The rest of the ride to the hotel was a short one, as they came across a proper road that led them right to the resort. The clone stopped the vehicle right in front of the entrance and gave a huff.
“Geez, it’s so quiet out here..” Spinda remarked as she looked up at the towering hotel. “It just makes me wonder what’s happening in there!”
“They quickly abandoned the whole hotel facade once everyone was captured, it seems…” Beast noted as he looked around, noticing how desolate the outside looked. “Look, they even drained the fountain!”
“Boy, wouldja look at that! That’s a shame, I really liked that fountain.” Spinda said once she noticed the dry fountain.
“So did I!” Beast said in agreement.
“Oh, you’re just saying that ‘cause I said it.” Spinda insisted.
“So I can’t even like a fountain!?” Beast replied angrily.
The clone got both of their attention with a huff.
“Yes, that’s right, the task at hand…” Beast said at the clone’s reminder. “It’s been less than a day since we all got here, so everyone’s probably still in these cages.”
“That’s where we need to go!” Spinda proclaimed.
“Well, that enough is obvious…” Beast rudely replied. “You know the way up, right Spinda?”
“Not really, I was real quick to get outta there,” Spinda explained.
“Of course…” Beast groaned, massaging his forehead. “Alright you two, we’re heading in. Be ready to fight.”
The clone and Spinda nodded in approval, and the three prepared themselves mentally before bursting through the front door in a dramatic fashion complete with battle-ready stances, only to be greeted by a dark and empty-looking lobby.
“That’s odd, I was expecting at least a few guards down here…” Beast explained.
His clone huffed and pointed over to a small crowd of Chansey cops beating the absolute tar out of some poor sap on the ground.
“I stand corrected.” Beast continued. “Alright then, let’s get to work!”
The three bears made short work of the guards. Before they knew it, they were in the familiar sight of several unconscious officers.
“Well, that went smoothly.” Beast remarked as he looked around.
“Yeah, you’d think we’d be fighting more of those army eggs instead of cops.” Spinda replied.
“We’ll worry about that later, we need to see if this man is ok.” Beast explained, looking down at the prone victim of the officer’s attack: a familiar Beheeyem, now lacking his toque and mustache.
“Er, excuse me, sir? Are you alright?” Beast asked, crouching down and giving the Beheeyem a gentle shake on his shoulder.
“HANDS IN THE AIR!” The Beheeyem yelled, springing into the air and pointing his multicolored hand like a weapon at Beast, startling the bear and causing him to follow the Beheeyem’s orders, dropping his pan.
“How did you three get down here? Are you the escapees they keep talking about?” the Beheeyem demanded out of the bear, his strange accent now gone.
“Wait a minute, I recognize you!” Spinda said, pointing at the Beheeyem. “You’re that weird chef guy that talked to us yesterday!”
“Yes, I suppose I should finally come clean…” The Beheeyem admitted before reaching into his coat and pulling out an ID card. “My name is Colonel Flag, undercover operative for the CBI.”
“What the hell’s a CBI? I’ve never heard of it.” Spinda inquired, her head tilted in confusion.
“That’s what we go for.” The agent responded with an arrogant nod.
“Undercover, Hm?” Beast said, rubbing his chin. “That would explain the fake mustache.”
“And the fake accent.” Spinda added.
“Hush, my disguises are perfect.” The Beheeyem insisted. “I was sent here undercover to investigate Miss Bliss and her technology, as she’s been on our radar for quite some time. Of course, none of us expected what would happen next. Escaping my cage was no problem due to my teleportation abilities, but every time I tried to investigate, I would be beaten to a pulp and thrown right back into a cage!”
“Why didn’t you try attacking them?” Spinda asked.
“That’s precisely the problem! Every time I tried to attack them with my psychic energy beams, they would shrug them off like they were nothing! And before I knew it, was getting beaten yet again!” The agent complained. “I’ve been knocked out 6 times in the past 12 hours…”
“My condolences…Did you ever try physical attacks? I’ve been using a frying pan to fairly good results.” Beast asked.
