Part 5: Timber

The crisp dew hung in the canopy air. The gentle hum of birds and chittering of various squirrel-like creatures was peaceful, and unlike the hustle and bustle of Mobius. This place was nice; a lot nicer, in fact, when nothing was trying to kill you. The leaves rustled and branches cracked as Marcus climbed back up onto the branch.

“Man, you weren’t kidding.” He gazed out at the vastness of the forests, the smell of all of the plants and creatures nearly overwhelming. For once, the panda felt connected to his nature, like he had finally returned to the trees, where his ancestors roamed. It was well worth the hike. He broke off a chunk of bark and began scratching his back.

“You’ve really never been in the woods before?”

“Never.” The koala couldn’t imagine having never stepped foot into the forest. Like many other koalas, Oliver spent much of his childhood playing in the trees, and climbing everything he possibly could. The little sounds of nature, the parks where he would go to decompress, were something Oliver hadn’t realized he missed until he got here. Mobius was constantly in his face with advertisements, commodities, and flash. It was funny how a place that could give so much could also take and take without you ever realizing it.

“I bet I could snipe that bird from here.” Marcus carefully aimed the chunk of bark, before chucking it as far as he could. By prowess, or much more than likely, by pure luck, the bark hit the vibrant, parrot-like bird in the head with a thud. It looked around, somewhat dazed, before flying off, its display of aqua and fuchsia feathers trailing behind it.

“Awesome!” His voice echoed out along the canopy. Oliver smiled. Marcus was like a giant kid when he got excited. It was likely a nice break from the past week or so. Oliver took a panorama picture of the landscape on his phone to send to Iris. Right. The SIM only works in Mobius. He turned his phone off. He’d worry about it later.

“Oh dude,” Marcus said, breaking Oliver’s distraction. “I picked you up a little something yesterday.”

“Yeah?” Marcus unzipped his bag, handing Oliver the branch, carefully wrapped in moist paper towels. Oliver’s ears perked up with excitement.

“Euca! And it’s still on the branch!” He looked over at Marcus. “Where’d you find it? Did you have to go to another dimension?” Marcus chuckled.

“There’s a place in Sector 8992 called Gympie-Gympie’s. Blink and you’ll miss it. They’ve got all sorts of selective and rare plants for us herbivore types. Stan works part-time at the liquor store right across the street, he told me about them.” Oliver was amazed. He hadn’t been able to find real eucalyptus anywhere in Mobius, and he’d looked everywhere.

“This couldn’t’ve been cheap. Marcus, you didn’t have to-”

“Hey, don’t worry about it.” He smiled a cocked, toothy grin. “Besides, I told you I owed you one for the other day.” Oliver sniffed the clean, strong-smelling branch, before biting into the fresh leaves. It was rejuvenating, like scratching an itch he didn’t know he even had. He almost fell out of the tree in excitement.

“Mmph.” Oliver swallowed his mouthful of food. “That reminds me, why does Stan work so many jobs anyway?” He realized he’d seen him in at least 4 different uniforms in the incredibly brief time he’d gotten to know him, and he remembered what Marcus had said when he first met the cheery old fly.

“Huh? Oh, to pay off all his debts.” Oliver’s ears lowered.

“Yeesh. That sucks.”

“Get this, guy used to be loaded. Made a ton of money off the vinegar-bottling industry, which did great until they got outcompeted by the honey market. Company went bust, add to that a couple of divorces and alimony payments for his thousands of kids…”

“My goodness.” Oliver didn’t know how he could stay so positive all the time with all of that stress, his mustache always curled up into a smile. This guy couldn’t catch a break. Stan was a stronger man than him, that was for sure.

“Yeah, you’d never know the guy was a total tycoon. He’s always so down to earth.” The more Oliver learned about this guy, the more fascinated he became.

After several minutes, and after exploring a few different trees, Marcus spoke up.

“Hey, how comfortable are you right now?” Oliver looked over at Marcus, hugging the branch.

“I just got comfy up here.”

“Same…” He looked around quickly. “Don’t look.”

