by Steve Cole
Suddenly, to Plog’s horror, dozens of alligator-men swarmed out of the wooden buildings and swam into the water.
Then they began guiding the bone away through the mucky stream.
Bewildered and bedraggled, Plog held on tight inside his narrow hidey-hole. If they catch me, he thought, they’ll eat me alive!
The light faded and the sky became brickwork. Flickering lamps in the ceiling lit the way in flashes as the tunnel stretched deeper underground and the water grew thicker, greener and gloopier. The colossal bone was sinking into the sludgy liquid, and Plog with it – he had to use his snout as a snorkel, snuffling down the stale air.
Over the splashing of bone and bodies in the gunk, he could hear the sound of heavy grinding gears and the blips and blops of strange devices . . .
“Steady there!” hollered a gator. “Careful . . . push it along . . . a little bit more . . .” WHUMP! The bone finally came to rest amid many cheers.
Cautiously, Plog pushed his head out of the bone-hole and sneaked a look. “So this is the Underzone . . .”
The bone had been placed at a crossroads in the sewer course. The side-tunnels to Plog’s left and right had been blocked off and turned into control rooms: platforms had been built over the nasty water, and these were covered in desks and screens and strange equipment, attended by gators in snazzy white lab coats.
Great hulks of rusting machinery lay at the edges of the main sewer ahead of him, beginning on either side of the big broad bone in which he was hiding, and stretching far into the distance. Plog suddenly saw that this tunnel was filled with many other bones, laid end to end in a careful, deliberate pattern.
Like a skeleton, he thought with a chill. And now that the mud had been washed away, he realized that the bone that held him could only be a strange, elongated skull. Two gaping sockets glared at him blankly. Whatever this thing is, thought Plog, I’ve been hiding in one of its nostrils!
Then, suddenly, a familiar snarling howl echoed out. Plog turned to find that the Duke of Snap, resplendent as ever in mask, cloak and cane, had swept onto the left-hand platform through a hole in the brickwork. He was accompanied by Sabre, who was still chewing one of Plog’s iron boots. Then the gator-wolf dropped it and started sniffing the air hungrily.
“What’s the matter, my pet?” hissed Snap. “Have you caught a ssscent? Could it be . . . the sssmell of an intruder?”
Yes, it could, Plog thought grimly. And if Sabre finds me, it’s game over!
With a slavering howl, the scaly beast leaped off the platform, making straight for Plog’s hiding place . . .
Chapter Eight
BAD TO THE BONES
Sabre landed lightly on top of the skull, claws gripping and jaws slobbering. My only hope’s a surprise attack, Plog decided. Taking a deep breath, he popped out of the nostril-hole – and punched Sabre on the snout! The gator-wolf staggered back with a howl and landed in the gloopy water.
“It’s Plog!” roared the Duke of Snap. “Catch him, my minions! Crush him! Bring him to me – now!”
Plog jumped off the huge, horrible skull and started swimming back up the tunnel the way he’d come, hoping to reach the exit – but the water was so thick, he felt as if he were moving in slow-motion. Snap’s white-coated gators dived in after him. Sleek and scaly, they cut a far swifter path through the gloopy liquid than Plog could hope to. At least twenty were zooming towards him.
In desperation, Plog waded over to the side of the sewer and started to climb the crumbling brickwork. But the gators fired more of their toothy bullets. Dust and stone erupted from the wall all around Plog – and an especially sharp fang jabbed him in the bottom.
“Yeoww!” he yelled, and lost his grip, plunging into the putrid water. SPLOSH! WHACK! He banged his head on a brick beneath the surface and swallowed a mucky mouthful that left him choking for breath. Dizzily, he saw the gators crowding around him. One of them had a large wooden club clutched in its mouth. Plog tried to swim away once more, but – WHOP! – the club cracked down on his head. He saw a flash of stars – then blackness.
When Plog woke up, he soon wished he could go straight back to sleep.
He was lying on the left-hand platform, propped up in a big bucket of thick, soupy water. A pair of seagull’s feet and a rotten fish tail stuck out of the cold salty mix, and the niff was nearly enough to knock his nose off. Plog coughed and groaned and shook his head to clear it – and realized that his wrists and ankles were manacled.
