Early one morning, Pencilsnake woke up to a serene kind of silence. Birds chirped here and there, the palm trees in his yard swayed gently in the wind, but the world was quiet, for the most part. And that was a huge fücking problem. There was no bustle from town square, no distant booms of wars being fought, even the television (usually full of presidential messages and debates this time of year) was stuck on a test code. Pencilsnake, alert and awake in seconds practically jumped into his boots and ran outside. No vehicles on the highway. He sprinted to the nearest house. [quote]Pencilsnake: *knocks on door vigorously* HEY!! Is anybody in there?[/quote] After a minute or so of tense waiting, Tiger opened the door. But his eyes... they were glassed over, a blank expression on his face. [quote]Pencilsnake: Oh thank goodness, I though Nil had abducted everybody, or maybe Virus had... wait. Are you ok? Tiger: No. I’m grounded. Pencilsnake: Grounded? Why? And by whom? *narrows eyes* Did the ninjas finally snap? Tiger: Not banned, grounded. And you won’t see me again until the memes are gone.[/quote] And with that deadpan declaration of doom, Tiger slammed the door shut. [quote]Pencilsnake: What the what? Something is seriously wrong here.[/quote] Getting on his Harley (which was deafening compared to the previous lack of noise), Pencilsnake headed into town. Going door to door, the horrific truth began to surface. [i]Everyone[/i] was grounded!! Tippy, Charles, Loot Crate... even Speaker was grounded! All following the same pattern, claiming that you wouldn’t see them until whatever their most defining trait was is GONE. Pencilsnake began to panic. [quote]Pencilsnake: Oh man, oh man oh man oh man this is really bad! This is super bad! This- ???: [i]Psssst[/i] Pencilsnake: What? Who’s there? ??? [i]Psst, over here[/i][/quote] Pencil looks over at the alley where a cloaked figure is hunched. The vaguely human shape is beckoning Pencilsnake to come closer... and... dripping? [quote]Pencilsnake: *approaching* Who are you? Do you know why everyone says they’re grounded? I didn’t even know a lot crate could [i]get[/i] grounded. ???: [i]Why, yes, I do....[/i] [/quote] At this point, Pencilsnake is within arms distance of the figure (Perhaps a bit foolish, but hey, he’s a trusting guy). The substance dripping from the stranger onto the ground is... MARINARA SAUCE!?! Throwing off its cloak, a monster rises up before Pencil, a monster made entirely of spaghetti!! The monster grabs our hero!! [quote]Pencilsnake: AHHHH!!!! A COPYPASTA!!![/quote] Pencilsnake tries to whip out his revolver, but the pasta monster has too tight a grip for Pencil to free his pinned arms! It looks like this is the end for our bodacious bard..... //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// This story is grounded. Not banned, grounded. You won’t see it u-until t-t-the the- until until the the the the the \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ *A gargantuan detonation of pasta and meatballs erupts from an alleyway* *A man, covered in red sauce, falls out of the sky* [quote]Pencilsnake: *coughing* I swear, never again will I sing “That’s Amore” to the tune of “Drones”, by Muse. The combination is too powerful...[/quote] As Offtopicans trickle into town, rubbing their eyes as if waking from a bad dream (and staring at our pasta-plastered protagonist), Pencilsnake knows, the threat is over. [spoiler][i]Or is it...[/i][/spoiler] ——————————————————— Thanks for reading through all that, I felt a little guilty for not having posted one of these in a while. Hopefully you got a kick out of (what is supposed to be) a lighthearted tale.