“Wha-?”

“Don’t look, I gotta pee.” Marcus unzipped his cargo shorts.

“Mate, just go in the bushes down there!”

“Yeah, that’s what I’m aiming for.”

“No, I mea-” Oliver stopped himself. It was clear that neither one really wanted to move off the branch. Oliver sighed. “That branch better not break and get any on me, or I’ll rip it off.” Oliver turned around, giving Marcus a sliver of privacy.

“Thanks, man!” The sound of a trickle of urine to the ground below. “Heheh, sweet!” By ancient panda rules, the forest was now his. Oliver sat patiently, waiting for him to finish up. He looked out at the greenery as something caught his eye. Over the horizon, past the buzzing woodlands, he saw a large valley of dead trees, as well as the faint industrial ruins nearby. When Oliver wasn’t thinking about it, it was nearly impossible to believe that this was only around 4 kilometers from where his fiasco of a first delivery took place. But this, he couldn’t deny. From this angle and vantage point, he saw the billows of black smoke, and the sludgy, black stream of what was once a creek. Another thing, which he hadn’t noticed last time, were the colorful, rainbow swirls of hot gas in the atmosphere. It was almost like the northern lights, but swirling across the sky like a valley of cosmic clouds. It was beautiful, but also haunting when juxtaposed with the dead forests nearby.

Marcus finished up, as he zipped his shorts back up and turned towards Marcus. The same thing caught his eye as he looked up towards the clouds.

“Woah.” The two glanced at each other. Was this normal here? Was this bad? Was this good? “This almost reminds me of the cotton candy dimension.” Oliver bit off another crisp eucalyptus leaf.

“There’s a dimension where everything’s cotton candy?” he asked with his mouth full.

“No, just around 70% of it.” Oliver swallowed.

“Makes you wonder what they’d want with a pizza?”

“Probably just wanted to switch things up. Pizza is considered exotic in a lot of dimensions.” Oliver blinked.

“I thought the professor said it was supposed to be pretty much everywhere.”

“Well, now it is, but the professor was the first one who really thought of an interdimensional pizza delivery service and had the means to pull it off. Nowadays everyone’s doing it.”

“Interesting.”

“Yeah, he has a lot of great ideas. Sometimes you just gotta sift through all the bread crumbs to find the meat.” Oliver scratched his head.

“Are there a lot of psychic, floating meatballs in Mobius, or in any of the universes you’ve been to?”

“Oh, nobody knows what the hell he is. Tiff and I, even Wing Guy, we all tried looking it up, nothing. He’s just… Professor Pizza.”

“I see.”

Eventually, as morning turned to afternoon, the two agreed to head back. Oliver had some laundry and cleaning to do back at his apartment, and Marcus agreed to take a half-shift later to cover for the wing guy, who had apparently no-called no-showed, meaning that Professor Pizza was the only one there. Oliver began carefully climbing down the tree, as Marcus tumbled out of it and rolled onto the ground like a big, black-and-white roly-poly. Marcus got up, dirt and grass all over his cargo shorts and tee-shirt, clutching his shoulder, which was still recovering.

“Gahh, f-… forgot about that. Alright, let’s go!” Suddenly, the giant panda bent down and picked something up off the ground. “Oh, by the way dude, what is this stuff?” He held a handful of the substance, which resembled grape jam or vegemite.

“I have no clue.” Oliver sniffed it. It had a bizarre odor, like copper mixed with burning rubber.

“I keep finding it everywhere here. In the trees, on the way up here…” Oliver unzipped his bag and pulled out a tiny jar, which he used to catch any bugs that might sting or bite so he could let them outside.

“Let’s ask the professor.” Marcus lit up.

“Good idea! I’ll hide it from the enforcers, in case we’re not allowed to have it, and we can ask Professor Pizza later.” Oliver suddenly had a thought.

“Think the enforcers might have a clue?”

