OWP: Glad you liked it. The whole “ancient prophecy” thing is actually [spoil]supposed to make Boo more important to the story, and that she actually has a purpose rather than just setting foot in the monster world and Sulley having to take her back.[/spoil] I’ll tell you this, though:
Roz and Waternoose are the only two characters who believe in the prophecy. However, they each take different approaches to it. Roz wants to see it unfold without any interference, while Waternoose wants to solve the mystery of Lux Nova by taking it upon himself to capture the chosen one and extract the gift from him/her.
And points for finding the MU cameo. I thought Professor Brandywine making a short appearance would make a nice shout-out.
And now, I have Chapter Two ready! This one is pretty extensive with all the description going on, but it is very fun too. Hilarious, and it (hopefully) manages to keep everyone in-character. Also, see if you can find a meme-based joke within the dialogue.
Chapter Two: In the Zone Today!
Michael and James stepped through the revolving doors of M. Energy Incorporated, greeting all their fellow employees as they made their way to the reception desk. However, they were stopped by a pair of hapless janitors who were waving polka-dot printed memorabilia, which included pennants, soda hats, and foam fingers that read “#1 Sullivan”.
“Go get em’ Sullivan!!!” cheered the janitors, “You’re our all-time favorite hero!”
“Uh, thanks,” James answered, “I’m uh, quite flattered.”
“We love you so much!!!” The janitors bounced as their eyes turned all googly, “You’ll do a good job, we know it!”
“Uh, yeah,” James continued, “If you want me to do well, just please calm down with all the flattery; I may just lose my concentration that way.”
“Oh ok,” said the janitor with the yellow uniform and clown nose, “I understand.”
“See ya’ guys!” James bid them good day as he continued over to the front desk.
“You’re amazing Sullivan!!!” the janitor with the green uniform and rocker haircut called out.
“Stop!” the other janitor told his friend, “You’ll make him lose his focus!”
Michael and James finally made it to the reception desk, where a young woman with long purple hair covering one eye and a sequined green dress sat, answering the phone and wearing a headset.
“Hello, my Shmoopsie-Poo,” Michael began in a slightly mushy tone.
“Googly-Bear!” exclaimed the young woman, “How are you today?”
“Just fine, Celia,” Michael continued, “By the way, Happy Birthday!”
“Oh, you remembered,” Celia sighed lovingly, “That’s wonderful! Anything special planned?”
“Oh, not much,” Michael continued smoothly, “Just a little sushi bar known as Harryhausen’s.”
At that moment, Celia’s visible eye became a white circle with a dark outline, her mouth gaped open in shock as a blue spiral background appeared behind her.
“Harryhausen’s?!!” Celia was still reeling from the shock, “But… how, Michael?”
“Not to worry,” began Michael, “Sulley here got us covered with the reservations.”
James smiled, “Yes, I sure did, Celia…Wheelia…?”
“So, remember tonight at 6:30,” Michael noted.
“I’ll be sure!” Celia added.
“Just think,” began Michael as he strided off with James, “♫ You and Me, Me and You… Together Forever!!! ♫”
The two found themselves freshening up in the one of the locker rooms. James put away his fur jacket in his locker, while Michael zipped up his jumpsuit and adjusted his work boots.
“Hey, I wanted to say earlier,” began Michael, “Thanks for making the reservations for Celia and me.”
“Well, what can I say,” James answered, “You’re gonna take Celia to dinner for her birthday, and I’ve got that scare record to hopefully break.”
“I’m pretty sure you’ll do a good job,” Michael continued as he turned to admire himself in the mirror, “We’ll just get through the day as usual, and then it’s just me… and Celia!”
As Michael finished putting his tin lunchbox in his locker, the locker door seemed to shut itself. He was slightly puzzled by this phenomenon.
“Huh? Something must be wrong with my locker,” Michael told himself as he opened his locker again, but it slammed shut by what seemed to be an invisible force. All of a sudden, the hanging lamps seemed to swing as if it they were part of a horror movie set.
“Wazowski… Sullivan…” a sinister yet sultry voice seemed to call out of the thin air.
“Aaaaaaaahhhhh!!!” Michael yelped as he hid behind James, “Where’s it coming from?”
