Dan Vs. King Sombra

by Prawo Jazdy

Prologue: The Catsitter

“You got her emergency numbers?” Dan pressed.

The hobo waved a knobby thumb in the general direction of the soba-strewn area of the apartment, behind his seat on Dan’s sofa. “They’re on the fridge.”

“You know how to use the faucets and the bathroom?”

“Pretty much the same as a restroom.”

“Are you clear which bag is cat food and which one’s kitty litter?”

The vagrant pretended to clear his throat—except this escalated into a coughing fit before receding into an actual clearing of the throat. “…ahem. Yes. If I happen to forget how to read, the litter looks like dandruff and the food looks like Sweetly Wheatley.”

“Good.” Dan grabbed his backpack and rummaged through the layers of black t-shirts. “Now am I forgetting anything?”

“Tell her goodbye?”

“Hey, I’m not going that long. Most of this is packing material so that Chris takes longer to get to the food.” He withdrew his hand and tightened the drawstring. “Not that it’ll hold when we get to Canada, but hopefully there’ll be enough wildlife he can go hunting.”

“Really?” The man’s eyes lit up like a sunrise through amber. “What does he hunt, squirrel? Maybe we could swap techniques.”

“Whatever.” Dan slung his backpack over the first shoulder. “Listen, I wanna beat the traffic out of here, so—“

“Merow?” This was not from the hobo Dan had dragged into his apartment, but rather the gray tabby cat who also lived there. “Mewrr?”

“Awww, sweetums.” Dan knelt to pet her. “Of course I’ll miss you. That’s why I’m going to be back as fast as possible.”

“Rarowrewr!”

“Uh…” The man who was going to be living in this apartment for a few days, instead of the street, shifted uneasily on the couch. “She says she wants to go with you.”

“Well, tell her I’d take her, but it’s permanently winter in Canada, and I’ve never been able to find snow jackets in her size.” Then Dan caught himself. “Wait a second. How much does Mr. Mumbles understand?”

“Lots.” The tabby interjected a mew. “Including that last thing.”

“You know, I thought so, but it’s good to check.” Dan picked up his kitty kitty and whispered to her, “If he looks at you funny, or touches you too long, you have my permission to eat him.”

The hobo jolted almost into proper posture. “Hey wait, that’s not fair!”

“Hey, rude much?” Dan stood, cradling Mr. Mumbles and leveling his gaze at his reluctant choice of catsitter. It took effort to keep his voice level too. “And you want to talk about ‘not fair’? What’s not fair is that the only person I trust to keep my baby healthy, I can’t also trust not to—”

A car horn tootled. Dan recognized it as his own.

“—uggghh.” He set the cat down and opened the door, firing one last look at the hobo. “If you’re alive when I get back, then we’ll talk.” He looked down and smiled. “Bye, Mr. Mumbles! Have fun!”

The car kept tootling as Dan rushed down the stairs and to his parking spot. He opened the driver’s side door.

“—ting tang walla walla bing bang! I told the witch doctor you didn’t love me true!” toot toot toot toot “I told the witch doctor—”

The woman in the passenger’s seat put a hand on her husband’s shoulder. “Chris, he’s here.”

“Huh? Oh!” Chris smiled blithely. “Hey, Dan. Ready to go?”

“You. Backseat. Now.” Dan cut off Chris’s protest. “You’ve lost your horn privileges.”

Chris sullenly got out and into the back.

Dan took his rightful place in the driver’s seat, sloughing his backpack off to the other passenger. “You have any objections, Elise?”

“Tons.”

For a moment, the only sounds were Dan adjusting his seat. “…Any you’re going to tell us?”

“None that will change your mind. Once again, your vendetta has become indistinguishable from my mission, and we might as well end this together.”

“Glad to hear it. And you know your husband’s half bear?”

“That’s not what it is. He carries the 3Q gene, and that’s why—”

“Yeah, you know.” Dan cranked the ignition, and the engine groused to life. “On to revenge. And this time, it’s going to be…” He couldn’t help but crack a grin. “…Yummy.”

---

Two days later

Dan tucked and rolled into the white substance which, thankfully, appeared to be not nuclear fallout, but snow.

He spared one last look at the Yummy Corporation machinery before yet another thing exploded and the portal collapsed. He couldn’t help but feel cheated. Only once before (to his current recollection) had his crusades gotten him thrown out of the country with no way home, and Siberia had merely been another country. But this icy plain… if Dan understood anything about interdimensional portals from his five minutes infiltrating the lab, it was that he was now infinitely far from home. Infinitely far from Chris, Mr. Mumbles, and Elise.

Setting that aside, he reached under the lab coat he’d confiscated minutes ago as a disguise and pulled out his notebook and pencil. Flipping through the pages, he realized he was also infinitely far from all these people, organizations, locations, and concepts that had wronged him over the years. He wasn’t sure how to feel about that. On one hand, they wouldn’t be bothering him any more, at least for a while. On the other hand, half the lines were not yet crossed out, and until he traveled the infinite distance home, he couldn’t bother them.

On the last page with names, he crossed out YUMMY.

Then again, he’d just avoided being crushed by a building, so that was a plus.

Replacing the pad in his pants pocket, he brushed against his lighter, and briefly wondered if he could bring himself to burn the pad for warmth. Hopefully it wouldn’t come to that. He picked a direction in the… slightly hilly, but mostly featureless snow… and headed straight.

Author's Note:

Third by publishing date. If you're reading this for the first time, first, hi! And second, I'm going to make a habit of putting trivia related to the story, but not really affecting it, down here.

I wanted to mention this in the notes, but was in enough of a hurry I skipped it at first. Anyway, in an exchange calling back to the Canada episode, Elise mentions something called the 3Q gene (which I made up). This is a reference to the qupqugiaq, a sort of wifbear of Inuit myth. Even if the woman's polar bear form didn't have ten legs, I think I'd make an effort to remember the name for its three Qs.