Chapter 10
With Cutty's hands patched up, it was off to find the first dongle. Using the patent pending DongleDar, they traveled to a nearby solar system called the “Realm of Doom.” They arrived on a dreadful planet called Dethfyre, which orbited three very hot stars; it was a fiery world of agony and destruction covered in oceans of molten lava and savage monsters. This was definitely not a good place to buy real estate.
Galaxy-Man landed the Star Whomper in a volcanic crater of all places. Surprisingly, it was one of the few areas not covered in boiling lava. To say it was hot here would win you the Understatement of the Year Award.
Cherry looked out the window of the ship in horror at the strange and terrifying world around them. “Are you sure this is even safe, Dad?”
Galaxy-Man put his hand on Cherry's shoulder and warmly smiled as the two stared out the window at ash-filled skies and a myriad of powerful volcanic lightning bolts. “I've never been sure about anything,” he said comfortingly.
The ship began to shake violently and bounce around like a Mexican jumping bean in a sack race.
“Is th-the g-g-ground m-m-m-moving?” asked Cutty who sounded as though she were receiving a karate chop massage on count of all the shaking.
It was then that they realized that the volcano they landed on was actually a colossal ash-breathing monster made of hellfire and brimstone and was the size of a mountain. It crept slowly on its four stubby legs and resembled a tortoise, though, its shell was quite literally a volcano, and fully functional at that. The beast fed on rocks, which were superheated in its belly and ejected in a manner akin to a whale, though, whales don't typically spew hot lava from their backs.
“It's al-al-alive!” stammered Cutty.
“Yeah, w-well I'm n-n-not scared,” said Galaxy-Man, “not one b-b-bit!” Sure enough, the creature began to erupt. Without hesitation, Galaxy-Man fumbled and tripped his way over to the helm. “Er, we'll just come back to this one,” he said coolly as he flew back into the ragged sky.
They promptly left Dethfyre and set course for the next dongle. The DongleDar led them to a little known jungle planet called Lackadaisia, the sloth homeworld. Sloths came to Earth around 60 million years ago from this planet on a mission to conquer the planet, but as of writing this, they have yet to complete their mission on count of their incredible laziness.
Before long, Lackadaisia was in sight, but there was a problem – they were going much too fast.
“Uh-oh, we're goin' down!!” shouted Galaxy-Man. He was bathed in flashing red lights as if he were developing film, and he was sweating profusely like Cutty was looking through his browsing history or something.
“Dang it, Dad! Can't we go one day without crashing!? Just one!!”
The ship touched down in a large creek and slid several miles before crashing into a gigantic tree. It was bigger than any tree any of them had ever seen. Its size was truly mind-boggling. The base of its trunk was as wide as a supermarket, and its crown touched the clouds. It stood all of 10,000 ft tall and its bark alone was 8 ft thick at least. This was certainly an impressive plant to behold.
Galaxy-Man thought for sure that it was about to fall. “It's comin' down!!” He yelled to everyone, but the tree stood standing. “Oh, I guess not.” Galaxy-Man was actually a bit let down.
“That's a bit disappointing,” said Cherry. “I was hoping we'd see it fall down.”
“I know!” Galaxy-Man agreed. “I mean, it should've fell, right?”
“Right,” nodded Cherry.
“You know what? screw it,” said Galaxy-Man. He flew the ship backwards to a safe distance
“Uh-oh, what are you doing?” asked Cutty, fearing the worst of him.
He fired both of the ship's lasers cannons at the same time. When they were fired simultaneously the beams would merge into an extremely powerful swirling disk of energy.
Cutty shook her head. “Oh my God.” She didn't exactly approve of his act.
The lasers hit the tree hard and sawed all the way through with relative ease. The very old tree fell to the ground. It was quite a spectacle really.
“Timber!” shouted Galaxy-Man as the poor tree fell. When it finally struck the ground, it boomed like loud thunder and it shook the ground for several seconds.
“Poor tree,” said Cherry who kinda felt a bit bad for it.
“It's not like it's the only tree here,” said Galaxy-Man. He pointed out the window. “Look, that tree over there's like 20% bigger. Why didn't the narrator mention that one?”
Galaxy-Man didn't know it, but he'd actually done a good thing by cutting the tree down. Dead trees are just as important as living one, especially on Lackadaisia. The fallen tree would become home to mushrooms, moss, insects, birds, and it would return important nutrients to the surrounding soil for thousands of years. One problem that Lackadaisia faced, was that trees tended to live too long and grow too large. They would hog all the water and nutrients from other plants.
