Era of the Spaghetti-Os Ban

It's an All Hail King Julien fanfic.
== Part 1 ==
CHAPTER ONE:
And so the Story Starts…
It was morning. Just peace and quiet in King Julien's hut. He was sound asleep, snuggled in the warm leaf blankets.
Then some tropical bird sounds broke out.
“Good morning Madagascar,” Xixi started talking as she flew in… “It’s five past the hour of six a.m in the grand Malagasy islands. Temperature’s going to be a bit of a scorcher – about 85 degrees Fahrenheit, which can be good news for diurnal reptiles, and it’s going to be a nice day to perhaps sleep in, relax, or just simply GET OFF YOUR REAR END!”
With a twitch and extra fast reflexes, Julien got up and made Xixi fly out the window. He got out of bed, full of energy, then takes himself downwards to the rest of the house. With a zip he enters the bathroom, then closes the door, enters the bamboo shower and closes the shower curtain and takes a shower.
After some time, Julien dries himself off, and then entered the kitchen, opened the door to the pantry and found some pancake mix (which is packaged in plastic bottles) and a few packets of oatmeal. He placed the items on the bench and wondered what to do first.
Then after receiving a brainwave, Julien decided to start off with the pancakes. He added some water in the pancake mix bottle (with the dehydrated powder still in it), then screwed the cap on the bottle tightly and shook it a few times. Then he got out a frypan, placed it on a stove and after lighting it up, he places the mixture into the frying pan. Patiently he watched as the pancake was cooking away in the frypan, flipping to each side at regular intervals. When the pancakes were all cooked, he placed each one in a stack (and there were five in a stack altogether so to speak). Finally, the pancake stack was garnished with a shot of maple syrup and some banana slices. (Oh and there’s a placecard in front of the stack reading: “For Clo-Clo: my guardian angel”
After some time spent cooking the pancakes, Julien placed a small bowl and placed a small amount of oatmeal in it. (Then again, a placecard reading “For Momo: my bro-mo”. 0_0)
Julien placed the items onto a little tray and carried it all the way to Mort's stump, as quietly as he could. He carefully set down the tray, picked up the plate with the stack of pancakes on top and then placed it near Clover's hut. Next, he carried the bowl full of oatmeal and placed it near Maurice’s hut. Satisfied with the work done for his two main companions, he went in the kitchen for some mangoes, mangoes, and, you guessed it, MANGOES.
~ --- ~^O^~ --- ~
After some time, Julien left the hut, then ran down the tree, then went all the way from his home, all the way to the baobab tree. Well, it was a barren road from here to there.  But despite maintaining perfect balance, he arrived there at top speed.
After stopping, Julien entered the plane by one of its rear emergency exits, then entered by the lock-chamber, which was closed at night. (Luckily, he knew the key to opening the lock-chamber to gain access to the rest of the plane – he keyed in a number (possibly up to 6 digits worth) and if the number he had guessed is right, then the lock-chamber’s doors will remain open … that is, until he had to lock the plane’s doors for the night.)
It was pretty spacious in the area Julien entered directly through the rear emergency exit: it was pretty much the lounge and rec room area of the plane in the décor that was used for the ‘Lockheed Electra’ venue. Now the plane pretty much makes up the sleeping quarters for a lot of the lemurs. He inspected the area and then twitched his ears left, then right, then all the way back. After finally knowing where that sound is coming from, he entered one of the corridors (in which they were the overhead baggage bins, where some lemurs currently slept in.)
When Julien walked down the corridor, he found that there are at least twenty bins. And in one of the last bins was a loud snoring sound, which, if you can listen carefully, can be heard from outside the entrance of the corridor. As brave as he can go, he decided to open the door a crack to see if whoever is fast asleep or about to wake up.
Julien slowly opened the bin, so as not to wake up the bin dwellers (a term for those living in dorm rooms.).
The overhead baggage bin was messy. There were three hoodies, five blankets and at least six suitcases scattered on the floor, which obviously meant that they were not always tidy. And there were not only one lemur sleeping in the baggage bin, there were five. One of them was Butterfish, who was a large tan brown lemur who is usually seen with his wife, Tammy as he needs to go to work, or being a bouncer at events such as parties and concerts. And his roommates are Tammy, who is a cream-colored brown lemur with fire-ant larvae-made leaf-in conditioned hair who has a son named Todd, who although she loves, tends to add a lot of pressure on him. Sleeping with the family of three are Dorothy, who is a Mongoose lemur who is sweet, hospitable, emotional, and slightly panicky, and appears to be pretty-level headed although she tends to be clueless at times, and Ted, who is a bamboo lemur who can basically be described as imaginative, cutesy, dramatic, and sometimes awkward and ditzy. He tends to get nervous very easily, sometimes the point of having accident. They sleep together in separate suitcases, ignoring the fact that Julien has snuck in the room to wake them up.
Julien approached to one of the suitcases that Dorothy and Ted are sleeping in. Ted was facing the wall, lying on one side of the bed. He giggled as if things are going well in his dreams. Which means, Ted is happy with life and all is okay with it. But Butterfish, no matter how well he gets on with life, is always a loud snorer, but neither Ted or Dorothy care, since they fall asleep even before Butterfish does. While every effort has been made to make sure Julien doesn’t wake him up, Julien slowly stroked Ted down his back, which made Ted giggle even more. (This explains that he likes being cuddled up to one another, whether it be another lemur or another animal.)
Julien waited for some time.  Ted did not wake up… he was still into deep sleep, giggling, not even caring that Julien is trying to wake him up.  Instead, he held tightly on the blankets covering him.
Julien stared at Ted in the face, then quietly left the dorm room, and quietly closed the door, yet leaving it open by a crack so he can enter easily to check on them if they are awake. But as Julien left the door, he heard a loud yawning sound, which came from a different baggage bin, which possibly is on the other side of the corridor. Julien quietly approached the door, then sniffed the area… and it smelt of juices…
“Horst, are you awake?” Julien spoke out from amongst the silence, cheerfully.
Well, for those who don’t know, Horst, who is a Sclater's black lemur, not much is known about him. He's kind of a loner, fears change, and is often seen holding a beverage. He will sometimes be the DJ of different events, although he isn't very good at acting "cool" as he does this, and he doesn't take song requests. He was also married to a fossa named Mary Ann, but their marriage didn't last after Mary Ann had mauled him multiple times and thought he was dead. And oddly enough, he doesn’t seem to be alone, having at least three female lemurs for company.
Horst opened the door by a crack. Then he found Julien, who was staring at him back.
“Oh, good morning, Julien,” Horst moaned as he tried to leave the baggage bin.
Julien entered the baggage bin, and it wasn’t as messy as the other baggage bin Julien went in before. No sign of clothes being scattered across the floor, and there were three female lemurs. sleeping in his baggage bin. Julien thought twice about what lemurs he should wake up, then he decided that they sleep until they choose to wake up… so he left the baggage bin, and re-entered the one he went in earlier.
But Ted wasn’t lying calm like he did before… he was twitching, moaning and giggling in his sleep. That means either he is aroused by something, or he might be having nightmares, or he is leaving his dream-like state to wake up from his sleep. But he wasn’t aroused, or scared… he was trying to wake up. He opened his eyes and then moaned as if he had slept too little. He yawned and then attempted to get out of bed. But he had caught Julien entering the baggage bin.
“Julien?” Ted whined, as if something odd happened to him.
“Good morning, Ted,” Julien greeted. “How well did you sleep?”
“It was okay,” Ted replied, tired, as he fell off his baggage bin right down to the floor. He likes having himself falling down when he woke up in the morning. Then he got up off the floor as if he was half-refreshed.
Butterfish, Tammy, and Todd were still asleep, snoring loudly. It appears that Butterfish and Tammy were heavy sleepers, and they kind of liked it. Butterfish refused to budge out of bed, not even for a second. Julien decided to making loud noises. As Julien started screaming unintelligently, Butterfish and Tammy moaned pleasurably. Then Butterfish growled, then slowly opened his eyes, and then emitted a loud yawn. Finally, Butterfish, Tammy, and Todd woke up and stared at King Julien, eye to eye.
“Oh? Is it time already?” Butterfish yawned, as he got out of the suitcasae and walked out of the baggage bin, irritable.
Then, Julien decided to clean the mess and tidy up the plane a little bit. He picked up the blankets, then placed the hoodies onto Ted's baggage bin, and then placed the straps into the strap cupboard, which is a miniature box located next to their seats. The place seems to be a bit more neater now, Julien thought, as he left the baggage bin and closed the door behind him. 
However, as Julien left the dorm room, he saw lots of the other lemurs coming out of their baggage bins from his screaming and yowling, as if another day has come to greet them all. Lots of the lemurs greeted each other and within minutes they were in the lounge room of the plane. Julien watched the scene as if all is well with it.
“Hey King Julien!” Willie called from another side of the lounge. “Don’t just stand there, we’ve got lots to feed!”
Julien decided to leave the lounge and enter the cockpit.
A floor below is the galley, dining room and washrooms. And one of the lemurs. in the galley was Dorothy. She has a serving spoon in her left arm and she is busy monitoring the oatmeal, which is still cooking in the boiler (which is a special kind of stove that cooks a large amount of food, especially for an especially small number of endangered species).
“Hey, Julien, how’s it going?” Dorothy started, even though it was hard work cooking up lots of oatmeal.
Julien chuckled, in reply: “They’re alright. Well, it’s hard tidying up the rooms of some subjects… especially if they aren’t fond of tidying up their own bins!”
“Yeah, some of them may be a bit like that,” Dorothy replied. “I certainly think so.” She stares at the ground and then approaches Julien. “Y’know what, Julien, I’m thinking of cutting time feeding the lemurs, so they can get to work earlier and have more time to themselves.”
Julien thought for a minute. Then he got an idea. He faced Dorothy and stared at him happily, and then took a deep breath to say: “Maybe it’s given me an idea…”
Julien entered the storeroom, while Dorothy was watching him. In surprise, she watched him tug a reverse-cycle vacuum pump machine, which dispenses any type of liquid and substances out through an output pipe. Then he got out a blaster and took out the ammunition and then jammed the juicer’s outlet with the output pipe, then screwed it on tightly. After that, Dorothy used a serving spoon to place the mango mixture into the vacuum pump’s storage unit. All this was done while Willie set out the plates and feeding bowls on each bench.  After checking the connections, Dorothy wheeled the unit into the cafeteria room, then turned on the machine. While the machine was running, Julien aimed the blaster at one of the bowls while the pipe fills up with mango mixtures. After some time he pressed the trigger on the blaster…
The mango mixture landed in the bowl cleanly with a splat. It had filled the bowl close to the edges.
Successfully, Julien went to the next bowl and used the blaster to fill the feeding bowls with mango mixtures. It went on until Julien reckons all the feeding bowls are filled up to the edges.  While the entire bowl filling is going on, each lemur. was let in the dining room, one by one to their allocated feeding bowl. Happily, each lemur fed on their mango mixture serving, like there was no tomorrow. (It looks like each lemur hasn’t eaten for quite some time.)
Satisfied with all the work he has done, Julien quickly ran off to his office, which was located in the cockpit, right next to the corridors.
== Part 2 ==
CHAPTER TWO:
The Bad News Breaketh
After breakfast was done, Julien collected all the notes and updates from his desk in his ‘headquarters.’ The office was the cockpit, of course. It has two potted plants sitting on one side. A skeleton who Julien names 'Amelia' is sitting on one of the seats. After all that, Julien got off his seat, then took out his notes and carried them underneath the Baobab tree.
Meanwhile, Willie and Dorothy are washing the dishes. Yes, this was tiring and sleepy work, but Dorothy kind of enjoyed it. Willie stared at Dorothy in the eye, as if they were bored, and need to amuse them both…
“So…” Willie started. “Anything happened?”
Dorothy, who was busy concentrating on washing the dishes, replied “No.”
Willie stared into space as he washed the dishes in boredom. 
~ --- ~^O^~ --- ~
That evening, most of the lemurs enter under the Baobab tree after a tiring day at work. Amazingly, each lemur happens to be standing, but for those who didn’t, they sat on the rocks and possibly even shared rocks with one another.Julien approached the stage area and stood in front of the whole area, as so to say…
“Good morning, subjects,” Julien spoke loudly to the crowd of lemurs. “Today is April the 10th and it’s been a great week.” (He gets out a green sheet with a few names of lemurs) “Once a month we give out awards on which of us has worked so hard. So far, it was hard to choose from the best of those who did so well during the month. Anyway, the award goes to, for the first time, Ted. Well done Ted”
Ted was sitting on the rocks and he was amazed at how he has managed to win an award for the first time. However, he just smiled and waved to show how proud he is. (Possibly he was too shy to comment on how much effort he put in.) 
“Okay…” Julien continued, as he pulled out a white sheet with names of Upcoming Events on it. “Okay, now to events… On Tuesday 17th April, we have a seminar on “What to do if you have a tummyache and it turns out that something we consider natural is going wrong”, hosted by a few of us animals, so if you’re interested, go ahead and come join us.”
Then Julien pulled out a grey sheet, which has special notes on it. “Oh, and a few special notes here. We thank all of you, especially Sage, for attending the debate on ‘How Humans can help combat Global Warming’. Nice suggestion on eating more vegetables.” (Well, after some research done, it’s a fact that eating less meat can help with the environment (i.e: it takes more water to feed livestock than a wheat crop), as said in the debate.)
However, with good news were a few bad ones coming across the corner, as Julien was soon to discover… “Oh and now for the bad news, as you may think… The Spaghettis Recall due to potential choking hazard has been ‘moved’ to midnight tomorrow.”
The crowd of lemurs gasped in worry and fear. Despite being introduced to the soup with O-shaped noodles by Julien not too long ago, they have worried that the day has come. Spaghettios will be sent back to the stores tomorrow. And that’s what will haunt them for some time.
Ted approached Julien, who was getting off stage, regretting the news he just read out. “My goodness, how can something so bad have happened? Was it from local townspeople pressure or did it happen without us knowing?”
Julien bowed his head in despair. He did not know what to say after reading out the bad news. But as a result, this was one event that Julien and the lemurs might find it hard to go through.
== Part 3 ==
CHAPTER THREE:
The Pantry Clearout
It was just several minutes after King Julien broke the bad news. 
Julien entered his hut, gloomy after reading the news aloud to the lemurs. After finding a Daily Mango newspaper on the couch, Julien sat on the couch and sadly flicked through the pages of the newspaper. He undoubtedly found a notice in one of the newspaper pages and read it silently:
NOTICE TO ALL:
Please clean out all pantries of any Spaghetti'Os cans ready to hand over to disposal squads currently patrolling the world. Alternatively, you can drop them off at one of the drop-off stations as stated below. You must do so prior to the deadline at 0:00 Local Time on April 11th.
Then Julien discovered that the drop-off station is close to his address. Julien groaned, then he took the newspaper with him to another room so he can slowly focus on other positive things in his life.  
~---~^O^~---~
Masikura the chameleon and Timo the tenrec are talking to each other about how the Malagasy animals are going to cope.
“Timo,” Masikura begun, “I was just thinking that the kingdoms are kind of worried and I don’t think they are going to go through this tough time.”
“So what?” Timo scoffed, as if laid-back. “It’s time they learned more healthier choices!”
“Maybe they have,” Masikura replied. “But I don’t think they have learnt the lesson enough. I think you may have witnessed a few scavengers looking for any ‘trash-cookies’ we might clear our pantry of.”
“Well, I think so,” Timo agreed, “But there’s one thing, Masikura. How are we supposed to prevent them getting their paws on your supplies?”
“At least that’s why the disposal point’s held here in front of our house,” Masikura explained. (Perhaps that can help supplement the notice advertised in the newspaper.)
~ --- ~^O^~ --- ~
Meanwhile, as the detector vans approach the Lemur kingdom, Clover, a crowned lemur and a flying fox emerge from their hiding in the bushes. The crowned lemur was Pancho, who seemed fit enough for the job, while his bat cohort, Andy Fairfax, decided to quickly join the operation before the sun has set.) 
“Okay,” Pancho whispered. “We’ll try to get as much canned goods back to the kingdom from anybody's hut as quickly as we can. Try not to make any noise, okay?”
Clover crawled out of the bushes and attempted to hide herself out of the police officer’s way. However, being very careful not to be seen by the human police officers, Pancho and Andy watched every step Clover took, trying to keep herself quiet. Finally she approached the disposal bin filled with all sorts of stuff. It was filled with cans of noodles shaped like Os with tomato sauce. Pity that the human police officers were going to consider them contraband and then throw them out.
Clover heard something – it was the soft sound of someone snoring, coming directly from the van. It was actually the police officer (male, short brown hair, wearing a grey shirt with black trousers – standard issue police uniform), sleeping in the vehicle, unaware of where Clover was going.
Clover then quietly instructed Pancho and Andy to come out of the bushes. Pancho leapt a great distance from the bushes, somersaulted and landed on his shoulder/back, sliding on the gravely terrain. Pancho got up off the ground and stood up straight. All that while Andy flew of course.
“Shhh! What is this, some sort of pick-on palace?” Clover whispered. “We’re supposed to be quiet, and keep it that way!”
“Sorry…” Pancho moaned and then slinked off into Clover’s direction: to King Julien's hut.
~---~^O^~---~
Meanwhile, at King Julien's hut, Masikura opened the pantry and figured out which items are going out of existence…
“Okay, let’s see…” Masikura started. Before she could say anything, she heard the door open and sham shut. Masikura turned to look, then approached the door, then opened the door, to find that nobody made the sound. (She did not know that Pancho has already climbed up the tree all the way to the kitchen.
“I think somebody is trying to prevent us from tossing out our supply,” Masikura commented.
Timo re-entered the lounge room, carrying a net in his hand. “We’ll see who is playing games with our clean out,” he muttered, as he entered the kitchen, where he found Pancho, gathering the products and attempting to carry them out of the house. 
“AHA!” Timo shouted, quickly placing the net over Pancho. Pancho squeaked in fright and stood there quietly. 
~---~^O^~---~
Timo carefully placed Pancho out of the hut, placing him underneath the tree. “Now you stay here, felon,” Timo spoke loudly to Pancho, “and don’t you go anywhere.” He re-enters the hut by the back door, closing the door shut.
Pancho muttered and complained that his plan had actually backfired. He thought that it was going to work, but it didn’t. So he sat there for some time… but then suddenly he felt something. He had to get out of there and approach Junk Harbor… fast. But he had heard that he was not allowed to go anywhere, so he associated the confinement in the jungle as punishment.
Then suddenly he felt something else… those words… A white lion must resist all fear and denial to achieve its act of courage and its objective… what did they mean? Surely can it mean something? Then he had it. He must stay strong and bend the rules a little to help him run all the way to the hut… but with who? 
And that’s when Pancho started climbing the outside walls, then the rooftop and finally the outside shell of King Julien’s bedroom. But there was one problem… he knew there was an exit point at the top of the roof; problem is, he can’t pull it open. After about three tries of trying to pry it open, he almost loses his balance, and then suddenly goes sliding down the rooftop and then lands on the ground with a thud.
Pancho got up off the ground, complaining of pain after landing on the ground on his lower back, and wondered why all the plans he started with actually sunk in the first place. He then heard two people approaching the detector van and asking for the disposal of their canned products. Pancho realized this and so he browsed in the shed and came out with a crowbar. He carried it with him as he climbed the outside walls and the rooftop, then finally on the top of the outside shell of King Julien’s bedroom.
Slowly, Pancho placed the straight edge of the crowbar in the slit of the closed rooftop vent and then used it to pry the door open. The vent opened, and Pancho slowly went in the room via the vent, quietly climbing down the wall and then onto the floor. Eventually, Pancho approached Julien’s bed and then carefully attempted to touch one of his ears. Eventually, Julien twitched and then got up in bed. 
“Pancho?" Julien whispered. “What brought you here?”
“What would you want to know?” Pancho whispered.
“We’re trying to sleep!” Julien hissed and then tried to fall asleep. However, he growled, frustrated that he can’t fall asleep again. “Okay, this better be important. Did the sewers back up?”
“No,” Pancho replied.
“Is the plane on fire?” Julien asked.
“No, not that either,” Pancho replied. “It’s just that we’ve only an hour left till midnight!” 
Julien stared at Pancho, as if he has left things to the last minute. Immediately, Julien got out of the bedroom by the window, which was still open.
“Come on, Pancho!” Julien called out, holding out a paw. Pancho grabbed hold of it and then Julien helped him out of the room. Both of the lemurs quickly ran along the window and then down below the tree.
~---~^O^~---~
Meanwhile, in front of the outdoor steps of King Julien's hut, Timo and Masikura were first in line, of a few hundred animals that queued before them. And Timo is holding out lots of canned soups that has accumulated the kingdom for a few weeks running.
“TAKE THEM!” Timo yelled, as he handed each packet of canned items over to the police officer. “Take them away! I no longer need them. Goodbye and good riddance – save us from all the ills that too much refined sugars can bring! Save us from temptation by taking them all away!!!!!”
The police officer stared, then he replied “Thank you sir; that’s the attitude, that’s the spirit. Next!”
~---~^O^~---~
Meanwhile, Julien is hidden behind the detector van with Pancho.
“Okay, we’ve got to keep quiet,” Pancho whispered. “I want you, yes you, to sneak until time allows us and take the products out of their hands!”
“Are you sure?” Julien replied. Despite being adorable-looking (as you might all agree), Pancho has a knack of being sneaky and mischievous. 
“No worries,” Pancho whispered. “I tried this with a few lemurs and they never knew how everything disappeared!”
Julien paused for some time, then he decided to try it. “Okay Pancho, let’s go!”
Before long, Julien and Pancho waited for the police officer to place the products in the disposal bin, which is behind the van too. Julien looked left, then right, and then suddenly he approached the disposal bin and then quietly fished out product by product by product. Then Julien quite had some things in his arms and he requested that Pancho carry the rest of the products to share the load. Then quietly the two lemurs went through the bushes and went all the way quickly to the plane.
However, halfway the two lemurs experience some conflict when it comes to bringing the products to the plane. Julien then stood there for a while, then he screamed and then quickly ran off, with Pancho following at his heels. They tried not to spill the products from their arms, but after knowing they are running on the road and they are about to be followed by a police detector van, the two lemurs had no time to spare… they had to run at full speed, no matter if they have dropped any packages from their arms.
Finally they arrive at the plane, tired from the chase. The two lemurs entered the lounge room and then collapsed on the sofa for some rest.
“Man, that was…” Pancho panted, tired as if he was worn from running too much. 
“Boy that was quick,” Julien panted, then realised that he is carrying only a few packets short of a whole feeding package. But they didn’t need to bother, because they have enough to feed to the lemurs… for the last time. “Peoples, guess what I brought!” he called out.
As what luck has thought, most of the lemurs entered the cockpit, amazed of what Julien has managed to bring – a few packets of canned stuff. The lemurs start talking amongst themselves and then they become quiet. 
“So what’s from the doggy bag?” Willie asked.
“Willie,” Pancho growled, “it’s not the doggy bag, it’s actually the treats we brought home!”
The lemurs gasp in awe and then suddenly they queued up for their treats that Julien has managed to bring home. It was an excellent time to quickly clear the lot before the police arrived. (Speaking of which, the police officers, driving in their detector van, were already trying to find out where the ‘bandits’ have gone to… and their path has become a lot clearer, finding a few empty packets alongside the road.)
The lemurs then suddenly ate and ate before there was no treats left – the time they finished was when the police detector van arrived and the police officers arrived at the door of the plane, pounding away at the door. And it was not long after midnight!
After some time, the lemurs chattered amongst themselves about what they should do. Out of options, the lemurs quickly flooded the corridor, entered the dorm rooms and dived into their beds, to make it appear as if nobody has been here. Finally the police officers break in and find that no-one is at home.
“What on earth?” a female police officer said, confused.
“I think we might have a false alarm,” a male police officer replied. “Perhaps they’re afraid.” He paused, then knelt down on the ground, calling out “Come on out, no-one’s going to hurt you.”
Nobody came out. Not even a flea that fell out of a lemur's back. In despair, the police officers were about to exit the plane, when they find Julien at the entrance.
“Are you responsible for all this?” the female officer questioned.
“Nah,” Julien replied. “I look after my subjects. I always lock their huts up at night.”
The police officers re-entered the vehicle, and drove off. Julien watched into the pitch-black landscape and so he tried to return home, and once he got home he snuggled into his bed, then fell into a dreamless sleep, after all the effort he has tried on getting Pancho’s plan to work: rescuing the SpaghettiO cans from disposal.
== Part 4 ==
It was only at 6am has the toughest time of day has ever came for the lemurs, who are still asleep in trees, their huts, or in select parts of the plane. No one was aware that today was going to be much more different than the week before.
Maurice entered the plane, and then entered the cockpit. It was just like any other cockpit of an airline. Then next thing he knew, he heard a noise from outside, which sounded like a person who hasn’t slept for two days playing the trumpet. 
It was Timo.
“Timo,” Maurice growled, as he approached the entrance of the plane, “what are you doing?”
“I’m trying to wake up the kingdom!” Timo said enthusiastically.
“Timo,” Maurice explained, “would you save waking-up-lemurs till last? Besides, your ‘recitals’ on brass are not exactly perfect.”
“Fine,” Timo replied. He entered the plane and then entered the corridor. (Well, it was a bit scary at first, entering the corridor when some lemurs are asleep, because some other animals might crawl up on Timo and beat him up for his foiled plans on beating him up. But however, Timo overcame his fear and then entered one of the baggage bins, which especially was Butterfish and Ted’s.)
Butterfish and Ted were fast asleep, unaware of what Timo was going to do to them. Ted giggled as he was in a deep sleep. Butterfish was snoring loudly, as the usual, refusing to even wake up. But however Timo has other ideas… he got out the trumpet and then played it in Butterfish’s face!
Butterfish immediately woke up, groaned and then saw Timo in his baggage bin! Since Butterfish is tired, he wasn’t feeling too well. He yawned (again, lion’s roar) and then he got out of bed, leaving his baggage bin. After that, Timo was wondering how to wake up Ted without annoying him so he would beat him up or whatever. But all Timo did was tickle him behind his head and arms, which caused Ted to laugh and then get up out of bed, cramped and having not a lot of energy.
Timo went out of the baggage bin and so re-entered several other baggage bins of other lemurs, waking them up as he sees fit, whether the lemurs liked it or not.
~---~^O^~---~
After a long time waking up the lemurs, most of them (Willie included) clustered in a large group outside the plane. And standing in front of the group was a female police officer. Most of the lemurs did not feel well after their lack of sleep… after all, most of them like sleeping in on certain days of the week.
“Good morning, rodents,” the police officer started. “I’m sure you’re not used to getting up at 6am for a rather important cause, trust me, us humans know that too. However, I would like to inform you that from this day on, you would have to rely on healthier choices… especially when the SpaghettiOs ban is enforced as of today.”
The lemurs just felt so tired they even refused to complain; so all they had to do was listen to what the police officer was saying. Then after the speech was finished, the lemurs re-entered the plane and then queued at the entrance of the galley.
~---~^O^~---~
At the bottom of the queue was Sage, the local peacekeeper. He doesn’t mind being at the end of queues, but however, was slightly bored with being stuck at the back of queues all the time. He would never do this, but however, Sage decided to play around with mischief – slowly he crouched down and then snuck his arm past the lemur in front of him (which, in this case, was an albino female lemur with red eyes), then he quietly touched the lemur in front of her (Clover) on the ankle. 
