The Rebel Faction

The explorers made their way out through the whole, to much applause from the Advose. The king patted Fraktusk heartily on the back, and said "I think you four are ready to take the journey to the distant Warmart and bring us some double-A batteries."

"Wait" said Shlump suddenly "You want us to go to a super-store??"

"Well, yes."

"And all yousa wants is de batteries?" exclaimed Fraktusk.

"Pretty much. Oh, and some chips."

"And why are there only four of us?" asked Frelgrin, as he made quick note of who was still around. Freewater was missing.

It was at this point the creaking of a door could be heard. Freewater exited a door on the side of the room, a door which certainly hadn't been there earlier.

"But... how?" asked the king in surprise. Freewater shrugged.

"There were lots of keys on our hole, so I used one to unlock this door."

They considered this, and decided for the sake of the space-time continuom to let it drop.

"Anyways... I know it sounds ridiculous, but to be fair, the Warmart is on the moon, ok? And that's like... really far away. We lost contact with the colony on the moon after the Warmart bought up and expanded across the whole region."

Frelgrin shrugged "I can see that. But thankfully, we won't need to go anywhere, as I happened to pack batteries for this trip!"

There was the sound of surprise, as Frelgrin took out a pack of batteries and held them aloft. The king examined them and frowned.

"These are triple A batteries."

"...Damn."

"So mesa thinks this be meaning we go to the moon now?" asked Fraktusk carefully. He was met with nods.

They all quickly got aboard their ship, and took off from the planets' surface. One quick hop later, and they were hovering carefully above the Warmart parking zone.

"...Hm, there's not much space..." said Yiffin, critically, from the back seat. "Try over there, Freewater. I think I can see a space near the gate."

"No, no, that's a disabled space. I knew we should have waited until the weekend was over, it'll be packed. Try landing over there, near the Space-UVs, there's usually plenty of room for them."

"Mesa be thinking-like." said Fraktusk "Thesa all be looking like old ships, ships that be rusted-bad-like. Maybe, wesa park in disabled-place, no cops come find us, because no cops home?"

"Hm, sounds reasonable." said Frelgrin, who motioned for Freewater to bring it down.

As the party passed through the checkout line, the Most Holy Order of Cashiers gathered to their rear. They had just reached Aisle 7 (Frozen Meat) when another group of Cashiers leapt down from ropes on the ceiling and surrounded them. They were trapped.

"You are entering the mighty confines of Warmart, outsiders." stated one Cashier, armoured in a colourful vest and kevlar name-tag. "We guard its' boarders to protect the galaxy from the scum that coalesces inside."

Frelgrin managed to be the one pushed to the front of the group. He gulped, and said "Well... mighty Cashiers... Um... we're... on a quest... yes... to find a D-battery. Have you got any?"

The Head Cashier nodded "Yes, although it is not easy to acquire. You see, a long time ago, Warmart was ruled by the Store Managers, gods amongst men they were. They could adjust prices to fit inflation with a wave of their hand, and with the merest of guestures open the sliding doors. But after this time of prosperity, they were deposed by a faceless multi-corporation, which spread the Warmart across the entire planet. The Corporations' descendents, the Tribe of Regional Managers, have lost most of their power, but rule the entire Tools and Equipment section. Your battery is in there."

Frelgrin sighed "Well, thanks, I guess. Can we move on?"

The Cashier nodded "You may. But beware. Beyond is the food section, and it has long fallen into civil war. Vicious bands of Coupon cutters roam the aisles. You will eventually find the Great Escalator, a teleporter that will bring you to the Court of the Clothes Lords, and then finally the Elevator of Doom, which leads to Tools and Equipment."

The party bowed to the Head Cashier, who said in parting "May you find your journey blessed with brand-name merchandise at low, low prices."

"All right then" said Shlump, as the Cashiers left "I guess we need to find this Great Escalator. How can we expect to get around, though?"

Yiffin pointed to a tangled mass of wire in the corner "Why, on those of course!"

They turned out to be some sort of carts, for shopping. But left alone in the wild for years, they had become feral. Clinging to the insides, the party raced along in a pair of them, not quite directing them so much as praying they knew the way.

It was just about then the Coupon-Hunters leapt onto them from above.

"Look out!" screamed Yiffin, whose voice was not force-enhanced, yet still possessed a natural aptitude at loud noises. It was too late, they collided.

In the chaos that followed, Frelgrin managed to extract himself, and look around. It was definetly another aisle, but this one was huge, filled with products stacked like mountains.

"Where are we now?" he murmured.

The coupon-hunters seemed unwilling to follow them any further. Frelgrin turned, and realized they were at the limits of this tribe's territory, a boarder between Clothing and Food in this subsection of the mega-mall.

Already, gangs of desperate mall-rats, their rusty scissors hungry for the sweet, sweet release of 15% off specials, were tentatively gathering at the edge of this new territory. Frelgrin sighed.

"At this rate, we'll have to fight our way there every step of the way!"

"Sounds fun." said Freewater, whose idea of a grand evening was finding something he couldn't break and slowly proving that statement wrong.

Yiffin and Slump, however, whose grand evenings were less physical and more egotistical, felt less sure. "What if" said Shlump "we lash together a number of carts and bull-doze our way through?"

"That's ridiculous" said Yiffin, naturally envious of a good idea "to do that, why, we'd need some almost supernatural power to contact, contain, and organize them. Such a 'Force' is way beyond our means! Why, it would take someone with some sort of training in the use of the previously mentioned Force to do so!"

There was a moment of thought, whereby Frelgrin waited patiently for one of his three companions to work out the answer.

"Hey..." said Shlump. "I know!" He turned to Fraktusk "We could use your lightsaber to cut up Freewater into little bits, and use it as bait to lure them together. Then, we could suspend the rest of his carcass from a rope and use it to lure them forwards!"