“Physical attacks?” The Colonel repeated.
“Yeah, they’re pretty frail. You could probably poke ‘em with a pillow and they’ll go down.” Spinda confirmed.
“I…guess I never gave it thought…” The Colonel answered with a defeated tone, sitting back down.
“Well, we could still use your help, Colonel. We’re on our way back up to the cage room.” Beast explained.
“The cage room? Why are you heading back there?” The agent inquired.
“To rescue everyone, of course!” Beast answered.
“You didn’t take the opportunity to escape by yourselves?” The Beheeyem asked.
“That’s what I said we should do!” Spinda complained.
“We’re rescuing them, and that’s final!” Beast insisted. “We could also use your help, Colonel…”
“I suppose I can help, but don’t expect me to stick around when things go south.” The agent answered.
“Fine with us.” Beast confirmed,
“And of course, I’ll have to wipe your memories after all this is said and done…” The Colonel muttered.
“Pardon me?” Asked Beast.
“Forget it.” Responded the Colonel.
The four made their way to the back of the lobby where the agent gave the three bears some valuable intel.
“I’ve spent most of my lucid hours snooping around the building, So I know exactly how to get to the cage room.” The agent explained. “Due to recent developments, we’ll be taking the stairs.”
“Wait, there’s elevators?” Spinda asked.
“Elevator. One.” The Colonel corrected.
“Why don’t we just take the elevator?” The panda inquired.
“Well, I…kinda got it turned off.” The agent answered.
“What? How?” Spinda pressed.
“That’s uh, classified…” The Beeheeyem insisted.
In reality, earlier in the day he had attempted to smuggle one of the scientist’s inventions out of the building using the elevator only to be caught red-handed and receive a nasty beating.
The four began a tiring trek up the poorly lit switchback staircase, the effort making Beast tire quickly.
“Ugh, I despise long flights of stairs…” Beast groaned as he lifted his foot in a waddling motion onto each stair.
“Oh, quit trying to play the old card.” Spinda demanded.
“It’s not that! YOU try having your feet connected to your torso!” Beast yelled before almost tripping onto a huge pile of rubble covering the next flight of stairs.
“What the hell…?” Beast muttered to himself as he looked up to discover the source of the rubble: The above flight of stairs had crumbled and collapsed, covering the flight below with rubble and making the staircase a dead end.
“Did it ever cross your mind to tell us the stairs were BROKEN, Colonel!?” Beast growled at the Beheeyem.
“I forgot not everyone could levitate!” Sputtered the Beeheyem.
“Some agent you are…” Grumbled Beast with a dismissive wave.
“Hold on, don’t worry!” The Beheeyem insisted. “There are 2 staircases on each side of the building. We just have to cut across the nearest floor and resume our climb.”
“Thank goodness. Alright, time for a detour!” Beast said, pointing his pan towards the nearest door.
“I’m a good agent…” The Colonel muttered under his breath.
The four quietly stepped through the door and were met with the musty atmosphere of the equally dark hallways of the hotel. Even from what little they could see they could notice chipped paint and unkempt carpets, making it obvious that most of the building was deeply neglected.
“This is Tango-5, reporting misconduct.” Announced a voice from around the corner. Beast and Spinda quickly crouched down and peeked around the corner to see the origin of the voice: Two police Chansey, one angrily talking into her egg communicator and the other kicking around a piece of garbage out of boredom.
“I don’t know, she’s kicking around a wad of paper!” The angry Chansey told the voice on the other end. “I just think since it’s our turn to be on watch that we-ok, I’ll tell her.”
She covered the speaker of her communicator for privacy and looked at her partner. “Miss Bliss says stop kicking it.”
Her partner gave her a disappointed glare, But the Chansey continued to report to her communicator.
“...She stopped kicking it.”
Beast had enough watching, so he took a try at ranged combat, throwing his skillet like a tomahawk and hitting the communicator using Chansey square in the side of the head.
“INTRUDERS!” Screamed the other Chansey, who took off down the hall in a scuttle to confront the unknown attackers. Turning the corner, she found herself face-to-face with the half-primate clone, who responded to her arrival by giving her a forehead flick that sent her through the wall.