“YAII-IEEP!” Clover yelped as she twitched at the touch on the ankle. She turned and found Sage, standing there, doing nothing. Clover stared at Sage, angrily, growling… Sage stared at her, smiling. But then Clover looked at the albino lemur, as if SHE did it. Singling the white lemur out of the queue, Clover growled, “What in Alsatian? Touching my ankle in a queue?! GRRR!” and so she took her out of the room. Without knowing, Sage moved up in line, and then smiled, glad that his plan on cutting in line has worked, and anyway, Clover got back in line right before Sage.
Meanwhile, at the front of the queue, Willie was chronically tired, because his usual sleep cycle has been interrupted. Slowly, he showed the lady his plate and then waited. Dorothy stared at Willie from behind the counter.
“Willie,” Dorothy asked. “What’s with all the trouble?”
“They woke us up early,” Willie yawned. 
Dorothy used the serving spoon to shovel some oatmeal into her plate. Well, it was still the dull old oatmeal, but possibly it might have some bran added, for that extra-fibre hit. However, not all the lemurs will be sure to approve of the extra fibre (Fiber, if you live in the US) present in their breakfast.
At one of the benches, Becca the White-fronted lemur was busy feeding on the bran-added canned dog food. And sitting next to her is her husband, Abner. For some reason, Abner doesn’t feel like eating the bran-added canned dog food mix. 
“Becca,” Abner moaned, as if tired. “I don’t think we’re fit to eat this stuff.”
“What’s the use?” Becca replied. “I mean, not to worry, dog food is dog food when it comes to the stuff.” Becca happily gorged down on the meal like there was no tomorrow.
Most of the lemurs found that their bran-added oatmeal had so much fibre that it kind of filled the lemurs up kind of quickly. There were murmurs across the room that relate to how full they felt, even though they almost were a few morsels down to finishing their oatmeal.
However, disaster struck for some… and most possible victim was Becca. After feeling the effects of fibre-overload, Becca felt uneasy, and felt like she has a tummyache coming on. She looked directly at Abner, uncomfortably, and not knowing what to say. 
“Abner,” Becca moaned, “you know, I’m not feeling well, so if you excuse me…”
And then she ran off, out of the galley and then entered the other chamber to her left, which were the washrooms. She entered a second chamber, which has six separate cubicles, all locked… and then Becca realised…
She was not alone when it comes to the effects on the bran-added dog food.
~ --- ~^O^~ --- ~
A few hours later after the incident, the lemurs were up to their usual antics – some were at work (i.e: Butterfish), while others were out there enjoying themselves doing nothing (even some of them were accustomed to find shelter and take short naps there.)
Ted was looking out below the water slide, gloomy. (Ted formerly worked clearing up debris during re-construction of the water slide, now he is companion to other lemur Mort.) After some time gazing out the window, Ted went down on the floor of the water slide and lay there. Mort approached him and decided to find out what is bugging Ted.
“Ted,” Mort questioned, “What’s the worry?”
“Ted sat up and replied, “Nothing, except nobody is in a great mood today.” He sighed and then collapsed on the floor, depressed. Nothing good was happening in his day. Not even one minute. In fact, Ted is feeling gloomy from the lack of tomato sauce with O-shaped noodle ever since midnight – possibly the secret ingredient derived from the items consumed were spent while Ted was asleep… (And no matter what, sleep still takes energy from the food you eat.)
“Ted, listen,” Mort spoke. “Just because you feel gloomy doesn’t mean it’s the end of the world.”
Ted sat up and then got off the floor, still looking at Mort. Despite being a little happier, Ted still felt his blood sugar levels drop in his spirit (not physically though.) 
A door knock broke the silence. Mort twitched, worried about what might happen. What if someone might come into his stump and get him? Ted wondered that someone important might be answering the door, so carefully and quietly Ted opened the back door of the rental hut a little bit, in case someone is human.
“Mort, are you there?” Butterfish questioned.
Mort opened the door and then saw his real estate agent – Butterfish. “What is it, Butterfish?” Mort started.
“I’ve got some bad news,” Butterfish continued.
“Let me guess,” Mort muttered. “Did the chimichangas got eaten?”
“No,” Butterfish denied.
“Someone caught the flu?” Mort guessed again.
“No,” Butterfish denied again.
“Animal testing?”
“NO!” Butterfish growled. “Whatever it is, it’s not anything like that, man!”
“Wait, Butterfish,” Ted interrupted. “I sense that everyone’s having a bad day, did you?”
“I think so,” Butterfish replied, and so approached Mort. “I have lost a job.”
“Wha-?” Ted whined. “You lost your job?”
“Yes,” Butterfish replied gloomily, bowing his head in shame. “So did Crimson, and almost anyone who worked in the food industry have been kicked out. The soup cans just disappeared this morning. Even the tomato frog down Pok-Pok Avenue got kicked out!”
Ted lowered his head, and then stared at Butterfish’s face. He realised that he was not alone when it came to the number of lemurs having bad days (and especially at the start of the SpaghettiOs ban.) In fact, things are starting to get much worse. Butterfish started to burst into tears upon breaking the bad news, and Ted started feeling emotional pain deep inside.
“There, there,” Ted said, giving Butterfish a hug. While Ted did this, (and Mort may not like it at all), Butterfish blew his nose on Mort! In disgust, Ted jerked back, finding out how he could have carried a packet of tissues with him.
~---~^O^~---~
In another part of the jungle where the SpaghettiOs used to stay plentiful, Clover's twin sister, Crimson, and Julien sat together on a branch, thinking about how on earth would a terrible law like the SpaghettiOs ban might affect Madagascar (or if it had, the rest of the world.)
“Crimson,” Julien started. “I don’t see why they had to ban it… well, surely just a pinch of plastic is not good, but what about just a few cans of soup every once in a while, or the odd noodles? You just can’t go banning anything.”
“True,” Crimson sighed. “I mean, there’s always brushing your teeth after splurging on the stuff.”
“I think there used to be some other canned goods the company made,” Julien commented. “But not any more. The ban has affected them too!”
“No, not that!” Crimson whined. “What about the dentists? Won’t they need to treat cavities anymore? Won’t they do fillings? I mean, what would we have to use? Cement? Plasticine and superglue?”
Julien sighed in gloom and then slumped, elbows on his knees. “It’s no use – SpaghettiOs are finished and we’d better just accept it. Thinking about it is too painful and just makes the whole thing worse.”
While both Julien and Crimson talked, Sage was also walking down the jungle, carrying something that looked like a SpaghettiOs can (but not just any normal SpaghettiOs can)… Sage approached the two lemurs.
“Don’t let your life down in the gutter, guys,” Sage said, kneeling on the ground to reach the two lemurs at eye-level. “At least there are some perfectly good alternatives out there.”
“At least it doesn’t involve high-fibre dog food, does it?” Crimson replied, annoyed.
“Here,” Sage began, offering the 'SpaghettiOs' can to the two lemurs. “It’s one of the alternatives. Try it, it’s great.”
Julien carefully ripped the lid off the can, then he poured the 'soup' in two bowls, and microwaved it for 2-3 minutes. Then he offered one bowl to Crimson. Both lemurs sniffed the soup, then they grabbed spoons and placed the piece in their mouth and chewed slowly… but however… something was not right… Julien moaned and spat out the morsel.
“It’s gruel,” Julien moaned. “Gruel doesn’t taste as good as everything else. How come you don’t react that way?”
Sage stared at the two lemurs, in need of an explanation. “How would I wish to witness someone suffering, whether animal or plant, if I am a local regular anonymous dude. I never give up. I am actively minding things, I am part-cautious when risk-taking, I mean… *sighs* It’s kind of hard to explain, is it?”
“Possibly,” Crimson answered.  “Look, things are not going to turn sour, or are they?”
However, the sound of police sirens are heard… Julien revolved his ears and then picked up the sound from right behind the lemurs, in front of the (recently recalled) pile of unopened cans. Julien paused and then stood up from the branch.
“What’s got you scared?” Sage asked.
Julien looked up at Sage, then said… “I think we might have to run.”
“Why, Schmoopy Bear?” Crimson cried.
“We’re not sure,” Julien whined. “But whatever it is, they’re suspecting us! Run!”
On the word ‘run’, the big black detector van pulled up from the corner. Julien, Crimson, and Sage slowly backed away, afraid that the police might catch them. Finally, they took off in a sprint. They ran down the street, slowing down to cross the road and then finally they turned to a corner and stopped behind a wall. Julien, Crimson, and Sage panted, lucky that they have escaped their chase from the police detector van.
“That was close,” Julien panted.
Before they could get up and walk, the same detector van went down the same street, and then turned to the opposite side of the road, away from Sage, Julien, and Crimson.
“I wonder where the van might be heading to,” Crimson pondered.
~---~^O^~---~
Meanwhile at another part of the village, Clover and Horst hidden in the bushes planted at the entrance to a hut. Both of the lemurs saw the black detector van approach the bushes slowly. When the van stopped, two police officers opened the doors and then entered the village square. It was their coffee break.
“You know,” Horst whispered. “I think I’m starting to worry about your sister.”
"Crimson?” Clover squeaked. “What about her?”
“Clover, you see the point here?” Horst continued. “Crimson makes her SpaghettiOs with poison… and SpaghettiOs is banned… therefore, her poison soup is vulnerable to the long arm of the law.”
Clover paused for a few minutes, and then replied with, “Well Horst… you’re right. Crimson's soup will not ever survive in the streets alone. We need to keep her and her soup protected from the police force."
“I think we might have to,” Horst sighed, bowing his ears in shame. He quietly left the bushes and slinked off as he sipped his beverage. Then he found some shade under a nearby tree and sat there. 
Even now, there were not many lemurs wandering around town much. Most were taking naps, while others were grieving over their loss of their favorite canned goods, while others were tired from the lack of energy and also the doom-and-gloom without all those calories.  
~---~^O^~---~
That evening, when the lemurs were served dinner (which was a few slices of tofu with vegetables), not everyone was happy with their day. This was the case with Tammy, who was flat out refusing to touch the meal. Todd approached the table Tammy was sitting at, and then started to wonder what was wrong with her.
“Hey mommy,” Todd greeted. “What’s eating you?”
“It’s my birthday today,” Tammy sighed, “and I’m depressed. We thought we might have some soup, only we found out that SpaghettiOs are banned and we can’t have that.”
“Don’t worry, mommy,” Todd replied. “At least we managed to place a cake in your dinner.”
Tammy sighed and replied gloomily; “This isn’t a happy birthday for me.”
“Cheer up,” Butterfish started as he approached the table where Todd and Tammy were sitting at. “At least the SpaghettiOs ban won’t last forever.”
“But what if we ponder too long and then find that the ban might last forever?” Tammy asked.
“At least things won’t get any worse,” Todd sighed.
Tammy sickly looked at her dinner and slowly she picked up a fork and the fed on some vegetables. Butterfish looked at Todd, and then fed on his dinner. It was odd how the lemurs were born to feed on more vegetations… must have been more of a dietary change for the lemurs.
Finally after dinner, the lemurs were sent off to bed. It was only 7pm, after sundown. A few lemurs think that this may seem a little early, but others agreed because they slept too little last night and are happy to sleep early at this time. However, one of the lemurs stood up a few minutes later to find a suitable place to hide without being harmed.
That lemur was Crimson.
She quietly walked from the elevator, her soup running off her bowl. She quietly tiptoed through the corridor and then snuck her way past the washrooms. However she heard some footsteps coming behind him. Scared, Crimson ran along the corridor, then approached a dead end, staying there and panting in worry. Then she saw a flashlight… and a human-like figure coming her way. Crimson looked at the figure cautiously.
“Oh,” Crimson muttered. “It’s you.”
Before long, a net came over her soup, followed by leftover plastic hitting the bowl, despite being covered in a thick layer of poison. And that came the last of Crimson's poison soup… 
Caught by the force of the law.
Fortunately, for Crimson, she managed to climb back up to the nearest tree and sleep there for the night.
== Part 5 ==
***WE INTERRUPT THIS STORY TO MAKE ROOM FOR A NEWS REPORT***
“The controversial SpaghettiOs ban came into force for the past 48 hours – across the main Madagascarian mainland, various Campbell's manufacturers have closed down; plus shops and supermarkets, along with domestic and foreign households, have sacrificed their SpaghettiOs supplies to disposal squads before the ban was enforced. So far, no one has complained of the ban, but however, quirkily enough our first arrest was from one of our locals. To the name “Crimson”, weighing an average of 3.4 pounds, has took interest in soup-making, weighing at least four pounds if solidified. Our ‘offender’ is sent to mainland USA, her fate is not yet decided.”
~---~^O^~---~
Around the baobab tree, human tourists with cameras took photos of the scene where Crimson was caught. An outline of Crimson’s shape was drawn on the wall with white chalk, and there was special police tape reading, “CRIMINAL LINE: DO NOT CROSS”. The lemurs stood near the corridor – they were Ted, Clover, and Dorothy.
“Dorthy,” Ted growled, “If it wasn’t for your up-yours over-protectiveness, then none of this would have happened!”
“Ted, please,” Clover interrupted. “She’s just scared.”
“If you had an interest in soup and you woke up, heard a noise and then wanted to find out where the noise was coming from… then you’re trapped, how would you feel?” Ted growled.
Dorothy was all out of answers. She stammered, “I, erm, well… I…”
“Don’t give me excuses,” Ted growled. “Give me answers, give me results!”
“Ted, please,” Clover pleaded. “Just calm yourself down, will you?”
Ted moaned and then muttered, “At least he’s in a better place than here. I’ll see you after my honey cake break.” He slinked off into the kitchen to make himself some honey cakes.
~---~^O^~---~
As time passed on by, a small group of lemurs – Willie, Pancho, Maurice, and Mort, were on top of the tree. And standing underneath the tree was a female police officer, pacing in front of the group of lemurs.
“Good morning, class,” the female police officer started. “Today, we’re going to put you through this obstacle course, as built here behind me.”
The obstacle course was quite simple – it consisted of a row of tires laid on the ground next to each other, followed by a long track, then a large brick wall to climb over, and then finally some climbing bars and a ladder, which leads to the finish line where the police officer’s assistant is waiting.
The lemurs lined up at the start line, unsure of what was sure to happen. What was the police officer to do? Was this some sort of trap?
Then finally, it started. The lemurs quickly ran from the starting point and then ran along the track – however not everyone made it – Willie accidentally tripped over the row of tires and got stuck, Maurice almost lost footing of the brick wall and just collapsed after a few tries, but however, Pancho and Mort had managed to make it through the obstacle course, and the duo were approached by the police officers, who later hugged the two lemurs (Well, to be precise, Pancho had completed the course much faster than Mort.)
“Very good,” the police officer praised. “I didn’t know you can complete the obstacle course in a few minutes flat.” He hugged Pancho and Mort with both arms.
Maurice slowly went over the brick wall, then climbed the climbing bars, and then he just decided enough was enough… he collapsed in exhaustion and then took a short nap.
~---~^O^~---~
At midday, Timo was making soup in the kitchen (but it was not a normal type of soup – it was a carob-flavoured soup – gluten-free, fat-free and definitely has no noodles shaped like the letter O.) Julien entered the kitchen and then found out what Timo was doing.
“Timo, what are you doing?” Julien asked.
“I’m making a different kind of soup,” Timo answered.
“Why?” Julien questioned.
“I think I almost forgot Todd’s birthday,” Timo replied. “He must be really gloomy since.” (Timo was actually referring to another child lemur, whose birthday was yesterday – the first day of the SpaghettiOs ban.)
“So you’re giving cake to the peoples?” Julien mentioned. “But I thought SpaghettiOs was illegal.”
“Not this one,” Timo corrected indirectly, “It’s a carob soup, and it doesn’t have any O-shaped noodles added.”
“I wonder what’s going on with my peeps," Julien spoke to himself.
~---~^O^~---~
Mort was just at the computer, checking his e-mail, finding out if any of his ‘chat-mates’ (budding fanatics that he had managed to add to his Buddies List on his chatting program) have wrote to him, and also to delete any junk-mail (in case any ‘cyber-terroritsts’ ever try to infect his computer with some sort of virus.) During the e-mail check, he has found a rather interesting e-mail, marked with the subject line, “READ THIS: This is not a virus.”
Mort was not sure. After all, the e-mail claimed not to have a virus, but what if it did? Carefully and cautiously, he decided to open the e-mail. And it read, “IMPORTANT: Please come to the old mansion at 5pm sharp. Someone has planted a surprise there.”
Mort was cautious and wary. But what if there were good things? After all, metaphorically, the road to Hell actually had an alternate route to escape doom. (In literal term, despite something bad has happened, there are some good things bound to happen.)
Decidedly, Mort wrote down the information on a piece of paper and then hid id someplace where Julien did not see it. Then Mort deleted the e-mail, so nobody, not even a mouse, can have access to it.
And then Mort left the room, thinking that he might as well share the news with the lemurs.
~---~^O^~---~
Meanwhile, at North Shore beach, there are few lemurs who are bright and energetic – in fact, there are a few feeling down and low, obviously without their sugar hit to keep them well and happy. Well, possibly it was Hector who tried to keep himself awake by endlessly poking Clover in the rump, or lower back, or wherever might be the case.
“Ow,” Clover moaned, in response to Hector poking her. “What are you doing?”
“I’m bored,” Hector replied. “Just wanted you to know whether it hurts or not.”
“Ow, ow, ow, ow, owww, stop it, PLEASE!” Clover complained, while Hector repeatedly poked her in the rump rhythmically. “For the love of Frank, it HURTS!”
“Oh, I'm not apologizing though,” Hector replied, and stopped poking Clover in the rump. “If you don’t want me to poke you, who will?”
“Oh no,” Clover whined. “Please, don’t let Pancho poke me on my backside!”
“He doesn’t just poke people,” Hector warned. “He jumps on you!”
Before Clover can open her mouth to squeal, Pancho just pounced on her back. Clover just landed on the sand, lying on her stomach. Clover moaned, then tried to get off the sand, but she did not see this coming…
Pancho jumped on Clover’s back repeatedly, and Clover screamed in pain, “Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, PLEASE will you just -!” To accompany the agony, Hector poked Clover all over her backside, as fast as he can allow. Clover cried loudly in hope that the agony she experiences might stop.
“GUYS!!!!!”  a loud squeaky high-pitched voice (well, not so high pitched like a mouse, but possibly similar to a bat) broke the silence. “Would you just leave him alone?”
It was Andy Fairfax. He perched next to Pancho, facing his partner-in-crime.
“Why are you beating up Clover?” Andy squeaked.
“We were just bored,” Pancho answered. “It’s just that we don’t feel ourselves today.”
“Yeah, lack of vitamin B12 makes animals feel more out of character in many ways that the Man could imagine,” Clover commented.
“Not always,” Andy added. “What I might think is that nobody is up to their usual mood today. That’s the problem.”
“Yeah, like that makes us stop beating up poor Clover for no good reason,” Hector replied.
Andy heard something. Using sonar, he detected someone calling his name. “Sorry, lady, I must fly,” Andy replied and flew his way back home. Clover just lay there, staring at the ground below.
“Unless you want me to sit on you and suffocate you with two tons of butt,” Clover growled, “please get off my back and let me suffer in silence!!!”
After hearing what Clover said, Hector and Pancho ran away, afraid that Clover might come chasing after them. However, Clover did not have the energy to chase the two menacing lemurs – instead, she just laid on the sand, trying to enjoy a few moments of quiet. She was in a trance like state until…
“Hello, Clover!” Julien shouted, as he stopped a foot in front of Clover’s face. “Why the long face?”
“Please, would you leave a lemur to mope at nothing?” Clover moaned, and then stayed there on the sand. Julien crouched on all fours, so his eyes are level with Clover’s face.
“I know this could make you smile,” Julien chuckled. “I’ve got an address from somebody, and guess what! There’s gonna be a surprise!”
“As long as it doesn’t involve anything dangerous, at least I imagine it would anyways,” Clover growled,” I can join.”
“Maybe someone might have SpaghettiOs!” Julien squealed in delight, dancing on the spot.
Clover paused for some time. She was shocked about what she just heard. “What did you say?” Clover growled back, amazed by what she said.
“Well,” Julien started sheepishly, “let’s just say…”
“You think that you’re going to get any SpaghettiOs anywhere in this place when the law is enforced throughout the island?” Clover growled. “Then please don’t even think about testing your courage on trying to do it!”
“But what’s wrong with doing what’s right?” Julien whined, confused.
“Well, if you want to wind up as a fish out of water,” Clover growled, as she got up off the ground, “then go ahead, do it, but if you risk getting arrested, it’s what you deserve! There’s only one way to do things, as what others tell you.”
“But others tell me to stand up and fight against injustice,” Julien replied, quizzically.
“Just stay there and not touch anything,” Clover growled. “Even the slightest action you may take could alter your fate in many ways that the Man can even imagine.”
With a growl, Clover walked away from Julien, low-spirited and still not happy with what Julien is going to do.
Out of optimism, Julien walked along the beach, trying to cheer himself up. However, he found Todd, lying flat on the sand, looking at the sky. Julien lay on the sand next to Todd, and looked up to the sky.
“Todd, what’s going on?” Julien started.
Todd said nothing for a while. He looked at the sky for a minute, and then looked back at Julien. “There’s not a cloud in the sky today, King Julien.”
“Yeah,” Julien agreed.
“I think a whole day seems so depressing once the SpaghettiOs ban has set in,” Todd commented. “What has gotten into you, your majesty?”
“Clover told me to stay still and not make a single move,” Julien started. “She thinks that I’m going to get arrested for something that should be right. Do you think she’s overprotective?”
“I think she is, King Julien,” Todd replied bluntly. “So why are you here?”
“I have decided to tell you something,” Julien started. “I think something got sent to me – let’s say that there’s a surprise at the human world.”
“You mean the one the Man lives in?” Todd answered.
“Why,” Julien replied, “that’s it.”
“So what do you mean exactly?” Todd asked.
“Well if we arrive at about 5 o’ clock at the old house, then we might get a surprise…” Julien began, and then added, “like canned goods or such.”
Todd paused, unsure of what to say next. “Are you sure you’re going to risk being arrested?”
Julien nodded. “But we just can’t stay there in one spot, there are moments when you have to risk yourself to achieve something… like when you were crawling on a tree branch and you’re stuck there, what do you do?”
Todd paused, unsure of what to say, then replied quietly: “Risk losing your grip and landing on your patookie?”
Julien nodded, as if Todd was right. “And if you were Clover, someone tied you up with some twine to a tree and you have no methods of escape, what would you do?”
Todd replied with “You chew the rope until your jaws are sore and you can’t chew no more.”
“Yeah, that's what she'd do!” Julien replied enthusiastically. “So, you’re ready to come with me to get the surprise?”
Todd waited, then looked at Julien in the eye. He was not sure on what to say, especially when it comes to taking a risk, especially when it comes to getting SpaghettiOs as a surprise.
“I think we need something,” Todd commented. “We need some money in case. And if the SpaghettiOs has a price, it probably might be expensive. But whatever it is, we gotta be quick, careful and we gotta be able to run in case we’re caught. So, in short, we’re ready. Let’s do it!”
Julien and Todd gave each other high fives. “So what time?” Todd asked.
“Five o’ clock,” Julien started. “In a human habitat. Don’t forget!”
~---~^O^~---~
At an old hut in the human village, Julien and Todd have arrived at five o’ clock. They had something with them – a soccer ball, so they could play a short game to pretend that the two lemurs are doing something else. They played soccer for a while, then they found out that no-one arrived at the old house. Julien checked his watch, and found that it was five minutes past.
“I think they set us up,” Julien whispered.
“No they didn’t,” Todd denied. “And if they did, well we’re smarter than all the trappers put together.”
“I know,” Julien replied. “But what if it’s for real?”
After Julien said something, a certain bat flew in, carrying a backpack – Andy. He stopped outside the two lemurs, then approached both Julien and Todd.
“Hey kids,” Andy started. “Gosh, you’re looking swell.”
“Mr. Fairfax?” Todd started. “How did you manage to get here?”
“I dunno,” Andy pondered. “Someone chose me to do an errand for someone I e-mailed... answering to the name KingJulienRulez…”
“I think that is my e-name,” Julien finished.
“I didn’t expect that to be yours!” Andy replied. “What a nice surprise, I though an alien might be on the trail.”
Julien and Todd nodded in agreement. “So what is it do you want?” Andy began, as if the two lemurs were ready to receive the surprise.
“We’re here to receive the surprise,” Julien replied, giggling in embarrassment in case someone is eavesdropping on him.
Andy stared at the two in surprise. He took the backpack off, then peered inside it, and then took out a few SpaghettiOs, which were unharmed in any way, not even by body heat. Andy gave the SpaghettiOs cans to Julien and Todd.
“Fellas,” Andy advised, “I wouldn’t want you to be hurt. But this, I believe, the SpaghettiOs ban is cruel and wrong…  so not a word to anyone you come across, not even your owner, or roommate, nor your friends… nobody.”
After Andy said a few words, the faint sound of police detector vans approaching fills the air. Julien and Todd approach Andy, who is still standing there wide-eyed at where the sound was coming from. Julien quietly moved his ears, slowly tracking the sound of footsteps to behind the lemurs… then it came…
Out of the bushes came one animal control officer, and aimed what appears to be a gun at the two lemurs and the bat. “NOBODY MOVE!” the animal control officer shouted, pointing the gun at Julien, the smaller child lemur, and the bat.
“Oh no! Not again!” Julien screamed.
With not another sound, the animal control officer aimed the gun at the middle of the group. However, when the animal control officer fired, the lemurs and their bat friend jumped out of the way… leaving the tranquillizer dart flying out of the gun and flying head-on into a tree.
“Chickens,” The animal control officer curses under his breath, wondering how on earth the three animals have managed to escape from being hit by a tranquillizer dart.
Andy quickly flew Julien and Todd as fast as they can, but however they took many different turns to escape the police officers attempting to chase and catch them. The threesome finally hid in the bushes, thinking that they were safe, but however, things turn sour when finally they were cornered by a female police officer.
“This is it,” the female police officer warned. “You have tried to climb the fence and you couldn’t even do it, not without me seeing it.” Julien, Todd, and Andy huddled as if they don’t want to be arrested. But however… there was a turn of events that could even make a fortuneteller weep…
From behind the bushes, a soft roar was heard. Julien and Todd look at each other… then they shrug.
But this was no illusion. Nor has anyone eaten beans. It was heard from behind the police officer.  Slowly appearing behind the police officer was Clover… and she wasn’t too happy… (And what’s with the foam around his mouth?)
Clover hissed, open-jawed and baring her teeth. The female police officer has never seen a sight that scared anything out of her… a rabid lemur ready to sink her teeth anywhere she sees fit. In fright, the female police officer screamed and ran away from the animal.
Julien was confused, yet scared at the same time.
Clover paused for a short while, then she collapsed on the ground on all fours, panting, tired from using her energy to scare away the female police officer. Julien, Todd, and Andy came out of hiding and approached Clover.
“Clo-Clo, thanks for scaring the big meanie alien away,” Julien commented.
Clover looked at Julien in the eye. “That’s okay.” She replied, as she wiped the excess foam from the corner of her mouth.
Todd looked as Andy, confused, thinking how on earth Clover has managed to track down the police officers and to scare them off, just for the sake of each other.
“Let’s go home,” Andy suggested.
