AAR - AoM Wings against Wheels - Pitch Jlack

[SunBat]

…I wear the jlack in mournin' for the lives that could have been,
Each minute we lose a hundred fine young cartoon men.

And, I wear it for the thousands who have died,
Believen' that Hitech was on their side…

Slam!!!  I hit the snooze on the alarm clock and lay in bed staring at the ceiling.  That was Conny Jash’s Man in Jlack.  I like that song.  Little did I know that it was a foreshadowing of things to come on a day that would forever be remembered for its pitch jlackness. 

Nap’s over.  I turn off the alarm clock and swing my legs over the edge of the bed as I sit up.  Can’t go back to sleep now anyway.  I can hear all of the other Muppets in the rec room at the front of the barracks.  It sounds like things are in full swing.  I think I’ll do a quick Dot-S-R and see who’s around.  I open up the door and head down the hall.  I notice all of the pictures that Steve hung on the wall of his hair and his car have been knocked off and there are drops of blood on the floor. Someone definitely got in a fight in here.  I look around for it. I know it’s here somewhere. Yep, there was the butter knife.  I wonder which Muppet Zap got this time?

I bust into the rec room through the saloon-style doors.  We have one saloon door leading into the rec room and one at the front door to the barracks.  We always kick them open. No matter how tired we are, how drunk we are, how wounded we are or how many times we have been killed that day - we always kick them open.  I like that we pwned the Cowboys from Hell and took their doors.  As BirryD would say, “I rike it, rots.” I‘ll never forget that day that we stormed in and destroyed their toons and as we were leaving Dano noticed their doors and ripped them off of their hinges.  “That’s pwnage.”, I think to myself, “We whoop their ass, eat their Lucky Charms, reject their one woman, and take their doors.  Now every time we walk into the rec room we go busting in like ole John Wayne.”  I rike, I rike rots.  My half grin grows to a five-eighths grin as I ponder it all.

Fester yells from his recliner, “Not that kind of streak you idiots!!!”, as he hurls two pairs of tighty-whiteys across the room.  Bear and NOVA slink away to reclaim their underwear, crestfallen and confused.  That snaps me out of my reverie. 

I just want to make it to my evening newspaper and outside before this place erupts into typical Muppet mayhem.  I see my paper on the table.  Scotch and Wax are sitting there and Wax is noticeably angry.  Scotch is drunk, chomping on a cigar, sipping a tumbler of scotch, and wearing nothing but aviator shades and his Animal Muppet diaper.  He has one hand on a .45 and is keeping one eye on Wax.  As I get closer, the smell hits me - Pastor Corky must have bomb-vulched him again. I snap up my paper and head to the door as fast as I can, thoroughly thankful that it’s Wax’s turn to change him.  Looks like he’s going to have to wait until he passes out drunk.  Unfortunately for Wax that usually takes three handles of scotch and at least 20 K4 sorties.  Fortunately for Wax, when Scotch dies he walks from the tower straight to the table and sits and drinks for a while, so he can always find him. 

I kick the door open and knock BirryD about twenty feet backwards.  When he lands, his purse full of manicure and pedicure instruments spills out across the yard.  He tries to curse at me in numbers but gets confused about how to do that without writing; then I see his anger turn to dread as he realizes he is keeping Suns waiting for his mani and pedi.  He remembers how bad Suns beat him last time.  He runs away without bending his knees or swinging his arms.  I notice a fortune cookie laying where BirryD was.  It must have fallen out of his pocket.  I bend over and pick it up.  I don’t really like fortune cookies, but I may need a little snack later or it may come in handy in some way so I tuck it in my shirt pocket.

I get to my spot and open the paper.  Interesting.  I’m going to have to let Agent know to set one less place when the Pigs come over for dinner this Friday because Junky won’t be there.  He got arrested for beating up a class of third graders.  Changeup, Junky, and Bunnies went to a local elementary school on career day to talk about being cartoon fighter pilots. It seems that the students kept calling JunkyII Mr. JunkyLL and he eventually snapped and went into a rant about how he knew roman numerals last year when he was in third grade and “these brats should know them too”. I’ll miss him at dinner because he did the best “show me how the little piggy eats” impression of Ralphy from The Christmas Story.  Oh well.

I notice that there are riots in the Ozkansas region.  It seems that Ozkansas is where most of the grammar Nazis reside and they are up in arms about the new edict issued by Lord Hitech that he and Oakranger are correct and everyone else is wrong. 

