Parental Predicaments

Synopsis: Charles Entertainment Cheese and his wife Helen Henny-Cheese hatch their beautiful mirbs, so now they must adapt to being new parents. The Rangers and the others help out.

Chapter 1--To the General Henpital
Chucky and Helen were going about a typical day at work with their posse when Helen began feeling contractions.
‘Oofh ! Charles !”, she called loudly. Chuck knew that when Helen called him by his formal name that matters had become serious.
‘What’s the matter, sugar beak ?’, Chuck questioned.
‘The contractions are closer now. We need to get to the henpital !’, Helen stated, beginning to become a little panicked. All the while, there were two really weird kids named Zim, Gir and Gaz were playing ski-ball. Gir was busting a move out on the interactive dance floor with Harmony and Jasper. Pasquale was trying to corral an overzealous Zim.
‘Yes ! Zim is victorious ! Come, tickets of victory ! We shall see what can be purchased with you !’, he crowed, triumphantly. He took Gaz’ hand and she lowered her head, blushing slightly.
‘I’m going to get you something, Gazleene. Something befitting an Irken Queen.’, he said, as they walked toward the prize counter, once Pasquale had lead them there. Helen and Chuck relayed their dilemma to them and had Mitsy and Rex take over. Chuck hadn’t seen them in ages and he had so many questions, especially who the new, buff rat was that Mitsy was with. It brought for a pang in his heart he didn’t think existed. ‘That’s the past !’, he thought, dismissing his old affection for her. After all, he was happily married with Helen, and the two were about to become parents.

Quickly, followed by the gang, Helen gave birth to twins. The first to be hatched was little Charles Entertainment Junior. They simply called him ‘Junior’ for ease of recall, or CJ. He resembled his dad more than his mom but had feathery arms and a feathery tail. Amelia, the second egg to crack and hatch was more like her mom but had a mouse’s tail. They weren’t unusual in their appearance and it was difficult to tell that they were hybrids at first. What mattered most is that they were healthy. Clara Cluck and Clarabelle Goof were the first to get to hold the infants, being close friends of Helen’s. They had been determined to become Amelia Entertainment’s and Charles’ godmothers. They weren’t the only ones, either. Somnibot was, Delta, Magic Screen and Ms. Yvonne to name a few.

Chapter 2—Nary A Moment’s Rest

Oftentimes, Helen and Chuck would come in for training looking quite a bit drained. They weren’t getting much sleep because it took a lot of work to get the babies put into their crib for the evening.

‘We’re giving them a routine, but they still wake us up in the wee hours of the morning. I don’t mind being awoken by the little darlings but I can barely keep my eyes open.’, Chuck complained. Helen’s chest was somewhat sore over breastfeeding the little angels but she knew the right kind of salve to soothe the pain. The only complaint she had currently was, like Chuck, she barely got any winks in edgewise at night. They had been getting awoken every night for weeks now.

‘Have you tried music ?’, Jasper and Dook asked in unison.

‘I used to look after this spoilt brat once and heavy music always calmed him down.’, Rex said.

‘Oh ! Hey ! What brings you to Angel Grove ?’, Chuck asked.

‘I thought we’d never see you again, Mitsy !’, Helen added, hugging her old friend. The poignant emotions of the past were long gone but he wondered how long she had been married to Rex. After Rock-a-Fire Explosion had disbanded and gone their own wages and Make Believe Band was formed, Mitsy had never kept in touch. It was as if she had dropped off the face of the earth. Deep in his heart he knew though, that Mitsy was alive and well, she just never had any time to answer her voice mails or correspond to his emails.

‘It’s been too long, actually. I have so much to tell you ! But first, I want to know all about your sweet little mirbies ! I remember when they were hatched ! They were so CUTE !’, Mitzy gushed.
'They're doing great !', Helen said. Chuck admitted that CJ and Amelia had been a handful, but the two parents wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.

‘The gang has been unbelievably helpful. We’ve been taking shorter hours at work so we can spend more time with them.’, he said.

‘Yep ! We don’t want to miss a single moment of their precious little lives.’, Helen concurred. The two found a table to sit down at together in the cafeteria after selecting from the multitude of options the buffet offered.
‘After Rock-A-Fire split up, I decided to become a pop star. This went well for quite a while but attendance has been down in recent years. I met Rex when I decided I needed firming and toning for my muscles, so I went to the local Gold’s gym. I guess the rest is history !’, Mitsy said. Rex smiled and felt like he had made a connection. He knew that at the early onset of meeting Chuck, he did sense some resentment and jealousy but those emotions had passed quickly.