“Of course not, they’re a bunch of dumb robots. And even if they did, it’s not like they would even tell us. Besides… look at them.” Oliver snickered. The two large, round, cartoonish-looking optics, the antennas on their heads, the black-and-red color scheme, their over-the-top, uncanny valley movements… At first Oliver had found them super menacing, but when they weren’t vaporizing armed insurgents with their sublimator rifles, they could actually be pretty funny looking.

As they spoke, a sound made their ears perk up. They could’ve swore they heard enforcer jabber. They both looked around.

“You heard that too, dude?”

“Yeah.” After a minute or two of silence, they heard it again.

“Over there! In the tree!” Marcus pointed to a tree, as a gentle gust of wind rocked the leaves, revealing a minute, shrimp-colored songbird.

“Oh. Huh.” The small bird fluttered away. What a trip. He slipped the jar into his bag, hurriedly zipping it up. As they hiked down, Oliver trailed behind the panda, his little legs stepping further to keep up.

“How are you holding up?” Marcus glanced behind him.

“Great. I could keep going all day, how about you?” Oliver hesitated.

No, I mean like… really. With everything.” Marcus slowed down to meet Oliver’s pace.

“Alright, I guess. I don’t really know. I think it’s all starting to die down, at least I hope… It’s weird.” Oliver nodded, silently listening as he hiked. That was a perfectly normal response to watching yourself die. “Funny enough, I was gonna ask you the same. You good?” Oliver paused.

“Yeah, I’m good.” He’d admittedly been so focused on Marcus, and also on the wing guy that he hadn’t even thought about his own state the past few days.

“Seriously man, you’re doing alright?”

“I think so, yeah.”

“Okay. Good.” Marcus paused, looking down at the little koala. He’d seen so much progress in the past week alone. The way he handled himself, he was a natural pizza delivery driver. He didn’t want to see him become a bitter, angry wreck. Or worse.

The two reached the car- a beat-up black SUV which looked as though it’d seen a lot of trips. Oliver started it with the car starter.

“You know, since I was injured technically helping defend the city, and my car was destroyed, they comped me on it and awarded me enough MoCred to get a new one.” Oliver stopped in his tracks.

“Wait, really?”

“No, of course not. I had to take out a loan from the bank.” Oliver’s posture sunk as Marcus let out his typical belly laugh. The two got in the car and drove off, as Oliver eyed the woods behind him in the rearview mirror.

“Dude,” Marcus thought aloud, “we should make this place our new hangout spot.”

“Totally.”

Over a week had passed, and still there was no sign of the wing guy. It was as if he’d just vanished off the face of the earth. He wouldn’t be the first to have just up and quit Professor Pizza’s Pizzas without a warning: in fact, Oliver admittedly almost had himself. In addition, such a thing would not have been out of character for the kid. Still, even if he was a brat, Oliver’s stomach turned at the thought of anything having happened, though it was likely his worries getting the better of him again. 
Oliver sat making the wings, as the spicy, vinegary wing sauce burned his nostrils and stained his furry wrists orange, no matter how much he scrubbed his hands and no matter what size his gloves were. Since it was just the three of them, they had all had to pick up the surprising amount of slack left by the teenager’s absence. He stood up on his little, wooden step stool, not even a meter tall, half paranoid that he was going to stumble off and fall face first into the boiling fryer. So this is why he was always so greasy. 

“NEWCOMER!” Oliver stumbled on his step stool, startled. He caught his bearings.

“Hi, Professor Pizza. Sorry, you st-”

“WHILE I MUST COMMEND YOU, NEWCOMER, FOR YOUR KNOWLEDGE AND APPRECIATION FOR A PROPER AMOUNT OF CRUNCH, I’M AFRAID YOU’VE GOTTEN LOST IN YOUR ZEAL.” Oliver pulled the wings out of the fryer, dried-up and crispy to the point of looking like large, smoking, burnt orange raisins.

“Sorry, professor. I-I’ll start a new batch.”

