This is a sequel to an earlier post. You might want to read that first.
If not, then enjoy!
***
Minigan sat in the open field, staring up at the overcast sky, and then to the jar in his hands. The jar, which appeared to house some kind of large insect, glinted in the late morning sun as Minigan rolled it in his hands.
“How do I get you back up there?” Minigan asked himself more than the insect.
“Dude,” Zac Efron interjected, sitting up from where he was laying, “Maybe we use a slingshot!”
“We’ll never be able to achieve escape velocity with a sling shot, Zaccy Effs. We’ll need a rocket. But even then we need to get it to the sun.”
“You could just let me free,” The insect squeeked.
“No can do, Kinish Asia,” Minigan replied, “All you’ll do is bring about the end of days on Earth. I cannot have you do that. I think it’s best if we launch you into the sun.”
“But that will kill me! And my name is ‘Kinich Ahau!’”
Zac and Minigan replied with disinterested, “meh’s” and continued with their activities: Zac lying down and tossing a ball into the air, and Minigan mindlessly spinning the jar, making the Mayan Sun God tumble around in his glass prison. Kinich Ahau roared (which sounded as if a chipmunk was trying to imitate a panther) and blasted fire at the glass. Casually, as if he had to do this on an hourly basis, Minigan jostled the jar and sent Kinich bouncing back and forth.
“How many times do I have to tell you,” Minigan said into the airholes of the jar, “I made sure that the jar and its lid are impervious to flame. And don’t bother trying to heat up the glass to make everything on the outside of it burn: I already thought of that and saw to it that the glass insulates the heat from escaping.”
“What kind of god are you, Minigan?” The Mayan diety asked.
“I wouldn’t call myself a god,” Minigan said, blushing, “A demigod, probably, but not a god- god.”
Zac sat up and whined, “How much more time is left, bro? This is boring.”
“It should be done any minute,” Minigan replied as he leaned over to check the time on the old Easy Bake oven, which continued to putter away at its task.
Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a woman step off the gravel parking lot and head directly for them in the field. Minigan looked towards her and immediately recognized her. She was tall, very pregnant, and wore a bandana around her head. It was Della.
“Minigan,” she shouted to the men sitting in the grass.
“I’m sorry, but Minigan isn’t home right now” Minigan answered in a telephone operator’s voice, “Please leave a message along with the date that you called and he will get back to you.”
Della stopped, her expression changed from one of determination to the one a person makes when they leave a message on voicemail (You know, eyebrows raised, nostrils flared. Think about it next time you leave one). Della replied, “OK, Well tell Minigan that I need to speak to him about his birthday present for me, and that he needs to get a hold of me. Or he could just talk to me now since I’m staring at him right now, and I’m not an idiot.”
“Damn,” Minigan whispered to Zac, “I almost thought that worked.”
“Me too bro!”
“Minigan!”
“Hi Della! What have you been up to lately, other than being knocked up? When did that happen?”
“Cut the shit, Minigan,” Della snapped, “You’ve been dodging me all summer, but now it’s time. You need to do something to fix the damage you’ve done on my birthday.”
“But that wasn’t even your birthday!” Minigan cried, jumping to his feet, “And besides, how is it my fault that the gypsy that I had enslaved to make your cake cursed it so that it would unleash snakes and a shit monster inside your house?”
“Do you even listen to yourself talk?” Della asked.
“Shit, dude, did that really happen?” Zac asked as he sat up.
Della did a double take at the actor whom she just realized she was in the presence of, and then asked “And why the hell are you and Zac Efron sitting in the middle of a field with an Easy Bake Oven, a bookbag, and a jar with a huge bug in it?” She gasped, “You didn’t kidnap Zac Efron, did you?”
“Not this time,” Zac replied as he cast a glare Minigan’s direction.
“Nope,” Minigan added, “Zaccy Effs is here because of his own poor decision making abilities.”
“OK,” Della replied, “But that still doesn’t answer the ‘Why.’”
Minigan picked up the jar with Kinich Ahau in it and tossed it to Della. Inside the jar, Kinich screamed a tiny scream as he flew through the air. When Della caught the jar, he fell into a pile of himself on the bottom. Della looked inside curiously as the Mayan god of the Sun returned to his feet, brushed himself off, and then began punching the glass with his bare hands. Each hit bouncing off the glass with a light “clink” that just barely escaped the airholes.
Before Della had a chance to ask, Minigan stated, “That is the Mayan god of the Sun Kinish Asia-“
“Kinich Ahau!” the little imprisoned man interjected.
“And last year, he tried to bring about the end of the world. Zac and I stopped him, and now we’re trying to figure out how to get him back to the sun.”
“Why’s he so small?” Della queried.
“We had to keep him somewhere,” Zac added, “If he touches the ground, the world will end. So Minigan decided to shrink him down and put him in a jar until we could get him back to the sun.”
“Ok,” Della replied, uncertain, still staring at the captured Mayan diety, “So you two were sitting out here because?”
Minigan replied, “Because NASA won’t let us borrow one of their rockets so that we can blast a jar into the sun-“
“Obviously.”
“The selfish Jerks,” Zac interjected.
“Yes,” Della retorted snarkily, “That is the problem.”
“So, I had to go about my normal methods,” Minigan continued, “By which I mean taking a drug that will let me warp reality to my will.”
Minigan ushered Della towards the Easy Bake Oven. He continued, “Cooking in the Easy Bake Oven right now is a drug I like to call Olivia Wilde. It’s a powerful hallucinogen that will send the user on very realistic trips.”
“I hate to break it to you, Minigan,” Della replied, “But that Easy Bake Oven isn’t cooking anything; the plug is stabbed into the ground.”
“It’s all in accordance to how you make Olivia Wilde, Della!” Minigan cried, “You must cook the specific ingredients in an Easy Bake Oven with its plug in the dirt, the morning before the First Quarter Moon.”
“Minigan was supposed to have a batch already done, but apparently he was ‘too busy’ to spend four hours in a clearing as he waited for the drug to cook last month, even though he promised to.”
“I had shit to do!” Minigan cried, “I’m sorry that my career hasn’t given me so much down time that I can waste a morning like you clearly can.”
“How will a hallucinogen help you warp reality, though?” Della asked.
