My fanfic of Papa Louie: When Pizzas Attack! - By Paulitastic
Chapter 3: Befriend the Onion Tribe.
Papa’s Pizzeria - November 9th, 20XX - Night
“...”
Joy’s playful - yet melancholic - mood shifted abruptly to a sorrowful one when her brother confirmed to her that Papa and several other people were in danger. It wasn’t that she fully believed him at the moment, but rather that Roy seemed to imply he wouldn’t have asked her to come home otherwise. Her profound silence let him know what she was thinking.
“No, I… I mean-”
“I get it.” Joy interrupted, cold as stone.
She cut the call before Roy could say goodbye.
Disheartened, he let out a tired yawn and searched for the restaurant key in his pockets to lock the door; then he flipped the sign from "OPEN" to "CLOSED" and removed the one advertising the tenants-only free pizza day from the shop window. He looked back at the disastrous interior of Papa's Pizzeria from his position: Unless he wanted to spend the whole night sweeping, mopping, throwing out whatever was broken, and rearranging the tables, he had to put the matter out of his mind so he could bathe and go to bed at a decent hour.
Neither the gentle brush of water and foam against his body, nor the warm sheets of his bed could bring him the mental peace needed to sleep comfortably. Roy tossed and turned for hours, nervously wondering about so many things that were beyond his control.
What if Joy didn't show up tomorrow? He probably would’ve to fight his way to Papa Louie with no help, something impossible in his square mindset. He has always been the weakling, the little boy who couldn’t fend against the bullies at school without his sister; and despite how much his father yelled at him to “man up”, he never achieved the independence and strength necessary to fulfil his expectations. He was Roy, the delivery boy… And nothing else.
Was there even a way back to the food dimension? He had no idea, but amidst his catastrophic thoughts, he laid the groundwork for a rescue plan he would execute with Joy (in the best-case scenario), a few rescued tenants (unlikely to happen), or completely alone.
And, above all these questions, where could his uncle be?
Onion tribe - November 9th, 20XX - Night
After tying his arms with spaghetti vines and removing the pizza monster out of his head, the masked onions took Papa Louie far deeper into the pasta jungle. The speed with which they transferred him and the darkness of the surroundings prevented Papa from clearly discerning the route they took, but upon arrival, he quickly realized they entered in their tribe's territory: All their small houses were built of dried pasta, but only those belonging to the clan's highest-ranking members were situated over the treetops, while the majority clustered around the communal bonfire. It was fueled by dry noodles, too.
Without hesitation they cut the spaghetti ropes and threw him straight into a cage similar to Pauly’s, located on the edge between their village and the jungle. The chef crashed face-first against the cold steel of the cell wall and dazed by the pain, he let his body slowly slide down to the floor; but when he tried to turn around and face his captors, an imposing shadow shoved them aside with its huge hands and maliciously gripped one of the bars to scare him.
It was Sarge. Backlit by the fire, only his enormous eyes and his smile - which had a very prominent lower lip - were visible on his violet face; frightening Papa to the point he backed himself into the farthest corner of the cage, where he kept trembling like a feral dog.
“Well, well, well… Look who we have here: The last human I needed for my collection!”
Neither of them actually knew the whereabouts of the other tenants, but he stated it with such certainty that Papa believed his tribal allies managed to capture them all again.
“No…”
“YES!” He shouted, letting out a burst of laughter afterwards. “You have no idea how happy I am to see you trapped, Papa Louie.”
“H-how do you know my name?!”
“That’s none of your business!!! Am I clear?!”
In a fit of rage, Sarge looked at him threateningly before lunging onto the bars with both hands open, making the prisoner nod in fear. Satisfied with the answer, he began to walk away, rubbing his hands together with eagerness.
“Good… When my superior sees you and your little friends in the morning report… Who knows? Maybe I’ll get promoted to Staff Sergeant, or Sergeant First Class, or- Or even higher, HA HA!!!” He celebrated, raising his arms above his helmet.
However, his expression quickly hardened again in front of two masked guards, each positioned on a side of the jail.
“AND YOU! Keep watching over him. I wouldn't want to wake up tomorrow and see that one of those freaks of nature ate half the jungle before escaping.”
