Illuria dives underneath the snapping jaws of the giant balloon wiener dog created by rainbow bird poop. "This has been just the weirdest past couple of days," she mutters as she drives her cutlass upwards and runs along the dachshund's underbelly.
The poodle weiner dachshund balloon monster tries to bite Betty. She tries to get away, and succeeds in avoiding the teeth, but gets pushed away by its nose. Before she flies off, she manages to get a good gnaw into its balloon nose herself.
The acidic silly string is no laughing matter! Zindarel and Castra retaliate. Three swords burst three balloon spider legs, and lightning from each of Castra’s blades takes out two more. Additionally, the spidermobile’s engine blows (which is bad, even though the vehicle is magically-animated stone and rubber) and the web-(silly-string)-slinger is encased in ice.
The stone doors are kicked open! Three very tall balloon-men climb out from the spidermobile. They wave in dancing S-shapes. One looks about to kick Zindarel, but the bottom of his leg sucks air into itself—and if her tiny wings can’t flap hard enough, the fairy will be gone with the wind!
The other two balloon men dance around Castra, bobbing, weaving…
Illuria slices open the red underbelly of the poodleweiner. It whines as air slowly leaks. It tips over, rolls on its back, kicking up its disproportionate little poodleweiner balloon legs. It turns to face Illuria with sad-puppy black circles where eyes should be.
Betty bites! The circles become X’s. A deflated-balloon tongue flops from the balloon-dog’s slack jaw. It’s head rests, squeaking its final exhalation.
From the torn underbelly, A SHlTLOAD OF BALLOON SNAKES SPRING OUT AT YOUR FACE!!!!!
The birds suddenly fly together to form Crow T. Clown again. He makes a fist as big as Betty and punches her in the head!
"Snakes. Why'd it have to be-- wait a minute! I love snakes!"
Illuria's crown of serpents hiss loudly at the balloon snakes, asserting dominance!
Zindarel manages to resist the sucking wind with the last bit of her sugar-fueled strength. She breathes heavily as the sugar leaves her system.
Taking stock of the battlefield, Zindarel sees Betty fall! The fairy uses her healing magic on the portly woman!
She spins between the two balloon men, lashing out with the swords to disconnect them from the source of their air.
The dancing balloons bob and weave! Zindarel resists her attacker, who deflates a little as he really wanted to eat a fairy with his vacuum-foot. The medusa snakes pop several balloon snakes as they fly by, deflating the dancers who were just feeling awesome for dodging Castra’s lightning-fast blades.
Then to top it all off, a gravestone for Betty pops up as she is crushed by a fist!
HERE LIES
WHA? WHAAAA—??? the tombstone demands to know because suddenly the large woman is up again!
The gravestone breaks itself over Betty’s head.
The balloon men attack the non-Betties!
As the demoralized minions attack halfheartedly, the clown separates into crows ready for another fly-by…!
Feeling the foes whittle at her very life force, Castra tries to redouble her efforts.
Zindarel takes a glancing hit from a balloon man, but she returns the favor!
Betty can be heard muttering: "Think happy thoughts... Think happy thoughts..." She thinks of that one time she was laying on the couch with a big bucket of popcorn and a giant bottle of soda, watching a TV show. She thinks of that time she was laying on the couch with a big pack of chips and a giant bottle of soda, watching a movie. She thinks of that time she was laying on the couch with a big box of chocolates and a giant bottle of soda, watching some reruns. It makes her feel much, much, much better. She's a bit too distracted to notice the gravestone coming for her head, however.
"Betty!" the captain shouts as Illuria is buffeted by the balloon men's blows. She wants to go help her, but it'll do no good while their enemies are still around. Seeing the crows turn about for another pass, she quickly loads another shot into her flintlock and fires into the swarm.
Castra’s blade freezes a balloon man to solid ice. The other dodges the flaming sword but its icy dance partner tips toward the survivor and *POP!* Zindarel bursts the other and Illuria shoots a few birds as she unloads on them.
The gun isn’t very effective at depleting the swarm, but the loud noise scatters them. Instead of attacking, they form Crow T. Clown—six feet tall instead of twenty—and another Crow T. Clown and many more!
Three white dots appear above their heads, and above the dots are a white poofy cloud. One clown’s eyes light up—and from the cloud come bolts of lightning!
Zindarel yelps as she gets zapped! She hurls shuriken a the various clowns, hoping to strike true!
Several clowns burst into a bloody mess of dead birds!
From one star.
Weird.
Illuria gets blasted and when the sparks die down everything's huge -- except for Zindarel. "Aww, man," she groans as she realizes she's tiny.
She checks her back for wings and groans in disappointment that she can't fly. Instead, she draws her cutlass and runs as best as she can to be ready in case she grows big again.
Castra charges the clowns, hoping to disperse as many as she can before they attack again.
Illuria stabs a clown in the toe. He hops about making coi-oi-oing sounds, then slips on a dead crow, falls on his back and shatters like glass. Another clown blows a trumpet, wah, wah, wah, wahhhhhhhh.
Castra strikes a clown with a flaming sword. He and others around him explode in a mushroom-cloud burst! Crispy drumsticks and hotwings rain onto the bridge or tumble into space.
Betty is unharmed and remains plus sized!
A go-cart appears in Crow T. Clown’s thought-cloud. On the front is a decal that says SUPER FAIRY-O KART. The O on the sign looks like a cartoon tire trying to run down a fairy that, for some reason, is in a running position.
As it happens, Zindarel’s wings are stuck to her back like socks with static cling. She can’t fly and Illuria is tiny. Thus, when the go-cart falls from the thought-cloud and the remaining clowns all pile in, stacked like a reverse human pyramid…
The driver clown beeps the horn!