“Ssso . . .” hissed the Duke of Snap. “Our prisoner awakes!”
Plog shivered at the sound of the cold, familiar voice. Snap was glaring down at him, Sabre at his side, surrounded by hench-gators. Plog looked around for any possible escape route, but all he could see were gator-men, both on this platform and the one opposite, hosing down the enormous skeleton with giant jets of green goo.
“What’s going on?” Plog demanded. He tried to stand up but slipped, and a seagull toe almost poked his eye out. “Why have you put me in this slop bucket?” He gulped as a horrible thought struck him. “You’re going to eat me, aren’t you?”
“Me? Eat YOU?” Snap scoffed. “Really, Plog. I’m not an animal.”
“You are,” Plog pointed out. “You’re an alligator.”
“I am far more than that,” hissed Snap, eyes and teeth agleam. “Let me tell you a little ssstory, Plog. Long ago, there lived a pair of baby alligators who escaped from a human zoo and ssscuttled down here to the sssewers. They grew big and fat and bred many more great alligators . . . but toxic radiation buried in this wasteland mutated their eggs. A new breed began to hatch – clever, sssmarter, and ssso much more ssstylish. Alligators like me . . .”
“Yeah, rubbish alligators who never grew any bigger,” said Plog. “You’re a mutant titch!”
“Sssilence!” Snap roared, and the other gators cringed in fear. “I may be sssmall but my brain is big. And while we may lack the power of our ancestors – the Great Alligators who escaped here ssso many years ago – that is sssoon to change.”
“What do you mean?” Plog glanced again at the intricate ivory design dripping in sludge. “Why have you been gathering these old bones?”
“Old bones?” screeched Snap. “Those are the priceless pieces of my grand design. The complete ssskeleton of the last Great Alligator.” He leaned on his cane and lowered his voice. “Years back, a great flood ssswept his remains all over Trashland, buried them under waste and rubbish . . .”
“Best place for them, if you ask me,” said Plog. “If you’re that fond of your great alligator ancestor, and you’ve spent all this time piecing him back together, why are you covering him in all that gunk?”
“Because that ‘gunk’, as you call it, will help bring him back to life,” said Snap reverently. “The machinery ranged on either ssside of his ssskeleton was designed by Lord Klukk. He planned to make a race of giant chickens to help him take over the land – but lacked the vital, life-giving ingredients for sssuccess.”
“Ingredients that you had, I suppose?” sneered Plog.
“Of course!” Snap said fiercely. “I’m cleverer than that beaky old twerp ever was! I offered to share my discovery with Klukk in exchange for the use of his equipment, but he refused, and built a bionic chicken-bot instead.”
“I know: the Slime Squad fought it and won,” said Plog. “And once we’d got rid of him, you helped yourself to his secret stuff.”
“Yes! And I have put it to marvellous use!” Snap chuckled. “Now the grand design of the ssskeleton is complete, the operation can begin. First, I shall bring the Great Alligator to life . . . and then I shall place my brilliant brain inside his body!”
“You’re nuts!” cried Plog. “No one can perform a brain transplant!”
“No one except ME!” Snap guffawed. “Imagine the power I will possess! The tiny monsters of Trashland will fear me, ssserve me and fill my belly.”
Plog was appalled. “You can’t eat innocent monsters!”
> “Not all of them, no,” Snap agreed. “I will ssspare sssome to make me a giant hat, cape and eye-mask – and more will be needed to create a colossal cane . . .”
“You’re bonkers,” said Plog simply. “If you bring that thing to life, what’s to stop him eating you and your army straight away?”
“Because he will eat that bucket of ssslop you’re in first,” said Snap, an evil glint in his eye. “It is drugged. It will sssend him to sssleep ssso that the operation can begin. And of course, he will eat you too . . .”
One of the gators wearing a lab coat came rushing up. “All bones gooed up, your dukeness,” it hissed. “We are ready to switch on the life ray.”
“Then do it!” Snap burst into peals of loopy laughter. “At last, the hour of the Great Gator has arrived!”
