(no subject)

[pullsneedles]

Lucas is grateful when he opens his door to an empty hallway. He'll be happier once he finds Boney but just being alive is great for now.

It doesn't take long, however, for him to pick up his dog's thoughts in a nearby staircase.

"Coast is clear, boy," he calls, still adjusting to the sound once again coming through a Pigmask helmet.

Boney comes down the stairs, his yellow Pigmask helmet looking particularly ridiculous on him. But boy is he glad to see Lucas, especially since he has company.

"We're s'pposed to be looking for some monkeys, or at least that's our story if any Pigmasks ask. They're hidin' somewhere in this lab and prob'ly eager for a way out. And keep a lookout for..."

He winces under his mask as he thinks about the Ultimate Chimera.

"...well, you'll know it when y'see it."

Comments

[raptorcanaria]

Dinah nods, touching the drinks stirrer under her choker to assure herself that it's there.

She crouches down to rub Boney's head and looks up at Lucas. "Lead the way."

[pullsneedles]

Boney appreciates the affection but wishes he wasn't wearing the helmet. He wants scratches behind his ears and makes this clear to his owner's mind.

"You'll have to wait for that, Boney," Lucas tells him. "We'll ditch the helmets later."

"(I sure hope so...)" Boney glumly thinks.

They go down the hallway and, after Boney sniffs it out, go into what looks like an operating room. There's a table big enough to hold a lion or a small elephant with straps on each corner. Near another door is another person wearing a Pigmask uniformed in blue.

"Intruder!" the blue Pigmask calls. "We have an intruder!"

"No no, she's with me!" Lucas calls out quickly, hands up.

The blue Pigmask leans towards Lucas curiously.

"That you, Part Timer?"

He nods, pink helmet wiggling.

"Weren't you talking with Violet before at Club Titiboo?"

He nods again.

"Wow! Didn't know you were such a ladies man, kid!"

The blue Pigmask punches Lucas in the shoulder, though it's clearly meant as a sign of manly affection.

[raptorcanaria]

Dinah grins at both of them.

"I thought I might be of some use to you. If you need the help, that is?"

[pullsneedles]

The blue Pigmask, seeing an out from work, hesitates a bit before dramatically clutching at his stomach.

"Ohhh, I've got a stomachache," he complains. "And you know what they say, you can't work on an aching stomach. I guess you guys are just going to have to go after the monkeys in this room without me!"

And then he dashes away.

Lucas shrugs.

"These guys are all a little weird," he says. "But if he's right about the monkeys being in here, we should go in. The poor things need to get outta here."

When he opens the door, they find a room with cages. Some of them are holding chimeras. One appears to be some cross between a horse and a tarantula and the other an ostrich with an elephant's head for a body. And just as the door opens, there's two quick flashes of brown fur low to the ground.

"That was them!" Lucas exclaims.

[raptorcanaria]

Dinah was distracted by the poor chimeras, biting her lip in distress at seeing them existing to start with, let alone in cages. But when they see the brown flashes and Lucas points them out, her attention snaps right down.

"I see them," she says, ducking down to the floor to get another look.

[pullsneedles]

The chimeras watch her from the bars, artificially sedated.

"It's okay, Salsa," Lucas says, apparently addressing the monkeys. "I know I'm wearing this mask, but I'm still me."

The monkey he's talking to, who is wearing a blue collar, backs up at their approach. His companion, a monkey with a pink ribbon on her head, stays safely behind him. When they run into a wall, they bolt past them and through the door they came in.

"Darn. That didn't work."

Boney stays in pursuit of the monkeys to make sure they're safe.

[raptorcanaria]

Dinah looks over her shoulders again at the chimeras, before she starts to run after the monkeys and Boney.

"How do we get them safe?"

[pullsneedles]

"Getting them outside and away from here is a start."

Lucas follows them as the monkeys head down the hallway and dart into another room.

"I'm gonna take my helmet off t'see if that helps," he says just before they go in.

Once inside, he takes the helmet off and sets it on the floor.

"See? It's just me. It's okay, Salsa."

But Salsa and his girlfriend continue to back up. Boney whimpers and Lucas doesn't even have to turn around to know what's waiting behind him.

The room is then filled with the deafening roar of the Ultimate Chimera.

[raptorcanaria]

Dinah, standing by Lucas, spins on the ball of her feet to face him, and instantly drops into a firm stance.

"Hello, ugly," she says. "Lucas? How well built is this building, do you think?"

She doesn't want to make it collapse on them.

[pullsneedles]

"It can hold this thing without falling apart?" is his guess on that before boosting Dinah with an OffenseUpβ.

"What's she gonna do?!" cries out a new voice behind the Ultimate Chimera that seems to be coming from a trash can by the wall.

"A talking trash can?!" Lucas cries out.

"I'm not a trash can!" says the trash can. Or rather, the man who's popped up from his hiding spot in the trash can. "I'm Dr. Andonuts! And I plucked up my courage to tell you how to stop this thing!"

It would likely be more helpful if he actually got to his advice on how to stop the Ultimate Chimera instead of just chattering on as the beast advances towards Dinah.

[raptorcanaria]

What she's going to do is this:

"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

The sonic scream echoes in the room, and it seems like the walls and ceilings shake with the reverberation. But more importantly, it's enough to throw something even as big as the chimera backwards.

"Find out how to stop it!" she calls to Lucas. Without waiting for an answer, she sprints towards the now off-balance monster.

[pullsneedles]

The Ultimate Chimera attempted to roar at the same time as the sonic scream but to no avail. Lucas, Boney, the monkeys, and Dr. Andonuts are all tossed back from the force.

