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Description

Continuing this crossover story with www.deviantart.com/dialga22239…

In a trailer, in the middle of a forest, Almanzo held onto his hat with the green feather sticking from it as he slammed open the trailer’s door and leapt outside. The day before, he’d returned from a town called Donnerburg in Germany, in a confusing adventure where he and his good friend, Annie, had mysteriously been transported to another dimension.

There, they’d met not only a living robot with a soul and conscience, but also a friendly, dark-haired girl around their age called Lacaimiga. The girl and the robot were scientists and secret agents who helped Almanzo and Annie return to the forest of Perhaps Heights.

“I've got to get back to that town.” Almanzo smacked a fist into his palm, because the gummy butterflies were out of controlーa swarm had flown through the trailer’s window that night, and made such a racket he’d got no sleep. One had even bitten his nose. Almanzo thought the robot's plasma blaster might get rid of the butterflies once and for all. “Those pests need to be exterminated,” he said, “and only secret agents have weapons for such a job.” He picked up his butterfly net from the grass.

Yesterday a green, metal dragon (well, he thought it was a dragon) had told him he’d be able to return to the other dimension if he could just contact the Dimension Guardians.

“The dragon said I have to contact one of my magic friends who has contact with them. . .” Almanzo tapped his chin. “Hmmm. I bet Stroodle knows something about this. That gremlin sneaks in and out of dimensions sometimes.”

Almanzo’s feet crunched over leaves and twigs as he stepped through the forest. “Stroodle!” He cupped his hands over his mouth. “Stroodle Frootkake! I know you’re around!”

From leaves overhead burst the head of a pointy-eared creature with fur the shade of mildew. The gremlin was hanging upside down from a branch by his monkey-tail. “Feather-Head needs Stroodle’s assistance?” asked the gremlin.

“There you are!” Almanzo stepped back from Stroodle. “Do you, by any chance, know how I might speak with the dimension guardians?”

Stroodle growled. “The ungrateful Feather needs Stroodle’s help, does he?” He wrinkled his nose. Then he smiled. “Stroodle will help Feather-Head. But not in the way he expects. No, Stroodle hates Feather-Head far too much.” And he snapped his fingers, before scampering back up into the overhead leaves where he disappeared again.

“Hmm?” Almanzo looked around. “What did he do?” Everything seemed the same. “It better not have been something bad.”

“Hey!”

“Gasp!”

The dark-haired girl and the robot were standing beneath drooping branches of a weeping willow. The girl had wide eyes, but the robot was wearing sunglasses instead of the spectacles he’d had before, so only his raised metal eyebrows were visible.

“Oh no!” Almanzo ran up to them. “I think a gremlin brought you here when I was only asking him to take me to you. I hope I didn’t interrupt anything you were doing. I was going to ask if you wanted to come here, but only if you wanted to.”

The robot, Josch, slowly peered over his sunglasses, then he reached out a metal flipper to Almanzo (he was a jetbot, designed to resemble a penguin). Almanzo shook the two fingered metal hand at the end of his flipper.

“It’s nice to see you again,” said Almanzo.

“Despite the fact,” said Josch, who had a human voice rather than a robotic one, because of his soul, “that I was in the middle of reading a good book, we’re happy to see you again, too. Is there some reason you needed to see us? Do you require our assistance?”

“Actually,” said Almanzo, “I needed some secret agents, because the gummy butterflies are out of control here. You see, I stole some money from my little brother so I could hire you for a mission: exterminating those pests.” He dumped some coins into Josch’s hands. “I thought you could use your plasma blaster to melt them for good.”

Josch handed the coins to Lacaimiga, who put them into her pocket, then he took off his sunglasses to place his spectacles on his beak instead. He sighed as Lacaimiga walked up beside Almanzo. “We want to help you,” he said to Almanzo, “but I’ve reconsidered my words from before. We should have respect for other lifeforms, and study them before melting them with plasma blasters right away. Maybe the butterflies know something, and they might even be friends.”

“Hmm. . . You speak like a wise leader,” said Almanzo. “But the gummy butterflies can be dangerous and cause trouble. If you won’t melt them, what do you think we should do?”

“Maybe they have a leader of their own,” said Lacaimiga, also shaking Almanzo’s hand. “Do you know where they’re coming from? We can investigate their home, and maybe make a deal with them. We’ve solved lots of mysteries before, and it’s always good to go to the source.”

“I know where they’re coming from,” said Almanzo, “and they do have a leader there. There’s a Land of Gummy Butterflies if you go through a door in a tree. . . It disappears sometimes, but it might be there now. Come on, let’s see.”