After the car passes, those still conscious can strike back as it spins out and comes at you for another pass!
Zindarel squeaks as the kart squishes her! Barely conscious, she gasps out a healing spell!
"Watch out!!" Illuria dives out of the way. As the clown car spins around, the small medusa pulls out the mankiller and aims for the driver.
Castor and Pollux shriek like possessed crow-eating mongoose as she digs them into the side of the passing car, shredding car and clown alike.
Betty just ignores the blaring the way she ignores the doorbell whenever she's watching TV. She aims her remote at the thought cloud and presses the pause button.
After nearly getting flattened by a clown who really hates fairies, Zindarel heals herself and her temporarily-tiny captain, ensuring their survival.
Illuria finds she can dodge a giant very easily. But aiming at one is another story. The target is huge but being a somethingteenth of her normal height is disorienting, to put it mildly. Complicating matters more is the tiny bullet that shoots the wrong clown on the clown-pyramid. It’s a clown on the second row that gets shot in the heart. A tiny arterial spray squirts from his chest. He calmly plugs the hole by placing a finger on it.
The clown above him loses his balance, flailing his arms wildly. When the driver makes his U-turn, that one clown is flung out of the car. The clown tumbles about, splitting into crows that eventually lie still and broken on the bridge as roadkill.
Castra runs to meet the car, tearing into clown and car! There is a storm of red and blue! Flaming tires fly from the wreckage! Frozen clown tumble and shatter into icy pieces! When the last human-sized clown splits into crows they are ripped to bloody feathers from a red-and-blue whirlwind!
Then… Betty sees a solitary crow with a white face. It becomes a clown who is only a few inches taller than Zindarel and the still-tiny Illuria. He removes a green hanky from his inside pocket, which transforms into a green hat big enough for a human head. He poses as if about to dive in, but is paused.
Illuria steps up to the paused clown. "You're a yard gnome, now," she hisses as she lifts her eyepatch.
The gnome becomes stone, and in seconds, Crow T. Clown’s magic is gone for good. Illuria reverts to her normal size.
You are all still on a broken bridge drifting into space, however. We all come to your side of the bridge expressing our gratitude.
With us are Branwyn the harpy and Dora the kentauride.
There are nymphs, Nissa, Alice, Daphne and Mary Sue.
Pinky is the first to follow her thank you with a question. ”So now that you saved us from that jerk in the sportscar, what do we do about drifting endlessly into space?”
Betty looks at the universal remote, then at the land floating around. For a moment, she thinks of zapping rewind on the flying rock, but who knows what side effects this may bring... Maybe they'll still float around but have dinosaurs about! She shrugs and thinks: "Guess I'll have to pull my weight for a change." Hiding behind a rock, she turns into a dragon once again. Grabbing the end of the land with her tail, she pulls everyone and the island to the sunset.... Then around as they have to go that way instead.
It’s no easy task, but eventually Betty is able to pull the bridge around. It moves super-slowly—or so it seems, until the time comes to abandon the bridge before it either bypasses or collides into the Terhered Isle.
Illuria and Castra can leap from bridge to planet safely. With five dusty fairies, a harpy, a kentauride who can carry two and a dragon who can carry many, any woman unable to make to leap has assistance.
The guards return with Betty and Garnet. Betty is wearing a guard’s jacket and nothing more. It’s just long enough to cover her (except when she randomly cartwheels through the field of flowers). Garnet says, “See? I told ya we weren’t busting out.”
The guards watch the bridge tumble past. On one side, a lot of blood and feathers. On the other, dead men and busted vehicles. “We believe you,” says one. The other nods and lets Garnet have her visiting hour. He adds “or so,” not about to set a limit for twenty Themyscrians.
“You saved our butts,” Garnet says gratefully. “So what now?”
Xenalite, little-known younger sister of a famous amazon says, “Our diplomatic mission’s a bust, but I don’t think anyone like Stonefist will ever f#%+ with us.”
Illuria holsters her pistols and pulls down her new aviator shades. "We still need someone to patrol our airspace. Just in case."
”I’ll be right there alongside you, Captain, but I’ve started remembering things… I think I have questions for some folks back home.”
Zindarel twirls her blades around before returning them to their holsters. She bows to Slash Rose and Violet Femme. "As always, I am your instrument. I go where you command."
Violet and I bow to our fellow assassin (and fellow belly dancer). “I suspect a promotion is in order.”
And so you are given an excellent ship——to guarantee safe passage from the floating islands to the mainland.
The unprovoked attacks on twenty amazons embolden the Queen to send a fleet of two hundred, herself among them.
This time, the men of Westedge do not attack. They denounce Captain Stonefist and Major Bastardom as having gone rogue. Instead of calling them on their lies, the Queen makes some demands.
Among them are retrials for former amazons whose only crime is self-defense. Dead-eye Garnet is among them, but her friend Jackie the Clipper is not. Garnet refuses to leave her, and so the Queen offers to take the pair to Themyscria.
Garnet and Jackie cannot thank you enough. There are hugs, tears, words of gratitude… all interrupted by space pirates. They hastily tear down their black sails and fly the white. Unarmed men salute you and make it painfully clear they have no quarrel with Captain Euryale and her crew.
Garnet puts her hand cannon back in her holsters. “Looks like you scared off more men, but don’t let it get ya down. There’s plenty of asshoIes in the sea.”
And so you go on as mostly-peaceful adventurers who occasionally come across a bunch of asshoIes. They make fine statues, which look spectacular next to the lawn gnome in Jackie the Clipper’s garden on Themyscria.