The gang stepped off the ship and looked around. The planet was dotted with enormous trees and smaller but very thick, dry plants and hanging brown vines.
Her palms cut and wearing green boxing gloves, Cutty still carried her new sword. She had taken quite a liking to it actually. She cut and sliced through vines like a Jedi with a piñata.
“Doesn't that hurt your hands?” asked Cherry.
“A little,” she replied, “but it's worth it. I've never felt more alive before.”
As Galaxy-Man walked he tripped on a catchy vine. “Oh no!” he shouted.
“I'll save you!” yelled Cutty as she ran to Galaxy-Man's aid. She cut the vine and freed his tangled foot.
“Thanks,” said Galaxy-Man. “Hey, you're pretty good with that thing. Why don't you take the lead.”
Cutty was ecstatic. “Really?” she smiled.
“Go for it,” said Cherry.
Cutty took the lead and began walking. She stopped. “Um, I don't know where we're going.”
Cherry walked over and gave her the DongleDar and showed her how to use it. “Here, if the little number on the display gets smaller, it means you're getting warmer. If it gets bigger, it means we're getting colder. Easy like Sunday morning. Unnastand?”
“Do you guys really want me to lead? Asked Cutty. “This may come as a shock, but I've never led an expedition on an unknown world before.”
“You'll do fine, man,” said Galaxy-Man. “I feel safe with you having that sword. I'm certainly no good with it.”
“Well, you defeated me.”
“You mean dehanded,” said Cherry.
Galaxy-Man face-palmed hard and let out a very long sigh.
Cutty examined the DongleDar closely.“Is that a sock?” she asked.
“Yes,” replied Cherry, “let's just leave it at that.” She was mocking JupiterRay of course.
With the DongleDar in one hand and a legendary sword in the other, Cutty led the team towards the dongle. The DongleDar worked much better outside of the ship because of interference from the Star Whomper's electromagnetic debris shield. With the ship turned off, the DongleDar was much more accurate and precise. Cutty blazed a trail with the Durandal, and checked the DongleDar every few seconds to make sure they were on the right track. She made an excellent leader, making sure no baddies tried any funny business. She felt the thrill of adventure for the very first time in her adult life. She felt like Dirk the Daring himself, and half-expected a dragon to appear and kidnap Galaxy-Man. Cutty dreamed of battling a dragon actually.
While they didn't find any dragons this time, they did come across something equally foreboding. Cutty, who was ahead of Cherry and Galaxy-Man, stopped dead in her tracks at the dreadful sight before her. “Oh my God,” she said in a hushed, somber tone. Lying at the base of a tree was a human skeleton.
“What is it, Cutty?” asked Cherry who was lagging behind. “Did you realize the irony of your name?”
“Guys, I don't think we're welcome here,” replied Cutty.
Galaxy-Man bravely walked up to where Cutty was. “It can't be that ba- Sweet cosmic Jewish zombie Jesus with gravy!!!”
Cherry then walked up and saw the skeleton. “What? It's just a dumpy ol' skeleton. It's not like he's gonna attack us or anything. He ain't got the guts!!” She then laughed heartily at her own joke.
Some rustling was then heard in the distance. Cutty readied her sword, “What was that noise!?”
“Uh, who wants to go for a little cross-country jog?” asked Galaxy-Man who was clearly afraid.
The gang trudged through the jungle at a brisk pace, Cutty cutting the path. They entered a clearing and lying before them was a gigantic three-toed sloth hanging from a large low-hanging tree branch. He was about as big as a garbage truck and smelled about as nice.
“Cheese it!” yelled Galaxy-Man, but Cutty charged the beast.
“No way!” yelled Cutty. “I can take it.” The sloth didn't seem very interested in her. He yawned and slowly adjusted his body as Cutty ran at him. When he moved, a gigantic moth emerged from his fur. The moth was bulky and had a wingspan of 4 ft..
“Sloth moth!” yelled Galaxy-Man.
“No, Cutty,” urged Cherry, “it might eat your sweater!”
“I'm not scared,” said Cutty. She cautiously stepped over to it and bopped it on the face with her gloves. Then, more moths began to emerge from the sloth.
“There's too many of them!” yelled Galaxy-Man.
Cutty cut her losses and ran away. The moths didn't seem particularly dangerous, but Galaxy-Man had a way of blowing things way out of proportion. It was only a bug after all. The sloth on the other hand could've been scary, but didn't seem to care much at all about the world around him. By the time Cutty ran away, the sloth was already in a deep sleep, not even one-quarter of one care to give.