Minigan answered, “By mixing it with this…”
Before Minigan continued, he began to rummage through his bookbag and pulled out two jars. The first was a glass masonry jar, similar to the one in which Kinich Ahau was imprisoned, but this one had a metallic coating on the bottom. The other was plastic with a blue lid, was filled with ice, and had a red and white object lodged in the center.
“Once the Olivia Wilde is complete, you mix one of these,” Minigan shook the plastic jar, “into the powder to create the drug that lets the user change any aspect of reality that he or she sees fit.”
He handed both jars to Zac, and began another search through his book bag. This time, his search yielded him a lighter, an unused red candle stick, a small glass vial filled with a clear liquid, and an eyedropper. Minigan sat Indian style on the ground and had Zac place the two jars in front of him. Minigan then sat the candle stick and the eye dropper on his lap and arranged the vial and two jars in a line in front of him. He opened both jars, and pulled the red and white object out from the plastic one. The white of the object turned out to be a paper towel, and the red was the blood that seeped through. Della and Zac recoiled in disgust as Minigan unrolled the paper towel to reveal three severed fingers. With his thumb and index finger, Minigan gingerly picked up one of the fingers and dropped it into the metal lined jar, then rerolled the remaining two fingers and returned them to the ice filled jar.
Minigan raised the jar with the finger it to a grossed out Della and Zac, and stated, “This is one of Charlie Sheen’s fingers. If you remember his outbursts from 2011, you’ll remember all the crazy things he said about himself: that he is a warlock from mars, that he has tiger blood, that he himself is a drug. That last one is true. Sheen had done so much drugs during his life that he can now be classified as a narcotic. Of course, Charlie Sheen is dangerous by itself, which is why I always cut it with Olivia Wilde.”
“So, you’re telling me that that is one of three severed fingers of Charlie Sheen that you just have?” Della asked with a look of suspicion and disgust frozen upon her face.
“Damn Minigan,” Zac added, “That whole thing happened two and a half years ago. Those jokes are so tired, dude.”
“SHUT YOUR MOUTH! SHUT YOUR GODDAMN MOUTH, YOU PERMINANT CASE OF BED HEAD MEGA-DOUCHE!!!!”
Zac Efron after being attacked by a colony of bats, probably.
As if Zac had said nothing at all, Minigan continued, “Della, yes, those are Charlie Sheen’s actual fingers. He can regenerate them. He actually gave me three because he is getting tired of me bothering him all the time. Anyway, I first have to burn the finger down into ash before I can cut it with Olivia Wilde. That’s what this other stuff is for. I learned that if I light the finger in a silver lined jar, with a virgin candle made of beeswax, and then add a drop of Alaskan glacier water, the process takes a few seconds instead of a few hours. Watch.”
Minigan lit the candle, and then pressed the flame up against the finger. Once the flesh started to blacken, and the smell of burning meat crept out of the jar and into the air around them, Minigan pulled the candle out, took a drop of water from the vial, and dropped it onto the burning finger. Instantly, the finger burst into vibrant blue flames. It spun around madly in the jar, emitting a high pitched squeal as it did. The flames quickly engulfed the entire inside of the jar and were shooting out the top. It did this for a couple of seconds before an orange fireball erupted from the jar and straight up into the air. The fireball fanned out to form a tiger, and as it did, disembodied guitar riffs rang out from the jar itself. Just as quickly as the fire had begun, it was extinguished, leaving only the smoldering ashes behind.”
“What the hell was that?!” Della cried.
“The raddest fucking thing I’ve ever fucking seen, that’s what that was!” Zac answered. “Minigan, bro, do it again!”
“Sorry Zaccy Effs, but I need to keep the other two fresh until I need them.”
Della pinched the bridge of her nose, “So you’re going to cannibalize Charlie Sheen’s fingers after you mix it with whatever you’re not cooking in that Easy Bake Oven.”
“I wouldn’t call it ‘cannibalizing.’ And I already told you, The Olivia Wilde is cooking.”
Della pulled the hair on the sides of her head, quickly losing patience with the situation, snapped, “No, Minigan. Nothing’s cooking. You have that damn toy plugged into the dir-“
The Easy Bake Oven’s timer went off with a “ping.” Zac cried excitedly and grabbed the oven by its sides. The hissing sound of searing flesh and the second degree burns that accompanied it transformed Zac’s excited cry into a pained wail.
Easy Bake Oven: burning stupid kids since 1965!
“Damn it, Zac,” Minigan shouted as he slapped the back of the actor’s head so hard that it knocked the oven out of his hands, “How many times do I have to say it? Oven- Hot. Oven like fire. No touch.”
As Zac whimpered at his blistered hands, Minigan used the purple pusher/ spatula to retrieve the cake pan containing the drug. Della wasn’t sure what exactly she was expecting to see, but what came out what definitely not it. In the pan was a flat, homely, moldy green disk. It had a texture similar to old corks, and its scent was akin to warm compost. Minigan overturned the pan, and the disk plopped heavily into his hand. Despite the heat from the Easy Bake Oven, the disk was surprisingly cool to the touch, and Minigan was able to hold it in his bare hands without even a wince. Then, Minigan dropped the hideous green disk into a plastic bag. Minigan then snapped the disk in half, and both halves turned to a brilliant royal blue. He broke the pieces in half again, and the color shifted from blue to indigo. He split the four pieces in half again, and the crumbling chunks turned violet. From there, he crushed each piece into powder, and once all eight pieces were nothing but dust, the color changed one last time from violet to hot pink.
Minigan dumped the Charlie Sheen ash into the bag, gave it a light shake, and then announced, “Alright. It’s ready. Let’s launch this Mayan God into the Sun.”
“But what about fixing my house!” Della cried, “I’m going to have this baby soon, and I’d really appreciate it if my living room no longer had holes in the walls or stink like a sewer.”
“C’mon dude,” Zac requested, “We can send Kinish Asia-“
“Kinich Ahau!”
“into the sun after we fix that house. It won’t take that long; we can just montage it!”
“That’s not going to work,” Minigan replied, “We’re talking about powerful gypsy magic here. That isn’t something our drugs can fix on their own. We’ll have to find the gypsy and ask him to change it back himself.”
“This is why you don’t enslave gypsies, Bro!” Zac scolded.
“You shouldn’t be enslaving anybody!” Della added. Then, remembering that nothing she could ever say would affect how Minigan acts, she asked, “Do you have any idea where the gypsy would’ve gone after he escaped your capture?”
Minigan pondered for a moment, and then answered, “Well, he was a Polish Gypsy, but he and his clan were nomadic, so I’d say somewhere in Eastern Europe.”
“Oh, well that narrows it down,” Della replied sarcastically, “If you would have said all of Europe, I would have been like, ‘Let’s just give up- that’s too much land to search.’ But since you said Eastern Europe, that’s much more doable for the three of us.”
“It will be once I take this,” Minigan replied as she shook the drug filled bag in front of her.
“Why you?” Zac asked.
“Because I remember what happened last time I let you take the drugs without me.”
“Honestly, Minigan, I’d feel better about this whole thing if you weren’t the one with reality warping superpowers,” Della insisted, “Let Zac have it.”
“But… But…”
“Minigan,” Della begged, “I’m asking you as a- well- friend. Please let Zac have this.”
Minigan felt defeated, but he obliged. He shoved the bag into Zac’s chest, and Zac immediately started pouring the powder into his mouth. Almost immediately, Zac Efron’s eyes began to roll in opposite directions.
After a few seconds of doing this, his pupils darted back to the center, and he stated, “OK. We’re going skydiving.”
“OK-What?!?!” Della and Minigan cried in unison.
A blast of icy wind hit them both from behind as their diving instructor opened the door of the plane. They looked to Zac, who was wearing an Army green jump suit, aviator sunglasses, and a parachute back pack.
“Are you two ready? Zac Efron asked the uneasy Minigan and the terrified and still very pregnant Della. The roar of the wind made it hard for them to hear, but Zac made sure to yell it loud enough so that they could.
“No!” they answered in unison.
“We don’t even have parachutes!” Della added as she tried to step away from the airplane’s open door.
“It’s too late to start worrying about those kinds of luxuries, dudes,” Zac replied. He then grabbed a hold of an exposed beam above his head, swung both of his legs out in front of him, and kicked Minigan and Della in the rears, sending them tumbling out of the cabin of the cruising airplane. Zac did a running front flip out of the door, and zoomed down to his freefalling compatriots. Della was face up, her arms and legs flailing wildly and her long, dark brown hair obscuring her face. Minigan was facing the rapidly approaching earth, his mouth open wide and the wind expanding his cheeks, making it look like he was breathing out while his mouth was pressed up against a window.
Zac spun, dipped, darted, whirled, and whipped around them, making him look like he had the flying capabilities of Superman. He spun around to face them both and yelled, “Don’t worry, you two will land lightly on your feet when you hit the ground.”
This didn’t sooth either of them. As they plummeted for the next thirty seconds, both Minigan and Della panicked and flailed their limbs accordingly. But Zac was right. Right as they were about to hit the ground, all three sky divers slowed, and their legs swung down thanks to some invisible force. Each of their feet gently touched the cracked, unkempt concrete as if they were only coming down of a single step.
“Minigan, Della, Welcome to Pryipat Ukraine.” Zac announced brightly to his shaking and panting cohorts.
Once he caught his breath, Minigan charged at Zac, yelling, “You kicked us out of a plane you son of a bit-“
“You’re a flaccid penis monster, Minigan!” Zac cried just Minigan swung a fist at his jaw.
The penis monster Minigan toppled forward into a pile on the irradiated ground, but not before landing a soft punch across Zac’s face. Zac laughed hysterically as the puddle of penises that was once Minigan Blackwood feebly gasped for air, his penis ribcage too weak to prevent his body collapsing upon itself.
“Despite how much I love seeing someone giving Minigan a taste of the torture he inflicts upon the rest of us,” Della said to Zac between sucking in lungful’s of air, “There is no one on this planet I hate more than you right now. So change him back before I punch the dick off you. Do you understand, bro?”
“Ugh, fine,” Zac replied, “Minigan isn’t a penis monster. Just his normal self.”
Zac reached out his hand to help Minigan up, but when Minigan swung his arm up, he missed Zac’s hand and punched him directly in the groin. When Zac leaned over and instinctively clutched his pummeled genitals, Minigan hit him with a right hook that sent him toppling to the ground.
As Zac, rolled on the ground, his hands wrapped around his crotch, as if doing that was the only thing keeping his balls from falling off and running away, Minigan climbed to his feet and said, “Really, asshole? You made my bones flaccid dicks too!?”
“Oh, shut up, Minigan,” Della snapped, “It’s your fault we’re here in the first place.”
“My fault?! Let’s not forget who decided to give fucking Troy Bolton here “Drug Fueled Leader” status.”
Della didn’t reply, but instead looked around at the long since abandoned amusement park they had landed in. Directly behind them was the bumpercars; the years of neglect had stripped the pavilion of its roof, and allowed tufts of foliage to break through the floor between the rusted cars. About thirty or so yards to their left was the Ferris wheel, its weathered skeleton looming over the area like death itself.
Nothing good comes in a setting with an abandoned Ferris wheel.
“Why does this place look so familiar to me?” Della asked.
“Have you ever heard of Chernobyl?” Minigan replied.
“Yeah.”
“Well, this was a neighboring town that was evacuated because of the Chernobyl disaster. Usually pictures from Pripyat get lumped in with the ones from the city of Chernobyl.”
“So, we’re in a place that was evacuated because of its deadly levels of radiation.”
“Exactly,” Minigan answered. Then, realizing what Della was getting at, he nudged the still incapacitated Zac with his foot and said, “Hey, you need to make us immune to the radiation here.”
“We’re immune,” Zac coughed.
“Good. Now get up, asshole, we need to find this gypsy.” Minigan and Della headed towards a series of apartment buildings that sat on the other side of a line of trees. Zac climbed to his feet, and as fast as he could while still cupping his balls, waddled to catch up with them.
“So where are we headed?” Zac asked.
“The gypsies are probably staying in one of these buildings. We’re going to search through each one until we find them,” Minigan answered.
“How do you know where they’re living?” Della asked.
“That’s where they were the last two times I found them.”
“Two times?”
“Yeah,” Minigan stated, “Two times. The first time so that they could teach me how to make the Olivia Wilde drug, the second so that I could kidnap and enslave Vanlow.”