‘Mitsy and I are thinking of starting our own little nest soon. From what you told us, it’s a lot of hard work.’, Rex stated, astutely.

‘Yes, but it is definitely worth it. It’s a full-time job that never gets boring.’, Helen admitted.

‘Oh, I was wondering if I could join the Rangers. I’ve been wanting to do some good for the community and the world. Mitzy had been reading up on the recruitment process and how accepting they are, even if we’re not the same species.’, Rex said. It seemed that Jason’s ears had prickled once he heard the word ‘recruiting’ and dashed to take care of the request. They were given the pros and cons of becoming part of the team but the two of them were very gung-ho about joining up.

‘Excellent ! You two can start tomorrow but I’d recommend getting plenty of sleep. Being a Ranger can be very tiring, trust me.’, Jason warned. It wasn’t enough of a warning to worry the duet. After all, they knew what they were getting into since Jason had discussed it at length.

The duet had other chores and duties to complete, so they excused themselves, but not without an overly exuberant tour from Alpha and his kids.

‘Looks like our shift is about to begin. I hope CJ and Amy are doing well with the sitter. I get so concerned about them !’, Helen said. She had never been the type to brood, but as a new mother, all new unfamiliar emotions had begun cropping up. She remembered what she had read about breathing and the wisdom of Khalil Gibran. Children indeed, came from her, but they weren’t hers. They were their own individuals and even in the hands of Trixie the babysitter, they would be just fine.

Chapter 3—Pizza Addiction

Gazlene had come into Chuck E. Cheese again to indulge in her pizza addiction. It wasn’t something she did normally, but she and Zim were expecting smeets soon. Their friend Alu and her husband were already busy with family life, but they had served the court well. In fact, it was Alu who had been more successful with her missions than any other Irken. Family life had taken presidence in her life now, though. Honestly, Alu couldn’t have been any happier.

‘Are you feeling well, my Queen ?’, Zim questioned. Gaz had been moving a bit more lumbersomely in days past, given that she was in her second trimester. She could still keep up with him, though.

‘Sure, Zim. I just feel like I’m overindulgent. I could eat other things but pizza is the only food I’ve been craving.’, she said.

‘Oh, I know how that feels. I get that way about tacos. It’s all I can ever think about. By the way, thank you for getting taco pizza instead of the ‘old standard’, mistress.’, Gir complimented. Gaz felt a little strange being called ‘mistress’ by Gir but in essence, he was serving her now. She had plenty of maids, butlers and the like back on Irk but she had a second home on Earth while working before preparing for the smeets’ arrival.
Gaz was absolutely delighted. She couldn’t wait to become a mom although she knew it would take a lot out of both her and Zim’s time together. The smeets would bring them closer together and as a team, they would go through highs and lows of parenting, as well as the daily learning experiences parenting provided.

Chapter 4—Our Own Little Planet to Play With
There were advanced beings that knew of Irken’s success with conquering other planets but hadn’t known Irk’s best operatives were currently on Earth as their ‘second home’. They were known as the Smoob and they had intentions on colonizing earth and collecting its species as playthings. They had collected many others before as part of their ‘planetary set’. They had come from the Tintibula Dimension, which was many light years from Earth and had been collecting, conquering and enslaving for eons. The only reason the king of Smoob, Smerb, had known of Irk or Earth was thanks to his intel. He could connect to the ether through transcendental meditation. He had seen its strange customs and it was enough to spur him toward Terra.
‘I don’t care who this Irken and his friends proclaim that they are or might be. I come to conquer and I come to COLLECT.’, Smerb vowed, rubbing his tentacles together. He had a freakish smirk on his squid-like beak. It was only a matter of time for the entire Universe to belong to him, but he didn’t know that when smeets are born, they can wield weapons of mass destruction. His ignorance was about to cost him, dearly.

Chapter 5—Somnibot’s Vision

Somnibot tossed and turned at night. So much that she was keeping Beta awake.

‘What’s wrong, honey bot ?’, he questioned.

‘There’s a big, nasty squid with proclivities toward harassing us as his playthings...’, she began, and shook her head. She was still lost in the miasma of subconscious thought.

‘That sounds dire. You haven’t had a vision like this in a long time. I would say it’s an omen and we should definitely take it seriously.’, Asimo agreed. The two of them awoke, even though it was the dead of night and went to awaken Zordon. Zordon was well acquainted with other dimensional beings and he had known of the Smoob. He had never encountered them before but they, and their regent, Smerb, sounded plenty nasty.