The Beheeyem was impressed by the clone’s feat of strength. “My my, he IS as strong as he looks!” The agent remarked, floating closer to the clone and putting out his hand for a handshake. “What’s your name, son? I don’t remember seeing you at the party.”
The clone stared at him blankly, not even attempting to return his handshake.
“Man of few words, eh?” The Colonel continued.
“We don’t think he’s able to talk,” Beast interjected.
“Excuse me?” The agent asked, turning to Beast.
“He’s a botched clone of yours truly,” Beast explained. “The scientist created him.”
“You mean Miss Bliss cloned you?” Asked the agent, now very curious.
“I’m afraid so. She wants to use clones to-”
“We didn’t even know she was working on cloning!” The Beeheeyem said excitedly, zooming back over to the clone to get an even closer look, zipping around him at different angles. “First communicators, then liquid sunshine, now clones? She’s centuries ahead of anything we’ve seen!”
The clone didn’t take very kindly to some stranger zipping around him at a distance too close for comfort, so he responded by clapping him between his hands like an annoying fly.
“Yeah, it’s best that you try not to upset him…” Spinda explained, cringing at the sight of the Beheeyem’s vertically squashed head.
Now that the hallway was safe, the four went down the hallway, where the building’s neglect was becoming even more apparent. Door numbers and doorknobs were falling off and sitting on the floor untouched, the ceilings and walls showed cracks and crumbling, and hardly any of the ceiling lights were still working.
“This hotel has certainly seen better days…” Beast remarked, breaking the silence.
“I don’t know why they would build all this and just…not use it for decades.” Spinda wondered out loud.
“Still, would it kill them to sweep once in a while?” Beast asked as he peeked into a room, which was even more repulsive from what little he was able to see.
“Oh lord, the rooms are even worse! I feel like I could get an airborne illness…”
But curiosity was getting the best of Beast, and he continued to slide open each door he walked by if the door allowed it. However, at his height, the numbers on the doors were not clearly visible to him, and he began to push open a door that was labeled “POKER TOURNAMENT IN PROGRESS.”
“Beast, don’t!” Spinda protested.
“What, I was only joking earlier!” an unaware Beast replied.
But unfortunately, it was too late, as Beast opened the door to a large group of Chansey in the middle of a card game, most of them spectators who all looked over to see four highly wanted escapees peering into their repurposed room.
“RUN!” Beast yelled in a rather redundant demand as the four went down the hall as fast as they could. Arriving at the other stairwell, they frantically climbed up the staircase as a group of Chansey cops that outnumbered them 4 to 1 gave chase. Beast could still hardly get over the fact that these creatures were so fast on their little feet.
But their sheer force in numbers turned out to be their downfall. The police were still about one set of stairs behind and were all bunched together in a bit of a bottleneck position. As the crowd crossed over a particularly rotten set of stairs, they began to crack and splinter before eventually collapsing under their weight, making the group fall onto the previous staircase below and cutting off the four from the police.
“My word.” Beast exclaimed as he looked at the wreckage below. “Well, that explains the other broken staircase.”
“Just saying, this wouldn’t happen if everyone could levitate…” The Beheeyem mentioned only to be met with disapproving glares by everyone else.
The four tread quickly and lightly the rest of their way up the building, hoping to get up to their destination before the officers reorganized.
“Stop, It’s right here.” The agent said as they walked by a door marked with the number 12.
“Right at this door?” Spinda asked.
“There’s not much reason to use the higher doors, you’ll see why.” The Colonel explained.
Beast carefully opened the door to see an enormous expanse show itself in front of him. Now that his eyes were well-adjusted to the darkness, he was able to get a better inspection of the giant room he was forced into about 12 hours prior. With all the doors to nowhere going up the walls, exposed wood and drywall that had looked to have been forcibly removed by means of a blunt tool, It became obvious that several floors of the hotel were sloppily removed to make space for the cage area and the shafts used to hoist said cages up to that point. The dangling cages overhead presented a dilemma to Beast.