Almanzo led Josch and Lacaimiga through thick and thin trees, up a steep incline, before they reached the trunk of a tree wider than the others. A door as big as a laundry basket glowed in its bark.

Before opening the door, Almanzo turned and handed his butterfly net to Lacaimiga. “You might need this,” he said, and added behind his hand, “the butterflies are very temperamental.”

Then, in turn, they each bent and crawled through the door, which opened to a narrow passage through tree roots they had to crawl through. It sloped downward. Almanzo crawled out of the passage first, and waved for his guests to follow him.

“Wow!” a reverent gasp escaped from his guests as they came out into an underground valley with hundreds of butterflies. The land was so red, it hurt their eyes. It was scattered with streams flowing with ruby tinted water that trickled over pebbles every shade of the rainbow. Butterflies perched on branches of weeping willow trees, and on strange flowers from neither of their dimensions.

Josch didn’t notice a butterfly landing on his head so it looked like he was wearing a bow. Lacaimiga stretched out a finger so one perched on it. “Fascinating,” she said, and took a magnifying glass from a pocket in her cargo vest to examine it more closely.

The pebbled path took them past stone statues of butterflies. A rainbow cascaded over it that the gummy butterflies slid down before leaping into the stream, where they splashed and did the backstroke.

“These butterflies don’t look dangerous to me,” said Josch, before one flew up and sunk its fangs into his beak. “Agh!” He jumped back. “On second thought, I’m detecting these are very dangerous!”

Just then, a glowing butterfly flew up to them. “You’ve returned!” it squeaked. "But we have no more wishes to grant you. You used our only one the last time."

"We aren't here to make a wish," said Lacaimiga. "We want to know why you go about causing trouble, and biting people on the nose."

"That?" squeaked the butterfly. "And why shouldn’t we do that? To us, people's noses taste like cherry candies and sweetest nectar."

Josch held a metal flipper over his beak.

"Did you know my friend could blast you with his plasma blaster if you keep that up?" Lacaimiga waved the butterfly net threateningly.

"Lacaimiga," scolded Josch. “Now they’ll never want to be our friends.”

At Lacaimiga’s words, the butterflies gathered into a big storm cloud. “That would not be very nice,” squeaked the butterfly. “For that, we’re going to have to exterminate you.” The cloud arranged itself into the shape of a sword.

“Gulp,” said Josch.

Lacaimiga, Josch and Almanzo got chased by a tornado of gummy butterflies. They got chased through prickly plants and across streams and over bridges strung above ditches. When they were crossing one particular bridge, its ropes snapped just before Josch, the last one, made it to the other side.

“Too bad we didn’t bring our jetpacks,” said Lacaimiga.

"No one may leave this land while they’re out to exterminate," sang the leader of the gummy butterflies. "You have some lessons to learn before this adventure can come to its end." The butterfly did a loop de loop in the air, causing flames to burst through the trees.

"Take my hand!" Almanzo called to Lacaimiga, pulling her out of the way of a crumbling branch falling above from a burning tree. A very heavy branch that nearly missed his foot.

They made it to a cave’s entrance in a looming cliffside. One by one they ducked inside it, then Josch pulled back some vines to conceal their hiding spot. He only parted the vines enough to aim his plasma blaster just in case.

“Did you hear what the leader said?” asked Almanzo. “‘No one may leave this land while they’re out to exterminate.’ Josch was right; we never should have said we were going to blast them. Now, they’re going to exterminate us.”

“I think we started a big fight,” said Lacaimiga. “Oops.”

For the rest of the day, gummy butterflies fired flaming magic sparks at the cave, and rammed themselves its side, trying to find their way into it. Josch shot back with his plasma blaster now and then when they weren’t looking. It hit some of the butterflies that melted, and dropped down to the ground in sticky puddles of sweet, gooey syrup.

“Fascinating,” said Lacaimiga. “We should bring back some of that substance to study. They’re made out of candy! And they’re so strong. I’ve never seen butterflies like this.”

“Yes, they’re pretty hard to deal with,” said Almanzo. “But another day another dollar.”

The day darkened into dusk.

“We’ve got to try a new approach,” said Josch. “I’m going to try to negotiate with them.”

“But Josch!” Lacaimiga jumped up. “You can’t go out there to talk to them. They’re dangerous!”

“I will just have to take that risk,” said Josch, so Lacaimiga and Almanzo bowed their heads as he strolled out of the cave through the vines.

Josch stayed out of the cave for a long time while Lacaimiga and Almanzo waited in the dark. Finally, when so much time went by that it was the next morning, they moved the vines aside to stick their heads out and see what was happening.

