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Introduction
It was a cold and misty night on the east side of Hailfire peaks. In between gusts of wind carrying frigid snow, a faint voice could be heard muttering angrily, "That bear and bird! Defeat me twice! and once they're done, sheath me in ice?" "Tootie too, I hate her so! How dare her eyes, fur and skin glow! My two sisters, a useless lot, They were the only chance got!" The voice of Gruntilda , a little wistful now began sighing. "I'm missing an eye, my most beautiful feature- Ah!, what's this, it's my old teacher!" She stopped talking abruptly as the form of a certain witch doctor shuffled slowly past. The only tool left in Grunty's possession was unknowingly her most dangerous-her head. For in the brief seconds in between her glimpse of Mumbo, and the present, the remaining section of her brain had formed a most mischievous plan. Her voice dripping with fake sorrow, she called out, " Mumbo, sir ,come closer, please, So we may set our differences at-GACK!" She coughed in mid-sentence as "Mumbo" turned to face her. "You're not Mumbo, you're quite unique, what is the name of the person I speak?"
"Mingy Jongo, crafty shaman impersonator." the figure responded in a slightly metallic version of Mumbo's voice. My mission remains incomplete. I shall destroy the incompetent shaman fool, as well as that bear and bird!." Though his tone was monotonous, Gruntillida Winkibunion could practically feel the heat radiating off of the robot as he said the bear and bird. Grunty, all of a sudden, had felt a feeling that she mad missed dearly, with no place to fuel it, a feeling that had initiated not one, but two plans of hers: evil. Pure and simple.
"A bear and bird, you're up against, you'll need to have quite large defense" she uttered slyly. "We share goals, that I can feel, we'll form a team-is that a deal?"
"Do you have to rhyme like that? It really fries my circuits." Mingy said, seemingly emotionless.
"Everyone's a critic, how very rude, rhyming helps me pine and brood" Grunty said.
"Do you want help or not?!?" Mingy said, sounding still as if he could care less.
"Fine, all right, I'll rhyme no more, but common talk's a really big-" Mingy shot her a would-be-venomous-glare. "Annoying pain" she finished unconvincingly.
Mingy continued ,"Affirmative then, we shall continue together as a partnership. I shall evoke a spell to assist you, and you shall act as a database, supplying the information about the bear, bird, and shaman. Oh, and yes-" For lack of ability to grin maliciously, his gears whirred loudly, and his partially fractured eyes shone a lustrous red. "We shall work together to create a plan that will spell the end of all that oppose us!." Grunty cackled in her sinister way, and Mingy clanked evilly, the beginnings of an evil plan, the third, and most dangerous, yet how should anyone be aware of it when both laughs were lost in the freezing gales that muted their glee filled laugh, and whirled it away into the snow. . .
Chapter One
"Gee, Bottles, I still can't get over how really nice it was of you to let us stay with you after-you know." Banjo said in his laid-back way.
"It was no trouble, no trouble at all" Mrs. Bottles called from the kitchen.
"Easy for you to say" Bottles muttered under his breath. The past few months had been hard on the mole-due to one particular breegull who felt a need to be ceaselessly insulting and rude.
"What was that, dear?" Mrs. Bottles asked, shouting over the sound of a blender which was mashing up some delicacy with amazingly hateful eyes. "I can't hear you over the Spudato. You know how they make such a racket after leaving the Mountain."
"Oh, nothing, nothing at all" Bottles said sarcastically. He had become increasingly bitter, made worse by the fact that nobody had seemed to notice.
"Yeah, Goggle Boy" Kazooie said, unnecessarily loud. Bottles seethed with suppressed anger. "It's better than some of the other places. Ugh." She turned to Banjo. " Can you imagine living in that skull of Mumbo's? It smells funny! And Boggy's house? Need I mention the fact that it is, what, 50 below in the summer. Excuse me for not wanting to end up side by side the sorry excuses for birds in the supermarket? And furthermore-"
"Kazooie!" Banjo injected.
"What?-Oh, all right"
Just then, Mumbo Jumbo and Humba Wumba, two very prestigious-well, the only-magicians in Witches Isle, burst through the tunnel that was Bottles front door. They looked as if they had run very hard and fast.
"Ever hear of knocking" Bottles incoherently said. They knocked both him and his chair upside down on their way to Banjo and Kazooie.
"Mumbo meditating-" Mumbo started. Humba shoved him out of the way.
"Big heap vision!" she continued.
"Bear and bird-" Mumbo tried to maintain, but Humba had whisked out an animal skin flask, filled with her trademark magenta mountain water, and splashed it on Mumbo. The shaman quickly recovered from having a zipper for a mouth, pulled out his staff and muttered a muffled incantation. There was a flash of light, and when the smoke cleared, Humba was visibly a mouse. This didn't stop her. She did a small dance, and Mumbo became a sink with a skull faucet. This continued for a while, until Bottles who was still upside down, shouted,
"QUIET!"
Mrs. Bottles turned off the blender. The Spudato stopped shrieking. Tootie and the Bottles children stopped playing their Klungo Inc. video game. A recently transformed purple-with-pink-polka-dots octopus and an eggbeater wearing earmuffs stopped firing spells at each other. "Humba Wumba, you first. At least I can almost understand you." Mumbo, looking as dignified as possible, went 'humph' and proceeded to lean against a wall with his arms folded, so as to intimidate Humba into making a mistake, and correcting her when she did.
The Indian proceeded to light a cool fire with a sprinkle of liquid.
"Spirits in pool say great evil come." she began in a faraway, echoing voice, and the smoke swirled around her. "They speak two evils, having no true skin." The smoke curled into twin silhouettes of Gruntilda's head and, unmistakably, Mingy Jongo. "Together they begin big heap scheme" The children present hid underneath a quilt. "They hunt you!" She raised her hands into the air and the smoke clouded around Banjo, Kazooie, and ,to everyone's surprise, Mumbo. Mumbo nodded his head sheepishly.
"Bad magic person speak truth." he said. Humba's gloating grin shattered, and she glared at Mumbo. "They after us, we all in danger."
Bottles was the first to make a noise. He sputtered, then chuckled, then, in great snorting guffaws, got up to get a mug of water.
"Excuse me," he sputtered, tears of laughter streaming out of his eyes. His laughs broke the solemn silence. Everyone began laughing. Kazooie squawked, Banjo nasally growled, the children and Mrs. Bottles both giggled. Mumbo and Humba grinned sheepishly at each other, then, suddenly remembering their eternal fight, turned hurriedly. Kazooie stopped laughing just long enough to be rude.
"You probably spilled something in your pool," she said, gesturing towards Humba Wumba. "And you most likely fell asleep" she pointed at Mumbo. "We defeated that sorry old hag twice, and threw her head off of the top of Cloud Cuckooland. She is not, I repeat NOT coming back if she knows what's good for her." Banjo nodded in agreement. The children resumed their game. "And what are the odds of that walking junkyard in a mask finding that particular head? About one in a million-at best!" Mumbo and Humba reconsidered, and were invited to dinner. Soon they forgot all about the prediction. Little did they know how much they would regret doing just that.
by Rare Writer