P.I.E. Operation: PARASITIC

XL: A Story Retold

Well, this... took a while. I honestly had no idea how to finish it at first. "^^

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Papa Acachalla slammed open the bathroom door. He was holding a key in his hand.

Quietly, he said "I'm pretty sure you know who I am." He became louder and angrier. Johnny covered his ears. "Of course you do! I'm Papa Acachalla! What made you think you could stop me from anything, you little redheaded freak?!"

"Hey, at least I have hair." Spencer scoffed.

Papa's hand was on his beard. His face glowed red. "I have hair! It just migrated to the lower half of my face!" He shook his head. "Anyway, where's my wife?!"

Spencer laughed nervously and his pupils moved to the sink and quickly back to Papa.

The father Acachalla realized this and automatically saw Johnny. "Oh, it's you again." He walked over to the bathroom sink.

Toast stood in front of Gertrude.

Spencer tried to think of a distraction. "Papa, I think there's a fire downstairs. There's smoke coming from the hallway."

"How do you remember what a stove is--"

As he was about to turn around, Spencer threw a random toothbrush from the sink at Papa Acachalla; it hit him in the eye. Papa fell backwards, halfway into the upstairs hallway.

The boy was close to shutting the door again, but Papa resisted his plan by pushing it open with his shoe at the same time.

Being the stronger man, Papa kicked the door open a second time where it smashed into the bathroom wall and created a moderately big dent. "Alright, boy, enough with this! I already know my wife is in there, so why are you still trying to hide her from me?!"

Spencer was slid back a few inches by the force. "Because if you do anything stupid, she could get even more hurt than she already is! And you obviously will."

"Stop!" The tiny British man begged, holding his ears again.

Papa and Spencer glared at him and quit pushing each other.

Toast breathed in and uncovered his ringing eardrums. "If this is too loud for me while I'm not injured enough to be fragile, then how do you think Gertrude is feeling?"

Papa pushed Spencer out of the way. The ginger was flung into the bathtub.

"Where's Gertrude?" Papa Acachalla said in his naturally loud voice.

"Don't touch her! You may be her supposed husband, but you have no idea of her condition!" Spencer warned from the tub. His glasses were pushed diagonally across his face and cracked. There was a bruise forming on his forehead. "You're lucky this didn't shatter and stick me in the eyeballs!"

Ignoring the last bit, Papa said sarcastically, "Oh, so you think the look from my eyes will stab her in the heart?"

Spencer began to say something, but Papa interrupted quickly by saying "No, it won't. This isn't one of your weird video games."

Johnny stared up at the towering giant known as Papa Acachalla. He still hadn't really questioned much on why he was so small after running through that portal. All of a sudden, the older man's hands were coming close to his eyesight, and for what seemed like a few minutes (although it was seconds), everything went blurry and he felt really dizzy.

In the middle of the tunnel of haziness, he heard Spencer say, "Will you stop doing that?!"

Papa said something that sounded apologetic. After that, it was all back to normal, despite the room spinning and that Johnny wasn't able to stand.

"You could have just asked him to move over instead of holding him up by his skull if you wanted to see Gertrude so much." The redheaded boy reasoned angrily.

"I'm... fine..." Johnny said, unintentionally lengthening his words. He sat up.

Papa held Mama in his hands. "Gertrude!"

Her eyes popped open in surprise. Her heart rate went up, but she calmed down when she saw familiar faces.

Spencer shushed him.

"Gertrude." Papa Acachalla repeated in a whisper. "I thought you had disappeared, or... that Boss of yours had murdered you (he does look suspicious). Where have you been?"

"Other... Other dimensions." Gertrude said. She smiled and her eyes glowed a little brighter, indicating her usual peppy attitude despite her current situation.

"What?!" Papa had his eyes open in rage-filled disbelief and they were directed at Johnny, but he was too focused on his dizziness to understand it. When he looked over at Spencer questioningly, the boy only told him to be quiet again.

His eyes wandered back to Johnny again. Papa whisper-yelled, "I knew you had to be here for some reason!" He clenched his free hand into a fist. "If I ever see you alone with my wife again... I will kill you." He pushed his pointer finger into Toast's stomach so hard that the tiny P.I.E. member was thrown into the back wall of the sink.

Johnny helplessly crashed. It even caused him to painfully cough up a bit of blood.

Papa did it a second time, not realizing how much pain he was inflicting onto the miniature human.

It felt like the bullets of a shotgun.

"Wait... Stop!" Gertrude's eyes dulled sadly. She had her hands up in the air, pleading that Papa wouldn't hurt Johnny anymore.

"Uh, I didn't actually mean to hurt him." Papa said slightly nervously, acting as if the physical torture on somebody so little wasn't that much to deal with.

"Great, more bloodshed." Spencer said in the background of the scene.

Johnny hunched over against the back wall with his arms across his bruised abdomen. There were almost tears in his eyes. "I'm... okay... Just cure Gertrude..."

"Cure? What do you mean cure? Is she sick?" Papa asked.

"No... It's a little more than that..." Johnny started.

Spencer finished the explanation with, "She's been poisoned. The only way to hold the poison back from killing her is water, so it must be soluble in some way."

"You poisoned my wife?" Papa said to Toast. "That's it, you're fired."

"But, sir..." Johnny said, "I wasn't even on the job here... I actually conveniently met her while I was severely injured at the hospital from a recent investigation..." 

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Basically, Johnny Toast is telling Papa Acachalla how the entire adventure thing happened. The next chapter on Toast's points of view (every other chapter is Ghost's points of view) will begin with the end of Johnny's story, which is also the current time.