Della rushed in front of Minigan and put her hand out, effectively stopping him. She stared at him with a combination of disbelief and anger when she said, “So not only did you know the gypsy you were going to enslave, but you also knew that they could do magic when you enslaved one of them?!”
“I wanted to make you a really nice cake! Besides, I was going to let him go afterwards.”
“It doesn’t matter you sociopath! I cannot believe I have to say this, but you shouldn’t enslave anyone, especially someone who you know can perform magic!”
“Uh guys,” Zac interrupted, tapping them both on the shoulder.
They looked to him, but he didn’t look back. Instead, he was focused on something several yards ahead. Minigan looked around Della to see what Zac was staring at. It was a little girl. Together, the three Americans cautiously walked towards the girl, who stood perfectly still, staring directly at them. The little girl, Minigan decided, couldn’t be older than seven years old. She wore a long dress that looked like it was stitched together from different patterns of fabric. Her blouse was baggy. Minigan wasn’t sure if it was tan or just discolored from lack of washing. The girl’s dark brown hair reached her waist, and was so wild that she had to keep it in place with a bandana similar to the one Della was wearing. In her hads was an old baby doll, obviously abandoned by the original owner during the evacuation in 1986, and wore only a gas mask over its face.
The Eighties were a weird time for everyone.
They were mere feet from the girl now; she just stared at them. She didn’t seem scared, or even wary of the intruders upon her home, she just stood and waited for them to get closer. Zac, Della, and Minigan stopped. No one said a word.
The girl stared at them with her teal colored eyes for a second or two, and then looked to Minigan and said, “Minigan Blackwood, Vanlow has been waiting for you.”
“Where is he,” Della asked before Minigan was even able to open his mouth.
The little girl looked to Della and said, “Follow the smoke.”
She then turned and made an underhand throwing motion. A cloud of crimson smoke formed about ten feet off the ground, and then darted off towards the buildings. Zac, Minigan, and Della quickly looked towards one another, and then rushed to catch up with it.
As they hurried along the abandoned streets, Minigan regularly glanced upwards towards the forlorn buildings and through the darkened windows for any sign of life. Every once and a while, he would even glance behind them to make sure they weren’t being tailed. Not even the little girl with the gas mask doll was to be found.
The tree of them followed the smoke as it made a sharp left down an alleyway, and Minigan muttered to the other two, “Keep a lookout for gypsies; this is probably a trap.”
“Don’t worry Bro and bro-ette,” Zac replied, “If any try to ambush us, I’ll just spit some acid in their face.”
To demonstrate, Zac breathed deep and spat at the nearest wall. Oozing saliva (still a pale pink from the drugs) foamed up and ate away at the wall. In a matter of seconds, Zac’s spit had eroded a hole big enough for a person to climb through and it continued to expand. The already weakened structure began to sway towards the alley.
“Shit, Run!”
The building crumbled over them, showering the three with larger and larger chunks of debris. The thundering crash of the one building toppling into the other encouraged Della, Zac, and Minigan to run faster. The collapsing building chased them in return. Della, with the weight of her unborn child slowing her down, started to fall behind the two 25 year old men in peak physical condition. Realizing this, Minigan stopped, picked her up, and began sprinting down the alley once again, the toppling building raining pieces of brick and mortar upon them as he ran. Minigan and Della escaped the alley with only a second to spare before the building Zac spat on collapsed entirely into the other, which then folded in upon itself, leaving a colossal pile of rubble where the two buildings and alley once sat.
Zac looked back at the destruction he had caused and said, “My bad.”
Minigan lowered Della’s feet back to the ground, and in an irritated tone, replied, “Nevermind. Let’s keep following the smoke.”
They followed the trail of crimson smoke through the desolate ruins of Pripyat for an uneventful ten minutes, the smoke winding its way through the city, it’s vibrant color stood out brilliantly compared to the dull off whites of the surrounding buildings. Finally, the smoke brought them to a town square. The crimson smoke darted towards the center of the square, and then stopped. The three hurried up on it, and once they got close enough, the cloud of smoke shot straight down.
Zac and Minigan hurried to the spot, with Della hobbling behind, grumbling about her aching back and feet. The three looked down at where the smoke had rested, finding it resting on the ground in the shape of a circle not much larger than a fist. Suddenly, sixteen lines of smoke began creeping from the circle, fanning out across the ground.
Curious, Minigan stepped away from the central point and watched as the sixteen lines spread outward from the center. It took a second or two, but Minigan finally recognized the symbol.
“We need to get out of the circle!” Minigan cried to Della and Zac, who were still fascinated by the arms of crimson smoke stretching across the pale grey concrete, “NOW!”
All three ran towards the ends of the smoke lines, but it was too late. The lines stopped, connected to each other with an outer circle, and in a flash, a semi-transparent dome erupted from the circle, trapping the three inside. Minigan had managed to extend his arm across the line as the dome formed, but the dome formed around it, trapping him and leaving his arm flailing on the outside. Minigan tugged on it, but I could not pull it through the dome’s force-field wall.
“Uh, guys,” Minigan begged, still pointlessly pulling, “A little help please?”
Della and Zac both grabbed onto Minigan’s torso and began to pull. Still nothing.
“What the hell is this, anyway?” Della asked as she wrapped her hands around Minigan’s bicep and tugged.
“The sixteen spoke wheel,” Minigan explained, “It’s a protection symbol for Gypsies. I remember seeing it drawn on Vanlow’s hand in icing when he was making the cake for you. I looked it up after he had escaped.”
“How did he escape, anyway?” Zac asked.
“I’m not sure- Della, stop digging your nails into my arm. I would like to keep it attached.” Minigan continued, “Della and I went to confront him after we survived the attack of the shit monster, but he had already escaped. He was able to perform some magic, but nothing like this, at least, not like I had ever seen. His magic seemed to be more potion based. I think he may have picked the lock or something.”
Wicked cackling erupted from behind them, making all three of them jump and Minigan wince in pain from his trapped arm. They turned around to see the little girl who had directed them there standing at the other end of the circle, grinning a devious grin at them.
“I’ve waited long for you, dog.” She said in a voice more suited for an old hag than a little girl.
The little girls eyes sunk into their sockets, and the area around them darkened. Her fingernails grew into axe blades, and her teeth flattened into large bladed scoops, similar to shovels. She charged at the three, her toothy mouth opened wide to devour her captors. She lept. Zac spit. His spit hit her right on her cheek, and immediately began to eat away at her face. She fell to the concrete, shrieking and writhing in pain.