“WINGS, LIKE ALL THINGS, REQUIRE THE PERFECT BALANCE. GOLDEN WINGS ARE ACHIEVED THROUGH GOLDEN TIMING. THOUGH YOU FIGHT THE GOOD FIGHT AGAINST THE SCOURGE OF SALMONELLA, NEWCOMER, I FEAR THAT YOU ARE HEADING DOWN A DARK PATH; ONE OF UTMOST RUIN.” He levitated a burnt drumstick in the air.

“Understood. Thanks, Professor.”

“OF COURSE, NEWCOMER! GROWTH IS IMPOSSIBLE WITHOUT FAILURE. SO TAKE THESE BROKEN WINGS, NEWCOMER, AND LEARN TO FLY AGAIN!!!” Oliver opened up the refrigerator, which he’d attempted to reorganize, but was quickly reverted back to its old state of clutter. This all seemed like an overreaction to messing up a dozen wings. He grabbed the pack of wings and carefully counted out six drums and six flats. While Wing Guy was, well, Wing Guy, he did have an undeniable aptitude towards making wings, most likely since it was all he ever actually did. Marcus walked past Oliver with a stack of sheet pizzas.

“I’ll be back. Another birthday party in the Balloon Dimension.” Oliver’s ears sunk. That sounded like lots of fun, but he was stuck on wing duty.

“Have fun.” Marcus eyed the koala, looking him over. He smiled.

“Want me to bring you back a balloon?”

“Sure, mate.”

“Bet, alright.”

As the day wore on, Oliver scrambled back and forth between making the wings, taking down the orders, keeping things clean, and putting together the pizzas. He stood on the step stool, as several customers lined up, frantically stretching the dough with his tiny paws. Marcus walked back past the little koala, putting the floaty, rubber coins into the exchange machine, each one popping on the teeth of the mechanical gears as it printed out the plastic MoCred chips into the dispenser.

“Dude, I’m telling you, you would love this place. Everything’s so bouncy.”

“Nice! Glad you had fun.” The koala accidentally tore a hole in the dough, having stretched it too thinly, as he balled it up and began kneading it yet again.

“Here, let me help.”

“No really, I’ve-” Marcus took the other end and began pressing it and rolling it, kneading it seemingly perfectly even. Oliver looked on, impressed. The panda grumbled to himself.

“There we go. Looks like garbage, but it’ll do.” Oliver inspected the pizza dough.

“Looks perfect to me, mate. Better than I could’ve done.” Marcus looked down at it.

“Yeah, thanks. I know.” He paused for a sec, chuckling. “Dude, Tiff used to do it perfect. Every. Single. Time. He had a trick, I don’t know. When I first started, every time the dough tore, it would just piss me off so bad, because I knew he was gonna do it in like five seconds and it’d be perfect.” He paused, a bittersweetness lingering in the air. “Oh hey, I brought you something.” He handed Oliver a small, black balloon. “Look, it’s your nose.”

“Cute.” Marcus chuckled.

“Yeah, funny story. I was gonna bring you this other huge balloon that looked really cool, but I grabbed it and it started screaming.” Oliver looked up at his little, black balloon, which floated silently. He pulled it down and poked it with his finger.

“…Alright, we’re good. Just figured I’d double check.”

“Yeah, we, uh, might not want to go back there for a while.”

“MARCUS CHANG. PERFECT TIMING!” The would-be kidnapper was interrupted by a familiar eclectic, eccentric meatball, as the crashing and clanging of glass and metal objects being strewn about could be heard in the other room. “IT’S THE PEPPERONI, MARCUS. IT’S… REMATERIALIZED INTO A LIVING ORGANISM! THE COMBINATION OF PEPPERONI LODGED INTO THE DRAIN AND A HEALTHY DOSE OF RADIOACTIVE WASTE HAVE CAUSED IT TO MUTATE INTO A PROTIEN-PACKED AMALGAMATION!!!” Oliver blinked. The irony of the professor’s statement seemed to be lost on him. “QUICKLY! TO THE LAB!” Marcus sighed, visibly annoyed.

“I mean, can’t you just, like… disintegrate it?” The sounds of screaming people could be heard.