Ahhh, the sports section, it looks like there is still major controversy over the big fight last weekend.  This was the heavy-weight championship and both competitors were undefeated.  The reigning champ was Boe Jlack.  The contender, Mean Eskimo Joe Greens.  I am not surprised that the result of this fight is rife with dispute; both men rose to the top of the boxing ranks in much the same controversial way.  They would climb into the ring, the fight would start and then they would disappear and reappear at another spot in the ring.  The opponent would swing, and by the time the punch would land, Jlack or Greens would be gone.  Several of Boe Jlack’s opponents put in official complaints with the boxing federation after they reviewed the film of the punch that knocked them out and realized that Boe Jlack was not only standing behind them but also across the ring when he swung and hit them right between the eyes to knock them out.  The Federation stated that Boe Jlack couldn’t help it that he was surrounded by wormholes in the space-time continuum and it was just as hard for him to deal with it as his competitors.  That argument was always followed by the final and uncontested argument that he paid his entry fee and it was his right to have fun boxing even if it ruined other people’s boxing match experiences.  We all agree with that and are glad he is around because in the end he is a good member of the cartoon universe to have around even if we do get a laugh out of his warping every now and then.  We have all enjoyed watching him disappear and reappear his way to the top of the boxing world. 

When Mean Eskimo Joe Greens showed up on the scene we all knew the day would come when they would meet.  We all waited with great anticipation for that day and followed the drama leading up to the championship match faithfully.  In one of their press conferences Mean Eskimo Joe Greens decided to sweeten the pot and said this would be a duel for keeps.  The loser would quit boxing forever and go back to their previous occupations.  Boe Jlack agreed.  If Jlack lost he would return to driving trains, if Mean Eskimo Joe Greens lost he would go back to being Sarah Palin’s campaign director.

[SunBat]

The day came and the fight went down and the warping was epic.  There was a period of five full seconds when there was nobody in the ring at all.  The fight took place in the country of NdIsles and there was one report that Boe Jlack was actually seen at a sushi bar on the other side of the cartoon world in the country of Mindanao at the exact time that the third round had progressed thirty seconds.  Five rounds went by and not one punch was landed.  In the middle of the sixth round Boe Jlack was seen in all four corners of the ring at once and then, poof, he was right in the middle trapped waist deep inside the mat.  Mean Eskimoe Joe Greens saw his opportunity, and after warping up to the nearest concession stand for a quick chilly-brew-ha-ha, reappeared and clobbered the trapped Boe Jlack in the jaw.  It was curtains for Boe and Mean Greens was the new champ. 

I smile to myself as I read how Boe Jlack cried about how it all happened.  I personally thought it was great and I enjoy the tears because I was there, right in the front row, and when he lost I cheered.  Yes, I cheered a little louder than everyone else and his tear streaked eyes met mine and I saw hate.  Then poof he was gone again.  He reappeared right in front of me and spat in my face and said some unkind things about TxMom.  Nobody talks about the mother of Texas like that.  I decided then and there that if it took all the quarters in the world to derail his choo-choo I would lay them all out before him, one by one, and watch as his new-old profession runs itself off the track just like his old-new one had just done thanks to Mean Joe Eskimo Greens.     

The siren shrieks to life and Agent announces a scramble of the Wings against Wheels squad.  My phone rings and it is Kappa, he is breaking up because he is deep in enemy territory.  I am able to understand only the general location of the perpetrator and something about “the most wheels of anything in the cartoon world”.

My heart races as I run to the JU-H88 and climb into the captain’s chair.  It takes a while for Zap, IrishOne, Grizz and Tec to get out of the barracks because they get in a fight due to an argument about who gets to kick open the swinging door.  Thankfully SkyRock is there and facilitates letting each person kick the door open themselves, one by one. 

This time Grizz has his poster board with him so he doesn’t have to turn back.  Irish has a hard time climbing in because he has burn marks all over his hand - I guess he was the one Zap got.  I shake my head as I wonder if he will ever learn that the socket isn’t really the keyhole of a wormhole to Ireland and the butter knife is the key to unlocking it and accessing endless streams of Guiness.

We roll and head toward the general vicinity of the sighting not knowing what we were after.  I get a text with a more exact location and a photo of the target heading toward Kappa.  (He had one of his groupies in his entourage take the picture because he knew it would look cool.  He was right.)




My blood runs cold.  I pass the phone around for everyone to see and then the argument starts.  Tec wants to shoot out the light before we blow it to oblivion because he has always wanted to shoot out a train light.  The rest of us just want to get the job done.  I hear Tec mumble something about smiting all of us and I know what that means.  He has nasty aim with a hotwheel and can open a bedroom door, drill a hotwheel at your head and yell “I smite you!” in less than a second.  I hate waking up like that, so I relent and agree to shoot out the light first.  The only problem is Tec is in the ventral gun so that’s going to take some fancy flying.  Ain’t no hill for a climber though.  I drop the wheels and the flaps to slow down for a good shot.   As I work our way out in front of the train, we see what it is hauling and H8 shoots up our spine and fills us with rage.  This guy is going down hard.



