Young Writers Society

Opening Credits

COOKIEBOOK II

Our Story Begins on the fairgrounds of the April YWS Carnival. You got your cotton candy? Good. Now for the real story. Up in an office building in the ratchet heart of New York City, a blue-furred CEO overlooks his Empire. His assistant, @Rydia, sits at a respectable desk, taking note of his every word.

Cookie Monster addresses his business partners, @Baal and @Cailey, without turning from the window. "Tell Cookie Monster...what C in NYC stand for."

Baal rushes to the answer, eager to appease his terrifying boss. "It stands for City, your majesty."

"No!" shouts Cookie Monster, "C is for Cookie! That good enough for me!" He flips a lever by the window and ejects Baal from the office, supplying him with a parachute that operates properly a solid 63% of the time. Cookie Monster turns to his other business partner and makes sinister eyes. "You will make C stand for cookie!"

Calming down, Cookie Monster, whose name is so annoying to type out completely so the author is just going to call him Cook, turns to Rydia and flirts flirtatiously. "You have day off. Go eat cookie bonus."

Why am i in this 0-0

Because your name is Snorlax. No one should ever need more reason than that. Now think of something devious...and do it.

CelticaNoir stared up at the tall skyscraper that housed Cookie Monster Incorporated. No one could tell what the company actually did apart from cookie manufacture, but the fact that it could afford a skyscraper like that meant something...except Celty wasn't sure exactly what.

Well, it wasn't as though she was going to stand around and ponder it any longer than she had to.

When she got out of the house this morning, she accidentally stepped on a package (because someone left it on her doorstep and who the heck leaves packages on your doorstep without ringing the bell first). When she picked it up and unwrapped it, she found a gooey mess of cake, within which was a scrap of paper.

'You are to start work at Cookie Monster Incorporated this very minute. Or y'know, whatever minute you actually receive this.'

Celty wasn't sure if it was a prank or not.

But, she didn't have a job to go to at any rate (she'd been searching for the past couple of years), so she could at least check in and see why anyone would want to hire her despite her lack of qualifications. Or why anyone would want to prank her for that matter.

The doors to the complex slid aside as she approached them, but when she stepped in, she realized that the entire ground floor was...empty.

(Well, you tagged me!) (And I was kind of bored, so whatevs...)

Meanwhile, on a small planet made of cheese somewhere in the vicinity of Betelgeuse...

"I told you you shouldn't have let him drive," said @PenguinAttack.
"He said he had it under control!" @Nutty insisted.
"No he didn't! He hasn't said a word since 1993!"

@chibibo ignored the discussion, studying his map of Narnia carefully as he held it - upside down - in front of him. He squinted at something in the corner. "Platform nine-and-three-quarters". Ridiculous. Did anyone proofread these maps before they sold them? He folded the map back up, ignoring the "chibibo Publishing" logo on the back, and stood on the car's roof.

"Well, at least the cheese is nice here," said Nutty, scooping some off the ground and shovelling it into her mouth.
"Quack," snapped PenguinAttack.

All of a sudden chibibo did something very odd. He began jumping up and down on the car, waving his hands. A large space-truck drove past, but stopped a few space-metres away and backed up to meet them.

"Howdy, folks!" said the space-driver. "Y'all look like y'all got y'allselves a space-problem."
"Whhh dhh!" said Nutty eagerly with her mouth full of cheese.
"Y'all wanna tell me'all about it?"
He turned to chibibo expectantly.

chibibo stared at the space-driver.

The space-driver stared at chibibo.

chibibo stared at the space-driver for a bit longer, then grinned nervously.

"He's not much of a talker," PenguinAttack explained. "Or a driver. See, we were trying to get to this carnival -"
"Carni-what?"
"A carnival? You know, rides. Sweets. People in costumes. Absurdly overpriced sideshow games."
"Y'all lost me'all at carni-what?"

