If you haven't already read it, you nead to read the story called Beeper and the Explosive Cookies before you read this story. If you have read that story then read on.Chapter 1
Skeeper Skid, King of the goodcars, was sitting in his living room. He was surrounded by most of his inner circle and they where all moaning and spitting out broken teeth. They had been in the middle of a meeting and Skeeper had brought out some cookies that he had baked that morning for refreshments. When the cars had bitten into the cookies they had exploaded, blowing out everyones' teeth and severely scortching their mouths.
"I bill ged 'im bor dat" Skeeper spluttered. Then, "Shud ub Golb, dad idunt helbing"
"Bud Skeeber, by bouth herds" Gold choked, and then continued to cry.
"SHUD UB DOW, GOLB" Skeeper shrieked.
Gold stopped crying abruptly.
"Sombuby car a doker" Bop said, "I neeb to hab my bouth bixd"
Skeeper was very mad. Beeper had just tricked them into eating bombs, and then driven right through his window, ripped up his lawn, and chucked smoke bombs all over the place. Beeper had gone too far. Skeeper was going to make him pay.
"Ged sombun ober heer to look ab dees cookeebs." Skeeper shouted, and a moment later Jinx Poolama drove into the room. He took one look at the cars around him and burst out laughing.
"Haa haa haa haa, look at you. Hee hee heee hee. Whatcha do Skeeper, eat a bomb?"
"Yeb Jinx. Hab a cookie." Skeeper said, grinning evily. He didn't like Jinx, especially because Jinx was a smart mouth and had stolen his 2nd best crown a week ago.
Jinx was about to bite into the cookie when he stopped dead.
"Wait a minute, Skeeper" He said,"It's not like you to just
give me a cookie"
"Ebzakly Jinx. Dat kookie iz expwosib."
"Waa- Skeeper did you-- How- What's going on here?"
"Beeber did sumbing to dem. Now I bont you to fine oub wath."
"Ohbay Shneeber" Jinx said, and then grabbed the cookie and raced across the room as Skeeper through one at him. It hit the floor and exploaded, blasting a smoking hole in the carpet. Looking a little nervous, Jinx found a table knife and gingerly began to cut up the cookie. Almost directly in the center he came across a small roundish object. Driving over to the light switch he flipped it, saying he neaded more light, only to have it expload in his face, showering him with sparks, soot, and bits of plastic.
"Hey!" he yelled, slamming himself into reverse so fast that he went skidding across the room and crashed into the wall. "What did that?"
"Wad wuz in de cookie, Dinx" Skeeper asked, looking positively furious.
"A miniature land mine, Skeeper," Jinx said, throughing it at the wall.
"Hey!" Skeeper shouted as it exploaded, blowing a hole in the wall.
"Interesting. Oh, the cop's here." Jinx said, looking through the hole.
"Dinx, ged oud der and submid a call to armz. We bill go blow doze badcars to bidz" Skeeper said, picking up another cookie. Jinx took one look at Skeeper and then shot off across the room, out the brocken window, across the lawn, and down the street, yelling all the while.
"Arms. Arms. Every goodcar to arms. War with the badcars. War with the badcars. Everybody to Skeepers house. Everybody to Skeepers house" He yelled, skidding across the pavement and roaring down the middle of the road. Goodcars stopped and stared at him as he skidded across the street, narrowly missed hitting a fire hidrant, and crashed directly into Fandango, a badcar van.
"Borsha, ged ober heer." Skeeper called. Porsha drove into the room, still carrying his machine gun. "Ged oud dere and clear all de badcars oud of goodside" Skeeper ordered.
"Sure, Skeeper" Porsha said before zooming off out the front door.
He had proceeded only a little way down the street when he found Jinx about to get hammered by a angry Fandango.
"What you mean, war with the Badcars, Jinxy?"
"W-w-well Skeeper said we where to blow all those stupid badcars to bits-- ow Ow owww. Stop. Oww Oww"
Blamblamblamblamblamblamblamblamblamblamblam. Blamblamblam blam blam.
Fandango let out a howl as Porcha's bullets punched holes in his top and front end. Ow ow "Owowowowowowowowowowowowowowowowow" he shrieked, taking off down the street towards badside.
"Thanks a lot. He was gonna, like, rip me apart or somthing." Jinx said, before sooming off up the street yelling about war with badside. Porcha continued off up the street behind Jinx and in a moment he saw a large car come out of an ally. Baddy Mail. He was followed by Baddy Trash, Dog, and Klagbag.
"What's he talking about?" he heard Klagbag ask Mail.
"Dunno. Let's go and mash him though, he's making my ears sore."
Mail and Klagbag had just drove out onto the street, closely followed by Trash and Dog when-
Blamblamblamblamblamblamblamblamblamblamblamblamblamblam blam blamblamblam.
Mail took off up the street, only to have his wheels blown from his axles after the first 5 yards.
"Yowwww, heelp!" he shrieked before he crashed onto the street, rolled about 10 feet, and stopped with a crash on his side. Klagbag tryed to reverse back into the ally, only to find himself with only 2 wheels and a nose more like a seive than anything else. Trash swerved off into the street, but Porcha blew one of his front wheels off and he crashed strait into a brick wall.
Turning around to finish off Dog Porsha suddenly heard the responding chatter of machine gun fire coming from the ally.
Blamblamblamblamblam blamblamblam blamblamblamblamblam blam blam blamblamblam.
Suddenly he remembered. Dog had a machine gun mounted on his back. He had managed to back into the ally while Porcha was distracted by Trash. Swearing, Porcha skidded behind Baddy Mail, who was laying on the street corner. Then he continued to shoot into the ally, and the ally continued to shoot back. This continued for about 5 minutes, and Porcha noticed that the usual trafic had stopped. There where where cars pearing out from around street corners and behind shop windows, but the street was deserted, except for the 3 shot up Badcars.
Suddenly he realized that Dog was no longer shooting
at him. He was shooting over his head. Porcha looked up in time to see one of the stop lights, suspended by a thick cable over his head, start to fall. Dog had shot through the cable. Slamming himself into reverse, Porcha spun his wheels and started to back up. *WHAM*!! The stop light crashed down, half onto Baddy Trash, tipped over, and landed on Porcha's nose.
"OOwwwwww!!" Porcha howled, trying to roll the heavy stop light off his front end. By the time he had got it off Dog was halfway up the street. His machine gun had rotated and was firing behind him. It wasn't very accurate that way, but it still made the street rather painful to be in. Porcha took off after him, shooting, only for a bullet hit his left front tire. He swerved out of control, skidded across the road, and crashed through the glass window of a tire store and directly into a large display of tires. He stopped abruptly and was quickly covered in a heap of tires as stacks of them collapsed onto him.
By the time he had been dug out of the tires and had his front tire replaced Dog had long since dissapeared into badside. Porcha proceeded through goodside, shooting any badcar in sight. Thankfully, none of them had guns with them. Most of them took one look at him and took off for badside, not wanting to get blown to bits if they stayed.
Later that evening all the goodcars congregated around Skeeper's house in the center of goodside. Skeeper, who's teeth had been replaced earlier that day, supervised the disposle of Klagbag, Mail, Trash, and Porkey Porch, all of whom haddn't made it out of goodside. They where loaded one by one into a huge catapolt that Skeeper had placed in his back yard, and then catapolted into badside. Bop watched through binoculars as Klagbag soared through the air into badside and crashed directly through the roof of what looked like Beeper's house. After that Skeeper proceeded to hand out weapons from a storehouse buried in his back yard. He had stockpiled the weapons over the corse of several monthes in case of a badcar invasion. Then he and his inner circle started to descuss battle plans and strategies.