Julien, Clover, Todd, and Andy went their separate ways home, lucky that they have escaped the clutches of the law. Good thing that Julien and Todd enjoyed their SpaghettiOs, but not in front of anyone in their kingdom – the duo had earned it, against all odds, and if Julien haven’t heard of the e-mail and just deleted it before reading, then the victory may never have happened.
However, this was only was the beginning for the lemurs’ greatest adventure, if there ever was one.
== Part 6 ==
Meanwhile, in the jungle, the lemurs queued up to get dinner, but this time there was dessert… lots of canned dog food (with some mysterious sauce filling) were given to the lemurs.
Sage was still at the back of the queue, as usual, using the same technique to nudge himself a few spaces away from the back of the line, but to no avail. He could only go past four lemurs without being noticed. He stayed there, glad that he had decided to cut his way through the queue.
At the front of the queue was Mort (as usual). Upon reaching the benches to eat his dinner, he finds that someone else is sitting next to him. It was Butterfish.
“Hey Mort!” Butterfish greeted. “How’s things going?”
“Dunno about that,” Mort replied. “He said he’s gonna put the cat out, but we don’t have a cat.”
“I think he meant that he would be back soon,” Butterfish corrected.  “Just pay attention to the English next time.”
The lemurs chat amongst each other about how filling the dog food was. Well, neither Abner or Becca didn't care, while chewing the dog food. Strangely enough, the sauce tasted of prunes… yep, with more canned soups banned came some alternatives, which are becoming hugely popular with humans.
But however, there were some drawbacks, especially with the extra-fibre present in the prune sauce. Well, the result was possibly less extreme than the bran-added oatmeal incident, but it worked on most of the lemurs all the same.
~---~^O^~---~
Julien was already in bed at seven in the evening, lying awake, thinking about what else he might do. Halfway through his thoughts, Julien inadvertently fell asleep.
In Julien’s point of view, Julien woke up in a pitch-black room, with glowing ellipses floating everywhere, in which they disappear when Julien touched it. Then Julien heard a noise that echoed throughout the room. It sounded like someone calling his name…
“King Julien?” The voice called out. “King Julien are you there?”
Julien opened his mouth to say something, but he was too scared too. A light shone behind him, and Julien was much more scared than what he felt before. He ran away, but he can’t escape the light. The more Julien ran, the greater the light attempted to swallow him up. Julien kept running… and running… until…
SPLAT!
He landed on what appeared to be a wall. Normally the room was just a wide-open space, but because the room was pitch black, Julien didn’t even know there was a wall until now. Julien just had his back towards the wall as the light swallowed him up.
All goes white for a while. Julien finds out that he is floating in a white room, surrounded by the glowing ellipses. Julien was confused for a while. The voice called him again…
“King Julien? You there?” The voice called… it was strangely familiar.
“Clover?” Julien asked, quietly.
“Tag, you’re it!” An orange lemur cried out, after pouncing on Julien. Both lemurs still floated there in mid air. The orange lemur was in appearance of Clover, except she has two pairs of wings, like butterfly wings. What Julien encountered was his ‘guardian angel’.
“So, Julien,” the ‘guardian Clover angel’ began. “What did you do today?”
“Well,” Julien explained, as the ‘guardian Clover angel’ was the only lemur to actually talk to about those certain things he did over his whole life (ever since his reunion with the other lemurs a few years ago). “I think last night I took little Todd and we met Andy Fairfax, and he gave us Spaghettios as a gift, but we almost got caught by the police force, and when things were meant to get worse, Willie saved the day by scaring off the police officers.”
The ‘guardian Clover angel’ just floated there with Julien in mid-air. “That was a mouthful,” she replied. “But what you did was risky, but despite all this, you made a rather good start on doing the right thing. You ever thought of bootlegging?”
“What?” Julien whined, confused. “Hoot-hacking?”
The ‘guardian Clover angel’ just floated there in mid-air. “Look, I’ll show you.”
Everything turned white, and then suddenly, Julien and his ‘guardian Clover angel’ were above a scene of the mainland USA during the 1920’s. “Perhaps you have heard of the prohibition era, have you?”
“Oh, now I get it,” Julien spoke. “They banned anything alcoholic, did they?”
“Mm-hmm!” The ‘guardian Clover angel’ replied. “All your life you manage to pick up information like a wad of chewing gum!”
Julien chuckled. “And the Man knew how to combat the ban?”
“Yep,” the ‘guardian Clover angel’ replied. “They made their own alcoholic products, or possibly they just smuggled them right into the country. The law ended in 1933 due to protest. And I believe your town is going through a similar event like this?”
"Yes,” Julien replied. “Only they banned Spaghettios instead.”
“Hmmm,” the ‘guardian Clover angel’ began. “Let’s go home until you wake up into daylight.”
Once more everything turned white, and both Julien and his ‘guardian Clover angel’ are flying through a multicoloured tunnel at high speed, resembling a near-death experience.
“Wait, this is giving me an idea,” Julien started. “Maybe you’re telling me to do what others did in the olden days… except it’s to do with Spaghettios.”
“Mm-hmm,” the ‘guardian Clover angel’ started. “But there are risks going round the corner, and if you’re not careful, you might end up with a fate worse than death. But whatever it is… good luck and don’t stop fighting for freedom, justice and Spaghettios for all!”
“Boo-yeah!” Julien replied, as he went off in his separate way towards the light.
“And don’t forget,” the ‘guardian Clover angel’ advised as she disappeared, “Beware the force of the wandering eye!”
Everything went white and Julien was awake. Julien looked around the hut, amazed at what his dream was about.
“I gotta tell somebody!” Julien gasped, as he got out of bed and left his hut.
== Part 7 ==
It was a few hours after Julien had a dream last night where he encountered his ‘guardian Clover angel’.
Julien was happy, getting out his knapsack and packed a few books, his boombox (with a loudspeaker/earphones included), and a few photos of his parents. Quickly he wrote a note and before he left the room, he placed it under the pillow on his bed.
Without a care, Julien darted out of the room, and out of the hut by the front door.
~---~^O^~---~
Meanwhile, at the ex-rental hut, both Ted and Dorothy were investigating a special kind of vending machine – instead of dispensing soup, it dispenses pok-pok berries… lots and lots of mangoes. Ted got frustrated and cursing randomly, “Come on, can you dispense anything but pok-pok berries?!”
“Perhaps,” Dorothy started, “I should add that thought to my notes.” Dorothy got out a notepad and started writing down the following on one page: “NO MORE POK-POKS IN THE VENDING MACHINE PLEASE.”
While Dorothy was writing in the notepad, a person entered the ex-rental hut and found the two lemurs in there. “Hello there, little critters, what is it you want?”
The two lemurs had trouble answering the question, because they don’t speak English. However, Dorothy showed up the notes she had written, which were a little bit too small for the person to read. The person looked at the two lemurs by the eyes.
“Oh don’t worry, guys,” the person replied. “There’s no better way to cheer a person up than to give a poor little critter a nice tasty apple.” The person pressed a button next to the window, and then the vending machine dispensed a small apple, the same way another vending machine would dispense candies and everything sugary long ago. And sure as luck would have seen it coming, the person gives the apple to Ted. “There, doesn’t it make you feel much better?”
Ted looked as the person left the ex-rental hut. Ted started biting into the apple, feeling that he deserved it anyway.
“Well, at least I don’t find anything wrong with fruit,” Dorothy commented.
~---~^O^~---~
Meanwhile, at the plane, while most of the lemurs were either in the rec room or just talking to each other in the cabin, Julien entered the cabin, but was careful of breaking the news to everybody. Clover and Maurice were just asleep on one of the couches, while Sharon was talking to the other lemurs about nothing for the past thirty minutes. Willie was there, about to fall asleep during Sharon’s super-long discussion.
“Well, I don’t know how to put this,” Julien announced, “but it came to me in a dream… we decided to make our own Spaghettios.”
Willie woke up and looked at Julien. “Erm, excuse me?”
“Well, what do you know?” Julien explained. “It came to me in a dream, and I believe this would help solve all your problems during the Spaghettios ban!”
“What is it?” Maurice yawned, waking up. “Are we going to migrate to Switzerland? I heard they have good Spaghettios. Not sure if they are covered by the Spaghettios ban, though.”
“Maybe so,” Willie checked the newspaper and then found an article marked: SPAGHETTIOS BAN IN MADAGASCAR PROVEN SUCCESSFUL, Now the Spaghettios ban is spreading to parts of the UK, Europe and also Japan and certain parts of Oceania…
“Eh… maybe not,” Maurice muttered, as he sunk deeper in the couch.
“We can make our own Spaghettios,” Julien suggested.
“What? Go drink out of a smelly watering hole?” Maurice gawped.
“Nope,” Julien corrected. “Didn’t you hear me? Maybe we’ll go do something to fight against the Spaghettios ban. Didn’t you hear about the Prohibition Act in mainland Madagascar?”
“Prohibition Act?” Maurice asked. “You mean they banned anything alcoholic back then in the 1920’s?”
“Yup,” Julien began. “It came to me in a dream. I met my ‘guardian Clover angel’ and she told me everything about the amazing era. Why she even told me about the amazing efforts done by the people against the Prohibition Act.”
“Man, humans can do pretty amazing things,” Clover commented.
“And they also have these clubs and places, which they call Speakeasies,” Julien continued. “That is where you could go to relax, drink, anything you fancy, no questions asked. It’s given me an idea to do something, to fight back. And the most effective way is to make our own Spaghettios. Well, pity we don’t have the recipe, but at least we’ll make some for ourselves.”
“Hold it, hold it,” Maurice interrupted. “I bet you are missing something.”
“Yeah,” Willie suggested. “You’ve got nothing to make it with. Even if we had the recipe, then what use can it be? We don’t have tomatoes, we don’t have wheat, nothing at all! Besides, we’re just too short and covered in fur, living at a wildlife reserve, and we don’t even know what me might have to do to become a bootlegger.”
“And what else?” Clover began. “There’s no place here where we can go pick up some tomatoes or wheat or whatever it is you need. It’s contraband, and we’ll never get stuff like that.”
A few more lemurs, Abner and Becca entered the lounge and wondered what the commotion was.
“And where might we get hold of the makings?” Abner started.
“Maybe we weren’t going to follow your idea,” Maurice added, as he started to fall asleep on the couch.
“Get it in your head,” Willie argued. “The Spaghettios ban has spread to the rest of the world, haven’t you agreed?”
Julien sighed and then gloomily concluded, “Fine, have it your way.” He slinked out of the cabin and into the cockpit.
Julien sat at the end of the cockpit, feeling that nobody listens to his ideas. Julien sighed and then realized, Spaghettios is really finished and there’s nothing that can be done to stop it.
Maurice entered the cockpit and then spoke, quietly, “Your majesty, we decided to do something about it. And even though there are odds against it, we happily support your idea.”
“Momo?” Julien asked. “Maurice, I knew you believe me! Thank goodness!”
“So, maybe we could do something first,” Maurice began. “We might not be able to do it ourselves – so maybe we’ll round up our peoples and go our own way… to freedom.”
“Yeah!” Julien agreed. “Come on Clover, Let’s go!”
Julien, Maurice, and Clover hurried out of the cabin and out of the exit door of the plane.
Abner, Becca, and Willie stayed in the lounge, unsure of what Julien and the other lemurs were about to do.
“What are they doing?” Becca began.
“I’m not sure,” Willie replied. “Whatever it is they’re doing, let’s say we could have added “Don’t be a Hero” while they went out.”
“Oh well, it’s too late now,” Abner sighed, as he entered the cockpit.
~---~^O^~---~
After some time, Julien and some lemurs (Clover, Maurice, Mort, Todd, Hector, Horst, Pancho, Ted and Butterfish) gathered at the human village. Julien has written some things on his notepad, which appeared to be a set of plans.
“Okay, peoples,” Julien announced. “Thank you for coming here and showing my agreement for a plan we’re ready to carry out. Prior to this, I have written up a plan on things we should do. And they are, in chronological order: 1) Search for a recipe, 2) Find the ingredients and a place we can stay for a while, and 3) Stock up for hibernation.”
The lemurs spoke amongst themselves as if that was a pretty much a daring attempt to go fight against the Spaghettios ban, but whatever it was, they are satisfied to know that no-one will stop them in their tracks.
“Okay,” Julien continued. “Let’s start by dividing the groups in two. Me, Todd, and Clover will go over to the library, while Maurice, Horst, Butterfish, and Hector look for a bookstore that stocks a few books on Spaghettios. But to make sure nobody finds out, Mort, Ted and Pancho would try to distract anyone from noticing us doing such things. Okay peoples, let’s go.”
Julien, Clover, and Todd went out of the village to the rest of the townhood, while Maurice, Horst, Butterfish, and Hector found a bookstore a few minutes of walking out of the village and entering the street. This left Mort, Ted, and Pancho sitting there in the middle of the village, with nothing to do.
“So what are we going to do?” Ted asked, after moments of quiet.
~---~^O^~---~
Outside the library, King Julien, Clover, and Todd are talking to each other on what to do.
“Clover, I want you to distract the librarian by talking to her,” Julien advised. “Todd, you accompany me while we search the library. But whatever it is, I want you to be quiet, okay?”
“On it,” Clover agreed. Attached to her neck collar is a translator, smaller than a dog tag. Clover switches the translator on, and what the translator does is it converts anything spoken in Lemur into English. The three lemurs enter the library, quietly as they can.
Julien and Todd approached the computer near the back of the large room. Clover approached the librarian and then sat next to her. Trouble is, Clover doesn’t know what to say first, and pretty much hasn’t used the translator for a long time, so she hopes it is still working properly.
“Hello,” Clover said surprisingly in pure English. “Lovely to see you today. Is that a new haircut?”
The human librarian looks at Clover and replied with: “Yes I have. How can I help you, young visiting local?”
“Other than the Spaghettios ban,”Clover began, “are there any other rules set in the island?”
“Yes, I think so,” the librarian replied. “There is also a literacy code being set up on what we’re allowed to read.”
While Clover was talking, Julien typed in the word “Spaghettios” in one of the search boxes on the screen, then he hit the Enter key on the computer keyboard. Surely enough, no results, not even a page, nor a stray sentence, was found in the search terminal in the library.
“And what happens to any books on Spaghettios?” Clover continued.
“Well, to comply with the guidelines,” the librarian continued, “all the books on Spaghettios have been banned and removed from the libraries and bookstores. Then it’s all ripped up and burnt to ashes.”
Clover just stared at the librarian. Her jaw had dropped and she remained speechless.
“Oh, right,” Clover commented, trying to see the brighter side.
Julien was wondering what to do, but then he found a little button on the screen that read ‘GO ONLINE’, so using the mouse he pointed the cursor to the button and clicked on it.
“Oh, and there is something else,” the librarian added.
“Then what’s that?” Clover asked.
Julien typed the word ‘spaghettios’ again in the search box, then hit the Enter key on the computer keyboard. Unfortunately the search returned no results – no recipes, just nothing but a message saying “ILLEGAL SEARCH: No results found. Please search using an alternate topic.’
“We have updated the locks on our internet access,” the librarian answered. “it helps screen out any innocent-sounding pages that could have inappropriate content.”
Julien decided to stop there, muttering, “Okay, I’m done.” He logged off the search terminal. As Julien hopped off the seat, Todd followed him too.
“It’s alright,” Clover commented. “I only just stopped by for a chat, that’s all.”
Clover, Julien, and Todd approached the door. “Thanks for your advice,” Clover said as she was the last to leave the library.
Unfortunately, her tail got jammed in the door, and this caused Clover to scream in pain loudly, demanding that someone pull her tail out from the door.
~---~^O^~---~
Back outside at the village, Ted was close to falling asleep. Mort was just sitting there, wondering if something came to make waiting worthwhile. His thoughts raced through his head when suddenly he spotted something on the ground – it was a penny.
“Huh?” Mort exclaimed, wondering how on earth a coin would leap out of nowhere, right underneath his snout. Then suddenly a few more people dropped and placed a few more coins in front of Mort and his troupe. “Hey, what on earth? I don’t need this! Well, fine, just keep dropping coins in front of me then!”
“They think that we lost our jobs and are short of some pocket money,” Pancho pondered. “But at least our owners still love us.”
“Dunno,” Ted began. “At least we’re still alive.”
“I know, but what if we were found busking and then…” Mort wondered, when someone else interrupts him.
“Pancho? What are you doing in a middle of a shopping heap?” Andy spoke from nowhere.
“Andy?” Pancho asked. “How did you find us there?”
“Dunno,” Andy replied. “At least it’s by surprise.”
~---~^O^~---~
At the bookstores, Maurice is busy checking the shelves, finding all sorts of interesting stuff from every bookshelf. Horst was just sitting in front of the counter, about to fall asleep.
“Horst, wake up,” Hector instructed. “Didn’t you read what the sign says? It says “Back in 5 minutes”, so that means he’ll be back in no time.”
“Oh, right,” Horst replied, so he tried keeping himself awake while waiting for someone to approach the counter.
The human bookseller approaches the counter and finds Horst sitting in front of the counter.
“Good day,” the bookseller greeted as he stood in front of Horst. “How can I help you?”
Horst had trouble speaking English, and he had forgotten his translator back at the plane. But then he saw something shiny and bright in his pocket. Horst tried to speak, but what came out was nothing but a loud raspy grunting noise. The bookseller stared at him in disbelief.
“Can you speak to me as clearly and carefully as possible?” the bookseller asked.
Horst got to the ground and then approached the bookseller, then nudged into his coat pocket. “Hey, what are you doing?” the bookseller questioned. But Horst was just nuzzling inside the bookseller’s coat pocket, looking for something interesting in there. Finally after some time, Horst pulled out the shiny object from the bookseller’s pocket – an empty Spaghettio's Can. Horst let out a high-pitched whine, while staring at the bookseller.
“Huh? How did this get here?” The bookseller asked.
Maurice approached the bookseller. “I think that’s what we’re after,” Maurice told the bookseller.
The bookseller looked at Maurice. Has he met him before? Or was it just a hallucination? No it was real, he saw them before – Maurice had recently come to this part of the island for a visit every year.
“So you must be the one who visits this part of the island every year,” the bookseller started. “Now what is it you want?”
“It’s not a bell I’m after,” Maurice answered. “We’re looking for books on Spaghettios.”
The bookseller paused, and he was wondering what to say next.
“Haven’t you heard?” Maurice corrected. “I think that the Spaghettios ban is cruel, unjust and still not the right thing to do.”
“And what is it you’re trying to do?” the bookseller continued.
“We’re looking for books on Spaghettios,” Maurice explained, “And most of all, a recipe.”
The bookseller stared at Maurice for quite some time. “Are you serious? You sound like you want to poison yourself.”
“No I don’t,” Maurice answered back. “In fact neither of us want to. Why are you commenting to me like that?”
“I think what you’re about to commit is a crime,” the bookseller explained. “All books on Spaghettios are currently placed on the consumer’s blacklist and are destroyed, in the name of health preservation.”
“But didn’t you hear of the Prohibition era?” Maurice asked. “Have you any idea of the Prohibition era?”
The bookseller paused. “Well,” he began, “I have met my great-grandfather once, and he said he has been in the Prohibition era.”
“Was it a true story?” Maurice tried to speak, dumbfounded.
“Yes he did,” the bookseller continued. “He joined the fight against it and even though he almost got arrested once, but he always believed that Prohibition robs us of freedom. My father told me about him, and I now have told you about him. And I believe that this is the opportunity to stop the law going too far.”
Hector and Butterfish approached the bookseller, unsure of what to say.
“And as I believe,” the bookseller started, “I think I might have just what you’re looking for.” He opened the door leading to the basement downstairs… and then one by one, Butterfish, Hector, Horst, and Maurice entered the basement.
Once the lemurs entered the basement, the bookseller looked into a cupboard and found a few books (which surprisingly escaped the book-burnings and other stuff) “Here it is,” the bookseller began. “The Spaghoholic’s Guide to Spaghettios,” *he places a book on the table*, “Feeder Facts: What Spaghettios is Made Of” *he places another book on the table*, “The Spaghettier’s Almanac, and that’s pretty much about it. I don’t really have a photocopier, so maybe you can write it down instead. What do you think?”
The four lemurs stare at the bookseller, wondering what to do next.
After some time, Horst, Maurice, Butterfish, and Hector were seated, writing stuff on separate sheets of paper. Horst was daydreaming and sketching himself with a beverage at the same time; Butterfish was trying to translate the recipe into Lemur (he is doing it left-to-fight, but bottom-to-top styled); however Hector and Maurice are writing the recipe in pure English, word-for-word, happy about what they were going to do next.
“So, are you done yet?” the bookseller started.
“Almost,” Horst replied. “There, that almost should do it. So how’s everyone else going?”
Horst’s team-mates placed their notepads in front of Horst. Horst placed his notepad on the table, showing the entire sketch, all detailed to the nearest point of shading. Butterfish, Maurice and Hector stared at Maurice in the eye.
“Why are you always on about beverages?” Hector started. “I mean come on, you never put your snout at hard work!”
“What?” Horst replied, confused. “It’s sometimes good to throw in some extra things at some effort or another.
~---~^O^~---~
Back at the jungle, Timo was watching some boring documentary about animal psychology.
“The rare and brightly colored Hazholt’s fly,” the narrator began, “which is one third of the size of a women’s tennis shoe, has many mating partners… and amazingly shows no guilt.”
Timo sighs in disbelief, muttering, “Odd, never heard of such overgrown insect before.”
Xixi entered the spacepod, finding Timo watching TV on the couch. “Timo, what are you doing?” Xixi shouted. “Don’t you realize you’re fattening yourself when you’re sitting on the couch for long periods of time?”
“What?” Timo replied. “I’m not what you call ‘fattening’, Xixi.”
“Timo,” Xixi demanded, “I urge you to get your rear end off that couch and, I don’t know, get active for a change.”
“Xixi,” Timo said sternly, “Are you sure you are expecting me to get up off this couch I have widened on and, say, create science?”
“Well, er…” Xixi trailed off, “yeah. You could use a bit of that.” Xixi looked around for the remote and turned off the TV. “Timo, please get off the couch.”
“Um…” Timo muttered, “Okay, At least there are lemurs who might need some attention.” He got off the couch and left the spacepod by the front door, thinking that some lemurs are willing to come see him if circumstances dictate.
~---~^O^~---~
Well, let’s fast forward to this afternoon, when Julien and his peoples have finally got research and are now looking for a place where the action was going to take place. Well, where might the action take place? The recently closed down Campbell's shop? Nah; too evident. The landfill? Nah; too stinky (well, the smell might deter the authorities from getting at them.) What about the old factory? Hmmm, possibly…
“Here we are,” Julien quotes to his group of lemurs as they approached the old factory. “Our place of production.”
The lemurs look at Julien as if he was talking about something else. Todd approached Julien, commenting, “Mr. King Julien, I know you’re heroic, but I don’t think I'm old enough to…”
“I know,” Julien interrupted, sounding as if he was trying to finish off what Todd was trying to say. “But look, even though the operation sounds dangerous, we’re actually doing something good. We’re fighting against the law, remember?”
“Well…” Todd replies, “I know. First we have to check first to make sure we have the right things provided in one place. Whaddaya say, guys?”
The lemurs. look at Todd in confusion. Hector stepped forward and said, in agreement, “Sure. Why not?”
Julien found a hole in the metal wire-mesh fence surrounding the old factory, and despite the size, Julien had managed to wriggle through the hole without hurting himself. Todd followed, as did Horst, Maurice, Clover, Pancho, Mort, Ted and Hector, but for Butterfish, it was a bit hard for him to wriggle through the hole in the fence. Maurice tried pushing as Butterfish tried to crawl through. After a few shoves, Butterfish was finally through the hole in the fence without any problems. Julien quietly approached the entrance to the old factory, so as to check if anyone is still in there.
“Hmmm….” Julien quotes as he perks his ears to track movement in the shed. “I think there’s no one in here. Coast is clear, peoples.”
Slowly and quietly, Julien and his subjects entered the factory.
It was rather a large warehouse, almost nothing in it, except for a few benches, and also a few cupboards to store certain things in them. It was just a barren place, and much more lonely since it closed. No-one ever goes there anymore…
Julien just stood there in awe. This was the first time he has entered a factory that actually closed down. But no, he was not going to reack havoc… it’s for an important cause… but where to start?
“I think we should check if there are enough items to suffice the task,” Maurice suggested. “Why don’t we?”
Oddly enough, Clover and Todd had just managed to locate the storeroom and in amazement they found several wooden cartons packed with tomatoes, wheat and so on – what they have come across were the main ingredients used to make spaghettios. (Well, except the milk, though.)
“Mr. King Julien, we found these!” Todd cheerfully announced.
“Great!” Julien answered. “Now we’ve got what we need, but what if we were to stay the night? What if we were to guard the warehouse and protect it from harm?”
“Perhaps there is something in there…” Clover pondered, then she approached the emergency storeroom closet and then tried pulling it open, but with great difficulty. After a few tugs, Clover gave up. “Why would anyone lock these storeroom closets shut? Surely they threw away the key…”
Horst approached the emergency storeroom closet, then he placed one of his nails into the keyhole, turned it sideways and opened the storeroom closet door – and what they found in there were a moderate supply of sleeping bags and blankets, a radio, light bulbs, portable lanterns and flashlights, and possibly some batteries.
Julien was wondering about how he would be able to communicate with Masikura. Then he remembered – he still had his knapsack and had his cell phone with him… and (well I didn’t mention it at the beginning) he left a note under the pillow just before he left. Julien hoped that Masikura read it… but he decided to check what’s going on by dialing the home number on his cell phone. After dialing the number, he paused, hoping that Masikura would be still at home and would pick up the phone.
It did.
“Hello?” Masikura’s voice was heard from Julien’s cell phone.
“Hi Masikura!” Julien greeted.
“King Julien!” Masikura happily shouted. “I’m so glad you’re okay. You were missing this morning and everyone almost panicked. I am so glad you are not captured. Speaking of which, are you going to risk your lives on some sort of mission? We’re just worried about what will happen to you. Promise you’ll be careful, alright?”
“Okay, Masikura,” Julien began. “I will be careful. And no matter how near or far we are, I will be close to you, eventually. Masikura… don’t worry.”
Masikura paused. “Julien, I’ll miss you, and whatever you do, be careful.” Then the conversation ended.
Julien paused. Then he looked around the warehouse, and then at Horst, Todd and the other lemurs individually. He was wondering what to say… he was out of ideas…
Then he remembered Crimson… the poor defenseless lemur, once living with other lemurs, now her "poison" soup suffering in total captivity, in jail with other criminals and tortured in any other means possible, and Crimson is possibly crying out for help and wishing someone might come save him. If he had to remain hidden, then the arrest would never have happened.
Julien took a deep breath, ready to say the following: “Okay peoples, I’ve decided. Crimson may be arrested, but we’re not going to fall in their traps – we’re tough, we’re adaptable and we’re ready to risk our lives doing something we have never done before!”
“Well, that will it be?” Todd asked.
“We’re going to make our own Spaghettios!” Julien cried out. “So what are we?”
“Stardust!” Clover cried out, from nowhere.
The other lemurs approached Julien and shook each other’s paws, in agreement.
Fate has been accepted… as destiny has found.
== Part 8 ==
Work was underway at the old warehouse - Julien and Maurice were helping out with the other lemurs (who agreed on fighting back at the Spaghettios ban) by removing the crates from the storeroom and carrying it into the workstation. Luckily that the ingredients weren't touched by troopers and other authorities.
"I wonder why these items weren't destroyed," Julien pondered as he placed a crate down on the ground.
