“Fantastic, boys!” said Nori, shaking his two new recruits hands and beaming widely. After this, they all sat back down.
“Well, what now then?”
“It just so happens that I’ve got a little mission going on at the moment, which you two will most likely be able to help me on.”
Nori opened a drawer of his side of the desk, fished out a remote and pointed it at the wall behind him. He clicked a button and a panel on the wall behind him slid open. Behind the panel was a video of a slowly revolving planet, blue and green like Earth, but the countries appeared to be jumbled and out of shape.
“Tell me, gentlemen, what do you see?”
“It looks like someone described what Earth looks like down the phone!” Ricky scoffed.
“Or stood on a picture of it, or some junk!” Maxxie agreed.
“What do you boys know,” said Nori, turning in his swivel chair and looking at them impressively. “… of Mobius?”
Silence for a few seconds.
“What, as in where Sonic the Hedgehog and those guys live?”
“Yep!”
“What about it?”
“What if I told you boys…” Nori said slowly. “That this mission involves going there?”
Two jaws dropped open. Ricky, being a snake, dropped his jaw right open.
“No way!” they said.
“Waaaaay!” said Nori, standing up and leading the boys out of his office. “Come on, let me show you!”
The room that Nori led them to this time did not contain any weapons, but a large metal hoop up against the far wall. Wires were running out of the hoop and were connected to a computer terminal next to it. Sleeping at the terminal was another of Nori’s minions.
Motioning for the boys to be quiet, Nori tiptoed over to the minion, leaned in close and yelled.
“WAKEY-WAKEY!!”
Leaping a foot in the air, the worker turned and fell off of his chair backwards. Nori stood over him.
“Whenever you’re ready, I’d like you to fire this thing up and get us to Mobius, K?”
Scrambling wordlessly off of the ground, the minion typed hastily at the terminal, and, within a minute, the hoop (which the boys had realised was a portal machine) was activated.
Inside the portal hoop appeared a swirl of every colour on the spectrum, as you might expect from a portal.
“Alright lads, after you!” said Nori happily.
Ricky looked at Maxxie. Maxxie looked back at Ricky. They both took a deep breath.
“Shall we do it, mate?” asked Ricky.
“Totally.” replied Maxxie.
The two of them stretched out a hand towards the portal and slowly advanced.
----------------------------------------
It was like walking through a thin waterfall, but the two boys emerged on the other side quite dry, though this did not stop Maxxie from shaking violently from his dislike of water.
They looked around. They appeared to be in a large, bustling warehouse. Immediately in front of them were about twenty rather short guards, all standing to attention. Nori came through the portal behind them.
“As you were, gentlemen!” he said loudly.
“Yes sir!” said the small guards, turning away and marching off.
Ricky and Maxxie gaped at the Mobians. It was as though someone had taken people from Earth and put them through a photocopier at 75%. They only just came up to chest height.
“Where are we Nori?”
“In my secret underground warehouse just outside of New Mobotropolis. Where the Freedom Fighters live.” Added Nori, walking away down the warehouse. Ricky and Maxxie quickly followed.
Ricky was just admiring the scale of his new boss’ operation when a thought struck him.
“Do you work for Eggman, like?”
“Pfft, no!” laughed Nori. “He’s too much of a bossy-boots dictator, and besides, he’s only got a couple of hot chicks working for him, but the Freedom Fighters have tons!”
As they came to the end of the warehouse, they came upon a small white van that was being loaded with boxes by some Mobians.
“And here’s our ride!” announced Nori cheerfully. “She’s not much, but she’s our ticket to New Mobotropolis this fine evening. Alright, all aboard!”
“Black Adam” and “Copperhead” followed Nori into the back of the van and were immediately annoyed by the fact that none of them could fit properly in the back.
It was rather cramped inside the Mobian van. To preserve the illusion of it being an actual food van, there were quite a lot of boxes that left little room for the three “villains” in the back.
“Roger, what’s it like tonight?” Nori asked of the driver of the van, a Mobian dog.
“It’s a nice, calm night, 9:30 in the evening, with a cool breeze blowing in from the south-east, Doctor. Anything else?” replied the Mobian dog in a smooth, deep voice.
“No, that’ll be all, Roger. Pass us the weapons box, will you?”
Roger reached over to the front passenger seat and picked up a box that gave off metallic rattles as he passed it over to Nori. Nori opened it, and the boys peeked in for a look. Inside were three Broad Beams and several Bimbification Lipsticks, all in different colours.
“OK boys,” said Nori, handing them a Broad Beam each. “Pick a colour.”
Maxxie went for sky blue, Ricky went for evergreen and Nori chose the classic cherry red.
“Ok boys,” said Nori. “Here’s our mission: You each have a specific target tonight.”
“Whoa-whoa-whoa, we ain’t killing people are we?” said Maxxie hurriedly.
“No, of course not!” said Nori, holding up his hands innocently. “The weapons in your hands aren’t meant to kill!”
The boys considered the gadgets in their hands. A moment passed. Then, Ricky recovered.
“Are we going to be fucking people tonight?” he asked tentatively.
“Very good!” smiled Nori, clapping his hands together
“But… we’ve never fucked anyone in either of our lives!”
“Then there’s never been a better place to start!”
The van pulled into a secluded spot between two large buildings, and the three got out. Roger drove away in his little white van, leaving them quite alone.
“Alright then, Nori,” said “Copperhead”, as he and “Black Adam” turned to face Nori. “What next?”
“Alright Ricky, “said Nori, all business. “Your target is in a trailer on the other side of this here coliseum, trying to write a song that isn’t slightly emo.”
“A song…?”
Then, as understanding flooded into him, he gasped and whispered:
“Mina?”
Nori grinned. “The very same. I hear she’s been terribly sad as of late, and I think you’d be the right guy to cheer her up.”
“And me?” said Maxxie, straightening up.
“You…” said Nori, stroking his chin. “I’m not telling!”
“What? Dude, why not?”
“It’s a surprise! Now, your lucky lady lives around ten houses down to our left. Keep checking the houses and you’ll know her when you see her!”
“Where are you goin’ then?” asked Maxxie. In answer to this question, Nori looked up to the castle. The boys cottoned on immediately to what he was planning.
“Oh you’re not …!”
“I think he is, dude!”
“It’s true boys, I’m having Sally Acorn tonight!”
“Fuck me!”
“If we have the time later, but anyway!” said Nori, clapping his hands together. “I think it best that we move off as quickly as possible, while the night is still young!”
And so they did, with Nori shouting back to them
“Meet back here before daybreak!”
-------------------------
New Mobotropolis by night was quite nice, Maxxie thought. Quaint little houses, small enough that he could touch their roofs, lined the street that he was on, the only lights coming from a few streetlights.
Ten houses later, Maxxie crept over to one of its windows and looked in.
He saw exactly who he would be sleeping with that night, for lying on a couch in the living room and reading a magazine…
Was none other than Bunnie D’Coolette.
------------------------
Ricky, whose costume was mostly Jersey Shore orange, had to stay out of the streetlights lest anyone see him. Even though it was only around the coliseum, he couldn’t risk it.
But that wasn’t why he was fretting.
He had never gone out with a girl, let alone fucked one.
He had never been near a mongoose before either. He wasn’t aware of the mongoose/snake relationship in his own world, what would it be like on Mobius?
Before he knew it, he was at the trailer. It was rather ostentatious, with “FORGET ME KNOTS” in huge green and pink letters on the side. He approached the door.
Then the weight of what, and who he was about to do smashed into his chest.
“Oh Jesus,” Ricky breathed. “I’m about to take advantage of the biggest music star on Mobius!”
And he knocked.