“Oh dear, I hadn’t even thought of how we’d get everyone down!” The chef admitted.
“Don’t worry, that part is easy.” The Colonel explained, gesturing over to a large elevated platform hosting a control panel operated by 2 guards who seemed very alarmed by the group’s presence. “That console you see over there controls the cage mechanism. I would have used it earlier, but…you know.”
“Ah, wonderful!” Beast exclaimed. “Alright then, let’s go take control!”
Beast and Spinda made short work of the two guards at the control panel and inspected all the buttons and levers, trying to get an idea of how to operate the strange console. One switch in particular got Beast’s attention.
“This machine must be hooked deep into the building. I think this switch controls the elevator.” Beast figured, flicking the switch. His guess was proven correct as the elevator door opened from across the room.
“That’s nice, but how is this supposed to help us right now?” Spinda asked.
“We can use it to ship people down in groups down to the ground floor!” Beast explained. “If we all work together, I think we can get everyone out in a timely manner. I’ll bring the cages down and unlock them. Spinda will put them in groups and send them down the elevator to the ground floor where the Colonel will be waiting to send them down to the docks. If any guards try to stop us, my clone will take care of them. Does that sound good to everyone?”
The other three either nodded or huffed in agreement.
“Alright then, there’s no time to waste! Let’s get to work!” Beast proclaimed, thrusting his skillet upward.
Once they were able to figure out the controls, the next 45 minutes or so went swimmingly. The only hitches came with Beast struggling to pick the cage locks consistently. Eventually, the only conscious people left in the rage room were the 3 bears.
“Alright, I think that was the last of ‘em…” Spinda figured as she called the elevator back up for the final time. “You guys ready to go?”
“Like you wouldn’t believe. This has been one HORRIBLE vacation…” Beast groaned.
“For the last time, this wasn’t a vacation.” Spinda insisted.
“Agree to disagree, coffeemaker.” Beast remarked before the elevator dinged and the door opened.
“That should be us.” Spinda said, looking at the open elevator.
The clone huffed and rudely pushed past Beast and Spinda, awkwardly squishing himself into the elevator with his shoulders pushed up to his chin.
“...Let’s hope he left some room for us.” Beast said before he and Spinda awkwardly tried to fit themselves into the tiny space allotted.
“Hey, quit shoving!” Beast barked.
“I wouldn’t have to if you weren’t so fat!” Spinda remarked.
“I’m not fat, this is all fur!” Beast insisted.
“Yeah, keep telling yourself that!” Spinda hissed.
The elevator dinged, closing the door and sending them on their way down. After about a minute of cramped discomfort, the elevator doors opened again, causing Beast and Spinda to fall out of the doorway face-first. The clone waddled out innocently.
“Ugh, maybe we should have taken the broken stairs…” Beast groaned before looking up to see what was casting a shadow over him.
It was Miss Bliss.
“ACK!” Beast yelped. “Spinda, Spinda get up! It’s the scientist!”
Spinda pulled her head up to see that not only was Miss Bliss present, but also nearly every cop and soldier they had most likely battered recently was surrounding them, a sheer volume that not even all three of them combined could take on.
That reminded Spinda of their missing comrade. “Wait a minute, where’s Colonel Flag?” Spinda wondered out loud.
Spinda looked over to see a small group of Chansey cops bashing the poor Beheeyem into the ground with their batons.
“Maybe I should have put you on ground floor duty instead, Spinda.” Beast admitted.
“I must say, after all I’ve heard about you three, It’s wonderful to finally see you again face to face!" The scientist began, bringing attention back to her. "But mostly, I’m referring to…”
The scientist poked her stubby little hand into Beast’s chest.
“YO-wait, this isn’t working for me…Marge!” Miss Bliss announced, turning one of the police officers.
“Yes, Miss Bliss?” Answered the Chansey.
“Would you bring up my digitizer, please?” The scientist requested.
“Yes, Your Highness.” The Chansey answered, disappearing behind the crowd and coming back with a large metallic hand and handing it to Miss Bliss.
