TI Babies II
by Frank D'Antuono
Everyone: TI Babies, we'll make our dreams come true...
doo-doo-wah,
TI Babies we'll do the same for you...
Miro: I beat up people
O'Reilly: I do the math
Erich: I blow up ships
Alistar: ALISTAR DANCE!!!
Xavier: I got a neat sword
Hex: I go everywhere
Treschi: I screw people over
Spyder: And I just don't care
King: I rule the galaxy
NPCs: beep-beep-beep-BEEP!
Marcus: Get your orders in by Thursday dammit!!!
Everyone: Yes Nanny.
Everyone: Were TI, TI, TI ,TI, Bay-Bay-Bay! Doo-wah-ooooo!
This Week's Episode: A Day at the Zoo
Nanny Marcus was sprawled out drunkenly on the bed with numerous apple cider bottles littering the floor nearby. Taejon, he thought, I can't believe I'm still in Taejon. Every minute is sit here I grow weaker, while those little Korean bastards down the hall grow stronger. He watched himself get up and practice Tai Chi, badly. At one point he saw himself in the mirror and punched it; breaking the mirror and his hand. Then he woke up.
Groggily, he turned to his clock radio. It was playing This is the End by The Doors. He brought his hand down to smash the radio and felt tremendous pain. His hand was a bloody mess. He turned the mirror in his room only to find it broken as well. Dammit! That's the fifth one this week! he thought. Walking over to his dresser, he opened his sock drawer to get ready for the day. It was filled to the brim with green and white striped knee-highs. He cursed his lot in life. I might be the all-powerful master of time and space in the game, but I'm just another character in this ridiculous story line.
"ZOO, ZOO, ZOO, ZOO!!!" baby Alistar cried excitedly, bouncing up and down in his car seat.
"I can't wait, I'm going to see all the animals today!" baby Spyder stated.
"I'm going to get cell samples from the hippos!" baby O'Reilly said.
"I'm going to sabotage the zoo's water supply!" baby Treschi said.
"I'm gonna get into a fight with a bigger kid!" baby Xavier said.
"I'm gonna to make one of animals my bitch!" baby Miro boasted.
"I'm going to sneak off to the information desk and ask questions until they ask me to leave... then I'm gonna cry!" baby Hex said. They were the first words to come out of his mouth in the past twenty minutes. He'd been previously silenced by a glare from Nanny Marcus after asking, "Are we there yet?" one too many times.
"Zhose are all very interesting ideas, but mine is much better," baby Erich said confidently. "By zhe end of zhe day, I vill be verking at zhe zoo!"
A few minutes, three crying fits, ten experience point deductions, and seventy-four bottles of beer on the wall later, they arrived at the zoo. "Now everybody stick together," Nanny Marcus chided. "I don't want anyone wandering off and getting lost."
"Yes Nanny," the kids sang in unison.
They all walked through the zoo gates as Marcus paid the admission fee, or pretended to, using his Mind Sphere Rank 5 to cloud the mind of the teenager at the desk. "Okay kids, where do ya want to go f..." His voice trailed off. Walking near them was a group of Korean exchange students leaving the park. The sight made something inside Nanny Marcus's mind snap. Korea, Seoul, Taejon. All those Anime TV shows, American films dubbed into Mandarin and subtitled in Korean, the spicy food. And the tiny cell phones! Oh dear GOD, THE TINY CELL PHONES!!! Wild eyed, he looked down at the kids. "My lesson plans! I don't have my lesson plans!!!" Then he ran off into the zoo, screaming something about pants.
"Oh no, Nanny Marcus has run off and left us alone," Spyder said. "Whatever shall we do?"
The entire gang looked at one another. "Run Amok!" they screamed as they filtered into the zoo.
Treschi stood over the enormous plastic tank in the restricted area. I can contaminate the entire zoo's water supply from here. Once that is accomplished, all the animals will get sick. And the zoo owners will have no choice but to relinquish control over to the only person with the antidote - me! Treschi thought, chuckling to himself as he unscrewed the container of liquid in his hands. He'd seen how sick this substance had made Nanny Marcus's friends.
"Hey kid, what are ya doing back here?" a zoo employee asked.
"Uh, I got lost," Treschi lied.
"Well, you're not supposed to be back here! Hey, what do you got there in your hand?!" the zoo employee accused.
Treschi panicked. He's on to me! Looking at the amber contents of the clear bottle he'd stolen from the refrigerator at home, he took a guess. "Its apple juice."
"Really? I didn't know Miller made apple juice!" the zoo employee said sarcastically.
"It's not mine, I'm holding it for my daddy," Treschi lied, then ran off. Once he thought he was safe, he stopped and looked down at the bottle. Its glowing amber color and the coolness of it in his hand seemed to beckon to him. He took a sip and quickly spit it out. "This stuff tastes like pee!" he said knowingly, due to an accident during potty training. Then he noticed how the substance made his mouth tingle. He took another swig. Well, it's not that bad...
The same genes that made his skin pale and ensured total baldness by age thirty, also made him finish his first beer within seconds.
