Zhlob the chunky sailor-suited queezimp handmaiden brought Montana “Mono” Shingles dry breaded alien feces and warm yellow liquid for her supper and a bone-carved bowl of ground photographer for her puppy-dog-shaped antennaed yokai pal Elvira Daisy Shingles to wolf down. Montana and Vira slept upon a hard couch with a single rock-hard pillow. There was a serviceable 75 inch TV in the room but there were only three videotapes and Montana had seen them all before. She put on the raunchy comedy "Lester the Dirty Gargler Goes West" just to fall asleep to.

  In the morning she leaned out of the window of her prison in the tower to see if there was any way to escape. The room was not so very high up, especially compared with some of the apartment complexes in Schmegma City, but it was far enough above the fleshtrees to give her a good view of the surrounding country.

  To the west she saw the symphoro forest, with dozens of port-a-potties, and then the sands beyond and the great roiling yellow ocean beyond that. Then she looked to the north, and saw a deep but narrow valley lying between two rocky mountains.

  Eastward the fertile ground suddenly ended a little way from the palace, and next came the wide, revolting wasteland separating Bonertania from the rest of Pus Continent, with its green glowing puddles, noxious steam and gases, fluorescent charred skeletons, derelict cars and vanbuses, and rusty metal barrels with fires burning in them. It was this dirty, virulent wasteland, she thought, with much interest, that alone separated her from the wonderful country of Bonertania, and she remembered sorrowfully that she had been told no one had ever been able to cross this dangerous area. She had become the prisoner of a disagreeable princess who insisted that she must exchange her head for another one that she was not used to, and which might not fit her at all.

  Really, there seemed no hope. Thoughtfully she gazed from her narrow window. On all the wasteland not a living thing was stirring.

  Wait, though! Something surely was stirring in the wasteland- something her eyes had not observed at first. Now it seemed like a cloud; now it seemed like a spot of silver; now it seemed to be a mass of rainbow colors that moved swiftly toward her.

  What could it be, she wondered?

  Then, gradually, but in a brief space of time nevertheless, the vision drew near enough to Montana to make out what it was.

  A broad silverish gray carpet was unrolling itself upon the wasteland, while advancing across the carpet was a wonderful procession that made the girl open her eyes in amazement as she gazed.

  First came a red truckbed that had two couches bolted down inside it- one in front of the other-, drawn by two steed-class yokai: a hairless, pimply ocelot (wearing hip sunglasses) and wrinkly, pimply rhinoceros who stood shoulder to shoulder and trotted along as gracefully as a well-matched team of thoroughbred horses. They were both about the same size- the size of a large pony or small horse. Standing upright in front of the first couch in the truckbed was a tall, beautiful caramel-complexioned girl in a blue jumpsuit and wearing a silvery gray dusted diamond diadem upon her head. She held in one hand a silverish gray wand that separated at the tip into two prongs.

  The girl seemed about the same age as Montana, and at once the prisoner in the tower guessed that the lovely driver of the truckbed must be Titiana, that Flatulenz Fairy Tremorroid of Bonertania of whom she had recently heard from Cydroidobot's son.

  Sitting on the rear couch was a large, pink finger with a van-dyke-sporting face, and a tall man in a black-and-red flannel shirt- notable for the perpetually grinning face carved into the large, veiny lump he sported for a head.

  Following close behind the truckbed Montana saw her old friend the Ratsack Golem, riding calmly astride a crude wooden raccoon, which pranced and trotted as naturally as any meat beast could have done.

  And then came Cydroidobot’s son’s father, rolling along on his roller skate extensions, his whole silverish-blue body sparkling as brightly as it had when she saw him last summer.

  Behind Cydroidobot jogged Agent Orange of Schmegma Force, Schegma City’s security force. He wore a fluorescent orange squishball cap with the Schmegma City icon on it, a fluorescent orange puffy vest with a silver badge pinned to it, a fluorescent orange jumpsuit, fluorescent orange framed glasses, and big black boots. Around his waist was a bulky black utility belt with holsters- a machete in one and a smallish machine gun in the other. He huffed and puffed and looked like he was going to throw up as he struggled to keep up with the others.