The Duke’s cackling echoed around the sewers as the huge machines hummed into life. Plog stared, petrified, as an eerie green glow engulfed the skeleton and its dreadful bones began to twitch . . .
Chapter Nine
BONE IDOL!
The glow grew greener. The hum of power swelled to a buzzing thrum, like thousands of wasps trapped in a giant jam jar. Plog’s fur stood on end as he saw scaly flesh begin to thicken around the sludge-spattered bones.
“It’s working!” The Duke of Snap whooped with delight. “Working!”
But then the energy hum crackled and cut out. The green glow faded, and the half-formed flesh began to drip away like melting ice cream.
“Noooo!” Snap screamed. “What’s happened to the power?”
“Perhaps you didn’t pay your electricity bill?” came a froggy-sounding voice.
Plog gasped. Like Snap and Sabre and all the other gators, he turned in amazement – to find Furp bobbing about on the gloopy sewer water in an old matchbox.
“YOU!” screeched Snap.
“And me!” called Zill, breaking the surface of the thin sludge beside the opposite platform – holding an electric plug on the end of a long black cable. “Guess what – I seem to have disconnected your power supply.”
“But don’t worry – I’ve got plenty of power for you and your gator gang,” growled Danjo, jumping up onto the platform where Plog was imprisoned. “The power of slime – to the max!”
“Fool!” jeered Snap, as Sabre growled in warning. “I took away your ssslimy abilities, remember?”
“But now we’ve got them back!” Furp proclaimed. “You see, I reversed your anti-slime with anti-anti-slime.”
“And that’s how we found your secret base,” Zill added. “While Plog was dangling from your bone, his feet started dripping slime onto the ground below . . .”
“They did?” Plog grinned. “My tootsies were so cold, I couldn’t feel them!”
“Well, we could sure smell them,” said Danjo, shuddering. “So we simply jumped into the Slime-mobile and followed our noses! The trail led to this sewer, so we floated the rest of the way.”
“Well, it’s the last thing you will ever do,” Snap hissed. “My gators have ssstudied your powers – and know how best to overcome them.” He pointed his cane at a different group of gators. “You ten – muzzle Zill. You ten – catch the frog. And as for YOU . . .” He turned to Danjo. “My trusty SSSabre can stand up to your hot and cold ssslime – get him, my pet! Attack!”
Desperately, Plog strained to break free as the gator platoons dived into the sewer to menace Furp and Zill, and Sabre jumped at Danjo, jaws stretching wide . . .
But to everyone’s amazement, Danjo spat out a slime-line and lassoed Sabre’s mouth shut! The next moment he used it to swing the gator-wolf round and round like a scaly wrecking ball, scattering the remaining gators like skittles, until finally he let go. Sabre went flying through the air and smashed into the soggy skeleton in an explosion of goo.
“But . . .” Snap stared in disbelief and horror. “But you don’t ssspit ssslime-lines! Zill does!”
“Not right now she doesn’t!” Zill cried. She waited until the speeding gators were almost on top of her – then jumped out of the water and clung to the wall, sticking with all six of her paws like the poodle-skunk version of Furp! The gators couldn’t stop in time and smashed into the stonework before sinking out of sight.
“Impossible!” squeaked Snap. “Furp’s the one who ssscales buildings with his ssslimy palms and feet . . .”
“Think so?” Furp and his bobbing matchbox were already surrounded by a ring of gators. “Check this out!” Suddenly blasts of blazing hot slime burst from his feet – propelling him high into the air! The reptiles raged and roared as splashes of sizzling slime scorched their scaly skin – and then Furp turned in mid-air to fire whooshes of freezing slime from his fingertips. He turned the green gators into big blue ice-cubes – and dropped down to land neatly on top of one. “How’s that?”
While Snap stared in horror, Danjo spat out a second slime-line that wound about the Duke’s ankles – then he yanked on it hard and jerked the snappy dresser into the drink. SPLOSH!
Snap thrashed about in utter outrage. “My cape! My hat! They’re ruined!”
“Along with your rotten plans,” said Furp, splatting Snap in the face with an icy slime-ball that knocked him out – quite literally – cold.