Erich tugged at the zookeeper's pants. "Excuse me, vere vould one go to apply for a position at zhe zoo?"
The albino zookeeper looked down at him. "Oh, aren't you just precious! What department would you like to work in, cutie?"
"I am not cute, damn you! I am looking for verk!" Erich yelled.
"Okay hon, if it means that much to you," she said pinching his cheeks, "you can be my special little helper for today."
"Yes ma'am!" Erich said, throwing a crisp salute. Now I vill pay my dues and bide my time; slowly rising through zhe ranks of the zoo. It is only a matter of time before I become in charge!
Xavier darted from one spot of cover to another. Finding suitable prey in this environment was difficult. Most of the children at the zoo were either his own age and puny, or adults who were equally weak. Constantly moving and scanning the crowds for a challenge was providing fruitless. He felt a grumble in his belly and realized that all this stalking was making him hungry. So he made his way to the food court.
I don't have any money, so maybe I can fight the food court people for a zoo burger or something, he thought. Then when security shows up, I can fight them! That might be challenging. He knew rent-a-cops were no match for him, but at least it would get him food. All thoughts of food evaporated, however, when Xavier saw him. The kid was a young teenager wearing sunglasses and a T-shirt that said "Hail to the King". He was dark skinned with black flowing hair, and he was looking right at Xavier.
"What's your name, scrub?" the boy asked mockingly.
"Xavier," he answered proudly.
"Xavier!" the boy said mockingly.
"Stop that!" Xavier shouted.
"Stop that!" the boy repeated.
"Stop repeating everything I say!" Xavier screamed.
"Stop repeating everything I say!" the boy repeated.
Boy, this guy is evil! Xavier thought to himself. I need to find a way through his defenses.
"I'm a stupid retard!" Xavier said.
The boy smiled. "I know you are... but what am I?" the boy retorted.
Xavier reeled from the force of the attack. How am I going to beat this guy? He's too good! No, no, I can do this. I gotta concentrate!
"I'm rubber, you're glue. Whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you!" Xavier said.
The boy smiled again, throwing away the five-dollar glass of lemonade in his hand. "Very good. You have skill. Now let's see just how much skill you have," he said, pulling a very finely crafted Ferbie doll out of his pocket.
Xavier responded by pulling out Kuar. "I usually like to know the names of the people I'm about to kill."
The boy smiled slyly. "Ooh, a tough guy! Well, scrub, allow me to introduce myself. I'm Rashid King, the man who's going to kill you."
"Prepare to defend yourself!" Xavier screamed as he rushed forward to face King. The melee lasted for only a few minutes. The two boys were franticly yelling, "Pow, pow, you're dead!" and "No I'm not!" until King's Furbie broke.
He looked at his broken weapon. "Cheap piece of crap anyway," he said tossing it into the bushes. "Now, let's see how you handle a real weapon."
Xavier looked at his opponent's new weapon; fear poured out of every pore of his body. "Is that... no... it can't be!?"
"Yes," King said. "Now face the might of the Super Sayian Goku action figure, with full talking capabilities and the trading card!"
"The Tree Sloth isn't doing anything," Hex whined.
"I'll fix that," Miro said, raising his twin Nerf 550s.
"No, Miro! The Sloth isn't doing anything because it's a nocturnal animal," Spyder said. "Besides, If you launch your pellets at him, he might try and eat them."
"Actually, the sloth's lethargic behavior isn't due to the fact that it's nocturnal, like the Fruit Bat, but rather due to the slow metabolism his species has, hence its name: Sloth. As in one of the seven deadly sins that Christ..."
"Shut up O'Reilly!" they said in chorus.
"Listen," Miro said to Spyder, "the warning on the box these came in said 'do not ingest'. So if he eats them, it's his own fault."
"Tree Sloth's can't read, you idiot!" Spyder ejaculated.
"Well, I guess he should have evolved when he had the chance then!" Miro said, firing a volley. The little yellow missiles hit the sloth. It looked up, shrugged, and then went back to sleep.
Miro was pissed. "You stupid looking thing! Do something!"
"Hey, have any of you seen Alistar?" O'Reilly asked.
"No, you're supposed to be watching him," Miro accused.
"No I'm not," O'Reilly retorted. "I asked you to watch him while I got my hippo samples."
"Oh yeah, how'd that go?" Miro asked.
O'Reilly paused. "I... don't want to talk about it."
"Guys, this is bad," Spyder said. "If Nanny Marcus finds out we lost Alistar, were dead."
"Okay, relax, we'll just spread out and look for him."
Soon after the search started, Hex yelled to the group, "Hey guys, I found something!" They all came running to see the discovery. It was unmistakably Alistar's cloth diaper.
"Aw man, he could be anywhere!" Miro said.
"Oh no he's not. Look!" O'Reilly shouted, pointing to the monkey cage. Although Alistar bore a remarkable resemblance to a monkey, his lack of a tail gave him away. That, and he could speak... sort of.
"MONKEY, MONKEY, MONKEY!!!" Alistar exclaimed.
"Alistar! Get out of that monkey cage right now!" Miro yelled.
