by Steve Cole
And in the distance, Plog saw a group of strange blobby brown-and-silver figures of all shapes and sizes, gathered in the shadow of one toilet in particular. Furp hopped forward to join the others at the windscreen, and gasped. “I do believe that’s where PIE has his sensor. Those funny-looking things must be his attackers!”
“Then let’s get them,” Danjo scowled, “and make this mystery history.”
Zill revved the engine and sent the Slime-mobile careering over the cracked porcelain at bone-juddering speed. As they neared the shadowy figures, she stamped on the brakes. Plog’s heart was pounding like a box of electric clod-poppers as Furp tossed him a slime-shooter and passed another to Danjo.
“Thanks,” said Danjo. “Now we can really stick it to these bad guys!”
Zill hit the door control and Plog and Danjo jumped outside, slime-shooters at the ready in their free hands. Zill galloped after them – while Furp jumped onto Danjo’s back and pointed a stern finger. “Step away from that sensor,” he warned the silent figures. “Or suffer the slimy consequences!”
One of the figures stirred in the shadows. “Intruders,” it warned in a squelchy, hissing voice that sounded somehow mechanical. “Shall we retreat?”
“Negative,” said a knobbly creature beside it, wearing funny headphones with a wire that disappeared deep inside the toilet. “We have not yet found the data we need.”
“Then the intruders must be kept away,” said yet another. Slowly, all except one, the sinister shapes shuffled out from the darkness of the teetering toilet bowl to face the Slime Squad.
Plog gasped. Zill covered her mouth. Furp held his nose and Danjo stared in spooked-out wonder.
Impossible as it appeared, the threatening figures seemed to be made out of stinky, horrible poo! Some were dark and blobby like rat droppings. Others were streaked black and white as if made from birds’ business. But each of the strange beasts had circuits and machinery pressed into their poopy bodies. Their eyes were like glowing bulbs. Their gooey mouths had rusty staples for teeth. Nails stuck out from their mucky hands and feet like claws. Wonky wires poked in and out of their smelly bodies, as though they were stitched through with steel.
“We are the Cyber-Poos,” said the largest of the creepy creatures in that scary, squelchy voice. “You will leave this area at once – or be DESTROYED.”
Chapter Three
THE POWER OF THE POOS
“We’re not going anywhere.” Trying to ignore the terrible smell, Plog set his face in a fierce scowl. “We don’t care who you are or poo you are – you can’t tell us what to do.”
“Yes, I can,” the creature informed him. “I am in control here. My name is Poo-Poo Prime.” Ranged behind him, his muck-monster minions took a squashy step closer. “I repeat: you will leave this area at once.”
“And I repeat, ‘no.’” Plog tried to fold his arms – and poked himself in the ribs with Danjo’s sticky claw. “We’re here to stop you.”
“Right,” said Danjo. “So tell your poopy pals to stop messing with PIE’s sensor and plop off.”
Poo-Poo Prime’s eyes glowed fierce red, and a metal nozzle slid out from his hand. “Stink pistol – activate!”
A haze of brown smelly gas sprayed from the nozzle. “Back!” Plog gasped to his teammates, clutching his throat – it felt on fire! His eyes ran and his nose almost fell off as the petrifying pong knocked him to his knees.
Danjo dragged Plog clear of the cloud and aimed his slime-shooter at Poo-Poo Prime. “You asked for this,” he growled, and opened fire.
“Shield,” said Poo-Poo Prime, his circuits growing with an eerie brown light. The ‘stick-you’ slime struck some sort of invisible barrier around the Cyber-Poo and sizzled to nothing in moments.
“A matter-burning force-field!” Furp spluttered. “That’s incredible technology.”
Zill spat out a slime-strand to lasso a poo – but its own shield activated and her sticky rope went up in smoke.
Plog turned to his friends, his eyes still streaming. “How can we stop them if we can’t touch them?”
“You CANNOT stop us,” hissed Poo-Poo Prime, a nasty metal smile on his face. “All units – attack the Slime Squad!”
The Cyber-Poos lurched forwards, blobby hands outstretched to grab the four brave monsters.
“We can’t fight all of them at once,” Plog declared. “Split up!” As Furp and Zill darted away to the left, Plog and Danjo rolled away at ground level to the right.
