image [https://i.ibb.co/QHTyrcz/Titi-Chapter17.jpg]
The Army of Quirk Quadrant looked very grand and imposing when it assembled at daybreak before the gates of Smelsinore trailer park. The armored uniforms of the lady soldiers were shiny, and their sharpened petrified poo sticks were bright and glistening, the long shafts being inlaid with gloopy pearls. All the officers wore sharp, gleaming scimitars, and shields edged with turquoise peacock-feathers; and it really seemed that no foe could by any possibility defeat such a spectacular army.
Nobgoblin wore a skintight green iguana-skin catsuit with a matching iguana-skin jacket and big chunky black boots. Around her neck she wore a necklace shaped like the Neptune icon. She rode in a half-a-bug. A half-a-bug is the rear end of a VW bug that has been cut in half. A VW bug is a smallish dung-beetle shaped vehicle invented by Veronica Wartnipples- who had big brown hairy warts instead of nipples- about a hundred and fifty years ago. Instead of wheels, which a normal half-a-bug has, the craft rested upon two long, horizontal bars, which were borne upon the shoulders of twelve muscular handmaidens.
Titi and his friends decided to ride in the Humpty Hump Dumpster, or “Humpster”, in order to keep up with the swift march of the army; so, as soon as Nobgoblin had started and her soldiers had marched away to the inspiring strains of trippy music played by an all-keytar electro band, our friends climbed into the dumpster and followed. The Humpster flew along slowly at a point directly over the half-a-bug chariot in which rode the powerful thaumaturge.
“Be careful, Ratsack” said Cydroidobot to his best friend Ratsack, who was leaning far over the side of the dumpster to look at the army below. “You might fall.”
Nobgoblin’s army moved steadily on, but six days and nights had passed before they came to the silvery-grey wall of Schmegma City. By the dim light of the light brown, croissant-shaped moon, however, Nobgoblin’s forces silently surrounded the city and pitched their wigwams around the city wall. The wigwam of Empress Nobgoblin was larger than the others, and was composed of green flannel, with a flag flying above it baring the Quirk icon. A tent was also pitched for Titi’s party; and when these preparations had been made, with military precision and quickness, the Quirk Quadrant Army retired to rest.
Great was the amazement of Tremorroid Rebekkah Earwax next morning when her soldiers came running to inform her of the vast army surrounding them. She at once climbed to a one of the four high towers of Videotape Palace and saw Quirk flags waving in every direction and the great green wigwam of Nobgoblin standing directly before the city’s southern gates.
“The best thing we can do,” said a pimply belchkin in the room, “is to surrender as quickly as possible, before they maim us.”
“The greatness of a being’s power is the measure of his surrender,” said Earwax bravely. “We’re in here, and the enemy is out there. Let’s gain time by engaging them in parley. Go you with a symbol of peace to Nobgoblin and ask her why she has dared to invade my dominion, and what are her demands.”
So the zit-covered belchkin soldier, who was a fourteen year old iguana-farmer’s daughter from Plotz Quadrant, passed through the gates, bearing a pair of gleamingly clean tighty-whities to show she was on a mission of peace, and came to the classy Royal Thaumaturge’s wigwam. “Tell your boss,” said Nobgoblin to the short footsoldier, “that she must deliver up to the old dork-butt Gonorrena to be my prisoner. If this is done I will not bother her further.”
When Nobgoblin’s message was delivered to the tremorroid it filled her with dismay, for Gonorrena was her chief counselor, and Earwax was terribly afraid of the decrepit old hag. So she sent a sharp defiance to Nobgoblin and Titiana. The result was a declaration of war, and the very next day Nobgoblin marched upon Schmegma City with pennants flying and keytar bands playing, and a forest of scimitars and machine guns and sharpened petrified poo sticks, sparkling brightly beneath the sun’s rays.
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But when it came to the walls this brave assembly made a sudden halt; for Earwax had closed and barred all the gates and Gonorrena put a hex on them so they couldn’t be opened, not even by thaumaturgy. Finding her advance thus baffled, Nobgoblin bent her brows in deep thought, while B.M. Foulfinger said, in his most positive tone:
“We must lay siege to the city, and starve it into submission. It is the only thing we can do.”
“No, I’ve got a better idea,” said Titi. “We still have the Humpster, and the Humpster can still fly”
The thaumaturge turned quickly at this speech, and her face now wore a bright smile.
“You are right,” she exclaimed, “Let us go to the Humpster at once!”
“Hang on a second,” said Titi. “Does anybody have a bucket?”
A few moments later they passed through the ranks of the army until they came to the place where the Humpty Hump Dumpster lay. Nobgoblin and Titi climbed into the dumpster, followed by Kommandant Petasse and three soldiers, which Nobgoblin considered sufficient for a guard.
Now, at a word from the fairy princess, the queer creature they had called the Humpster flopped its ironing board wings and rose into the air, carrying the party of warriors high above the walls. They hovered over Videotape Palace, and soon spied Earwax reclining in a hammock in the W-shaped palm tree obstacle in the minigolf course. She was comfortably reading an issue of “Snuffilmupagus”- a zine about snuff films- and stuffing her face with diet gum, confident that the city walls would protect her from her enemies. Obeying a quick command, the Humpster hovered over her, and Tititarius dumped a big bucket of syrupy iguana poo right on her head. While Rebekkah was bumfuzzled the dumpster landed safely in the court, and before Rebekkah Earwax had time to do more than scream, Petasse and the three soldiers leaped out and made the former tremorroid a prisoner, locking strong blood-red dusted diamond-encrusted chains upon both her wrists. Rebekkah Earwax wept real self-indulgent tears of grief and despair and moaed:
“To think, that after having ruled as tremorroid, and lived in Videotape Palace, and sat upon the videotape throne and worn this crown, I must go back to scrubbing up and rubbing up and churning iguana butter and babysitting my brother Gus for my mama and pop! It is too horrible to think of! I will never consent!”
Earwax’s capture ended the war; for the S.C.U.M. Army submitted as soon as they knew Earwax to be a captive, and Kommandant Petasse marched in safety through the streets and up to the gates of the city, which she threw wide open. Then the assembled keytar bands played their most stirring soundtrack while Nobgoblin’s army marched into the city, and heralds proclaimed the conquest of the audacious Earwax and the accession of the beautiful Fairy Princess Titiana to the throne of her royal ancestors. Now all that remained was to find the dork-butt hoo-hoo Gonorrena.
Of course old Gonorrena had no intention of being found by Nobgoblin; so, while her enemies were marching up the street, the old hag transformed herself into a peacock turd next to a bush in the miniature golf course of the Videotape Palace. It was a clever idea, and a trick Nobgoblin did not suspect; so several precious days were spent in a vain search for Gonorrena with divining rods and hoo-hoo detectors.
As sundown approached on the seventh day the thaumaturge realized she had been defeated by the superior cunning of the aged thaumaturge; so she gave the command to her people to march out of the city and back to their tents.
Cydroidobot happened to be searching in the mini-golf course of Videotape Palace just then, and he turned with disappointment to obey Nobgoblin’s command. But before he left the garden he stepped on the peacock poop that was Gonorrena and it clung to his metal foot.
As he did this he fancied he heard a low moan; but he paid no attention to the sound, and Gonorrena was thus carried out of the city and into Nobgoblin’s camp without anyone having a suspicion that they had succeeded in their quest.
image [https://i.ibb.co/jRJLBbD/EU17-0228.jpg]