 "Perhaps it's all in the features of the handheld detectors possessed by the troopers," Maurice commented. "The ingredients can't be picked up on the detectors, but once you mix it all together, it'll show up on the detector. It's like mixing many different chemicals and having the whole thing blow up in your face."
"Perhaps we gotta be careful about what we should do," Julien told. "Maybe we should store the finished products in lead-lined containers - the detector's signals won't pick them up. That way they won't be able to get in their way!"
 "Great!" Maurice replied happily. He used his whole strength to pull the lid off the crate, revealing several packages of sugar. Strangely enough, they were no signs of mice or other introduced species gnawing their way into the crate or any other damage, so they were ready for the challenge.
After taking down the ingredients off the storerooms, the lemurs. began working on their first batch - Horst was carrying the bowls and utensils here and there, while Butterfish carried several tins and sachets to the preparation table. Despite working hard like ants, the lemurs. were having short conversations inbetween their work, and the sound of commands such as "Touch more dough", "Drop more water", "Pinch more flour" and such were heard.
Fast forward a few minutes later and the pasta mixture started to take on rollers. Maurice was stirring it as if his arms got tired of the repetitive stirring. Using some sort of sugar thermometer, Julien checked the temperature of the pasta mixture - it appeared that the mixture is at exactly the right temperature - not too hot, not too cold. After placing the mixture in one of the supplied baking trays, Julien placed the mixture in the rollers, cutting into small, circular shapes.
To kill time, Julien and the other lemurs. set up their living quarters in the remaining space of the old warehouse. Strangely enough after a good old five minutes, the mixture had set hard - not rock hard, just hard as normal uncooked Spaghettios. It was when Julien realized that preparation of the first batch of Spaghettios was accomplished, with only one more thing to do... try the mixture. And it seemed easy - to involve the lemurs in the taste-testing sessions. The large slab of Spaghettios was put into a large number of small bowls - Julien gave each piece to each lemur on his team.
"That tastes great!" Maurice quoted, nibbling on one of the homemade Spaghettios. "Well, it may not beat the mango, but I like it!"
"Mmm, smells nice too!" Mort squealed as well. "So much for a good old one hour preparing the whole thing."
"Well, we started on the Spaghettios," Butterfish pondered, "but what are we gonna do?"
"Well, we could hibernate," Clover answered, "but I don't think I could uptake too much flour in one sitting, and besides, none of us here are capable of sleeping without eating between breaks."
"What?" Ted asked, quizzically. "I have hibernated once in protest against unfair judgement and never felt hungry!" He approached Clover as if supporting her.
"Yeah," Maurice agreed. "I think I simply have enough fat on from napping."
"King Julien, I know you've done a good job working with the others," Todd began, as he came out from hiding of the empty crates. "But we've got to think in the others too. Didn't you have that dream a few nights ago?"
"What dream?" Julien quizzically asked.
"You know," Todd quoted. "When your guardian angel told you to do... you made your own Spaghettios... what do you do now?"
"Dunno," Horst sighed, sadly. "We're going to fall victim to the cruel ban. How are we supposed to squish it flat now?"
Julien thought for some time. Then he turned his muzzle to the tray of uneaten Spaghettios, then the lemurs. Julien smiled, as if he had found a good idea on his paws.
"Maybe we could sell the Spaghettios," Julien quoted.
For a while, the lemurs paused for some time. Willie stared at Julien, as if he had heard something stupid. "You... are going... to sell Spaghettios?" Willie gasped. "No, no, no wait, you want us to sell the Spaghettios?"
"Errrhhh..." Julien was about to say something... when Willie interrupted him.
 "Actually, what you said would mean a one way trip to the wire cage," Willie scolded. "Perhaps you should have found out what happened to Crimson's poison soup now... after having her soup stripped of her bowl, look at what she's got now... at least ten years behing bars... and all because she's trying to be innocent! Didn't you hear what Horst said?"
"I don't actually remember..." Julien moaned, "were you there when I said something about the black market to her?"
"Well... I was there," Willie admitted. "I was just walking down the beach when I saw Crimson being beaten up... until YOU came along."
Julien then heard a voice in his head. "If you want to wind up as a fish out of water," it echoed, "then go ahead, do it, but if you risk getting arrested, it's what you deserve! Even the slightest action you take could alter your fate in many ways more than the Earth could even imagine."
Julien sighed in despair, then walked away, sadly, and hid somewhere behind the crates. He closed his eyes and curled up into a little ball, and then sobbed quietly to himself. Ted heard the quiet sobbing noises coming from where Julien is... quietly, Ted left Clover's side and approached Julien, who was hiding behind the crates.
"Your majesty, don't listen to what others say," Ted quietly advised. "They're just worried about you."
Julien turned to look at Ted in the eye... then quickly he shut his eyes and gazed at the floor, sobbing. "No, no, no, don't worry, listen," Ted reassured. "I don't care who is against your opinions... but what they know... they're just worried about what'll happen to you. But whatever it is... you must get up off the ground, and then think... you can either risk our lives... or sit here, looking like a complete sulk and suffer in silence. Think about it."
Julien then turned to look at Ted again. He took a deep breath and got off the ground, empowered. "Ted..." Julien began, taking a deep breath... "you're right. We must do something."
The lemurs talk amongst each other, confused. Julien approached the group and then said, with a tear in his eye... "Guys, listen. Either we must take the risk... or we sit in silence and risk being the victim. What should you pick?"
Willie approached Julien, not happy, and then put on a rather simplified rant... "Your majesty, I know it's part of your plan, but I don't think you should be doing this."
"Willie, please," Julien interrupted. "What about Crimson and her poison? What will become of him? Why would he deserve such a downfall? What would you do to fight for not only your rights... but for his... and everyone else's?"
Willie looked at the ground for some time , then the rest of the lemurs. and then slowly turned his face to Julien.
"All this ranting has made me hungry," Willie moaned. "But we're actually hungry for payback."
"What, I don't get it," Julien replied, confused.
"You're right your majesty, let's do it," Willie suggested. "But we might need help... lots and lots of help..."
   - - - *O.O* - - -
Willie had decided to go with Julien's idea of selling the Spaghettios. But there were a few problems... one of them was that the likelihood of police officers stalking their territory  - well, Julien found it easy - since some of the lemurs have lost their jobs due to the ban, Julien decided that Butterfish and a few lemurs guard the area - luckily that the old factory was less likely to be patrolled after its most recent raids at the start of the ban. The second problem was that there are more likely that police will even take up disguises to help hoodwink bootleggers out of their criminal work - however, Maurice had got around this - he spread a little greeting that helps tell the trustworthy customers from the disguised police officers - and strangely enough, it consisted of: "I'd like something to keep myself up for a while please - something that'd give me a buzz." Yesh, it was a bit challenging to negotiate with humans... well, thanks to his multi-lingual capability, Maurice had got the whole thing pinned down.
On a similar subject, if you were in any other country outside Madagascar, there was more likely the chance that you'll meet a bootlegger - well, that is, the ones who think were trying to fight back against the Spaghettios ban. But no matter where you are in the world, well let's just say compared to the lemurs. taking up the challenge, the human bootleggers were blamed for selling inferior items... yesh you'll never know that behind the scenes the humans were using whatever they could find - in fact, when I mean inferior, I mean that the 'Spaghettios' mixtures did not contain any real Spaghettios at all. At the worst possible moment you are more likely to get a chunk of wood wrapped in foil once you bit into it. But despite all this, Julien and his lemur team were honest dealers - even though the price is a bit over before-the-ban's standards, you are more likely to get a decent product in return.
Yes, things were looking upwards for Julien and his subjects. Production increased and the money they made grew... and Julien's idea was to put some of the money in the board game, "Gimme, Gimme, Gimme: The Game" and using it to help pay the bills. But there was the third problem... it was somehow to do with the supply. Once the supply of ingredients ran out, well, let's just say Julien stumbled into one, but however there was a catch - since in the past the bootleg Spaghettios were sold for 25 cents each... the price rose to four times as much to cover the cost of the supplier (even though Julien still has enough to help pay off the bills.)
After a few successful weeks, things were settling in nicely... the area wasn't broken into, and things were just the way it intended... well, almost.
   - - - *O.O* - - -
At the deserted warehouse where Julien and the lemurs are currently living in, Julien was lying awake in his sleeping bag, sleepless. Why was he sleepless? Perhaps he was either homesick - wishing to return back to the kingdom... perhaps he is anxious because one day he will be caught by a human police officer or be trapped in one of their plans... or maybe he was worried about Crimson... after all, Crimson tried to be innocent, and requested that be be set free.
But no, Julien was anxious - he had the feeling that someone was sneaking around the place... worried, Julien got out of the sleeping bag, then used his night-vision-eyesight to see what's going on... so far no-one was nearby.
But Julien's super sonic hearing picked up something... the sound of footsteps landing on the concrete floor as quietly as the trespasser can allow. Curious but scared, Julien quietly stepped and then relied on his hearing and night-vision to track the trespasser down...
"Hello?" Julien quietly called out. "Anyone awake?"
No answer... except the sound of someone tipping over some tins and running over to another place with it. Julien finally caught sight of the trespasser and then attempted to follow it... but to no avail. Julien decided to sound off again... "Hello?" Julien cried out. "Is anyone in here?"
No reply... just the sound of someone puncturing the tin and then eating its contents, then a loud belch was heard. Julien finally knew where the trespasser was... somewhere in the storerooms where some of the food was kept. Julien quietly entered the storeroom and then stood in the doorway... using his little paw he reached for the light switch...
With the flick of the light switch, Julien found that the trespasser turned out to be a lemur... Pancho was sitting in the middle of the storeroom, feeding on a tin of beans he had found in another room. This almost gave Julien a fright - after Julien let out a frightened scream, Pancho did too!
"Pancho!" Julien shouted, worried. "How did you get here?"
"Nothing personal," Pancho chuckled. "I just wanted to share with you the news that happened while you were away from the kingdom."
"Pancho, what are you doing in the storeroom?" Julien scolded. "And why are you literally taking a bite out of our food supply?"
"I was just hungry," Pancho answered.
"Everyone is trying to sleep!" Julien explained, then showed Pancho where the other lemurs are sleeping. "See? They've had a hard time working on our one-way road to victory!"
But while trying to explain, Maurice moaned and woke up from his sleep. "King Julien, how many times do I have to tell you - don't wake me up while I'm having some well-earned rest!"
"Maurice, I'm sorry," Pancho explained, "but I'm here to tell you guys about what happened while you weren't here!"
"Tell us in the morning," Maurice yawned, as he attempted to resume his sleep.
Pancho stood on the spot for a while. "Where am I going to sleep now?" he asked. "I've got the feeling that someone's looking for me."
"What is it," Julien asked, "are they following you again?"
"Ummm, not really," Pancho answered, "but I was wondering... I think I might have to stop by for a while or else they'll catch me."
Julien immediately enterd the storeroom and got out a few blanket rolls. Carefully, Julien laid them next to Julien's sleeping bag. "Here," Julien explained. "You can sleep here, right next to me."
Quietly, Pancho laid himself on the blankets, appreciating its warmth, and then used another blanket to cover himself. Julien stared at Pancho, warmly, and then got into his sleeping bag.
"You know about what I said about you trying to fight back against the ban?" Pancho began. "I'm sorry, I was just worried."
"That's okay," Julien replied.
Both Pancho and Julien drifted off to sleep, optimistic of what might happen later when they wake up.
But little do they know, Julien and his peoples will be the latest victims of a silent trap set up by the police officers. Perhaps Horst's warning from one fortnight ago may have been right. But needless to say, Julien appears to have pleasant dreams.
== Part 9 ==
While Julien and the other lemurs were on their way to victory, you may be wondering what happened to Masikura... and other animal residents on the island... and the remaining lemurs... well, don't fret, all is well in the Madagascar kingdom - well, except for no apparent reason, Xixi had enough money from the board game. But what's happening to the others is not really glamorous...
   During all this time, an incident had happened at the cafeteria (the plane), in which the remaining lemurs had received a severe internal reaction from a special soup - which oddly enough was the fat-free carob soup with extra-potent prune filling and tomato sauce. Because of the bran and prune's reputation of being high in fibre (again, fiber in US spelling), this caused a sharp tummyache in some lemurs... and yes, it ain't pretty. The result was that there were large blocked crowds of lemurs leading to the bathroom, and if you think cleaning up is hard, then let's just say it's 100 times worse. Almost nobody wanted to clean up, but Timo... well that was different... due to his trust for the lemurs, he decided to clean up the plane corridors after the incident. This led to the lemurs seeing Timo as not just scizard, but as a helper. So unfortunately, Timo had to make use of his weekends cleaning up after lemurs, be it a simple accident or major calamity.
But apart from that, things were okay at the kingdom. But however, things weren't bright for the lemurs. who had lost their job - especially Dorothy, who had gone to a lot of trouble picking on other lemurs out of boredom. But Sage, on the other hand, was already starting to feel sorry for Crimson and sometimes he paid a visit to Julien and the other lemurs sometimes.
Well, life was a little bit easier for the lemurs, who were sometimes receiving the Spaghettios at some stage. Well speaking of which, let's cross over to where Julien and his lemur team were, working as usual. The radio was turned on, with the spokesanimal giving out hazard advice to every listener possible.
"Choking bad for you," the spokesperson said. "In another health research twist, sodas and soft drinks have high levels of phosphoric acid, which lead to dental erosion - literally dissolving teeth. Not only that, they are filled with carbon dioxide, causing excessive gas emissions. In response, the government has decided to act swiftly to curb the menace by abolishing sale and trades of soft drinks and other related beverages from midnight tonight. If you have any leftover cans or bottles in the fridge, please leave them outside and phone the Disposal Squad immediately."
Horst was listening to such words on the radio, then turned the radio off and then Horst approached Julien. "You know, I think we've done this for one month. Now what are we going to do now?"
"I don't know," Julien sighed, depressed. "We have given some of our cash to help pay off the bills. Wait a minute, what would we do to celebrate our success?"
"I don't know," Mort replied, "maybe wash dishes?"
"Nope," Julien began, "Perhaps we might throw a party."
"Goodness!" Pancho gasped as he popped out of the storeroom. "We might blow our cover! They'll eventually catch us!"
"But Pancho, look!" Julien explained. "We've been successful in making our own spaghettios and selling it to those who are against the ban. We were wary of risks and we were optimistic on what was to happen... What's gotten into you?"
"I'm worried about what might happen," Pancho continued. "In fact, with success comes a great chance that we are going to fail."
"Wait, this is giving me an idea," Ted began. "You heard that back in the old days, when beer was banned, they used to have speakeasies?"
"Speakeasies?" Julien gasped. "Is this where you get to just sit there, relax, have drinks...?"
"Yup, but this has inspired me to set up an eateasy," Ted replied. "It's like a speakeasy except that instead of drink, it's spaghettios."
"Sounds like a good idea to me," Clover replied. "Where do we sign up?"
"Maybe we can do it," Julien began. "Maybe we can get the party started! But we need to get this place a makeover, don't we?"
"Well it sounds like a great deal of work..." Pancho began. "But let's do it!"
And so work was underway for turning the old factory into a party area. Julien and Maurice helped with moving the items to another place, while Butterfish and Ted browsed through junkyards for anything that could be put to good use, possibly parts of furniture for the party room. Clover worked on searching for strings of lights to put around the walls of the party room they are currently working on, and also got to connecting a boombox to a largely sophisticated disc-jockey system. Julien helped paint the walls orange and purple (well, to make explaining short, each color was placed on opposite facing walls), setting a perfect atmosphere for a party. Finally, the place was all set - Clover and Butterfish helped move in the furniture, and the whole thing was ready. Perhaps the only thing that wasn't ready was the guest list.
Meanwhile, Xixi came home after being knee-deep in dirt, sludge and hard work, wondering how bad things got after the incident. And not only that, she definitely wondered the worst especially when people pass by her and tease her to death. The only animals at home were Masikura, Timo, Maggie, and Tammy. Well, Timo was in the middle of dusting the furniture, Tammy was in the middle of wondering how things were without the company of Julien and her little Todd. But Maggie was on the phone! But who was she talking to?
"Maggie?" Masikura asked. "What are you doing?"
"Masikura?" Maggie began, "sorry, I'm on the phone." After a few seconds, it turns out that Maggie is talking to a familiar face - Julien! And no wonder. Masikura hasn't woken up to see his face ever since the day the king ran away from home. But whatever it was, he was saying that he is feeling fine, even though there were a few downfalls - at one time, they almost ran out of ingredients used to make Spaghettios, and so he had to rely on a supplier - the catch is that the Spaghettios he is currently selling has to be at least 10 cents more expensive than how it used to cost in the past.
After speaking with Julien on the phone, Maggie then shouted directly to the other chameleon: "It's for you!"
Masikura got hold of the phone. "Hello?" she began.
"Masikura? a familiar voice replied from the phone. "Is it you?"
"King Julien!" Masikura shouted happily, wondering how much she missed him. "Oh, your majesty, I'm so glad you're okay. I was so worried about you!"
"Oh, Masikura," Julien reassured from the phone. "And I sure have some great news... because we were so successful in our work in fighting back against the Spaghettios ban, we've decided to throw a party!"
"A party?" Masikura asked. "What time would it be?"
"Oh, I don't know," Julien pondered. "Possibly tomorrow night! Sure you want to come?"
"Well, I'd love to come," Masikura politely began, "but I'm sorry, I just couldn't get to come here on this special night."
"Oh, Masikura," Julien apologized. "But don't worry, because no matter how far I am, I will always remember you, and I will never forget why I am so far away from you now... to do what's right for the community."
"Bring it on, your majesty!" Masikura cheered. "I miss you too." Ending on a lighter and more loving note, she hung up the phone.
Even though Masikura couldn't come to the party, Julien has some pretty good feedback on the party guests list - invites were in the form of whisperings around the jungle and were only given to whoever they could trust - making sure that they did not invite any police officers in disguise. Despite being protective of who they're inviting, little did they know that the police force is in hidden view, ready to start the planned attack...
Not now, but soon...
== Part 10 ==
The big night has arrived. At the hideout where Julien and his lemur friends were currently living, a whole large group of people and animals (some have escaped from a nearby zoo and some left a now small forest)... most of them supporters against the Spaghettios ban... and also other lemurs. who didn't join the operation, lined up in one broad queue. At the end of the broad queue was Sage, who found himself at the end like always. But no, he did not hit the human party guests in the backs of the heels like he once done to the lemurs. in the dinner queue in the past... instead he just waited with the people in the back of the queue, like any do-gooder would.
Inside the hideout, the party room (prepared earlier) was in full swing - the Christmas tree lights hung along the wall, and other party lights, were switched on, and sometimes flashing (like any party environment) - lots of guests were either sitting at the bar, enjoying some treats (okay, homemade soups and such) and chatting with each other, while others were letting loose on the dance floor (showin' off some cool dance moves), and there were some who were sitting back on the couches and chilling out.
Horst was the DJ, and he was actually doing a really good job on working up the CD player. It seemed everyone enjoyed the music - sometimes it's techno, other times it's feel good beats, and sometimes it's 70's disco... but whatever it is, everyone enjoyed it.
While most of the party guests had their fun, there was perhaps another example of an uninvited guest outside the hideout. But it was not only one, but two... two police officers in a cleverly disguised detector van - painted in white and bearing a logo saying "Veggie Express". Well, it may seem like any ordinary van but inside it was a series of surveillance devices, as well as some heat and sound detectors, sonar and movement detectors and even a few set of testing kits and handheld Spaghettios detectors in the storage compartments kept underneath the bench. With this much sophisticated equipment built in the van used by the police officers, this could have been every Spaghettios lover's nightmare.
In the van, there were two female police officers... One of the officers were speaking into a two-way walkie-talkie, while her assistant is using the equipment to monitor what was going on. On the other line of the walkie-talkie was another police officer, direct from the police station office.
"So far, there's no sign of suspicious activity," the other female police officer (the assistant) in the van reported, speaking into the walkie talkie. "Perhaps they are trying to hide the crime away from us."
"Can you manage to delve into their conversations?" the female police officer suggested.
"No I can't," the assistant disappointedly answered. "The music is turned up to a loud level. All I know is  that they don't mind having music at such a loud level!"
Meanwhile in the hideout, where the party was held, Julien and another group of lemurs - Butterfish, Dorothy, Becca, Abner, Tammy and Clover, held a laid-back chat with each other.
"Looks like there will be signs of fighting back!" Julien commented, happily.
"Well, I hate to break it to you," Clover explained, "but don't you know that someone is suspiciously close to us nearby?"
Julien looked out of the window of the hideout, finding the van with the words "Vegie Express" sitting near the curb behind the building. "That van hasn't left the hideout yet," he commented. "I guess someone's watching us!"
Back in the van, the female police officers monitoring the building had heard some signs of life... and they weren't really happy.. they were rather... scared...
"I think they're onto us!" The female officer managing the equipment gasped.
"Let's make a run for it!" The other female officer (holding the walkie-talkie) suggested.
In an instant, the van (containing the equipment and the monitoring police officers inside) immediately speeds off from the curb, as if it has actually sensed an oversized mutant monster ready to invade another island. Julien saw it happen, out of the hideout window. Happy, Julien climbed down the inside wall and then continued chatting to his lemur friends.
"So are they all gone?" Tammy asked.
"Errrm," Julien began, confused. "Well, for a while at least."
"I don't wanna disturb you," Clover explained, "but do you think they're trying to bring us down?"
"What?" Julien asked. "Please tell me who."
"The police officers," Tammy answered. "They are going to catch us!"
"Uh-oh," Julien exclaimed, worried that it might eventually happen. "Looks like we need to enjoy the party while it lasts."
"Speaking of which," Butterfish explained, "I think I gotta go check what's happening outside the window."
Butterfish then climbed the inside wall of the hideout. Despite his size and weight, Butterfish had the same ability to climb walls as Julien does. After reaching the window, Butterfish quickly grips hold of the window ledge with his front paws, then looked out of the window. To his amazement, there was another van... well, just like the one that stopped beside the hideout earlier, except the logo was replaced with "Flowers By Illeanna", in the form of an acrostic poem. Startled, Butterfish accidentally let go of the window, and then fell splat-bang on the floor... (well, not really, he accidentally landed on.. surprise, surprise... Maurice.) Oddly enough, both lemurs were not injured.
As Butterfish got off the ground, he realized that Maurice wasn't here. Well, to make an explanation short, it turns out that Butterfish has accidentally sat on Maurice.
"Maurice, where are you?" Butterfish whimpered, worried that he may have accidentally killed Maurice. Surprised, Maurice heard Butterfish's muffled whimpers, screams and pleas to get off of him from below. Embarrassed, Butterfish got up from sitting and then found Maurice, lying spread-eagled on the ground, his fur ruffed and messy from being sat on accidentally. "Sorry, I just fell," was Butterfish's apology.
"No offense taken," Maurice squeaked, as he got up off the ground, bedraggled, and tried to stand on his legs. "Perhaps I didn't expect to be squished under seven hundred pounds of weight!"
"How dare you say that!" Butterfish growled, insulted, and then pinned down Maurice to the wall.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Maurice bashfully explained, trying to apologize for the insult he had just thrown at Butterfish, "I mean, it's not like you're THAT fat, are you?"
"Butterfish, don't even think about it!" Clover warned, as he gatecrashed into the hideout. "I've got a feeling someone's tracking us!"
"Whuh? Now what in the world was that?" Butterfish asked, letting go of Maurice, then making his way through a large group of party guests and then finally approaching Clover. "Don't tell me, officers?"
"I dunno," Clover pondered. "I think I'm a little suspicious of the van."
"I know, I know, I just looked out the window of the hideout," Maurice explained. "Earlier, Julien mentioned something about a 'Veggie Express' van next to the curb. Did the officers hijack it, or did they paste the logotype on?"
"I dunno," Butterfish whined. And he walked off, entering the storeroom.
Well, in the storeroom, Butterfish had found something astonishing... to make another explanation short, he found that almost all the ingredients and products are gone. Coin this - GONE. Worried that someone might be silently raiding the place, Butterfish breaks out of the storeroom to tell everyone about what has happened.
"OH MY GOSH!" Butterfish shouted. "They cleared out the storeroom!"
And surely enough, the music stopped, and the party guests have expressed their worry in the form of gasps, mild panic attacks, small conversations and whispers between guests, and possibly some of the guests have fainted. Clover and the other lemurs. didn't say anything.
"Don't worry," Butterfish reassured. "At least the punch is still clean."
Worried that the punch might be contaminated... or spiked, Julien took to getting a soupspoon out of the hideout's kitchen, then dips the spoon into the punchbowl. Then cautiously he sipped it.. in great surprise, he spat it out. "Ugh!" Julien whined. "This punch has been spiked!"
Another set of gasps filled the air. Even though it started off well, this would not seem to be a happy ending. But Julien finally found out something... the guests list! What if someone in the party room was bringing down the operation? Julien immediately came to searching for the list...
"Julien, I think there's someone behaving suspiciously..." Clover whined, worried that Julien may have invited a disguised police officer into the party... he did not find out until one of the guests had hid underneath the tables with a stun gun... and yes, it was aiming at one of the lemurs... unfortunately it was about to take Pancho!
"Pancho! Behind you!" Julien gasped. Pancho turned to look, but by then, the 'hidden' guest went open fire - pulling the trigger on the stun gun - sending a jolt of electricity running through his body. Pancho whelped silently in pain, almost close to falling over. Pancho didn't fall over, so the 'hidden' guest fired another one. This caused Pancho to topple over, landing onto the ground in a thud, in pain. The party guests, both human and animal, approached him and told him if he's okay. Maurice then started asking him if he's okay... but unfortunately it seems that Pancho isn't going to make it.
Suddenly, the stun gun hit another lemur... Clover. She yelped in pain and tipped over onto the ground, struggling to walk over forwards... the party guests surrounded her, wondering what's gone on. It turns out that Julien has accidentally invited a police officer into the party!
"Unsolicited Raid!" Ted screamed, scared for his life. "Someone's invading the hideout! Everybody out of the house NOW!"
In a rush of things, the party guests, both human and animal, quickly darted out of the hideout by the emergency exit. They thought that they can escape without getting caught... however, their further experiences would soon change...
Before anyone can turn and scream, lots and lots of police officers came out of hiding and captured the human guests, as they would to a criminal. Some of the animals were caught by hand-to-hand contact, but most would slip out of the arms of skilled police officers. Julien was clever enough to escape the stun gun shots and hidden police officers appearing out of nowhere. In shock and despair, Julien sped down the road leading away from the hideout, as did some of the other lemurs Julien had worked with... unfortunately, the stunned bodies of two crowned lemurs, namely Clover and Pancho were already seized by the police officers.
Unfortunately, it turns out that a few patrol detector vans are following the pack as well. Of course, the chase was a long and a difficult one. But unfortunately, before the end of the chase, one of the lemurs were hit by the stun gun... Butterfish. How can the muscle and fangs of the group get hit by the stun gun? But no, it didn't drain him of the energy and adrenalin running through his blood. Putting a twist on the end of the chase, eventually reaching the middle of a remote location consisting of tall grass, Butterfish just stopped in his tracks, facing the detector van, pure anger in his eyes. The other lemurs stopped too, worried about what Butterfish might be about to do.
"Oh no," Ted cried. "Butterfish, don't do it! Don't you realize that this van is much stronger than you thought?"