“Nice work, Efron,” a male’s voice with a light European accent said from outside the dome.
It was Vanlow. He was fairly young, no more than a year older than Zac or Minigan, but his dark features made him look much older. His hair was jet black and just long enough for the natural waves to stand out. He wore a pair of loose, dark blue pants that looked like they were made from some repurposed canvas cloth, which was tied with a weathered looking rope. A battered button-up shirt that was several sizes too large for him draped over his torso, and its sleeves he wore rolled up past his elbow. Confidently, he stepped through the force-field dome. Once inside, he turned to the wailing and now disfigured witch and made the sign of a cross. The witch instantly exploded into a cloud of crimson smoke, which continued to hang in the air , giving the light that passed through it a pink haze.
“I knew I should have never entrusted a witch to capture you,” Vanlow said with a grin, “They do have a tendency for eating their prey, do they not?”
Vanlow then grabbed onto Minigan’s trapped arm, and, with no concern about Minigan’s comfort, yanked his arm free from the dome, which sealed the hole his arm had left. He let Minigan fall to the ground, and slowly paced away from Minigan, Zac, and Della, to the other end of the dome.
Minigan rubbed his freed arm, and begrudgingly said, “Well, thanks, I guess.”
“Now now, Minigan!” Vanlow cried as he turned on his heels and faced him, “That is such an improper tone to take with an old friend such as I. After all, I did teach you how to turn those fingers into ashes, did I not?” He started to walk back towards Minigan, his eyes flashing malevolently. “I assume you’re here to capture me once again? I’m sorry to say that that will not be happening today.
“Actually,” Della interrupted, “We’re only here to ask you to remove the curse you put into the cake. It destroyed my house, and I would really like for it to be back to normal before my baby arrives.”
Vanlow looked to her with mild surprise, “Your house? Minigan, you didn’t.”
“No. No. No. He absolutely didn’t have any involvement in me getting pregnant.” Della interjected, “Nor will he ever be. I have a husband that I love very much, and I’m very glad that he is nothing like Minigan.”
“I like you,” Vanlow said to her with a friendly smile, “Did you know that he had enslaved someone to make it?”
“No! Well, kind of. He mentioned it right before we ate it, but Minigan wouldn’t accept me refusing to eat a piece!”
“So you ate the cake, knowing that it was created by slave labor?” Vanlow asked as his friendly smile morphed into a dark glare, “Then I cannot help you. You did this to yourself.”
“C’mon, Vanlow” Minigan said as he returned to his feet, “Just change it back, and then you’ll never see us again.”
“How dare you!” The gypsy spat, “You enslaved me to make a cake!”
“And you’re being a real asshole about it right now, so I’d say we’re even.”
“OK, I’ve had enough of this,” Zac stated. He then pressed his wrists together, aiming his hands at Vanlow and yelled, “Hadouken!”
I burst of blue fire shot from Zac’s hands and at the chest of Vanlow, sending him sailing far outside the dome prison. Zac then turned to the dome and began to feverishly spit on it. Each wad of spit sailed through the dome as if nothing was there. Almost instantly, Vanlow was back on his feet and inside the dome, with tendrils of dark blue smoke stretching out from under his shirt and wrapping around Zac. With a light flick, the smoke tossed Zac across their prison, and he slammed hard into the force-field wall on the other end. Zac fell to the ground in a heap and didn’t move.
“You see, Minigan,” Vanlow explained as we flicked his wrist and made the dome grow arms that grabbed Minigan and bound him to the wall, “I knew you’d come back to capture me again, so I have been practicing my magic. Impressive, no?”
“Very impressive,” A struggling Minigan replied, “Who knew being a raging prick was actually a form of witchcraft?”
“Even in the face of defeat, you still make your belittling jokes. You have no sense. Your ego makes you stubbornly refuse to bargin.”
“You never said that bargining was an option!”
“Bargining is always an option with Romanis.”
“Well then, what do you want?”
Vanlow paused for a second, scratching his chin as he pondered. When he figured it out, his eyes lit up with excitement and he answered, “I want a slave, just as you enslaved me.”
“Alright,” Minigan answered, the sound of defeat in his voice, “I’ll be your slave on the condition that if I escape, we’re still even.”
Vanlow laughed a hardy, booming laugh, “Who said I want you as a slave? I want her.”
“Her?!”
“Me?!”
“Yes, her,” Vanlow stated, “Enslaving one of your friends should be a much better punishment than enslaving you. Plus, when she gives birth, I’ll have a second slave. That’s just a better deal, is it not?”
“Then no deal,” Minigan replied, still struggling against the dome’s hands, “The whole reason we’re here is to help fix Della’s house. This isn’t fair to her. Just enslave me instead.”
“Listen to him!” Della pleaded frantically, “He’s strong! He can lift a lot heavier things that I can! You can put him to work!”
“This isn’t your decision, miss Della,” Vanlow said dismissively.”
“This decision directly affects me, of course it’s my decision!” Della snapped.
Minigan and Vanlow simultaneously shouted, “Stay out of this, Della!”
“I have a magical gypsy axe!” Zac shouted from the other end of the dome.
Vanlow turned around and watched in horror as Zac swung his axe down at the crimson smoke marking on the ground. The blade severed one of the sixteen lines, and the wheel symbol, as well as the imprisoning dome, vanished.
“No!” Vanlow roared.
“Hadouken!!”
Another blue fireball shot out of Zac’s hands and hit Vanlow, sending him flying for a second time. Della and Minigan rushed to him just as dozens of gypsies poured out of the decrepit buildings surrounding the square and surrounded them. The gypsies quickly had them surrounded, each one poised to attack with their various weapons or magic.
“Hold” Vanlow called from somewhere in the hoard. He stepped through the crowd, his wavy black hair disheveled from the blow, and his eyes bloodshot and furious. He picked up a stone from the ground, held it in one hand, and squeezed. From the rock dripped water as if the rock were a sponge. When Vanlow opened his hand, all that was left of the stone vanished in a puff of dark blue smoke. He glared at them for a second or two before saying, “So you have chosen to fight, yes?”
“You got it, asshole,” Minigan called back.
“Fine,” the gypsy replied, “But the Romani are a close knit family. If you fight one of us, you fight all of us.”