‘We have to prepare. Everyone is going to need to be ready for this fight. We’re going to need our mechs, our best fighting armada. Earth is going to be counting on us.’, Zordon said, trying not to sound worried. He said this because he honestly didn’t have much data about the Smoob and they were a vast unknown in his database. He was navigating an unexplored country. It didn’t mean that he was about to give in to fear though. They had plenty of allies and more than half of them had mechs with which to fight.

Chapter 6—Rally the Troops !

Mickey and Minny alerted the Cast Members and the other characters of the attack.
    'Well boss, if this is the case, we need to evacuate the entire resort complex. All WDW properties !', one CM, named Valerie, said astutely. Everything happened within picoseconds. From the backyard, Zim could see mighty Mechs rising from the Walt Disney World resort.
‘Should we join this fight not really knowing what it’s about ?’, Gir said, bedazzled and astonished.

‘I get the feeling in my squiddleyspooch that whoever these humongous mechs are fighting are REALLY bad news. I think it behooves us to join them. They might not know us, but they will. Soon.’, Zim said, confidently.

‘I love it when you become all megalomaniacal.’, Gaz said, romantically as she took Zim’s arm and was escorted into Zim’s new and improved battle cruiser. Like the other giant robots, it too, could transform and it was manned by Zim, Gir and Gaz as a team.

Smeeb glowered and grumbled.

‘How...There is NO possible way these little gnats could’ve known of our siege !’, he barked.

‘Erm, Sir, uh...Have you heard of a wizard named Zordon ?’, a courtesan named Blurb asked.

‘No such name is located in my database. Doesn’t sound familiar, either.’, Smeeb responded, clearly becoming more irate. His green-turquoise body was beginning to turn crimson with rage.

‘He is an all powerful wizard. Seems he has your information in a database, all thanks to a Prophetic AI. Not that any of that matters.’, a soldier named Merb piped up.
‘Incoming !’, Squib screeched as he put up the shields just in time to defend their large battle cruiser. Even in the face of the mechs, the cruiser was far bigger and more intimidating. Smeeb also had the power of necromancy on his side. Whatever force he wished to create, he did so, using the essence of his thoughts.
‘Guys, he’s coming at us on every side. He sent jellyfish, narwhals and an array of violent sea creatures far bigger than any garden variety Terran aquatic dweller to finish them off.

‘I’ve got it !’, Somnibot proclaimed.

‘What’s that ?’, Beta asked, curiously.

‘If he can’t think straight, he’ll have trouble forming complete thoughts.’, Somnibot stated. Since she was a bot who could manipulate sound waves she began singing and Smeeb found it hard to continue sending forth malicious thoughts to destroy his foes. One by one everyone attacked in sequence, focusing on the weaknesses of the craft. All at once, his ventilation ducts started leaking.

‘Retreat ! Retreat ! We need to get out of here and fast ! Forget about coming back ! My collection is just fine without these rare pieces.’, Smeeb said, frantically. He did his best to turn tail and run but Megas XLR finished him off with a broadstroak, slicing the craft in twain.

‘Too easy.’, Jaime said, triumphantly. Coop and Jaime gave each other a high-five. They knew they would have to reward each other with junk food as soon as they returned to earth.

Epilogue

The Smoob were never seen or heard from again. Once Smeeb had been destroyed, the remaining factions on the planet began vying for position and began to become riotous, committing anarchy on their homeworld. The homeworld was running on a Dyson sphere and one of the scientists decided to switch it over to black hole mode. Sadly, the planet imploded, so Smoob in essence, destroyed itself.

Everything had resumed its normal ebb and flow. The ‘kids’ that had come to the Pizza Palace were back.

‘I want to thank you for lending a helping hand back there. You didn’t have to, but you charged into battle. Had it not been for you, I don’t think we would’ve had a fighting chance.’, Helen said, thanking the young ‘boy’ that she knew was an alien. Helen had been briefed on Irkens and this little boy’s eyes didn’t seem like typical human’s eyes. It didn’t bother her. She worked with an alien after all, so this was nothing new.

‘It was him, or me ! Someday, all of you puny earthlings will be our servants ! Victory will be Zim’s !’, Zim decreed.

‘He keeps saying that. It never happens. Don’t fret too much over it.’, Gaz whispered. She was getting further along in her pregnancy and soon she would be a mother as well. Helen couldn’t help but grin at that fact. Gaz and Zim didn’t live too far away from where Chuck and she were located. More than likely, her mirbs and the adorable little smeets would be classmates. She beamed at the possibilities. Presently, however, she kept her mind on entertaining her guests and doing a fantastic job at work. Sure it wasn’t all bells and whistles but she enjoyed it because she was close to her wonderful husband and friend.

To be Continued…