Butterfish stood brave, although he staggered a little. After a while, Butterfish can feel tension and anger running through his body... without further ado, Butterfish let out a loud blood-curdling roar and charged dead straight into the side of the detector van... he collided, headfirst into the external casing of the detector van. Even though the detector van is built to withstand any human-made damage, not involving weapons of mass destruction, the force made by Butterfish's attack almost made a scratch... and then not one that could count as damage.
This didn't tip the detector van over... perhaps what Butterfish sensed that some lemurs were captured in the operation and were dying to be freed. He knew there was a side door, and it turned out he was hitting at the right side of the detector van to break it open. It took three strong scratches from his sharp claws to actually break the lock apart. Finally he managed to pull the door open... and surely enough, he found that inside the van were the stunned bodies of Pancho and Clover... and a few of the human guests. Butterfish was about to rescue the crowned lemurs' stunned bodies, but he was easily finished off with another shot from the stun gun. After taking the shot, Butterfish staggered and weakly collapsed, in a cry of pain.
Julien gasped in horror... Butterfish has been hit by the stun gun... while he managed to bring out the stunned bodies of his fellow lemurs. In a scurry, he took off at great speed, about to enter the van to get the casualties out, but then something happened underfoot... a short but painful electric shock hit his tiny little body. In pain, Julien fell flat on the ground, limp and weak. He stood up, staggering a little to the left. Turns out that (surprise, surprise) one of the police officers have fired the stun gun at the king in the leg.
"My subjects..." Julien grunted, trying to send some burst of energy through his body. "My loyal royal subjects, help me... I don't... think I can... make it." He panted, staggered and was close to collapsing. Maurice immediately sped to the rescue and then held Julien in his arms, helping him up onto his two hind feet. Julien was shaking as he tried to support himself on both hind legs, developing a sense of anger and attack in his eyes. The police officers were wary of Julien turning from weak and weary, into a fierce and bloodthirsty monster, by the looks of it. The other lemurs were worried about what Julien was about to do...
Julien immediately leapt off the ground, then immediately curved his back, leaped, somersaulted and rose into the sky... and just as he was about to land onto the detector van, about to fight, Maurice suddenly saw one of the police officers aiming a stun gun at Julien...
"KING JULIEN! NO-OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Maurice shouted, letting out an emotional sign of pain...
But it was too late. The stun gun trigger was pulled. This sent the stun gun missile (which was just the size of half a grain of rice, but powerful nonetheless) flying, then penetrating through Julien's back leg. This sent a shockwave of energy through his nervous system, temporarily paralyzing his body... for good. Still suspended in the air, Julien let out a paralyzed cry of pain... turns out that the stun gun missile had affected his vocal cord muscles as well. Julien suddenly fell downwards, bouncing off the detector van... eventually landing splat-bang on the ground... paralyzed... barely alive.
"That's the leader alright," one police officer discussed with some of the assistant officers.
The other lemurs started crying and heading towards Julien's paralyzed body, as if their beloved king was about to pass away, given that the stun gun missile drained away his energy.
"Feet, don't die!" Mort weeped, hugging his king's paralyzed feet.
"Your majesty, don't die now," Clover blubbered, tears welling in her eyes. "You're too young to die!"
"Don't worry, King Julien," Maurice sobbed, "I hope you'll be okay."
Julien was almost seconds away from unconsciousness, as his lemur friends were mourning, crying, and demanding that their king wake up... before long, the king fell unconscious... everything turned black and all fell silent...
== Part 11 ==
It was moments after the heroic-yet-notorious band of lemurs were captured and shipped off to an exports centre... including the most loved (and what would now be missed) Julien... what once was a glorious victory of fighting back against the Spaghettios ban had spiraled downwards out of control, causing it to shatter into a million bitesized pieces. All evidence was collected... the rest were seized, lab tested and destroyed by authorities.
Let's focus on what happened after the arrest, meanwhile... it was at the kingdom... the coconut phone rang after most of the non-lemur species had gone to bed. Masikura realised that the phone has been ringing off the hook for some time... Masikura decided to answer the phone this time... after managing to find where the cordless phone had been, she realized that it had been in her bedroom all along. After picking it up and answering the phone, she realised that it was much more serious...
"Is this Masikura here?" the police officer on the phone asked.
"Um," Masikura began, "yes. Yes I am."
"Good," the police officer on the phone began. "Umm, we regret to advise you that your king has been involved in a rather traumatizing incident."
Masikura was worried about what the police officer was about to say.
"So far," the police officer on the phone explained, "your king, along with the other lemurs in company, has been arrested and charged for the following offenses - buying, selling, consuming, storing, and manufacturing of Spaghettios in all forms, and other sugar based products... it seems he has committed all five. So far, he and the other lemurs involved in the bootlegging operation have been captured and interviewed, and they have all admitted to doing so. They have said that their bootlegging operation is the only thing that can overthrow the Spaghettios Prohibition Act. As they are not human beings... we have no choice... but to... immediately deport them into a Re-Education and Rehabilitation Centre in California."
Things were falling apart for the kingdom. All this time, Xixi has been secretly eavesdropping the conversation from the coconut phone... she quietly hung up and snuck into her perch...
"Is this what defeat is?" Xixi thought, as she got into bed. "Is it? At this rate, the success King Julien would've thought would never come... and then... not even likely..." Tears welled up in her eyes and she hid beneath the covers of her bed, holding her plush macaw close to her. "Please be okay," Xixi whispered, worried about what Julien might encounter...
Julien woke up. It was kind of not the place he'd expect to wake up in... in fact, it was cramped, and it was pretty dark in there too. Well, it was dark except for an only dim light source coming from a small window in one of the walls of the 'room' Julien woke up in, recently. But wait a minute... what was it? Julien tried to stand up, but he hit his head upon the ceiling of the rather tiny room... wait, that's not a room, it was a crate! Julien became rather scared, and even now, claustrophobic.
"HELP!" Julien shouted, desperately trying to claw his way out of the crate... but to no avail... he was half weak from being hit by the stun gun hours ago. "Where am I? Where is Maurice? Clover? Mort? My peeps, where are you?" He starts pounding the inside walls of the crate again. "Why the heck am I unfairly placed in this crate for? All without saying goodbye to my family?" He later took to slamming his fists against the inside crate walls until it hurt his arms really bad. "CAN ANYBODY PLEASE TELL ME WHERE AM I? HE-EEEEELP!" Frustrated, he collapsed onto the crate floor, wondering why he was placed in the crate the whole time.
Suddenly, what comes from another crate next door, was a loud moan and groan and the sound of something hitting the ceiling of the crate, followed by some pained squealing of a recognizable, "Who put that there?"
Julien finally realized something... he was not the only one in the crate. Turns out, it was Maurice was close nearby, even though both individual lemurs were separated by the crate walls. "Momo, are you okay?" Julien shouted.
"Yah, I am," Maurice replied, "except that it's cold, it's cramped, it's dark and it's even, I won't wanna explain this... it's even wet and slimy down there!"
Julien paused for quite a while. "So how did you get in here?"
"I dunno," Julien explained with difficulty, "but I think they did something... they just hit me with that stun gun while I was with you, worrying when you were going to end your life right away! I thought I was the only one here, wondering how on earth I'm gonna survive here.... till I fell asleep.... then you woke me up and there you were, just behind this wall!"
"Thank goodness you are okay!" Julien shouted, as if he and his advisor were reunited once and for all. After a long pause, Julien asked, "Where are we?"
"I dunno, it's hard to see through these crates," Maurice ended the conversation, doubtful. He slumped down, wondering where they are about to end up. Then suddenly...
What appears to be a crash almost caused Julien to lose his balance and fall onto the floor. "Huh? What's going on?" Julien whined, but he did not hear a reply. Julien had managed to stand upright... he was dazed, but was curious of what was to come, so he looked for a hole in the crate walls... he found one, and guess what, he's not in Madagascar anymore.
To explain what's going on, here are the following pointers... when Julien and the other lemurs were hit by the stun gun (rendering them unable to move temporarily), they were immediately placed in the crates, later loaded into a large exports ship destined for California, packed in an exports container. At its destination (the exports depot in California, where lots and lots of goods come in every day of the year), the container was removed from the ship and then taken to the inspections centre in the depot. The inspectors on duty were two muscular men, capable of lifting heavy boxes - their assistants were three women, who helped with the inspection of any importing cargo sometimes. Just as things were about to get any worse, a loud thump came from beneath Julien's feet, knocking him unconcious temporarily.
After a few minutes, Julien woke up, wondering where he was... he was in the examination room... and no wonder. But then suddenly he realized that he was going to be taken somewhere else... and he wouldn't like it very much. No way.
Suddenly a rather stern man came into the room, then stared at Julien with cold freezing eyes.  Julien was so frightened that he wished that he was home right now. But this was no dream. This was reality.
"So..." the stern man growled. "After you've been trying to declare war on the Spaghettios ban, you think you can get away with this?"
Julien was shivering in fear, whining, refusing to say something to the man.
"Well, guess what," the stern man hissed. "You lost. Now all we need to get started is some little talk time between you and me..." He picks up Julien by the scruff of his neck, and then gives him a tight hug - his only way of showing affection to animals without raising a smile on his face. "as you are named... King Julien."
Julien gasped. He heard his name being mentioned by the stern man. "And I see you've brought in lots and lots of your friends," the stern man continued. "They seem to have peculiar names, such as Maurice, Mort, Butterfish, Willie, Clover... I think that you and your friends have been caught for one thing... and as I have found out, you have committed an offense... possibly all of the current offenses to do with the Spaghettios Prohibition Act. And it seems you were the ones behind this really big bootleg operation you were planning."
Julien suddenly felt disheartened. It was slowly becoming an interrogation.
"Now the law has decided your fate..." the stern man growled. "Perhaps now you have to go back to school."
Julien stared at the man suspiciously. "But we don't go to school."
The stern man stared at Julien, unimpressed. "You naughty little scoundrel, how could you? Looks like I'll have to sed you there, no matter what." And the man left, unimpressed with Julien's great concern. This was the beginning of the worst moment happening to Julien. And his lemur friends.
== Part 12 ==
Life in Madagascar was an inch more depressing... now that Julien and his lemur subjects were arrested by the police force and deported to California. As you might not have known, there were those who feel that the lemurs were like a part of the family, and would pause for a while to wonder, even mourn, their beloved companions in their kingdom... while there were few who would celebrate their operation's demise... in this case, King Julien's uncle, King Julien XII. He would be running up and down the jungles, overjoyed, shouting out "Finally, a time when my nephew is out of my fur!"
Speaking of which, things were getting out of paw in Julien's case. After spending at least one day at an examination room in San Francisco, the worst was confirmed.
To start off, it began in an area, similar to an animal shelter. In that said area, Julien and the other lemurs have been placed in each individual cell (which had wire fencing for each cell's door)... it was the only form of solitary confinement, having no-one to turn to for support. And conditions were enough to send animal rights activists declaring war on the home country, just to improve the area... put simply, it was not the place to be... especially for a lemur. Julien pretty much had a habit of refusing to get out of bed on pretty important days... well he doesn't have to bother now, as he found the wet concrete floor to be pretty uncomfortable. So much so, that he wished that he was back home in Madagascar right now... well, that wish didn't come true. And by the looks of it, it appears most of the lemurs have thoughts like this too.
Suddenly, Julien heard someone enter the cell. It was the man who had interrogated Julien earlier. Even then, Julien had a strong dislike of the man... and possibly with a great reason.
Before Julien could cower away in the far corners of his cell, the man rushed out to grab him by the scruff of his neck. Of course, the man struggled to hold him gently due to Julien's weight, but managed to keep him still in his arms. Julien started shivering and tried writhing out of the man's grasp, but to no avail. The man stared at the innocent little king of the lemurs with cold dark eyes, saying in a quiet evil voice, "Time you went back to school..."
Before he knows it, Julien was taken into another room and was strapped down onto a table. And this is what Julien later saw... the man grabbed hold of an electric shaver. Julien shut his eyes, afraid and helpless, as the man shaved off every bit of the fur off his body. Julien could feel the vibrations everywhere in the body... behind his head, on his back and everywhere else in between. Finally, the buzzing stopped. Julien opened his eyes and found that he was shaved almost to utter hairlessness. Julien thought that his fur would grow back, but now he was wondering... why was he shaved?
Before Julien could think, the man carried Julien off the examination table, placed him in a large metal sink and then, from behind, used a showerhead to distribute a strong spray of cold water all over Julien's skin. Of course, Julien didn't mind getting wet, but however, he was so weak he can't escape. Finally, the remains of his shaved fur were washed off, leaving the soft yet stubby undercoat on his skin. (Note that the undercoat on the lemurs' fur acts the same way as a shirt does on a human being.) Without the coarse top layer of his fur, Julien's fur remained drenched and soggy.
After being towel dried, Julien was taken out of the room, then placed in the detector vans with the human prisoners, sometimes, up to three or four at a time. And guess whom Julien shares the company of during the trip... two humans, and one of his lemur subjects, Ted.
"Whuh? What's going on?" Ted squealed as he was trying to wriggle and scratch from the handler's grasp. After being placed in the detector van, Ted was about to leap out of the van... when the van doors closed on him. In a desperate attempt to escape, Ted was so upset he even took to scratching and thrashing the doors, but to no avail.
"Don't bother," Julien told Ted. "We're going to be stuck in here, it's all we got!"
Ted suddenly felt miserable, and then approached Julien, wondering if they will ever be set free again.
Finally, the van set off down the driveway and along the barren road, set for the re-education camp. Of course, re-education camp was a long way away, by today's standards.
One of the human prisoners was, by far, a brown haired boy with blue eyes. Julien could easily recognize that person. But he was not the one who shot Butterfish with the stun gun... no way. Julien decided to start a small conversation. He looked up to the boy, straight in the eyes.
"Hey, do I know you?" The boy began, who had began to recognize the two creatures in the detector van.
Julien nodded, replying with a worried, "Huh?"
"Yes, I think you are the creature I met at the party," the boy continued. "And you, that other one," he referred to Ted.
"Really?" Julien whined, confused.
"Yes," the boy replied. "My name is Tamir."
"Didn't expect to meet you, Tamir," Julien began. "By the way, don't we know where we might end up?"
"I'm not sure," Tamir answered. "Perhaps we might end up at a re-education camp. You'll I think it's sorta like prison, only they try to re-teach people there. And I don't really think that we might have a good time there."
Of course, after meeting a new friend on the way to re-education camp, Julien still has a small amount of worry left inside him... that is, what he might face in the re-education camp might be the worst... During the rest of the trip, Julien had stayed with Tamir, in a secure hug, hoping that things will not get any worse any more.
   
After the trip from the inspection room in San Francisco to a remote part of the Northern US (which the re-education camp can be located), almost everyone in the vans were asleep, especially in the van where Julien and Tamir were asleep for most of the trip.
On arrival at the re-education camp, the doors of the detector vans were opened by police officers. Julien and Tamir were set off awake by the bright light suddenly flooding into the rear compartment of the detector van, as it had been dark in the van for most of the trip. In a hurry, both Julien and the rest of the prisoners were sent into the re-education centre's reception and inspection area, for registry, health checks and also processing of criminal records.
A full month in the re-education centre would equal a drab and lifeless year anywhere else for almost anyone.
== Part 13 ==
At the re-education camp, the area where the prisoners were held was pretty much similar to the prison cell compartments you often see in the movies... particularly "Prison Break"... The prison cell block consisted of five rows of cells, containing at least seventeen per row on one side. Mathematically speaking, once you enter the prison cell block, you'd be surprised to know that the left and right sides of the block contain 85 cells, enough to fit an entire army.
Well, only a fraction of prisoners were Julien and the lemurs. Anyway.
Julien was located in one of the prison cells (let's say, seventh cell on the top row on the right side of the block), and his cellmate was Tamir... the same Tamir he met during the trip in the detector van. Of course, both were currently sleeping in their bunk placed in their prison cell, as with the other prisoners in their cells as well, whether they have a cellmate or not. Of course, most of the people (and lemurs for that matter) had been through the stresses of registration, health checks and of course, having their criminal records processed or updated, depending on the prisoner. It seems that the prisoners at the re-education camp may deserve some rest... well, even now, not likely.
As Julien and Tamir were asleep, believe it or not, the sound of the digital alarm clock had already sounded throughout the cellblock's sound system (which was practically wired up to almost every cell). This almost brought Julien and Tamir to an almost tiring start to the day, believe it or not...  the sound system was set to activate at certain times of the day. In this case, the alarm was made to go off every morning at (wait for it) 5 in the morning. After the alarm sounded, almost all the cellmates were groaning in utter tiredness and even now are wishing that they are actually at home right now. After waking up at a rather awkward time, the cellmates were up to their personal duties, of course. Well, at this time, the prisoners were obliged to make the bed as neatly as possible. (Well, the prisoners would have to watch out for the prisoner patrollers as they may enter their cells in order to inspect the beds, and at random, the prisoner patrollers may mess up someones' beds, leading to more bed-making.) And you thought getting up at 6 am at school was rather unbearable...
After a rather bugging wake-up call, the prisoners have now dressed up in their prison uniform - well, it was just like the kind prisoners wear, except it was dull blue-grey and contained the prisoner number on the back and their surname. (Of course, many lemurs. don't have a surname, so of course their uniform names were selected at random... for example, Maurice's name on the uniform was "Stanley".) At 5:30 am, the prisoners would leave their cells and walk down the stairs from their cell platforms and then form up in one big group... not just one messy mumbled blob, they were obliged to line up in rows, the order expected by the military. This led to some inspection of the prisoners by the prisoner patrollers, and there were some comments given to the prisoners - for example, to get their hair neatened up a bit, to bring their shoulders up a bit higher, to stand up more straighter, and so on. Once inspection was complete, the prisoners were sent out of the prison cell, leading to a large area outside. There, the prisoners would participate in a ten kilometers run, before any thoughts of breakfast. The run was carried out in rain, wind or, in this case of the location of the re-education camp, snow. After the run, it was time for them to take a nice cold shower. Speaking of the cold shower, there were rather odd situations about the temperature of the water - icy cold one moment, scorching hot the next (as sensed by Butterfish during their time).
After all this, the prisoners were served breakfast in the cafeteria. Well, breakfast was well suited to health needs as it contained lots of fibre (or if you live in the US - fiber) - for example, the enhanced oatmeal and bran mix with added prunes and served with a soymilk product, wholemeal toast served with sugar-free preserves (of course, prune jam) and such. Of course, side effects related to high fibre were a little bit common, and well let's just say it takes a while to get used to during your stay.
After breakfast, it was just in tome for some normal school lessons. Of the entire prisoner population at re-education camp, the group was divided into several classes, combination of both human and lemur per class. In each class, there were lots of lessons related to what to eat, drink and do with your life. It consisted of various topics about healthy eating, human anatomy and equivalent studies, environmental issues, law studies... you name it, it was all part of the re-education camp's education curriculum as far as you know.
Lessons dragged on and on until twelve noon. Lunch consisted of lentils, mashed potato and veggie-roast (which as far as everyone believes is a mix of tofu and vegetables... a rather vegetarian alternative to the traditional turkey roast by today's standards) and was followed by a few pieces of fruit as a snack.
After lunch, the dream was over. Prisoners were forced to join in everyday activities, in which they were claimed to build character and a second form of personality, as far as Julien (and the others) know. The activities range from cross country runs through barren paths and soggy rivers, military drills, runs through the obstacle course to even now, everyday chores given to all prisoners - cleaning toilets with a toothbrush and wiping away graffiti off the stall walls, cutting grass and weeding lawns with a small pair of nail scissors, painting the walls of the barracks using a paintbrush, picking up after the guard dogs patrolling the camp (which might be rather unpleasant), washing the dishes using a toothbrush (duh), taking out the garbage, and so forth. So to speak, most of the lemurs were given such jobs as well as the prisoners.
The activities continued on until the old sleepy hours of 2:45pm, so called because after being given that much work, the prisoners were exhausted so much so that they desperately needed to take a nap. Well, hold on! The prisoners would have to go through, as most feared, the physical health test and Spaghettios aversion therapy session!!!
During these sessions, the prisoners were selected at random and then placed in a monitoring area, consisting of a white empty room with a table and a plate of rubber donuts (which strangely enough resemble the real thing) and a mirror on one wall (which the 'guinea-pig' won't see through the mirror, but scientists and prison patrollers can). Let's focus on the moment Julien entered the monitoring room and was greeted with the plate of 'donuts'.
"Donuts?" Julien thought. "How can there be donuts when there is the ban in force?" Julien looked left then right, then thought for the last minute, "I guess I may as well help myself after all this time!" But when Julien took to touching one of the donuts, it appears that the donut sent a mild electric shock to him. Julien quickly placed the donut back in its plate, whining in pain from the mild electric snap. And no wonder. Julien got really mad and then started chewing on the donuts - there was no point missing the electric snaps, they just got Julien no matter what. Julien spat the donut out, pained after receiving all the electric snaps from the one donut. And he was rather disappointed to find that the donuts were made of rubber and fitted with electrodes, designed to give whoever touches it a mild electric snap. The scientists claim that it helps with the Spaghettios aversion therapy and can help speed up the process as well.
Also present in the Spaghettios aversion therapy process were mental challenges (possibly where the prisoners are asked mental questions verbally and are made to figure it out by themselves), physical tests (involving the treadmill, the G-force tester and also the hand-to-hand combat and self defense practice tests) and also some medical vaccinations were given, to help make the person resistant and allergic to Spaghettios.
After sessions were over, it was 5 pm and dinner was served - it was of course rice, slices of tofu and some steamed vegetables, and dessert to follow - fruit. After dinner there would be a perfect opportunity for the prisoners to write their letters home, but on one condition... the prison guards usually read over the prisoner's shoulders, just to make sure that what the prisoners wrote were not against the reputation of the re-education camp. For example, if a prisoner has opinion about how bad the food was, or how torturing and painful the activities were, or any other issue related to the negativity of the camp, it is part of the camp's code of conduct that the prisoner do not say that in any of his letters. Speaking of which, Julien has tried very hard to conceal the real letter in some of the others he wrote during his stay, but to the extent the prison guards would not be able to identify Julien and the others' means of escape.
Letter writing came at least three times a week. Study was on every day of the week, whether it be a boring old Monday or a typical weekend. Of course, study was actually rather quiet. All that was present in the study rooms were a large collection of books (mostly government-approved material and the odd pamphlet). At one time, Ted had approached one of the bookcases at the study room just to check out the books presently in the shelf. The first one he picked from the shelf was: "Studying a Fandom... Is it for You?" - Ted found it a little bit interesting, but after flickering through the pages, well let's just say it's not his type. The second book picked from the shelf was "Brussel Sprouts and Baked Beans - The Miracle Dish." 'Yechh', Ted thought as he put the book away in the space on the bookshelf. Of course, there were sonme rather interesting books at the re-education study room - let's just say Ted was not that interested.
After study, bedtime came at (wait for it) 7:30 pm. Of course, many people your age (expecially if you're over 10 years old) would protest, but unfortunately, at the re-education camp, it does happen. All the prisoners were sent to their chosen individual cells in the cellblock, and were made to go to bed early, no questions asked. The stay at re-education camp would make you wish you'd love your parents more, judging by comparisons between such factors. Of course, during the night was the only time Julien and the others would find how far they are away from their family, their friends, their relatives and judging by today's standards, their whole life.
What the prisoners do not expect, the same routine would start over and over again, whether it was tomorrow or next week - wake up at 5 am, make the bed and face getting it messed up by the prison patrollers, assemble in rows, run for ten kilometres before breakfast...
Oh man. School camp seems much better for me right now.
== Part 14 ==
Masikura was having difficulty sleeping the whole night. Okay, so Julien and Masikura are particularly different in appearance and personality, but they had lived together in the family to be regarded as, if not directly, "close friends". Of course, things were running through Masikura's head at the moment. Especially in the form of recurring dreams she usually had during the week since Julien got arrested and registered to the re-education camp in far-off northern USA.
Of course, that night, Masikura's dream took place at the bottom of a deep river. At such a dream, Masikura just laid there at the bottom, with Julien in her arms. After a few seconds, Julien could feel the arms holding his body loosening and letting go of him. Masikura was caught in the current of the river and next thing Julien knows, Masikura was caught in the current and eventually floated away. Julien just laid there, alone. Then suddenly, a bright light shone from the top of the river's surface and progressed deeper and deeper into the water. Julien opened his eyes to see such an event occur. As the light finally penetrated through the river to the bottom surface, Julien could hear himself shouting: "Masikura? Masikura?! MASIKURA!" Ending the dream, the whole thing turned white...
In reaction to the dream, Masikura woke up, scared, wondering how strange a dream might be. "Hello?" Masikura asked to herself, concerned with whether anyone was in the jungle or not. Masikura immediately got out of the drawer and decided to check throughout the jungle. So far, there was nobody in the jungle... Masikura got slightly worried, and as she was going to discover, things were going to get any worse... as she entered the lounge hut, she heard somnething.
"Masikura..." said a voice from nowhere. It was Andy. "Masikura, I have very bad news... the kingdom is... I don't know how to be explaining this..."
Masikura started to feel her heart shatter into bite-sized pieces of dear sorrow... things were not always going to be easy for her. Masikura's eyes started to water, expressing her sadness.
"Where's King Julien?" Masikura sobbed. "What happened to King Julien? Please tell me!!"
Just then, Timo entered the lounge hut, exceedingly upset. "The kingdom is..." he sobbed to no end. "Xixi's nowhere to be seen!" He continued crying his eye out. Masikura finally realized something... Xixi had mysteriously disappeared! But how? Of course, Masikura hadn't been at the scene of the arrest at all... of course, after all, trying to fight back against the Spaghettios ban was a rather risky if heroic act... But for no reason, Andy had received the phone call from the police force! Andy had heard some pretty bad news... her worst fears have been confirmed... Madagascar and its lemurs have been officially been separated.
"No..." Masikura sobbed under her breath. "King Julien is..." Feeling so emotionally overloaded in sorrow, Masikura burst into tears with only one of her words echoing the island...
"KING JULIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEN!"
That night, at the re-education camp, Julien was just sitting on the ledge of his bed, feeling that this was the last straw. He was fed up with being shut in a cage for some of his days at the camp. Not to mention how long he had been subject to too much work. Of course, Julien was not alone... most of the lemurs have been through this as well. In one cell was Maurice and an unnamed human cellmate - they were both miserable.
"Since when did they decide to axe the condiments out of my beverage at his place?" Horst complained, in a tone fitting is current depressed mood. "They're going too far!"
Of course this started a chain of whining and complaining in the entire cell block, most of them coming from prisoner's voices, one showing they are in need to be free from such horrors from the re-education camp for the rest of their life. There was a torrent of shouts coming from the prisoners, the sound resembling a riot crowd. For the prison guards, it was just a moment of peace and quiet now ruined by such loud noise echoing from the cell block.
To make the cell block a battlefield, most of the prison guards flooded into the cellblock monitoring sections (which was located at the top of the cell block, just opposite the prisoners' exit to the rest of the camp) and had stocked heavily on gas grenades - that is, a certain type of grenade that won't actually explode if you pull the pin, but instead emit a concentrated amount of knockout gas, which may send whoever's holding it into a deep sleep. Most of the gas grenades were tossed against some of the prison cells... those who usually panic during such an event fainted and fell into a deep sleep, but Julien and the other lemurs, along with the more experienced human prisoners, had hid themselves into the bathrooms, hoping that the gas won't penetrate through the bathroom door. Well, it stank there (as not everyone cleaned the bathrooms often) but it beat falling asleep by the effects of the gas grenades.
