Seanna and the ATTACK of the DERANGED Mutant Ninja Zombie KILLER Monster Vampire Werewolf HAMSTERS

By: Christopher Edmund Nelson

Some other time, in a land so far away that it's, like, really not close by at all, there was a great and awesome empress named Seanna. Seanna was great. She was also awesome. Furthermore, she was an empress.

Unfortunately, Newtopia, the land of which Seanna had formerly been empress, had been destroyed in the Great Flatulence, and Seanna had gone in search of a new empire. Luck was on her side. A friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a random person Seanna had accidentally sent a Facebook invite to posted an "Empress Needed" notice, and five minutes later, Seanna was surveying her new empire.

The official measurement of the land area of her new empire, as recorded by the surveyors who had painstakingly measured it, was "pretty big." It had several resources designated as "nifty." Its population had been estimated by advanced statistical methods to be "a lot," and they included several dinosaurs, an indigenous species of carnivorous chocolate cupcake, and the world's last remaining rainbow zebra.

Her first task was to select her ministers. She selected a T-Rex as her Chief of Staff on the grounds that this would keep everyone in line. A velociraptor, by virtue of its cunning, became the Minister of War. For the Minister of Foreign Affairs, she decided a carnivorous cupcake would do wonderfully as it could be pleasant or fearsome as needed. And so on, and so forth, until all positions were filled. Although its qualifications were unclear, the rainbow zebra did land a nominal position because, well, it's a rainbow zebra, and that's cool.

Her government established, Seanna turned her attention to other things. There was plenty to do. There were holidays to declare, state banquets to prepare, record-breaking pies to make, and many other things to keep her busy. For a while, she was busy, and her empire was at peace.

Strange reports began to come in from the borderlands. Citizens reported strange sounds at night. At midnight, if the moon was full, there would first be a sound as of several very small dogs howling at the moon. This would be followed by high-pitched moans, sometimes with the word "brains" thrown in at intervals. There would then be fighting sounds and noises like "kyaah!" and "wu-PAH!" This would be followed by the sight of many winged creatures flying across the moon and laughing strange high-pitched laughs.

"It's like a Chipmunks Halloween party," one citizen was quoted as saying.

Matters grew more serious. Farmers here and there reported missing livestock. Livestock here and there reported missing farmers. Citizens everywhere started to live in fear.

Seanna called an emergency council with her ministers. They all gathered in a secret underground meeting room that had been greatly enlarged to accommodate the T-Rex. Seanna sat at the head of the large stone table and began once all had arrived.

"As you all know," she said, "we are gathered for a serious purpose. There's something weird, and it don't look good."

"Who are we going to call?" asked her Minister of the Interior, who for some reason had a Russian accent.

"I don't know," Seanna replied. "I think we're on our own."

There was a low throaty voice from the far end of the table. "May I present my findings, Empress Seanna?"

Seanna nodded. "Certainly, Minister Torty."

A tortoise rose from his chair. His name was Torty, and he was the Minister of Intelligence. A vain reptile, he wore an anti-toupee to hide the embarrassing unbaldness that had developed as he aged. He stood, adjusted his thick spectacles, cleared his throat, and used a remote to turn on a projector.

"Down at MI, we have some hypotheses that may explain this strange phenomenon. First, there is my personal favorite, the Drunken Monkey Hypothesis. It is entirely plausible that a troupe of drunken monkeys from Canada are playing a crude prank on us."

"Why Canadian monkeys?" Seanna asked.

"Why not?"

Seanna nodded. "Indeed. Well, that doesn't explain the missing citizens. What else?"

"Well..." the tortoise replied, changing slides, "there also might be a giant traveling video and pinball arcade."

"Do you actually know anything?"

"Well...um..." the tortoise muttered, going through his notes. "There are...lots of...ideas, and-AHA! Yes, I knew there was something. The pattern."

"What pattern?"

"It seems whoever is doing this has been extremely choosy." He went to a slide showing a map of the empire. "The red dots represent incidents."

Everyone looked carefully. Some of the red dots made a circle around the empire. The rest of them were inside the circle. Of those inside the circle, all but one were arranged in an arc sitting concave-up at the bottom of the circle. The one exception was near the top of the circle on the left side.

"It's a happy face!" Seanna said.

The others all nodded and sat back in their chairs. It was a happy face. Or, rather, it was most of one.

"As you can see," said Torty, "the right eye is missing. Surely, this is where the next incident will occur."

"I agree with your analysis," Seanna said. "Does everyone else concur?"

All nodded. The velociraptor let out a terrible cry of agreement. The T-Rex said "Rawr" in agreement, and the rainbow zebra said, "Waaaaaa," which might have meant it agreed.

"Perfect," Seanna said. "So, then, what do we do with this information?"

There was perfect silence for a bit. Everyone fidgeted. Seanna waited for at least one of her ministers to have an idea, but they all looked at each other and down at the table. She got frustrated.

"Jeez, come on!" she shouted. "Velociraptor, give me an idea. Anything."

The velociraptor cleared its throat, thought for a moment, and then let out a terrible battle cry. "Eaaaaaaaah!"

"Okay," Seanna said. "I think I understand. We need to crush whoever is doing this. T-Rex?"

"R...awr?" the T-Rex offered.

"Okay...um...Rainbow Zebra?"

"Waaaaaaa," the rainbow zebra replied.

"Cupcake?" Seanna said, looking at the chocolate cupcake.

"Who, me?" the cupcake said. "I don't know why you're looking to me for answers. I'm just a cupcake."

"Right. Torty, where would the right eye be if it were there?"

"Well, let's see...this is an interactive map...let's enlarge it and see..."

Everyone watched as the scale grew smaller and smaller until they were looking at a familiar site. Seanna was the first to speak.

"Isn't that...where we are?"

Suddenly they all heard a doorbell chime. Seanna looked up and then looked angrily around at her ministers.

"Okay, who put a doorbell out there?"

A stegosaurus raised his foot.

"This is a top-secret meeting room!" Seanna shouted.

"I know," said the stegosaurus. "That's why I always put up the 'Top Secret' sign. I wanted the citizenry to know not to bother us here."

"Did you have the sign up tonight?"

The stegosaurus looked down, embarrassed. "No. Sorry."

Seanna sighed and got up. Everyone else followed her through the extra-large passageway to the extra-large door. Seanna punched in a code, and the thick double doors slid open, revealing the screen door beyond. Outside in the moonlight, an eerie sight greeted them.

Outside, their beady little eyes glowing white in the moonlight, stood hundreds of little rodents. One in the very front spoke.

"Let us in..." it rasped.

"What are you? Mice?" asked Seanna.

"No..." the rodent replied, "we are...hamsters..."

"Uh-huh. Hamsters. Okay."

"We are your worst nightmare."

"You don't look that scary."

"We are mutant hamsters."

"Mutant hamsters, eh? That's a new one."

"We've been transformed into zombies."

A few hamsters said the word "brains." Seanna nodded.

"I see."

The lead hamster continued. "Since then, we became vampires."

"That's interesting."

"And werewolves."

"Wait-what?"

"And we are experts in the ninja arts."

"O...kay...so...wait. There's too much going on here. How did you become vampires?"

"A vampire bit me, and I bit the others."

"Well, I've never heard of a vampire attacking hamsters, but okay. So, do you change into wolves when the full moon comes out?"

"No. We just grow long nails and become very, very hairy."

"Okay. What about the ninja thing? Do you really need that? You're already vampires and werewolves."

"It's...neat," the hamster said.

"And," Seanna continued, "I thought that vampires and werewolves didn't get along."

"You ask too many questions."

"You're on my soil," Seanna retorted. "Why are you here?"

"To drink your blood!" one replied.

"And eat your brains," another rasped.

Another joined in. "And tear you to pieces!"

Another shouted, "And then we'll kick your ass!"

"Are you sure it's done in that order?" Seanna asked. "You tear me to pieces and then kick my ass?"

"Silence," commanded the hamster leader. "We will do as we please."

"So...let me get this straight. You're all werewolves, vampires, zombies, and ninjas."

"And mutants."

"And mutants. Right. And you're also hamsters."

"Most assuredly, human weakling."

"That's Empress Human Weakling to you," Seanna replied. "Anyway, if you're all of those things, then I'm guessing you have all of the weaknesses of all of those. If I remember right, vampires can't enter a building until they've been invited in. Is that right?"

"We have nothing to say on the matter," the hamster leader replied. A few moans of "brains" came from the ranks, and the leader shooshed them. He stood there, on the other side of the screen, staring at Seanna, who folded her arms and with her eyes dared him to try something. A hamster coughed, and the others shooshed him. The lead hamster softened his face and looked up at Seanna.

"So...can we come in?"

"No."

"I see. Well, we're not leaving."

"You'll have to go at dawn, won't you?"

The hamster just stared at her for a few seconds. Then he lowered his face. "Yes."

"Good night, then," Seanna said, and she had the large doors closed. She led the others back to the meeting room. The stegosaurus made coffee as the rest settled down.

"So," she said at last. "Now that we know what we're up against, does anyone have any ideas?"

There followed a great period of uncomfortable silence. Many coughed. A couple of her ministers began playing cards to pass the time. Seanna waited just a bit longer.

"Anyone?" she asked.

