Huckleberry Hound: Thru the Horn

Chapter 3: Huck Gets the Beat

And so they were off, traveling down the bass clef trail.  What they didn’t see however, was a pair of eyes staring at them from the bushes nearby.  They weren’t friendly eyes though, they were yellow and sly-looking.

“Well, look at what we have here,” a voice said from the bushes. “Some strangers are off to save the Keepers of Music!”

The eyes then rose out of the bushes, and it turned out that they belonged to a bulldog. He had shaggy greenish-gray fur and two big sharp teeth that stuck out from his bottom lip.

“I must tell my master immediately!” the bulldog cried.  He then ran through the fields until he found his master.  He was a wicked looking man with a pointy nose, grayish-purple skin and spiky purple hair.  He wore an outfit that looked like a biker’s leather jacket with ragged pants and spiked boots.  A long blue cape hung from his shoulders and he carried a tall staff that ended in two crossed lightning bolts on top.

“Master!” the bulldog said to his master. “I saw some strangers, and they’re off to find the elements, and save the keepers of music!”

“Well, well,” the master said. “It’ll be up to us to prevent them from completing their mission!  I didn’t come here just to be silenced, you know!”

“But, isn’t that what you tried to do to the people?  By taking away their music?”

“Quiet, you fool!  I can’t stand that goody-goody muuuuuusic!”  He made a face of disgust and bellowed in a grating voice.  “We will make sure those strangers do not rescue the Keepers of Music! For I am CACOPHONY!  Master of chaos and racket!  Prince of dissonance and caterwauling!”

“Not to mention hurting people’s ears!” the bulldog grumbled as he gritted his teeth in discomfort.  “That smarts!”

“Discord!  You are one to talk with your infernal barking!”  Cacophony snapped.  “But it doesn’t matter.  I’m not about to let anyone undo my handiwork!  Tell me, just who were these strangers and what did they look like?”

“Well, I did see what appeared to be a blue creature with a weird looking hat, and a tie, plus small floppy ears and a tail!  I think he was a dog too!”

Cacophony rubbed his chin.  “Interesting…who else was with him?”

“Well, there was a pink jaguar without any spots who was with the dog, and I also saw that little violin and trumpet with them too,” Discord explained.

“Well, it looks like our time has come to cause some trouble!” Cacophony sneered. “And we're not gonna let those strangers win, for we will find them, and make them our prisoners!!”

Cacophony laughed wickedly and Discord joined in with his own huffy chuckle.

“Shut up!” Cacophony growled.  “Stop that annoying laughter of yours!  Now we must prepare our first plan of attack!”

The two villains quickly began to prepare their first trick.  Meanwhile, Huck, Snag, Viola, and Bugle were traveling along the road.  They soon heard the loud sound of drum beats…except that they were completely out of sync.  They sounded like the banging of several rocks falling over a cliffside.  Some sounded like pots and pans clattering together, and there were even sounds of chimes that sounded completely out of tune.

“From the sound of it, we’re close to Percussion Plains,” Bugle observed.
“Nothing around here keeps a steady beat anymore,” Viola sighed.  “It just sounds like a bunch of noise.”

Huck nodded.  “That’s how I felt when I first started to play the drums.  But I met a nice music teacher who taught me how to keep the beat.”

“Oh, really? Well then, you can probably do something about this racket,” Viola said.