Half an hour passed, and the emissions of the gas grenades have almost diminished, leaving Julien and the other lemurs officially safe from the battle. So that means the opportunity for the escape was close to ripeness. Julien was busy sketching a few possible plans in preparation for the escape. Well, due to the effects of the Spaghetiios aversion therapy, Julien was not that motivated as he used to be.
Ted was watching Julien from his own cell (that is, from the other side of the cell block opposite to Julien), laying down line by line on paper using a grey-lead pencil he found in the cell block. Finding that he is in solitary confinement (not total confinement, as the cell was exposed to others in the cell block), Ted had given into curiosity by asking Julien what was he up to.
"Hey your majesty!" Ted called out. "Whatcha doin?"
Julien looked up from the piece of paper consisting of minor plots to escape the prison and found Ted waving his paw from his cell. Julien realized that Ted wanted to talk to him! And being all by himself for the rest of his prison term, he seemed rather lonely.
"Ted?" Julien called out. "What had just happened?"
"Nothing much," Ted replied optimistically, despite being through all the excess work forced to live through. "It's just that I just saw you working on something that's of great interest to me. What is it?"
"It's just a set of plans to escape -" Julien explained, but stopped in case someone was listening to him. Ted paused, wondering what happened to Julien.
"Your majesty, what happened to you?" Ted asked. "Don't you want to tell me some of your dramatic escape plans?"
"Then what if somebody was watching us?" Tamir interrupted the conversation.
"That's what I was worried about!" Julien explained. "That's why I stopped halfway through!"
"Really?" Ted pondered. "Maybe since there's nobody hacking into our plans, maybe there's a grand opportunity to reveal them. Go ahead, KJ, show us what are your first plans are!"
"Are you so stupid?" Julien warned. "Why would I risk it just because you're curious?"
"Come on, your majesty, you'll never know when some of those plans might just work!" Ted squealed.
"All right, all right already!" Julien snapped. He decided to refer to some of the notes and pictures written and scribbled on that one scrap of paper. "Earlier, I have tried bending the bars apart, but it's no use. It's too strong. (The prison bars were designed so well it even withstood Julien's earlier attempts of bending the bars to escape, not to mention his attempts of squeezing through.) I think the first plan I've thought of would have to involve ourselves wielding a dessertspoon - we have no choice but to use the dessertspoon to unscrew the screws off the vent covers. We have no choice but to escape via the vents. Is that okay with you?"
"Don't you realize that some of us may be," Ted asked, concerned, "you know, claustrophobic?"
"You're right, Ted." Tamir supported. "Julien, perhaps we might need a better plan than this."
"Yeah you said it, Tammy!" Willie howled from the opposite cell section. "I'm tired of being in the same old enclosure day in, day out!"
"Yeah, me too!" Butterfish barked, his voice clearly heard throughout the cell block.
This led to bursts of agreement from the lemurs, no matter who it might be. Of course, this might mean Julien may have an answer to ditch life in the re-educaton camp after all. Problem is, Julien had no decent plan to work with. But wait, this gave Julien an idea. Since the prison guards were trying to get some sleep, they were often disturbed by the loud noises by the prisoners. Perhaps if they were to call back the prison guards, then perhaps the prisoners would have someone (at least) to talk to.
"Hey my fellow peoples!" Julien shouted. "Maybe you should scream more, that'll get their attention!"
The prisoners stare at Julien (well, make that those opposite to Julien's cell section) confused, having no idea what the heck Julien was talking about.
"How about we pick on the prison guards with them loud noises?" Willie replied, happily. A loud squeal was heard across the block, followed by some loud shouts. This eventually led to a whole mass of barks, howls, screams and wails being exchanged between prisoners. Of course, there was no use when is came to attracting the prison guards, but at least this brought some boredom out of the prisoners, wishing to have their voices be heard. It lasted for just a few minutes, in when the prisoners finally gave up exchanging their screams and whines between one another. All of a sudden, there was a large bout of silence in the entire cell block. To put simply, Julien's current plan fell apart. Julien just felt bad for himself and to returned to sitting on the edge of his bed, sulking to himself. The prisoners felt rather disappointed in the plan not working, but Ted, strangely enough, has always poked his furry little nose on the bright side, besides being labelled the 'most eligable bachelor'. Ted decided to act upon Julien's behalf.
"Hey guys! Turn your attention this way!" Ted shouted. "Does anyone know any sure fire ways to get out of here?"
"Well, there's always the vent," shouted a random prisoner.
"What?" Ted whined, "the dessertspoon stunt again? Come on, there should be one that involves a lot of determination!"
"No duh," the random prisoner answered back. "You are the only prisoner, make that the animal-in-captivity, in this re-education camp that actually keeps a dessertspoon somewhere in this pillowcase!"
"How do you know?!" Ted shouted, as he picked up the pillow off his bed. To his surprise, a dessertspoon fell out from the folds of the pillowcase. Finally, Ted can see why the random prisoner suggested the dessertspoon stunt. "That's it... maybe this is the only way to get out of this tourture workshop!" Ted excitedly climbed up the walls of his prison cell, located the vent in the side of the wall, located the screws joining the face of the vent and surely enough, took to unscrewing the screws off the vent face with the dessertspoon. Not bad for a lemur who often looks on the bright side!
"Ted," Julien asked, concerned with what Ted was doing, "what the heck are you actually doing?"
"It's just as you suggested," Ted replied, then he turned back to unscrewing the screws off the vent cover - just his luck, the vent cover fell off. "Got it, now to see if I can try to move freely up this vent pipe." And luck behold, he did manage to move through the vent without any difficulty, so Ted chose to move through the vent, away from his cell. The prisoners were wondering what would Ted do next. Julien was rather worried, but gladly enough he supported Ted's idea.
Meanwhile, Ted was climbing through the vents. Well, of course I highly won't recommend you to go through the vents yourself, but of course, Ted didn't mind. All that was running through is head was that he was on a mission... a mission to let the prisoners out of the re-education camp once and for all. But of course, Ted had a plan concealed up his sleeve. Of course, Julien was obviously smarter than him, but that doesn't stop the living black hole from putting a plan into reality.
As Ted looked through the vents at the bottom of the ventilation tubes running all around the building, Ted found that he is far off from the room he currently sought - after a long time, he had finally found the surveillance and security room. A good old hundred something metres from his prison cell and found it successfully. Using the dessert spoon he found in his pillowcase, he began to unscrew the screws joining the vent faceplate to the pipeline. After several minutes, Ted had let go of the ventilation faceplate, wondering how to apporach the controls without being caught. Looking to his left and right of view, Ted immediately jumped out of the vents and managed to grip onto the ceiling.
Ted was amazed by what he saw - the surveillance room was like no other. It was much like any other surveillance room only more advanced in technology... in fact it looked like it came from the future. One of the walls was coated in LCD monitors, the kind us human beings use with computers nowadays, with a set of luminescent control buttons. Note that each LCD monitor was displaying almost every angle from every cell block and facility rooms. The room had five or six swivel chairs, with nobody sitting in them.  "And you thought Willie was just that," Ted thought, refering to how the surveillance room is capable of picking up almost everything.
"How dare they! They better not poke their noses into our stuff!"
Ted was about to leap off the ceiling, but however he was faced by another threat. The threat of course, the room was guarded by three robot creatures... all bearing an appearance of a GreatDane/tiger/cheetah hybrid, to put it scientifically. They appear to be asleep, but judging on Ted's point of view, the creatures were playing possum, lying dormant until an unsuspecting intruder came too close to them. Ted stayed silent, really silent, trying not to disturb the guarding robot animals. Ted grew so nervous, that he accidentally lost grip of the ceiling and began to fall.
The robot animals woke up from their dormant state, and were about to attack. One of them, the leader (or what we should call it, the Alpha) sensed the intruder (which was actually Ted) and then leapt really high to catch Ted in its metallic razor sharp mouth. After catching Ted, the Alpha robot creature landed all-fours onto the ground, slamming Ted onto the floor. Ted finally found out that he was caught by the guard robot animals! Ted was about to scream, but the robot creature grabbed Ted by both of his hind feet, and slammed him on the floor.
Ted began howling in pain, as the robot creature tortured him by means of continuously thrashing him against the floor several times. However, Ted knew of only one way to defeat the animal, despite the pain running through his nervous system... as the robot creature was about to knock him out for the last time, Ted immediately stood on all fours and when the moment is ripe, Ted immediately pounced onto the Alpha robot's head, and (if you think things weren't going to be any better) sank his teeth into the Alpha robot's throat. Of course, the robot animals aren't easily killed by the bite to the throat, but it did do some damage as most of the circuitry and wiring was located in its metal throat.
The Alpha robot animal was almost defeated by the bite to its throat - it began to fidgit as Ted's jaws sank deeper and deeper into its intricate circuitry, slowly bringing the mechanical animal to the ground. Within moments, Ted used enough jaw power to throw the Alpha robot off the ground.  Ted didn't really have enough strength as Julien did have, but at least he inherited some hunting instincts from certain lemurs no matter what number they were. Ted did not realize that the other robot animals were about to attack... cleverly enough, Ted threw the now-defunct robot with all of his strength at the other two robot creatures, knocking then out completely.
Immediately, Ted approached the controls panel and began looking for the right ones (possibly the ones that controlled the cell doors.) "Come on, come on, which button is which?" Ted muttered, trying to figure out which button opens all of the doors in the prison cell block. The first button he pressed was the warning alarm. The second one was the smoke detectors in the prison cell blocks (the ones that spray water should smoke touch the detector). The third one was another warning alarm.
Developing a rather bad case of sensory overload, Ted whined, "Man these places can get pretty noisy sometimes!!! Come on and open all of the doors PLEASE!!!" Slamming his fist down on a big grey button, something amazing happened...
   
Meanwhile, at the cell block where Julien and the others are currently locked in, the king has gotten pretty listless right now, pacing left and right around the cage.
"What is taking him so long?" Julien mumbled.
All of a sudden, the door of his prison cell opened. Julien was free! And finally! But it doesn't just stop there... almost every door of the prison cells opened automatically, setting free many prisoners in the cell block (both human and lemur). Struggling to contain their excitement, the prisoners ran from their cells in a huff, down the stairs running off the platforms and then flooding the whole area, shouting their pleas for freedom.
Unfortunately, they were surrounded by the same robot animals Ted has encountered before.
Backup guard robot creatures!!! They've tracked them down!!!
The prisoners attempted to battle and wrestle the mechanical beasts and escape the dreaded re-education camp grounds, but no matter who is involved in the combat, it ended up rather unsuccessful. Julien was busy wrestling with the robot creatures, but he and the others ended up pinned down by the robot animals.
As Ted arrived at the prison cell block, seeing the vicious combat between prisoners and machine guard animals,  he was shocked to find that the battle was lost... perhaps Ted knew of one surefire way to defeat such a perilous army of robot animals... he speedily approached where Julien was pinned down by the robot animal - and surely enough, he leapt into the air, glided and while rotating rapidly and vertically, he hurtled at great speed, targeting the robot animal. In moments, Ted had managed to use the very technique to bring down the robot animal.
Julien got up to find that Ted had saved Julien from being attacked by the robot beasts. Of course, Julien may be the most powerful Julien King around, but he was rendered defenseless compared to the strength of the robots. Julien got up off the ground, regaining his strength, and perhaps his pride.
"Ted, how could I ever thank you?" Julien shouted, finding how Ted managed to save him from the robot animal.
"Don't mention it," Ted replied, sheepishly. "I may not be as strong as you, but I guess I have came up with a few hypothetical weaknesses of these ferocious bundles of scrap metal.."
"Then what are they?" Julien whined, happily and curiously.
"Okay, to begin with," Ted explained, "most of the robot animal's circuitry is located along the neck and back of the cyborg animal. Perhaps biting and slicing its back or neck would sever the wiring and circuits, causing the animal to break down automatically."
Julien stared at Ted with big gold wide eyes, the same reaction from last time. But instead of excitement, it was utter confusion. "How did you know all this?" Julien whined.
"You dont have to ask for that right now," Ted growled. "We've got to escape! And hurry!" He immediately took off at great speed, ready to sink his teeth into the another robot creature.
Julien was ready to fight the powerful robot creatures.and got into battle. As one of the robot animals were about to attack Julien, Julien immediately fought back by wrestling the robot creature and slashing or biting it until it was out for the count. Thanks to Ted's advice, Julien had been victorious for defeating the cold and heartless (both literally and metaphorically, because after all, robots don't normally have organic internal organs) robot beasts.
Now you know the number one reason why people shouldn't keep lemurs as pets, aside from the fact that like all non-human primates, they live in the wild.
After the end of the battle, Julien was still retaining his ferocious stance, yet he was rather tired. Tamir was amazed by how much of a great fighter Julien actually was. Julien was about to collapse, but he still has his strength to support himself on both his hind legs.
"They're done for," Julien sighed. The took a deep breath and shouted to all the prisoners in the cell block, "We have finally defeated the mechanical army!"
The prisoners, both animal and human, began shouting and cheering, victorious that their escape from prison will happen. The prisoners began escaping from the cell block, optimistic of their intentions to take the law into their own hands.
Julien and the other lemurs joined the escaping group of prisoners as they hurried through the corridors. However, what Julien found was not going to be any optimistic. The king has learned that there was a test lab in the re-education camp... Julien began to feel worried that someone he knew ended up here!
"Peoples, wait, stop!" Julien shouted. The prisoners immediately halted their escape plan and approached the king.
"Why would we stop right now, this is going to be a brand new beginning for us!" a random prisoner shouted. "Why would we?"
"Change of plans," Julien explained. "Perhaps someone we know might be in the test lab. So let me give you some simple instructions... Horst, Todd, Ted, Butterfish, Willie, come with me. Others, break into the cell block and set free the others!!"
The rest of the prisoners ran through the corridor, agreeing to begin the next mission of setting the other prisoners from the other cell block. Julien and the other lemurs entered the test lab.
Inside the test lab, it was just like the test lab found in Timo's pod, with a few human touches to it as well. Julien and the others found it was rather dark there... However to his shock, there was someone he particularly knew lying on the bench in the lab...
To his sorrow, it was Crimson. She laid unconscious on the bench, with a breathing apparatus attached to his snout. What's more, Crimson lacked her furry coat all around her body.
Julien was now worried. Not just for the rights of everyone, but for Crimson. The lemur he has spent time worrying about during the ban.
== Part 15 ==
The prisoners were wandering the corridors with the other lemurs. They were trying to find a way to break into the other surveillance room responsible for the surveillance of the other cell block in the re-education camp. Okay, to put it simply, a few of the lemurs in the group have managed to find the right buttons without getting hurt by the creatures. But what the other lemurs discover, it was going to turn out to be a big fat shock.
Willie was looking around the whole cell block anxiously. Perhaps, what if there are others that he actually knew? Willie became really scared and hugged Clover for support.
"Willie, easy, you yank!" Clover shouted. "Just don't hug me too hard!!!"
"Clover, I'm scared!" Willie whined. "Don't you guys have any ideas about who we might meet?"
"No?" Clover replied, confused.
"What if there are others we met at the party?" Willie ranted. "What if there are others that are actually in the family?"
Clover stared at Willie in the eye and sighed in despair. "I think I'm starting to think like that right now."
Suddenly, some of the lemurs began to answer in agreement. Wait, that was actually happening.
"I think I know someone in one of the cells," Clover confessed.
"What the -?" Tamir exclaimed.
"I didn't realize most of us would wind up in here!" Pancho quoted, worried about something...
And there, in the prison cell on the left half of the block, at the bottom right hand corner... was Xixi and Brodney.
"Xixi!" Mort shouted.
"Mort!" Xixi called out from her prison cell. "It's been an awful lot of time since I might see you again!"
"I was just worried about what might happen to you!" Pancho yelped, happy. He was so delighted to see Xixi and Brodney again.
"Pancho, look what they've done, they've recently locked us up!" Brodney squeaked. "Why we didn't have the opportunity to actually mix with the other prisoners from the opposite cell block."
What Brodney said was right. The prisoners were given little opportunity to mix those from opposite cell blocks. But it was not just Xixi and Brodney it was some of the lemurs as well - some kept in solitary confinement, others are kept with cellmates (usually a human partner). This could be the worst act of segregation between individuals in the history of humankind... or make that lemur-kind.
"How did they manage to lock you up at a time like this?" Tamir asked.
"Well, it was kind of obvious," Xixi began. "Remember the time when King Julien and some of the other lemurs were arrested? Well, I was there trying to save some of the lemurs, but to no avail. Of course, I have managed to get home safe. The next day, there was a second capture attempt of the lemurs... I tried to save one one of the lemurs in the island, but I ended up getting captured instead. But at least I defended the poor lemur from being captured." She stayed close to the cage bars. "I wish I were home."
"Me too," Brodney sighed, with despair leeching from his self.
This led to a vast response from the prisoners penned in the cell block. The prisoners from the other cell block had realised that so many people like them have been arrested for such innocence. Was it a dream for them? Unfortunately, this was reality.
Speaking of reality, Julien and the other lemurs in his group - Maurice, Todd, Butterfish, Ted and Becca, were surveying the test lab near the opposite cell block. Their current find was, believe it or not, Crimson, laying unconcious on the examination bench, lacking the fur on her body. Attached to her pointy snout was a breathing apparatus, the kind used by scuba divers. Attached to all over her body was a set of electrodes, connected to a scanning device and chemical detector.
"Oh poor thing!" Becca whined, wondering if Crimson have suffered so much all this time.
"Is this where he really ended up?" Butterfish shuddered. "I though he went straight into prison!"
Julien started to feel sorrow run through his emotional veins. What he did not understand until now, believe it or not, was that they were testing Crimson on various chemicals in order to construct a vaccine. "So this is what actually happened to her!" Julien and Clover shuddered, finally realizing what's going on! He immediately ran straight to Crimson's unconcious body, then gave him a big hug, tears streaming though his eyes.
It seems there was little chance that Crimson would revive and recover from all he shock the has been through, as Julien and Crimson almost seemed to find out. Of course, Maurice and the others have realized that too. Suddenly it happened... Crimzon started to twitch, slowly reviving from  deep sleep, and then weakly waking up, finding Julien and Clover hugging him, as if they never wishes to let go of at all. Crimson has finally realized that Julien and Clover have finally come to rescue her from all the horrors she had faced.
"Schmoopy Bear? Sister Girl?" Crimson moaned. "Is that you?"
Julien and Clover backed off a short distance, amazed at what they saw... despite the tears rolling down their faces, they were surprised at how Crimson woke up from an induced coma. In a combination of heartbreak and happiness, Julien and Clover burst into tears and gave Crimson a great hug for the second time.
"Crimson" Clover sobbed. "It's good to have you back." Of course, Julien had done one thing he had never done before... he kissed his former ex-fiance behind the ear to show his affection. Maurice suddenly became tipped off and startled at the same time.
"Your majesty..." Maurice shuddered, "don't do that! You know that's rather unsanitary by human standards!"
Julien immediately stopped kissing Crimson behind her ear and then stopped hugging him. Julien blushed and giggled, between sniffles.
"Oh Schmoopy Bear," Crimson whined, still retaining his good-natured optimism. "Don't listen to what others say. Believe in what's right with all your heart."
"But you know that's gross!" Maurice winced.
"Maurice, give it a rest, will you?" Becca suggested. "You know most of us greet each other like that."
"You know guys," Crimson explained, "the time I was captured, I have no idea where the officers were. I was considered a criminal by the looks of the police officers. Not only that, they shipped me to a rather creepy place... they call it a test lab. Once I arrived, they gave me vaccines, ran aversion tests and then kept me in isolation. From there, they stuck electrodes to my body and then ran tests on my metabolism. They had to put me to sleep to run those tests... good thing the chemical did not take my life. I'm so happy that you came here, sister girl."
"You can count yourself lucky, Crimson," Butterfish added.
"Glad to hear it," Crimson added. "Having a liking to making soup, it's not really easy to escape from the dreaded Spaghettios Prohibition Act."
"I can easily see that," Julien smiled. "Perhaps it's a little bit easier now that you lost your fur."
"I guess I didn't see that coming," Ted added.
Suddenly he heard the distant screams of the other prisoners. It sounded like it was the greatest joy they've ever experienced, but also the screams of those terrified and captured by the guards. This sparked Julien's decision to quickly leave the test lab.
"Come on, Crimson," Julien instructed as he helped Crimson off the examination table. "It looks like someone's in trouble."
In a huff, Julien and the rest of the lemurs ran out of the test lab and down the corridors, in an attempt to catch up with the prisoners.
Meanwhile, in the case of the escape of the other prisoners, the prison cell doors opened, leading to more of the prisoners escaping their cells. Not all of the prisoners made it out awake, as some of them got hit by the stun gun pellets fired by the guards. Well, Xixi and the lemurs weren't one of those hit by the pellets, but it was such a challenging escape.
Tamir approached Xixi before the prisoners were about to escape. "Xixi, are you sure everyone has been accounted for?"
"I hope so." Xixi replied. "We've got to leave the prison cell as soon as possible."
"Right you are," Tamir reckoned. "Now we've got to get out of here. Just before - "
The stun-gun missile hit him in the left arm, putting him in a quick faint instantly, but not in a state of unconciousness. Xixi began to feel worried about if Tamir is ever going to make it out alive.
"Run, Xixi," Tamir instructed Xixi. 'It's all we've got."
And in a rush, Xixi (who, being a bird, flew of course) and the other lemurs rushed off, trying to catch up with the other prisoners.
Meanwhile, Julien was rushing like crazy, about to bust into the other prison cell block, but his worst fears were confirmed - not all of the prisoners were freed - a few of them were captured by means of the stun-gun missiles. And it turns out that Tamir was one of them. Julien approached Tamir's unconcious body and prepared to ask him some questions...
"Tamir, are you okay?" Julien panicked.
Tamir tried to look at Julien in the eye and then answered, "Julien, the other prisoners have left the cell block. I tried to escape, but they hit me with the stun gun missiles. Julien, there's one thing I want you to do..."
He began breathing heavily, gradually becoming weak under the power of the stun-gun missile. "They've headed out of the prison cells, and away from the grounds. They're right outside... the great big... fortress, just not... far away... from here."
"Okay, Tamir," Julien replied, holding back tears in his eyes. "I'll do as you're told." And in a hurry, Julien and the rest of the lemurs in his group set off.
As they left, Tamir took his last physical breath and fell into an unconcious state.
However, whoever lives in the fortress was someone who was responsible for bringing the worldwide-Spaghettios ban into existence. No-one knows who it is though.
== Part 16 ==
Outside, it was rather cold, and thick heavy fog rolled along the whole area between the re-education camp and the house of the person responsible for the existence of the Spaghettios ban. Along the way, Julien and the kingdom troop were running along the barren and dusty track... Maurice, Crimson and Ted were piggyback riding on Butterfish's back, while Dorothy, Todd and the king tailed along as well.
"They got Tamir with all their might!" Dorothy yelped. "Ugh, if it wasn't for the Spaghettios ban, then we would have been safe at home with the family!!!"
"Yeah, and we would have got Clover's sister back!!" Todd added.
Julien continued running along the track despite being tired and finding the fog hard to manage. He began to worry about the other prisoners heading to the fortress.
"Since why are we heading to the fortress?" Maurice asked.
"Tamir told me to," Julien answered. "He said that the prisoners must have escaped there. Now we're not sure what's going to happen to them. What if they were in danger?"
"Perhaps we've got to be careful," Ted warned. "You know, your majesty, they may have set up tighter security over there. If they were in danger, how would we be able to save them?"
"I'm afraid it would be much harder that we thought," Maurice added, feeling rather miserable.
This made some of the lemurs slightly more uncomfortable. The fog slightly cleared up on approaching the large grassy lawn surrounding the fortress. There they were, the group of prisoners were finding a way to get in - some tried to get over the stone fence, while others were fighting off the robot guard animals (note their appearance - Great Dane/tiger/cheetah) in order to get in.
"What in the world?!" Maurice shouted, surprised at what happened.
"Let's just say this is one of their greatest battles they have faced in their lifetime," Crimson commented.
Meanwhile, there was a huge battle between the prisoners and the robot guard dogs. The angry, frightened and excited screams and shouts filled the air during that fateful battle. As some of the human prisoners wrestled with the robot animals, most of the lemurs, particularly Clover (using all her fighting might), Willie and Mort took to biting, wrestling and scratching them down.
There were some perfect examples of strength present in the prisoners... among the prisoners was Clover - she was capable of wrestling the robot guard dogs and using her strength to toss them further away from the prisoners, also to knock more robot guard dogs out. Coming out of nowhere, through the thick fog, Butterfish and Ted ran at great speed, ready to participate in the great battle.
"Butterfish,"Ted began, "I have devised a technique to eliminate those savage tin cans, no matter what!"
"Are you sure it's going to work?" Butterfish whined.
"I'm sure it can Butterfish," Ted explained. "It's based on the fact that I have decided to put the best that I got to good use."
"But Ted -" Butterfish asked, but he couldn't finish the question off.
Ted immediately leapt off the ground, began rotating rapidly (as if mimicking a rotary blade being hurtled against a given target...) and as he did so, he began his theatre skills into his attack, dancing and prancing around them with two large leaves for flashiness, and as he hurtled towards the group of robot dogs, he let out a falling punch down to the ground by rising up and up with the large leaves. Ted was about to collide into the robot dogs... Butterfish could not bear to watch this, but...
Butterfish was surprised to see that most of the robot guard dogs have vanished, thanks to Ted's combination theatre/fighting technique.  The battle between the escaped prisoners and the no-good cyborg animals was over. Ted had conclusively landed in front of Butterfish, keeping himself stable himself on both feet, safe and well, satisfied with how effective his technique went, however he was rather exhausted.
"Well, you seemed to do the job well enough," Butterfish commented, dumbfounded.
"Thanks..." Butterfish moaned, and fell over forwards.
While most of the robot animals were defeated, there was one left who was trying to chase Clover off the stone barrier surrounding the fortress. As Clover was about to fall off, she immediately disappeared into thin air. If the robot animal had the capability to think, just like any other animal would, it would wonder where would Clover could have gone.
Clover stayed hidden in the bushes, then by pouring a huge bucket of water, she possessed the robot animal and caused it to short circuit. Finally, as Clover managed to stand still, the robot animal lost balance and fell off the stone barrier, tumbling along the ground. Clover felt a warm inner fuzzy glow that she had defeated the last one.
"Just as I'd expect from you, Clover!" Xixi cried out, happily.
The prisoners, both human and lemur, have realized that the battle has finished once and for all. Clover looked at the whole crowd of prisoners, then spotted Julien and the other lemurs in the distance.
"It's over," Clover confirmed. She looked at Ted's limp body lying on the lawn, in front of Butterfish (trying to revive him) and sighed in immense disbelief.
The prisoners decided to host a conversation with each other about their victorious escape. However, Julien wasn't that satisfied... he can detect it using his pointy ears...
Julien has heard words... words which went along the tune of, "All my tomato soupy goodinesss... they're mine... and I'm sure no furry fiend shall stop me from having it all to myself! Looks like they'll have nothing but soggy potato peelings after all." Enough was enough, Julien thought...
"KNOCK IT OFF!" Julien shouted.
The prisoners heard Julien's pleas from a distance. Their conversations were halted by his jolt of dissatisfaction.
"Don't you guys realize that someone in this fortress has inflicted the ban," Julien yelled, "just to have it all by himself?"