“Thank you, dear. Bless your heart.” The scientist said in thanks as she put the hand onto her right stub, turning it into a fully fledged hand. “Oh, that’s much better. Now…”
The scientist poking a much more imposing metal finger into Beast’s chest. “YOU! Do you three idiots know how much stress you’ve caused me the last day and a half? Not only have you ruined months of careful planning, You’ve also heartlessly attacked several members of my poor law enforcement! That’s where I put the line! You’ve attacked MY people!” Miss Bliss complained.
“Oh, but enslaving and cloning innocent people to be your cooking slaves is perfectly ok?” Beast replied.
“Yeah, not the best moral compass ya got there.” Spinda said in agreement.
“Hey, I do NOT need to be lectured about morals by some bear and his rabbit girlfriend.” The scientist hissed.
“She’s not a rabbit.” Beast corrected.
“What?” replied the scientist.
“Yeah, I’m a panda.” Spinda explained. “We’re both bears.”
“That’s quite embarrassing for a supposed genius like yourself.” Beast added.
“Well, I’m sorry that all of my creations and inventions you saw on the way here weren’t enough for you!” Miss Bliss yelled, starting to lose her temper before collecting herself. “Whatever, I don’t need to be taking this. Guards, show these three back into the elevator!”
The three bears were shoved back into the elevator by several angry Chansey, now into an even more uncomfortable position than last time.
“I’ll be seeing you three on the roof!” The scientist called to them as she pulled out her little device, pressing the red button which closed the elevator and sent the three bears on their way.
“The roof, Miss Bliss?” Asked a Chansey.
“I’m going to deal with them myself.” Explained the scientist with a grim tone.
The elevator finally opened to the rooftop, making Beast and Spinda collapse onto the roof just like the previous time. Again, the clone simply waddled out with no issue.
“That’s it, I’m never riding an elevator again.” Spinda remarked jokingly as she got up.
“I second that motion.” Beast said in agreement as he got to his feet, getting a look at the increasingly dark sky. The roof was mostly empty, with nothing up note except the elevator and what appeared to be a large bent antenna with several branches on the corner of the building,
“Boy, it’s pretty stormy up here…” Spinda pointed out.
“I noticed that as well.” Beast replied. “It’s oddly fitting, is it not?”
“I wonder if the scientist did that on purpose.” Spinda wondered out loud.
“Don’t be preposterous, she can’t control the weather.” Beast insisted.
“Oh, give me time…” Announced the scientist from above.
The three looked up to see an airborne Miss Bliss silhouetted by the stormy sky.
“You three.” The scientist began. “I knew something like you was going to tear through my defenses like tissue paper eventually. My species is frail, I understand that. So that’s why I cooked up a secret weapon just in case!”
Miss Bliss removed her egg from her pouch, giving it a quick look-over. “Say, did you guys ever wonder what MY egg was? Well, now you get to find out!”
The scientist nonchalantly dropped her egg onto the roof, where it did not shatter when it hit the ground. A confused Beast and Spinda took a step closer to inspect it. The egg twitched, small cracks growing larger and larger on the surface before the egg shattered, briefly blinding Beast and Spinda in a flash of white light.
When their vision returned, a terrifying new creature stood before them. It looked like something plucked straight from the long-extinct prehistoric era, with blueish-gray skin, large purple wings, and razor-sharp teeth sticking out of its large lower jaw. Its eyes were a luminescent milky white, with no visible pupils.
“What the hell is that!?” A fearful Spinda asked.
“Say hello to Regenerative Specimen 142. Historians refer to it as an ‘Aerodactyl,’ but I call mine…The Hatched.” Miss Bliss explained proudly. “I discovered its remains mostly by accident, but it turned out to be my finest creation. Using nothing but my intellect and research, I brought it back to life like its extinction never happened! It’s my magnum opus, a true testament to the true potential of science.”
The scientist then gave Beast’s clone a disapproving glare. “And it’s much better than some lousy clone. You’re a mistake, more proof-of-concept than genetic recreation.”