Nutty gulped loudly. "It's like a space-carnival," she said, mouth finally free of cheese, "on the ground."
The space-driver smiled with comprehension. "Well, why didn't y'all say that'all in the first place? So I take it y'all lost your space-way trying to get to this here not-space space-carnival, and wound up here on this'all dairy planet."

chibibo was now face-first in a yoghurt pool, which was quickly draining. Soon he was sat at the bottom of an empty crater, licking his lips and grinning stupidly.
"I repeat," PenguinAttack repeated, "he's a really bad driver."
"Well, why doesn't one of y'all hop in here and see if y'all can find y'all's not-space space-carnival on my space-GPS?" the space-driver suggested. Nutty's eyes widened: she raced towards the truck, pushing PenguinAttack into a custard pie in her haste, and jumped clear through the reinforced glass windshield into the cockpit. As she furiously tapped at the tiny space-GPS device, the space-driver squinted at the car.

"What kind of vessel is that'all, anyway?" he asked. "Not one of those hybrid eco-shuttles all the space-hippies are driving? The, uh, Starship Electroprise 20X6?"
PenguinAttack wiped custard out of her eyes. "No, it's, erm... it's an '82 Volkswagen."
"Volks-what-en? Wait," the space-driver said abruptly, a look of utter confusion spreading across his face. "Y'all mean to tell me that's a car? Like, a ground-car?"
"Quack," PenguinAttack nodded.
The space-driver looked almost horrified. "How did y'all get that thing up here from Earth?"
PenguinAttack shot another look at chibibo, who grinned sheepishly. "Did I mention he's a really bad driver?"
"I broke the GPS!" Nutty shouted ecstatically.

"911- Emergency Services. What is the emergency?" The operator heard a wild hi-pitch screaming in the background that reminded her of the apes gone wild at the central park zoo. She tried again.

"CALLER,—HELLO?! PLEASE SPEAK CLEARLY INTO THE—christ! Was that a gunshot?!"

She heard the sound of the phone drop and then a fumbling of hands.

"Hello?" She asked again.

This time, a startled voice replied. "Hello? Oh my gawd, oh my goawd! Please help us!"

"Yes, please try to remain calm. What is your name?"

"My name is Audy," the woman on the other line replied, "I'm hostage on the metropolitan bus right now and it's been hijacked by a bunch of sesame street characters!"

"I'm sorry. I didn't quite get that—"

"THEY'RE WEARING COOKIE MONSTER MASKS AND THREATENING US WITH LETTERS!"


"Okay! Okay! Please try to remain calm. Is anybody injured?"

"No...my companion @Kyllorac was attacked by the Letter X, but other than that we're okay!"

"Good, good. Please try to stay on the line. Can you give us your location?"

"Oh my god. There are SNAKES ON THE BUS!" The woman started screaming again. The operator sighed. It was very difficult trying to keep professional when all was mayhem. She hoped this was not a prank.

"It's okay, Audy, those are my snakes!" Another voice said. "Hello?! Hello?"

"Hello, who is this?"

"Sorry, this is @ShadowVyper. I'm one of the hostages on this bus. I had a cage of snakes with me that are now loose everywhere."

The operator couldn't believe this. "Why in the world do you have snakes with—"

"Hello?!" said another voice.

"Hello?" The operator couldn't take this anymore. "Who is this?" She sneered.

"This is @Vasticity. Sorry, Shadowvyper is one of my actresses. We were shooting Snakes on the Bus for my new film. That's when the bus got hijacked by these sesame impersonators."

She heard the sound of another gun shot followed by a creepy voice.

"Kyll what are you doing?! You're making it worse!" Audy cried.

"Sorry...I guess Elmo doesn't like being tickled."

"OKAY. CALM DOWN!" The operator yelled. "Please give the phone to ONE person. I need to know your location."

The voice on the other end was cold and deep.

"We're by the Brooklyn Bridge near the softball field. I won't release these hostages untill we receive 10 TRUCKS OF COOKIES!"

The phone clicked and the line went dead.

Taxi smiles ear to ear as his keyboard shifts and cracks under the pressure of his excited typing. "It's genius," he says, glancing at his assistant, Mrs. Coat Rack. She's a lot like a coat rack, but with a black wig hanging from the top, and a sheet of paper sporting a a very apathetic smiley face glued to the front.

