presents:
RETURN to
EARTH C-MINUS

Issue 8
by Dale Glaser

The city of New Orlions...

It is an old city, a city of pride and majesty, of commerce, of crime, and of Cajun cookin’.

It is in New Orlions that our story begins. Specifically, the Finch Quarter, the oldest section of the city, full of fortuna tellers, street mooseicians and the many plain animals who call this neighborhood home.

A dark swirl appeared in mid-air in the center of Squawkson Square, transforming into the shape of a man. The man was clad in billowy green and white, and had gray hair and dark, dark circles around his eyes. Those eyes had seen much, including the deaths of billions, the destruction of universes, and the extended director’s cut of The Inferior Five: The Movie. Yet he was still unprepared for the sight that greeted those wide, dark-circled eyes.

On a park bench, a cartoony anthropomorhic hippopotamus sprawled across the seat, face turned up to the sun, shirt half-unbuttoned. Sitting on the grass, a squid in a denim jacket strummed on a guitar. A tall, handsome alligator and a pretty, curvaceous salamander strolled arm in arm down the riverwalk just outside the park.

“What infernal force has brought me here?” the man contemplated his arrival loudly. “What horrible calamity is about to befall this world, that the Pariah be summoned to bear witness?”

The hippo opened one eye lazily at Pariah.

“I weep for your world, my friend,” Pariah said to the hippo, eyes welling with tears. “Tell me, tell me what cosmic misfortune visits your fair world!”

“Beats me,” the hippo shrugged slowly.

“Perhaps it has not yet begun! Perhaps a chance still remains to save this Earth from annihilation! I, myself, can do nothing, for such is my curse, to be powerless in the face of ultimate disaster ...”

“Sucks to be you,” the hippo said.

“But if time remains for me to sound the alarum for the heroes of this world, perhaps catastrophe is not completely unavoidable!” the gray-haired man finished breathlessly.

The hippo was relieved to give up his place in the conversation, which was already beginning to hurt his head, due to the arrival at that moment of a huge cow plummeting from the sky. The cow landed on the ground in the park with a powerful thud, and stood on two legs before the strange visitor to the city. The cow wore a blue wrestler’s singlet, which clung to its massive, muscled bovine body. The cow also sported a blue eyemask.

“Hello, there, stranger,” the cow lowed, extending a hoof amiably. “I was just responding to a call from my teammates when I spotted you here, and I thought you looked a bit out of place and upset. Can I be of assistance?”

“Your ... teammates?” the gray-haired man asked, showing the first glimmer of hope since his arrival in the Square. “Are you heroes, who would gladly give your lives and face the most abominable evils to preserve your reality?”

“Uhhh ... okay, sure,” the cow answered. “My name’s Mooer. And you are ...?”

The man became sorrowful once again, “I am called ... Pariah.”

“Well, look, Pariah, I’ll take you to meet the rest of my team, and maybe you can explain everything to us all at once, all right?”

Pariah nodded grimly. “I only pray I am not too late. What is your team of heroes called?”

“,” Mooer answered.

Mooer landed thunderously on a city street with Pariah cradled in one arm, directly in front of a bank. Four gigantic slugs were emerging from the bank. Each slug carried on one side a large burlap bag stamped with a $ , and on the other a handgun. The slugs wore no clothing except ski masks, and their eyestalks poked through the eyeholes of the knit head-coverings. Sirens wailed from inside the bank, as well as from approaching police cars down the street.

Mooer set Pariah down and said, “As soon as Bad Brood takes care of the bad guys, we’re all yours.” Mooer bounded toward the slugs, who fired their weapons at him, only to watch the bullets bounce off the hero’s Holstein hide.

At that moment, six more brightly garbed animals arrived. Flying in from overhead came a weasel-like creature engulfed in flames and a large ant in a leather jacket. The ant was the smallest of the arriving hero animals, granted, but still larger than any ant you’ve ever met, I’d wager. On the street level, a shimmering red disc opened and four more animals appeared through the opening. A mouse, with a jet of flames emanating from a crack in its bare rodent skull, scurried forth clad in black bodysuit and Mardi Gras beads. Behind him leaped a heavy-set frog in fatigues carrying enormous guns. Next strode a creature completely enclosed in red and white body armor. Lastly, as the portal closed, came a creature almost entirely hidden under a maroon cloak. Only its long-haired muzzle was visible, as well as two curved horns which poked out from under the cloak’s hood.