The prisoners gasped in fear. One of the lemurs, Mort, came out of the group three steps towards Julien.
"I can't believe you've been lying to us!" Mort shouted, annoyed by Julien's 'theory'.
"King Julien!" Willie shouted into the distance. "How did you manage to send those words into our ears?"
"Enough with the shunning!" Clover shouted. "He must have overheard it with his ears. He must have found something rather suspicious over there."
"So what does that mean?" Maurice asked.
"We need to find out who lives in this fortress," Julien instructed.
"But what if we get caught breaking into the fortress?" Mort whined. "You know how much of a crime breaking into other people's houses can be!"
"Calm down, Mort" Ted snapped back, defending his opinions (while at the same time trying to recover from exhaustion). "You know, King Julien is rather concerned that someone living up there is selfish. There's only one way we can break into the fortress and that's by the window."
The human prisoners began complaining, saying that there's no way they would enter the window.
"Take it easy, guys," Ted instructed the human prisoners, as he got up off the ground, keeping his balance on his hind feet. "I have devised a technique to help break into the building."
"Yay," Willie cheered, sarcastically, as if wondering if Ted's plan is ever going to work.
"But don't get your hopes up," Ted continued, "for I won't be the one doing all the work. Julien will start this plan."
The look on everyone's face was just mixed emotions, usually ranging from awestruck and surprised to ones showing criticism and anger.
"What sort of plan have you devised now?!" Maurice shouted, as if not very impressed.
"We have to coax that somebody out of the building," Ted explained. "We're delivering him the biggest shock of his life."
"King Julien!" Mort shouted. "Don't be a hero!"
"Mort, please," Julien apologized. "It is our only way to get into the building. Besides, Ted is going to help me all the way."
Mort looked at his king in the eyes in despair and heartbreak. "Okay, if you insist," he sighed.
"Everyone, give him plenty space!" he instructed, calling on all of the prisoners in the group to split in two groups, in order to give Julien some sufficient space to perform the technique.
It happened. Julien was staring at the window in a great deal of focus, adrenaline rushing through his nerves and blood vessels. Julien sensed anger in the air. Ted was watching him closely, as if alert and ready to give him commands. In a huff, Julien took off at great speed, faster than how fast he has ran in the past... away from the fortress and heading towards a tree. Normally he would have climbed the tree like any lemur would have done, but no. He actually sprinted highwards up the tree, leapt a distance and grabbed hold of one of the thickest branches and gripping them tight with his hands. Like a gymnast on the swinging bars, Julien quickly revolved to gain speed for the great leap towards the fortress window.
"Your majesty," Ted nstructed, " let go! Make this leap the highest you have ever done in your entire life!"
Julien immediately tucked his back feet over his hands (beginning to lose its grip on the branch), but he managed to stay balanced for the leap by tightening his tail and then using his rear legs to disperse enough energy to conduct a tremendous jump... this sent Julien into the air, causing him to fly forwards towards the window. Julien began screaming, as if he was afraid of breaking into the window and getting himself hurt. (Little did he know that there was an inner glow that he was going to do it well...)
Ted has seen enough, and had decided to finish this once and for all. "Your majesty," Ted commanded, "shake, roll and tumble!"
Julien immediately tumbled and began to rotate rapidly... transforming him into a hurtling razor ball. Ted has finally seen this... Julien has finally managed to master the Razorback once and for all! All the others could do was watch Julien about to experience an injury upon collision, but all that changed...
Julien had maintained contact with the window, and like a soccer ball he smashed through it with tremendous speed. If that was possible to put the entire action in slow motion mode, Julien had appear to slice through the window using the spines on his back. Although Julien had tough skin, he only had scratches near the back end of himself. After breaking through the window, Julien was thrown into the wall, but Julien avoided collision by landing on all fours in a rather awesome ninja style, then performed a leap and landed on all fours on the ceiling. Julien may have experienced trauma doing such an act, but Julien had done it. He learnt a new technique from one of his subjects. (That warm inner glow had finally expanded into pride.)
Meanwhile, outside the fortress, the human prisoners began exchanging worried comments on what may have happened to Julien.
"Perhaps he needs some help," Mort commented. "By the way, how in the world he picked up the moves?"
Ted may have regretted teaching Julien the moves, but he was happy enough to let Mort try to leap through the fortress' window just to help. He was ready to learn the moves from how Ted had witnessed it.
"You see," Ted began to explain, "he immediately dashed off from the fortress and ran up a tree with all his might. And believe it or not, he grabbed hold of the thickest branches and began spinning round it. He must have done that to gain enough speed for the leap. You may not feel very experienced at doing it, but it'll take some practice."
"Come on, Ted!" Maurice shouted. "We're starting to feel worried about King Julien!"
Back inside the fortress, Julien was gripping tightly to the ceiling, wondering where he was. So he decided to find where the room leads to, in means of using night vision. Believe it or not, Julien has ended up in a room with a mess of papers to do with negotiations with health practitioners, as well as various ministers, lawyers and even the government himself. There was a safe in the room, which normally was locked, but was left open a crack. Julien had managed to sense something that wasn't right in the safe...
"So my guess was probably right," Julien mumbled to himself. "Someone who lives in the palace is nothing more than a scrooge."
"Says who?" Mort asked. She had managed to somersault his way into the room through the broken glass window.
"Mort," Julien shouted. "I think we've ended up in the storage room of the fortress. Either someone's selling it to the black market, or worse still, whoever started the Spaghettios ban is probably a hypocrite."
"You kind of think so?" Mort asked. "By the way, I was so worried about how you ended up after breaking in through the window."
"Don't worry Mort," Julien reassured. "I'm okay. I'm still re-fabulous!" However, Julien accidentally let go of the ceiling and began falling into the floor with a loud crash. Julien got up from the floor, shook his head to regain his bearings and turned his attention to the safe. Sniffing it all over, he cautiously opened the safe... and there it was, a supply of Spaghettios cans kept away for laboratory testing... but one of the packets was opened, indicating that someone must have enjoyed the cans every now and again.
"King Julien," Mort asked, "what is it that you're doing?"
"Mort, check this out," Julien explained to Mort as he cautiously removed a Spaghettios can from the safe. "It's the same Spaghettios can we've encountered way before the ban."
"Is that the one with the meatballs in it?" Mort squeaked. "How I enjoy meatballs."
"And look," Julien chuckled as he found another one. "Alphabet-shaped!"
"I guess we've finally made it!" Julien commented. "It appears that Spaghettios has not been destroyed, but someone's been hogging it away for some reason."
"But what about what's left of the squash shredder machine?" Mort asked.
"It's probably mixed in with lino and used as the floors in the hallways right now," Julien pondered.
"Either that or it turned out to be a cover-up."
Back outside the fortress, Butterfish tried so hard to break the metal bar-doors down in order to get in, but to no avail. The metal bar-doors had electricity wiring equipped on the inside, deterring intruders from entering. Butterfish was left exhausted and weak from such attempts.
"I guess there's no way in..." Ted sighed.
"Hey you guys, let's look on the bright side..." Clover reassured the prisoners. "I'll be right back." And he leapt over the stone barrier, then wandered a great distance, trying to locate the wiring box within the stone barriers surrounding the fortress. As fast as a lightning bolt, Clover quickly deactivated the electric-bar-doors. With Clover giving the all clear, Ted quickly approached the bar-doors and then pushed the doors open. They were a little bit heavy to push open, but at least he had not been struck by the electric component in the bar doors.
"Get in guys," Ted instructed, "we don't really have time."
The group of once-was prisoners immediately entered the area barricaded with the stone walls, and quickly entered the basement via the little door at the back of the fortress.
Upon entering the area via the door leading to the basement (usually the air-raid shelter), both human and lemurs were wondering what sort of a place they have ended up in. Inside the basement was just like any old basement... cold, dark, empty, and with a set of steps leading to the rest of the building.
"Perhaps King Julien and Mort may have ended up somewhere else," Clover reckoned. "I'll go check," and there she went, she crawled up the steps and approached the door. It didn't have a keyhole, so Clover decided to open it a crack. After a few seconds, Clover decided to open it all the way - and in an instant, an explosion flooded into the basement. Clover was almost blinded by the light and was close to losing her balance.
"What is it, Clover?" Xixi asked.
"I guess," Clover moaned, as she tried to figure out what it was... "it's some sort of palace hallway. Come look!"
This led to some of the lemurs coming up the steps, in order to find out what sort of palace it was.
It was just like any other elegant palace... the floor consisted of tiles set in a rather set of pretty patterns (that is, the kind that you find when you visit other palaces), which almost run up one-eighth along the tall walls. The walls were nothing but a dull and drab concrete gray, but accompanying the walls were a set of paintings involving dramatic war scenes from certain eras. The ceiling was located high above (like any other elegant palace) and was laced with halogen lighting and a large chandelier in the middle of each corridor section.
"That's so pretty!" Willie commented. "And to think that the re-education camp was nothing but a dump. This is one place we would rather live in!"
Suddenly, spotted across the distance opposite the small group, one of the guards caught eye of the lemurs. When the guard was about to approach the group, he realized that the group has disappeared. So the guard immediately walked away and went down the corridor. Finally it was safe and the lemurs, along with the human-prisonbreaks, led then along the corridor. This happened while the guard was asleep.
Back in the storeroom, Julien had offered some candy and pieces of Spaghettios from the safe to Mort, realizing how long they have realized one thing... Spaghettios had not been banished from the world ever... the crook had banned Spaghettios only to have most of it diverted to himself. However, during a wonderful conversation, they had mysteriously fallen asleep a while later. Unfortunately, one of the robot guard dogs (as usual, Great Dane/Cheetah/tiger) have spotted the sleeping lemurs. Treating the situation as if it were a terror attack, the robot animal dashed from the storage room ready to report the alarming results to the tyrant responsible for creating the law...
Of course, as the robot animal entered the tyrant's office, it appearingly felt scared and refused to come any further into the room.
"Come forth, my metallic slave," the selfish tyrant commanded the quivering robot animal... (despite their artificial intelligence, which made you think: "How can robots display a sense of emotion?") Of course, the robot animal refused to enter the room. It took just two steps inside, but no more. The tyrant stared at the robot animal in anger and fear.    "I said, COME FORTH!" the tyrant had a rising tone of anger in his voice upon yelling such words. As if forced, the robot animal crept into the room and approached the desk of the tryant.
Inside the office where the tyrant chose to rule, it was the one resembling that of the receptionist's room, only larger. The room was carpeted with a rather expensive looking rug commonly seen in royal palaces. Along the left and right of where the robot animal faced, there were vast collections of books, criminal records, execution records... and to highlight the true cruelty of the tyrant, there were stuffed models of animals... anything ranging from lions and bears and perhaps even dogs...  the robot animal turned to look at the armchair where the tyrant sat, which was usually facing away from the desk.
"So, you useless, cowardly metallic hunter," the tyrant growled. "I see you have spotted someone invading my treasure room. Who was it?"
 The robot animal whined, realizing that he had nothing left to say, nothing to describe the situation.
"Well, speak now," the tyrant demanded, "or you will be torn apart by my bare hands..."
The quivering robot animal had only stammered the words, "They... they were... the same criminals...criminals from..." (Strangely enough the robot sounded like a mechanized version of Uncle King Julien XII, as if heard from speakerphone.) The metallic creature stopped.
"You IDIOT!" The tyrant shouted, as if he was very dominant above the rather frightened mechanical creature. "Ever since the ban begun, goodness knows what the notorious pack are up to now! Even now, you won't deserve to have your mechanical life you currently have now!"
"Okay, okay!" the rather worried and chickened-out mechanical animal whined, as if it kept its promise. "It was the same guys that made their own Spaghettios. It was them who the police officers sent to re-education camp. They must have escaped!"
"It can't be!" The tyrant growled. "How can someone so feeble, so concerned, so rebellious escape my high security prison?"
"Don't tell me," the robot creature answered back, as if courageous and had gained its confidence back. "They were the much-notorious king and his biggest fan, a well suited friendship. I have no idea who let the others free."
"Glad you have a sense of intelligence telling me who left the re-education camp grounds..." the tyrant growled. "It's your job to enter the room and coax them out of the area. Of course, given your fearsome nature, you can give them a fate they can't agree on..."
And off the mechanical animal went. Little do they know that someone rather innocent yet feared had been controlling the mechanical beast from the inside... one that Julien might consider an archenemy, one that served as Julien's evil uncle, but surprisingly enough turned good. Of the batch of the baby-fied, the mechanical beast might be controlled by... no wait, a clone?
As the mechanical canine entered the storeroom, there was nobody there. "Where did they go?" the mechanical canine quizzically thought. As it left the storeroom and made its way through the tiled corridor, it heard noises... noises that could indicate an invasion... an invasion by the hidden escaped prisoners planning their attack on the one mechanical animal left...
"Surprise!" Julien shouted as he dropped off the ceiling and pounced on the mechanical animal, restraining to the creature tightly and holding his arms around its neck. The mechanical animal began writhing and chasing its tail, trying to get Julien off its back. Watching the fight closely, were some of the human prisoners (plus Xixi the bird) and the other lemurs.
"Yeah, you go, your majesty!" Maurice encouraged. "Go show that moving scrap metal hound what for!"
Julien accidentally lost grip between his arms and the mechanical animal, but however he somersaulted, landed on one of the palace walls, then drawing out his extra arms he leapt towards the animal and went straight for its back. In an instance, the mechanical animal sensed that Julien is endlessly scratching at its aluminum plated coat in order to bring him down.
The mechanical beast had other ideas though, and given its ferocity, the beast furiously bucked up and down trying to get the creature off its exterior plating and onto the hard tiled floor. Julien did not give up - even though he was thrown off while trying to bring down the ferocious pile of scrap metal, he had managed to grab hold of its tail and swing it around (just to coax it into a term of dizziness, in which robots don't usually have). After much work was done in spinning the mechanical creature, Julien threw the creature against the furthest wall down the corridor. In a clank, the mechanical creature collapsed onto the tiled floor like a sack of coal... upon getting up off the ground, the creature staggered as if not having any strength left.
Julien was the slightest bit weak as well, trying to retain his strength in case the creature wants to fight back. The prisoners in the group were so worried that something suspicious may be hidden beneath the metal exterior of the detector robot. After being sure that the robot is no longer functional, Julien was confident that the prisoners were safe.
"He's done for," Julien reassured the prisoners. He began to count the prisoners, but of the total amount of prisoners (to be accurate, approximately 180 prisoners, both human and lemur - the king included) about seventy-six were missing from the clan - seven of the human prisoners were held hostage in the traps, four of them didn't make it out of the re-education camp uninjured, and of the remainder, there were only one-hundred and four of the total amount of prisoners that successfull broke out. "Where's the rest of them?" Julien asked, concerned of what's going on.
Mort approached Julien and reassured him, by saying, "It's okay. They have other plans."
Speaking of other plans, there were a small group of sixty-two prisoners (the group that had been separated from the main cluster upon breaking out of the prison) hidden in the underground pipe-rooms (the large area beneath the mansion involving numerous pipes which carried water and natural gas), discussing plans with each other. Strangely enough, there were some lemurs in the group - Sharon, Hector Jeffrey, Willie, Pancho and a few others.
"So what do we think we'll do to help overthrow the head-honcho responsible for the ban?" Willie asked.
"I highly doubt any of your ideas will work," Pancho warned. "The head-honcho will seek revenge no matter what."
"Head-honcho?" Sharon shouted, expressing fright and distraught at the same time. "Awww snap! We're all doomed!"
"No we're not," Hector reassured, as if he was close to starting an argument.
"Yes we are!" Sharon answered back, spurring an argument.
"No we're not!"
"Yes we are!"
"Keep it down, you two," Jeffrey warned the group. "Don't you realize that you are creating more and more problems if you keep on arguing?"
"I guess we're right," Sharon replied, in shame and apology. "Sorry, Hector."
"Don't mention it," Hector replied, accepting the apology... not! "I mean do not mention it! I'm not apologizing!"
"Perhaps you should broadcast a message," Sharon suggested.
"What?" Pancho argued, as if things will never go his way. "You woman, we don't have any access to any TV stations in this patch of land. The only thing we have with us right now is a small radio transmitter, and there's got to be a way to work this thing."
Four of the human prisoners began to join the group of lemurs. Of the four human prisoners joining the group, their names were Nobita, Alex, Stellen and Ada. Nobita was considered the head of the small group, and began to ask the lemurs a question.
"You're saying you've got a plan?" Nobita asked, as if he understands the lemurs very well.
Pancho replied in a curious cluck, as if agreeing. He then realized that in Nobita's trouser pocket was the small handheld radio transmitter. Without further ado, Pancho browsed into the trouser pocket, eventually taking the small handheld radio transmitter out of Nobita's pocket. Nobita was rather surprised of what happened, and at the same time, shocked at how Pancho managed to grab hold of the device.
"What are you doing?" Nobita asked, but Pancho didn't listen. Instead he took the transmitter to the small group of lemurs in the separated group of seventy-two prisoners. Sharon had a few words of inspiration running through his nerves, and even though he had no understanding of the human language, he had decided to help the human prisoners work together with the plan to help bring the amount of people into the area, despite the fact that they have no idea how to do so, physically. By the appearance of the situation, the small handheld radio transmitter was their only hope.
Meanwhile, in a town far away from the fortress, the scene was a desolate place to be. Nobody was outside of their houses and everyone was living in fear of persecution. There are three of the escaped prisoners - Akame and Ron, only one lemur was among them... Ted. They are assigned to look for the prisoners held hostage in one of the buildings. Ted was worried about what happened to all the people in town. All around him were the images of a few people on the concrete road, injured and unconscious, with a relative asking whether the person was okay.
"Is this what the Spaghettios ban brings?" Ted thought. "Is this what? At this rate, there is no way everything will ever get back into place. And even now..."
Suddenly, Ted sensed some trouble coming from the horizon... there were not just robot animals in pursuit of the trio about to capture them... backup police officers! They were the kind used in crowd control to control unruly protesters and other people. Ted was so angry, he was about to attack... as if he was ready to sink his teeth into some of the robot animals. As Ted was rushing at full speed, the back up police officers rurrounded, shields open, and at least a few of them were armed with their stun guns.
"Hey, you guy!" Akame shouted in the distance, "are you sure this is going to work?"
Ted immediately leapt in the air, at least (what seemed like) a mile from the ground, and as he rolled into a ball with his spikes sticking out (the razorback technique once again), he began to descend deeper into the ground. As the backup police officers began to fire shots, Ted rapidly dodged the stun gun pellets on his way down. At least a few meters before crashlanding, Ted uncoiled himself and was flying straight down...
...his jaws fixed himself on one of the backup officer's rear ends, trousers attached. Fearlessly, Ted had managed to use his paws to grab hold of the underpants... and began to spin rapidly, vertically, grabbing hold of the underpants and giving the officers a super tight wedgie. Given the furious satisfaction, Ted flipped back, the officer's underpants still grabbed onto his mouth - in an instant of the flip, Ted had managed to rob one of the backup officers of their pair of underpants. One of the backup officers winced in pain and readjusted his trousers, hoping that his pair of trousers won't fall down. Amazed by Ted's brutality, the backup police officers ran away from the rather small group.
Hey, nice going!" Ron praised. "You beat the pants off that guy!"
Ted used his senses to locate the other seven prisoners held hostage in one of the buildings... turns out, they were held up in one of the abandoned town halls up upon the town's main street.
Upon arrival of the abandoned town hall, the three prisoners were shocked at what they saw: seven of the prisoners in their group were held in barricades areas, among the other people (or maybe former citizens of the abandoned town.) Ted was shocked to recognize one of the people captured by the backup officers... Tamir was okay, but he had a strong desire to escape.
"Tamir? Are you okay?" Ron asked, as if he wanted to know what had happened to Tamir. "Are you okay?"
Tamir looked up to the trio in the eyes. "Thank goodness you come to spare our lives!" he replied, tears streaming from his eyes. But however, Ted heard some distant pattering of footsteps, the angry howls and growls of people (and surprisingly some guests as well). Ted caustiously decided to investigate by opening the town hall door a small bit, in case the backup police had returned. But things weren't all what it seemed...
To his surprise it was the small pack of the other lemurs that escaped from the island! It was Sharon and the remaining pack, assisted by Timo - oddly enough there were only few lemurs in the group, but a semi-large group of human supporters against the ban. In fact, Sharon had plenty to say.
"What's going on, Ted?" Sharon greeted, happy to find him alive and well.
"How did you get here?" Ted asked.
"What?" Sharon replied, "We just snuck in by prison ship. We escaped and began herding out other outlaws, and we decided to build our own army. And this is how we ended up - ready to conquer the big old meanies with our plan. Now where do you think the big meany lives?"
"He's at the great big fortress a long way away," Ted explained. "They called it the House of Tyrants - the big boss is rumored to be a cold and heartless monster. That's why they called it the House of Tyrants."
Sharon had decided to hold a meeting with the other members of the troop. Jeffrey was one of the members, to mention the first, followed by Becca, Abner, Leonard, Nurse Phantom, Brodney, Bronda, Horton, Helen and Tammy. There were not a lot in the group currently, as the rest of the group had split up during the group invasion. "Did anyone know what happened to the rest of the group since the invasion?" Sharon asked.
"Perhaps they escaped and decided to send in more reinforcements," Becca pondered, as if something may have happened. "We might have to split our group up and invade at as many entrances as possible."
"But what if they catch us?" Abner whines. "What if they grab their measly little hands on us during such a plan? It will never catch on!"
"Come on, Abner," Becca reassured, trying to tell the frightened husband that the plan would work as it should. "Besides, what would be the thrill of being reunited with King Julien, our main leader of the kingdom?"
"I know we should be happy about it," Abner continued, still afraid of what would happen... "but what can I do in order to not get caught?"
"Maybe you should be the spy," Horton suggested. "Because you can turn invisible, you can take up sneaking on the enemy and showing what a complete jerk he is!"
"That's it!" Ted commented, inspired by the idea. "Maybe we should select some of the troops and we'll beat his pants off!"
The troops stared at Ted, surprised at what he had just said.
"Literally rip his pants off!" Ted revised, trying to let the others understand what he said.
"Stop," Timo interrupted. "You're saying you're going to perform undergarment-tightening attacks on the world's most disagreeable leader? That's impossible!"
"Let me explain, Timo," Ted reassured, as he tried to keep things together.
While Julien and the others were planning the expose on the government leader, for all the wrongs he had done, there is a chance that the lemurs in Timo's group were ready to strike. All they need now were some allies - people against the Spaghettios ban - in the several minutes facing the showdown.
Surrounding the House of Tyrants are some of the prisoners, and some of the members of Julien's group were rather set on getting revenge against the no good world leader that was rumored to live there. Julien was rather cautious, ever vigilant and ready to strike anyone that dare invade their plan and prevent it from occurring. But unfortunately, there was something he did not expect.
"Uhm, your majesty," Maurice asked. "Are you sure things are going to plan?"
"I'm not sure," Julien pondered, "but there might be some forces that might interfere with our plan."
Surely enough, as what Julien may have predicted, there was someone sneaking throughout the forest surrounding the doomed mansion. But however, it stood in the shadows ever so silently. Could it be... a relative?
Just before Julien could turn to look, someone recognizable leapt from the forest, ready to take down the famed lemur now branded an outlaw. it was Uncle King Julien XII! Probably his nemesis has chosen to take him down as an act of revenge once and for all! In fact, Julien has just realized that his plan had been thwarted!
Julien prepared to strike and attack the nemesis, which was aimed at him, ready to take him down, but his uncle began to attack him, his jaws clung to the scruff of the back of Julien's neck, so as to prevent him from running away, then he pinned his nephew to the ground. The prisoners watched the fight, helpless in terms of trying to save Julien, no matter what. However, Julien was calm and steady, well prepared for the fight between his notorious uncle, using the fighting spirit that stirred him loose against the mechanical detector dog that attacked him earlier, but however, the strength of his uncle was enough to inject fear and inhibit his motivation to fight.
"Your majesty, what's going on?" Maurice shouted, worried about the safety of his nearest friend and how things would turn out.
"King Julien, hang on!" Mort shouted, as if he was worried as well.
Julien had much difficulty trying to resist the force of his uncle, who was still pinning the king to the ground. Despite his rising courage, he realized that he was trapped. However, he realized someone familiar... he silently recognized the bubbly froth that began to form on the lower part of his uncle's snout... was it the rogue uncle who was possessed by the evil leader? Before Julien could strike back, the rogue uncle managed to stun him with a simple kick (proving Julien had a weak spot, believe it or not), and managed to grasp him near the chest and neck, but without ever causing injury to the lemur, yet stand on all fours without any difficulty. The prisoners observed the scene in shock, especially when Julien began to writhe and mumble in pain, waving his little paws in the air, as if trying to free himself from the grip.
"Looks like any chance of repealing the ban is very slim," Uncle King Julien growled, his jaws firmly clasped on the victim. "How would you like it if someone did this to you?"
"So he finally did snap, did he?" Maurice commented, astounded by what the king's uncle had done. "It's not like you actually do want to harm him, do you?"
"I'm not here to harm this menace, I'm here to break out of this place," Uncle King Julien replied, as if justifying the 'attack' to reassure the others. I have eavesdropped on his plans to expose the cruelties done by the no-good world leader, and I have decided to improvise on this plan."
"What do you mean?" Mort asked. "And besides, since when did you turn from evil to good?"
"It's a long story," Uncle King Julien attempted to explain. "But given that me and Crimson were kidnapped by the no-good leader, who used us to take out any criminals, I have decided to take this operation into my paws. In this case, I will fake the taking of your pet's life in order to fool the leader. Then after the leader gives a song-and-dance about how well I have been doing, we'll take him down, and we'll interrogate him."
"Does that mean I have to play dead?" Julien whined, weakly, finally giving up the wriggling movements.
"King Julien, there's no choice," Clover warned. "We've got to stay silent if we have to make it out alive. I believe that Sir Kaans might imprison us all. And if he thinks that imprisoning innocent people, there might be a chance that he'll try to take each one of them out, one by one."
Uncle King Julien surveyed the entire scene and had made the decision... "Scatter, guys. The leader's coming back to find out what has happened."
The prisoners and the other lemurs in the group quickly hid in their hiding places (with some playing dead to make the scene even more dramatic.) Then out from the gate came the disgruntled and annoyed Sir Kaans Bruntley. And to make things worse, he seems very annoyed with the given situation.
== Part 17 ==
Coming from amongst the shadows was the strong figure of Sir Kaans Bruntley, who was irritated with the revolutionary tactics of  Julien and the other lemurs. He observed the entire scene, in which the majority of lemurs were lying on the ground... as if dead. Julien could only remain lying on the ground, looking at the clouded sky. Snow began to seep through his fur on his back, and this made it even uncomfortable (thanks to his previous fear of drowning). But Julien witnessed another figure approaching Sir Kaans from behind... Antaag. With an intention to preach to Sir Kaans Bruntley about what's to come.
"Those no-good mongrels," Sir Kaans growled, commenting on the scene he had witnessed in front of his property. "They're probably playing possum to escape their sentence."
"Since how did you become so smart, boss?" Antaag asked, as if wanting to know how smart the government leader was. However, he was belittled by Sir Kaans stalking him, threatening him, even seeking revenge against him.
"Haven't we been mocked at by the fleetless groups of citizens?" Sir Kaans warned his brother, trying to explain the situation. "The Spaghettios ban may be enforced, but so many people are beginning to rebel against us! Oh how we hate those citizens!"