Chapter 2Beeper Badcar was sitting on his throne reading a book entitled '101 Ways to Cause Trouble', when Klagbag came crashing through the roof, bounced off the TV, cracking the screen and causing smoke to start coming out of the back, and then landed with a crash on Beeper's potted plant, breaking the pot and spilling dirt all over the floor. Beeper was just about to through a large paper weight at him when he noticed somthing. Klagbag had only 2 wheels, had a very crumpled back end, and was full of bullet holes. Swearing, Beeper took a glass of ice water he had been drinking and poored it on Klagbag. In a moment Klagbag moaned and opened his eyes. Beeper went over to his telephone and called the repair shop and then drove over to Klagbag.
"What happened to you and what were you doing crashing through my roof?" he asked.
"I buz in goofside and Jiks drove by yelling abouf war wid us. Then Borcha drived up wid a musheen gun and blowed me."
"Where where you?" Beeper asked.
"Id goofside, ub an alley."
"Hmmph." Beeper said, dialing a number on his phone.
Sinder Soot was jared from his sleep by the loud ringing of his tellephone.
"What?" He growled into the phone, "And who is it?"
"This is Beeper and we may have an emergency."
"An emergency. How nice. Suppose you call back in about 2 hours. I'm sleep--"
"SINDER!!! THIS IS AN EMERGENCY AND ALL YOU WANT TO DO IS
SLEEP!!! Now get over to my house at once and bring your stupid gang along too."
"Beeper, I dont want--"
"YOU HAVE 3 MINUTES. Do you hear me Snidder, 3 minutes to get over to my house with your band."
"But Beep--"
"GET OVER, no, I COMMAND YOU TO GET TO MY HOUSE AS FAST AS YOU CAN POSSIBLY GET HERE. AND I WILL NOT TOLLERATE MORE THAN 3 MINUTES OF WAIT."
*click*
Sinder stared at the reciever for a few seconds and then put it down. Maybe there really was an emergency. Sinder doubted it, but Beeper
had ordered him to get over there. He started the machine that would dial all the members of his band and tell them to get over to his house immediately. Then he climbed back on his bed. Perhaps he would have a little nap while he was waiting for them to get there. That was when Bady Trash came through his roof, hit him squarely on his top,
flatting his roof and severely denting his hood in the process, bounced off him, and crashed
through the wall and into Sinder's living room, colliding with his TV and nocking it over backwards. With an oath Sinder dove after him and found him, laying very dented on the floor with all his wheels missing. Somone had spraypainted the words '
DIE BADCARS', on him in red paint. He was full of holes that looked as if they where from a machine gun. Possibly there really was something to what Beeper had said. He scrawled a note saying 'proseed 2 beeprz hows imedeutly' and nailed it to his front door. Then he drove off towards Beeper's house as fast as he could.
"You're late." Beeper said crossly when Sinder came driving straight through his front door without knocking.
"Wab habbend to foo?" came a voice from behind Beeper. Klagbag was laying on the floor looking very much like Mail had.
"Your buddy Faddy Mail decided to drop through my roof." Sinder said sourely.
"Waddever, now get your gang and go investigate goodside right now." Beeper said, "I think they are planning war on us."
"War? I thought that maybe Klagbag and Mail had been doing target practice and had got their guns backwards. They cirtanely are dumb enough."
"They where shot up in goodside by one Porcha with a machine gun. Now get going."
About half an hour later Sinder's band snuck into goodside. They had loaded their trunks with fire crackers and they all carried a gun of some sort. When they reached Skeeper's house they saw a large amount of light, as if from lots of camp fires, and peeking around the corner of a house they saw a large group of cars grouped in and around Skeeper's house. They where all carrying weapons of various sorts and some of the more importent cars appeared to be drilling the rest of the army on formations, tactics, and other army stuff. Sinder whistled softly, lit a fire cracker, and lobbed it into the field of goodcars. Nobody took any notice except Goody Trash, who suddenly heard a loud crack and found a large hole in his right front tire.
Sinder's band spread out and, climbing up on the roofs of the houses, proceeded to lob fire crackers at stragic points below. A large stoplight suddenly fell down to the ground with a crash, and , a little while later, something struck squarely on the nose. He looked around saw something laying in Jinx's exhaust pipe. Just as he drove forward for a closer look it exploaded, blasting apart the end of Jinx's exhaust pipe. As Jinx let out a howl a cloud of what Bop now realized where fire crackers rained down onto the cars below.
After thoroughly searching the area the goodcars found nothing and returned to their practicing grounds. Sinder's band had returned to badside.
"Yes, they deffinantly are prepairing for war," Sinder told Beeper over hot chocolate later that night at Beeper's house. "Boy, you must have really ticked them off or something. Skeeper isn't usually prone to doing something like this without provocation."
"Yeh, I put land mines in his cookies and then he served them to all the cars at his stoopid meeting. All their teeth where blown out. And I glued Bopper to his own door mat."
"Haa Haa Haa! Wicked! Serves them right too."
"Yup. Now I want you to take Klagbag and Mail to the repair shop. And Trash if you can find him. Then go and tell every badcar to get their weapons and get to my house. If they don't have good enough weapons then I will provide them with something."
"I don't have any good weapons. Could you give me some?" Sinder whined from the doorway.
"Yeh right. I happen to know that you have at least 15 baloonga shooters, 25 machine guns, 18 bazookas, 30 shot guns, and 12 cannons. Oh yeh, and a couple of cross bows."
"How'd you know all that?" Sinder asked.
"None of your business. Now get going before I detonate that mine in the floor under you."
Sinder yelped and took off down the street as fast as he could go.
After he had deposited Mail and Klagbag at the repair shop Sinder sent Nobody and One off to look for Trash and bring him to the repair shop. Then he delegated the rest of the band to go and tell the other badcars to get their weapons and get to Beeper's house while he went to the repair shop to have his roof fixed.
Later that evening when all the badcars had assembled in Beeper's expansive back yard he climbed up on his deck and began a speech to them.
"Badcars. I have descovered that the goodcars are prepairing for war against us. They are actively training troops and may attack at any moment. Naturally, we badcars will not just sit here and let them beat us into submision, so, we will take up arms and prepair to clobber every goodcar who dares to attack us."
Here Beeper paused to take a swig of Skeeper's grape juice before continuing.
"Now if you listened to Sooty you will have brought any weapons you happen to have. If you don't have any weapons they you are a goodcarish dope and had better come up here so that I can give you some. Hopefully you will be able to use a gun without blowing your own nose off."
About 15 cars drove up and Beeper handed out machine guns, shot guns, and grenades out to each car.
"Now I hope that you can acually use a decent weapon." he growled. "I don't want any dunces to go shooting their fellow badcars. If they did that I might have to dicipline them. Now get out of here and stay out of goodside for the time being. Oh, you might want to do some target practice too, so you can acually hit what you shoot at. Now let the goodcars make the first move but stay prepaired. Now GET OUT OF MY YARD!!!"
The badcars drove off toward their respective homes and Beeper went into his house to pick out his personal weapons.
Chapter 3It was 3 days before the goodcars attacked. Skeeper had spent that time drilling the goodcars on battle tactics, improving their aim, and basically getting them ready. Beeper ordered the badcars to do target practice, but that was basically all he did. He did have several intense meetings with Klagbag, Sinder, and Boo. Klagbag was to be his second in command and was in charge of a 3rd of the army. Sinder was in charge with another 3rd and Beeper had command of the last 3rd. Beeper could command the entire army if he wanted, but he wanted to be able to split up and still have a leader with the cars. Boo was a member of Beeper's group but considering some of Boo's special talents Beeper wanted to talk to him too.Beeper also sent out about a dozen cars to lay land mines along the border between goodside and badside.