The scientist turned her attention back to the other two bears. “That goes for you two as well! You’re just cooks playing hero, blemishes to my reputation! But I plan to rectify that. I plan to fix ALL of this in one fell swoop like the GENIUS I am! Hatch, eliminate these three! Leave NOTHING LEFT!”
The dinosaur nodded and flew into the air with a graceful twirl before going for a speedy dive straight into the three bears. The clone, desperate to keep his friends safe, pushed Beast and Spinda aside and braced for impact. The Hatched collided head-first into the clone with a serious impact, hitting the clone in the chest with such force that he was pushed back several feet. Beast and Spinda watched in fear at the whole display whilst Miss Bliss watched with devilish glee.
The clone responded with an attack of his own, grabbing the Aerodactyl by the head and tossing it into the air like a plush toy before hitting it with a nasty overhead swing that sent it flying back several feet, tumbling as it hit the ground.
The clone roared in a display of power and waddled over to the injured dinosaur, raising both of his fists to bash the dinosaur into the ground to finish it off.
“Should I look away for this?” Spinda asked.
This attack turned out to be a greedy mistake, as the aerodactyl was actually lying in wait to launch a counter-attack. The dinosaur grabbed the clone’s shoulders with its talon-like feet, latching down and flipping the clone, giving it a good slam onto his back.
“No!” Spinda yelled.
“You jinxed it!” Beast yelled.
“Give this inbred a bite, my winged beauty!” Miss Bliss called out to her pet before smugly leaning over to Beast and Spinda. “Did I mention its jaws can tear apart steel?”
The flying dinosaur unhinged its jaw, looming over the prone clone as spit dripped from its mouth onto his face. Thankfully the clone was not keen about getting his head bitten off by a dinosaur that day, so he nipped the problem in the bud by grabbing the Aerodactyl by its own deadly jaws.
“Attaboy!” Cheered Beast.
The clone stood up with the dinosaur in his hands, getting it into a headlock as the dinosaur violently squirmed in his grip. The Aerodactyl did not like this one bit, so it cried out with a supersonic screech that forced everyone to cover their ears, including the clone, who let go to cover his ears in a moment of weakness. The Aerodactyl used its newfound freedom to wail on the clone with its wings, knocking the clone around like a doll. The dinosaur then hardened its tail into a metal-like substance and knocked the clone onto the ground in a nasty combo. Going for the finisher, and swooped up into the air, opening its mouth and firing a devastating beam of energy onto its target on the ground, leaving the clone spread out on the ground, heavily damaged and covered in soot.
Beast had finally had enough of just watching. He scrambled over to his soot-covered clone, crouching down and laying a hand on his clone’s head
“O-oh goodness, are you awake?” Beast asked fearfully, to which the clone responded with a weak huff.
“Oh, thank the lord.” Beast said with relief before pointing his pan skyward towards the flying dinosaur.
The Aerodactyl swooped down nearly instantaneously, standing tall over the little bear and staring into him with its milky white eyes. Beast was terrified by the prehistoric creature looming over him, but he knew he needed to be brave in order to protect his friend.
“If you….If you want to lay another wing on him, you will have to go through me first!” Beast yelled, pointing his skillet at the Aerodactyl.
Silence fell over the roof for a brief moment before the flying dinosaur straightened its legs and lowered its wings as it began to harden its tail again, preparing to whip Beast with it the same way he hit the clone. Beast knew he was too slow to get out of the way, so did the only thing he could do: brace for impact.
He heard the metallic tail whip through the air, and he heard it collide with something, but Beast did not feel anything. Opening his eyes, he found out that the clone had grabbed the dinosaur’s tail mid-swing about a foot from the side of his head. Getting up, the clone gripped the dinosaur’s tail with both hands and began to swing the Aerodactyl by the tail in circles rapidly.
“What are you doing!?” Miss Bliss yelled to the clone.
After swinging the Aerodactyl in a circle several times to pick up speed, The clone let go, flinging the dinosaur right into the metal antenna at such a force that it slingshotted the Aerodactyl far into the sky, becoming a small twinkle.
