The Conventional Adventures of Isabel Gonzalez: New York Comic-Con 2014 Chapter 3

The Conventional Adventures of Isabel Gonzalez
New York Comic-Con 2014
Chapter 3

Brock watched as Isabel fell to the ground, completely unconscious. He turned to the wolf zombies. After years of dealing with them, he knew they were blood thirsty monsters who had lost all of their sentience and should not be trusted. "I know you can't hear me," he said, "but you're still in my way. Why did you mess with her?"

The monsters growled back. "Raaaaaaaai orrrrrrr aaaaaaaargh!"

"What?"

"Raaaaaaiaaaaan orrrrrrrrrrrjjjj maaaaaaaaargh!"

"...giant orgy marathon?"

"Raaaaaiaaaaaaan orrrrrrrjaaaaarrrraaaaaaaaaagh."

Brock gave up.

"Wait." Ashley fluttered down and settled by Brock's anti-zombie bubble. "What did he just say?"

"I don't know. Something about Unchinchin sending birds forty thousand chromosomes back in time. You expect him to make sense?"

"Let me try." Ashley squawked at the zombie. Brock turned to her, an unbelieving look on his face.

"You can understand wolf zombie?"

"I'm right half the time, at least." Ashley squawked one more time, and the wolf zombies roared back. "Okay, here's what they're saying. They were poisoned by aliens who turned into dinosaurs -- oh, sorry, dinoSIRS -- and want us to attack them. Brock, they're not bad at all!"

"I guess not," Brock said. "But why did they attack Isabel?"

Ashley and the zombies got into another growling match. "They didn't know she wasn't a dinosir," she said. "She doesn't smell like she's from this world."

"Wow."

"Dude, I told you I was right half the time! I'm right ALL the time!"

"You will schoon be wrong all the time."

A dinosaur was standing in their midst, appeared out of time and space. There were several other raptors behind him, an entire crowd that was following their leader. "I am George Waschington, Leader of the Dinoschirsch," the one in front said, "It isch completely unacceptable for you to interact with our schervants. You all will be the next to morph into our mutated kin!"

Two raptors swung forward and grabbed Brock, able to break through. One of them pulled out a huge syringe out of nowhere and stuck Brock in the flipper with it. "Finally, my grand plan is becoming a reality!" George Washington screamed as he raised his little hands to the sky. "In no time at all, you will become an anklyoschaurusch and will be one of us."

Brock squirmed as he was finally let go by the dinosirs. "A what?"

"It could have been worsche. I could have turned you into a pirahnapusch."

"A what?"

"A pirahnapusch. You know, a crossch between a pirahna and an octopusch."

"Oh. A pirahnapus. Why didn't you just say so?" Brock tried to get up off the dusty ground, but his arms were numb. How long would the change take? He glanced over at Isabel and remembered the look on Jessica's face when she smiled, the way her beak shone in the sunlight, and how devastated he had been when she had been found dead.

Would the same thing happen to Isabel?

With no warning, a huge light appeared over the field. Brock and Ashley shielded their eyes from the light as a beautiful white unicorn with a flowing rainbow mane descended upon the scene. Its huge horn was made out of crystal, and it had a crown on its head and a rainbow mustache.

"I SHARTED!" it yelled as it landed on the field, and all of the midget wolf vampire zombies disappeared. The world shifted again, and the ground turned into ice cream and it started raining small unicorns.

Brock's bubble finally popped; he ran over to Isabel, who was still unconscious. "Is she going to be okay?"

"You schould pull the plug on her," George Washington growled; the raptors were still around. "Nobody who takesch the zombie virusch in will win. You will not schurvive. Sche will not schurvive."

"Oh, I have say in this." The regal unicorn lowered its horn. "Begone, dinosirs! I am Princess Devon of the Unicorn Island of Jenny Love Lee Land! AND THUS, I SHARTED!"

With another flash of light, the world changed again. The dinosirs and their leader were gone, then reappeared again. The unicorn yelled in reverse, and George Washington started talking backwards. Brock realized that, when the unicorn had said its spell, all of time started going backwards. They would find their way back through the air and to his home land at this point.

He yelled the spell in reverse. "DETRAHS I!!!"

Everything snapped back to normal, though they were now in a forest with tall trees and serene peace all around them. Brock touched his beak. Did he have magic powers now, too? Being able to dance up a firestorm was one thing, but actually being able to change the world...had he hung around Isabel too long?

His attention went back to the unconscious Isabel. "Can we save her?" he asked the unicorn princess, more worried about her safety than the fact that he was going to turn into an anklyosaurus.

"We are in the Enchanted Forest, protected by Snow Catis our Lord," Princess Devon said. "We shall take her and all those injured by the dinosirs to Show White's cottage. She was captured by them as well, and turned into a dinosir, but we may heal there. Shall you follow me?"

Ashley had been in shock for most of this time; she now stood up and bowed. "We shall. Can you help us carry her?"

--

Isabel, meanwhile, was still unconscious in her trippy lucid dream New York Comic-Con world. At the moment, she was in an epic Dance Dance Revolution battle with Cthulu for a ham sandwich. Every five seconds or so, the scene would change, and she was certain Dvorak was causing these screw-ups in her mind.

One moment, she was faced with a burrito monster she had to eat. Then, a boy who was so rancid nobody could stand him became the Big Bad Wolf and got into an epic knife fight with Tuxedo Mask in a labyrinth. Then, she was transported to a 'lesbian strip club' -- except it looked just like the ocean floor. A giant squid and a sperm whale got into an epic battle under the sea. Two girls named Serina and Christine were drowning until Batman saved them.

The world shifted again. Han Solo and Princess Lea went after Captain Kirk and Darth Vader, while Steve Buscemi chased after Steve Carell. Jerry Seinfeld crashed his car into them, and George Takei rode a narwhal right past.

"Come with me to Candyland!" he said, and Isabel hopped onto the narwhal, hoping that this madness would end soon.

Before long, they were in San Francisco. Nyan Cat rainbowed over their head, and Isabel hoped that it meant her mission was done. The cat shot a bazooka toward a herd of sheep outside the 49ers stadium. When the bomb hit, a bunch of titans and horror movie villains escaped from the stadium. The Ghostbusters showed up to save the day, drinking moonshine as a giant Twinkie rose out of the stadium.

"Are you through yet, Isabel?" She heard Dvorak's voice echo out through the air and remembered the truth: she was a member of QWERTY. Dvorak was making her life a miserable nightmare because of the wolf zombie virus.

"Never!" she yelled. "You copy cat flip flop pequen'a puta! Get me out of here now!"

"The Freedom Rainbow Fighters will keep you from doing so," Dvorak said. "They are at level 20 and can fly."

What? Isabel thought, but then, she was surrounded by a group of five color-coded superheroes in wheelchairs. Their eyes started to shine, and everybody was made bald. Isabel reached up to catch her pink bow before it fell to the ground.

"Get in the transforming exosuit!" she heard Dvorak yell. "The robot angels are coming!"

She looked up and saw that there were robot angels flying right toward her,, throwing turtles in her face. A renaissance woman riding on a donkey charged into battle with them, alongside Bob Dole, who was throwing bananas at soccer moms. Ryu and Catwoman blasted off into space, where a god named Peter joined with them against the robot angels. Then, the worlds morphed again, and all Isabel could see was a computer screen. The robot angels were doing battle on Tumblr now.

"Those gosh damned Tumblerinas!" Isabel held on tighter to George Takei's narwhal. She had to find a way out of this before the ideas became too jumbled. Wait...jumbled. She whipped out her communicator and pressed the Colemak button.

Everything halted in an instant. Isabel hopped off the narwhal and walked right past George Takei. "It's been real," she said, and then she fixed the coordinates in her communicator. The Colemak button meant she could freeze the situation as needed and call for help from headquarters.

Within seconds, her friend Melissa appeared, a fellow solo QWERTY agent whom isabel liked to get coffee with. They had initially bonded over Aiden, her cat. "What's up, Isabel?" the older girl asked.

Isabel sighed, biting back tears. "Dvorak won't leave me alone. I don't want to go home, but I'm tired of his mess. The next substitute should be a woman."

"The next president should be a woman. A woman should be president, I swear."

"We've got Sarah and Leader Llorin."

"And they are both behind you, every step of the way." Melissa gave Isabel a quick hug. "Get back there and do an awesome job, Isabel. Don't let this trippy crazy stuff get you down. Write your own story."

Isabel nodded, tied her ribbon back into her newly-grown hair, and then hit the Colemak button again. Everything around her vanished, she was a penguin again, and she was laying in a bed. Somebody knocked on her door.

“Come in,” she squawked.

Brock stuck his penguin head inside the door. “Are you all right?”

“Thank goodness!” Isabel smiled and sat up. The nightmare was over. She was going to be fine from here on out. “Where are we?”

“The great princess unicorn Devon has lent out her castle to us for the time being. Her servants are caring for us. Would you like some coffee with the princess?”

Isabel grinned. “Would I ever.”

--

"Here in the Enchanted Forest, pigs eat people, but thankfully most of them have been killed off by the dinosirs," Princess Devon explained as she drank a cop of hot chocolate. "The fire-breathing polar bears who control your mind live up north, but they don't bother penguins. They only go after fish."

"Thank goodness." Ashley took a long swig of orange juice from her cup.

Isabel looked out the huge window overlooking the kingdom. Before, everything had seemed like a video game, with Batarangs falling from the sky. Now, pandas were outside, and there was too much sunlight…so much that the grass was burning. She was still wondering if they were going to go over the rainbow, or if the trippy rainbow she had seen in her vision was the real deal or not.