"Don't you agree? This is my breakthrough!" Taxi shouts.

Mrs. Coat Rack shakes gently in disagreement. That or the AC just kicked in.

"But Mrs. Coat Rack! Look at my screen!" Taxi turns his monitor ninety degrees. "There's a 250 character limit for every review, right? And that's just the bare minimum. I'll never get anywhere with that work load. You following me, Mrs. Coat Rack?"

She isn't.

"However, if I just do this..." Taxi leans around the corner of the screen as he performs some magic with his mouse and keyboard. "HAHA! I've copied 250 characters into this quote tag, and under it I'll briefly summarize the author's plot. And in two, three weeks time, after repeating this every day? Do you know who I'll be?"

The black wig slides off the rack and collides silently with the apartment floor.

"Quintuple red-starred ruler of the entire literary area!" He throws his arms upward and can't help but scrunch his face as enthusiasm flows into his brain. After he falls backwards into his char and returns his monitor to its normal position, he works on his next "review" until the realization that Mrs. Coat Rack hasn't been very excited about this plan sets in. Her eyes, beautiful as they are for two dots that were planted with the accuracy of a marker-wielding horror movie villain, look right through Taxi.

"What is it, Vanessa? I mean Mrs. Coat Rack? Tell me what's wrong."

He cups his ear and leans in closer, nodding in understanding. "Bigger, better things? More powerful positions? More notoriety? What could be more notable than top reviewer of a writing forum?" His arms stuff snugly into his coat and he stomps past the rack. "Besides, I'm already noteworthy. They put me at the very top floor of this complex. They saw the authority in my eyes and they were like, 'whoa, put this dude as far from our office as possible.'"

From about the highest point of the complex, Taxi looks on to a much taller building in the distance. None other than Cookie Monster Incorporated. Then it hits him.

"Geez! I should use my authority to get the maintenance guys up here to check out my ceiling tiles."

Then he realizes.

"Mrs. Coat Rack! That's what this is about, isn't it? Not the number of points in my account, but the general distance from the ground! You want me to live at the top of the tallest building in the city! Genius! Utterly brilliant!" He looks out his window again, and claps his hands together. "Forget spamming half-hearted reviews. I know what I'm going to do today!"

I walked into the giant skyskraper owned by the horribe cookie monster "guess this is the place" i whispered to myself
I walked into the building. Cookies everywhere. Cookie wallpaper, cookie rugs, even a cookie tux for the receptionist!
I walked up to her. Papers in hand. "My application?" I said, trying not to seem worried. She took them out of my hand, looking through them and then smiled at me. She then grabbed the phone and called... Someone. Wonder where i was going. Sure know where i want to. She then said "23 floor" top floor. Strange.

I went up there and saw a sea of elegance, All of which included cookies. I walked down a long hallway witch led to huge doors. "Here we go" i said to myself. I tried to open them, but they where locked. I then saw an intercom and i pressed the button. I herd an old, raspy voice come out of it. "Who goes there?!" The voice said "Snorlax..." I said worried. "Come in" i then herd a click come from the direction of the door. I opened them. I saw what i think was cookie monster strapped to what looked like life support yelling at Sheila the receptionist "you send this ball of crap up!?!?!" He said angrily. "He filled out an application." She said. "Is this Snorlax?" "Yes" she said. He then slammed the phone and said "I've been expecting you" he said "okay...?" I said un surely. How could he know i was coming! My boss told me this would be an easy hit! Set the bomb and get the hell out of there! He the brought out a gun, pointing it in my direction. "I knew pepperidge farms would come after me some day!" He screamed. The doors slammed behind me. Almost magically. I then brought out the explosives, threw them in front of me and said "pepperidge farms will most definitely remember this!" He then shot it, blowing us all to nothing. The end.

I know its confusing and terrible but i was in a hurry and i honestly have no idea whats going on.