“Bring it on!” Zac yelled. He then leaned over to Della and muttered under his breath, “Get on the wagon behind us, I have an idea.”
Della looked to find the cart sitting there, waiting for her, and she did just what Zac has said.
“Family, Attack!”
The clan of Gypsies charged at the three Americans. Zac and Minigan ran around to the other side of the wagon, pulled down of the handles so that Della’s end raised, and together, they began to push. Within seconds, Zac and Minigan were on the receiving end of a series of punches, blows from various chains and clubs, and blasts of smoke that were filled with needles or caused the two to feel dizzy. Whenever he could, Zac spat at the gypsies, effectively incapacitating them with the acid in his saliva.
Minigan, still taking a beating and unable to fight them off, yelled, “Zac, we need more superpowers to fight them off!”
“You’re right,” he replied between spits, “Della, stop them with your queefs!”
“My what?!”
“ Your queefs! You have superpowered queefs! It’s the classiest superpower ever!”
“Ever, or that your pathetic mind could think of?!”
“I meant me!” Minigan cried as a fanned away a turquoise cloud of smoke that was making is eyes swell.
Zac and Minigan spun the cart around, knocking over several gypsies in the process.
“Della hit ’em!”
With a look of pure loathing plastered on her face, Della leaned back, spread her legs, and squeezed. A light “pfft” sound crept out of her crotch. Suddenly, the tree gypsies coming up on Della were blown across the plaza, as if being carried away by some great wind. The gypsy hoard saw this, and out of either shock or fear, hesitated to move any closer. Taking this opportunity, Zac and Minigan spun the cart around again, and pulled it through the newly made gap in the crowd and towards the edge of the Plaza.
“What are you waiting for?!” Vanlow roared, “GET THEM!”
The mob obliged. Several steams of different colored smoke shot into the air like arrows, and then arched down at the fleeing Americans. Della aimed her pelvis and squeezed again. After about a second, the smoke collided with the queef, turning each trail of smoke a sickly green. The smoke trails then changed their direction and rushed back at the gypsy hoard, attacking their former masters. Panicked shrieks echoed through the otherwise quiet plaza. Chaos erupted from the clan as the clouds of queef tainted smoke assaulted the people who had cast them, many of them frantically running around, blinded by the haze. In the center of the Pandemonium, Vanlow stood, seething as he watched Minigan and his friends escape the plaza.
“What direction are we headed?” Zac asked between heavy breaths.
“I think towards the amusement park,” Minigan replied, “Let just try to get a much distance between us and those gypsies before we head back home.”
“But what about my house!” Della cried, right before she blasted a queef at a burly and mustachioed gypsy whom managed to break away from the carnage in the square and catch up to them. The queef hit the man, instantly binding him with ropes. He lost his balance and fell to the ground, squirming to break free from the bindings.
“I’m sorry, I totally forgot about your house,” Minigan replied to Della sarcastically, “maybe if we just stop and ask Vanlow nicely, he’ll change his mind.”
“Can we argue about this later?” Zac interjected, “I don’t think just distance is enough to keep those people from catching us.” he pondered for a second or two, then exclaimed, “I’ve got it! These buildings can shift to form a series of blockades!
Just then, the ground beneath them began to rumble. The shaking became more and more violent, to the point where the already decrepit apartment complexes began to sway. Then, slowly at first, with the sound of concrete rubbing on concrete, each building started to move. They spun and slid over the streets, and slammed into one another, forming an impenetrable maze of abandoned buildings in Minigan, Zac, and Della’s wake. Even the ones a head of them shifted, creating an escape route that lead directly to the Ferris Wheel. After not much time at all, the three had escaped the moving buildings of Pripyat, and were racing towards the vacant lot where they had begun.
Imagine it as the cheap version of Inception.
Della, after she carefully scanned the now still buildings for signs on approaching gypsies, uttered “I can’t believe you, Minigan.”
“What did I do?”
“This is all your fault. If you hadn’t taken Vanlow as a slave, that cake wouldn’t have destroyed my house, and I wouldn’t in the Ukraine queefing at an angry mob of magical gypsies.”
“But I’m not the one to decide that the frat guy from Seth Rogan’s new movie should take the reality bending drugs!”
“Hey! I’ve been doing a good job!”
“You kicked us out of an airplane and almost collapsed a building on us, you dick!” Della snapped.
“That’s right!”
“Hey, I don’t even need to help you bickering douchebags!” Zac snapped, “How is any of this my problem?”
The three continued to argue, and as they did, they failed to notice the plume of dark blue smoke rise over the buildings and fly towards them. The smoke arched, and then rocketed to the ground, landing mere feet away from the arguing trio. Out of the smoke stepped Vanlow, still notably furious, but also wearing a look of triumph on his tan face.
“You really thought you could escape me so easily?” Vanlow announced, but Della, Minigan, and Zac payed no attention to him, opting to continue arguing instead. Flabbergasted by such an unusual response, momentarily paused, his anger robbed from him. Once it resurfaced, he roared, “HEY!”
Minigan, Zac, and Della stopped and looked to him. In unison, they said, “Will you shut the hell up, we’re in the middle of something!”
Zac added, “You wait until the Americans are done talking.”
With a flick of his wrist, Vanlow whipped up some dark blue smoke. The smoke raced down to Zac’s ankles, wrapped around them, and then shot upwards, making Zac flip in the air and land on his neck. Minigan charged at the gypsy. He counter acted with another burst of smoke, this one throwing Minigan across the parking lot and into the bumper cars pavilion. Minigan slammed into one of the weather worn cars and collapsed onto the ground. Vanlow shot seven more smoke blasts at the pavilion before turning to face Della.
Vanlow smirked at Della, “You’re coming with me.”
“Stand back,” Della cried, “My queefs will rip you apart!”
She closed her legs and then opened them again, and her vagina made a sound similar to that of a cocking gun (see what I did there?). Vanlow was undeterred, and took a step towards her. Poot. The shock of the queef made Vanlow stagger backwards, but he quickly regained his composure and stepped up to face Della again. He raised his right hand, and emitted a thick cloud of smoke that darted at the pregnant Della. She queefed again, and it collided with the smoke, turning it a sickly green color like the others. But it didn’t attack Vanlow; It just hung in the air for a second or two before bursting into flames.
