Chapter 4: Bear Pit
“So where are we going now?” asked Mushpuff, who was sitting on the couch in the living room of the rock spaceship watching TV.
“We’re going to Pig Planet, yo!” said Bird, who was also sitting on the same couch. “It has supplies we’ll need, and also we can probably hire people there.”
“Wait, who’s flying the ship?” asked Mushpuff. It was a reasonable question. Then all of a sudden there was a loud bang and now the floor was the ceiling.
“Darn, we crashed,” said Bird. “But we didn’t die because this ship is just about indestructible.”
“So now what? We just turn the jets back on and keep going?”
“No because look over there,” said Bird, pointing to a blinking red light above the door to the control room. “That means we don’t have enough fuel to get into orbit.”
“So we’re stranded?”
“Yup. Might as well walk outside and find out where we are.”
The two complete friends stood up and walked out of the front door, which was rather upside down at the moment, making exiting through it a tad awkward. When Mushpuff and Bird were fully out the door, they were able to see what was outside. The spaceship had crashed onto an almost perfectly flat expanse of stone. Every here and there were oddly-shaped protrusions of rock which extended upwards for around 10-20 meters. The ground they were standing on was slanted slightly which made them very dizzy. If a ball were to be put on the ground, it would roll away forever. The sky of this place was a very light green, and gravity was lower than Mushpuff and Bird were used to.
“Well how are we supposed to find fuel here?” asked Mushpuff. “What does this spaceship even run on, anyway?”
“Ketchup.”
“Oh hey look!” said Mushpuff, pointing to a billboard neither of them noticed before. The billboard had text on it, which went as follows: “THE BEARS ON THIS PLANET HAVE KETCHUP FOR BLOOD.”
“Great, now we just gotta kill a bear, yo.” said Bird. “Where bear?”
After some thinking, the gang decided to walk around and search for bears. After approximately 53 seconds of walking they encountered a ravine with a sign in front of it: “Bear Pit, home of bears.” There was a staircase carved into the side of the ravine, so down they went.
At the bottom of the ravine, which was about 10 meters deep and 3 meters across, was just a flat area they could walk around which had, according to their calculations, zero bears. However there was a doorway carved into one of the sides of the ravine. Interestingly, this doorway led to a small room. I don’t know why that is interesting, but maybe someone finds it as such. The room stretched downwards into a pit filled with a ton of bears!! There was a railing near the entrance where viewers could watch the bears safely. Then the bears spoke to Mushpuff and Bird.
“Help!” said the bears. “We’re stuck in this pit because it smells like food! And we were hungry! Let us free!”
“Gosh, I think we have to let them free, Bird.” said Mushpuff.
“Yes, I suppose we do.” Bird pressed the designated BEAR-FREEING BUTTON, conveniently located on a nearby wall. The floor of the pit began to rise.
“Yay! They freed us!” exclaimed the bears. “Now we’re finally free and can return to Bear Fortress and reconnect with our families and friends!”
Then Bird pulled an epic move and pressed the BEAR-KILLING BUTTON, located on the opposite wall. The floor of the pit rose at an extremely high speed and crushed all the bears against the ceiling. Ketchup splattered all over the walls. Mushpuff and Bird gathered as much as they could before turning to the exit. But then the platform lowered… and it turns out one of the bears survived!
“What have you done??” said the bear. “Those were my friends! We spent 10 years in that pit together! I will kill you!” The bear charged towards the cat and penguin, and the latter two had already begun running away.
The bear chased Mushpuff and Bird up the steps and onto the ground, where there was a straight shot to their spaceship. BUT THE BEAR WAS GAINING ON THEM!!!! The difference between protagonists and spaceship shrank, but so did the distance between them and bear!! 30 meters to spaceship… 5 meters to bear… 20 meters to spaceship… 3 meters to bear… 10 meters to spaceship… 1.5 meters to bear… 5 meters to spaceship…!!!!! 0.5 meters to BEAR!!!! Just as the cat and penguin leaped into the door, it closed right behind them, cutting the bear in half and yet again splattering ketchup everywhere.
Bird walked over to a pipe on the side of the room (which was still upside down) and poured a bunch of ketchup into it. Immediately the ship turned on and all the lights and stuff activated.
“Alright now we’re back on track,” said Bird. “Next time I will make sure to actually fly the ship.”
“Yay,” said cat.
Meanwhile, in Bear Fortress…
In the highest room of the tallest tower of Bear Fortress was The Bear King, king of all bears on the planet of Bear Stone Planet. He was sitting on throne and being bored. But then a bear walked through the door in front of him with an urgent message.
“Bear King! I have an urgent message!”
“What???” responded The Bear King, king of all bears on the planet of Bear Stone Planet.
“We found the missing bears who disappeared ten years ago! Your son was among them!”
“Oh my god where were they??”
“In some random pit. BUT that’s not all!”
“What????? REALLY??? What’s all??” asked The Bear King, king of all bears on the planet of Bear Stone Planet.
“They have been… MURDERED.”
“NO!”
“But there’s good news,” said the only non-king bear in the room. “The murderers have been located. They have left the planet, but the upper half of one of the bears from the pit remains in their ship, and there is a tracking device in its head.”
“Send out the Bearmy, Bear Army. I must avenge my son, The Bear Prince,” said The Bear King, king of all bears on the planet of Bear Stone Planet. “Wait, there was a tracking device in that bear’s head the whole time?”
“... yes,” said the messenger. Approximately 12 seconds of silence followed. Then messenger bear pulled out a walkie-talkie and spoke into it: “send out the Bearmy, Bear Army.” A voice came through from the other side: “sending out the Bearmy, Bear Army.”
At the base of Bear Fortress, a massive door opened and five bearships emerged, flying away into the sky.