At that moment, that’s when their answer was revealed. Right before the two friends eyes, a young man materialized as the camera pans from his snakeskin loafers and argyle socks, up his tailored pinstripe pants, damask waistcoat vest, and dotted shirt, topped with a chevron-printed velvet tailcoat, and accessorized with a fade-dye snakeskin tie, shimmering cufflinks, and leather bindings with chains hanging from his hips and wrists. His face was pale yet delicate as the high-resolution graphics in the Final Fantasy games, adorned with emeralds for eyes and crowned with flowing hair, which was a brilliant iridescent purple as the rest of his wardrobe, but gathered in a ponytail that swirled blue at the end, and three magenta-tipped cowlicks stood up above his head. He stood on the bench that Michael had been sitting on; his hands neatly folded behind his back. This fine-looking man was named Randall Boggs; the only person formidable enough to challenge James’ reputation as the top energy harvester, and also the most attractive person alive, according to a popular celebrity magazine.
“Well, what do you know,” Randall hissed with his indigo-colored water monitor tongue, “It scares Earth children AND kaiju alike.”
“I wasn’t scared!” Michael retorted, “Sulley, tell him I wasn’t scared.”
“You better believe it,” Randall began as he slipped off his tailcoat, folding it neatly and putting it in his locker.
“Believe what?” James asked.
“I’m in the zone today, Sullivan!” Randall exclaimed as he danced on the bench, flipping his long hair and swaying his slender frame; the chains on his hips jingling loudly, “Gonna do some serious scaring, putting up some big numbers.”
Ok Randall, that has got to be the worst gloating dance I’ve ever seen from you, James thought to himself as Michael taped the scene with his video camera.
This would be MonsTube gold! Michael pondered as he continued filming, Now to think of the music I could remix this to.
“Let’s face it Sullivan,” Randall folded his arms across his chest, “I’ve got a loyal fanbase and you don’t!”
“Actually, you just have fangirls,” Michael explained, “Sulley here has not only fangirls, but fanboys, fan-kids, fan-families, and even fan-pets.”
Michael pointed over to a group of crazed teenage girls standing at the entrance of the locker room, all wearing purple fashion tops bearing Randall’s likeness and captions such as “I Randall!”, “Lizard Luv 4EVER!”, “Blending In Is Cool” and even “Future Mrs. Boggs”. Some even had lizard-themed accessories, such as tattoos, earrings, swirly bracelets, hair barrettes, belly jewels, rings, and necklaces. The girls giggled and squealed as they waved picket signs and banners with cheesy slogans that read “We Heart Randall!”, “Boggs Brigade”, “Stylin’ Scales!”, " We’re Fan-dalls!", among others.
“And now, let’s take a look at Sulley’s fanbase,” Michael flipped open a photo album containing pictures of James mingling with his more diverse fan demographics, such as petting dogs, smiling in group photos with fur-clad fangirls and fanboys alike, and giving hugs to little children who told him that he was “so cuddly and soft and fluffy and warm and nice”. One of the quotes by the children read, “We love you Sulley! You’re all huggable and will always be better than that stupid stinky mean lizard man.” Randall’s hands formed into fists as his pretty jade eyes turned an eerie white and a flaming background exploded behind him after he read those words off the page.
“Um, I still have better fans!” Randall tried to launch a counterattack, his face still flushed red in anger, “Children aren’t really my favorite anyway. They’re so annoying and get ice cream and slobbery candy all over my clothes.”
Michael began, “Well, you better stop being such a nuisance–”
“Shhhh! Shhhh!” Randall hissed as he threw his arms around the pair, “Do you hear that? It’s the winds of change.”
The words seemed to slip into James’ and Michael’s ears as a stinging venom. Randall released his grip on them, and just slithered off so smoothly as he made his way out of the locker room.
“See ya’ on the floor, Sullivan,” Randall hissed his serpentine tongue at the pair again, turning to the group of crazed fangirls to blow them some kisses.
“Nya, nya blah blah winds of change blah blah,” Michael muttered to himself.
“Don’t let him bother you,” James advised his friend, “He’s just trying to mess with us.”
“I know,” Michael began, “But that’s just, wow.”
“So lizard.” James responded.
“Much creep.” Michael answered back.
“Such annoying.”
“So scales.”