The ant in the biker jacket waved its arms at the slugs, and the would-be bank robbers’ guns leapt into the sky on a magnetic current. The fiery weasel unleashed a wave of flames at the nearest slug, which consumed the oversized invertebrate completely. A moment later the globulous slug had been reduced to the shape and color of a burnt matchstick.

Mooer was working over one of the slugs like a heavy punching bag. The military frog leveled one of his guns at another slug and pulled the trigger, resulting in a deafening report and a large hole blown clear through the slug’s body. The mouse raised two bony hands menacingly and an image of a giant salt shaker with a devil riding atop it rushed toward the last slug, and the slug uttered a shriek of terror and slimed itself.

The creature in the body armor exploded in a flurry of activity. He leapt gracefully into the air, and delivered a pair of scissor kicks to the burnt slug and his ammo-perforated pal. The burnt slug crumbled into a pile of black ash, and the gunshot-wounded slug collapsed with yellow stars orbiting its dazed eyestalks. Before the armored hero had touched ground again, he had produced a long staff, and whirled it through the air too fast to follow. The slug terrorized by visions of salt was knocked twenty feet away after a blow to the head from the staff, and Mooer’s sparring slug was quick to join his partners in crime in unconsciousness after its own drubbing from the staff.

The cloaked hero summoned several red warps, which collected the slugs in a neat pile just as the police dogs were unloading from their cars. As Bad Brood regrouped, Mooer gestured for Pariah to join them. Pariah cautiously approached, and Mooer smiled broadly at him as well as the rest of Bad Brood.

“Guys,” Mooer began, “this is Pariah. I bumped into him on my way here. Pariah, these are my teammates: Embermine, Valant, Karnivole, Hangfrog, Enigmuskox, and Pierce.”

Pariah nodded respectfully at each of the animals in turn. After the last introduction, the gray-haired man asked, “Pierce...?” as if expecting some kind of genus or species in addition.

“Just Pierce,” the armored hero answered curtly. “What can we do for you, Pariah?”

“Save your world,” Pariah intoned with all-consuming melancholy. “I am forever drawn to worlds on the precipice of annihilation, and my presence here proves that your reality is threatened. While there is still time, you must discover the threat and stand against it! You must!!”

“Well, we’re happy to help,” Karnivole nodded. “What did you have in mind?”

“In mind...?” Pariah asked skeptically.

“Yeah, what’s the plan?” Valant pressed.

“What else do you know about this threat to our world?” Hangfrog croaked.

“And are there any hot chicks involved?” Embermine asked, smoothing his fur.

“I ... I only know that the threat is real, and very close at hand,” Pariah stammered. “It could be anything! A wall of anti-matter erasing existence! A fundamental violation of the laws of physics which could tear your world asunder! A sentient malevolence determined to exterminate all life in the cosmos! I know not which, not what can be done to prevent it. Only that you must do something!”

“Soooo ... basically, you just show up wherever something bad is going down ... with no clue what it is or how to stop it?” Enigmuskox inquired.

Pariah nodded balefully.

“Dude, that’s the lamest power I’ve ever heard of, Trouble-Finder Lad,” Valant snorted, despite having no nose.

“Doesn’t matter,” Pierce insisted. “We’ll figure it out and do what needs to be done. Let’s get back to the RiverBoa and see if we can track down any leads.”

Bad Brood and Pariah began to leave the scene of the foiled bank robbery, and walked through the city. Pariah stayed close to Mooer.

“May I ask you something?” Pariah said hesitantly to his cattle companion.

“Sure,” Mooer nodded.

“Something troubles me ... about the ... the slugs ... robbing the bank ...”

“Uh-huh.”

“They had no arms.”

“Right,” Mooer agreed. “Slugs don’t have arms. So?”

“They were carrying bags of money and shooting guns.”

“Right,” Mooer agreed once again, fixing his large brown eyes filled with incomprehension on Pariah.

“They had no arms and they were holding bags and guns,” Pariah insisted woefully.

“Well ... yeah,” Mooer shrugged.

“How ...?” Pariah began, but was cut short by ...

