HX said, to change the subject.
"We've saved the girl, sort of." Billy looked at Kelly, who was chewing her hair. "She a little on the, um...?" Billy made a circling motion with his finger by his head.
"I know a way to fix that," HX replied...
- Raptor
Suddenly an old 50's patrol car swerves by out of nowhere and perfectly out of context of the story. A shamus dog in a gray trench coat and a hyperkinetic rabbit leap from either door.
"This doesn't look like the Lincoln Tunnel, Sam."
"Looks to me like a highly volatile hostage situation, Max."
"Wait-a-minute, Sam. There's no hostages here..."
"True, true, but the old 'Hit The Road' script is all we have to go by for this rather out-of-context crossover of ours."
"Not to mention that girl eating her hairs makes my lagomorphic legs tremble."
"You said it, little buddy. I suggest we take our freeloading, parasitic, story-taking selves on to another easy site."
"Oooooh! Does this mean we get to maliciously alter the well-being of society in another forsaken hell hole of typing computer addicts?"
"You got it little buddy, let's leave this..." The dog shuffles through his script book. "...criminal cesspool pronto."
Max grabs the book and continues: "Okay, maybe we can ditch the head somewhere while the credits are running. Mind if I drive?"
"Not if you mind me clawing at the dash and shrieking like a teenager." Sam closes the script. "Lord I hate that drivel."
"Yea, let's go skewer the heads of the guys that did it."
"Maybe later chum."
The two depart quickly, as mysteriously as they came.
- Knuckles
Anyway...
"How?"
"Simple, we recalibrate the trajectory of the thought tunnels that are carved into her mindscape that are causing her unfortunate lack of mental equilibrium by allotting small nuclear bursts to each awry thought passageway."
"...?"
"We fix big heap mess in head by frying with big heap magic stick, you savvy?"
"Ummmmmmmm..."
- Raptor
HX waddled over to an unseen place, grabbed a club, handed it to Billy (HX was too short at the moment...he was too short at any moment, to be exact, 'cause he was only 3'3"), and said "Whammo!"
Kelly blinked her eyes a couple of times to see Billy and HX playing cards at the table.
"Hey! She's alive!" Billy yelled, then he whispered to HX, "Do you think the dent is noticeable?"
"That's always been there," he whispered back, gaining a profound sense of déjà vu.
HX turned to X, "Now about that teleporter..."
X swerved around holding some kind of carton. "It's school food!" he said.
HX rolled his eyes into the back of his head. Kelly took the carton labeled "French Bread Pizza". She then took HX and shoved him head-first into the carton, and then banged her head on it. They both disappeared.
- Hedgehog X
"Hey! Where'd they go?" Billy shouted.
"You really don't get this, do you?" X asked. "Let's follow 'em!"
With that, he grabbed Billy and banged their heads against the carton. Luckily, as we know, it was a magic carton, and they were teleported to an empty field! However, Kelly and HX were nowhere to be seen...
"Nice job," Billy grumbled.
"It's worse than you think," X said, tiny windshield wipers beginning to go back and forth across his eyes. "It's about to rain."
- X
"So?" Billy asked.
"Well...uh...this is..."
"Lemme guess," Billy interrupted. "Magic rain."
"Uh-huh," X replied.
Luckily, X had a teleportation beam built in. Unfortunately, he forgot Billy when he beamed out, and Billy's atoms were soon scattered across the universe, never to be seen again.
Meanwhile, at the sorceress's castle...
- Hedgehog X
"Oh, great," Kate muttered after X explained what had happened. "Now the whole story is ruined! What's the point?!"
"Hey, don't worry," X replied. "Mission accomplished."
"What are you talking about?" Kate asked.
"Oh, c'mon!" X said, showing a containment capsule. "I got his DNA! We can easily recreate him!"
"I'll take that," said a voice. There was a flash of light and the capsule was gone...
- X
Meanwhile, at the witch's castle:
The witch (actually a very young and beautiful sorceress, remember?) got back to her castle after a long talk with the magic robot X. Ironically, so had Kelly and HX.
"We need Anticlimax!" HX said.
"But...you..."
"I was only kidding!" HX snapped. "My stomach was roaring and it was a spur-of-the moment gag!"
"Oh," Kelly said, "So...where is he?"
"I think he's in the main power room on the bicycle."
"Bicycle?"
"It'll all be clear when we get there. Let's move!"
When HX and Kelly arrived in the power room, they found the sorceress doing some weird experiment. She had a dinosaur standing by her.
"Ugh!" she screamed. "This won't do. I know..." With that, she took out...
"The Yellow Emerald!" Kelly gasped.
HX knocked Kelly in the head. The witch said to the Yellow Emerald, "How may I clone Billy?"
"Billy?" HX asked. Kelly knocked HX in the head.
"The easiest way is the Red Emerald," the Yellow Emerald replied.
- Hedgehog X
Anticlimax opened his eyes to see a purple hedgehog and a young girl.
"Anticlimax," the hedgehog said, "give me the capsule."
"Why should I?" he asked.
The hedgehog began to sing.
"Maleophonix!" he shouted happily, handing him the containment capsule he had taken from the robot.
Kate ran in with the Emerald of Power and blasted the container. Billy suddenly stood up and finished a scream he had apparently started when he exploded. "Wh...where am I?" he asked. "Hedgehog X! Kelly! Kate! What the...Anticlimax?! Oh, no, I must be in..."
"You're not in heaven," said a voice.
"That's not what I was gonna say," Billy replied.
"Well, you're not in hell, either," he said, "you're just fine."
Suddenly, Billy saw the robot speaking (X, of course!) and screamed, "You! You left me to die!"
"No I didn't," was the reply, "I had your DNA just so we could bring you back here."
- X
Created 04.03.26