Chapter 10: 10. Scootin’ and Shootin’: A Whacky Wildcat Invasion

“So we meet again, kid with the mustache!” Mecha Boss announced. "It's time for us to handle some loose ends!"

“What are you doing here?” Mu was able to muster a few words, but she felt her body trembling completely. What did those guys even want anyway? She was gone! Vanished from the town she once had called home! What did the Mafia even want to do with her now?

“You have been spreading around bad fame about Mafia Town, and now it is time for you to pay the price!” Mecha Boss clenched his fist.

“You are the ones who are giving bad reputation to the town! YOU are the bad guys!”

“At least we didn’t put the entire world on fire!” Mecha Boss clicked his tongue. “You have truly been out of control with the Mustache, it’s time someone teaches you a lesson!” Mecha Boss extended his arm and pointed it towards her. “Mecha Bazooka ON!”

Mu stood back terrified, Mecha Boss hand retracted and a cannon formed in its place, a loud huge sound started to resonate in everyone's ears. The cannon arm started to tremble and suddenly… bubbles came out from it.

“What on earth is this?!” Mecha Boss looked embarrassed as everyone else looked at him in confusion. “Thor?!”

“Oh, that’s the bubble blower I installed.” Thor replied while stroking his mustache.

“And why did you even install a bubble blower?!”

“Bubbles are well known to be great to lift the mood in parties!” He smirked pointing towards the sky.

“Party? I told you we came here to fight!”

“Yeah but, maybe we could throw a victory party after the fact?”

Mu looked at the two men discussing between each other, The Empress just facepalmed at their bickering. She thought about it for a moment, she could try and fight them, after all fighting bad guys was what she was known for! Except… there were too many bad guys now to handle on her own.

The entire multitude of both Mafia Men and Cats were looking confused, absorbed in the discussion between Thor and Mecha Boss. It was now or never, she had to escape.

“This is the kind of stuff that I have to tell you to not come up with!”

“Well, I just thought it would be a nice feature! See, you just need to learn how to take out the bazooka if that is what you need.”

“Do you want to get locked up in a dungeon again? I am Mecha Boss! I don’t need a bubble blower! I don’t want any useless features!”

“You idiots! The girl escaped!” The Empress yelled at them, she had turned around and when she looked, Mu had completely disappeared.

“Ugh! This is all your fault, Thor!” Mecha Boss stomped on the floor, angry. “Now, Mafia, let’s go, it’s time to attack!”

“AAAAH!” The yell of a girl with a fancy mustache was heard all across the forest.

This was bad, this was really bad! Dozens and dozens of cats and Mafia men were chasing her riding in small scooters, the Mafia men were throwing rockets at her! If she slowed down a single bit, she would be toast!

“Get a load of this!” Mecha Boss yelled at him from way back, but it seemed his voice was getting closer and closer. “Get a load of this! Get a load of this! Get a load of this!”

“Is Boss okay?” One of the Mafia men asked Thor.

“Yes! I think he’s just glitching out, just let’s keep chasing that kid and if he gets stuck we will reboot him!” He yelled at the goon while riding his scooter.

There were a lot of goons and cats running towards Mu and the noise of all the scooters combined was resonating through the forest.

“Watch out for that tree!” A Mafia man yelled to another goon on a scooter.

“What? Watch out for the bees? Where bees?!” The goon turned back looking for the bee and before he could think about it he got hit by a tree in front of him, flatting him out as a pancake.

“You can run but you can't hide!" Another goon yelled to Mu.

“AAAH!”

“AAAH!”

In the meantime, Hatkid was still playing around with the minions throwing each other snowballs. She had asked Snatcher to go back and play with them but Snatcher said no, now absorbed in his book.

Hatkid felt she was just about to win, when Mu ran past them in panic.

“HELP ME!” She yelled at her without not even stopping back.

“Huh?” Hatkid looked back from where she came from, only to see the horde of Cats and Mafia Men coming towards her.

“There you are, you little thief!” The Empress smiled at her and prepared her rocket as she got closer and closer in one of the Scooters being driven by one of her cats. “There is no running away this time!”