“Ambush!” Hangfrog exclaimed. The group was walking through an alleyway, and from the tops of the buildings on either side a dozen ninjostriches dropped upon them. The large birds were clad in red and black assassins garb which only revealed their round, avian eyes.

Pariah backed away from the conflagration as the ninjostriches engaged the members of Bad Brood in combat. In the confined space of the alley, the two forces clashed with such fury that a cloud of dust quickly engulfed the battle. Occasionally a red and black wing holding an iron throwing starfish would peek out through the surface of the storm, or a flaming ermine tail, or a green, grenade-bearing flipper. At times garbage cans, fire escape ladders, or small foreign cars would be drawn magnetically into the dust cloud. But the majority of the battle was hidden from sight. When the dust finally settled, Bad Brood stood on their feet, with broken, motionless ninjostriches all around.

“I wonder if this attack is linked to the danger Pariah spoke of, if someone is trying to keep us from preventing Armageddon,” Enigmuskox pondered alound.

“Well, we do tend to get jumped by random bad guys about three times a week,” Karnivole pointed out.

“And some of us get jumped more often than that,” Embermine boasted with one furry eyebrow raised.

“Just a moment ...” Pariah tried to interject.

“Well, you want me to slap one of these ginsu-geese awake so we can ask him who sent them?” Mooer offered.

“A moment, my friends, please ...” Pariah said, a bit more forcefully.

“They won’t talk, or they’ll lie,” Valant asserted.

“WAIT JUST A DARN MINUTE!!!” Pariah exploded. Bad Brood stopped their discussion and turned toward him expectantly. Pariah’s lip trembled as he collected his agitated thoughts. Finally, he spoke: “Your attackers ... their injuries ...”

“Hey, they started it,” Hangfrog shrugged.

“They are covered in bandages and casts, and one of them is in traction and connected to an I/V,” Pariah spluttered angrily, raising a hand to his temple where a low, throbbing pain was building. “Where did those dressings come from? Where did a hospital bed come from, for crying out loud?”

“For someone foretelling the end of the world, you sure do ask some nitpicky questions,” Pierce observed.

Before Pariah could answer, the sky began to darken. The members of Bad Brood instantly became tense and battle-ready, and rushed out of the alley in search of the cause. Pariah followed behind, musing aloud, “Perhaps I was too late, after all.”

On the main street, six large animals stood, one of them aiming a claw at the sky, firing energy bolts that caused the black thunderclouds to gather overhead. Bad Brood stopped in their tracks at the sight of their mortal enemies, and Pierce called the team of villains by name: “CuckooForce!”

In the lead was a hammerhead shark in a dark blue and white body suit. “Pierce,” the shark grinned toothily, “how good of you to arrive right on cue.”

“Why don’t you decide to be just as good and give up on cue, Hammerheadhunter?” Pierce asked, lunging toward the villains’ leader. Hammerheadhunter raised both fists and fired ice beams at Pierce, and the battle was joined.

Mooer stampeded toward a towering box turtle with incredibly muscular limbs, bellowing, “Ready for a rematch, Minoturtle?”

Minoturtle cocked a fist back and shot it out at Mooer’s snout. The blow connected with a visible flash of jagged light and sent Mooer flying backwards, right over the horizon.

Valant flew toward CuckooForce, and was met in mid-air by a donkey with metal wings and blades extending from its forelocks. “Heeeeee-haaaawww!!! Time t’carve up some bug guts!” the donkey cried.

“Brayonet ... shut up,” Valant sneered, magnetically summoning a Mack truck and slamming Brayonet into the ground with it.

“I hope the news vans get here soon,” Embermine commented, “so that all my female fans get plenty of footage to drool ove*--” Embermine was cut off by Silenturkey, a waddling barnyard fowl in a green and yellow costume, nullifying the sound around the fiery rodent. Outraged, Embermine summarily roasted Silenturkey.

Karnivole inclined his head toward a small brown flightless bird in a purple jumpsuit with a misshapen exposed skull. “Just gonna play with your mind a little, Lokiwi,” Karnivole laughed, as giant vampire bats winged out of the shadows toward his opponent.