“NOOOOO!” The scientist screamed, soaring upward to look into the sky. However, the propeller engine within her cap gave out from too much stress, causing her to plummet back down to the roof face-first.
Now on her stomach, Miss Bliss looked up through her damaged glasses to see the three bears standing over her, each wearing disapproving looks.
“I believe you have some groveling to do, scientist.” Beast remarked, pointing his pan at her face.
“P-please, you have to understand where this, ALL of this is coming from!” Miss Bliss explained frantically. “Everything I do, I do for my people! My island! I just wanted to get better food for everyone!”
“Your island? Your PEOPLE? Everything I have seen today had told me otherwise!” Beast asserted. “You ravage your ecosystem with runoff and pollution! You give your town unneeded improvements that hardly help your citizens! You neglect your base of operations, leaving unused areas to rot! Your plan for better food involved cloning and slavery! These do NOT sound like the actions of a good queen to me!”
The scientist looked back at the ground silently for several seconds, Beast’s words appealing to the good part of her.
“You’re right, they don’t.” The scientist muttered. “I’ll…I’ll let you all go home, I have a lot to think about.”
“I bet you do,” Beast replied. “Come on everyone, let’s head back down. I think we’ve had enough of this egg nonsense.”
It was now well into sunset. Beast, Spinda, and the Colonel were back down at the docs along with everyone else, boarding the boats once more to go back home.
“Again, I cannot thank you both enough for spearheading this rescue effort.” The Colonel said with a nod.
“Oh, it was nothing reall-” Beast began.
“For future reference, it was all my idea!” Spinda fibbed, cutting Beast off.
“Spinda!” Beast said with a disapproving look.
“It’s my word against yours!” Spinda argued.
“Neither of you will have to worry about credit.” The agent assured before sticking out his multicolored hand. “Now, if you would please both stare into my hand for a second…”
Before Beast and Spinda had the chance to get their memories wiped, Colonel Flag was unintentionally knocked aside by Beast’s clone, who looked down on them with something that resembled affection.
“Ah, our hero!” Spinda proclaimed.
“We were wondering where you were!” Beast added.
Before Beast and Spinda could react, the clone gleefully put out his arms and embraced the two in a spine-shattering hug, putting them both down after they nearly suffocated.
“Oh lord, my back…” Beast groaned with what little air was left in his lungs from the hug. “Alright my clone, are you ready to come home with us?”
To Beast’s surprise, the clone shook his head.
“Pardon?” Beast inquired.
The clone huffed and pointed out back towards the island.
“I-I don’t understand, do you-”
“Beast?” Spinda interrupted, gently grabbing his hand and turning his attention to her. “I think he wants to stay on the island.”
“But I can’t just leave him here!” Beast insisted.
“He’ll be happy here, frolicking and playing with his fellow…creatures.” Spinda figured, smiling and putting her other hand over Beast’s. “Y’should probably go say goodbye to him.”
Beast sighed and walked up to his clone, looking up at his neanderthalic equivalent for what he figured would be the final time.
“I er, guess this will be the last time we see each other…” Beast began. “Even if we haven’t known each other for very long, I still feel as if we have a brotherly bond.”
The cloned smiled and brought out his arms again for another hug.
“W-wait! No, no hugs. I’m quite hugged out for today…” Beast said, taking a few steps backward and back next to Spinda.
“Bye, Beast’s clone! Thanks for helping us!” Spinda said with a wave, which the clone returned with a huff and a thumbs-up.
“D’aww…alright Beastie Boy, you ready to go?” Spinda asked, turning towards the docs where one of the boats began to board.
“I suppose I am…” Beast answered, following Spinda. “Honestly, I’m a bit disappointed that we never got to actually cook anything.”
“Well, we both know I would’ve won anyway.” Spinda insisted as they both entered one of the open boats.
“Oh, hush you.” Beast replied.
“You gonna be in denial the whole way home?” Spinda teased.
“I said hush.” Beast insisted as the boat slowly took off into the ocean, putting an end to one absolutely horrible vacation.