“AAAAH!” Hatkid started running in Mu’s direction scared. She had barely escaped her that one time and that was only because she had taken her Time Stop Hat with her, but since Snatcher had taken her to the forest half asleep, she didn’t notice she hadn’t brought it with her.

“What is it now? Can’t a ghost get a moment of peace?” Snatcher looked down from his spot in the branch of a tree and saw the multitude running through the place. He scowled. “Oh no! Not in my forest!” He went back down and started chasing The Empress.

Hatkid took her hookshot and jumped from branch to branch, but the force of the rockets pushed her further and made her lose her equilibrium. She looked back and saw The Empress maniac face getting closer and closer to her.

“Oh no Oh no!”

In another part of the forest, Mu had already been able to distract the other Mafia goons and had escaped the horde, except for one person, Mafia Chad.

Mafia Chad had noticed she was throwing dweller bombs towards the Mafia and Cats so they ended up getting trapped between the dweller walls or fell into pits when the dweller walls disappeared, and now he had followed her into a small hill. Mu looked around, she could try and jump the cliff, but she could end up getting hurt with the height, there was nowhere else to go.

“Little girl needs to stop! Nobody escapes Mafia’s wrath!” Mafia Chad extended his arms towards her like a zombie and walked slowly towards her at the top of the hill.

“Stop! Don’t come any closer!” Mu yelled and Mafia Chad stopped.

“There is no escape! Give up now!”

“You leave me no other option! If you come any closer, I’ll say it!”

“What? No! Little girl doesn’t mean–”

“Yes! I will do it if you come any closer! So stop moving!”

“Little girl is crazy! Doing such thing would be incredibly dangerous!”

“Well, you leave me no choice! So turn around!”

Mafia Chad knew what she was talking about, with all his knowledge, he realized that if he didn’t catch her right there, there were going to be terrible consequences for everybody.

“Just… stay quiet!” Mafia Chad ran as fast as he could towards her. Mu, seeing the man coming at her so quickly, panicked.

“PECK!” She yelled out loud with all the air she had in her lungs, her yell resonated through the whole forest and her voice echoed in the ears of every living being from the planet.

“PECK!” “PECK!” “PECK!” “PECK!”

“No! Little girl! What did you do?!” Mafia Chad stopped, petrified from the fear. The earth started trembling and the floor cracked below his feet until it opened a hole right down towards hell.

“NOOOO!” Mafia Chad fell screaming into the hole and then it closed afterwards, eating him whole. The whole world trembled strongly, making people fall all over everywhere they where The planet moved two inches closer towards the sun.

“I… think I shouldn’t have done that.” Mu muttered, still panting from all the running. She got down from the hill slowly and looked around in search of the Horizon door. When she saw the horde of Mafia Men coming towards her.

“AAH! Just leave me alone you brutes!” She continued running towards the forest as fast as she could.

Mu finally reached the small spot in the forest where the gate to the Horizon was open a few meters above the floor. She jumped between the tree trunks and launched herself straight into the horizon.

“It’s no use to run, kid with the mustache!” Mecha Boss arrived along with Thor and some of his goons.

A few of the Mafia men were trying to jump as high as Mu had jumped using the tree trunks as well, but they fell on their faces once they lost equilibrium.

Mecha Boss looked around, well, doing so many quick jumps consecutively would probably be too difficult for him, but he had another idea.

“It’s no use to run, kid with the mustache!” Mecha Boss pointed his arms towards the floor. “Mecha Propulsors ON!”

His body started to tremble and then his shoes transformed again. Mecha Boss felt he was about to get launched into the sky at any moment, everyone was looking at him with excitement, and then… his shoes started to slowly move and cut through the grass. Mecha Boss looked down at his feet.

“THOR! What is the meaning of this?” He turned around into the inventor who was looking at Mecha Boss’ shoes curiously.

“Oh! That is the lawnmower function I installed you.” Thor proudly explained while stroking his mustache.