Breathing heavily, the gang ran through the jungle to a place they thought was safe.
“That was too close,” panted Galaxy-Man. “That sure was a big moth.”
“I guess you could say it was a behe-moth!” laughed Cherry.
Cutty chuckled while Galaxy-Man face-palmed again and let out an even longer sigh. “That was really good actually,” he admitted.
Cutty stood motionless, not laughing, looking in the distance with an expression of terror.
“Hey Cutty, why aren't you laughing?” asked Cherry.
“L-look!” pointed Cutty in utter terror. There before them was another giant sloth, this time it wore a vertical-striped yellow button up shirt with red and blue leather shoes. He was leaned up against the root of a large tree batting around a bowling ball back in forth. Galaxy-Man and Cherry could now see the monstrosity before them.
“Look out!” screamed Galaxy-Man. “He's a pro bowler!!”
Bowling was the only sport sloths participated in. Bowling is the only sport that the lazy and lethargic can be really good at. All you have to do is roll a ball across the floor and then you get to go sit down and eat nachos and drink too much.
Cutty charged the beast. “War cry!!” The sloth was standing next to an ancient monument built by the sloths. It was a stone statue of an ordinary-looking female sloth. The bowler sloth yawned and rolled on to his belly to sleep. He stretched and let out another yawn. When he stretched he nudged the ball slightly and it came rolling very slowly at Cutty.
“He's retaliating!” yelled Cherry from the sidelines.
Cutty looked behind at Cherry. “What?” But while her eyes were on Cherry, Cutty ran into the ball and stubbed her toe something awful. “Ow!” she yelped as she fell down on one knee.
“Man down, man down!” yelled Galaxy-Man as he and Cherry ran to Cutty. “Get her outta here!” Galaxy-Man ran over to the monument and shoved it down, shattering it to pieces for fun. “Haha.”
The gang then ran away a good ways to a place they figured was safe. They reached a tree with branches that touched the ground.
“That's a cool tree,” said Cutty.
“Wanna stop and rest?” asked Galaxy-Man.
“I know I do,” said Cherry. “Hey Cutty, wanna know the difference between Galaxy-Man's mom and a bowling ball?”
“What?” asked Cutty, expecting a cute joke.
“You can only fit three fingers in a bowling ball!” replied Cherry.
“Jesus Christ, Cherry,” said Galaxy-Man, “get your mind out of the gutter, child.”
“Ha, I see what you did there,” laughed Cherry.
The gang started walking up the tree branch to sit down.
“Whatevva,” said Cherry in her sassiest voice, “yo mama so ugly she made One Direction go the other direction.”
Cutty chuckled a little but tried to hide it. She was a huge 1D fan actually.
Galaxy-Man got right in Cherry face. “Yeah, well at least I got a mama!” he gloated. “What's up? What's up?”
The jokes were all in good fun of course. They sat down on the branch to rest.
“Who wants generic toaster pastries?” asked Galaxy-Man as he pulled out off brand Pop-Tarts from his pockets. “There's only two in the pack so I figured we all get two-thirds of a tart.”
Cherry looked at the pastries' shiny packaging and winced. “'Bop-Tarts?'” she asked with a raised brow.
“Take it up with Hamilton,” said Galaxy-Man. “He's the one who buys all this off-brand junk.”
Cherry laughed a bit. “His cereal's so off-brand it doesn't even have a name. It's just a blank box filled with sadness.”
Galaxy-Man laughed. “Yeah, and his soup is 'cream of something.'” He handed everything their two-thirds.
Cutty rubbed her sore toe. It wasn't bleeding thankfully. “Guys, I think I let that sword get to my head a little.”
“Aw, but you were so great,” said Galaxy-Man. “You saved us from the sloth moth, remember?”
“I don't know, I just feel like I behaved silly or something,” said Cutty. “I was acting like a child.”
“Ouch,” said Cherry. “I'm sitting right here, dude.”
“What's wrong with being a kid?” asked Galaxy-Man. “You looked so happy out there, man. You make a really good leader, Cutty Buddy.”
“Really?” asked Cutty.
“Really truly,” smiled Galaxy-Man. “In fact, I'm promoting you to team captain.”
“Aw, what!?” cried Cherry. “But I've been gunning for that title for nine years, man. How could you just up and give it to a newbie like her? What the F, man!?” She still didn't dare say the F word.