“Here’s an attack back atcha, my ploppy pals!” cried Danjo. He aimed his right pincer at the closest Cyber-Poo and let rip with a surge of sub-zero slime. Its shield flickered on at once, but Danjo kept pouring out the icy sludge until the entire creature was covered. “One down,” he said proudly.
“Heating up circuits,” hissed the smothered Cyber-Poo. And to Danjo’s dismay, the slime-ice soon melted to nothing, revealing the muck-monster beneath to be utterly unharmed. It fired its stink pistol again and Danjo and Plog were driven back, choking even harder.
Two more Cyber-Poos closed in on Zill. She looked between them grimly. “Well, boys – if I can’t touch you with my slime, I’ll just have to touch you with something harder . . .” With that, she coughed out a slime-line that shot through the air and wrapped itself around the waste pipe of a toilet towering nearby. She tugged hard and the broken lav fell over, squashing the terrifying number twos. “Woo-hoo!” she cheered.
But Zill’s happiness was short-lived as the toilet began to move. Straining their mucky muscles, the Cyber-Poos were actually lifting up the gigantic piece of porcelain. With a mechanical heave, they hurled it towards her! K-KRAAASHH! Zill barely twisted aside in time as the toilet hit the ground and started a shockwave that knocked her clean off her paws.
“These cyber-slop-bags have us at a disadvantage,” Furp cried, trying to lead away Zill’s attackers by hopping over their heads. “And every second we waste fighting them, the All-Seeing PIE is still under attack.”
“Of course,” Plog breathed as he and Danjo just barely dodged the dangerous claws of Poo-Poo Prime. “I know what we have to do!” He grabbed Danjo’s slime-shooter and threw it to Furp. “Catch!”
Furp caught the weapon in mid-air and fired another jet of ‘stick-you’ slime at the menacing poo-monsters. But once again the spray sizzled up on their powerful shields.
“Don’t fire at them,” Plog shouted, and gestured instead towards the Cyber-Poo wearing headphones in the shadow of the toilet. “Fire at PIE’s sensor so that horrible thing can’t get to it!”
Furp beamed. “Brilliant!” Hopping higher than he had ever hopped before, the frog-monster hurtled past the lone Cyber-Poo and sloshed steaming slime into the dirty toilet bowl – sealing it completely.
“Yay!” cheered Zill. “You did it!”
But as Furp hopped quickly away, another Cyber-Poo pointed its fist at him. “Firing muck-missile,” it growled – and a dollop of dung burst from its finger. The muck struck Furp on the bottom, and his round, metal pants erupted in a fierce explosion. He dropped like a stone, crashing onto the porcelain.
“Furp!” yelled Plog. He and Danjo rushed forward to reach their friend – but a looming Cyber-Poo stepped forward to block their way.
“Quick, Plog,” Danjo shouted. “Double-punch!” His crusty claw and Plog’s furry fist whooshed through the air as one and smashed the Cyber-Poo aside before it could trigger its shield. The monster thumped into the invisible side of the Slime-Mobile and slid slowly to the ground.
Danjo was shocked. “That one went down like a dream.”
“Lucky strike,” Plog supposed. “Come on!”
Zill got to Furp just ahead of them and checked him over. “I think he’s just dazed,” she said. “But we should get him back to the Slime-mobile.”
Danjo looked up and gulped hard. “Um – actually, that might be kind of tricky.”
With a sinking feeling, Plog saw Poo-Poo Prime approaching with his cyber-troops in a solid
line, their revolting arms outstretched . . .
“Attention!” The Cyber-Poo with the headphones turned to his leader, red robotic eyes agleam. “The intruder’s slime-attack came too late. I have taken the data we need.”
“Excellent,” hissed Poo-Poo Prime, halting his troops’ advance. “Our master will be pleased with us.”
“Master?” Plog sneered. “Let me guess – you’re being controlled by that stinky mega-criminal Lord Klukk.”
“We’ve taken him on before,” said Zill. “And won!”
But Poo-Poo Prime ignored them both. “Come,” he told his smelly soldiers. “Now we have the information, phase two of our plan must begin at once. Return to HQ.”