A custodian in Cookie Monster Incorporated watched as the subject on the examination table twitched and yelled. Something about explosives.
She turned on her heel and started whistling the "Rubber Duckie" song, a top hit for that year, sung by none other than the great Ernie. She swept up some-- okay, about a bazzilion-- crumbs that littered the basement floors. This custodian's name was fortis and she had a theory that all the crumbs came from falling down the ventilation systems from the top floors. Very few people ever actually brought cookies to the dank basment. Fortis could hardly imagine why. She scoffed.
Maybe one day I'll make it to a top floor, where there's actually light, she thought.

When she had gotten the larger amount of crumbs swept under a rug somewhere, she checked back on the subject on the examination table. "Hooked right up to 'Triple chocolate-triple butter goo'" she muttered. Fortis glanced around. Of course no one was down there. She quickly unlatched the IV from the subject. And left the building through the colorful maze of elevators.

(sorry, I couldn't have it end right there)

Cailey scratched her head and opened her mouth to protest, but of course Cookie Monster shushed her instantly.

"Is there a problem?"

"Not at all," Cailey answered as quickly as she could. "I mean, of course I can change the C from City to Cookie. Honestly I thought that's what it stood for already. The only problem is that..." nervously, Cailey took a rather crumbled cookie from her jeans pocket and stuffed it into her mouth. "You see... I'm supposed to be on break this week."

"Break?" The Cookie Monster asked. Cailey nodded much too quickly and snapped the remaining cookie bits in her hands.

"I have a trip, remember? I'm off to Europe for the week. I don't know if I can manage the C change from all the way over there." She looked around desperately for something else sweet to put in her mouth, but of course all cookies in Cookie Monster's office had been devoured by him long ago.

"Well, I expect..."

He was interrupted by a frazzled looking employee. "I don't mean to interrupt, but it appears Fortis has been experimenting again. Some bloke is now completely hypnotized and thinks that he blew up Cookie Monster and got a job here. What should I do about it?"

"I thought we'd finally gotten rid of Fortis?" Cailey asked with slight irritation audible in her words.

"You had her shut down in the basement, she's mostly harmless." The employee said. Cailey brushed her out of the room and turned back to Cookie Monster.

"Anyway, I'll do my best with changing the C, but I can't keep up with any of this other nonsense. Oh, and I heard about you sending some of the others out into the subway. We're a top-notch business, Cook, we can't have the police after us because Elmo robbed the subway! Seriously, get those guys to stand down. We have plenty of cookies here, stealing them from harmless victims will only be bad for business. And one last thing before I go... this strange little group of people just showed up in a beat up volkswagon bug asking if I knew how to get to the carnival and whether or not I'd been to Cair Paraval or Hogwarts. You should probably send someone to go check them out. But I have a plane to catch, I'll work on that C and let you know how it comes."

Cailey slammed the door shut as she hurried down the stairs, slipping her blue jacket on over her dress and stopping to take a cookie from the receptionist's desk in the lobby. Then she stopped and returned to take the entire bowl, which she walked out with without a word. The angry receptionist glowered at her before yelling through the closing revolving door.

"You're going to become the next cookie monster if you're not careful!"

Isha's hiatus was over. The brief (or long, depending on your frame of reference) reprieve had brought back a shiny, fresh new Isha who had undergone much growing up and character development. Like, xe was still Isha, essentially, but more grown up, and, xe hoped, more classy. The flaming sword of yore had been traded in for a shiny Hero's Axe, allegedly endued with magical ice-related qualities. Xe still had cloaks in abundance, but only ever wore them for really important things. The old pirating career hadn't been abolished, per Se, but it was more under wraps now.

Certain Cookie Monster-related events had xem wanting to keep the whole operation on the DL. Cookies were messy, crummy business, and Isha's ship had a reputation to keep up. A reputation of not getting involved with puppets. Especially not puppets that were stealing the limelight in the theatre biz from the well and deserving, y'know?

Isha shuddered at the thought, adjusting xyr smoky grey bow tie and the shoulder of xyr snazzy new suit vest (another thing xe had developed an affinity for during xyr respite- all things suit. Especially if 'suit' had 'vest' placed in front of it).