“Well,” said Cutty, “my first act as captain is renouncing my captainship and making Cherry the new team captain.”
Galaxy-Man was surprised. “What? You can't do that, man.”
“Of course I can. I'm the captain, remember?”
“No you're not. You just made Cherry the captain, dummy.”
Cherry sat eating her tart with a crooked grin. “Send this man to the brig,” she ordered.
“Dang it!” blurted Galaxy-Man. He crossed his arms in protest while Cherry and Cutty had a good laugh.
“So how far is the dongle?” asked Cherry.
Cutty checked the DongleDar. “This can't be right,” she said.
“What's it say, yo?” asked Galaxy-Man.
“It's right... right here,” said Cutty who was very confused.
“Maybe the DongleDar doesn't work,” suggested Cherry.
“No way,” said Galaxy-Man, “JupiterRay's the smartest guy out there. He's never made faulty equipment before.”
“Maybe it's below us or something,” suggested Cutty.
“Or maybe,” they all said in unison. They looked up above them and saw a terrifying sight. It was the biggest, slothiest sloth yet, hanging on a branch right above their heads this whole time, staring them down with its slothy eyes. It was wearing a crown and looked very important... as far as sloths go at least.
The gang quickly fled out of the tree.
“Has that thing been there the whole time!?” asked Galaxy-Man.
“Yikes,” added Cutty.
“He has the dongle!!” yelled Cherry.
The sloth looked at them all and slowly crawled out of the tree.
“He's coming at us!” yelled Galaxy-Man.
To say he was slow was an understatement actually. Seriously, it took five solid minutes for him to come down. The gang was sitting on a log waiting. Galaxy-Man was writing his name in the dirt while Cherry and Cutty played tic-tac-toe.
Cutty won three games in a row. “Wanna play again?” she asked.
“How 'bout tic-tac-no,” replied Cherry.
The sloth finally stepped onto the ground and set his sights on them.
“Oi,” said Galaxy-Man in his best Australian accent, “he's cranky!”
The beast was as big as a school bus and he had an evil look in his eye. His fur looked like a shaggy bathroom rug and he smelled about as nice as one. Cherry could see a clear plastic cartridge tied around his neck. It was a dongle! The gang prepared for combat.
Just then, the creature did something very unexpected, it spoke! “Be you very afraid,” he said in a deep, booming voice, “for I am Gorox, the three-toed king!”
“It tic-tac-talks!?” yelped Cherry.
“Cranky, mate,” said Galaxy-Man, still speaking Australian.
“Indeed, all sloths possess the ability to speak,” explained Gorox, ”though, we seldom feel like it.” A little known fact about sloths is that they are one of the few creatures smarter than humans. They could probably conquer the universe if they weren't so very lazy. Sloths live to be lazy and are never in a hurry to do anything. They don't hurt anyone, but aren't of much use and never really do much of anything. They're harmless, but sort of useless, too. They're like the stoners of the animal world.
“Yo Gorox,” said Galaxy-Man in his normal voice, “we need that there cartridge 'round yo nop!” For those who don't know, “nop” means head.
“Trade me your silver chain?” said Gorox, pointing at Galaxy-Man's necklace. Why would he want a chain?
Galaxy-Man took it off and handed it to Cherry. “You'll have to pry it from Cherry's cold, dead hands!”
“Screw you, Dad,” said Cherry.
Gorox let out a terrible roar that shook the very ground. Slobber spewed from his mouth as he gnashed his terrible yellowed fangs and he breathed fire as if he were the king of all dragons. All sloths Possess the ability to breathe fire, but very seldom do. It can be a bit tiring.
“Sweet uncensored, deep fried Muhammad on a stick," blurted Galaxy-Man.
Gorox's roar went from terrifying to kinda cute, as the roar became a sort of big yawn as the beast fell into a deep sleep.
“Is he dead?” asked Cutty after a long pause.
“Nah, he's just sleepin'” answered Galaxy-Man.
“Oh... well that's kinda lame,” said Cherry who thought the encounter was a bit anticlimactic.
Cutty walked over and gently nabbed the dongle from the creature's neck. “Got it!” she whispered loudly.
Just then, Galaxy-Man felt sorry for Gorox. He realized then that they were sort of the bad guys all along. They stole Gorox's necklace, destroyed an ancient monument, bopped an innocent moth on the schnoz, and cut down a million year old tree, (though that was actually a good thing.) Regardless, Galaxy-Man felt bad.
