The zombeasts fought the shrewd business beasts with a ferocity befitting of the living. While the yuppies were quick on the uptake, often severing the zombeasts limbs with a sharpened ballpoint pen, their severed limbs continued to fight as if nothing was wrong. The yuppies would perform calculated formations and the rhinoceros' zombeasts would charge through them like bowling pins. As fur and feathers went flying, Mena ducked severed skeleton heads and posh cufflinks nearly decking her in the head.
"We gotta get outta here," Mena said to her friends, but Ashlan and May were extremely concerned.
"We can't leave my manly mane man here," May cried out. "I only hope he's not...d…"
A bony finger wrapped around Leo's tree thick wrist. "He's not…"
"Get away from him!" May snapped at Janus and shooed her hand. "You've done enough to my lustrous Leo!"
"But I was just…" Janus said squeaking softly while flinching.
"You murdered Mena's boyfriend and almost killed Leo," May said puffing out her cheeks and guarding Leo with her dear life. "Janus, it's safe to say you're exiled from our friendship circle...forever! Right Mena?!"
Mena was flustered into silence. After what she had just witnessed, with Janus changing sides faster than she could roll a handful of bones, she didn't know how to feel about the pixie reaper anymore.
"Mena," May said loudly, "If you're not gonna speak, help us move Leo to a safe place."
Ashlan and May both grabbed onto Leo's humongous body. Janus went to help them, but May snapped at her again. "Away! friend betrayer!"
Mena ignored Janus and grasped Leo's body. His neck was thicker than her waist. Unfortunately for the three girls, not even May's size or Ashlan's slightly bulkier lion body helped them move Leo's body that far.
"Wait a minute," Mena said, "Doyee! We're witches!"
She held her hand to her head with sparkles at her fingertips, "Magic! Flip, flop and fly, levitate Ashlan's big bro into the sky!"
Like he was made of rubber, Leo's body bounded skyward, flying high above the battle.
"Oh nosy," Mena exclaimed with her hands to her cheeks. "I didn't specify how high!"
An ominous shadow of a ten ton jungle king loomed ominously over the battle field and most of the hapless fighters cleared out of the way. Ashlan and May covered their eyes in terror, but Mena couldn't look away from the ensuing splatter.
"Oh, bones?!" Janus cried and she whipped her heart-shaped scythe up in the air. Suddenly, a horde of zombeasts gathered below Leo and held up their hands. Like a safety net, they caught the enormous beast man in their bony arms.
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"Nice catch...Janus..." Mena thanked Janus but her voice quickly died down as May and Ashlan glared at her.
"Not a problem," Janus winked. "Make no bones about it. Now where do you want him?"
Mena turned to Ashlan and May. "The temple," the lioness said, "We need to get inside! Don't we?"
Despite their scorn with Janus, everyone was fine with the zombeasts transporting Leo safely to the front of the temple. Everyone avoided getting slammed with clipboards and pelvis bones on their way there. Unfortunately, the door to the temple was sealed, and despite elegant heiroglyphics of ancient beasts performing a series of symbolic gestures, there was no indication how to open the stone slab door. To make matters worse, the zombeasts were losing the war. The skeletal creatures had tenacity, but there was nothing more tenacious than a scorned yuppie. Realizing this, the skeletons began to dig themselves back into the ground, leaving Mena and her friends at the mercy of Anguish and her brainwashed army of Bourgebeasts.
Everyone trembled in the shadows of pants suit clad animals, while Anguish and her gaggle of witches gloated and celebrated. "Are you going to punish them, mom?" Dark Mena asked coyly. "I think they deserve to be subjected to these yuppies' awful music taste. Hyena Lewis and the Noose? Yech!"
"I resent that," Monkler snorted. "Hyena himself played at my cousin's wedding. He is truly an artisan of arts."
Anguish twiddled her spindly fingers together. "I think we should simply let these Bourgebeasts succumb to their most animal desires and tear these children limb from limb. It is only fitting since we singlehandedly toppled their posh empire from the inside."
Slowly but surely, the Bourgebeasts got on all fours. Hungry growls and foam escaped from their mouths as they eyed Mena and her friends with animalistic desire. "Dibs on the sauce covered one," Toyah O'Ryan said as she eyed May. "She'd make a perfect spare ribs!"
"Eww," May said as she shivered next to an unconscious Leo. "I'm happy you can't see this, Leo. Your mom may got it going on, but I only want you!"
Ashlan shivered and whimpered as she leaned up against the door with Mena. Feeling her friend's furry paw tremble, Mena placed her hand in Ashlan's. Suddenly, a crimson blush erupted against Ashlan's golden yellow hair. "Mena…" the lioness said, a sharp breath emerging from her nostrils. She turned to face the young witch.
"I know that I had a long time ago to admit this, but I didn't. I was too cowardly."
Mena's thin lips pursed with interest as they leaned up against the door together. What was it Ashlan had to tell her? "No pressure," she said, patting Ashlan in the back. "This might be the last time I see you in one piece…literally."
Ashlan turned to Mena, her fang digging into her lip. "You know when they caught me up on the balcony the day that you got pushed…"
"Yeah," Mena said, nodding. "I always wondered about that, but now it's clear that you weren't the one who pushed me."
"That's true," Ashlan tightened her grasp on Mena's hand, wrapping her firm but fuzzy paw in Mena's fleshy hand. "I did it because…I wanted to catch a glimpse of you."
"Say whaaaa!" Mena exclaimed, her eyes bugging out.
Ashlan hid her eyes beneath her golden bangs. "Ever since we met, you've always managed to reduce this mean queen of the jungle into a cowardly lion. Everytime I get close to telling you how I really feel, I hold myself back. When I confided in Laetitia and Marie and they threatened to tell you how I felt, I let them blackmail me because I didn't want to it to get out…"
"So what do you want to tell me?" Mena asked, her eyes wider and more confused than ever.
"Mena, I was up on the balcony because...you are the most beautiful thing I've ever seen and I was wishing that I was the Romulus to your Julianna!"
There was a loud ding and a rolling sound behind them and the girls fell backwards. The door behind them had disappeared and the temple had opened. A warm, but wise womanly voice echoed through the temple hallways. "Act of bravery, accepted. Welcome home, Brave Sage!"