Xe folded xyr arms and fell into a bench across the street from the new tower, lips pushed to one side of xyr mouth as xe stared at it. This would definitely put a damper on the whole 'space pirates' thing. Word on the street was that the freaks up in there were some sort of mafia organization that messed with carnivals and bus-related movies.

Then again, maybe it wouldn't put that big a damper on things. Like, honestly, carnivals and buses were kids' stuff. Pillaging and plundering were where it was at, and maybe this little setup had supplied the crew with the perfect target.

Cookie Monster was going down, make no mistake about it.

That is, if xe could get the crew to stop pigging out on censorship spaghetti and actually do something, for once.

Cookie Monster looked quizzically at @Rydia very suddenly, then held a hand to his head. "One of Cook's Alternative Universe Actualized Incarnations has been De-Actualized." He balled a fist and slammed it on his desk. "Me can see it now. Me went boom! Big boom! Maybe even small universe born from boom!"

@Rydia made note of this. "Sir, are you having one of your special moments? Would you like to be left alone?"

Cook's eyes turned to the ceiling, and he made a horribly sad face. Like this:



"Me going to bed."

"But, sir, it's only eight p.m."

"Yes. But good sleep habit is essential part of this balanced breakfast...of doom."

"I understand, sir."

MEANWHILE IN YWS SPACE

Lumi grunted, gritted his teeth and charged at the punching bag, delivering a devastating roundhouse kick to its midsection. He rebounded and shuffled from one foot to the other, breathing in heavy allowances. @Griffinkeeper had sentenced him to the training chamber after losing a prize fight against @Charlie II just days earlier.

Lumi wiped his brow. He raised his dukes.

@Griffinkeeper entered the room as the space-door swished open and closed. "You're never going to win a prize fight until you get over your fear of stun guns."

Lumi spat. Lumi wiped his mouth. Lumi stepped in the spit and felt silly. "I don't believe in using weapons. I should be able to take down my enemy in a very classic, outdated way." He leered. "With my fists."

Grif sighed and shook his head. "That's absolutely nonsensical. If you were fighting a dragon, you would use a sword. If you were slaying a necromancer, you would use--"

"--the magic card Pot Of Greed, I know." Lumi sighed. "I haven't forgotten all the crap you've taught me; I'm just choosing to ignore it."

The intercom buzzed. "General Griffin, we have arrived on YWS-42, Locale for Carnival."

Grif put a hand on Lumi's shoulder and gave him an assuming look. "Whoever your opponent is on this planet, you should assume that they're going to use a weapon, just like Charlie did. If you're going to fight recklessly, then at least be aware of your recklessness."

No, no, no this would never do. SuperNintendo sat in his office, looking through the spread sheets and other official buisness-y things. The numbers were not good, but numbers were never good, Six may be afraid of Seven, but Six also liked to steal from old ladies.

"I should have warned them," SuperNintendo uttered to himself, glancing at the picture of the three back in their glory days, when he was but a simple Bolt. "Sequels never catch the same hype, the demographics have already moved on." It wasn't just that, though, the numbers showed a remarkable drop in the over all audience of Young Writers, but a high increase in Old-Young Writers, it was a niche.

"The dreaded Niche," SuperNintendo muttered. "Sure you get a bunch of loyal, but you don't get those big numbers. The bulk is needed to sell it, at this rate we'll never make it past the first batch of season one."

SuperNintendo rubbed his temples, thinking hard for what he had to do. There had to be a solution to this mess of a media snafu, right? What was easy to do, what would make people laugh for absolutely no reason? "No, I swore I would never do it," SuperNintendo muttered to himself, taking a swig of Arizona Ice Tea. It didn't help though, the ratings were still down.

With his head held low SuperNintendo walked across his room, grabbing the hammer and smashing the glass. "I have to, it's not about me, I have to make sure this works...for them." He couldn't bare to look at the picture again, he knew how ashamed Bolt would be looking at this sight.

"Bazinga..." SuperNintendo muttered.