“Oh, come on, my Queefs aren’t that deadly.”
Vanlow didn’t reply, but instead shot another plume of smoke at Della. Della was too slow that time, and the smoke hit her directly in the stomach. Della didn’t feel a thing. She gave Vanlow a confused look, that is, until she felt her pants get wet.
“Guys!” she yelled, “My water just broke I think!”
Zac, with his face planted on the concrete, mumbled out of the corner of his mouth, “I’m fine.” Feeling better, Zac stood up, jumped on the cart, and yelled, “This cart can move by itself, and wants to keep away from Vanlow!”
The bed of the cart leveled, and with an awkward lurch forward, sped away from the vengeful Romani smoke lord. Vanlow created a pool of blue smoke at his feet. He closed his eyes as the smoke swirled and rolled around him, undulating as if something alive was stirring beneath its surface. The swirling waves of smoke grew more violent, and then Vanlow opened his eyes. The smoke shot up into the sky, carrying him with it. Within seconds, he was several stories up in the air, and arcing downward towards the fleeing cart. Vanlow rocketed at Zac and Della, looking like a hipster Iron Man with a serious suit malfunction. The cart sped up in an attempt to avoid the flying gypsy, but Vanlow was too quick, and within seconds was about to crash into them. That’s when Minigan dove into Vanlow’s path, and collided with him, sending both men spiraling away from the cart.
-a few minutes earlier-
Minigan landed on his back, his body spread out on the bumper car pavilion’s floor. Struggling to sit up, he watched as seven blasts of smoke followed him into the pavilion and crashed into each of the cars. Instantly, the cars came to life and charged at Minigan. Despite feeling worn down already, Minigan jumped to his feet and dove over the first car. The second and third car charged at him at the same time, so Minigan jumped at the last second, causing them to crash into one another. He landed on the yellow one that had pink graffiti scrawled on the hood, and from there hopped over the metal fence and out of the pavilion.
You can see the murder in their non-eyes.
Racing away from the bumpercars that were desperately trying to break free, Minigan looked up and saw Vanlow’s smoke trail streaking down towards the fleeing cart. As fast as his burning legs could carry him, Minigan sprinted towards the cart. At the last second, he dove, managing to grab a hold of Vanlow as he passed.
—
The two men hit the rough concrete and rolled several feet before breaking apart and coming to a stop. Minigan was back on his feet first, but was unsteady. His warm blood oozed from the newly formed scrapes on his forarms and face, and the dull throbbing pain in his skull made it hard to see straight.
From behind him, Minigan heard Zac yell, “You’re fine Minigan! Kick that dirty gypsy’s ass!”
“OK,” Minigan replied, his vision cleared and his head feeling fine, “Just help Della give birth!”
“What?!”
“You heard me-“
A loud clang of metal hitting pavement indicated to Minigan that the bumper cars had escaped. He looked to where Vanlow had been, only to realize he had vanished. Minigan ran back to the zigzagging cart, deciding that that was the perfect opportunity to give himself an edge against Vanlow. He dug his hand into his pocket and pulled out his secret bag of Olivia Wilde and Charlie Sheen. As best he could, Minigan dumped the contents into his mouth and swallowed.
“I’m on the cart,” he announced.
“Holy shit,” Zac stammered, looking both terrified and sick, “H-How did you do that?”
“No time for questions Zaccy Effs,” Minigan replied brightly, “Where is Vanlow?”
“That’s a question!”
In a pained voice, Della replied, “I don’t know. God this hurts!”
“Good to know. But while he’s still gone, we need to figure out how to stop him.”
“There’s no way to stop him!” Zac cried, a little more frantically than he normally would have, “He is more powerful than the drugs. Nothing I tried has stopped him yet.”
Minigan pondered for a second, and then asked, “Quick, what’s the one thing Gypsies are powerless against?”
“Nazis?” Della answered between breaths.
“Soap?” Zac added.
“Ugly jewelry?”
“Peddling their half assed fortune telling chicanery?”
“Bondage!” Minigan shouted, “They’re mostly nomadic. They hate being tied to a particular place! If we are able to tie him up, then maybe that will weaken him!”
“But you tied him up before and he escaped,” Della noted, “oh God, here comes another contraction!”
“Minigan please don’t make me help with this,” Zac pleaded over Della’s pained yells.
“Vanlow picked the lock- he didn’t use magic, Della. And Zac, you need to help deliver the baby, it’s the only way.”
“Why can’t you do it?”
Just then, the leading bumper car rammed into the back of the cart, making the wooden bed tilt back and forth like a seesaw.
“That’s why,” Minigan said as he pulled a handful of mines out of his pocket.
“Where the hell did you get those?!” Zac asked, “Wait a second, did you take some Olivia Wilde?!”
“Yes.”
“I thought you didn’t have anymore!”
“I had to lie to you cause I figured you would try to dick me over again,” Minigan explained, “So this was my back up in case shit went afoul,”
“You deceitful little bastard!” a red faced Della shouted in a much deeper voice that usual, “You’ve been giving me shit all day about letting Zac have the stupid bag of drugs when you had more! You petty little shit. If I wasn’t about to have a baby, I’d beat the hell out of you!”
“Hey, if I wanted someone to ride my ass, I would’ve just twerked with Robin Thicke at the VMA’s.”
Without another word, Minigan dumped the mines onto the ground in front of the cart. The cart rolled over them with no problem, but as soon as the first automatous bumper car drove over one, it exploded into thousands of pieces of flying shrapnel. The other cars were destroyed in the same way, one at a time, exploding into pieces.
“Impressive, Minigan,”Vanlow’s voice said from behind him.
“Oh, God, the baby’s coming!”
“Tell it to wait a little while longer!”
“Vanlow,” Minigan demanded, “End this. Let us go.”
“Never.”
“Fine.” Minigan snapped, “Vanlow is tied down with chains!”
Vanlow looked at the thick metal chains that were binding him. He scoffed, and the chains vanished in a puff of Dark blue smoke.
“The three of you know nothing about me,” Vanlow muttered darkly, “Nothing about the Roma! Nothing about our culture! You don’t even know one of our oral traditions.”
“Yeah, but I’ve got a few oral traditions of my own, if you know what I mean,” Zac interjects. He goes to give Della a high five, but she just glares at him.