One day one of Beeper's survalence cameras on the border registered a large number of goodcars approaching for about 4 seconds before it was shot to peaces. Chev had been on camera duty and within 40 seconds Beeper had been notified. In 5 minutes all the badcars were ready to go and hiding behind buildings, on roofs, and in various alleys. Skeeper fired the first shot. He had carried a large rocket launcher and stopping just before the border he loaded a rocket and pulled the trigger. The rocket shot off down the street and hit a grocery store. There was a loud explosion and the roof to the store buckled up and lettice, canned tomatoes, apples, blocks of flavored wood, and other produce rained down everywhere. A large block of flavored wood came crashing down to the ground directly in front of Skeeper and suddenly the ground exploaded, blasting a crater in the street and showering the goodcars with bits of pavement, dirt, rocks, and smoking bits of wood. Skeeper was thrown backwards into Imp and quickly drove back about 15 feet. Skeeper had the goodcars gather up all sorts of junk and throw it at the ground in front of them. They descovered 3 more mines in the street and then advanced causiously. They had advanced about 30 feet into badside before they saw any evidance of badcars. There was a large dumpster in the alley by the destroyed grocery store. The goodcars where driving by when they noticed that something was sticking out of the dumpster. It looked like an exaust pipe, but nobody was sure. Sure enough, when Imp shot at the dumpster the gun, (not an exhaust pipe) erupted with a defening clatter, blowing 3 large wholes in Imp's wind shield before he could skid out of range. The goodcars opened up on the dumpster and when they finally blew the side off they found a camera, a small machine gun, and a remote operated trigger. They proceeded down the street, when suddenly
twang and Bop found a small arrow stuck in his behind. He let out a howel and looked up in time to see Spider draw back his crossbow and pull the trigger. That time it was winner who found an arrow stuck in one of his exhaust pipes. The goodcars opened up on Spider and he quickly lit off his jet engines and shot off towards Beeper's house. Gold managed to get off a lucky shot and Spider dissapeared, one of his jets trailing smoke.
Baddy Trash, hiding in a nearby building, pushed a large red button in a box he was carrying. A moment later a small bomb exploaded at the base of one of the stop lights. Slowly it tipped over and came to rest with a crash, directly on top of the goodcar army. All the goodcars escaped that without much more than big dents in their roofs except for Goody Trash. He was hit by the large stop light and nocked out.
"Continue on to Beeper's house!" Skeeper yelled to his army.
* * * *
Beeper Badcar was up on the top of a tall building near his house. He was watching the advance of the goodcar army through the scope on his long range sniper rifle and sniggering at Spider who had crashed through the second story window of an apartment building after having one of his jet engines shot. Spider had crawled back out of the window a few minutes later and lit off his remaining engine, only to corkscrew off down the street hopelessly out of control and colide with a fire hydrant. Glancing back through the scope he pulled the trigger and watched as a hole appeared in Gold's front bumper. Then he shot at the goodcar cop, blowing a hole in his roof. Then he shot at Skeeper, but missed by a fraction and hit Bop in the hood. Bop stopped abruptly with a shreek and Skeeper ordered the whole line to stop. Then he fired a large heat seaking missle at the top of the building where he was sure the sniper was camped out. Beeper was just taking aim when he saw the missle streaking toward him. It was coming fast and Beeper knew that he only had seconds before it arrived. With a yelp he dropped his gun and took off for the edge of the roof as fast as he could possibly go. His tires spun and there was a pungent smell of burnt rubber as Beeper plunged off the roof of the 50 story building. The missle had been so close that when it turned to follow Beeper down it missed the edge of the roof by about an inch and continued after him. It gained on him quickly, for Beeper was just falling, while the missle had it's own engine. Beeper cursed as loud as he could. He had 2 small rocket engines that he had ment to strap on, but they haddn't been on his throne where he had left them so he haddn't had time to find them in time. He suspected Dung Beetle of borrowing them, but that didn't help his current predickament.
Suddenly he thought of something. This missle was obviously a heat seeker, so if he could attract it to a different heat source then maby he could escape. Hastily pulling a grenade out of his trunk he pulled the pin and chucked it behind him as hard as he could. Then the mine exploaded with a loud bang. Beeper looked behind him and saw the missle swerve toward the wall where the mine had gone off. There was a black scorch mark on the wall there and several windows where broken. Suddenly he hoped he was far enough away he would get caught in the blast. That was when he saw that he had left his trunk open and all the explosives he had packed in there where in the air behind him. Then the missle exploaded. The explosion caught all the explosives that had been in Beeper's trunk and caused them to explode too. The resulting explosion was about 5 times bigger than it would have been if it had just been the missle.
The hole side of the building was blown out, and most of the other walls on that story desinigrated too. The building started to tip -- and Beeper hit the pavement.
Shev was sitting in Beeper's back yard when the explosion took place. He stared as the building started to tip, and then fell down down down, until
crash, it hit the ground, flattening everything underneath it. Shev grabbed his gun and raced off toward the building, calling other cars as he went.
When they arrived at the base of the building they found a very crumpled Beeper laying upside down with half his back end under the building. His front end was extremely mashed and there was a small crater in the street where he had landed. When they finally managed to extract him out from under the building they carted Beeper off to the repair shop to be fixed. Then, as he had ordered, they went off to find Klagbag.
Klagbag was sitting in an alley eating potato chips and watching the goodcars get closer. Suddenly Shev drove up.
"Klagbag. Beeper's had an accident and so you are appointed commander until he recovers."
"What? What happened to Beeper?"
"I don't know if you noticed, but a building just fell over. I think he must have jumped off the top and then it sorta fell on his behind."
"He's still nocked out?"
"Uh, I think so. He was pretty mashed."
"Darn. He would have to get himself crunched right away."
"Well, he is a little stu-- OW!!"
"Shut up and start shooting at those goodcars!" Klagbag howled, hitting Shev with his machine gun and then sticking it out of the alley and opening fire on the goodcars. At the same time badcars in buildings, behind dumpsters, and on roofs all started shooting too. The goodcars promptly started to shoot back, but they where forced to retreat out of the street a bit, as they made much better targets sitting in the streets than the badcars did hiding behind dumpsters.
Klagbag was forced to vacate the alley when 3 goodcars all came rushing in as fast as they could go. He threw a grenade behind him and took off down the alley, leaving Shev to fend for himself. A moment later there was an explosion and an irate Shev came limping down the ally behind him.
"You blew Caddy's undercarage out and broke all Moon's windows but why did you have to blow half my behind off too?"
Sure enough, Shev was missing a chunk of his behind, including one of his rear wheels.
"Why didn't you run sooner, stoopid?" Klagbag retorted, wriggling through a hedge and into Dung Beetle's back yard.
"GET OUT OF MY YARD!!!" Dung Beatle shouted, chucking a rock at Klagbag.
"Beeper got himself so mashed that he's in the repair shop and I am commander until he recovers, so don't go throwing rocks at me, Dung Brittle.
"Hmmph." Dung Beatle said, before driving off to where Buggin and Blueberry were. He started whispering to them and Klagbag distinctly cought the words 'Beeper' 'mashed' 'me as king' and 'hurry'.
"Get out there and shoot those invading goodcars, Dungy." Klagbag said angrilly, chucking the rock back at Dung Beatle.
"Ow, ok, I'm going." Dung Beatle said, and then he Buggin and Blueberry drove into Dung Beatle's house and out the front door. Although Klagbag didn't see it, Dung Beetle and his gang turned toward Beeper's house, not toward the fighting.