“And why, in the name of the Mafia, did you even decide to install a lawnmower into my shoes?!”

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“Well sir, you see, my previous lawnmower died, but some of the parts from it were still working so I thought maybe I could make it work again if I installed it in your shoes.”

“What do you even need a lawnmower for? We barely have any grass in Mafia Town!”

“I mean, yeah, sir, but sometimes I like to go and visit my mother and you know, her house is–”

“I’m Mecha Boss! I’m not going anywhere to mow anybody's lawn!”

“We can still go and visit sir! She makes some fantastic steamed clams!”

“No! And let me tell you something, once we are done with this, I will get back to you! Mecha Propulsors ON!” This time the propulsors activated properly and Mecha Boss finally left the floor. He pushed his arms forward and then entered the horizon.

At the other side of the forest, Hatkid kept running away from the Empress and her cats, but with the scooters they seemed to be faster than ever, and Hatkid despite her own athletic abilities, was already running out of breath.

The Empress kept launching rockets towards her and even when she saw she was causing massive damage everywhere around her, if anything she was even having fun. Even the brat felt closer and closer, soon those timepieces would be hers again!

“Hold it right there!” Snatcher rose up from the ground in front of The Empress and her cats, making everybody come to a full stop with their own scooters. “How dare you enter and ruin my forest?! I am Snatcher and I demand an explanation!”

Snatcher felt his threat didn’t sound as menacing as the ones he did before. Aside from that detective that had entered the forest some days ago, he hadn’t been snatching or taking souls from anybody lately. The worst part was that The Empress hadn’t fallen into one of his magic traps either, so he didn’t have the upper hand yet, he had to bluff it out.

The Empress hissed at him, the cat that was driving the scooter she was in did a fast pivot away from Snatcher, slipping past the other scooters and sliding sideways putting his feet to avoid falling in.

“What the heck is that!?” One of the cats exclaimed, The Empress scowled at the spook.

“Move away! We have a thief to catch!”

“What thief? The only thief here it’s me, and I’m a thief of souls, so leave at once!”

“There is a little brat that stole my timepieces and we are trying to catch her! Now move!”

“Timepieces? Those cursed things! They belong to the kid! Now leave my forest or suffer the consequences!”

“Who are you? Her dad?”

“What? No!” Snatcher’s face turned a pale yellow as he blushed. The Empress looked at the ghost confused, how could a ghost even blush?

She hissed. Snatcher was coming closer and closer so he could catch her and steal her soul, but The Empress saw him getting too close and pushed the scooter in reverse. “I’m not leaving without my timepieces! Now, stay away!” She turned around and the cat who was driving took control of the scooter, then they both ran past the ghost and towards Hatkid.

Snatcher moved towards her and extended his arms to try and catch her over, but ended up catching the souls of a couple of the cats instead.

“Come back here you disgusting furball!”

Back in the Horizon, Moonjumper was sitting in a big clearance surrounded by trees happily sewing and creating puppets controlled by his red strings, an ability he had learned in his first 10 years as an undead corpse. He was thinking about Mu and all the work she had got done the last few weeks. In a way, the girl reminded him of himself when he was a human kid. No matter how hard the task was, he would always try to leave no stone unturned no matter how hard the job the adults got him so he could get a couple of bucks. The kid was always determined and full of energy. He could even say he was getting attached to the little girl.

Moonjumper thought back to the time he and Mu were talking together about their own pasts.

***

“They took everything away from me! The Mafia are the evilest people on this planet! But nobody sees that!” She exclaimed, she was eating the lunch he had prepared for her and he had decided to give her some company. He liked to see someone enjoying his cooking, even if now he couldn’t even eat himself. It showed him he still had a part of humanity within him.

“I’m sorry to hear about what you went through.” He replied to her sincerely, his look was pensive and wistful. Losing everything so suddenly… No kid should ever have to go through something like that.

“To tell you the truth, I did also lose everything that was dear to me once.”

“Really?”

“Yes, my aspirations, my people, my kingdom… even my life.”

“What happened?”

