Chapter Six

A small rodent scurried through a very small pipe; the pipe opened into the top of a very large room, the rodent fell out of the pipe but quickly transformed itself into a blue jay. The blue jay flew around the room a couple of times surveying the scene before it finally stopped over a large table full of scientific equipment. It landed on the floor next to the table and transformed into a man roughly 3 feet tall. He noticed he was not tall enough to reach the table and grimaced. He searched around until he found a chair, moved it to the table and hopped onto it. He searched around the table until he found a beaker with a liquid in it, he grabbed a near by cork, put it into the beaker and pushed it shut. He then pocketed the beaker and started to go for the door when he heard a sound. He ducked behind the door as he heard a woman’s voice, “Don’t make me come over there.”
“Damn,” the little man sighed to himself, “I hate women.”
The voice seemed further now and the little man decided it was safe to venture out. As he got out the door he noticed the hallway went in two directions, he fished a crinkled piece of paper out of his pocket and unfolded it. It was a crudely drawn map, it had some smiley faces where he needed to go, a picture of a scientist where the science room was, and a couple of rooms with frowny faces on them. He saw from the map that the only way out was to go through a main room with a big table in the middle and then out into a hallway where a big elaborate door was, once there he could slip out the mail slot. He folded the map up again and put it back in his pocket as he began to remark to himself, “But I could just turn back into a gerbil,” he said in one voice and then said in a more mocking voice, “No, the Vile is too important, you can’t mistakenly drop it, it’s too important.” He began to walk down the hallway and then finally said under his breath, “I hate everybody.”
The little man slowly made his way through the shadows, which were incredibly apparent in this giant castle; he thought to himself that they must like to save on the electricity bill. As he turned the corner he saw the giant room ahead of him, there was a long table directly in his path, on one long side sat 4 personages, on the other side 3 others, and one person at the head of the table, he couldn’t tell who any of them were as they were all in the shadows. Suddenly panic, he heard someone running up from behind him, “screw the vile” he thought, he transformed himself into a big spider with a long backpack on it’s back which held the beaker. He climbed up the wall and into the main room near the ceiling and decided to stay a while and survey what was taking place.
The running footsteps that were behind him was a man that had just turned the corner, he ran into the room but tripped on something and went flying face first into one of the chairs in front of him, “Damn!” he yelled, “Why on earth can’t we turn on some lights in here?”
“Because,” said the man at the head of the table, “We’re the Crimson Shadow, we’re evil doers and we live in darkness. Besides,” he waited a moment before continuing, “The electricity bill is murder. Of course Bullwhip,” he said to the man still on the floor, “If you wanted to pay for it…”
“No Thanks!” said Bullwhip, he got to his feet then took his seat in the only open chair.
“Good” said the man at the head of the table, “Now that we’re all here, our meeting can come to order, it’s been a while since we were all in the same place, and we can all hear updates on how… The Master Plan is going. So first,” he turned to his right side, “Railroad, Psycho, how did your mission go, did you make the necessary arrangements?”
“No,” replied Railroad seated in the seat to the man’s immediate right, “We had some resistance, nothing we couldn’t take care of, until that is Psycho decided to blow up.” A mutual groan could be heard. “My apologies sir, it won’t happen again.”
“Yes it will,” he sighed, “Fine, we’ll send two others to do it, he looked at the other two men seated on his right, “Bullwhip, you and Hunt will finished what Railroad and Psycho started.”
“Oh, do I have to?” replied Bullwhip, “You remember what happened last time I paired with Hunt.”
“But you’ve had people try to kill you before.”
“Not my own teammate! On a protect mission, when we could see the castle in our sights.”
“I’m sure he did it to keep you on guard.”
“No! He told me he wanted my Playstation 2!”
“Look, no more arguments, just do it alright?”
“Fine.” He harrumphed then plopped himself into his seat with arms folded and a pissed child look on his face.
The man at the front of the table then turned to his left side.
“Lisa.”
“Yes E?”
“What are we going to do about that spider on the ceiling?”
“I like to squash spiders.”
“Then get to it.”
The woman stood up as the little spider realized he was in trouble, He quickly sprouted hummingbird wings and flew across the room, Bullwhip stood, but the leader said, “No, let her take care of him.”
The spider got to the front door and fit it’s way through the mail slot. As he got outside he just kept flying forward, the doors behind him flew opened as about 100 women all looking exactly the same ran out of the door. They all ran after the little flying bird. The bird rose higher but the women just let other women climb on top until there was a tower of women, the women just continued to multiply.
A little face of the man appeared on the face of the spider hummingbird amalgam and yelled, “I Hate Women!”