  Behind Orange the silvery gray carpet rolled itself up again, so that there was always just enough of it for the procession to walk upon, in order that their feet might not come in contact with the deadly, life-destroying dirt and radioactive green glowing puddles of goo of the dreadful, smoldering toxic wasteland.

  Montana knew at once it was a thaumaturgic carpet she beheld, and her heart beat high with hope and joy as she realized she was soon to be rescued and allowed to greet her dearly beloved friends, Ratsack and Cy.

  As soon as the last bit of wasteland was passed and all the procession, from the ocelot and rhino to the profusely sweating, out of shape orange agent, had reached the greasy meadows of Farshtunkener, the thaumaturgic carpet rolled itself together, shrunk into a tiny ball, and floated to Titiana. She grabbed it from the air and put it in her pocket.

  Then the truckbed driver turned her ocelot and rhinoceros into a broad roadway leading up to the palace, and the others followed, while Montana still gazed from her tower window in eager excitement.

  They came quite close to the front door of the castle and then halted, the Ratsack Golem dismounting from his raccoon to approach the sign fastened to the door, that he might read what it said. Agent Orange and Cydroidobot followed him.

  Montana, just above him, could keep silent no longer.

  "Here I am!" she shouted, as loudly as she could. "Ratsack! Cy! Here's Montana!"

  "Montana who?" asked Ratsack, tipping to look upward until he nearly lost his balance and tumbled over backward.

  "Montana Shingles, of course. Your friend from Toosh Island," she answered. Vira stuck her head out the window and bawked at the living sack of rats.

  "BAWK!"

  "Why, hello, Mono! Hello, Vi Pie!" said Ratsack.

  "Hello, Mono! Hello, Vi Pie!" called Cydroidobot.

  Agent Orange just struggled to breath.

  "What in the world are you doing up there?" Ratsack asked Mono.

  "Nothing," she called down, "because there's nothing to do. Save me, friends- save me!"

  "You seem to be quite safe now," replied Ratsack.

  "But I'm a prisoner. I'm locked in, so that I can't get out," she pleaded.

  "That's all right," said Ratsack. "You might be worse off, little Montana. Just consider the matter. You can't get drowned, or be run over by a symphoro, or fall out of a scab scrapple-tree. Some folks would think they were lucky to be up there."

  "Well, I don't," declared the tween, "and I want to get down immediately and see you and Cy!"

  "Very well," said Ratsack, nodding. "It shall be just as you say, Mono. Who locked you up?"

  "A lame-oid princess named Paskudnyak Farshtunkener, who is a horrid, grody creature," she answered.

  At this the Flatulenz Fairy Princess Tremorroid Titiana, who had been listening carefully to the conversation, called to Montana from her truckbed, asking:

  "Why did the princess lock you up, Montana?"

  "Because," exclaimed Montana, "I wouldn't let her cut off my head for her collection, and take an old, cast-off head in exchange for it."

  "I do not blame you," exclaimed Titiana promptly. "I will see the princess at once, and get you out of there!"

  "Oh, thank you very, very much!" cried Montana, who- as soon as she heard the sweet voice of the girlish ruler of Bonertania- felt a funny tingling feeling in her stomach.

  Titiana, the finger, and the tumor-headed man climbed down from the red truckbed and joined Ratsack, Cydroidobot, and Agent Orange. Cydroidobot introduced Mono to Titiana and B.M. Foulfinger and Nate Goiterhead, then boldly proceeded to knock on the palace’s front door.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  As soon as Zhlob the rotund sailor-suit-wearing queezimp handmaiden opened the door Titiana, bearing in her hand her shiny metal prong-wand, stepped into the hall and made her way at once to the home theater, followed by Ratsack, Cydroidobot, Foulfinger, Nate, and Orange. The ocelot, the rhinoceros, and the raccoon waited outside. When Zhlob saw the orange soldier’s machete and machine gun she ran away screaming to her mistress, whereupon Paskudnyak Farshtunkener, roused to great anger by this rude invasion of her palace, came running into the screening room. Today she was wearing the head of a very adorable badger.

  "How dare you enter my palace unbidden? Leave this room at once, or I will bind you and all your people in chains, and throw you into my darkest dungeons!"

  "What a treacherous lady!" murmured B.M. Foulfinger, in a soft voice.