But first, the light.  Tec smites it. 



The train driver knows that he is in trouble and pushes the balls to the wall to try to get us into the city where the AA can help him.  As I work to reposition, valuable time is lost and he makes it to the suburbs.  We close in behind him when all of the sudden he jumps the tracks and actually starts to fly!!!! 



In amazement and stunned by the spectacle before us, we stare and fly past as the train, like a specter, like something that does not have to obey the same laws of cartoon physics as the rest of us, actually drives through buildings!



I realize what is happening.  It all floods into my mind at once.  This is Boe Jlack!!!!  He is driving his train now that his boxing career is over and by some freak occurrence we are actually scrambled to destroy him!!!  Now it’s personal.  I slam the throttle forward and the H88 creaks in complaint.  I tell the boys to get ready as I position the H88.  Grizz puts up the sign.  We are ready.



I swing well out in front of Jlack while dodging the ack. Tec is in the bombsight.  It is only a matter of seconds.  Irish farts from the excitement.  I could tell he was trying to hold it because it was just a little squeak, but that’s all it takes.  Zap passes out.  Everyone else puts on their masks in time.  Now we are seriously in danger of missing the drop if the gas doesn‘t clear out in time.



We open a window and all is well.  Just in time, Tec releases the bombs.  I pull up as the bombs continue to fall.  My subconscious picks up on a distant rumbling, but I am too focused on clearing my crew of the bomb splash so I dismiss it.

Direct hit!!!!  Jeep parts and swimsuits are scattered across the city. 



We do a victory roll and survey the damage.   Wings versus Wheels Jlack Ops a success!!!

[SunBat]

The rumbling is louder now.  The thunder of the bombs and the exploding train had long dissipated.  What was it?  It was an unnerving sound.  We all fell silent and glanced around to see what the source could be.  We all saw it at once and it took a moment to register.  There was an LA-7 warping toward us in fits and starts and a jlack hole was spiraling about behind it. 



The jlack hole was expanding rapidly and sucking the cartoon sky into its gaping maw.  My mind raced.  What is happening?  How could this be?  Zap flipped open the glove box of the H88 and pulled out a spyglass.  I wondered to myself if I had noticed that glove box before and then admired the spyglass because it is so much classier than binoculars.  Zap held the spyglass up to his eye and exclaimed, “It’s Boe Jlack!!!!” I’m dumbfounded, we just killed him in the train and I heard the rumbling of the jlack hole before the train was destroyed.  I see a spark in Zap’s eye; he must have an idea of what is happening.  He reaches back into the glove box and gets some napkins and a pencil and starts scratching down some figures.  The pencil lead is sharp and he tears the napkin and curses.  This happens several times.  I point out to him that there is a pad of paper in the glove box that wouldn’t tear so easily.  He states that napkin calcs are much cooler and tells me to shut it.  I secretly agree with him and wonder if I will ever be cool. 

He finally finishes his calculation and proclaims something but he got muted so I asked him to say it again without the continued use of profanity.  He explains that he was able to surmise from his calculations that Boe Jlack must have realized that he was about to die in his train and his career was going to be over.  Because he didn’t want to lose another cartoon career, he decided that he must do something, anything to save his train.  He decided to use his warping once again but he knew that it would have to be the most epic warp ever perpetrated in cartoon land.  He would have to actually warp back in time and get a fighter and warp to the scene of the train joust and try to save himself.  This required two Boe Jlacks to exist at the same time.  Zap explained that apparently this was within the extent of his powers but he didn’t realize that perpetrating such a warp would actually create a tear in the cartoon space-time continuum and create a jlack hole that would eventually devour the entire universe.  Zap explained that the only way to stop the demise of toonland was to kill both Boe Jlacks and restore balance to cartoon land.

I understand instantly what Zap is saying when he shows me his calcs.   My resolve is strengthened to kill the other Boe Jlack.  We have already killed one, now it’s time to kill the other one - or is that the same one?  I’m momentarily confused and start to ponder that paradox when I hear Irish start to whine and complain that his hands hurt and that we were mean to him about his toot and that he is hungry.  The LA-7 is getting closer and I don’t really want Irish to go afk while we are fighting Boe Jlack so my mind begins to race about how to keep him happy.  I remember the fortune cookie.  I reach into my shirt pocket and pluck it out and toss it back to him.  He squeals with delight and asks Grizz to open the package because his hands hurt too bad.  Grizz opens it and hands it back to him and Irish begins to nibble.  The LA is in.  The battle is joined. 
 