The guards responded with a gesture of loyalty by striking the ground with their spears as Sarge left, and then they crossed them in front of Louie’s cage to make sure he couldn’t try any of his tricks, making him regret teaching Roy his useless motto.
There was nothing else to do than give up.
Papa’s Pizzeria - November 10th, 20XX - Morning
Roy didn't sleep a wink until the early hours of the morning when he finally collapsed over his messy bed, only for the nine-o'clock alarm to blast his eardrums with its electronic noise.
“Uuuugggggghhhhhh…” He grunted while rubbing his red, dry eyes.
Once he swatted it off, Roy changed his clothes and shuffled like a zombie toward the kitchen to grab a Hyper Green “Kickstart” and some Creameos, like he always did after delivering pizzas in late night shifts. The huge amount of caffeine from the drink and the adrenaline rush by the urgency of saving his uncle brought him back to life in a flash!... With a nasty headache.
It wasn’t the worst of his problems, though: Roy had just realized that someone sneaked into the kitchen when he wasn't looking, because he felt a shiver down his spine the moment they touched his back with their index finger.
“Boo.”
“AHH!” Roy shrieked with the voice of a preteen. “JOY!!!! H-how the heck did you get in?!”
“Well, the entrance’s sign said «CLOSED» so, to avoid drawing attention, I opened the back door with my copy of the Pizzeria’s keys instead."
“Huh. So you didn't hand them to Papa before moving.”
“No… Every year I forget to do so, heh.” She answered in embarrassment, shifting her gaze toward her organized keychain. Its golden gleam lit up her eyes quite a bit.
Joy remained that way for a couple seconds before noticing that her brother was approaching her step by step while slowly raising his arms, just to stop when her confused expression dissuaded him from trying to hug her. It wasn’t the right moment to be corny.
“Umm… What did you need me for?”
“Ah, yeah. Yeah… Follow me.”
Roy guided her to the dining room, where she was left aghast by an immense pool of dried marinara sauce which coated the overturned tables and chairs, the broken dishes, and the filthy floor in a deep burgundy-red. If it wasn’t for the bits of tomato, onion, basil, and garlic scattered all over the place, she would've mistaken it for a bloody crime scene.
“We need to recreate the accident.”
“W-what accident?...”
“Listen: Papa was making some pizzas for the party, but they became ALIVE seconds after he added this pepper, like, out of magic or something!” He explained, grabbing it from the table in front of them. “When that happened, I got scared and crushed one of them over the table, but it started glowing and sucked everyone in and I managed to close the pizza box and run to the kitchen to warn Papa, but by mistake I dropped it and both got transported to a food dimension with «food people» that captured me and-”
“WOWOWOW, SLOW DOWN.” She interrupted, bewildered by his story.
“OK, OK… The point is that me and seven more people came back without Louie, so my plan is to make another pizza monster so we can kill it, open up a new portal and save him. Any questions?”
“... Isn’t there another way?"
“Not that I know of.”
Roy's proposal struck her as immoral, but she agreed, knowing that Papa would do the same - and much more - for them. When they returned to the kitchen, he explained to Joy what they were going to do next.
“Before anything else, we need to find the easiest, fastest way to find out which variety opens the portal because some of them just turn into cheese splats when dying, AND I don’t wanna cook ten pizzas like Papa did.”
“Hmm, then he must’ve done something different when making it.”
“Sure, but what?”
After saying this, Roy started searching for the ingredients Papa used in his pizzas yesterday: tomato sauce, cheese, the toppings and, of course, the mutagenic red pepper. Only one thing was missing.
“Tsk, we’re out of dough. Can you help me make another batch?”
“I can’t remember how to do it.” Joy confessed, shrugging with not much interest. “To be honest, I don't think I've made homemade pizza since we were kids… With Papa.”
“Oh, if only he could hear you right now! Did you learn anything in all these years???”
“Did you?”
Her snarky response freezed him. Of course he remembered the Saturday nights Papa insisted them to watch him prepare pizza for dinner; and sometimes, he and his sister would assist him in the kitchen the best they could, following his helpful indications and cooking tricks. However, practice makes perfect, and that’s exactly what he lacked because of his mediocre position as a delivery boy. It wasn’t that he wanted to be a chef like him, quite the opposite; he knew the pressure his uncle faced every day and tried to avoid it at all costs.
“I… I know a thing or two, but… I can’t promise our dough will turn out great.”
“It doesn't need to. As long as we can make it work for a pizza monster, we should be fine.”
“Y-yeah.”
Roy delved into his memories and imagined him kneading happily the night before opening Papa’s Pizzeria for the first time. Curious, their younger selves asked Louie what ingredients his dough had, and so he invited them to stay and listen to his teachings.
“I’m glad you asked.” Papa Louie said in his mind. “It usually has 6 cups of flour, 2 cups of warm water, 4 and a quarter teaspoons of fresh yeast, 2 tea spoons of salt, a quarter of a cup of oil and two spoons of sugar; but because I plan to sell pizzas to the neighbors tomorrow, I multiplied the recipe by five.”
“And how many pizzas are equivalent to that recipe?” His sister asked, once Roy put his thoughts into words.
“Ermmmm… Four pizzas. That’s enough to make one portal to enter and one to exit, plus an extra pizza for each one just in case.”
“Neat.”
Onion tribe - November 10th, 20XX - Morning
Papa spent the night even worse than Roy, lying in his cell without any blanket - although the weather remained mild, fortunately - or pillow to rest his head on; so he tried to rest by pulling his chef’s hat down over his eyes like a sleep mask. It is also worth mentioning that the sudden noises of the jungle’s nocturnal snackimals woke him up more than five times before dawn.
Half asleep, he began to hear the distant rumble of a tribal drum, which interested him enough to take off his chef's hat and approach the bars of his cage to get a better look at what was happening. He saw around 25 more masked onions of all ages emerging from their homes to share breakfast by the campfire, where an elderly female onion was adding and stirring certain ingredients into a cauldron: spaghetti vines, a large pitcher of river sauce, basil leaves, and three giant, chopped-up meatballs. Papa’s mouth watered upon sniffing its exquisite aroma in the air, but then he sat with his back to them, thinking that no one would offer him even a taste.
However, he was quickly proven wrong. A young adult onion approached his cell, looking at him with a compassionate yet serious expression. She wore her long, leafy hair pulled back in a braid, and her green eyes stood out in the holes of her whole-wheat pasta mask which, compared to those of her peers, indicated she was of higher rank.
One of the masked guards pulled from the chain mechanism just a bit to let her slide a bowl of spaghetti inside, letting the bars fall immediately after. Given this, Louie smiled at her gratefully and took the plate as he knelt, bringing himself down to her eye level.
“Thanks.”
Papa sat down to eat just as she was leaving, but, because he had no utensils, he tried slurping the noodles straight from the bowl. Unfortunately, the ground began to shake with the arrival of Sarge and his militia - accompanied this time by the Kaiser Onions, who wore black spiked helmets - causing him to accidentally spill all the food onto his white chef uniform.
“Oh s… paghetti!”
“ATTENTION. I want you all to form a line NOW!!!” Sarge shouted at the tribe.
Nervous, some masked onions escaped to the jungle while others carried out the order as quickly as possible. The green eyed one stood next to her father, who was a bit bigger than everyone else and also wore a whole-wheat noodle mask, this time adorned with basil leaves on its sides to indicate he was the chief.
Once they remained still in their places, Sarge started pacing back and forth in front of the tribe while recounting what happened to him in all his rage.
“Listen closely, you savages. Earlier this morning, I sent my best soldiers from Fort Onion to inspect each cage you «protected» before reporting the capture of 21 humans to my superior… And what did they tell me? That 8 of them ESCAPED!”
Papa gasped in his cage at the good news; on the other hand, the younger masked onions began to tremble behind their mothers when he showed them a large, empty sack on his hands.
“And I don't believe it was an accident. If the rebels don’t come forward this instant, I'm taking you ALL back to the Sausage Mines!!!”
Only one of them was brave enough to take off her mask and move a step closer to him: It was the chief’s daughter, of course.
“Sibura?!” Her father exclaimed, shocked by the revelation.
“Just as I thought. Don't waste my time and get inside, kid.” He ordered, opening his bag all the way to the floor.
“No. We're tired of your extortion, Sarge.”
In answer to her claim, he and the Kaisers started to approach her defiantly, but the masked chief intervened, trying to talk it out.
“Daughter, please-”
“Don’t even start, father! You tried to convince everyone he would let us alone if we did his dirty work right, but we know that in the end, both tribes will be exploited by the Onion Ring.” She stated firmly at first, but her voice began to break out of sadness. “I know y-you lied to bring us hope, but by trapping them… we're b-being just as evil as him.”
“...”
“Aww, poor things. You’re gonna make me cry!” Sarge whimpered mockingly, waving his fists beneath the eyes as if wiping away invisible tears. Suddenly, he looked upward after seeing some leaves fall around him and exclaimed. “What the-”
Seconds after hearing the keyword "evil", those who had initially escaped nimbly descended the spaghetti-like vines from the nearby treetops and surrounded Sarge's army with their spears, to which he reacted with a fearless, mischievous smile. Before they could do anything, he got out of danger by performing a jump twice the length of their weapons, taking a super pepper bomb from beneath his helmet midair - a surprise attack he’d been saving for situations like this - and without mercy, hurling it against the whole heap of onions before landing, hitting masked and Kaisers alike with an explosive blend of black pepper and gunpowder which knocked the majority out of action. The few who were still standing emerged from the cloud of condiments at a disadvantage, whether coughing, sneezing, or having blurred vision due to watery eyes; so he started throwing them one by one in his bag to, later on, transport the Kaisers to Fort Onion and the masked to the Sausage Mines.
“RUN!!!” Sibura screamed to her remaining peers while sprinting to Papa Louie’s cage. She looked him straight in the eyes before opening it, uttering a simple condition that sounded more like a plea. “Help my people.”
At his nod of approval, she let him go join the others while she picked up a loose spear from one of the warriors defeated along the way to charge at Sarge with a profound resentment that clouded her judgment; but when she was just inches away from him, the military onion crouched down to use his helmet as a shield that shattered her fragile weapon upon contact. Sibura fell stunned to the ground, and was easily captured by Sarge like the rest.
While this was happening, Papa helped the tribe by gathering the oldest onions and the children in his arms; in this way, he followed the other masked onions toward a makeshift pulley system at the base of the area's tallest tree, which a group of guards used to transport them to their hideout - the chief's treehouse - without having to climb like the others did. Its interior was more spacious and refined than the other homes, yet Papa had to squeeze among the onions to fit inside, stooping a little to avoid hitting his head against the ceiling.
“I knew it wasn't going to work. Why won’t she listen to me?...” The chief lamented quietly, crying behind his mask.
Papa’s Pizzeria - November 10th, 20XX - Late morning
Roy and Joy had just finished kneading the pizzas after an arduous half-hourish of work. Then, his sister searched for kitchen utensils they could use as “weapons” while he flattened the dough into four circles as best he could and brushed each with sauce.
“Hmmm… Too aggressive, too harmless, too heavy, too lightweight… Aha!” Joy told herself when discarding a huge kitchen knife, a silicone spatula, a meat mallet, and a hand whisk; until she took two pizza cutters from a drawer and wielded them like a pair of sai daggers. “What better way to finish off some pizza monsters than slashing them with pizza cutters?”
“Uh… I was planning to use Papa’s pizza peel so umm, you can use both if you want.”
“Awesome!” She exclaimed, before starting to slash at the air with them just for practice. Her combat skills in the realm of ninjutsu were undoubtedly impressive, thanks to years of training at Sakura Bay’s Kunoichi Dojo, the best martial arts gym in all of Gurth.
He ignored her display of talent to focus on examining and selecting the pizza toppings: As ridiculous as it might sound, he believed that at least one of them had to be the key to creating the portal because there was no other variable he could think of. The crust and sauce flavors weren't customizable back then and, since Papa prepared them for a pizza party, he probably used the same cooking time to make things easier.
Roy arranged before him seven jars that contained pepperoni, mushrooms, olives, onions (which, he couldn’t deny, felt uncanny to see after his experience with the onion-folks), peppers, anchovies and sausage; and started to observe them with the attention of a scientist in the lab. Nothing seemed weird at first.
“Hmm…”
It was then that he gasped upon remembering a crucial piece of information: the pizza monster he fought yesterday had mushroom eyes. Without a second thought, he grabbed a slice of said ingredient between his fingers and stared at it for a long time, wondering how something so simple could open the way to another dimension if baked in a pizza. He soon would find the answer to it, as he saw how his fingertips got stained with an artificial white powder the more he rubbed the mushroom’s exterior.
The young man hurriedly washed all the slices in the sink using a colander, and discovered with horror that the mushrooms Papa Louie had used for his pizzas were black with white dots on the outside and oozed rainbow liquids from the inside… Rainbow liquids?!
“J-joy, look at this!” Roy exclaimed after dropping the colander’s content over the cutting board.
“What the…”
With no other choice in mind, they added the magic mushrooms to the pizzas before putting them in the oven. Roy was glad nobody got the chance to eat them at the party tables, because if that were the case, they probably would’ve sent many people to the hospital; however, the sabotage was so outrageous that by impulse he felt someone should clear up the situation in a phone call.
“Hello?” Big Pauly answered. His voice sounded a bit cautious.
“Don’t get scared or anything, but it's me, Roy. I’m just letting you know that, if you don’t come to the Pizzeria from wherever you are right now, I'll call the police for real. Selling mutant red pepper to my uncle is one thing, but weird shrooms that open up portals??? How many shady businesses are you in, man?!”
“W-what??? What do you-”
Roy cut the call abruptly, and went to unlock the restaurant entrance door in a bad mood.
“Who did you call?!”
“Paul.”
“And he sells groceries now?”
“... No.” He confessed, blushing so deeply with shame that he covered his face and muttered something under his breath, full of remorse. “AGH!!! Stupid, stupid Roy!”
There was no turning back now. A minute later, the poor man arrived at the pizzeria from his business next door, sweating and breathing heavily from the anxiety. His expression couldn't have looked more pitiful.
“I… I beg you, stop blaming me for what happened to Louie. I have no idea what’s going on, why my pepper did what it did, how to get my family back… I-”
“You’re free to go. Roy is very sorry for threatening you to come here, RIGHT?” Joy asked her brother, who could only respond by shrinking even more.
“Ah, thank goodness… But before I leave, what was all that «weird portal shrooms» thing about?”
“Oh, yeah! My brother found out that our mushrooms got replaced by some weird «rainbow fungi» that created the portal you all got sucked in yesterday.”
“OHHHH! S-so that means-”
“Yes.”
Tearfully, the pepper salesman wrapped both Joy and Roy in a tight hug, even if the latter didn’t deserve his affection.
“I wish I could help in your adventure, but… I’m slow, and fat…”
“Don't worry, Paul; in any case, we don't want anyone else to be in danger.”
“Umm… What if you sell us some «pepper bombs»? That could be helpful.” Roy proposed to him.
“Ah, sure!” He responded before promising to come back soon.
When Roy removed the freshly baked pizzas out of the oven and put them into boxes, Big Pauly passed by the entrance again carrying a heavy backpack, which he left on the ground and unzipped in front of them: it had inside a wooden box that revealed twenty shakers under the lid.
“Be careful with these. A single pepper bomb can explode in a wide range, so NEVER launch them too close to you.”
“Great. How much for the box?”
“No need to pay me, guys; it would be shameless to charge you in a situation like this.”
Paul shook their hands before leaving for good; so Roy waited for her to grab a pepper bomb before putting on his backpack to carry out the final part of his plan. On the count of three, he placed an open pizza box on the ground, sprinkled it with red pepper, and sprinted away; but before the monster could launch a leaping attack, a stunned Joy threw the explosive at it with pinpoint accuracy, splattering the already grimy floor with cheese and sauce. Just as predicted, the inert remains were rapidly drawn toward the box - as if pulled by a gravitational force - and began to spin in ever-faster circles until a golden light started to emanate from within.
The siblings made sure to put the mutant pepper in the space the pepper bomb used to be, and grab both the remaining three pizzas and their utensils/weapons before venturing into the portal with only one mission in mind: Saving Papa.
END OF CHAPTER 3.