Dung Beatle had been dreaming of becoming king of badside for a long time and this oportunity was simply too good to resist. Beeper was flattened and in the repair shop and the goodcars where attacking, so it was very unlikely that anyone would notice for quite a while. Dung Beatle led the way toward Beeper's house, chuckling to himself and contemplating what he would do once he was king. When he reached Beeper's house he proceeded straight to Beeper's throne room, climbed up on the thrown, and turned on the personal address system, turning the volume all the way up.
"I, Dung Beatle, declare myself King of Badside as Beeper is no longer capible of doing anything, being a flat hunk of worthless metal at the moment. I appoint Buggin and Blueberry as my lords and place them in command of the badcar armies currently in command of the cars Sinder and Klagbag. I disown Klagbag from lordship and Beeper from kingship and command that Beeper's house now belongs to me. I will take command of the entire badcar army and lead it to victory against those stupid goodcar junk heaps. I command that all badcars must obay me immediately."
Klagbag heard Dung Beatles speach through his walky talky and through the speakers mounted inside a nearby store.
"That stupid worthless useless backstabing junk heap!" He bellowed. That was followed by about 3 minutes of extremely filthy and therefore unprintable language.
"What happened?" Asked Porchy, staring at Klagbag.
"Haven't you heard? That stupid car Dung Beatle has just appointed himself king as Beeper is mashed and has just disowned Beeper and I. Not only that but he placed Blueberry and Buggin in command of Sinder and my portions of the army. And he has turned Beeper's house into his house!"
At that moment Blueberry appeared.
"Get out of my way, Baggy. You cars, get over there and shoot those goodcars."
"Don't you order me aroun--" blamblamblam "OOOWWWWWW!!!!"
"You will do as I say or I will disipline you more, Baggy. Now get over there as I commanded and start shooting at those goodcars."
Klagbag drove off cursing. He had 3 nice new holes in his back end. Blueberry drove after him to make sure he did what he was supposed to do and to boss some more cars around.
Chapter 4
Klagbag was furious. Several days ago Dung Beatle had declared himself king and taken command of the badcar armys. The badcars weren't doing very well in the war. Dung Beatle was not a very good commander and many badcars where getting very messed up by goodcar fire. Klagbag himself had all his windows broken, was missing one of his doors, and his trunk lid. He also had a large number of holes in his hood and his engin wasn't running nearly as well as it had been a couple of days ago.
Dung Beatle had ordered the repairs on Beeper halted immediately and had gone over to the repair shop in person to shoot Beeper full of holes with one of Beeper's machine guns. Beeper had then been uncerimoniusly loaded into his own catapolt and catapolted way off in the direction of goodside. Several cars had snuck off to goodside to look for him but 2 had been caught by goodcars and were in no condition to be doing anything anytime soon. 3 more had been captured upon their return by Dung Beatle and pushed off tall buildings. Nobody and Fandango had managed to sneak back into badside without being descovered by either Skeeper or Dung Beatle but hadn't found anything.
Sinder had been shot up by 5 goodcars and since Dung Beatle had forbidden him access to the repair shop he was sitting propped up on several bricks in his house with nothing but one wheel to play video games with and a chair or two for food. The badcar army had been reduced to about half it's size from a combination of Skeeper's good leadership, Dung Beatles horrible leadership, and the fact that Dung Beatle blatently refused to hand out ammunition to any car who ran out. He supplied Buggin, Blueberry, and himself with all the ammo they could possibly nead but nobody else could have any more than they already had.
The goodcars had taken about half of badside and Dung Beatle had almost half of the badcar army protecting Beeper's house (except that it was now Dung Beatle's house). Klagbag was sitting in a very shot up 3 story house watching the goodcar army through binoculars when the order from Dung Beatle arrived that
all the badcars who wheren't protecting him and his house where to go immediately and attack the goodcar army. They would be led by Blueberry Bug, as Buggin was staying at Dung Beatle's house and helping command the cars protecting it.
Blueberry was, if possible, even a worse commander than Dung Beatle. He was commanding the army from the rear and straight away he ordered them to charge. The battle went reasonably well for about 15 minutes. Then the badcars ran out of ammo. Blueberry was the only one in the group who was allowed to have any more ammunition so the other badcars hardly had any. Over the course of about 3 minutes one by one all the other badcars completely ran out of ammunition. Blueberry had been hiding behind an overturned dumpster occasionally shooting over the top in the general direction of the goodcars. He suddenly noticed Klagbag running past as fast as he could go with about 4 other badcars running after him.
He saw goodcar fire mow down 2 of the fleeing badcars before they reached a corner and where out of sight.
Peeking around the corner of the dumpster he saw all the rest of the badcar attack force sprawled all over the ground with their wheels, engines, or other vitle parts shot to peaces. He also saw the goodcar army advancing. He quickly backed as far into the back of the dumpster as he could and tried to be as quiet as he possibly could. For the next 5 minutes or so he watched the goodcar army drive past. After they had dissapeared from sight he waited for another 10 minutes before he ventured out of the dumpster and snuck carefully off towards Dung Beatles house.
When he arrived there he found the badcar force under heavy attack by the goodcars. There were almost 4 times as many goodcars as badcars. He snuck around to the back of the house to get to the back door and ran directly into 15 goodcars who where in the process of doing the same thing. Before he could do anything he found himself grabbed, nocked over on his back, disarmed, and with a gun stuck in his face.
"You've go 5 seconds before we blow your ugly face off, badcar. So say your praires or what ever you badcars do." a goodcar, Evergreen said.
"P-p-p-lease, d-don't shoot. I-I can tell you how to g-get into the h-h-house."
"How. If you talk really fast then maybe we will let you go."
"Wellyougouptothebackdoorandpushthebuttonbehindthedoorbell thenyougotothedoorandpushonit andthenyoucanopenitandthelandminesunderthematwon'tblow. Youhavetogetoffthematwithin10secondsortheywillsoyouhavetohurry." Blueberry said as fast as he could.
"Okay. You can go, but if we catch you again then it's off with your wheels."
"Thankyou so much. I won'tlet you catch me again if Icanhelp it." with that he took off toward the house as fast as he could.
"STOP!" Bellowed Evergreen, pointing his gun at Blueberry. Blueberry skidded to a halt.
"If you go into that house or tell anyone about us then you will get blown up before you can say junk heap."
"O-okay." Blueberry said, before driving off towards an old building and safety.
Klagbag had taken refuge in Pickle's Pickle Store and was hiding in the back room eating pickles and debating what he should do. He cirtanely wasn't going back to Dung Beatles army, as not only did he hate Dung Beatle, he was such a horrible commander that Klagbag doubted that there would be a badcar army much longer. Besides, he was in very bad shape himself. His hood was gone, as was his trunk lid. He had also had one of his rear wheels shot and two tires punctured in the battle. He had managed to scrounge new tires from a very battered tire store, but his wheel was bent and out of balance. It also had a large whole in the middle of it. Klagbag knew one thing for cirtain. He would have to find Beeper or badside would fall. He was a fairly good leader himself, but he wasn't nearly as good as Beeper. Besides, it would take a genious to salvage this situation. He knew that he wouldn't be able to do it, but he thought that Beeper could.
Of course that left the small matter of finding Beeper and repairing him. Klagbag wasn't even sure if he could find Beeper. Even if he did it could take weeks. And, supposing he did, how could he possibly fix him. Klagbag was no machanic, preferring to go to the repair shop whenever he needed fixing. He was sure that Dung Beatle would keep a machanic nearby in case he got damaged, so he decided that he would just have to try to find Beeper and hope that he could find a machanic who would fix him once he found him. Grumbling to himself Klagbag vacated the pickle shop and set off toward Goodside.