Josch was talking to the leader, and the butterflies were being peaceful. Finally Josch turned around and headed back to the cave.

“What happened?” asked Lacaimiga.

“We made a treaty,” said Josch. “The butterflies agreed that if I stop blasting them, they’ll only bite Almanzo on the nose one more time, then they’ll stay outside in the forest where they belong and stop causing trouble.”

“Hmm.” said Almanzo. “I guess that sounds reasonabl─Oouch.” A butterfly sank its fangs into his nose.

And though they were shocked after all the violence, it didn’t stop Josch, Lacaimiga and Almanzo from enjoying the rest of the day in Perhaps Heights after that. When they escaped the Land of the Gummy Butterflies, Almanzo showed them all the fun things to do he knew about.

They got fish treats from the icecream truck with the coins Almanzo had paid them earlier (though Josch could only watch Lacaimiga and Almanzo eat them), then they met Almanzo’s neighbor Annie at the store near her house where she bought them cherry candies. After that they took the rowboat across the lake, visited a haunted lighthouse, and swung on the rope in Annie’s family’s big red barn. Later they gave each other presents to remember each other by. Almanzo gave Lacaimiga a wooden flute to summon mermaids, and Josch and Lacaimiga gave Almanzo a field guide about the different lifeforms in their dimension.

“Hopefully you won’t need this,” said Josch, “but in case you ever need information about any others giving you problems.”

“I guess you probably have to be going home now,” said Almanzo.

“Yes, but we can come back soon,” said Lacaimiga. “Or you can come to our dimension to let us know if the butterflies are keeping their word.”

“Right,” said Almanzo. “I was thinking it was a good thing Stroodle didn’t listen to me, and brought you to my world instead. I learned it doesn’t matter which dimension you’re in. You can always have fun as long as you have a good friend. But this time going back, you should ask a lady named Fairy to send you home instead. She’s much more trustworthy than Stroodle. Well, goodbye! I bet you're glad to be going to a dimension where you can get a break of those butterflies.”

And after giving Josch and Lacaimiga the directions to Fairy’s house, Almanzo’s guests waved as they walked up the hill into the trees as the sun set over the green lake. No one noticed a red butterfly sitting atop Josch's head so it looked like he was wearing a bow.

The End.

Description

Continuing this crossover story with www.deviantart.com/dialga22239…

In a trailer, in the middle of a forest, Almanzo held onto his hat with the green feather sticking from it as he slammed open the trailer’s door and leapt outside. The day before, he’d returned from a town called Donnerburg in Germany, in a confusing adventure where he and his good friend, Annie, had mysteriously been transported to another dimension.

There, they’d met not only a living robot with a soul and conscience, but also a friendly, dark-haired girl around their age called Lacaimiga. The girl and the robot were scientists and secret agents who helped Almanzo and Annie return to the forest of Perhaps Heights.

“I've got to get back to that town.” Almanzo smacked a fist into his palm, because the gummy butterflies were out of controlーa swarm had flown through the trailer’s window that night, and made such a racket he’d got no sleep. One had even bitten his nose. Almanzo thought the robot's plasma blaster might get rid of the butterflies once and for all. “Those pests need to be exterminated,” he said, “and only secret agents have weapons for such a job.” He picked up his butterfly net from the grass.

Yesterday a green, metal dragon (well, he thought it was a dragon) had told him he’d be able to return to the other dimension if he could just contact the Dimension Guardians.

“The dragon said I have to contact one of my magic friends who has contact with them. . .” Almanzo tapped his chin. “Hmmm. I bet Stroodle knows something about this. That gremlin sneaks in and out of dimensions sometimes.”

Almanzo’s feet crunched over leaves and twigs as he stepped through the forest. “Stroodle!” He cupped his hands over his mouth. “Stroodle Frootkake! I know you’re around!”

From leaves overhead burst the head of a pointy-eared creature with fur the shade of mildew. The gremlin was hanging upside down from a branch by his monkey-tail. “Feather-Head needs Stroodle’s assistance?” asked the gremlin.

“There you are!” Almanzo stepped back from Stroodle. “Do you, by any chance, know how I might speak with the dimension guardians?”

Stroodle growled. “The ungrateful Feather needs Stroodle’s help, does he?” He wrinkled his nose. Then he smiled. “Stroodle will help Feather-Head. But not in the way he expects. No, Stroodle hates Feather-Head far too much.” And he snapped his fingers, before scampering back up into the overhead leaves where he disappeared again.

“Hmm?” Almanzo looked around. “What did he do?” Everything seemed the same. “It better not have been something bad.”

