Heroes of Disney #1: Rise of the Firebird

Ch. 13: Once Upon a Time in New York City

After about another hour of traveling, we decided to stop at a roadside diner for breakfast. Surprisingly we made good time within the last hour or so. We made it from Louisiana to Virginia in less than an hour and a half. But then again, June had said that the geography was different on the World of Disney compared to Earth's geographical state. So Virginia and Louisiana could be literally right next to each other for all I knew.

According to Hercules, The Hundred Acre Woods was just on the border of Europe, which was several hundred miles from where we were at the moment. Am I making any sense? Alright, let me explain it a little differently.

If you look at a World map of the World of Disney, The top left of the map would be taken up by Europe, where most of the Disney characters reside. Underneath it would be North America. South America would be to the right of North America, surprisingly so. Antarctica was still at the bottom of the map, but Australia and Africa, located right next to each other, were at the top of the map, right next to Europe. The Caspian Sea, pretty much the only Body of Water in the World, was covering most of the East of the map. Asia was in between that and The Arabian Desert, where Agrabah was located. I know it sounds confusing, but it is what it is.

Surprisingly, Hercules and Perry had been really accepting of Tiana joining us. Hercules said that he agreed with the princess - we did need a cook. But I think he secretly just wants to taste Tiana's famous cooking he's probably heard so much about.

At the diner, which was named Miss Muffins' Breakfast Shack, we sat at one of the larger booths, near the back. We must have looked like a very strange group. An average woman from New Orleans, a Muscular God, an oddly-colored Platypus, a large Horse, and a strange boy from Earth. But shockingly, our waitress, a plump woman with fuzzy blonde hair and bright red lips, didn't even blink an eye when she looked at us.

"So what'll it be kids?" She said in a bored, raspy sort of voice.

"Your finest special." Tiana responded.

"Pancakes fit for a God." Hercules boasted, bumping his chest with his fist.

"GGGGGRRRRGGGG" Perry ordered.

"A cheese omelet, mixed with horse feed. Not the fattening kind, the low-carbs kind." Buck said.

"Eggs and bacon, please. But make sure the eggs aren't runny, well, at least not too runny." I told her. "Put salt and pepper on 'em, but not too much. Wouldn't want to ruin the eggs now. As for the bacon, make them crunchy, but not too crunchy. They taste terrible if they're too crunchy. Oh! And can I have some orange juice on the side? The good kind. Not the gross, cheap kind. And-"

"Scrambled eggs and juice for everyone." The waitress interrupted, scribbling our "order" down and walking away, yelling at the old guy behind the counter about letting weird folks from Texas into the restaurant.

Hercules shook his head. "That's why I hate places like this. The servers here are so lazy, and they mess up your order so bad you get something you didn't even think they had on the menu."

"I know, right?" I muttered.

Tiana rolled her eyes. "Whatever. Right now we need to talk about where we go next. It's about 10:00 right now. If we leave within the next hour, and at the pace we've been going so far, we should reach New York in about an hour and a half. We'll stop there, and rest up, maybe take a break and see the sights or something. Once we're ready, we'll ride another hour to the Hundred Acre Woods. We'll be there right before Sunset, if we time everything right." Tiana explained.

Buck stared at her. "Who made you the leader?"

Tiana glared at him. "I'm just offering a suggestion. We don't have to do it. But seriously, do you have a better idea?"