Enigmuskox and Hangfrog converged on Genosidewalker, a massive silver-carapaced crab with one claw engulfed by a blood-red hi-tech rifle. Hangfrog produced to gigantic bazookas, braced one on each shoulder, and opened fire on Genosidewalker. The first rocketing shell exploded against the armored crustacean to no effect. Genosidewalker used his free claw to bat aside the second incoming missile, which could be heard whimpering as it wobbled away through the air. Genosidewalker fired round after round of energy at Enigmuskox, but the large cloaked animal held a red circular hole between his hooves. Gripping the edges of the hole tightly, Enigmuskox moved the red disc through the air to intercept every shot fired, sending the energy blasts out another hole high overhead.

Hammerheadhunter and Pierce threw punches and blocks at one another with impossible speed and accuracy, moving so fast it seemed as if each one grew an extra four arms. Finally Pierce leapt over a sweeping kick by the shark, and while in mid-air Pierce ran a series of chops with the sides of his hands down the long length between Hammerheadhunter’s eyes. A row of mountainous, swollen lumps rose up on Hemmerheadhunter’s head, and the villain placed his hands over the injuries and created a large ice bag for the swelling.

As Minoturtle slowly picked out another target to advance upon, Mooer came flying through the air from the opposite direction that Minoturtle had belted him. Mooer collided fists-first with Minoturtle’s face, smashing the villain’s head into the depths of his shell. Valant added a locomotive engine to the Mack truck pinning down Brayonet, slammed a battleship down on top of that, and then reached out magnetically and pulled down a spacestation from orbit to drive the entire mass into the ground. Brayonet crawled out from under the metal heap, squashed to an inch thick and cross-eyed, his wings curled in broken strips. Karnivole ducked under a phantasmal swarm of demonic owls, then created an illusion of a large hand tapping Lokiwi on the shoulder. Lokiwi turned around and believed he took a punch in the skeletal face. Enigmuskox continued catching energy blasts from Genosidewalker, but the exit portal overhead clenched shut like the mouth of a child holding its breath. The warp puckered and shuddered, but held shut as Enigmuskox continued to suck in more power bolts. The warp overhead turned purple, then blue, and finally hot pink, and Enigmuskox allowed it to release its entire contents, straight down on Genosidewalker’s shell. The killer crab was left staggering in scuttling circles with stars spiraling around his head.

Hammerheadhunter, still clutching the ice bag to his head, cried out, “Enough! CuckooForce, we’re out of here!” With that, a white glow surrounded Hammerheadhunter, the pancake-flat Brayonet, the golden-brown-on-a-platter Silenturkey, the dazed and confused Genosidewalker, the frightfully confused Lokiwi, and Minoturtle in the midst of urgently trying to pop his head back out of his shell, and the villains disappeared.

“Oh, man, we almost had them nailed!” Valant complained bitterly.

“If we can’t interrogate them, we’ll just have to figure out what’s threatening our world the old fashioned way,” Pierce maintained.

“Actually ...” Pariah interrupted in a soft voice. All eyes turned on him, and the despondent man, who had watched the entire battle from the entrance to the alley, ran a hand through his gray hair and sighed, “I think there may have been some kind of mistake.”

“Mistake?” Enigmuskox repeated doubtfully.

Pariah nodded ruefully. “Many are the calamities I have been drawn to and witnessed. Many. Manymanymany. But it seems that on this world, such calamities are commonplace, and largely inconsequential. The forces at work here would tear most worlds apart, but it appears your reality will continue to exist unscathed despite them.”

Bad Brood stared at Pariah, non-comprehending. Pariah rolled his eyes. “I mean, come on, you people ... animals ... whatever ... should all be dead by now. But you’re not. I don’t understand how none of the laws of physics seem to apply here, but I can’t argue with it. God, I need a drink.”

“Well, you’re in the right city for that!” Mooer said amiably, throwing a beefy arma round Pariah’s shoulders. “Come on, we’ll take you to Pat O’Boar’s and throw a couple back.”

Pariah nodded and walked along with the rest of Bad Brood. As they made their way down the streets of New Orlions, Mooer continued, “You know, Pariah ... man, that’s a weird name. If you’re gonna be staying around this world for a while, you need a better name. Hmm, let’s see ... How ‘bout Pandariah?”

“I think not,” Pariah shook his head.

“Pariahmecium?” Mooer offered.

“Definitely not,” Pariah countered.

“Wait, I got it. Duck-billed Platypariah!”

“How much farther to the bar?” Pariah muttered under his breath.

THE END? LET’S HOPE SO!!!