“Hey!”

“Gasp!”

The dark-haired girl and the robot were standing beneath drooping branches of a weeping willow. The girl had wide eyes, but the robot was wearing sunglasses instead of the spectacles he’d had before, so only his raised metal eyebrows were visible.

“Oh no!” Almanzo ran up to them. “I think a gremlin brought you here when I was only asking him to take me to you. I hope I didn’t interrupt anything you were doing. I was going to ask if you wanted to come here, but only if you wanted to.”

The robot, Josch, slowly peered over his sunglasses, then he reached out a metal flipper to Almanzo (he was a jetbot, designed to resemble a penguin). Almanzo shook the two fingered metal hand at the end of his flipper.

“It’s nice to see you again,” said Almanzo.

“Despite the fact,” said Josch, who had a human voice rather than a robotic one, because of his soul, “that I was in the middle of reading a good book, we’re happy to see you again, too. Is there some reason you needed to see us? Do you require our assistance?”

“Actually,” said Almanzo, “I needed some secret agents, because the gummy butterflies are out of control here. You see, I stole some money from my little brother so I could hire you for a mission: exterminating those pests.” He dumped some coins into Josch’s hands. “I thought you could use your plasma blaster to melt them for good.”

Josch handed the coins to Lacaimiga, who put them into her pocket, then he took off his sunglasses to place his spectacles on his beak instead. He sighed as Lacaimiga walked up beside Almanzo. “We want to help you,” he said to Almanzo, “but I’ve reconsidered my words from before. We should have respect for other lifeforms, and study them before melting them with plasma blasters right away. Maybe the butterflies know something, and they might even be friends.”

“Hmm. . . You speak like a wise leader,” said Almanzo. “But the gummy butterflies can be dangerous and cause trouble. If you won’t melt them, what do you think we should do?”

“Maybe they have a leader of their own,” said Lacaimiga, also shaking Almanzo’s hand. “Do you know where they’re coming from? We can investigate their home, and maybe make a deal with them. We’ve solved lots of mysteries before, and it’s always good to go to the source.”

“I know where they’re coming from,” said Almanzo, “and they do have a leader there. There’s a Land of Gummy Butterflies if you go through a door in a tree. . . It disappears sometimes, but it might be there now. Come on, let’s see.”

Almanzo led Josch and Lacaimiga through thick and thin trees, up a steep incline, before they reached the trunk of a tree wider than the others. A door as big as a laundry basket glowed in its bark.

Before opening the door, Almanzo turned and handed his butterfly net to Lacaimiga. “You might need this,” he said, and added behind his hand, “the butterflies are very temperamental.”

Then, in turn, they each bent and crawled through the door, which opened to a narrow passage through tree roots they had to crawl through. It sloped downward. Almanzo crawled out of the passage first, and waved for his guests to follow him.

“Wow!” a reverent gasp escaped from his guests as they came out into an underground valley with hundreds of butterflies. The land was so red, it hurt their eyes. It was scattered with streams flowing with ruby tinted water that trickled over pebbles every shade of the rainbow. Butterflies perched on branches of weeping willow trees, and on strange flowers from neither of their dimensions.

Josch didn’t notice a butterfly landing on his head so it looked like he was wearing a bow. Lacaimiga stretched out a finger so one perched on it. “Fascinating,” she said, and took a magnifying glass from a pocket in her cargo vest to examine it more closely.

The pebbled path took them past stone statues of butterflies. A rainbow cascaded over it that the gummy butterflies slid down before leaping into the stream, where they splashed and did the backstroke.

“These butterflies don’t look dangerous to me,” said Josch, before one flew up and sunk its fangs into his beak. “Agh!” He jumped back. “On second thought, I’m detecting these are very dangerous!”

Just then, a glowing butterfly flew up to them. “You’ve returned!” it squeaked. "But we have no more wishes to grant you. You used our only one the last time."

"We aren't here to make a wish," said Lacaimiga. "We want to know why you go about causing trouble, and biting people on the nose."

"That?" squeaked the butterfly. "And why shouldn’t we do that? To us, people's noses taste like cherry candies and sweetest nectar."

Josch held a metal flipper over his beak.

"Did you know my friend could blast you with his plasma blaster if you keep that up?" Lacaimiga waved the butterfly net threateningly.

"Lacaimiga," scolded Josch. “Now they’ll never want to be our friends.”

At Lacaimiga’s words, the butterflies gathered into a big storm cloud. “That would not be very nice,” squeaked the butterfly. “For that, we’re going to have to exterminate you.” The cloud arranged itself into the shape of a sword.