"I wouldn't want to burst your bubble," Antaag stammered, "but I have nothing wrong with the scum you consider 'everyday citizens'. What has happened with you, boss?"
"You idiot," Sir Kaans growled, his right hand forming a fist in front of Antaag. "Once you tighten a law, the rebels would want to take us down more and more each day! I have found a solution that involves the arrest of those who come against us. If they don't want to be arrested, then I'm afraid that they don't live to see tomorrow."
"What? Taking a life from everyday citizens?" Antaag gasped, finally in utter realisation. "I wanted world peace, but you took away my opportunity to become Earth representative! Why would you do such a thing like that?"
"Well, with all the others," Sir Kaans warned, "you are scum."
The other prisoners gasped in shock horror, especially in their hiding places. Who knew that Sir Kaans was the most coldest of any world leader? He could literally freeze them to death simply with a glare. Julien took Sir Kaan's comment as offensive, and found opportunity to strike...
"Call us scum one more time..." Julien growled under his breath, as he rapidly roused from playing dead... he rolled over onto all fours, and then attempted a tremendous leap against Sir Kaans - he landed on Sir Kaan's shoulders in an attempt to restrain Sir Kaans by the arms.
"HEY!" Sir Kaans yelped, at the sudden notice of Julien restraining his arms behind his back. "GET OFF OF ME!" He writhed in an attempt to get Julien off his back, but Julien was far stronger still. "You little furball, STOP IT! STOP IT!"
And the other lemur, playing dead, immediately took notice... Clover was the first to emerge from the sidelines - she sprinted and grabbed Sir Kaans by the left leg in an attempt to stop him from attempting to run. Maurice also approached Sir Kaans from in front, in an attempt to grab the right leg... Sir Kaans let off a mighty kick, brushing the aye-aye aside. But with one potential loss comes another gain... Mort had also attempted a tremendous leap, and grabbed hold of the right side of his waist. Of course, to keep Sir Kaans still was futile, but Julien looked the other way and managed to take off his coat... clean off.
Julien fell on his back, right onto the snow, still holding the coat in his paws, but in a split second, he realised that there were little pockets on the inside. It was a form of antihistamine... the kind in which Sir Kaans was using for his own benefit... but was that the same kind used to hinder Crimson's fur in the laboratory back at the re-education centre? He could only ponder for a short span of time, the moment when Sir Kaans attempted to get his coat back from Julien.
"Give me back my coat!" Sir Kaans demanded to the little ring-tailed lemur, attempting to set things right. Perhaps Sir Kaans was trying to gain back his own supply of the antihistamines - the kind used to encourage Spaghettios intolerance - which he intended to do something diabolical with them...
"Never!" Julien refused, throwing the coat a distance away behind him, and folding his arms to signify defense. "You won't get your coat back!"
Sir Kaans managed to move the lemurs aside, in a bid to prise himself free. His attention were now deeply fixated on his coat, taken possession by Julien. "Why you little -" Sir Kaans was about to warn as he attempted a sprint towards the monarch...
...but something took a turn for the unpredictable... Uncle King Julien had managed a pounce against Sir Kaans, knocking him side on into the snow, and held him still, preventing Sir Kaans from ever getting off the ground... especially when our own King Julien XIII got around to taking out the anti-histamines from the coat pockets. They were in the form of liquid serum in vial commonly used in vaccines, and they were all personally prescribed under his name. Julien finally decided to do the unthinkable, in this case, as a weapon that could finally expose the main purpose of the worldwide Spaghettios prohibition act...
"What are you doing?!" Julien shouted, his voice projected towards the disgruntled human being with intent to shatter his reign. "You're walking around with little glass vials of stuff! What is it?!"
Sir Kaans attempted to writhe from Uncle Julien's grasp, but unfortunately could not escape his restraint (in which, if that were possible, he would pummel Julien to the ground, superhuman strength and all.) Right now, he was furious.
"I'm waiting," Julien persuaded, with the glass vial in his paw, visibly showing the label. In a matter of seconds, the interrogation flat out turned into an interrogation.
"OKAY..." Sir Kaans whimpered, albeit in a mix of frustration and emotional shock, as he began to sift through his memories for a reason behind the entire operation... "...I confess... the reason why I set up the entire prohibition act worldwide was all because of me."
It was gasps all round, among the lemurs that have gathered here. And even behind their back, the group had finally returned - Ted, along with the human companions Ron and Akame, along with the rest of the pack (including Timo the tenrec and the rest of the other lemurs, plus three human allies freed from the town hall)... but however, they are followed by small groups of police adamant on breaking the group apart. But the lemurs in the group refused to let their human group participants submit to the authority... they cordoned the group, facing the police officers and in a defensive state, they snarled. However in a short span of time, Ted noticed Julien holding the glass vials in his paw, as if a potential bribe to interrogate Sir Kaans.
"King Julien, what's the meaning of this?" Ted asked, as if concerned of Julien's potential actions. Were these actions used to deceive Sir Kaans into a worse state of physical defeat?
"Ted, stay calm," Julien reassured, as if having to explain the story behind the possession of the glass vials. "The person you know as the enemy might as well have a reason behind all this." He turned his attention towards Sir Kaans, in which he shouted against him: "What's the reason behind all this?"
Timo emerged from the group as soon as the police forces slowly backed off, allowing the group some space. "King Julien, I know you're trying to negotiate," he explained the situation, but with a cautious approach, "but at this state, you're just as bad as the boss himself. And I think that any sort of attempts to overthrow the operation in this way is highly unlikely!"
But Sir Kaans actually meant something else... "You have to admit that I was one of you lot too."
The lemurss react in confusion, and this even sparked a few discussions amongst themselves too.
"How can he say he used to be one of us?" Leonard started. "He's not as short or furry as some of us are!"
"No... " Sir Kaans clarified, as he remained restrained in Uncle Julien's grasp. "What I meant was, I was once a Spaghettioholic living in a house of very strict parents."
This spurred a further torrent of conversations amongst the group... especially from the human prisoners.
"So, this means, whoever started the Spaghettios ban used to love the stuff?" Xixi asked, under the impression that Sir Kaans had a hypocritical point of view.
"Sadly, I once was..." Sir Kaans continued... "You see, my parents were as strict as I can only remember. They never allowed me to have any human food in the house... ever."
The group continued to listen to Sir Kaan's story, in a bid to find out what has driven Sir Kaans into setting up the Spaghettios prohibition act by himself. Even Julien appears convinced of Sir Kaan's story, legitimate as Sir Kaans were telling it entirely from memory...
"I remember, at one point when I was rather young," Sir Kaans continued, "I used to sneak in as much human food as possible after buying them from the corner store. I used to pretty well hoard it beneath my bed. That explained how much I really enjoy the stuff... the only source of escape from a family of strict people... that is, until mom discovered the stash one day."
The group responded in a series of shocked gasps, finally noticing only part of the reason what had bothered Sir Kaans back then.
"So... did they order you to clean out your room?" Maurice asked, as if he wanted to contribute a few extra portions of the story towards Sir Kaans.
"They did..." Sir Kaans went on, beginning to feel regret for his past actions, "...and finally noticing what I done wrong to upset my parents, I vowed never to go near the stuff again. Things got worse when I grew up. Surely I got high grades at school, especially in advanced immunology... that's what made my parents proud of me... but was I even happy when I graduated?"
Almost everyone knew the answer to this question - they responded in silence, giving off saddened expressions. Even Mort understood what Sir Kaans was going through, and he even got upset this way too. He approached Julien for support, giving him a comforting hug.
"There, there, Mort," Julien reassured, as he continued listening to Sir Kaan's story.
"I wasn't very happy back then," Sir Kaans explained, "because all around me were people getting to enjoy their sugary delicacies, and I wasn't even allowing myself to do that. So I got into politics and worked on some draft legislation, one of which were responsible for taking the stuff off the shelves for good."
The group realised what Sir Kaans had done... instead of talking about his problems earlier on when it happened, all that Sir Kaans did was bottle them up, and in the advanced possible way, take out his frustrations on other people. This didn't involve giving them bruises during schoolyard fights... he abandoned his family simply just to get into politics, and composed a piece of legislation concerning the treatment of any human foods enjoyed worldwide... as if pressured from his parents, he successfully completed the Human Food Prohibition Act, and as a result he gained the support of the people everywhere...
...country by country, state by state... at first, it was done for the health interests of some concerned people in response to some ailments, but it was only motivated from something as traumatic as a childhood memory. The happiness he experienced from enjoying the sugary delight was now replaced by a sinister personality he bore against practically everyone... which, even now, gradually watered away into guilt and sorrow lingering around every word of his story told towards the group.
"That's it?" Julien paused, still holding the glass vial in his paw. "Then what about this?" He held up the glass vial again.
"I was a genius at immunological sciences back then," Sir Kaans explained, "and to further wipe Spaghettios off the face of the earth, I decided to hoard the remaining Spaghettios cans for use in those studies... to replicate the chemical structure, and hence create the perfect vaccine giving people instant resistance against Spaghettios. And to guarantee the vaccine's success, I searched far and wide for the perfect test subjects... until, one day..."
Sir Kaans could say no more as he focused his attention towards the particular lemur... entering the crowd, leaving little tomato saucy footprints was Crimson, beginning to feel sympathy in the face of her previous fear towards the police force, and definitely in the face of suffering as a result of the vaccine tests.
"Crimson...?" Julien asked, as if finally finding the origin of the vaccines.
"Sir Kaans," Crimson began to explain, "I can finally realize why you wanted me to suffer for your vaccine... you just wanted to have people experience the same suffering as you once did. Just because you were deprived of your right to happiness, doesn't mean you have to deprive anyone else of that too." She emphasised this futher with big blue pleading eyes. Sir Kaans finally noticed that all his childhood memories came back flooding the face of his mind...
"You mean..." Sir Kaans whimpered, "...you really want to forgive me?"
"I have found a way to bring that back to you..." Crimson explained, and in a matter of a few seconds, he came sprinting towards Sir Kaans, and then imprisoned Sir Kaans in an emotionally charged embrace... he gave the emotionally-affected tyrant what he had been deprived of for too long... a tight hug, in which he reacted in a torrent of tears.
Antaag can only stand back and watch the scene, crying happy tears. Sir Kaans did not mind all the stains ending up on his suit - it was the embrace that mattered. Crimson ended her hug, backing away slowly, and satisfied that her job of comforting the tryant was done.
Of course, the deprived luxury did not end up on his paws... Uncle King Julien, still bearing the white foam situated around his muzzle, had got some on his forepaws... he happily licked it off, as if finally receiving a treat from a long while gone.
And the group also reacted in a rather enthralled way, finally noticing that it was not the fight that mattered in overthrowing the Spaghettios Prohibition Act forever... it was finding the reason what brought it into existence... the police could not even move one inch further, either. They can only stop and stare, watching the emotional scene take place.
"Wait, he's not supposed to be enjoying the stuff!" One of the police officers exclaimed, noticing that something was wrong with the scene. "He could be breaking the law!"
"Maybe we should extend the imprisonment terms for the entire group," another police officer suggested. "In fact, maybe we should coup the entire area for a change."
"It's not the law that matters, anymore," a voice enchoed out into the distance...
... it was Tamir, after fighting the power of the stun bullet that hit him earlier on his attempted escape from prison premises... and he continued walking towards the group, albeit in a hampered step, as if having something to say.
"Tamir?" Julien whimpered, his eyes beginning to water as if seeing an old friend return from the dead.
"Glad to see you alive and well, Julien," Tamir greeted. "And I'm glad you brought your entire army to the rescue."
Julien replied with a nod, as did all the lemurs on his side as well.
"Of course, it's good to assume certain things are bad, such as fighting," Tamir began to explain towards the police troops. "It's a good thing to have laws protecting the vulnerable members of society, as well as give the human race a good reputation. But there are laws that work too well, even bypassing all the good things about what it's for."
"Tamir, what are you talking about?" Timo asked.
"Let him finish," Maurice suggested.
"The Spaghettios ban may be there to keep the population much healthier," Tamir explained, "but it doesn't go as far as physical health. Does depriving some of us of life's simple pleasures count as attaining health? What about deprivation of joy? If this keeps up, then the future would get worse for some of us human folk. Didn't you see what Sir Kaans deserved?"
The police officers immediately pause for a moment, and then realize what had just happened... instead of being served for justice, they were enslaved to carry out Sir Kaan's duties.
"Okay," the police officer in the control group commented, "I understand what he did. But I guess he acted before he thought of the consequences, doesn't he?"
Julien nodded, and he turned to look at Uncle King Julien, whose muzzle had speckles of tomato sauce and O-shaped noodles tipping his fur. He was certainly done with licking it off his forearms, but the foam around his mouth remained.
"He didn't even care for his fighting fleet either," he replied.
And as if on cue, the metalloid cheetah/wolf/Great Dane cyborgs had joined the group just in time. Their jaws opened, and in this way, the heads mechanically split open in half, revealing the red furred muzzles, and the large black eyes of a set of rather recognizeable creatures... it turned out that the creatures were controlled entirely by Uncle King Julien, adopted out from Feartopia.
"He didn't care about us either." Uncle Julien has decided to speak up on behalf of Sir Kaan's past actions. "He lost a lot of friends thanks to this traumatic memory. He only turned to the foamy one for companionship and support, while the rest of us he enslaves to enforce the law." He bowed his head as if mourning those who did not particularly make it alive during this tough time. "I know that you're going through, but I don't think we'll keep our jobs."
The lemurs reacted cautiously, giving Uncle Julien some space as he climbed out of the metallic carcasses of the cyborg models, which collapsed to the snowy ground as he wormed their way out of the shell. He made his way towards the group of participants, still maintaining his distance against the police officers... and even taking Timo's side, obediently sitting as if waiting for something to happen.
Julien approached his uncle, cautiously, and he looked at one of them straight in the eye. In the past, Uncle King Julien just wanted to have his nephew eaten by the fossa in order to regain his throne, to the point of even delivering Julien to his own doom. Now Julien had only one thing on his mind...
"I have heard about you a long while ago," Julien began. "Did you scare off the police officers from town?" Julien was referring to a newspaper article, overlooked when Julien soley concentrated on the articles of the Spaghettios prohibition act... it was the article to do with a vulnerable town hit by a full on police raid, and the only thing Uncle King Julien did to stop the raid progressing further was to put his fighting spirit on. It took 75 bite wounds to deter the police force from entering the town borders, but all hope was lost. As numerous people began leaving the town, all that Uncle King Julien could do is cope with loneliness instead of heroism.
"Yes..." Uncle King Julien replied sadly. "So much for trying to redeem your reputation." He lowered his ears and approached his nephew's side, brushing his muzzle and leaving behind a slight trail of foamy saliva on Julien's chest. Julien winced at the sight, trying not to get any of it on his nose, in his eye or even near his muzzle, even.
== Part 18 ==
The melodramatic confession between the world tyrant and the battlers were over. The lemurs had witnessed a scene between the authorities coming clean with the equivalent of a peace treaty towards those it oppressed from the prohibition of the sweetness held so dear. King Julien and the rest of the troop, along with his allies and his dearest residents of Madagascar, were all amazed with the tyrant's unsure will to make up. Only time will tell, if thoughts were read.
During such a monumental confession, Xixi noticed a few bruises on Tamir's physique, and decided to ask him about such a treacherous effort of escape. "You managed to escape the monsters, did you?"
"What do you mean, monsters?" Tamir replied, but this time in a chivalrous and more laid back manner, trying to offset all manner of hurt inside of him. "The law is a monster itself, that's none of their problems."
"Hm, truth is," Xixi continued, "you could say that there are worse things than that monster."
Of course, as Sir Kaans continued his long winded speech about his intent for dominating the world with a deprived sweetness, the lemur troop and the human escapees was busy listening to every word, as of they might string together something about Sir Kaans possible crimes falling in this category, even through to the little secrets of the operation.
"...and about the contents of the squash shredder machine," Sir Kaans continued to weep in front of the prisoners, "...I was trying to devise a cheaper way to feed the prisoners in the future without resorting to giving them actual food."
The pack went into murmurs, even a few were gagging out of emotional turmoil. Especially Uncle King Julien hired as Sir Kaans' slaves, "Is he trying to kill us all?" The more Sir Kaans delved into the details, the more it seemed that Sir Kaans really did attempt to make everyone in the village, let alone parts of the world, a tad more miserable.
Even the police officers surrounding the groups were touched on the confession, unsure on whom to enforce the law and deliver justice to. It seemed Sir Kaans confessed enough to blur the lines between which law to follow – either the written Spaghettios Prohibition Act against the kingdom who actively fought against it, or their own morals against the corrupt. Which almost worried the lemur troop to wit's end.
"They're not going to take us away, aren't they?" Butterfish whimpered, as he glanced at every one of the police officers in the eye. He slowly backed, his strong tail covering his left shoulder as he slinked into submissiveness.
"Butterfish, I don't think they're interested in dealing with us," Pancho reassured him, although Butterfish interpreted him as a way to make the stocky lemur appear cowardly.
Brodney picked up this conversation with his ears, and he lit up in spirits, optimistic as ever. "You mean, they're setting us free?"
The rumor spread between lemurs, but the discussions died down with one of the officers – a male – approaching the ring-tailed troop leader, as if ready for a serious discussion.
"Now I understand that as with everyone else in the group," the officer began, "but from the utmost beginning side the act was first drafted, I knew there was something particularly wrong about it."
"Wait, you thought so?" Julien replied, as he sat himself upwards, about to hear the news.
"Indeed," the officer began, "and I doubt I was the only one who questioned the act we had to enforce. I know we were only doing our jobs keeping the community safe and all, but..." he sighed and placed his hand over on Julien's shoulder, "...it doesn't really do us any justice."
Even the rest of the kingdom piqued in on the subject. "True... at least they could have quizzed the officers!" Maurice remarked, arms folded, and gaining the attention of the police officers.
And along with them, the escaped villagers and hostages now have their word on the issue... Akame spoke from a distance as well, "I also worry for the future of the village. Too many innocent lives are in the balance thanks to this regime. How are we supposed to repair their lives... if they still have them?"
Akame's speech struck a blow deep into the hearts of the group, some were moved to tears. Even the group members were too saddened to continue standing by themselves without depending on another. And the officers, once the deliverers of authority, have now decided to do one thing unimaginable...
A female police officer, decked in a thick jacket, serving as the senior constable for the group, delivered the speech towards the group. "With regards to our utmost authority, it is decided. We are no longer standing for the laws delving against the minor trivial aspects of our lives..."
One by one, the lemurs and their human armies anticipated their joy, eyes wide open, as if ready to experience a row of happy tears. The female officer took out her identification badge holder, with the insignia of the United Galactic Federation visible on its cover. She was the undercover officer of this very district and county of this offshore area, much to Sir Kaans' utmost shock,
"Sir Kaans Bruntley, you are under arrest for the attempted emotional damage towards the villagers and its citizens during the duration of the prohibition act," she began, "along with the conspiracy to conquer any or more than one government humanly identifiable, with intent to cause all manner of harm, including emotional."
Now Sir Kaans was angered beyond comprehension. "Guilty? I confessed my all just to explain my true intentions for this act to be adopted by the world's governments, I just wanted the world to join in on my suffering!!"
Save for Uncle King Julien in the background, who did not wish to tolerate any word from the dictator any longer. Was he plotting something?
"You better be suffering," Sir Kaans exclaimed, "and only now would you find the other place a more comfortable place to live in! I will conquer every square inch of your lands, I will snatch every inch of joy and happiness from your hands at every whim!! Then you shall endure the mire of my wrath before me!!!"
That was it. Within hair triggered seconds, Uncle King Julien rammed head first against the tyrant's back, and in rapid fire seconds, had delved down his trousers, and with rapid-fire spins, gave Sir Kaans the humiliating wedgies to end his reign once and for all. A loud rip sent all into silence, and some even had the moment to share in some laughter against the fallen tyrant.
"Whoa, they really did catch him with his pants down!" Xixi exclaimed.
"He deserved much more than that," Timo exclaimed. "At least he'll now have to endure our misery in our shoes!!"
As the other officers restrained Sir Kaans in handcuffs and even a dog's muzzle, Uncle King Julien had no rest in holding onto the torn piece of cotton boxers from the terrified fallen tyrant. He carried it around as if it were a trophy, his foamy saliva almost soaking into the cloth fibers, but his joy was short lived when the officer confiscated the cottony boxer piece from his mouth with one snatch. Defeated, the virulent red furred former-slave decided he wanted nothing to do with the tyrant any more.
The female officer continued on with declaring the good news... "and Antaag Milburg, with regards to your enslaved conditions during Sir Kaans Bruntley's attempted reign via his suggestion of the Spaghettios Prohibition Act directed into World Government," the female officer explained, "you are hereby declared a replacing leader, to begin righting the wrongs as forced on by Sir Kaans. And as with the rest of the troupe, those formerly imprisoned as with reference to the Spaghettios and Canned Foods Prohibition Act..."
The moment have finally came. "...you are not just innocent. But from this moment on, you are declared heroes!"
The crowd fell into an emotional state of finally being redeemed by authority. Army after army group hugged, and even the lemurs wasted no moments in passing that moment up. Even the king was surprised at how far his fights within the lemur group went on – memories of his lemur troop working together selling and concocting the Spaghettios for their fighting members, and even risking their all in the fight against the unjust law – they had finally flooded back to him. Mort and Xixi came hurtling towards Julien, giving him the hug he deserved dearly.
So this moment was finally recognized. The kingdom was recognized for their determination to fight against the unjust law as forced upon by one tyrant. It was the beginning of a new revolution to bring back the sugary sweetness under Antaag's reign.
Of course, the celebrations were short lived seconds later. The whipping blades of a military helicopter were heard from a distance. Of course, it wasn't a police force, but merely it was a different matter altogether – a rescue party. Julien noticed, in the distance, a couple familiar faces in the helicopter... it was Masikura and Andy, in the passenger hold.
"Xixi, someone's here to pull us out!" Tamir exclaimed, as he pointed to the helicopter ready to land further in the distance. 
"Wait, we have to go home now?" Willie sighed in disappointment, ears lowered a little towards his face.
"I guess we've had enough of being stranded in this prison camp," Clover replied, and she made her first steps forward towards the direction of the landing helicopter... "Come on, get in the chopper!"
As some of the lemurs followed Clover in hopes of being rescued, this meant the unbearable moment of departing from the armies. Pancho remained standing behind, shaking hands with a few other villagers and their noble fighters (even Nobita and Ada).
"Well, it was a good operation while it lasted," he stated. "Care for another trivia night someday?"
This led to a series of laughs, but Pancho had only one more sentence on his mind, before someone grabbed him by the scruff of his neck – Butterfish grabbed hold of Pancho in this way; riding on his back was Ted and Crimson, persuasive and teary-eyed respectively. "No time, Pancho, we got to go home!" Ted persuaded.
"Farewell, my buddies," Pancho shouted in the distance as he was carried away deep into the clearing of the chopper's landing. "I'll miss you...!"
As the lemurs moved away from the group, giving their final goodbyes, this only left Julien waiting as if there was someone out there to give them a final gift. Of course... Maurice was carrying a large suitcase filled with the sweet Spaghettios delights to the brim. He noticed his nearest friend's now saddened expression on his face, so he decided to let his ring-tailed ally look on the bright side.
"At least we're bringing back something sweet in return," Maurice reassured, "I'm sure we're ready for the road home, aren't we?"
Julien paused for a moment, and then finally came to a decision... "Momo, you might want to carry the suitcase over to the copter," Julien began. "I'll just make one more arrangement."
== Part 19 ==
The ring-tailed lemur king sped back towards the group of villagers and former prisoners of the reeducation camp, which were ready to make their way towards the clearing for their final departing farewells to the lemur troop that helped fight against the tyrant who crippled their village. Tamir was the first leading the group, with a bright sense of optimism for a bright future ahead, and he noticed his new friend running towards him, for just one embrace.
"Julien, you're okay!" Tamir cried, wrapping his arms around the gray furred animal in a bone crushing hug. Julien wriggled to attempt to free himself from the grasp, but he decided to give him that one last hug. "I didn't realize one day you encouraged us to fight for our rights!"
"Not much I expected, Tamir," Julien replied, with a rather joyous thought of finding a like minded friend who was in an entirely different situational boat compared to Julien and the kingdom, but with one united goal in mind. "I didn't realize that something as much as a Spaghettios can could have been a life and death story for you."
"Our village was a Spaghettioier capital in this area," Tamir explained. "The prohibition act almost decimated this village, and add to Sir Kaans' iron fist, we were vulnerable. But not as vulnerable as under you!"
Both giggled, and in response, Julien jokingly tripped Tamir to the ground, but not to hurt him... he cradled him in his arms, and showcasing his super strength, sort of, he lifted Tamir off the ground. Tamir was amazed with how strong Julien is, but of course, he was more than just strength in physique, he was confident, and yes, he did encourage as many of the villagers to spark confidence and fight for their rights.
"King Julien, you can't keep us waiting for long," a voice hollered across the distance. Julien's hearing picked it up, prompting Tamir to carefully sit the lemur onto the ground, giving him one last hug, before departing off into the clearing.
"Run, Julien!" Tamir hollered one last time, "you don't want to miss your final flight!"
After the last lemurs boarded the military helicopter, the all clear was given for take off. As he boarded the helicopter in one giant leap, he turned and gave one last glance towards the villagers, and their new leader, Antaag, now free from the slavery of Sir Kaans, and now ready to right wrongs against the Prohibition Act. Julien gave one final wave as the military helicopter left the ground, and away from the snowy terrain of the woods, and away from its shoreline, ready for the trip home.
However, the trip home did not just spell the end of the fight against the injustice of the Spaghettios prohibition act. It much rather spelt the beginning of a revolution to repeal it. Revolutions and sit ins around the world, in every capital city imaginable – pleadings from New York and San Francisco, through to Miami and Orlando, through to London, Paris and the foody-famous likes of Zurich and Vienna, and even through to Sydney, Tokyo and elsewhere – showed just how much people had enough of the prohibition act anymore. Politicians have finally received word of the real intentions of the prohibition act, and finally did reach a decision to repeal it quickly.
By the hours, batches and batches of Spaghettios and its flavors and shapes returned to supermarket shelves. Customers have finally flocked in their thousands, picking up their first crop of Spaghettios goodness, but restrained as they are in choking hazard habits picked up from the prohibition act, it was an opportunity to indulge and break the fast, so say the overjoyed population, finally getting their treats in their hands.
Aside from the joyous memories, on the arrival home, Julien gave one last glance from the view of the kingdom, and as the sun set on Madagascar, and as the lanterns flashed throughout the island nation for the dry season – aside a stream of parties at its prime resorts – he saw that it was very pleasing. He smiled, tears in his eyes, about to immerse in the memories of the fight...
"Your majesty, come on, we're waiting for you!" A voice came from one of the trees in the distance. And Julien's hearing picked it up. He leapt, and finally sped through Madagascar's rainforests once again, so as not to be late for the special occasion.
"On my way!" exclaimed King Julien. "But there's only one thing to say to the reader about the story they've just read before I join you."
"What's that?" Clover asked.
"Now that was silly!"
The Spaghettios Prohibition Act was repealed tonight on this June 26th of the same year the act was introduced for choking hazard reasons. After an investigation of a corrupt power's true intentions to use the prohibition act towards its advantage, politicians around the world have chosen to repeal the act out of respect to its animals and citizens, and even one village in an undisclosed location. With regards to Madagascar's famous king, Julien, only he himself has the details so far...