Vaudevillain - The Many Adventures of Jacques! - 4

The Many Adventures of Jacques! – 4

The door dinged as Cookie walked in, the smell of paper and ink accosting the Jacques. Cookie looked into a long bookstore that looked to hold shelves upon shelves of books. As the minion looked, it spied a large, floppy hat resting on top of a very small human. The human looked to be sleeping, judging by the way the hat was slowly bobbing up and down.

Next to the shopkeeper lay a cat. The pet was belly up, its two eyes dilated as it looked at Cookie. The minion skipped over the animal, not acknowledging the cat’s obvious interest. Instead, the minion took time to look at the surrounding books. It wondered if these were real books, or book adjacent like the sign outside or the fake book on the door.

Well, there was only one way to find out. Cookie stepped between a row of bookshelves and reached for the closest book. Strange symbols glowed with color as the minion reached. As if the tomes were reacting to the minions presence.

Entranced, Cookie didn’t notice the pet cat skulking off the table and out of sight. The minion didn’t see the cat’s obvious interest in the skewers hanging from the Jacques’s hands. The sign on the end of the minion’s neck wobbled a bit as Cookie reached further upward.

The Jacques was attempting to grab a particularly sparkly tome that seemed to hold a rainbow of color inside an inky darkness. It was like oil on pavement, and the sparkle called to Cookie. The symbols, excited, jumped from the pages and rushed to meet the minion.

The cat chose to strike at that moment.

The animal leaped from its hiding place, darting up the bookshelves (knocking a few books over in the process) and snatched the meat skewers right out of Cookie’s hand! All the minion saw was a flash of salt and pepper as the cat’s tail tickled the minion’s nose.

Cookie indignantly turned to snatch the skewers back, all interest in the book lost. The minion took a wide swing, which only made him strike the bookshelves and not the cat. Its hand smarting, Cookie angrily gave chase.

The cat was no pushover, however, and could easily evade the Jacques’s clumsy swings. Cookie found itself striking everything but the cat as it dashed away with his skewers. Eventually, the cat dashed through a small door that led outside. Cookie, incensed, ran out the door in chase.

How dare someone steal from one of Dr. Zlo’s minions! Didn’t they know that the Jacques were the absolute best minions? No one could steal from a Jacques!

Cookie did its best not to think about what would happen if Dr. Zlo learned someone stole from one of his minions. It was safe to say the villain would be mildly perturbed at best.

Therefore, the minion had to give chase! It couldn’t let something like a cat steal from it! Sure, if it was something like a giant walking robot with laser eyes Cookie might have to take the loss. But a cat? No, the others would never let Cookie live it down.

“Snn-huh? Wha?” Cookie heard as it pushed out the door. It seemed that the shopkeeper had woken up. How the ruckus from earlier didn’t rouse the lazy man, Cookie couldn’t say. The minion didn’t stop and turn to say anything either. There was a cat to catch.

The thought of explaining the situation and getting new skewers never occurred to the minion. In fact, it was quite likely the store owner would buy Cookie new skewers, provide a cup of flour for Mabel, and possibly even give the Jacques a mouth to eat with.

But, that’s a Jacques for you.

And so, Cookie dashed out of the store, ignoring the slowly waking shopkeeper in favor of chasing the cat. The two ran down the streets, the cat turning down every corner in an attempt to shake the Jacques. Cookie, to its credit, kept up with the feline through sheer force of will.

Seeing that it had to get creative, the cat leaped off some trash cans and onto a nearby fence wall. Then, it started to scurry up a broken pipe with its prize in tow.

Cookie didn’t hesitate. The minion jumped off the ground, taking the trash cans like stairs and landing easily on the fence. Once there, the minion ran a few feet past the broken pipe and onto a jutting roof. It rolled onto the roof and sprang up, sprinting over to the next building over where a balcony lay ready.

The cat, thinking it had escaped, stopped on the roof and prepared to eat its prize. It wasn’t prepared for Cookie to come leaping from the opposite building’s balcony toward it. The maneuver shocked the cat so much it dropped a skewer before darting off.

Cookie took a moment to collect the skewer, then once again gave chase. This time the two jumped across rooftops, the setting sun turning their frames to silhouettes. NPCs below pointed up at the two, enjoying the spectacle.

Eventually, the sun set, and Cookie finally cornered the cat. The two were on top of some building in some part of town the minion didn’t recognize. Long, chrome cables ran from building to building, and spiraling chrome poles connected everything. In fact, pretty much everything around was chrome now that Cookie got a good look.

The cat, seeing the small lapse in concentration, took its chance. It raced toward the edge of the building and jumped! Cookie looked on in surprise as the cat spread itself wide to slow its fall. It landed on top of a chrome car sitting outside another chrome building, leaving a cat-shaped dent in the hood.

Not to be deterred, Cookie gave chase. It too leaped from the building. But Jacques are not in fact creatures of the air, and so the minion fell. No, it’s safer to say the minion plummeted to the ground, pulled like a magnet. Cookie landed on the hood of a different chrome car, but punched a Jacques-sized hole straight through the hood.

The world spun as the minion stood. The sign around its neck was snapped in half, and the one skewer it had recovered was smashed to pieces. The only solace that the minion had was that it was still alive despite its fall from such a height. It seemed like the car had absorbed much of the impact.

The cat, as if taunting Cookie, meowed.