The Mouse Who Didn't Like Musicals

Chapter 8: Yakkini's Fortress

"Strange reports coming from all over the city today, what seems like flash mobs have swarmed the downtown area! No one knows what sparked these occurrences, or when-" The news report was suddenly cut off.
"Flash mobs?! What is this, 2009?! It's something much bigger than that!" Someone said, picking up an Alexa.
"That's why it's up to us! It's too dangerous out there now...I wonder..."
His voice trailed off, thinking deeply.

Meanwhile, the weary survivors followed Pinky's every ditzy move. They stayed close together, paranoid that at any moment, someone would start singing at them. The still unconscious Skippy was sprawled out on Buttons' back. Eventually, they wandered far from the hustle and bustle of the city.
"Are we sure this is right?" Dot asked, confused.
"We're starting to head into Disney territory!" She warned.
"No, no...yes! We're in the right direction!" Pinky reassured her.
Becoming suspicious, Wakko asked the mouse,
"What does this Yakkini guy look like?"
"Come to think of it, he looks sort of like you! Isn't that funny! NARF!" He laughed, as the whole party approached a standard size gray bunker.
"Pardon, he looks just like Wakko? And Dot?" Brain repeated.
"Yep!" Pinky approached the door, which due to his size seemed impossible to open. Unfazed, he scampered up a small pole that was connected to a number pad, and intercom. Meanwhile, Brain had a concerning realization.
"No, you don't mean-"
"WHO DARES APPROACH THE GREAT YAKKINI'S FORTRESS?!"
"YAKKO!?" The younger Warner siblings gasped.
"Heyyyy. Identity theft is illegal! I'M Yakko!"
The door of the self-proclaimed fortress opened, revealing, who else? Yakko Warner, the eldest Warner sibling. He stood taller than just about everyone in the surprised party, wearing a large overcoat the same color as his iconic, baggy smokey topaz slacks.
"Sibs?! You're ALIVE!!"
The siblings collided, hugging each other, so thankful that they all were together again.
"This is nice, this is very...emotional. Now, we need to come in, it's imperative." Brain interrupted, gesturing to Skippy.
"We have a squirrel leaking blue goo."
Pinky nodded.
"Huh, squirrels aren't supposed to do that."
Yakko shook his head, then pushed the door back open.
"Come on in! We have lots to discuss!"

The party wandered through the strange bunker that Yakko had been living in.
"Do you mind, explaining why you have this bunker?" Brain asked, confused.
"Or any kind of bunker?"
"A couple months ago," Yakko began, flinging the still bleeding Skippy over his shoulder.
"I got offered a role for an eccentric professor who obsessively prepares for the apocalypse."
"Awww, I remember that one. I wanted to be an eccentric professor!" Wakko lamented.
"Well I thought to myself. 'What's the one thing I haven't tried when it comes to role preparation?'" Yakko continued, ignoring Wakko.
"Actually reading your script?" Brain suggested.
"HA! No way." Yakko laughed.
"METHOD ACTING! So I bought this bunker off a creepy old guy and made it my very own laboratory! I even got myself a doctorate!"
He proudly presented a diploma, which Dot quickly took from him to examine.
"Yakko. This is a doctorate from 'Hammerspace Looniversity'." She pointed out, reading the diploma.
Yakko quickly snatched the frame from her.
"Geez Louise, who taught YOU how to read?"
He put the "diploma" back on the wall.
"You did." Dot said, crossing her arms.
"Oh yeah." Yakko said dismissively, now flinging Skippy's unconcious body onto an examining table.

"NOW! What we've got here, folks, is one knocked out squirrel. Lights out, out cold, about as dead as our fanbase-"
"WE GET IT!" The survivors yelled.
"Well, typically Skippy is a lot more, alive. What was going on before he got-" Yakko gestured to his head, making an explosion noise.
"He and some extras showed up and started singing at us!" Dot explained.
Yakko gasped.
"He was singing?!"
He looked at the blue ooze that leaked from Skippy's wounds, then at his siblings.
"Out! Get out, all of ya!" Yakko started ushering the group out of his lab, stopping at the mice.
"Not you, brain-y boy. Or your little guy-friend."
He blocked the way out with his foot.

