POV: Narrator
Location: S.H.A.M.P.O.O., Small Corridor
Time: 22:27
Our little ragtag group made some good headway as they walked down the corridor. No obstructions were to be seen as all guards were probably down the other side of the S.H.A.M.P.O.O. to load the cargo. Which would make the warehouse on the ground floor hopefully empty as soon as they reached it.
Not that Beezan would share this information in his position. He was rather...preoccupied with the strange biped still snuggling his form, even though said biped seemed to huff and pant a little from exhaustion of this tedious task.
“You are quite heavy despite your size,” Nightcrawler complained as he carried him under his left arm.
Not that Beezan really cared for his discomfort as he was dragged along against his will! Taken prisoner by a prisoner! He was sure Shadowmane would have his hide for this! He was only glad she was currently out of town.
Not that it was much consolation. The others would surely ridicule him for this and make sure Shadowmane got a first-hoof account of his situation if they saw him like this. Just the thought made him shudder.
That was when the creature stopped and turned him back to his front.
“Are you freezing, Flauscheohr (Fluffy Ear)?” the creature asked all too innocently. It actually made this situation all that harder to believe. How a creature like him so innocent looking could look so intimidating and beat up his friends so mindlessly was a jarring thought and experience. Probably the most terrifying thing he ever had to go through.
...Well, second terrifying. He has to admit that Shadowmane was scaring him more. There was a reason why she was Mane-iac’s right hoof after all.
Nightcrawler meanwhile cuddled his shivering form.
“Don’t worry, I’m sure we are almost out of this cold hallway. I’m already seeing another door up ahead!”
And Nightcrawler was right in a way. They were almost at the elevator door.
His spirits seem to rise once they reached it as they quickly pushed the bottom making the door slide open as they entered it. Steam Gear all too enthusiastically pressed the GF button for ground floor. Which of course was necessary considering the Nightcrawler had looked for the EG button like Erdgeschoss (Ground Floor)…
Yeah. Speech barriers can even exist if you are good in a language. After all, you normally don’t know every single word. Especially in such tense situations.
Nightcrawler however didn’t seem disheartened by this. He simply hummed and sung a happy tune.
“Feuerwerk, Feuerwerk, oh oh~ (Firework, firework, oh oh~)”
Beezan ignored him as best as he could.
...Albeit he will admit that it was a rather catchy tune.
Even Steam Gear was swaying his hips and then humming along.
Kurt followed with his own movements as he was shaking his booty with vigor.
“Feuerwerk, Feuerwerk, oh oh~
(Firework, Firework, oh oh~)
Die ganze Welt kann uns gehören, oh oh~
(The whole world can belong to us, oh oh~)
Denn dieser Augenblick kommt nie zurück
(‘Cause this moment never comes back)
Lass uns leben wie ein Feuerwerk, Feuerwerk, oh oh~
(Let us live like a firework, firework, oh oh~)”
Steamchen was really getting into it as he happily hummed while swaying his hips and head to the tune. Even Beezan wasn’t immune to the power of music as his head also started to swing slightly to the sound as well as his hoof that was tapping in mid-air.
It all however came to a stop as the door suddenly slid open and a few shelves away from them stood 15 henchmen Unicorns. All looking rather dumbfounded at the hip swaying spectacle before them.
Kurt of course was convinced that they were simply awed by his hypnotizing and masterful hip movements! So he continued to dance.
Steamchen however blushed as he then hid with a startled yelp behind Kurt. Beezan himself could also feel a blush incoming since he had hoped they wouldn’t run into anyone. That this would be his saving grace. But no, it wasn’t meant to be.
It took the henchmen a moment to get out of their startled thoughts, but then they did their eyes fell on the two prisoners, as well as their fellow henchman that was with them.
Gears started to turn in their heads and soon enough one of them reached a rather logical conclusion.
“Beezan allied himself with the prisoners!”
...Of course it wasn’t necessarily the RIGHT logical conclusion. Beezan of course was startled out of his embarrassment and tried to explain himself.