“Gulp,” said Josch.

Lacaimiga, Josch and Almanzo got chased by a tornado of gummy butterflies. They got chased through prickly plants and across streams and over bridges strung above ditches. When they were crossing one particular bridge, its ropes snapped just before Josch, the last one, made it to the other side.

“Too bad we didn’t bring our jetpacks,” said Lacaimiga.

"No one may leave this land while they’re out to exterminate," sang the leader of the gummy butterflies. "You have some lessons to learn before this adventure can come to its end." The butterfly did a loop de loop in the air, causing flames to burst through the trees.

"Take my hand!" Almanzo called to Lacaimiga, pulling her out of the way of a crumbling branch falling above from a burning tree. A very heavy branch that nearly missed his foot.

They made it to a cave’s entrance in a looming cliffside. One by one they ducked inside it, then Josch pulled back some vines to conceal their hiding spot. He only parted the vines enough to aim his plasma blaster just in case.

“Did you hear what the leader said?” asked Almanzo. “‘No one may leave this land while they’re out to exterminate.’ Josch was right; we never should have said we were going to blast them. Now, they’re going to exterminate us.”

“I think we started a big fight,” said Lacaimiga. “Oops.”

For the rest of the day, gummy butterflies fired flaming magic sparks at the cave, and rammed themselves its side, trying to find their way into it. Josch shot back with his plasma blaster now and then when they weren’t looking. It hit some of the butterflies that melted, and dropped down to the ground in sticky puddles of sweet, gooey syrup.

“Fascinating,” said Lacaimiga. “We should bring back some of that substance to study. They’re made out of candy! And they’re so strong. I’ve never seen butterflies like this.”

“Yes, they’re pretty hard to deal with,” said Almanzo. “But another day another dollar.”

The day darkened into dusk.

“We’ve got to try a new approach,” said Josch. “I’m going to try to negotiate with them.”

“But Josch!” Lacaimiga jumped up. “You can’t go out there to talk to them. They’re dangerous!”

“I will just have to take that risk,” said Josch, so Lacaimiga and Almanzo bowed their heads as he strolled out of the cave through the vines.

Josch stayed out of the cave for a long time while Lacaimiga and Almanzo waited in the dark. Finally, when so much time went by that it was the next morning, they moved the vines aside to stick their heads out and see what was happening.

Josch was talking to the leader, and the butterflies were being peaceful. Finally Josch turned around and headed back to the cave.

“What happened?” asked Lacaimiga.

“We made a treaty,” said Josch. “The butterflies agreed that if I stop blasting them, they’ll only bite Almanzo on the nose one more time, then they’ll stay outside in the forest where they belong and stop causing trouble.”

“Hmm.” said Almanzo. “I guess that sounds reasonabl─Oouch.” A butterfly sank its fangs into his nose.

And though they were shocked after all the violence, it didn’t stop Josch, Lacaimiga and Almanzo from enjoying the rest of the day in Perhaps Heights after that. When they escaped the Land of the Gummy Butterflies, Almanzo showed them all the fun things to do he knew about.

They got fish treats from the icecream truck with the coins Almanzo had paid them earlier (though Josch could only watch Lacaimiga and Almanzo eat them), then they met Almanzo’s neighbor Annie at the store near her house where she bought them cherry candies. After that they took the rowboat across the lake, visited a haunted lighthouse, and swung on the rope in Annie’s family’s big red barn. Later they gave each other presents to remember each other by. Almanzo gave Lacaimiga a wooden flute to summon mermaids, and Josch and Lacaimiga gave Almanzo a field guide about the different lifeforms in their dimension.

“Hopefully you won’t need this,” said Josch, “but in case you ever need information about any others giving you problems.”

“I guess you probably have to be going home now,” said Almanzo.

“Yes, but we can come back soon,” said Lacaimiga. “Or you can come to our dimension to let us know if the butterflies are keeping their word.”

“Right,” said Almanzo. “I was thinking it was a good thing Stroodle didn’t listen to me, and brought you to my world instead. I learned it doesn’t matter which dimension you’re in. You can always have fun as long as you have a good friend. But this time going back, you should ask a lady named Fairy to send you home instead. She’s much more trustworthy than Stroodle. Well, goodbye! I bet you're glad to be going to a dimension where you can get a break of those butterflies.”

And after giving Josch and Lacaimiga the directions to Fairy’s house, Almanzo’s guests waved as they walked up the hill into the trees as the sun set over the green lake. No one noticed a red butterfly sitting atop Josch's head so it looked like he was wearing a bow.

The End.