The slinky apple slinked to the ground with a 'pop' as she hears the first scream that shattered air. She turned her head and whipped her Canon series whatever camera and aimed it at the cookie monster's underlings that rampaged the streets. Now, she didn't care if this was a propo or a set up for something. But this will make one killer blog, hell, it will make her famous. 

Ok, not really. 

Right now, about two meters away from her was this kid running away from this blob demanding cookies. And it was lumbering after the half laughing, half screaming kid with cookie dough in hand and hurling it at the kid.

'Holy crab...what a waste of cookie dough. Couldn't he force it down the kid's throat or something?' She muttered sadly and switches the camera to another scene where another of those blobs was herding a couple of men in suits and then proceed to topple them over, 'give us cookiesssssss!' The blobs pulled at their brown locks and blonde hair, not that there was much to pull. Their heads were as bold as Homer Simpson. 

'Hey, whatcha doing' with that camera, girlie?" She swiveled on one feet and refocused on an another cookie monster blob, pointing one accusing cookie at her. 

'Why, I'm recording down your victory for future generation to learn from you!' She smiled and slowly backed away. Man, she really needed to work on her persuasive skills because that thing looked like it wanted to eat get alive. 

"Ermmm....."She laughed nervously, taking two steps back before turning and bolted away, glancing back every one nanosecond to see if that thing was still chasing her. Due to that repetitive yet essential move on her part to survive, she somehow collided into @Isha and toppled both of them down onto the ground. 

(x.x You tagged me, so I tagged insanity.) 

The carnival went on around Grif.

"Be careful," Adelaide warned. "The contact could be anyone."

"We need the cargo, otherwise YWS will run out. Once we deliver the goods, we'll be able to go on a decent vacation," Grif said.

"The message said that the contact would meet you at the Universe's Largest Sacred Milk Bovine," Adelaide replied.

"I don't see one anywhere," Grif said.

SPACE MOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!

"HOLY COW!" Grif exclaimed. He approached the spectacle with due reverence. People in mechanized suits the size of Optimus Prime were engaged in milking the massive majestic bovine. With each tug, a river of milk came down. It was the size of three city blocks and was taller than a skyscraper. Grif paid five dollars to enter the main milking area.

"Knock knock," a stranger said.

"Who's there?" Grif replied suspiciously.

"Banana."

"Banana who?"

"Knock knock!"

"Who's there?"

"Banana."

"Banana who?"

"Knock knock!"

"Who's there?"

"Banana."

"Banana who?"

"Knock knock!"

"Who's there?"

"Banana."

"Banana who?"

"Knock knock!"

"Who's there?"

"Banana."

"Banana who?"

"Knock knock!"

"Who's there?"

"Banana."

"Banana who?"

"Knock knock!"

"Who's there?"

"Banana."

"Banana who?"

"Knock knock!"

"Who's there?"

"Banana."

"Banana who?"

"Knock knock!"

"Who's there?"

"Banana."

"Banana who?"

"Knock knock!"

"Who's there?"

"Banana."

"Banana who?"

"Knock knock!"

"Who's there?"

"Banana."

"Banana who?"

"Knock knock!"

"Who's there?"

"Banana."

"Banana who?"

"Knock knock!"

"Who's there?"

"Banana."

"Banana who?"

"Knock knock!"

"Who's there?"

"Banana."

"Banana who?"

"Knock knock!"

"Who's there?"

"Orange."

"Orange who?"

"Orange you glad I didn't say banana?" the stranger finished.

"I sure hope you are my contact, otherwise I'm going to enjoy killing you," Grif replied.

"Lucky me. Did you bring the payment?"

"50,000,000 pages of erased text, as promised."

"Excellent. The last cookie shipment in the galaxy is yours. We loaded it into your ship during the joke." The stranger said.

"It was pretty bad-" Grif stopped as he noticed the stranger become suddenly anxious. "What's wrong?"

"Since when did people piloted battle mechs start milking the Sacred Celestial Bovine?" the stranger asked. Grif turned, and looked. And that's when the shooting started...