Chapter 5It was a week later. The badcars had been driven to the very edge of badside and were camped out in the back room of an abandond shop. There where a total of 15 cars. Dung Beatle had been sitting on his thrown and alternately watching the battle on his survalance cameras and watching TV. He had just taken a large bite out of a plumb pudding when several armed goodcars had burst into the room. Dung Beatle had screamed, spun his wheels, and shot out the doorway into the living room. Before he managed to get through the door 5 bullets had found their mark in his rear end. He had grabbed as much ammunition as he could get into his trunk and a machine gun and then bolted out the nearest window. He had found the badcar army in full retreat. The entire force appeared to ammount to about 16 cars. Just then Buggin came careening out of the doorway with a large hole in his exhaust pipe and a crease in his roof where a bullet had nicked him.
"Run!" Dung Beatle screamed, slamming himself into high gear and taking off after the rest of the badcars. After a minute Blueberry joined them. 4 of the remaining badcars were stopped before they got away and Dung Beatle had a bullet go up his exhaust pipe.Now he was sitting on the softest cusions they had been able to find and chewing on a chair leg.
Klagbag hadn't had any luck. He had snuck up and down every street in goodside, looked in every dumpster, and checked every roof. Beeper simply wasn't there. Klagbag had climbed up to the top of a tall building close to the edge of goodside and was looking around. He had a broken pair of binoculars that he had found and was looking at all the roofs that he could see. Somebody had broken one of the lenses but the other one was still good. As he turned around the glint of something shiny in one of the trees perhaps a mile away caught his eye. Cartown was about half surrounded by forest and something seemed to have got stuck in the top of one of the trees. Grabbing his binoculars he focused them on the shiny object and was just able to make out what appeared to be a wheel stuck in the top of the tree. Klagbag couldn't figure out how a wheel could have got caught in the top of a tree a mile away from goodside,
unless--.
Klagbag climbed down from the roof as fast as he could and set off in the direction of the object. He had little trouble getting out of goodside, for all the goodcars where still in badside, and then he set off toward the edge of the forest. He had an idea on how that wheel could have got there.
Dung Beatle was both angry and scared. He was cooped up in the back room of an old store chewing on a table leg. The number of working badcars had gone from over 120 down to 17. He didn't have nearly enough cars to boss around, not to mention the fact that there where goodcars all over the place and it was only a matter of time before they found them. Nobody had much amunition. Dung Beatle had grabbed as much as he could when he vacated Beeper's house but he still didn't have a lot. And he cirtanely wasn't going to share with the other badcars. He gave a little to Blueberry but that was it. A few of the other badcars had a very small amount, but most of them where out. Dung Beatle may have been a horrible commander but he wasn't stupid enough to think that 17 cars, only 2 of which accually had more than one clip of ammunition, could beat close to 95 goodcars. He thought they might have to abandon badside and hide in the forest for a while.
Sinder was very unhappy. Quite a while ago he had mounted a camoflaged security camera on the roof to his house and so he was able to see what was going on outside on his TV screen. He couldn't get extremely good sound but he didn't need that to see what was happening. He saw the goodcars advancing, slaughtering the badcar army, and taking possession of Beeper's house. He saw them catch about 8 little cars and lock them up in a large cast iron cage in Beeper's back yard. He saw them searching every building in badside to find the missing badcars. He saw several goodcars heading up his street, looking in every building as they went.
Sinder panicked. He was propped up on bricks with only wheel. If there was one thing Sinder could stand the thought of it was being shot to peaces by a bunch of goodcars while he sat, totally helpless, on his livingroom floor. He spun his single wheel franticlly and managed to pull himself off the bricks and across the floor. It was hard work but he finally managed to drag himself to a closet where he kept his spair wheels and tires. wrenching open the door he found a wheel and put it on as fast as he could. It didn't go on straight as his axel was bent, but it did go on. He quickly found 2 more wheels and managed to get them on too. Just as the goodcars arrived at his front door Sinder turned off his TV and scooted as fast as he could out his back door. He took off for goodside, trying hard not to be seen by any goodcars but still going as fast as his bent axles would let him.
He was almost seen by several goodcars and practically ran into another before he managed to get to goodside. As he had suspected, there where barely any goodcars about. He saw a few carrying damaged cars towards the repair shop but he didn't see anything else. Sinder finally took refuge in Caddys house. He didn't especially like the house but he had seen a very smashed Caddy being carried to the repair shop so he figured that nobody would be likely to find him for a while.
Klagbag drove through the forest in the direction that he had seen the wheel. It was slow going as the underbrush was thick and Klagbag didn't have a hood so he had to be extra careful not to let a stick or branch stab him in the engine. He didn't want one to get tangled up in his fan or something like that. The last thing he neaded was for something to happen to his engine now. It took him several houres but he finally drove a mile into the forest. He drove for another 15 minutes and then he started to be afraid that he had somehow gone in the wrong direction. He was sure that he had gone in the right direction but there always the chance that he had gone around a fallen tree and started off again in a slightly different direction or something. He was almost ready to turn back and go find a compus before trying again when he saw something ahead of him. There was a long scrape mark in the ground in front of him. It almost looked as something had plowed into the ground there while going fast and slid for quite a distance. The mark dissapeared under a large and leafy bush and Klagbag drove over to and looked under it. There, upside down and half covered with leaves, was Beeper.
Chapter 6Dung Beetle had ordered several badcars to go and find him a TV and when they arrived with a rather battered one he quickly had Buggin hook it up. He was watching cartoons when the goodcars arrived. They had been methotically checking all of badside for any remaining badcars and the loud noises of Dung Beetle's TV had quickly drawn them to this building. The first indication that they had been descovered was when the front of the shop exploaded and 6 heavily armed goodcars came blasting through the remnants of the door into the back room.
Dung Beetle was watching a cartoon Gold getting beat up with a baseball bat when the entire building shook and the TV fell off it's crate and onto Blueberry's nose. Blueberry let out a strangled howl and put himself in reverse.
"Get him from under there." Dung Beetle ordered before jumping off his blankets and making for the back door. That was when the goodcars entered the room. Blueberry had just been pulled out from under the TV and had spun around and was making for the door on 3 and a half wheels when the first bullets ripped into his rear.
"Owowow ow ow ow ow" He shrieked. Dung Beetle managed to get out the back door without more than a dozen holes in his back end and a brocken rear window. Buggin came carreening out the doorway, his engine making a clanking sound as he went. Fandango came hurtling out the window, hit the pavement, and with a squeal of tires was off up the street towards the edge of badside. Dung Beetle took off after him with Buggin following. A spray of machine gun fire erupted from the doorway as Nobody, Blueberry, Bucket, Snort, and Stingray came shooting out of the doorway. Several bullets glanced off Stingray and one clipped him on the end of his nose, He nearly crashed into the wall of the building across from him but turned abruptly, leaving black skid marks on the pavement and tipping up on two wheels before coming down on all four with a crash and taking off up the street. Snort, being a tank, could not go quite as fast as the rest of them but he made up for his speed by having more guns. Being a tank, he was
not out of ammo and contented himself with firing his rear machine guns off at the offending doorway. Snort was acually more of a racing tank than a fighting tank, as he had very big exhaust pipes, a huge spoiler, and no turret. However, he
was a tank and so he did have several machine guns that, although not anywhere near as powerful as a turret would be, were something to worry about.