"NOPE!" Alistar proclaimed, dancing around with his new monkey pals.
"How are we going to get him out of there?" Hex asked.
"Maybe we can call one of the zookeepers?" Spyder suggested.
"And have Nanny Marcus find out?!" Miro stated. "No way, this one is up to us."
"What's Alistar doing to that other monkey?" Hex asked.
"It looks like he's trying to jump over him, but can't quite make it." No sooner had Spyder said that, than they all remembered what Alistar usually did to his dolly.
"Eeeewwwwwwwwww!!!!" they all blurted out in unison.
"Oh man, that is so fucked up!" Miro said, disgusted.
Erich stumbled under the weight of all the cleaning equipment he was carrying. He'd only been working at the zoo for a few hours, but was already totally exhausted. Between regrouting the titles in the dolphin tank and shoveling god knows how many tons of elephant dung, he was on the verge of collapse. He was so tired, he didn't even notice the words "Monkey Cage" printed on the door that he followed the pale female zookeeper into.
"Okay Erich, this is the monkey cage, so we need to be careful," the zookeeper said. "Now, these Howler Monkeys are very territorial. But don't worry, we'll just shuffle them into their shelter while we clean the cage."
The fetid stench of monkey droppings was overpowering. "Ack, zhe smell is horrible!" Erich said, as he dropped the equipment he was carrying to the ground.
"Don't worry, hon, you'll get used to it," the zookeeper chided. As she opened the inner cage door, her expression changed. Erich could hear the monkeys screaming. "That's odd, there usually quiet this time of day. I wonder what's gotten into them?"
As they entered, they saw all the monkeys swinging and dancing and doing something else to each other that Erich wasn't familiar with. Once one of them got sight of Erich and the zookeeper, it started screaming loudly. Then the rest of them followed suit.
"Erich, let's go," the zookeeper said, slowly backing away towards the door. "We'll clean the cage after they've calmed down." Then the monkeys started throwing their feces at the two of them. "Run!" the zookeeper shouted as she bolted for the door.
Erich turned to run and fell, his legs caught in the equipment he'd dropped. "Zookeeper, please... help me!" he begged, only to see the door slam in his face. "Damn you, woman! You never leave a man behind!" He could hear the monkeys getting closer as lumps of monkey dung landed all around him. Just then Erich heard a familiar voice.
"MONKEY SEE, MONKEY DO!" Alistar exclaimed.
Erich turned towards the voice. "Alistar, is zhat...?" His words were cut off as a lump of fecal matter splattered on his face. "Schizen," he cursed softly.
The car ride home was a quiet one. "Sorry I wigged out on you kids back there," Nanny Marcus said, breaking the silence. "Luckily, one of the zoo staff shot me with a tranquilizer dart. Best eight hours of sleep I've ever had. So, what happened to you kids today at the zoo?"
"I only got to see half the animals I wanted to," Spyder pouted.
"The information desk was closed!" Hex spat.
"None of the animals respected my authority!" Miro cursed.
"MONKEY, MONKEY, MONKEY!!!!" Alistar said as he bounced jubilantly in his car seat. He was naked except for the empty feed bag the zoo staff had used to diaper him with.
"Well, it seems someone had a good time today," Marcus said, looking back at Alistar. "Hey Xavier, where's you Power Ranger?"
Xavier touched the tender blackness under his left eye. He thought back to his fight with King, and the how his most prized possession was now nothing more than an uncomfortable hunk of plastic in his rectum. "Uh... I should have it back in a few hours."
"How about you, Treschi? You seem a little paler than usual. Are you feeling alright?" Marcus asked.
"(Hiccup) Oh, I feel great (burp), Nanny Marcus!" Treschi said drunkenly. "I can't wait to (uuuuuuuuuurp) get home and have some more apple juice!"
"Oh, how you kids love your apple juice," Nanny Marcus said. "What about you, O'Reilly? Did you get those hippo samples you wanted?"
O'Reilly took a long time to answer. "Yes... and no. Let's just say, I never want to see another fresh water mammal again for as long as I live."
"What does that mean?" Marcus inquired.
"I... don't wanna talk about it," O'Reilly answered.
"Okay, whatever. So Erich, how was your day?" he asked the sleeping German. "ERICH!"
Erich woke up in a jolt. "Ah, no more verk, please!"
"Well, sounds like somebody had a full day. You can go back to sleep now, Erich," Marcus said. "We'll talk about it later."
All the other kids snickered at him. They had a full view of what had transpired in the monkey cage. Alistar turned and pointed at him. "POOPY FACE! POOPY FACE!"
Yes, laugh all you want, you fools. Erich plotted. I learned a very important lesson today - verk is for suckers! One day, vhen I am in the military, I vill order a cee-fractional strike upon zhis zoo! Power is vhat really matters, nothing else. And I vill have my revenge against zhat lady zookeeper as vell. Vhat vas her name? Vorheis, yes zhat's it, Kristen Vorheis. Vell, zookeeper Vorheis, your days are numbered, so sleep lightly!
Next Week's Episode: TV Time!