"Let me guess, you need someone who actually knows something about science." Brain said, looking up at Yakko's sorry excuse for an operating table.
"Uuuuuhhhhh, maybe a little." Yakko shrugged, picking up the mice by their tails.
"Naaaarf, this is one fancy little lab, Yakkini!" Pinky mused.
"You've done some lovely decorating since I last visited, is that new linoleum on the floorboards? Oh and-" Pinky was silenced by Brain gripping his mouth shut.
"Moving on, what does blue goo have to do with singing?" Brain said, jumping onto the table.
"I've been seeing reports all over the news of people spontaneously breaking into song and dance, right after that meteor hit last night! It aligns PERFECTLY with a scenario I thought about when me and my sibs were in suspended animation!" Yakko explained.
"This exact scenario?" Brain questioned. "Of the world becoming a musical?"
"Just like a Disney film!" Yakko confirmed. "Then it got a little weird, I dated Goofy's son, but that's beside the point!!"
Yakko grabbed a handful of the blue goo that Skippy was covered in, then showed it to Pinky. "Now, Pinky, what does this look like to you?"
Pinky screwed up his face looking at the goo, struggling to think of a response.
"No, OH I've got it! TROZ! I KNOW I KNOW! It's some kind of blue...goo!" He announced, proud of himself.
"My thoughts exactly!" Yakko shouted.
"That's hardly scientific at all!" Brain objected.
"You never answered my question, Warner. What does this, gelatinous substance have to do with musical numbers?!"
"You're not following my train of thought, I'm GETTING to that!" Yakko rolled his eyes.
"Pinky, go get everyone back in here, I need to tell them."
"Right-o!"

Once everyone had gathered in Yakko's lab once more, Yakko began with handcuffing Skippy into a desk chair.
"Hey, hey!" Dot yelled. "What the heck are you doing to Skippy!!"
"Only what's necessary, sib sister!" Yakko said, shoving a tiny pair of keys into his hammerspace.
"You all remember that meteor that crashed last night?"
The group collectively nodded.
"Well after extreme analysis of this goop,"
Brain rolled his eyes at the phrase 'extreme analysis',
"I have determined that, in that meteor, was some kind of, virus. An infectious ooze that could possibly come...from a far off galaxy."
"Wait...so you're saying that we're dealing with actual, real life, aliens?!" Buttons asked.
"Buttons, we're TOONS! Anything's possible, really!" Yakko said, reaching over and grabbing something off his desk.
"Just like my Alexa!"
"I don't remember signing a promotion deal with Amazon?" Wakko said.
"That Bezos money could have saved the reboot!"

"Corporate shilling aside, our next course of action is to try and contain Skippy before he can wake up and infect any one of us with musical fever! Because, well, the only thing we can do now is try to stop this, before it destroys us all..." Yakko concluded, staring off into the distance.
Wakko and Dot punctuated the speech with light applause.
"Ah, thank you, thank you. Now I've gotta try and study this goo! What kind of fake biologist would I be if I didn't!" He turned to leave, being stopped by Brain tugging on his pant leg.
"Now, Yakko don't you think it would be wise to leave someone with...actual scientific knowledge with the life-threatening...goo?" Brain asked, genuinely concerned.
"Aha, good one, Brainy-days. You'd probably just use it to take over the world or something."Yakko deflected.
"Yakko?" Wakko asked.
"All this running for our lives and stuff, well it's got me hungry! And scared! Scaungry!" He cried.
"Do you have any snacks?"
"Wakko. All this time in here I've spent preparing for the role of a lifetime, you think sugar is one of my priorities?" Yakko said, then paused.
"Heck yeah I've got the good sodas!" He started leading the group out of the lab, stopping when he noticed Dot wasn't following.
"Sis? You coming?"
"Yeah, I'm just worried about him." She said, looking at Skippy.
"Just...don't get too close." Yakko warned, walking away.