“WHAT! I didn-“
“Ready your stun spells!” another henchmen shouted.
With that the fire was quickly opened from the Unicorn group and our ragtag group dived behind a few rather conveniently placed crates right next to one of these high racks of the warehouse.
The Nightcrawler of course was rather miffed that his dancing performance was so rudely interrupted. Not to mention that they were hindering their holy mission to regain his lost pretzel! So a plan needed to be made.
“We need to knock them out. Luckily they are fifteen and we are three, so we can share the work in equal parts,” Kurt started formulating his plan. However, Beezan quickly interjected.
“What do you mean ‘we’?”
"Well, I was thinking, now that you're in-"
"I'm not in!" Beezan cut straight in, stomping his hoof down to bring his point across.
The black-bluish creature held his hands up in a soothing gesture.
“I know, but they think you are in."
"But I'm NOT!"
"Probably one of these perception versus reality things happening right now."
"That’s it! I'm OUT!" he said as he started to stomp out of the cover.
…Only to dive back a second later as he was assaulted by Unicorn lasers from his own team.
Sucks to be him!
Beezan let out a shuddering breath, before his eyes fell back to Nightcrawler.
“Fine! I’m IN! So what is the plan?”
“Easy. I take the five on the left, you the five on the middle, and Steamchen the five on the right.”
“…That’s not really a plan.”
“It is! You use your, like your Americans say, awesome mutant furniture powers first to distract them and knock them out. I teleport directly over my five targets and clobber them with a surprise attack, and Steamchen can use the confusion to get his five targets down with…his mutant powers?”
Steamchen had his back turned to them as he was clearly working on...something. Only a moment later he was finished and turned around as their eyes landed on him. He then took a strange device that he was hiding behind his back out. Four shampoo bottles were upside down inserted in the device, and it had some pump integrated, as well as an opening on the front. It somehow reminded Kurt a bit of a water blaster. But in the end one could only guess what this strange device was for.
“Um… I don’t really have mutant powers. But I have this?” said the nervous Unicorn sheepishly.
“And pray tell what is this?” asked Beezan inquisitively.
Steamchen seemed to brighten up at his question.
“This is my new invention, the Shampoo Shooter! Version 1! I plan to build a Version 2 in the future that can simultaneously shoot empty shampoo bottles, but this is a story for a later date. To get back, this here is a good version too, as it shoots shampoo at a high velocity and can cancel out unicorn magic if aimed at the horn of such a unicorn. It also makes the ground slippery, causing foes to stumble and lose concentration. Not to mention that it helps shampooing ones coat to make it as soft as a newborn foals, as well as it makes said coat shimmer. I can proudly say that it is quite a good work considering the few parts I had to work with that I found in these crates!” Steamchen exclaimed with his chest proudly puffed out.
“…Das ist der Wahnsinn, (…That’s awesome,)” said Kurt and Beezan could swear he saw his eyes sparkle at the explanation of this crazy weapon.
“I have no idea what you just said, but let me be honest here, this thing seems downright ridiculous. I don’t mean to offend you Steam Gear, but seriously a Shampoo Shooter? I doubt shampooing their coats will save our flanks!”
“Um, then I will try to give a demonstration,” Steam Gear said before ducking his head out of cover while aiming with the shooter at one of the goons.
He pulled the trigger and his aim held true as one of the goons got a full load of shampoo.
“MY EYES!” the criminal wailed while falling on the floor and rubbing his hoofs on his face.
Steam Gear winced.
“I’m sorry!” he replied sheepishly to them before turning back around and under cover to avoid the barrage of Unicorn magic that was suddenly fired his way. “I will take some time to get used to aiming with it, but I think it will help.”
“I’m in an asylum. No doubt about it. Next thing you tell me is that you fire an Icecream Cannon.”
“Don’t be silly,” Steamchen said, shaking his head, “I left the Icecream Cannon at home.”
Before Beezan could actually form a retort Nightcrawler cut in.
“Alright, enough small talk, like you American’s like to say. I will go first, Steamchen, that will give you the cover you need and you will open the fire with your weapon as soon as I teleported. And you Beezanchen wi-“
“It’s Funiture Lord!”
“Alright. You Furniturchen will awake some of the crates from the storage rack and surprise them from above,” he paused, “You know, you probably should do that first. This will make it much more safer for me. So you start, when I and Steamchen here follow. I’m sure we can beat them with this surprise attack!”
“Surprise attack?” One of the henchmen asked, hearing the last tidbit.
“NOW!” Kurt screamed, teleporting to a rack high above them.
Beezan only gave an exaggerated sigh as he started to awake some crates overhead of the henchmen to life, before letting them jump off the shelf and directly down at the stallions.
They yelped in surprise as they saw the crates coming too late and six got full on knocked out by them.
Nightcrawler used the incoming confusion for his advantage as he quickly teleported in a black puff of smoke behind them, before giving a stallion a heavy punch.
Said stallion fell back on one of his colleagues, who just turned around to quickly subdue him. But as soon as their horn started glowing a wet *SPLAT* could be heard as Steamchen got out of cover to shoot the henchmen down that were now with his back turned to him.
Their magic fizzled out as the shampoo made contact with the horns and the Nightcrawler was just about to give them another punch when he noticed some more crates falling down. He gave the henchmen a tooth-filled grin before he quickly teleported out of the way, enjoying the distressed screams of their foes as the crates came crushing down on them. It was truly a glorious battle!
...Though a warning would have been nice. After all he could have been hit himself! Not that his cuddle wuddle would do that to him though. They are after all the biggest of pals! Furniturchen the pet and Kurt the...master?
He was thinking if this was the correct word for their relationship before he heard one of the henchmen scream.
“Take that traitor Beezan out you fools!”
The remaining henchmen quickly turned around to said stallion, but Kurt wasn’t about to let them hurt his beloved oversized cat-thingy pet! He jumped in the air drop kicking their asses! And to his pleasant surprise said henchmen were quickly losing their balance as the drop kicked stallion was sliding over the shampooed floor and into his fellow Unicorns, causing them to pile together in a groaning pile of flailing limbs.
Kurt gave Steamchen a thumbs up for the clever thinking of shampooing the floor, who nodded happily back.
Only two henchmen were remaining both not looking all that confident anymore as they tucked their tails between their legs.
“Retreat!” one of them said, as the second quickly followed, only for them to suddenly be hit by a crate from above knocking the last of the baddies out.
There was silence for a moment, as the three stared at the downed forms of their foes. Kurt however quickly adopted rather large grin as he slowly processed this flawless victory.
“Geschafft! (We did it!)” he exclaimed joyfully as he fistbumped the air.
A smile graced Steam Gear’s lips as well. He was at the beginning nervous about it, but Nightcrawler really seemed to know what he was doing! As did Beezan.
He looked back over to him, as he smiled smugly down at the now defeated mooks. He then looked over towards him, smiling towards him.
However that smile suddenly vanished, making Steam Gear wonder if it was something he did.
The next thing that happened went over real quick. One second he was standing there, and the next something wrapped itself tightly around his midsection as he could see his new friends getting smaller, as he was dragged away. He let out a loud blood-curdling scream which was quickly muffled as something was wrapped around his muzzle. He could just see Kurt turn with a horrified look on his face as he was dragged around the corner of a shelf.
“Please god, don’t tell me this is like Maze Runner, with some freaky monsters trapped in a labyrinth. Not to mention that I was just growing fond of this little guy!”
Beezan suddenly started to shiver.
“This is not good!”
Worry seeped into Kurt’s voice as he turned around to Beezan.
“What’s going on?”
But before Beezan could answer them they heard a laugh. And not any kind of laugh. It was a laugh of madness and utter villainy.
The fight had only just begun.