“Return to HQ,” his troops repeated in their horrid, squelchy voices. They turned their backs on the Slime Squad and made straight for the nearest upturned toilet. Then they jumped down inside, one after the other, landing somewhere distantly below with a wet, sticky splash.
“Farewell, slimy fools,” rasped Poo-Poo Prime, his red eyes glowing. “But you will be seeing us again . . .” With that, he jumped down the enormous toilet and into the stinky unknown.
Plog, Zill and Danjo ran over to the poos’ porcelain escape route. “I wonder where they’ve gone?” said Plog.
Furp sat up groggily. “There are sewers running beneath the ground here,” he muttered. “They stretch from the Old Toilet Trench all the way to Silicon Ditch.”
Zill peered down into the toilet bowl. Distantly, far below, she could hear a strange scraping sound. Ker-scraaap . . . Ker-SCRAARRRP . . . “The baddies’ base must be down there somewhere,” she mused. “Maybe we should try to follow them?”
“Not now,” said Plog. “Furp needs to rest, and we need to get back to the base and check that PIE’s OK.”
He and Danjo carried Furp aboard the Slime-mobile, and Zill started up the engines.
But as they departed the muddy china wilderness, none of them heard the sound of sinister, squelchy laughter from somewhere close by . . .
Chapter Four
TO SET A TRAP
Zill steered the Slime-mobile back through the wastelands to the secret base. All four Squaddies felt sore, cross and very worried.
Plog wiped his nose. “I keep thinking I can still smell those horrible monsters.”
“Me too,” said Zill.
Danjo sighed. “It’s gonna take weeks to get the smell of old poos out of these shorts.”
Zill parked the Slime-Mobile in its usual spot, and she, Furp, Plog and Danjo hopped out. Plog sniffed. The rank, rotten smell of poos was even stronger out here. He looked suspiciously at Danjo.
“Don’t look at me,” Danjo protested. “I went this morning before we left!”
The four friends raced away to the All-Seeing PIE’s office.
“PIE!” Plog cried as he and Danjo burst through the door. “We know who attacked you – Cyber-Poos!”
Danjo nodded. “We just don’t know where they came from or why they attacked you.”
“We gummed up your sensor,” said Furp. “But I’m afraid the Cyber-Poos had already taken the knowledge they needed.”
“Yes, I know.” The dots of PIE’s eyes were spinning about and his mouth was a downturned bracket. “I tried to stop my attackers hacking into my files . . . but they were too strong. They stole my most top-secret info – the hidden locations of my two hundred all-seeing sensors.”
Plog gasped. “That means the Cyber-Poos can find your sensors and break them. You’ll be the Un-seeing PIE!”
“Worse than that,” Zill realized. “It means that Poo-Poo Prime’s master can attack PIE from two hundred directions at once.”
“That could completely destroy me!”
A shocked silence fell across the office.
“Poo-Poo Prime said that phase poo – sorry, phase two – of their plan would begin at once,” said Plog worriedly. “Whatever it is, we have to stop them.”
“Easier said than done.” Furp rubbed his sore bottom. “PIE, how come these Cyber-Poos and their master know so much about you?”
“I wonder . . .” said PIE. “No, that’s ridiculous. He was destroyed . . . He can’t be back.”
“Who are you talking about?” Zill wondered, intrigued.
“Nobody,” PIE snapped. “I don’t believe in ghosts.”
Plog looked puzzled. “What do ghosts have to do with anything?”
“Nothing. Nothing at all.” PIE’s screen turned pinky-red, almost as though he were blushing. “I don’t know how these Cyber-Poos have learned how to attack me – but I DO know they have to be stopped.”
“Maybe we could wipe them from the face of Trashland with a giant toilet roll,” Danjo suggested.
“They’d only put up their shields, or blow it to bits or something,” said Zill sadly. “They’re just too strong for us.”
“Especially with Plog and Danjo stuck together and unable to fight at full power.” Furp sighed. “I really must find a way to unstick you both.”
“First things first,” said Plog. “PIE, it’ll take the poos a long time to sabotage two hundred sensors. Is there a quicker way of shutting you down?”
“I have a nasty feeling they will go straight for my Big Booster,” said PIE, his voice wobbly. “It’s hidden out in the Rubble Ruins and boosts power to all my remote parts – without it, my sensors wouldn’t work at all.”