"Hey!" came a booming voice. She looked up. The T-Rex looked angry. "I've been trying to raise my hand this whole time," the dinosaur said, "but it's too short. While there are many solutions, I have a rather elegant one by which we might profit. By taking advantage of the many weaknesses of these creatures, we can use them for our own ends. As vampires, they must avoid a great many things or perish. As hamsters, they're incredibly stupid. Perhaps we could design some sort of trap. And while we're at it, we can take advantage of the limitless potential they represent."

He paused. No one said anything.

"I mean, 'Rawr,'" he said.

Seanna pondered what the dinosaur had said. "Yes, that makes sense. Hamsters are very stupid. Perhaps we could trick them and use them.

"I have just the thing!" shouted the minister with the Russian accent.

Seanna looked up in surprise. "What's that, Russian-accented minister?"

"I have the solution!" the minister repeated. "As you may know, we have been experimenting with hamster power for a while. One of our prototypes...it just might do the trick."

"Prototype for what?" Seanna asked.

"A HAMSTER WHEEL, OF COURSE!" the minister shouted. "The Futility Seven Thousand and Six! The hamster wheel of all hamster wheels!"

Seanna blinked and nodded. "O...kay. So, this wheel's pretty special, then."

"Special?" the minister continued animatedly, spitting a little. "Special!? I'll say it's special. Strong enough to withstand an asteroid collision, resistant to heat and to erosion, yet light as a feather and capable of generating hundreds of megawatts if enough speed is built up. It is the ultimate wheel!"

"Ok," Seanna said. "I get it. It's a really cool wheel. Why did you need a hamster wheel like that?"

"We were performing experiments on the hamsters."

Seanna nodded. "Indeed. And did any of these hamsters escape?"

The Russian-accented minister twiddled her thumbs. "What does that have to do with anything?"

Seanna stared at her. The minister nervously drummed her fingers on the table. The sound of cards landing on the table could be heard. The minister looked around.

"Doesn't anyone else have anything to add?" she asked.

The minister of food and beverages answered. "We could use garlic to trap the hamsters."

"Also," Torty added, "we'll have the best chance of trapping them when the moon is full."

"Ok," Seanna said. "I think we're developing a plan here. What other ideas do we have?"

"I'm a cupcake," the cupcake said.

"Right," Seanna said. "Ok, listen up, everyone. I have an idea."

As she told of her idea, the narrator ended the scene to build some suspense for the next one.

One month later, under the light of the full moon, a troupe of hamsters flew, crawled, loped, scampered, shambled, and backflipped across the land. Bit by bit, they made their way to that spot that, if conquered, would completed their Happy Face of Destruction.

When they arrived, they found an enormous tent set up there. A giant sign was lit up above the entrance. "Enter, Hamsters," it read.

The leader of the deranged mutant ninja zombie killer monster vampire werewolf hamsters sneered and drooled a little. "At last," he said in his creepy whispery voice. "We have been invited in. Foolish mortals! Come, minions. Let us eat their brains and drink their blood."

"Brains," some said.

"Blooood," others said.

They went back and forth with each other for a bit, some sticking with "brains" and others insisting on "blooood," all becoming more and more confused. To add to the confusion, some decided to go with "wu-PAH!" as their mindless chant. The leader became annoyed.

"Into the tent!" he said.

The hamsters shuffled in slowly, going up steps in the dark until they reached a vast floor with a slight curve. As the last hamster entered, a door slid shut, trapping them. One of the hamsters approached the leader, sniffing.

"Hey, Boss, do you smell something?"

The leader sniffed. "Yes...a familiar scent...I can almost place it..."

A screen suddenly lit up on one side of the tent. Seanna's face stared at them.

"It's garlic," Seanna's cruelly smiling face said. "I've trapped you all. An impenetrable wall of garlic awaits any that try to escape."

"Not garlic!" said a few. Others said "brains" or "blooood" or "wu-PAH!" The leader sneered.

"Do you really think you'll get away with this?"

Seanna let out a sinister chuckle. "I already have," she said. "And now, it's time for you...to...DIE! Behold, the sun!"

A light shown behind them. Most panicked and started running from the light. The others ran to keep up as the floor began to move under them. It moved, and they ran against it, but they didn't reach the end of the floor. They ran harder. It was not a moment too soon, for the floor sped up beneath them. And still the strange glaring orange sun was behind them.

So the hamsters were trapped in the great wheel and made to run indefinitely. It powered nearly half the empire and would have been the cleanest source of power were it not for the several tons of enchanted hamster poop it produced annually. Seanna was so proud of her empire, with its novel source of efficient energy, that she finally named it. And so was born the Empire of Awesomeness.

And the rainbow zebra said, "Waaaaaa!"

The End...

of This Particular Story!

...or Is It?*

*Yes, this is indeed the end of the story. Anyone still reading is advised to cease doing so at this time.