When Cherry handed him his chain back, he walked over to Gorox. “What're you doing, Dad?” asked Cherry.
Galaxy-Man put the chain around Gorox's wrist.
“Dad, you've had that chain forever,” said Cherry. “You really wanna give that up?”
“It's the least we can do,” explained Galaxy-Man. “We did just steal something after all.”
“I guess we have been sort of mischievous,” said Cutty.
Cherry almost shed a tear when she realized. “Oh God, what have we done!? We've been a bunch of dooguses.”
“Yeah, well we're gonna make up for it,” smiled Galaxy-Man.
On the way back to the Whomper, they passed by the bowler sloth who was still looking at his shattered statue in horror.
“It took our kind 15,000 years to construct that monu-,” but before he could finish his sentence, Cherry had already put the statue back together with a little bit of mud to hold the pieces together.
“Good as new,” smiled Cherry. The statue looked better than ever. The sloth looked very pleased. Cherry tipped her imaginary hat and the gang went along their way.
They then came to where the sloth moths were and Cutty walked over to the one she hit and gave it her sweater. “Here, you can have it,” said Cutty, bashfully. All the moths swarmed onto the sweater and looked very pleased with it. “You guys enjoy.”
“Aww,” gushed Galaxy-Man.
Finally, they had finally made it back to the Whomper. Cutty and Cherry began walking up the gangplank into the ship, but Galaxy-Man lagged behind.
“Hang on, fellas,” he said.
“What is it?” asked Cherry.
Galaxy-Man didn't say anything. He walked over to the fallen tree he cut down and from its branch he grabbed three seeds. They were the size of apples and about as heavy. Around him were hundreds of curious squirrels who were not afraid of him. They chattered and twitched their squirrelly tails as Galaxy-Man found a suitable place, knelt down on one knee, and buried the seeds together.
“Hang in there little guys,” Galaxy-Man said quietly to the seeds, “you're all gonna grow together and someday you're gonna become the biggest tree the world has ever seen.” He stood up and gave a Vulcan salute to the ground. “Live long and prosper, man.” Curious squirrels began to envelop his legs but Galaxy-Man just sort of ignored them as if they weren't there.
Cherry and Cutty walked over to him. “You guys done having a moment?” teased Cherry. “We can come back if you want, dude.”
Galaxy-Man then burped loudly and scratched his belly. “Nah, let's get the junk off this dumb rock,” he replied. More and more squirrels came crawling up Galaxy-Man's legs and he could take it no longer. “I'd make a joke about all these squirrels crawling up my legs, but unlike some of you, my mind is a pure and clean place.”
“Well mine sure as hell isn't!” Cherry chimed in. “They're making an ice cream sundae and the last ingredient they need is your sweaty balls!!”
“At least I have balls ya dumb chick!” yelled Galaxy-Man.
The squirrels then started crawling into Galaxy-Man's pocket and he realized what they were after – the remaining Bop-Tart bits from earlier.
“Oh, they're just hungry,” pointed out Cutty.
Galaxy-Man then started brushing the squirrels off his legs. “Well let's get into the Whomper post-haste 'for they decide to eat us or somethin' or other,”
The gang started for the ship as more and more squirrels began showing up. It was a truly odd phenomenon.
“I still have one question,” said Cutty. “What killed the man we found earlier?”
Cherry looked at the oceans of squirrels around them and thought. “You don't think... ”
“Sweet buttered Buddha with broccoli,” said Galaxy-Man, “the man went nuts and killed himself!!”
Something very peculiar then happened. One of the squirrels began to speak in a thick Australian accent. “Actually the bugger was a real estate agent who tripped over his own beard and hit his head on a rock.”
“Squirrels can talk, too!?” said Galaxy-Man in utter amazement.
“No, just me,” said the squirrel. “By the way, your Australian accent sucks, mate.” The squirrel then hopped away and the gang went inside the ship. As a parting gift, they left the squirrels a wide assortment of Hamilton's food. When all was said and done, it was high-time to vamoose.
On the ride home, Cherry put the dongle into the Power Glove, but nothing seemed to happen. They figure they'd take it to JupiterRay the next day and see what he thought.
And so their adventure had come to an end, and what a wacky, random quest it was. Cherry made it her life's mission to learn everything about sloths, and Galaxy-Man never looked at squirrels the same way again. Cutty on the other hand was absolutely amazed by everything that happened. When she returned home she filled her diary in one night and was too excited to sleep.