“Sounds like a perfect target,” said Zill.
“For us too.” Furp’s eyes opened wide. “If we know what the Cyber-Poos are after, we can get to the Rubble Ruins ahead of them and set an ambush!”
Danjo nodded with enthusiasm. “We could rig the rubble so it falls down on the Cyber-Poos when they come near.”
Zill grinned. “And while they’re busy dealing with that, we hit them with slime-shooters, slime-lines, hot slime, cold slime . . .”
“Everything!” Plog agreed, pointing down at his metal boots. “I’ll even take these off and hit them with my super-smelly foot slime. I bet not even Poo-Poo Prime can cope with five attacks at once!”
“But just in case he can, let’s hide the Big Booster somewhere else,” said Zill. “That way it’s safe, whatever happens.”
PIE’s screen showed a faint smiley face as he printed out a map showing the Big Booster’s location. “Here you are,” he murmured. “And . . . thank you for helping me. . .”
“You brought us together to protect innocent monsters from danger,” Plog reminded him. “Now you’re the one who needs protection.”
“We’ll sort out this mess,” Danjo vowed. “You’ll soon be an All-Seeing PIE again.” And with Plog at his side, Danjo bombed off to the Slime-mobile, Furp and Zill close behind them.
Funny, thought Plog, it still smells of poo around here. Maybe I got some up my nose?
As the four brave monsters stormed on board their invisible vehicle, they didn’t notice a squelchy figure watching them from the shadows of the underground garage, its eyes glowing an eerie green . . .
Within the hour, the Slime Squad were getting busy in the barren brickwork wilderness of the Rubble Ruins.
Furp soon found the Big Booster. It looked like a large cube of crystal with wires inside and was hidden halfway up a steep hill. He took it carefully and placed it on board the Slime-mobile, which was parked at the bottom of the slope. “There. Now if Poo-Poo Prime and his troops come after the Big Booster, they’ll get a surprise.”
“More than that,” said Zill. She lingered halfway up the hill and started spitting out slime-lines, criss-crossing the different strands to make a slimy net.
“Old Toilet Trench and Silicon Ditch are to the south. So the Cyber-Poos will have to walk up this hill to find the Big Booster.”
Plog nodded. “But instead they’ll find your lovely net, filled with tons of rubble. And when they get close enough . . .”
“I burn through the side of the net with a blast of super-hot slime,” Danjo broke in. “The rocks come crashing down the hillsi
de—”
“And the poos get pelted,” Zill concluded. “Hopefully it will weaken their shields enough for us to zap them with the slime-shooters.”
Danjo and Plog, their hands still stuck together, worked for the next hour filling the net with huge chunks of concrete while Zill kept watch for approaching Cyber-Poos.
“Almost finished,” Plog panted, wiping his brow. “Hey, where’s Furp? Why isn’t he helping?”
“I can’t,” Furp called from the Slime-Mobile below. “I’m still working on a way to un-stick you and Danjo.”
Danjo scowled. “I reckon he’s just hiding from all the hard work.”
“Ulp!” Zill’s voice rose in pitch as she reared up onto her back legs and pointed to the top of the hill. “Hiding in the Slime-mobile sounds a good idea to me. Look!”
Plog turned as a huge, white shape flapped over the brow of the rubble-strewn hill, screeching as it settled on a hunk of concrete. Terror seized his insides: “It’s a seagull!”
With their curved yellow beaks, wicked talons and appetite for monsters, the huge scavenging birds were feared throughout Trashland. But this particular seagull was the most frightening thing that Plog had ever seen – because perched on the bird’s back was a knobbly, brown lump of niffy nastiness. The creature’s cybernetic implants gleamed in the sunlight as it pointed a threatening nozzle down at the Slime Squad . . . It was a Cyber-Poo!
Chapter Five
THE BEST SLAYED PLANS
“Oh, fabulous,” Danjo groaned. “Those poop-brained ploppers were meant to come to the bottom of this hill so we could get them – not come over the top of it on seagulls!”
Plog gulped as another five Cyber-Poos trudged stickily over the brow of the hill. They must’ve sneaked round the back, he realized, as the creatures raised their stink pistols, ready to fire. Zill might just dodge an attack, but Danjo and I make too big a target.