"How do we stop it?" Lucas calls to Dr. Andonuts while Boney, now freed from his helmet, goes to give Dinah some support.

The Ultimate Chimera stumbles back, teetering and baring its great teeth. It roars again, mouth open so wide that Dinah can see clear into its stomach.

"It is a high-powered battery-operated Chimera," the man in the trash can explains. "In other words, if we set the power switch on its back to 'OFF', it'll stop!"

[raptorcanaria]

"Ugh, your breath is worse than your looks," Dinah informs the Ultimate Chimera shortly. She leaps from a running position, hurtling straight for the head which is now open far enough that she can grab a tooth and use it to swing herself over its nose.

Vaulting over the chicken, she lands on the animal's neck, boots either side of the switch in question.

"Found a switch!" she announces, and uses both hands to yank it around to 'off.'

"And goodnight."

[pullsneedles]

The Ultimate Chimera's eyes turn dark and it falls over as if dead. The little yellow chicken that had been sitting on it slides off and to the floor.

The monkeys come out from their hiding place in the back of the room, Salsa in front and his girlfriend just behind.

Dr. Andonuts climbs out of his trash can and says, "I think I'm going to take this opportunity to leave the military and actually do some good."

"How'd you get caught up in here, anyway?" Lucas asks.

"The leader of the Pigmask Army, King P, asked me to work on some projects for him. But the more I saw of his ideas, the more things seemed..."

"Wrong?"

"That's one way to put it, lad. In any case, I doubt anyone would question me turning in my two weeks notice now."

There's a series of "eek"s at the door and Salsa is now standing by it, waving to Lucas.

"Ah, he remembers me now," the boy says. "It's been a while, hasn't it, Salsa?"

[raptorcanaria]

Dinah climbs down from the chimera, wiping non existent dust from her gloves.

"Hi," she says to the doctor, and then to the monkey, crouching down so she's closer to it. "You're a friend of Lucas?"

[pullsneedles]

"Ah, thank you for your daring, Miss," Dr. Andonuts says to Dinah.

Salsa nods to her in response and gestures for them to follow.

"Do you know the way out?" Lucas asks.

The monkey makes a few "eek" sounds again and gestures to his girlfriend.

"Samba?" the boy says.

The girl monkey, Samba, nods before going over to join Salsa.

"She knows about a strange door that they want me to see," Lucas says, pointing to Samba.

[raptorcanaria]

"Okay," she says, standing up again. "I'll stick with you until yo're out of this place, how's that?"

[pullsneedles]

Lucas nods.

Salsa and Samba take the lead, with Boney near Lucas. It appears the monkeys know the lab very well. Soon they're actually outside.

"Huh? Were you showing us the way out?"

Samba shakes her head no and goes further on.

"D'ya wanna come see, Miss Dinah?" Lucas asks. "This might be the way behind the Chimera Lab I've been looking for."

[raptorcanaria]

"Sure," she says, falling into step behind him. "Let's see what this is."

She's looking around as she walks. It's her first chance to see Lucas' world.

[pullsneedles]

Samba leads them to a door that's tall and thick, covered in strange glyphs of people in different positions.

"I dunno what this means," Lucas says, putting his hand on the door. "I've never seen anything like this before."

Salsa makes another "eek" and steps forward. Lucas gives him some space.

"He says he's opened a door like this before."

And then the little monkey starts to move. More accurately, he starts to dance, his choreography matching the pictures on the door. (But no Fassad to shock him after.) As soon as he's finished shaking his little monkey tail, the door slides down out of the way with a great rumble.

Peering inside, they can see two ponds, one dry and one full, and a house made from a giant pink seashell.

"A Magypsy house!" the boy says. "Which means there must be a needle nearby."

[raptorcanaria]

"A needle?"

Dinah peers in over his head, not entirely certain what this means.

[pullsneedles]

"It's something I gotta find and pull," he says, heading towards the seashell. "The Magypsies want me to b'fore whoever started pulling 'em can finish. It's a long story."

After knocking and receiving no response, he frowns.

"Might've beat us to it anyway. The Magypsy might've vanished."

He opens the door and grins widely. The Magypsy Doria is still quite corporeal and talking to-

"Kumatora!"

Lucas runs up and gives Kumatora a hug.

"Lucas!" she replies, hugging him tight enough to lift him straight off the ground. "Whoa! Awesome! You really did show up, Lucas!"

"I did?" he asks as she puts him down.

She nods before noticing their other company.

"Oh! You're here too, Salsa? It's great to see you! I didn't know you were alive. And how've you been, Love Monkey?"

Samba hides behind Salsa after Kumatora addresses her as "Love Monkey".

Past acquaintances taken care of, Kumatora steps up to Dinah with a friendly smile.

"You a friend of Lucas?" she asks.

[raptorcanaria]

"I am!" she says brightly, offering a hand. "I'm Dinah. Pleased to meet you!"

[pullsneedles]

"I'm Kumatora," she says, shaking with a firm but playful grip. "Likewise."

"Oh my!" Doria suddenly says, her hands to her cheeks. "What adorable visitors! ♥ Introduce me to them, won't you? ♥ "

"Yeah, sure," Kumatora says as Doria flings her hair back. "These're my friends."

She goes down the line of them for Doria and the Magypsy stands before Lucas, giggling.

"So you're sweet little Lucas? ♥ Ionia's told me all about you. ♥ Come with me. I'll show you where the Needle is. ♥ "

[raptorcanaria]

Still smiling, Dinah takes a step back, her hands folded behind her back, so she can follow Lucas.

"This is going to be worth seeing."