“Here you go, Plog!” Danjo used his pincers to chop through Plog’s manacles, then tipped him out of the yucky bucket onto the platform.
“I don’t get it!” said Plog, grinning in baffled wonder. “What’s happened to you all?”
“Just as I told Snap, we got our powers back.” Furp strode through the filthy water to the platform on ice-slime stilts. “But I muddled up the cures – so we got each other’s powers!”
“Luckily it helped take these gator-goons by surprise,” said Zill, scampering over the ceiling like a peculiar spider. “Handy when you’re outnumbered—Ugh!” She slapped two paws over her nose. “That whiff . . .”
“Plog!” Danjo groaned. “It’s your feet!”
“Wow, it is too!” Plog looked down at his ugly furry tootsies. Now that they were out of the water they were oozing yellowy slime faster – and more stinkily – than he’d ever known. “Sorry – they’ve been safely in water since I got here.” He scooped up his chewed metal boot and a small metal bucket, filled them with sewer water, then shoved his feet inside. “My slime’s even stronger than it was before.”
“Well, it’s been blocked up for a while,” Furp said. “You’ll get back to normal.”
“I only hope we do,” said Zill, climbing down the wall to join them. “I want my old powers back.”
“Me too,” said Danjo. “Slime-lines taste like wee!”
“Mine don’t,” Zill informed him.
“Hang on,” said Plog, suddenly anxious. “Where did the Duke of Snap go?”
“We left him in the water,” said Furp, peering around – there were lots of gators floating about, but Snap wasn’t one of them. “I wonder where he went . . .?”
Suddenly the sprawling machines that ran the length of the sewer walls came juddering back to life. Emerald sparks flew across the sticky water as the molten mess that was the Great Alligator skeleton once again trembled with eerie life.
“Ha!” The Duke of Snap popped up from beneath the water just as Zill had done, his cloak clinging to his shoulders, his hat skew-whiff. “Two can play at that game – quite literally.” All at once Sabre burst out of the water beside him. “That cable you unplugged – SSSabre and I have plugged it back in again!”
“There are other ways to put your machines out of action,” cried Furp. Leaning back, balancing on his metal pants, he raised his legs and shot fiery-hot slime from the soles of his feet clear across the sewer. It showered the machines on one side of the wall. They fizzed and sparked . . .
But then the hum of energy grew deafeningly loud, and the green glow blazed greater still.
“Oh no,” Furp cried, seeing the floppy flesh on the skeleton grow harder, fatter, scalier. “I haven’t stopped the machines – I’ve
caused a power surge!”
Plog watched helplessly as huge yellow teeth pushed out through crimson gums and beady black eyes swelled up in the skull’s gaping sockets. The gooey bag of bones was becoming a solid scaly monster!
“Sssplendid!” roared Snap, while Sabre barked with laughter. “Thanks to you, the Great Gator is re-forming faster than I ever dreamed possible. Behold his becoming!”
The Great Gator slowly opened its dripping jaws. Plog looked helplessly at his team-mates . . .
But then the life-bringing machines finally overloaded, bursting apart in a huge turquoise explosion that threw Plog, Zill, Furp and Danjo clear across the platform. Smoke filled the air as a thundering BOOM! nearly tore Plog’s ears off . . .
As the echoes of the blast faded, the Squaddies scrambled up – to hear a deep, croaking sigh echo from the smoky gloom.
“Uh-oh,” said Danjo, as a brutish reptilian head appeared.
Plog stared, speechless with horror, at the gigantic monster before him. Its flesh glowed a sickly green. Its body was bloated, its scales misshapen. Its breathing came in great, grating rasps.
“Great Gator!” boomed the Duke of Snap. “I, who have brought you back to life, welcome you . . .”
The huge alligator ignored him completely.
“Er, Snap . . .?” Furp called. “Real gators can’t talk.”
“This one will, once I’ve placed my brain inside his head!” Snap glared at Plog.
“The operation must proceed at once.”
“How are you going to put him to sleep?” Plog enquired. “Danjo’s tipped over your bucket of drugged slops.”