“I COULD PERHAPS, YES. HOWEVER, YOUNG URSINE, THAT IS ONE OF THE MUNDANE TASKS WHICH I’M PAYING YOU TO DO. ALSO, LET THIS BE A VALUABLE LESSON ON REFRAINING FROM CLOGGING THE DRAIN WITH PEPPERONI!” Marcus grabbed the fire axe out from under the fridge. Oliver gulped, as Marcus spoke through an irritated smile.

“You know, I just- I feel like this happens a lot.”

“SUCH IS THE COST OF ENTERING THE PIZZA BUSINESS. SUCH IS ALSO THE COST OF FAILING TO REMEMBER THAT WE DON’T HAVE A GARBAGE DISPOSAL!” Suddenly, Oliver remembered something.

“Oh, er, Marcus! Wait! Do you still have the jar?” Marcus looked confused.

“The what?”

“The jar with the stuff we found in the forest!”

“Oh yeah! Here, dude.” He tossed Oliver his keys. “It’s in the glove compartment.”

“Thanks! Professor, we found something strange in the woods a few days ago, we were wondering if you knew what it was.” The Professor inched closer with curiosity, as Marcus left the room.

“OF COURSE, NEWCOMER! I WOULD BE MORE THAN WILLING TO AID YOU IN YOUR FRUITFUL DISCOVERY, THOUGH KNOWING THE FORESTS, IT IS MOST LIKELY SOME KIND OF EXCREMENT.” Oliver ran out and grabbed the jar, before heading back in. The sounds of a hectic fight could be heard in the back. Professor Pizza floated towards him, inspecting the strange, jelly-like substance.

“It was all over the place, Professor.”

“HM, INTERESTING INDEED.” His tone changed to one of intense focus. “DID YOU HAPPEN ACROSS ANYTHING ELSE OUT OF THE ORDINARY?”

“I… I don’t know.” He had only stepped foot in 44M-470λ twice, and only in a very specific region, and only briefly. He had absolutely no concept of what counted as ‘ordinary’.

“THEN THERE IS NO TIME TO WASTE.” The professor levitated the jar, observing the thick substance’s gooey flow for a solid few minutes. “I HAVE SOME THEORIES, THOUGH UNFORTUNATELY NONE OF THEM ARE MARKETABLE AS A NEW PIZZA TOPPING. HOWEVER, NEWCOMER, FRET NOT, FOR I WILL TAKE THE LIBERTY OF ANALYZING IT ON A MOLECULAR LEVEL, TO CONFIRM THAT IT IS NOT, INDEED, EXCREMENT.”

“Thanks, Professor.” Oliver washed his hands, getting ready to get back to work.

“THE PLEASURE IS MINE! REMEMBER, NEWCOMER, THOSE WHO ABDICATE THEIR SENSE OF CURIOSITY AND WONDER, SHOVING THEIR PASSION FOR LIFE ITSELF AWAY IN A DARK LITTLE PLACE BECOME A SIMPLE COG IN AN INSIGNIFICANT MACHINE, TURNING AND TURNING UNTIL THEY INEVITABLY BREAK OFF, PONDERING THE THINGS THEY COULD HAVE SEEN AND LEARNED. SO GO FORTH, NEWCOMER! DISCOVER!!! IMPROVE THE MIND!!!” The professor floated off, caught up in his own whimsy, leaving Oliver standing there, more confused than anything. He walked up to the register and begun helping the shaken people at the counter.

As more days passed, little came of the wing guy situation. Oliver dialed the phone number in the little booklet once again, as the phone rang. The phone went to voicemail again, as Oliver listened for the beep.

“Er, hello sir, this is Oliver calling from Professor Pizza’s Pizzas. We’re calling once again in regards to your son… er, stepson, sorry, who hasn’t shown up for work in almost two weeks… He’ll likely lose his job soon, if he doesn’t show up, we were wondering if you had any idea what was going on… er… please call us back when you get this message, sir. Thank you… Sorry. Have a nice day.” Oliver hung up. He was admittedly not very good at leaving voicemails. Especially when he couldn’t shake the feeling that this guy, or as the emergency contact book referred to him as, Idiot Loser Stepdad, wasn’t returning their calls for a reason. He had a nasty feeling about what he’d seen in the parking lot.