I wrangle with the H88 as I try to get into position.  I am almost lined up.  I have gun solution.  I fire.  He warps at the moment that the bullets are about to hit.  I curse.



He has now warped onto our six and Tec has a shot from the ventral.  Perfect shot.  Another warp. 



We have several more shots but every time we fire, he warps.  We just can’t hit him.  It’s impossible.  What are we going to do?  The jlcak hole is enormous now.  It just sucked in Betty.  (Yes, that enormous. )  What are we going to do?  I yell for Grizz to figure out something since he is a c-word expert.

Finally, he warps up to our high six o’clock and hangs there for a moment.  I yell for Irish to take the shot.  His hands aren’t even on the gun!  He just finished the fortune cookie and is slowly munching on it with his eyes closed and a satisfied grin on his face.  Grizz could have taken the shot too but he was reading the fortune!  I give up.  If Grizz doesn’t care neither do I.  Then Grizz starts to laugh.  Now I am really angry.  I gave him an order and he is laughing at a fortune cookie?  He declares, “This is it.  This is the answer!!!”  He reads it out loud, “Sometimes the best way to conquer what you hope will be in front of you is to behave as if it is already behind you.” 

I understand his point immediately.  I maneuver to let Boe Jlack on our tail.   Almost there.  Got it.

I concentrate on keeping Boe Jlack directly behind us and then yell for Zap to fire the front gun and for Tec to fire the ventral at the exact same time on the count of three.  1-2-3!!!!

Just as the bullets from the ventral were about to hit Boe Jlack, he warped out in front of us.  Not to worry, Zap’s bullets were there waiting for him and the fire was concentrated.  His airplane fell apart!!!  Victory!



The LA fluttered to the ground and disappeared on impact.  We turn to look at the Jlack hole.  It is still there!!!!  I accuse Zap of an arithmetic error on his napkin.  At that moment, Irish yells and points to a chute.  Boe Jlack is still alive so the jlack hole continues to grow.  I know what I have to do and I don’t care what Pastor Corky says about it. 



Boe Jlack is dead. The hole closes.  Zap was right.  We saved the universe and HTC gets to keep taxing us $14.95 a month.  I hope for a comped account. 

The trip home is uneventful.  We make it safely back to Muppet HQ. I kick in the door and step in.  Scotch and Wax are still there.  I noticed in the buffer during our mission that Scotch had landed a few kills while we were destroying wheels and saving the universe.  I tell him wtg.  He hisses “thanks” between his teeth and keeps his eyes trained on Wax.  It’s good to be home. 

Fester is in his recliner and asks what we have been up to.  We tell him about saving the cartoon universe.  He points out that the Muppets of old used to do that all the time but much much better than we could ever hope to.

I smile and walk over to the kitchen area.  I toss the H88 keys on the counter and open up the fridge.  I reach in and grab a low sodium VH8 veggie juice, crack it open, walk over to the hall, kick open the swinging doors, and head back to my room. 

Exhausted, I open the door to my room and walk over and sit down on the edge of my bed.  As I finish my VH8, I stare at my Kappa poster.  I toss the empty can onto the floor and lie back on my bed.  The AoM barracks is quiet once again.  I know I will be getting a great night’s sleep tonight after helping save the cartoon universe.

Credits:
Story by SunBat Muppet and Grizz Muppet
Written by SunBat Muppet
Edited by Grizz Muppet
Illustrations by SunBat Muppet and Grizz Muppet
Artwork and Photo editing by Grizz Muppet   

[JOACH1M]

To much reading

[Ack-Ack]

To much reading

That's why he put in those pictures, for the reading impaired.

ack-ack

[JOACH1M]

That's why he put in those pictures, for the reading impaired.

ack-ack

this is why if I have to read it's gonna be a picture book

[FLOTSOM]

And once again the Muppet's rise up to save the cartoon airways from certain destruction!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[grizz441]

To much reading

Sunbat and I put a lot of work into it and expect it to pay off for the 4 or 5 members on this board that do not have internet ADD.  

[Scotch]

img]http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kuqxzaUoCE1qzetnu.gif[/img

Blocked.  


Good story.

sc0tchpewp.

[shiv]

Awesome.  Ty for saving the universe also.

[Melvin]

Fortune cookies and glove boxes on JU88's?

I want to think that this is a nice fiction writing, but something tells me there might be a bit of truth here.

Disturbing.

  Good story

[Kazaa]

I'm waiting for the motion picture.

[grizz441]

I'm waiting for the motion picture.

The books are always better.   

[2bighorn]

The jlcak hole is enormous now.  It just sucked in Betty.  (Yes, that enormous. ) 

Some badass bhole 

[Kazaa]

The books are always better.