Blueberry only had 3 good wheels, as the tire was gone off the fourth and it was rather mangled. He made up for the handycap with absolute terror. He was so scared that he let off a high pitched shriek and took off up the street so fast that his tires started to smoke and Nobody made sure to stay away from him in case his engine blew up. It was hard to controle yourself when you only have one good front wheel though, so he kept weaving back and forth across the road and once nearly ran headlong into a traffic light.
They made it to the edge of badside quite a way ahead of the goodcars and drove for the forest about 100 yards away as fast as they could. They were just dissapearing into the forest when the goodcars apeared at the edge of badside. The goodcars saw them, stopped and, after conversing a little, decided to go and report to Skeeper.
Driving back towards Beeper's house they drove in the front door and into Beeper's throne room. There, sitting on Beeper's throne was -- Skeeper.
"King Skeeper," Porcha said, "We descovered where what we think were the remaining badcars where hiding and atacked them. We managed to disable at least half of them, but the rest of them, including that worm Dung Beetle, escaped into the forest."
"Continue searching badside and send a few cars into that forest to descover where those badcars are hiding and report back to me." Skeeper replied.
"I'll do that, King Skeeper" Porcha said, before driving out of the room.
* * * *
Klagbag quickly drove to Beeper and pulled him over upright. He was missing all four of his wheels, his roof was completely mashed, all his windows were broken, his hood was extremely crumpled, his back end was slightly flattend, his front end looked more like an accordion than a front end, and he was full of bullet holes.
"Oh Beeper..." Klagbag moaned, "How am I ever going to fix you?" Klagbag turned around and looked back the way he had come. Sighing, he began to drag Beeper back towards Cartown.
* * * *
Dung Beetle had found a small hollow about 2 miles out of Badside and the badcars had settled down in that. Where there had once been 17 now there were 9. Dung Beetle had also thought of building some sort of roof over them for the dual purpos of camoflaging them and keeping the weather off them. It had really been Fandango who found the hollow and Bucket that thought of the roof but Dung Beetle liked it better when he said that he had thought of it.
* * * *
Klagbag drug Beeper through the forest for hours. Finally he came to the edge of the forest and looked out on Cartown. It was getting dark and the street lights had come on in goodside. Badside had streetlights but a good part of them had been shot up and didn't work any more. Klagbag couldn't see any goodcars in the streets of goodside so he started to drag Beeper toward goodside.
* * * *
Sinder was sitting in Caddy's living room watching TV. He had the volume down low, the curtains drawn, and only a few lights on. Suddenly he heard something in the street outside.
scrape scrape scrapeSinder leaped up and turned off the TV.
scrape scrape scrapeHe clicked the lights off.
scrape scrape scrape
It sounded as if somebody was draging something both heavy and metal down the street.
scrape scrape scrape scrapeSinder crept very carefully to the door and opened it a crack. He had oiled the hinges earlier so it made no sound when he opened it.
scrape scrape scrapeThere where to cars in the street in front of him. One was running badly and appeared to be dragging the other. That was what was making the noise. The other didn't appear to be running at all. One of the two cars, the one doing the dragging, moved into the pool of light cast by the dilapidated street light hanging off an old wooden post.
"Klagbag?"
Klagbag jumped and looked around.
"It's me, Sinder."
Klagbag turned to look at him. He looked distinktly the worse for wear. His hood was missing, for a start.
"Sinder? Uh, can I get in off this stupid street?"
"I guess, come on."
Klagbag turned and began to drag the other car toward the doorway. Sinder wondered who he could be. It was too dark to tell. After they had got inside Sinder closed the door and turned a light on.
"Now who've you got --" Sinder said, turning around. And then, "
Beeper!!!"
"How'd you find him?" Sinder asked, driving around Beeper and inspecting a few of the bullet holes.
"Well, I snuck into goodside and spent days searching all over, but I never found anything. Then, when I was on the top of one of the taller buildings with some binoculars that I had found I saw something in a tree top about a mile away. I think it was his wheel. So I just drove into the forest in that direction and I eventually came across him upside down under a bush."
"Mmm, okay. But may I ask you this, Baggy. How are we going to get him fixed. I'm cirtanely not up to it and I know you aren't even capible of changing your own muffler."
"Um, well, I was thinking that perhaps we could find a machanic. Maybe we could sneek into Beeper's house and find one without Toodle Beetle catching us. That's where he's living now, and there should be a machanic there."
"Won't work. If you had been paying attention you would have noticed that Dungy was hiding in an old shop at the edge of badside. Skeeper is currently occuping his other house, otherwise known as Beeper's house." Sinder drove over to the television and turned it on. "This morning some goodcars found Dung Beetle and the other badcars and chased after them. They are now hiding in the woods." Finding the remote Sinder pushed some buttons. "This is footage that I collected from the cameras that Skeeper hasn't yet found and deactivated."
The TV showed Beeper's throne room. Except that Skeeper was sitting on the throne, had had the walls repainted a light yellow, and had removed the large painting of a flattened goodcar which had hung on the wall above the TV. Porcha drove in.
"King Skeeper. We have searched all of badside and have deturmined that there are no working badcars anywhere in badside."
"Good. You may go."
"Now I got this about an hour later. He acually broadcasted it on top of every channel, so anybody with their TV on got this." The screen changed to show Skeeper sitting on a large stage in Beeper's back yard. No, Klagbag reminded himself, not Beeper's back yard. Skeeper's.
"I, Skeeper Skid, have conquered badside and now no working badcars remain within it. I hearby declare badside a part of goodside and therefore under my rule! Now get to work. We must remove all traces of those detestable badcars from goodside. I want some machanics to get up here. They will fix the badcars just enough so that they can talk, if they are currently unable to. Any badcar who agrees to become a goodcar and completely forsake the ways of the badcars will be repaired and set free. Any who do not agree will be put in jail. We will also build a new jail that is cirtain to hold each and every one of them."
Sinder turned the TV off.
"So, so there's no more badside?" Klagbag asked in shock.
"No. Not any more."
"But, b-b-b-b-but wh-what will we d-do?"
"Well, I think that for a start we could think about how to get Beeper fixed. If he's working then we will have a much better chance."
"But how
can we fix him? If all the machanics are either goodcars or in lots of peaces in jail."
Sinder sat thought for a few minutes. Then he pushed a few more buttons on the remote. The view changed to a street at the edge ov badside. It looked as if the video had been captured by the security camera on a run down store. In a few minutes the sound of roaring engines was heard and about 10 badcars went shooting by, most of them with several bullet holes in their back ends. They were followed by about 15 goodcars.
"There!" Sinder said, freezing the image and pointing to one of the badcars. He was a medium sized purple car who's left door looked as if it had been mashed into his body and who had 3 bullet holes in his windshield. "Zux. He's a reasonably good machanic. Not as good as the goodcar Cherry, but still, he's pretty good. And there's a very good chance that he's still working if he managed to get this far."
"So, all we have to do is, is find this Zux and convince him to come and fix Beeper?"
"Yes. And I have a reasonably good idea where Dungers is hiding. All we have to do is get to him before the goodcars do."
"But how will we do that? We can't take Beeper with us and I'm most cirtanely not going to hide him and then have some goodcar find him before we get back."
"Okay, dum-dum. This is what we'll do. We will go and find a good hiding place for Beeper and then you will stay there and guard him while I go and find Dungy. I'll find you a gun to so you can protect yourself too."
"But--"
"I know about where Dung Beetle will be hiding, my engine is running better, and I can see in the dark. Plus, Dungers is much less likely to shoot me on sight than if he saw you. Now come on."
Within an hour they had found a good hiding place for Beeper and Klagbag in the attic of Jinx's house. Jinx had huge heapes of stolen junk in the atic and do it was easy to fix up a small space in the middle of one of the piles where two cars could easily fit. They even found several old paper towel tubes in one of the piles and rigged a peap hole for Klagbag out of them. Then Sinder went off and returned with a battered submachine gun and some ammunition.
"I'll be back as soon as I possibly can. With that machanic." Sinder said, before driving out into the dark and heading off for what used to be badside.
Chapter 7Sinder drove carefully towards what used to be the edge of badside. It was dark so he could see quite well, yet he would be very hard for anyone else to see. As he drove into badside, or, as he reminded himself, the other half of goodside, he noticed that the goodcars had been busy. There where piles of badcars belongings in the streets and quite a few of the houses had been repaired and painted lurid pink or other gross and goodcarish colors. As Sinder drove by his house he was tempted to grab a curtain rod that was laying in the street and shove it up the nearest goodcar's exhaust pipe. The house was bright yellow, had pink shutters, and had extremely goodcarish music playing from inside. There was a heap of some of his prise posessions sitting scattered in the street. There was a large heap of his books, including 'Why Goodcars Ar Junk' and 'Skeeper's Horibl Runin with the Steem Roller'. There was also all his pictures of mashed goodcars and a large pile of stolen junk. Driving over and peering in the window he saw Jinx sitting on Sinder's large, and newly pink, cushion, watching an icky goodcar channel on Sinder's TV, which looked cleaner than he had ever seen it. The inside walls were some disgusting shade of orange and Sinder's computer was no longer purple but pink too. It was on and instead of the car crash he had set as the desktop background there was some disgusting picture of several goodcars in some stupid flower garden. Grinding his teeth Sinder drove off.
He had to hide in alleys and behind hedges several times to avoid goodcar patroles but finally he reached the edge of Cartown. There, about 100 or so yards away, was the forest. It looked dark and forboding but Sinder didn't much care. He could see in the dark and besides, he had been in the forest quite often. Looking around one last time, Sinder hurried for the trees as fast as he could go. The trail left by the fleeing badcars wasn't that easyto follow at first, but as the trees got thicker he started to see flakes of paint stuck in the tree bark, and logs with tire tracks on them. He only hoped that the goodcars hadn't found them yet. Or if they had, perhaps they hadn't followed then all the way yet. Goodcars often didn't like the woods and went slowly for fear of getting scratched. Sinder could care less about getting scratched, so he drove on as fast as he could go.
After he had driven for quite a ways the tracks suddenly vanished. After looking around for about 10 minutes he located the trail again. It looked as if perhaps one of the cars was a bit smarter than the rest and had convinced them to try to cover their tracks. He could still follow the trail fairly easily but he could see that the goodcars hadn't. They were camped just off to the left of where the badcars tracks had ended. It looked as if they were going to get started again in the morning, as they were fast asleep. He would have to hurry to find them, get the mechanic, and perhaps, if he felt like it, tell them to get moving so the goodcars couldn't catch them. Skirting the goodcars, he continued on his way.
* * * *
Klagbag had fallen asleep. He was snoring loudly and was absently nibbling at the underside of one of the desks. Suddenly the door to the house banged open. Klagbag stopped in mid snore and looked around, blinking. A moment later Jinx burst into the attic and, muttering to himself, started to paw through the nearest heap of junk.
"Where is it. Where is it."
He started towards Klagbag's junk heap and was just about to to start digging through it when he spotted what he had apparently been looking for. Driving over to a corner he picked up a large crown and drove out of the room with it.
"Whew. That was close." Klagbag thought to himself, settling down more comfortably and going back to sleep.
* * * *
It was close to dawn when Sinder finally found them. They had apparently constructed some sort of roof over themselves out of branches, but it was full of holes and he could clearly see about a dozen badcars sleeping underneath it. Driving underneath it he found a sharp stick and jabbed the sleeping Dung Beetle hard in the nose with it.
"OWWWWW!!! HELP HELP WE'R UNDER ATTA---"
"Shut up, you stupid dung heap. It's me, Sinder, and you don't really want to alert those goodcars who are following you to where you are do you?" “Sind-der? What are you doing here? Hey! Give my gun back.”
“No. You can't shoot straight and besides, not only do I need a gun but you would also make a point of shooting exactly when you shouldn't and not shooting when you should.”
“Give me my gun. No, I command you as ki--”
“Cut out the crap, Dungy. There are 2 dozen armed goodcars following you. And unlike you they are not complete morons. You left such an obvious trail you may as well have marked it in orange spray paint.”
“We did not. Besides, we didn't have any paint.”
“Now what I suggest is that you get moving and take care to cover up your trail. You have slashed a way through the underbrush, left skid marks on logs, scraped your paint on every tree in sight, and chewed on anything you feel like.”
“Who are you to tell me what I should do, Sinder?”
“Would you rather stay here and get caught and shot to bits?”
“N-no, but I make the decisions here. Not you.”
“Ha! You know Dung Beetle, it's your decisions that got Beeper's house taken, it's your decisions that have caused badside to become a part of stinking goodside, and your decisions that have caused all but a dozen of the badcars to be disabled and either turned into goodcars or dumped in a brand new jail of Skeeper's. It's your fault that one-hundred-and-ten badcars have been shot to bits and locked up in a big pile in a cast iron jail.”
Dung Beetle looked taken aback for a minute. Then he started to look sheepish. Then he started to look mad.
“WHO ARE YOU TO GO LECTURNING ME, SINDOODOO? WHO ARE YOU TO GO AND TELL ME --”
“I've got to talk to Zux, then I'm going to go. It's your decision if you want to run or just sit here until you get your exhaust pipe shot off. If you do run, you might want to be a little more careful about leaving a nice trail for everybody who wants to find you to follow. Now ta-ta Toodle Beetle.”
With that Sinder drove over to where Zux was sitting watching and gnawing on a stick.
“Come with me for a moment.” he said quietly as he passed. Looking puzzled, Zux followed. As soon as they were out of earshot of Dung Beetle Sinder said “Baggy and I have found Beeper. Will you come and fix him?”
Zux stared at him for a moment. “You found Beeper?”
“Yes, but he's really messed up and I need somebody to fix him. We must get Beeper back. That lousy bag of dung is 10 times worse than worthless.”
“And you want me to come and fix him?”
“Yes. He is full of bullet holes, is partially flattened, and is very crumpled, among other things. Will you do it? Or are you too loyal to dung bag over there?”
“I can try. As to being loyal to that moron, most certainly not. He treats us like rubbish, gets us shot by goodcars, and orders us around every ten seconds.”
“Then come on. I've got to go and get Doo Doo Head's ammo and them I'm ready to go.” Driving back over to Dung Beetle he pried his trunk open, grabbed his ammunition, and drove off before Dung Beetle could do more than give a strangled yell around the block of wood that he had just forced into his mouth.
Driving back over to Zux, he motioned for him to follow and drove off into the woods toward Cartown.
Chapter 8
Beeper woke up approximately a week and a half later. The first thing that he noticed was that he was in a dim, dank place with wires hanging from the cealing, and that he was surrounded by all sorts of parts. The second thing that he noticed was that Sinder was sitting on an extremely battered recliner watching TV. The third thing he noticed was the car Zux sitting a few feet away from him.
"Can you move?" Zux asked.
Beeper drove forward a few feet, stopped, started again, and then burst out "What under the sun happened and where am I?"
Sinder looked up. "Looks like you got put back together again, Beeper."
Beeper drove over to a cracked mirror that was propped against the far wall. Looking at his reflection, he saw a car that looked very much like Beeper, but was slightly different. His tires were mismatched, one of them was orange and the other was white-walled. His hood was a dented greenish color, his windshield was cracked, and he appeared to have a different exhaust pipe. He revved his engine. It seemed louder, and more powerful sounding. His exhaust pipe, which, if you listened, had been making a slight hooting sound, emited a very loud, drawn out hoot. When he throttled down, the hoot faded away.
"Where am I, Sinder?" he asked again.
"Hmmm, we are currently in escape hole number 62." Sinder responded, glaring at the TV.
"Where's that?"
"It's off the goodcar storm sewer, near Bop's house."
"What's going on? Why are we hiding in the sewer system?"
Beeper drove over to the TV and looked at it.
"WHAT IS GOING ON!!! Why is Skeeper giving a speech to a bunch of lousy stinking stupid goodcars from MY THRONE ROOM?"
"Uh... well... um... he, well, sort of took over Badside."
"He what?"
"Well... when you got smashed by that building, Dung Beetle decided that he would like to be king. Then he went and got the badcar army defeated. Skeeper has made badside a part of goodside, and Dung Beetle and about 10 other badcars are hiding in the forest. Cars from Car City started arriving last week and badside is pretty much full of goodcars."
Beeper looked at the screen. The view had shifted to one from outside Beeper's house and badside was becoming very blatantly goodcarish. Houses had been repainted and repaired. The streets were being cleaned up by groups of goodcars, and it looked as everything that had belonged to the badcars and that the goodcars didn't want had been thrown out into the street and was being carryed away. Several goodcars who he had never seen before were driving down the street, and it looked as if the street had been repaved.
"Oh... nooooooooooooooo!" Beeper screemed.
At that moment Klagbag rushed into the room.
"Beeper, Beeper, you're back!"
"Yes, now what happened to badside? And why is my house painted yellow with gastly pink shudders?"
"Welllll, Skeeper has added it to goodside."
"That's what Sidder just said. and what do you mean, I'm back?"
"Dung Beetle catapoulted you into the forest, and I managed to find you and drag you back. Then Sinder got Zux and he had to sneak around goodside at night and steal parts from the repair shops whenever he got the chance. You're really lucky. He found a new engine, a new muffler, and new wheels and tires for you, amoung other things."
"Where is Dung Heap now?"
"In the forest. Sinder knows where, but I don't. Zux had to get new suspension for you too."
"Sinder, where is Crap Heap?"
"I think that he is about 5 miles from New Goodside and hiding in a gully."
"I hate the name new goodside. Is there anyone other than the four of us? I'm hungry."
"I found Grass in a dumpster in goodside, and we managed to fix him, but other than him, no."
"Then get him. I want some food and some guns. And then I want to get out of this hole."
Sinder went to get Grass, while Klagbag left to try to find a gun or two. Beeper drove over to the TV and studied the scene. It was showing a large, and completely cast iron, jail. It was full of dented, damaged badcars, 2 confined to each cell. Klagbag drove into the room a moment later with a battered old machine gun and a few clips of ammunition. "Sinder has the gun Dung Beetle took with him. He can give it to you when he gets back. He can use this one."
Half an hour later, they were carefully climbing out of the sewer, and then skittering hurredly into a dark alley as a fat goodcar drove past, carrying a large shot gun. Beeper led them to Imp's back hedge, and then slipped through it. The back yard was dark, although there was a light on in the house, so Beeper proceeded to eat the hedge. When Imp finally noticed, he let out a yelp, upon seeing a huge gap in his hedge, and rushed to the back door. When he got outside, the badcars were gone. After yelling for a few minutes, Imp went back into his house.
Beeper drove toward badside. The hedge had tasted good, and he was glad that he had done as much damage as he had. His new engine was much more powerfull than his old one, and he liked the noise that his exhaust pipe made. One time he nearly ran into a goodcar, but before the car could figure out who or what he was, he gunned his engine and shot past, spinning his wheels and swerving from left to right on the road. The goodcar coughed and drove on, cursing about inconciderate cars and rudeness.
When they were safely hiding in a dark alley in the back of what used to be Badside, Beeper stopped and explaned his plans to them. "I am going to go and get Dungers, but first, I want some nice, new guns. We could use some more ammo too. Then I am going to go and reek havock on Skeepajunk."
"Very nice," Klagbag replied, "but where are you going to get more guns?"
"Follow me," Beeper replied, and drove carefully out into the street. Soon they reached an access cover, and removing it, Beeper drove back down into the sewer. He waited until they were all in, and then slid the cover back on and switched on his headlights. He then proceeded down along the tunnel for quite a ways, until he came to a rusty door, barely discernable in the side of the tunnel. Driveing up to it, he slid open a cover to reveal a keypad, and after typing in a rather long code, the door grated open.
"What is this place?" Sinder asked, looking around and stairing. They were in a large, but rather cramped room, and were surrounded by racks, stackes, and piles of weapons, not to mention several things that looked sort of like miniature airplanes, several large computers, and a pile of small rocket packs.
"This... is my secret operations base, hidout, and special weapons stash." Beeper replied, driving over to the nearest gun rack and tossing them all guns. He then drove over to a large cabinant, typed in another code, and pulled out a rather strange looking gun. It looked sort of like a small machine gun, but shorter, and with a strange barrel that looked like part of it rotated. Beeper then pulled out over a dozen things that looked a bit like regular cartriges, but different, and threw them in his trunk. The cabinant hissed shut again, and he drove a little ways away to inspect his gun.
"What is that?" Grass asked, staring at it.
"You'll see," Beeper replied, pushing a button on the gun. Immediately, several lightes appeared on the rotating section of the barrel, and in a few other places. "We're good to go." Beeper said, and drove toward the door. When he passed the pile of rocket packs he stopped and grabbed one. "You may want one of these, assuming you can fly it without crashing, of course." The others all grabbed one, and then they drove out of the door and back into the sewer system.
They emerged from the sewer at the edge of New Goodside and Sinder led the way into the forest toward Dung Beetle's hiding place. After a while they came up on a chewed down tree, surrounded by a lot of tire tracks, and half eaten. A moment later they came to the edge of a gulley, and looking down into it saw about a dozen badcars. Dung Beetle was sitting on a battered cushun under a flimsy roof they had made for him, and was alternately knawing on a piece of wood and ordering the other cars around.
Beeper pulled out his strange gun, and turning it on, he looked threw the scope at Dung Beetle. Dung Beetle was just about to shove another piece of wood into his mouth when there was a strange sound and a beam of blue-white light shot out from the edge of the gulley and hit his wood. Dung Beetle let out a howel as his wood vanished in a puff of stinkey smoke. Suddenly Beeper fired off his rocket pack and shot out over the gulley and landed with a thump directly in front of Dung Beetle, his laser gun aimed straight at his nose.
"Hel-l-lo B-B-Beeper. Y-You look g-good t-t-today." Dung Beetle stuttered, staring at both Beeper and the gun pointed at his nose.
"Hello, you useless, worthless, stupid, braneless piece of crap covered junk. Boy, you're the smart one, aren't you. Take over the throne, loose the war, and then sit like a fat, stupid, useless goodcar and make the remaining badcars feed you all day long. I am going to blow your stupid exhaust pipe off and stuff it up your nose."
"Ummm HELP! HELP! HELLL OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW ow ow ow owowowowowowowowowowow!" Dung Beetle looked around. Beeper was saying something to the other cars, Klagbag had a machine gun pointed directly at him, and he was laying on the ground with a good sized chunk of his exhaust pipe missing, along with one of his rear wheels and a chunk of his trunk.
t)