“Still nothing, huh?” Marcus curiously walked over. Oliver shook his head. “I wouldn’t worry, dude. He probably just decided to bail on the job. Besides, the kid was a prick anyway.” Marcus looked down, seemingly deep in thought.

“What’s wrong, mate?”

“Huh? Oh, nothing, dude. I’m just tired.” Oliver played with the buttons on the register.

“I just can’t help but worry about him.”

“Yeah, dude, I get what you mean. But either he’ll turn up or he won’t.” His voice grew cold and aloof. “As rough as it is, that’s just part of being a delivery driver.”

On his lunch break, Oliver drove down to the enforcer station. He knew that he was likely going to get back a bit late, but he didn’t care. He had to go with his gut. He approached the desk, where an enforcer scanned his temporary Mobian ID. A prerecorded voice emanated through the speaker.

“Hello, Oliver Henry. What can I help you with today? Are you experiencing an emergency?”

“Er, hello. I… I’d like to file a missing person report. I think someone might be in danger.”

“…One moment… Did you say: File a Missing Person Report?”

“Yes.” It was as if he were trying to get ahold of the bank. “He’s a male human adolescent, around 170 to 175 centime-”

“We’ll need to start with some basic information before we transfer this over to our investigations team. First, we’ll need you to answer some questions. First off, what is the person’s name?”

Oliver paused. “I… sorry, I’m really not sure, actually…” The robot looked at him intensely, with its large, round optics, as it sat forward in its seat.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t quite catch that. What is the person’s name?” Oliver stood there, his hands clasped over his stomach, as an awkward silence followed.

Oliver pulled back into Professor Pizza’s Pizzas, six minutes late. Well, that was a complete bust. Grey, drizzly clouds began to set in, as the wind picked up. He grabbed the small parcel of mail from outside just in time as he returned. The bell jingled as Oliver walked in, defeated.

“Sorry I’m late, Professor.” He put the parcel down, as Professor Pizza and Marcus made their way over.

“INTERESTING. THIS PACKAGE IS NOT MARKED WITH A VALID DIMENSION ID AND NO SENDER IS LISTED ON THE PACKAGE. IT’S LIKELY NOT THE NITROGLYCERIN THAT I ORDERED, DUE TO THE FREQUENCY THAT YOU’VE BEEN SHAKING IT.” Oliver set the package down and backed away. “NOW, WHAT MYSTERIES LIE FOR US TODAY WITHIN THE INTERDIMENSIONAL POSTAL SYSTEM?” The professor opened the box, as a white paper wrapped a small, unknown object. Upon being unfurled, Oliver shrieked as he and Marcus both jumped back, startled.

“OH MY GOD!!!” Marcus yelled.

“HMM. FASCINATING!” Inside the package was a human finger, about the size, shape, and skin tone of the wing guy’s. The professor levitated the finger in the air, inspecting it, revealing a handwritten note inside:

ᏔᎧ ᏲᏌᏠᎧ ᎿᏲᎧ Ᏸσվ

ᎴᎧᏝ|ᏠᎧᎱ բσυᎱ ᏲυᏁᎴᎱᎧᎴ բσᎱᎿվ բσυᎱ ᎧᏜᎿᎱᏌ ᏨᏲᎧᎧᎦᎧ Ꮔ|ζζᏌᎦ Ꮏσ ᎿᏲᎧ բσᏝᏝσᏊ|ᏁᏭ ᏨσόᎱᎴ|ᏁᏌᎿᎧᎦ:

վσυᎱ ᏨσლᏄᏌᏁ|σᏁ |Ꭶ ᏨυᎱᎱᎧᏁᎿᏝվ

ᏌᏝ|ᏠᎧ ᏰυᎿ ᎿᏲᏌᎿ ᏨᏌᏁ ᏌᏁᎴ Ꮚ|ᏝᏝ ᏨᏲᏌᏁᏭᎧ

ᎿᏲᎧ ᏝσᏁᏭᎧᎱ ᏊᎧ ᏊᏌ|Ꮏ ᎿᏲᎧ ლσᎱᎧ ᏊᎧ ᏨυᎿ σբբ

Ꮄσ ᏁσᎿ ᎿᎱվ ᏌᏁվᎿᏲ|ᏁᏭ բσόᏝ|ᎦᏲ

ᏊᎧ Ꮚ|ᏝᏝ ᏥᏁσᏊ

Oliver felt the blood drain from his face. This couldn’t be happening. Marcus’ cool countenance completely cracked, revealing one of horror and pain. He’d never liked the kid but never wanted anything like this to happen.

“No… it can’t be!”

“OH DEAR. WHAT AN UNFORTUNATE TURN OF EVENTS. WORRY NOT, DELIVERERS, FOR I HAVE A SOLUTION TO OUR CONUNDRUM!”

The little, plastic sign floated to the countertop with a gentle tap.

Help Wanted

Oliver stated at it, confused, as Marcus stood, silent.

“UNFORTUNATELY WE DO NOT ACCEPT HUMAN LIFE AS PAYMENT, AS IT IS NOT A VALID FORM OF CURRENCY. NOT IN TODAY’S ECONOMY AT LEAST. SUCH A SHAME.”

“Wh- what about the wing guy? We’ve gotta get those pizzas over t-”

“You’re joking, right?!” Oliver jumped. Marcus’ voice was sharp and livid.

“AS I PREVIOUSLY EXPLAINED TO YOU, MARCUS CHANG-”

“You know what?! Shut up. Shut your pompous, goddamn mouth!” The professor floated closer.

“YOUR HORRENDOUS LACK OF ANATOMICAL KNOWLEDGE ASIDE, YOU, ONCE AGAIN, HAVE FAILED TO TAKE INTO ACCOUNT THAT, UNLIKE YOUR FRIEND THE WING GUY, TIF-”

Marcus snarled, as he slammed the meatball up against a wall, pinning him with all of his might. The meaty specimen squished against the cold tile, as Oliver tried in vain to pry him off.

“Marcus, stop! You’ll crush him!”

“Good!!!” The pools of black on Marcus’ face were filled with a terrifying, empty rage. His body shook between hard, labored breaths, before he faltered, letting the professor go. Professor Pizza, a tad misshapen, regained his bearings. Marcus grabbed onto the counter, hunched over in anguish. Oliver put a gentle hand on Marcus’ shoulder, as he shoved him away.

“ACK! WHAT HAS GOTTEN INTO YOU, MARCUS CHANG?! HAVE YOU FINALLY GIVEN IN TO YOUR DESTRUCTIVE TENDENCIES?! SO IT IS IN FACT NATURE WHICH MAKES A MAN!!!”

“Professor, stop!” Oliver shouted in vain. Marcus let out a bitter, angry laugh which could only hatch from a cocoon of resentment, as spit dripped from his muzzle.

“You don’t get it, do you? You’ll never, ever, get it!!! You’re not mentally capable!!! You’re just a sad, little, insecure freak who listens to nothing but the sound of his own HORRIBLE, GRATING VOICE!!!!!” He threw the plastic sign against the wall with such force that it loudly smashed into several pieces, which flew everywhere.

“YOU DARE INSULT THE INTELLECT OF THE GREAT PROFESSOR PIZZA?!”  Marcus stormed out of the door, leaving the restaurant quiet and empty, the deafening echo of the slam of the door still ringing like a gunshot.

“Marcus, wait!” Oliver turned to the slightly-flatter professor; plastic pieces scattered all over the floor, a single, small, black balloon floating in the air.  Oliver’s head spun. What the hell was even happening?!

“OH DEAR. IT LOOKS LIKE SOMEONE HAS A CASE OF THE CRANKIES.” Oliver looked at the professor with sheer, utter disbelief, before running after Marcus.