“Shut up, Zaccy Effs,” Minigan commanded.
Ignoring Zac, Vanlow continued, “So let me give you a lesson!”
“You’re a penis monster, Minigan.”
Vanlow shot several spike shaped clouds of smoke at the penis monster Minigan, but all they did was disperse once they hit him.
Penis monster Minigan smirked at the dumbfounded Vanlow and quipped, “So, was the first lesson that you guys are pointless?”
Vanlow let out an angry roar and dive tackled Minigan. The two men tumbled out of the rolling cart and onto the metal strewn concrete. Vanlow rolled away from Minigan and quickly stood up, and then backed away from the Penis monster on the ground, clouds of blue smoke puffing erratically out of his ears and nose. Penis monster Minigan stood up and faced his foe. Noting that Vanlow seemed to have lost some of the control of his smoke after tackling him, Minigan charged.
Vanlow dodged Minigan’s attack and screamed, “You want to fight as monsters? I shall fight you as a monster!”
The gypsy vanished in a billowing plume of smoke that grew upwards about forty feet. The swirling, dark blue cloud expanded and expanded until it blocked most of the rearranged Pripyat from view. Then, with a deafening high pitched roar, a 24 headed dragon stepped out.
Della screamed in pain, which was echoed by Zac and Minigan, who admittedly were screaming about two different things.
The dragon, with a single swipe, snatched up Minigan in its claw and brought it up to one of its many faces.
“Stop Pushing, Zac!”
“YOU stop pushing, Della!”
“THAT’S NOT HOW THIS WORKS, EFRON!”
“Shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit!” Minigan cried, as he stared into the gaping mouth of the 24 headed dragon.
“You’ll never stop me, Minigan,” The dragon roared, “Either give me the girl, or I’ll destroy everything you love.”
“How about you not take the girl and not destroy everything I love?” Minigan asked.
“That also works,” The dragon replied.” And how about we sit down and drink of the finest wine, and eat meat that no man has ever eaten?” The Vanlow Dragon joked, “This isn’t a fairy tale, Minigan! In the real world, dragons aren’t so easily outsmarted!”
Vanlow closed his claws around Minigan and squeezed. Bursts of pain shot through his body as his bones and internal organs were squeezes to the point of breaking or rupturing. Minigan began to feel the blood vessels in his eyes begin to burst and the oxygen escape from is lungs.
Thinking quickly, Minigan used his free hand and, with what little breath he had left, squeaked, “My penis fingers are highly elastic.”
Minigan’s elastic penis fingers stretched out and wrapped themselves around the main head of the multi headed dragon. This didn’t do much, so Minigan had his fingers urinate on the Dragon. All twenty four heads shrieked in pain as the urine burned its skin. Out of the combination of anger and pain, the dragon threw Minigan to the ground. Minigan bounced to his feet, and while the Dragon was still wailing because of his burns, Minigan ran to the cart.
“Della,” Minigan shouted, looking at her through his strained and bloody eyes, “I need your afterbirth!”
Della- Why must the all the focus be on what comes out of my vagina today?!
Despite taking deep lungful gasps of air, Minigan managed to retort, “You’re expelling a human being from it right now. Try to keep up, Della, this is important.”
“Fuck you Minigan!” Della screamed through clenched teeth.
“The head’s out!” A shaky Zac interjected, “One more push I think. At least that’s what the movies say.”
Della screamed, gave a final push, and little Myka was born. Zac caught it, and spanked its ass, causing the newborn to start crying. Zac then wrapped the baby in a blanket that he pulled out of nowhere and handed him to an exhausted Della. She looked into her baby’s eyes, and for a moment, everyone was at peace. Nothing mattered except that the baby was ok, which he was. Minigan breathed a sigh of relief and patted Zac on the shoulder, which Zac returned. Della, for the first time in months, was smiling.
But of course, the moment was ruined by the livid twenty four headed dragon lumbering towards them. Minigan quickly gathered up as much after birth as he could, doing his best not to gag, and placed it into a large plastic bag he had pulled from nowhere. He tied the bag, aimed, and threw.
Majestically, the bag of placenta sailed high into the air, catching the light of the setting sun as it did. Not so majestically, it exploded on one of the faces of the dragon. The other twenty three heads began to screech and flail, and one by one, exploded into blue smoke.
Just as the dragon’s body did the same Minigan ran forward yelling, “Vanlow is tiny and I have a jar that is impervious to all kinds of gypsy magic!”
I tiny sounding cry rang out from the blue smoke, and Penis Monster Minigan did a running somersault to catch the miniaturized gypsy. He caught the four inch tall man in the jar, and immediately twisted the lid on and sealed it.
“Let me out, Minigan,” the tiny Vanlow cried, “I demand it!”
“I’m so sorry, Vanny Low,” Minigan replied, “but I’m afraid I cannot do that. I gave you enough opportunities to not be an insufferable butt-hole, but you refused. This jar is where you shall stay.
“You want my curse undone?” Vanlow bargained, “It’s done. The curse has been lifted, and her house is back to normal.
“Oh yeah,” The penisified Minigan said incredulously, “We’ll see about that.” He then shouted to no one in particular, “We’re all back at Della’s house, in her living room.”
Regular Minigan turned around to see Della resting on her living room couch. The ceiling and walls were neither stained with sewage nor containing giant holes and exposed pipes. The air was heavy with a sweet smelling potpourri, not the smell of human excrement, and there wasn’t a single terrified snake in sight.
“See,” Vanlow cried, “Now can you let me out?”
“Sorry. Not gonna happen.”
“But we made a deal!”
“I’m sorry?” Minigan snapped, “We made no deal. You did this on your own; I didn’t agree to anything.”
“But bargaining is always an option!” Vanlow cried.
“Bargaining was an option until you turned into a dragon and tried to squeeze the life out of me.”
“But…”
Minigan refused to hear another word from Vanlow, and instead stuffed the jar into his bookbag. He then joined Zac, Della, and her husband and sister in celebrating the new life.
—
Hours later, when Minigan finally got back home, he went to his room, shutting the door behind him. With his bookbag, he climbed up to the shelf above his desk. He pulled out the jars of Kinich Ahau and Vanlow and placed them on the shelf.
Then, with a lingering look over at the rest of the empty shelf, said, “Hmm…”
THE END… FOR NOW
Ramblings of a Madman 