Animus, Book 2: Pokey, Chapter 3: Shattered

"I wonder why that monkey was flipping out like that..." Mike wondered out loud. He noticed that everybody was dozing off. Poo was sleeping like a rock. Luna had drifted off as well. Skulryk was still standing, yet he was asleep. Dan and Bob essentially collapsed upon the floor. "Hmm... everybody's asleep. Perhaps I should go to sleep as well..."
He pulled up a pile of leaves and fashioned a pillow of sorts. He put his head down upon it, and closed his eyes. Before drifting off to sleep himself, Mike noted that something was wrong. He couldn't quite place his finger upon it. He opened his eyes, and looked around. He did this constantly at his own home to assure himself that the world hadn't disappeared.
Hmm, the world is still here. Everything appears to be okay. Maybe it's just my imagination. After assuring himself that everything was alright, he closed his eyes. Yet no matter how hard he tried, he just couldn't go to sleep. He knew that there was something wrong.
Wait. That smell. I've smelled it before. Wasn't that the stench that... That's when it hit him. OH GEEZ! This is the smell that I noticed in Summers before the zombies hit there. Except it's much stronger. That means... He awoke the others carefully, knowing that danger could be lurking anywhere.
He went over to SimonBob. "Bob, hey Bob, wake up. Something's wrong."
"What is--"
"Shh. Smell. Do you smell that?"
"Yes. What's your- oh. I understand. This is interesting..."
"What do you mean?"
"Nevermind. Just get the others up because we gotta get away from here. I'm sure that this place is surrounded."
Bob and Mike went around, waking everybody up. Sulami flew in through a break in the canopy to check on everybody.
"Guys, bad news." Sulami started to explain the situation, at least until he was interrupted by Mike.
"Sorry, but we gotta get outta here, and fast. We can't go out through the front. I mean, that's where any person would leave a hotel from, ya know?"
Luna had an idea. "Didn't he just fly in through the canopy? Couldn't we climb out and avoid anything that's lurking outside?"
"Yeah. We could." Mike began to think it over carefully.
"Then let's do it, silly!" Luna pushed him into climbing the tree. Upon completing the climb, Mike motioned to the others.
The group climbed up the tree and out of the hotel, one by one. Poo hadn't even caused much of a ruckus, much to the surprise, and relief, of everybody else.
Once out of the hotel, the group slinked away. About 100 meters from it, a sound of confusion could be heard from the enclosure. It was the sound of about one hundred monkeys in a fight over a bunch of bananas.
At the hotel, a monkey had climbed up and looked through the break in the canopy. The monkey looked around and spotted the group getting away. It alerted its comrades to the situation. The other monkeys ran out of the hotel and after Mike, Luna, Sulami, Dan, Skulryk, SimonBob, and Poo. Apparently a chase was on.

Anna yawned. "Siris, You can ask Luna out later. We have more important things to do."
Siris blushed hotly. "I don't wanna ask Luna out!"
Anna rolled her eyes above Siris' head, and Saffron chuckled. Scarlet batted her eyelashes at Siris, and the four ghosts howled with laughter. However, Anna and the ghosts righted themselves with a reproachful glare from Cyan.
"We should really figure out what this Fish is trying to do before we meet the others," Anthadd said. "We don't have time to squabble; it's getting father away as we waste time."

Lucille cackled with Delight. "This is perfect!" Suddenly, brilliant plan came to mind. She grabbed a microphone from her desk, and yelled into it.
"Master Belch! Master Belch! You now have an Animus toward the Manly Fish off the coast of Deep Darkness!"
She snorted into a fit of giggles as she looked at the screen Master Belch was in. He suddenly changed directions, and headed toward Scaraba!
"Excellent! Now those little hero brats can wipe the floor with Belch, and Pokey will be crushed! I am brilliant!"
She delicately touched a piece of her crispy Magic Cake with her finger. "Now I can see to repairing THIS!"

Anthadd began walking, and Cyan followed closely behind. Anna started walking with her ghosts, then looked back to see Siris pouting. She rolled her eyes. "Oh come on, I didn't mean anything by the Luna comment. Cool your jets."
Siris raised his eyebrows, and then smiled. "Alright." He stepped into line, and the group began walking.
Suddenly, Anthadd grabbed his nose. "What IS that smell?"
Saffron looked up to see a large blob floating toward them, from across the ocean. "Cripes! It's Belch!"
"Wonderful," Mika muttered.
Paula raised her frying pan into a battle position. Tracy moved to the back of the group, and Ness wielded his baseball bat.
Rusty and Mika joined Tracy at the back.
"B'careful, Paula," Rusty whispered.
"Wait!" Siris sounded worried. "He looks bigger now..."