"Excellent plan!" said Yiffin. "I'll hold him down."

"What's a Carcass?" asked Freewater.

Frelgrin sighed. "Or Fraktusk could use his Jedi power over the Force to control some wild Shopping carts? Ever think of that?"

There was a pause. "Well... yeah, I guess we could do the obvious answer."

Within a few minutes, they had lashed together eight of the carts to a sleigh made of unsold merchandise from a long-forgotten era of sitcoms. Mounting up, they found themselves racing along the darkened ailse and into the department's dark centre.

The explorers gingerly clung to the top of their carts as they rolled across a sheet of toxic metal. It appeared to be some sort of ancient fluorescent lighting that had decayed and mutated, and it spiralled upwards. Upon reaching the top, they were given a commanding view of the vast territories of Warmart. In the distance, they could finally see the towering mass of twisted metal and price-reduction signs that made the General Manager's Citadel.

Unfortunately, if the estimated scale was right, it was easily weeks of travel away. Although the amount of food that filled the ancient halls was certainly enough to live off of, it was a question of wether their attention spans were sufficient. It seemed their entire mission might have been given up to chase paper bags in the wind, had not Frelgrin spotted the Great Escalator.

"There it is!" he exclaimed exitedly, pointing at what appeared to be a translucent tower in the sky. And indeed, there it was. The tower had beams of purple light shooting in all directions. Distracted sufficiently by the bright lights of the tower, Frelgrin managed to drive them back on the carts, and set off once more on course.

"We're getting closer!" yelled Yiffin at the top of his lungs.

Frelgrin clung tightly to the cart as they closed the distance between them and the Escalator at break-neck speed. In the whipping winds it was barely possible to hear his colleagues, for which he was grateful.

It would have been useful for them to know, that the gangs of Coupon Cutters had gathered together ahead, using ancient short-cuts to arrive at the Escalator early. A barracade of refuse and broken shopping-carts was being piled up in the middle of the aisle.

Luckily, Fraktusk managed to keep his wits about him. Unluckily, since it was Fraktusk, no one else understood his warning. Taking matters into his own hands, he managed to force the carts to turn, lessening the impact and sending them barrling over the dazed line of gang members.

Despite their different approaches to life and varying mental abilities, the survival capacity that is needed to keep people from, say, trying to eat fire , managed to keep the entire group on their feet with the landing, and they dashed into the Escalator ahead of their pursuers.

The way to the top was - obviously - an escalator. After leaping aboard, they stopped to catch their breath and look at the coupon cutting gang below. They too leapt upon the escalator, and waited impatiently for it to reach the top.

"You know." said Frelgrin "We could just keep running up the escalator while it's going."

"Bah" said Shlump "What'd be the point of that? The whole point of an escalator is it moves you without you having to move. Don't try and mess with the system."

The team waited in tense apprehension until finally reaching the top. Once there, they piled upon the main pad, from which transportation tubes shot off in all directions. Even back down. "On reflection" noted Yiffin "It may have made more sense to take the tube up instead of the Escalator."

"Why do they even have an escalator at all if they've got tubes that can launch you at amazing speed to anywhere you want?" Said Shlump.

"We can discuss this when there isn't an army of scissor-wielding maniacs chasing us" said Frelgrin "Now which tube are we looking for?"

There were countless tubes in all directions, but which one was the right one? With little time to choose as the Escalator brough their enemies closer and closer towards them, they settled on a tube that seemed to point in the right direction.

Shooting off like a bullet, the tube launched them fast towards their distant goal, the Tools and Equipment section. But it was not long before they found themselves falling, going lower, and lower, until they were deposited neatly in the center of the Clothing and carpetry section.

And instantly surrounded by an army of well-dressed guards.

Pushed through the palace of the the Holy Emperor of Clothing and Carpetry, the explorers marvelled at the banners chronicalling the long history of Warmart from the perspective of the C-and-C Holy Empire, reaching back into the mist of time when the first Emperor was crowned of the Sports Casual dynasty.

"Don't worry, I've got a plan." said Frelgrin.

Even Shlump was able to recognize the danger they were in, and this terrified him. "What? What?!"

"Don't say anything." said Frelgrin. "All of you. No one say a single word except me."

Yiffin was about to complain, but then considered just how much he wanted to get out of here alive, and nodded mutely in agreement.

Guided through a winding corridor flanked with meters-thick walls of persian rugs, the group found themselves face-to-face with the most splendidly-dressed monarch they had ever seen. Decked out in multi-layered suits of dazzling colours, sporting a headdress of ties, and flowing pants of intricate weave, he lounged comfortably as a wealthy nobleman would, surrounded by a harem of women and a phalanx of guards. All around, courtisans and other members of the society's upper-crust spoke in hushed voices as they observed the entry of the explorers.

Frelgrin was gently nudged to the front of the group, and after a moment began to speak. "Greetings, your highness. We have travelled far, and desire to pass through your realm to retrieve artefacts of some importance from the distant realm of Tools and Equipment."

The emperor seemed to be constantly disdainful of everything, and turned his gaze slowly towards the explorers. "Well, it has been brought to my attention that you have comitted a variety of heinous crimes against the state, all of which breaking our most sacred dress-codes."

"Your... dress codes?"

"Yes! We can't let just anyone into the land, they must come properly dressed."

"Ah, that makes sense."

"And so, for these awful offences, you are to be put to death!"

The guards seemed prepared to close in, their spears raised. Frelgrin exclaimed "Wait!"

In a moment, everyone froze. "Look behind you!"

They did. When they looked back, the explorers were gone.

"Seize them!" exclaimed the Emperor, and the guards raced off in pursuit.