Regardless, she was here, Brock and Ashley were here, and they had a new ally in Princess Devon. Her fuzzy parrot friend had taken a liking to Isabel and was sitting by her side, talking to her about magic while Brock and Devon spoke about the world and Brock’s mission. “I have a better hot air balloon you can use,” the Princess said. “So you can continue on your journey over the rainbow. In fact, I will personally escort you. If the dinosirs attack you, I will thwart them with candy.”

Isabel nearly spit out her coffee. “Dinosirs? Those freaks Loki and Thor are back? I saw them when I first got here!”

“This one’s name was George Washington,” Ashley told her. “Princess Devon, have you ever heard of dinosirs?”

Princess Devon shook her head and twirled her mustache. “We do have the mafia, but it is run by cats. And we had five prisoners — Josh, Tyler, Rich, Peter, and John — who escaped and became cops, but none of them were dinosaurs.”

“Dinosirs.” Isabel didn’t mean to interrupt a princess, but she felt it necessary considering the subject matter. She footnoted the matter and decided she would ask Brock about it later.

“A long time ago,” Princess Devon said, “when my great grandicorn was the Princess of this kingdom, the world blew up. They said it had something to do with Y2K. It was shortly after that when the wolf alchemist Chad promised we could live forever. But we knew better. Nobody is supposed to live forever.”

Tell that to QWERTY, Isabel thought to herself.

“Since then, titanium ducks from the earth’s core have provided acid for dune makers. Flesh eating bunnies invade through the bathtub daily — we have an entire force dedicated to dispatching them. We once sent a blonde, spiky haired warrior with super strength to dispatch them, but he was defeated. But I do not know about the dinosirs you speak of. We have six hundred puppies in space that can help us. Plus, I think both the North and South armies will be at our disposal as well, now that they’re finally getting along. We must work together to beat them, and the zombie wolves.“ Princess Devon rang a bell. “Octopus, Kitten, may we have more chocolate?”

The kitten picked up the pot from where it was sitting near the pink power outlet (all power outlets in the castle were pink) and put a small cube of dry ice in Princess Devon’s cup, then adding the hot chocolate. “Perfect,” Princess Devon said as she took a bar of chocolate out of the cup, and Isabel shook her head. She felt like Alice, fallen down the hole.

“Our best bet is to have you travel to the Land of Flying Tractors,” Princess Devon said. “The tractors can help us, because they fly, and because they are machines. We can ride on them. We should try to avoid the Land of Wonderbread at all costs, though.”

“The Land of Wonderbread?” Isabel asked.

Brock nodded. “You must fight in the arena of dough, and rise to the top like yeast.”

Ashley rolled her eyes and sipped more orange juice. “Fear the tentacles.”

“Okay. So the Land of Flying Tractors.” Isabel folded her flippers. “When do we start?”

The sky outside suddenly turned dark and ominous, with thunder and lightning. Brock immediately started singing. "Be careful making wishes in the dark, dark, can't be sure when they've hit their mark, and besides in the mean, mean time, I'm just dreaming of tearing you apart —“

“Fall Out Boy?” Isabel asked. She looked further out the window. A fish got hit by lightning and grew into a super fish, walking away from the pond it was in. The cow jumped over the moon, and the ground shook. Isabel felt like she was back in her dream.

“This ain’t a scene, it’s a gosh-damned arms race,” she sang. “Let’s go check it out.”

All four of them put down their drinks and ran outside to the hill the castle was standing on. “As I thought,” Princess Devon said, “it’s the Great Wizard Croz, who has come to help us.”

“Great,” Isabel thought to herself. “Somebody else to help us?”

The Great Wizard Croz wore a long, blue robe and had shining green hair. “Greetings, Princess Devon! I received your distress call and have brought what you requested.” He put a treasure chest in front of Isabel. “The exotic gauntlets burning with the fire of the sun you requested are in here.”

“Nuh uh uh. I requested special gauntlets that were frozen from the Arctic. I am disappoint.” Princess Devon pointed to Isabel. “This is Isabel. She is helping us against the dinosirs, who are the ones who started the wolf zombie virus.”

“And against Dvorak,” Isabel noted.

“Radak Dvorak, the hockey player?”

“No, Dvorak Romanov, the pain in my feathers. I’m not a pop culture queen.”

“And I’m not suggestions non sequiturs from the llama to the queen.” The Great Wizard Croz turned to Brock. “Brock Bacaaaawk Schlack Flock. I am here to deliver great news. The Xbox is better than the PS4! Wait…that’s not what I wanted to say.”

“Does he do this all the time?” Isabel asked.

Brock shrugged. “I’ve never met him. I have no clue how he knows my name.”

“No. I am here to tell you that I have found your father. The dinosirs got to him, as I am aware of their travesties, but he was last seen skipping into the sunset with three rainbows around him.”

Brock gasped. “My — my father? I thought my son killed him!”

Isabel was paying more attention to something else in the Wizard’s story. “Rainbows? Maybe they’re the ones we need to cross!”