"Of course he's bigger!" Pokey laughed. "I willed him so!"
"You did what?" Lucille demanded, visibly irritated.
"When you'd get here?" Pokey snapped.
"But seconds ago," Lucille retorted, "and I have something to send into the past."
"What?" Pokey's heart began to beat faster than it had.
Lucille's eyes sparkled evilly.
"Manly Fish!" she cried, the cry emanating through time. "Grow! Grow beyond Belch's size!"

Meanwhile, the fight against Belch raged on.
The Manly Fish was able to get in a few good blows, as were the others.
Siris' mind flashed back to a conversation.
Adekae... Adekae... his mind cried, echoing it throughout his brain.
"Adekae!" he exclaimed.
"Adekae!" Cyan and Anthadd echoed simultaneously.

"Adge-kuy?" Pokey and Lucille echoed. "What's Adge-kuy?"

The Manly Fish convulsed for a second.
"What's wrong?" Anna inquired prudently.
"No... thtop..."
"Stop?" Mika asked from afar. "Who?"
"Luthille..."
"Luthille?" Paula stopped suddenly. "That name sounds... so familiar."
"Yeah, it does." Ness continued his onslaught on Belch.
"Eeeek!" Tracy shrieked. "He's... growing!"
"What?" everyone else shouted, dumbfounded.
They stared at the Manly Fish.
Indeed, he was growing...

Mike, Luna, Dan, Sulami, SimonBob, Skulryk and Poo ran. They had to escape the monkeys.
What could that odour be? SulamiTea mused.
Poo surveyed the horizon, also wondering as to the origin of the odour.
"Ugly thing!" Luna cried. "Is it a jellyfish?"
"Looks too big to be a jellyfish," Mike corrected. "Belch, I believe."
"Sorry to interrupt," SulamiTea muttered, "but the monkeys are catching up."

Anthadd heard something in the distance.
"Sounds like a skirmish," he quietly mused, temporarily ignoring the pain of the growing Manly Fish. He turned in the direction of the sound, and cried, "Sagitta Halt!"

SimonBob stopped suddenly.
"Dodge to the right!" he warned his group, who obliged.
Sprawled in the jungle undergrowth, they saw a golden arrow fly by them, and explode in front of the monkeys, apparently and effectively paralysing them.
"That was too convenient," Skulryk noted.
His group ran towards the sounds of the skirmish taking place just beyond them.

The stomach of Pokey jiggled as he stomped the floor. "Lucille! Are you defying me?!"
"Yes, I am, little boy!" sneered Lucille. But for all her bravado, she was on the verge of panic. Pokey did have power, after all, which he would use on anyone who was interfering with him.
Pokey fumed. "The Manly Fish. I knew that was you. You're not getting away with this!" He charged the baker.
Lucille was too distraught to move. She moved her eyes around the room in broken swerves, looking for something to keep her from harm. Her eyes fell on the pan. Burnt... but with any luck, it will still have the same effect it had on the Lee kid. She deftly spun around and grabbed the pan. Tearing out a chunk of the blackened cake, she thrust it (with some disgust) into the mouth of Pokey Minch just as he reached her.
Pokey toppled over as the cake was forced down his throat. "NO!" He got up, and leaned on the table. "Lucille..... What is this? What makes you think that you have any worthy ambition to control Animus? I am the only one worthy to control it!"
Lucille cackled some more at the now sweating Pokey. "Like it? Cinnamon flavor. I decided I had to try something new. But that's beside the point." She stood up straight, towering over Pokey's bent form, so it seemed. "I will get my revenge on everyone! Do you know what it's like, little Minch boy, to not have anyone regard your craft as any good? To have to rely on some obnoxious oaf for your livelihood? And I nearly escaped! In the Stoic Club, I felt worthy! But that Lee kid gave me false hopes!" Her voice was a shriek now. "I will take out my hatred on everyone! And it starts with your precious Master Belch being turned into burnt, fetid, chemical waste!" She ran out of the room, in search of an escape, or at least a place from which she could continue her work.
Pokey laid, near delirium, on the floor. The room began to rotate, then appeared back at its original angle, then rotate again. The boy felt feverish. As his body seemed to burn inside, his eyelids drooped. Drowsy, he began to drift into sleep. "Lucille..." he croaked. He didn't have enough energy, though. He fell asleep through the warped effects of the charred cinnamon cake.