“I just…put my hopes in the wrong person. I made a big mistake.”

Mu stopped eating her meal for a moment.

“You know, sometimes I think I made a mistake too. If I just had been strong enough, if I hadn’t allowed those Mafia men to get out of their own ships, maybe I could have stopped them from taking over our town.” She looked down at herself. “I was weak, and it was all my fault.” Moonjumper saw a tear dropping down her cheek.

“Wait, listen to me.” He took her head as carefully as he could to not hurt her with his long fingers and claws and raised her face towards him. “The fact that Mafia Men invaded your home was something that could not be avoided. It was not your fault in the very slightest, okay?” A single child could not stop a horde of Mafia Men alone, not when she was still so young. Losing her old home was not her fault. Unlike with him, who had fallen in love and hadn’t seen the signals before time because of his own selfish, blinded love. He wanted to get something the life had taken away from him, a family, and he lost everything, even his people. Perhaps the world was giving him a hint that some people deserved to be alone. Perhaps he deserved to be miserable, and that is why he had lost his parents.

“Okay.” Mu replied quietly and went back to eating her cooked pork.

He turned around and put his hands behind his back. He saw himself reflected in the blonde girl, he couldn’t bear to feel her pain, and turned around before she could see him crying, if he could even cry.

“They might have taken our homes, sure, but what they don’t know is that we are strong enough, and we are going to take them back!” He clenched his right fist until his own claws hurted the palms of his hands. They might have been kicked over and over by others in the past, but he wouldn’t allow that to happen anymore.

***

The problem of getting attached to Mu, was it was just because of his memories from Snatcher.

“I think they are right, Moonman.” A memory of The Narrator talking to him when he went to visit him came to mind. They both had met in one of Moonjumper’s excursions between dimensions and afterwards they had become friends. After talking with the other two girls the other day, he had gone to have asked him about what the girls had told him about him being a simple copy to the purple ghost.

“Hmmph.” He grunted. The girl reminded him of himself, but there was one problem.

“You like… took his body all for yourself! If that is not stealing, then I don’t know what it is.”

His memories as a kid were simple memories from Snatcher, hot his, so it just felt as if his attachment to Mu was a lie, and it bothered him.

“Still, I think it’s great that Mustache Girl is now playable with mods too, and she even has her own move set and abilities! Still, that doesn’t take away the fact that you still need some hats to finish some of the levels!”

“Man, what the peck are you talking about?”

He was pushed away from his flashback when he felt a pair of hands moving him around.

“Moonjumper? Moonjumper!” Mu was yelling at him, he turned around and saw the girl panicking.

“What? What is it now?!”

“The Mafia is chasing me! You have to give me a weapon or something so I can fight them back, or I don’t know, maybe we can fight them together or something!”

“Fight them together?”

“To detach yourself from those memories, you would have to detach yourself from the girl as well!” Another memory from The Narrator came to mind.

“Ha, you are your own little girl.” He replied back to Mu.

“What?”

“How am I supposed to test your abilities for when we take the forest for ourselves if you can’t fight a couple of… who were they again?”

“Mafia Goons.”

“Mafia Goons, that’s right, in fact, consider this one of your tests, I will watch from afar, and measure your abilities.”

“But–”

“Oh it’s alright, I’m sure that you will do fine.” He launched a couple of red strings towards one of the highest branches from the trees pressing his index and middle fingers in the palms of his hands and then he allowed himself to get carried towards them. “Byee!” He waved towards Mu as he got out of danger.

“Oh come on! You can’t be serious!” She yelled at him, when she heard someone arriving.

“You thought you could escape kid with the Mustache! But everything ends for you here and now!” Mecha Boss had arrived at the clearance along with some of his Goons.

“Ha!” Mu turned towards him. “If you think your silly little gadgets scare me then you are w-wrong!” She tried to put up a brave front clenching her fists.

“Time to fight!” He screamed and jumped towards her.

“You are on!” Mu prepared one of her bombs, now that she was alone with the guy, maybe she had a chance.

“AAH!”

“AAH!”

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