“Such squint.”
“Wow. Much reptile.” The two concluded in unison.
Michael stood outside an office window, as he began to speak nonsensical sounding sentences, along the lines of “Roz, my tender oozing blossom, you look quite lovely today. Did you get a new haircut or something?”
“WAZOWSKI!” an elderly woman, Roz, grunted as she threw down her newspaper, “You forgot to turn in your paperwork last night again, didn’t you?”
“Uh…” Michael panicked, “Yes. By the way, I notice a new scent in the air. Is that a new perfume?”
“Can it, Wazowski!” Roz growled again, “You ain’t gonna talk your way out of paperwork this time!”
James came running down the hall just as Roz got back to reading her newspaper, with a headline that read “BABY BORN WITH FIVE HEADS: PARENTS THRILLED”, and took a sip of coffee out of a mug that read “No Paperwork, No Dates”. Michael turned around to see his friend sprinting towards his location as he carried a giant folder of papers.
“Roz, here’s my paperwork–” James exclaimed until he suddenly slipped on a wet floor surface, failing to realize the Caution sign the janitor had put. He slid so fast towards Michael, that the scene all of a sudden turned slow-motion. Michael whipped around, only to inadvertently hit Roz’s desk and send a metal stick-like device flying in the air. James abruptly collided against Michael as Roz reached for a pair of sunglasses and put them on, and the metal device landed on James’s back, emitting a flash ten times stronger than that of a camera.
After the camera returned to normal speed filming, Roz removed her sunglasses, shocked at the scene. James stood up, picking up the metal stick and his paperwork folder handing them both to the dispatch manager.
“That’ll teach ya,” Roz growled, “The good news is that you got the paperwork in. The bad news is that you’ve just been hit by my neuralizer.”
“Your what?” asked Michael.
“It’s this device that is supposed to make people forget things, especially if they’re confidential and accidentally discovered. Mine was set to 7:52 A.M., so I don’t know what you just forgot. Sorry about that.”
Apparently, Roz was telling the truth. Michael and James had no memory of anything they’ve done in the time window between 7:52 and the present time. They even lost their memory of having sat down to breakfast and television, thus, wiping their minds of the History Channel program James had been so enthusiastic about seeing. On the bright side, they did remember training and exercising for their work day. James then went his way to the standby room where all the other Energy Harvesters were supposed to wait while the Portal Summoners set up the Energy Floor. Michael greeted a janitor who was mopping the floor as he went inside the work area.
The Energy Floor was large and spacious, with various stations with desks and portal connection platforms. Michael opened a folder with various key cards, of which he took one and swiped it into a keypad. The other Portal Summoners did the same, and a long train of what appeared to be framed closet doors instantly swung into view from an overhead zipline. Michael stood there, confident and smiling. Right next to him, however, stood another Portal Summoner, nervously shaking as he went through his folder, counting how many key cards he had on hand. He had deep red hair, which appeared unkempt, and was dressed in a red jumpsuit, blue boots, red gloves, black-rimmed glasses, and a blue hard hat. In contrast to Michael, he appeared covered in dark bruises and burn marks, freshly healed scars, and multiple tears in the back of his jumpsuit indicated he had received over forty lashes. To put a cherry on top of it all, he was literally chained to his station; the chains connecting to a shock collar and bracelets tightly clamped around his neck, wrists, and ankles. This Portal Summoner was named Jeffrey Fungus.
“Hey, Fungus!” Michael greeted Jeffrey cheerfully, “Making sure you’ve got enough door cards?”
“Mike!” exclaimed Jeffrey, “Sorry, I am. Nervous about today, I feel greatly. Two Energy Harvesters going head to head to break the record, we’ve got.”
“Yeah, I know,” Michael continued, “And surprisingly, this is the first time you don’t simply address me as ‘Wazowski’.”
“All right everybody!” announced a man standing at a podium, sporting a headset as he motioned to all the Portal Summoners, “We’ve got our stations all online, and it seems like everybody’s prepared. Okay, bring in the Energy Harvesters!!!”
The main entrance to the Energy Floor suddenly flung wide open, revealing a glowing white background, out of which a shadow of a mass group emerged.
For those who are wondering, this is what a water monitor lizard’s tongue looks like: