Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Presents: Blood on the Sand!

[Proto Man]

“You know that guy?” Mickey whispered as the two small primes looked at the mounted warriors ringed around them.

Proto Man nodded his head as a scowl spread across his youthful features. “He’s a foul, despicable person who murdered one of my brothers in cold blood.”

The mouse casually nodded his head. “So not a nice fella.”

“Not a nice fella,” the android replied as the pair started to quickly weigh their options.

“You will come with us… or you will die,” Cell Delta rasped as he reached down and unsheathed an oversized machete with what seemed to be an oil motor gently sputtering away beneath the handle grip. “Actually, we won’t kill you. We’ll splice you into our town’s generator, and we’ll stuff your friend into a giant wheel to scamper until his legs fail.”

“Well that’s just plain rude,” Mickey stammered as he clenched at his gloved hands. Proto Man glimpsed flashes of yellow energy seeping through his pal’s dark fingers and knew that they weren’t walking away from this one unscathed.

“Kill the heretics!” Cell Delta roared as his strange machine-camel reared back on its hind limbs. All around the two small primes, the mounted warriors drew an assortment of machine-powered melee weapons, but before they could move, the pair was on the attack.

Mickey threw a hand forward, and with a flash of yellow light, a golden beam of energy roared at Cell Delta. Proto Man afforded only a fleeting glance—enough time to see the attack smash into their foe’s mount and knock it over. With that, the robot summoned his shield and brought it up as a thrumming, smoke-belching hammer crashed down against it. The impact splintered the thick material, but it held long enough for Proto Man to dive clear of his attacker.

With a quick scramble back to a standing position, the preteen machine rapidly charged a blast and sent it into the mounted warrior’s chest. The veiled rider let out a grunt as he was thrown clear from the pseudo-mechanical creature. A beat later, Proto Man had to twist and fire at someone from just a few feet away, watching with wide eyes as the rider toppled to the ground. When the man lifted his head up and looked very much alive, the robot twisted and pulled up his buster arm to guard against a large hatchet.

A few feet away, Mickey heard the yelp of his friend, but he was too preoccupied with the snarling man rushing at him. In a blink of light, the mouse’s keyblade appeared in an outstretched hand. A beat later, his attacker was on his side, a large bruise spreading across the side of his face. Twirling with the weapon in his grasp, Mickey downed another foe with a quick succession of pearls. Before he could relish that victory, a blast nearly as large as his body slammed into him with the force of a motor vehicle.

Mickey let out a yelp as he was thrown sideways, his lithe frame colliding with the red and gray form of his android associate. The two primes slid and tumbled across the sand for a few feet before coming to rest. As they pulled themselves up off the ground, they both saw that their now unmounted adversaries had recovered from their initial skirmish. At the helm of the group, Cell Delta smiled as smoke wafted up from the barrel of his arm cannon.

“Still unable to take a life, Proto Man? I would have hoped you’d have at least paired up with someone capable of doing what it takes to survive in this world.” The twisted prime snickered as the cannon reverted back to a hand. “Instead you’ve found another spineless, gutless idiot, and you dare to wander into my sands.”

“Ideas?” Proto Man whispered as the pair started to back away from the collection of heavily armed warriors and their sociopathic warlord.

“I don’t know if we can take them by ourselves,” Mickey whispered as he fumbled around in a pouch on his side. “But we can maybe take them together…” he finished as he produced a pair of earrings with dull yellow balls on them.

“Jewelry?” Proto Man mumbled as they started to back away from the collection of warriors.

“Shush,” Mickey muttered as he casually clipped on onto his left ear. “You got an ear under that helmet, dontcha? On your right ear.”

Although he thought it was a stupid idea to bedazzle themselves mid-fight, Proto Man trusted the goofy mouse with his life. With a simple, fluid motion, the android removed his helmet and dropped it to the ground. The earring clipped around his ear easily enough, and for a few moments, he was afraid that they were going to be gunned down where they stood.

Before a second thought could enter Proto Man’s mind, he felt a weird sensation wash over his body. A beat later, the two primes were pulled together, and in a flash of yellow light, the pair ceased to exist.