  "She seems a little nervous," replied Nate Goiterhead.

  But Titiana only smiled at the angry badger-headed princess.

  "Sit down, please," she said, quietly. "I have traveled a long way to see you, and you must listen to what I have to say."

  "Must!" screamed Princess P’s badger head. "You say must, to me!"

  "To be sure," said Titiana. "I am ruler of Bonertania, and I am powerful enough to destroy all your kingdom, if I so wish. Yet I did not come here to do harm, but rather to free the royal family of Farshtunkener from the thrall of the King of the Fart Ghouls, the news having reached me that he is holding the kween and her ten children prisoners."

  Hearing these words, Paskudnyak suddenly became quiet.

  "I wish you could, indeed, free my aunt and my cousins," said she. "For if they were restored to their proper forms and station they could rule the kingdom of Farshtunkener themselves, and that would save me a lot of worry and trouble. At present there are at least ten minutes every day that I must devote to affairs of state, and I would like to be able to spend my whole time in admiring my severed heads."

  "Then we will presently discuss this matter," said Tremorroid Titiana, "and try to find a way to liberate your aunt and cousins. But first you must liberate another prisoner- the girl you have locked up in your tower."

  "Of course," said Paskudnyak, readily. "I had forgotten all about her. That was yesterday, you know, and a princess cannot be expected to remember today what she did yesterday. Come with me, and I will release the prisoner at once."

  "Really?" asked Titiana.

  "Oh, yeah, no problem."

  "You’re just going to give her up without a fight."

  "Yeppers."

  "...Okay."

  So Titiana followed her, and they passed up the stairs that led to the room in the tower.

  While they were gone Titiana's friends remained in the screening room, when Cydroidobot suddenly noticed his son standing there, motionless. Cydroidobot wheeled over on his roller skate extensions and fiddled with some wires in the opened brain compartment. His offspring snapped back to life.

  "S’up, S’up, S’up, dad!" said the black-and-orange plastic robot, extending his tube legs and neck until he was almost as tall as his father. "I gotta say, the internship you got for me was a real bummer. Do you think you can get me one at Videotape Palace instead?"

  Just then Titiana re-entered the room, leading Montana by the hand and followed closely by the princess named Paskudnyak Farshtunkener and a happy looking Vira who yipped loudly at Cy and Ratsack, then at the strangers in the room.

  The first thing Montana did was to rush into the embrace of the Ratsack Golem, whose painted face beamed with delight as she pressed her be-jumpsuited form to his wriggling-rat-padded sack. Then Cydroidobot embraced her- very gently, for he knew his molybdenum arms might hurt her if he squeezed too roughly. Then she shook Agent Orange, Nate Goiterhead, and B.M. Foulfinger’s respective hands.

  Montana told Cydroidobot how his son had protected her, and the proud father patted his son on the head. Then Montana asked:

  "Where is Cockadoody?"

  "I don't know," said Ratsack. "Who is Cockadoody?"

  "She's a brown cockadoodoo who is another friend of mine," answered the girl, anxiously. "I wonder what has become of her?"

  "She is in the cockadoodoo-coop, in the back yard," said the princess. "My palace is no place for cocks and cockadoodoos. They poo everywhere."

  Without waiting to hear more Montana ran to get Cockadoody, and just outside the door she stopped short when she saw the pony-sized ocelot and rhino, still hitched to the truckbed, and the large rough-hewn racoon with it’s flat back and vertical-pointing tail.

  "Don’t worry, we don’t bite," said the ocelot.

  "Well, HE doesn’t," said the rhinoceros, snickering.

  "My name is Bruce," said the ocelot, lowering his sunglasses with one hoof.

  "I’m Montana, Montana Shingles," replied the plump tween.

  “Let me introduce you to my super best friend, Jo, a very prolific artist of many mediums."

  “How’s it go, Jo?” Montana asked, turning to the other steed-class yokai, who was just then yawning so widely that he displayed terrible yellow teeth and a mouth big enough to startle anyone.

  "Dreadfully ravenous," answered Jo, snapping his jaws together with a fierce click.

  "Then why don't you eat something?" she asked.

  "It's no use," said Jo sadly. "I've tried that, but I always get hungry again."

  "Why, it is the same with me," said Montana. "Yet I keep on eating."

  "But you eat harmless things, so it doesn't matter," replied Jo. "For my part, I'm a savage beast, and have an appetite for all sorts of poor little living creatures, from scrawny baby naked mole rats to fat baby humanoids.

  "How dreadful!" said Montana.

  "Isn't it, though?" returned the spotted rhinoceros, licking his lips with his lolling pink tongue. "Fat babies! Don't they sound delicious? But I've never eaten any, because my conscience tells me it is wrong. If I had no conscience I would probably eat the fat babies and then get hungry again, which would mean that I had sacrificed the poor fat babies for nothing. No; starving I was born, and starving I shall die. But I'll not have any cruel deeds on my conscience to be sorry for."

  "I think you are a very good rhinoceros," said Montana, patting the horn of the beast.

  "In that you are mistaken," was the reply. "I am a good yokai, perhaps, but a disgracefully bad rhinoceros. For it is the nature of rhinoceroses to be cruel and ferocious, and in refusing to eat harmless living creatures I am acting as no good rhinoceros has ever before acted. That is why I left the forest when I met Bruce the Retiring Ocelot over here."

  "Why do they call you ‘Retiring’?"

  "Because I’m chill as heck," said Bruce, pushing up his shades. “Now, allow me to introduce the wood-coon called Gashmouth.”

  Montana turned to the wooden raccoon and greeted them. They bowed politely and blinked their eyes, which were knots of wood, and wagged their huge tail, which always pointed up at the sky.

  "What a remarkable thing, to be alive, huh?" exclaimed Gash in a rough but not unpleasant voice.

  "I quite agree with you," replied Mono. Gash continued:

  "A creature like me has no business to live, as we all know. But it was that powder that did it, so I cannot justly be blamed."

  "Of course not," said Montana. "And you seem to be of some use, cuz I noticed Ratsack riding upon your back."

  "Oh, yes; I'm of use," returned Gashmouth, "and I never tire, never have to be fed, or cared for in any way. Plus I’m in a mutually supportive relationship based on trust and unconditional love, so I’ve got that going for me."

  "Well, it’s nice to meet you all," said Montana, truthfully. "But I must go and set free my friend Cockadoody, and then I will see you again."

  She ran around to the back yard of the palace and soon found the cockadoodoo-coop, being guided to it by a loud cackling and crowing and a distracting hubbub of sounds such as cockadoodoos make when they are excited.

  Something seemed to be wrong in the coop, and when Montana looked through the slats in the door she saw a group of cockadoodoos and roosters- huddled in one corner and watching what appeared to be a whirling ball of feathers. It bounded here and there about the coop, and at first Montana could not tell what it was, while the screeching of the Cockadoodoos nearly deafened her.

  But suddenly the bunch of feathers stopped whirling, and then, to her amazement, the girl saw Cockadoody crouching upon the prostrate form of a speckled cock. For an instant they both remained motionless, and then the brown cockadoodoo shook her wings to settle the feathers and walked toward the door with a strut of proud defiance and a whoot of victory, while the speckled cock limped away, trailing his crumpled plumage in the dust as he went. Some of the more attractive cockadoodoos rushed to his side to console him.

  "Why, Cocka!" cried Montana, in a shocked voice; "have you been fighting?"

  "First day in stir you gotta take out the biggest guy," retorted Cockadoody. "Do you think I'd let that speckled villain of a cock lord it over me, and claim to run this penny-ante cock-and-cockadoodoo chalet, as long as I'm able to peck and scratch?"

  "Come here, Cockadoody, and I'll let you out; for the tremorroid of Bonertania is here, and has set us free."

  So the brown cockadoodoo came to the door, which Montana unlatched for her to pass through, and the other cockadoodoos silently watched them from their corner without offering to approach nearer.

  The Tooshie tween lifted her friend in her arms and exclaimed:

  "Oh, Cockadoody! How dreadful you look. You've lost a lot of feathers, and one of your eyes is nearly pecked out, and your beak is bleeding!"

  "That's nothing," said Cockadoody. "Just look at the speckled cock! Didn't I do him up brown?"

  Montana shook her head.

  "I don't approve of this, at all," she said, carrying Cockadoody away toward the palace. "Let’s not talk about it any more."