Gee finally stood after sitting in the same dirt, sprinkled with probably-radioactive popcorn, for several seconds, in shock of what had just happened. He shuffled over to the floofy entity that had just materialized from the elite sword.
"Wha-why-how did you" he stammered. Mikey suddenly emerged from Ray's perfectly pastel pink-and-blue Afro.
"Geraaard! Taste his hair! It's not really hair!!" Mikey squeaked excitedly. Sure enough, when Gee ate a piece of Afro Mikey handed him, it was cotton candy.
"Can we keep him," Mikey chirped, "pleeeeease? I know where we need to go next, and he can help us!"
After a 10 hour, candy-fueled voyage, the Ways and Ray finally reached a little green house surrounded by a white picket fence. It was strange, seeing this cute, little house in the middle of the dry, desolate wasteland that was the Chemical Dimension's only wilderness. As they approached the door, Gee began to question Mikey.
"Soooo... this is the right place?"
Mikey nodded,
"Yep! All we have to do is just go in!" Gee tried to pull open the door, but it refused to budge. He looked at it, and saw that it was completely nailed shut. He turned to Mikey,
"How do we get in?" He started searching under the welcome mat for a key.
"That's not locked or nailed. I think we're supposed to go through there." Ray suggested, gesturing at a doggie door by Gee's head.
"Yay!" Chimed Mikey, as he managed to squish through the door.
"This house is out in the middle of nowhere, it could be abandoned for all we know," Gee commented, just before Mikey poked his head out of the door and said,
"Guys! It's fluffy in here! Even fluffier than Ray!"
Gee and Ray crawled through the door to see that the house was far from abandoned. The walls were powder blue, and the floor was covered in dark green carpet. The whole living room smelled like bacon, and that weird smell that every dog ever somehow has. There was a huge, plush sofa in the center of the room, draped in about 20 sleeping dogs of all breeds and colours. There was another shape curled up under a red flannel blanket. Mikey ran to the sofa.
"Look at them. I wanna pet all of them!" he whispered, as to not wake them up. Gee walked over to the sofa to take a closer look at the figure under the blanket. Well, he thought, it's much too small to be a person, and he tried petting its head. Sure enough, he felt two little dog ears. The shape woke up with the most adorable little yawn Gee had ever heard. The shape shook the blanket off to reveal itself as a 19-or-so year old boy, around the Way/Ray squad's age.Jet black, fluzzy ears were visible in his perfectly silky, mousy brown hair, along with a long tail to match. He wore a slate grey hoodie over his red tee and black jeans. His toasty, golden eyes met the gaze of Gee's hazelley emerald ones. The dog-boy sniffed his face for a second, then said,
"Yep, I can trust you."
He hopped off the sofa and stood in front of Gee, standing significantly shorter than the three adventurers.
"Sorry about that, it's just a dog thing." He explained, "Gotta make sure you're not gonna kill all my friends. They're the only ones around here for miles besides me." Mikey was the first one to speak,
"Hi! I'm Mikey Way. That's my brother Gerard, and that's Ray Toro, an Elite soldier whose dead soul was zapped into some cotton candy!"
"The name's Iero," the dog-boy replied, "Frank Iero."
"May we meet your friends?" Ray inquired. Frank nodded and began to scamper to the back door.
"Yeah, they're all out here! We never use the house for more than eating and sleeping in, you just caught me during my daily nap." The Way/Ray squad followed him out the door and into a vast field of lush, green grass, surrounded by a chain link fence. They looked around, noticing it was another indoor biome like Hot Leaf Juice's rainforest.
"Welcome to the Romulus District's only dog park," Frank said cheerfully. A plethora of dogs frolicked in the park, chasing each other and jumping through sprinklers. Brightly colored cannons launched tennis balls that packs of dogs chased eagerly. There were 10 grocery store bulk dispensers filled with bacon and dog biscuits in one corner, and a series of bathroom stalls containing red fire hydrants in another.
Frank began to sprint towards the tennis ball launcher, and as he did, his body slowly morphed into that of an Alaskan malamute. He leapt into the air with majestic grace, catching a tennis ball in the air at the height of his jump, and folded himself into a back flip before perfectly sticking the landing. Mikey and Ray looked on, amazed. Gee's eyes filled with anime sparkles. Not only was this Frank incredibly adorable, he was an incredibly adorable skilled shapeshifter. Malamute Frank bounded over to the squad, tennis ball still in his jaws. He stopped in front of them, tossed the ball in the air, and quickly caught it in his hand as he transformed back into human form.
"How did you do that?" Mikey squeaked as Ray and Gee stared. Frank beamed at their reactions.
"Hybrid. We can turn into any one animal whenever we feel like it." He replied. Ray nodded.
"You seem like a pretty cool person, and you're a hybrid." He stated. "We could use your skills on our quest to... what were we trying to do, Gerard? You never actually told us-" He was cut off short when Gee chimed in,
"My brother and I were sent by our grandmother, Helena, on a very important mission. We are to find Black Mariah's daughter and make sure she's safe. I don't know who Black Mariah is, but I'm sure we'll find her. All I know is that she doesn't live in the Chemical Dimension. Your fantastic skills would be most helpful, and it would be an honor if you joined us." Frank shrugged,
"OK, sounds like an adventure! He tossed the tennis ball over his shoulder, where it rolled over to a scrawny chihuahua who looked like Rizzo from The Muppets.
"Sweet Pea," he announced, "you're in charge until I get back from this epic quest." Sweet Pea yipped in approval, and waddled back over to the pack of dogs as fast as her stubby legs could carry her.
As the squad crawled back out of the doggie door, Frank took one last look back at the house.
"I'm gonna miss these guys," he sighed, "I wish there was a way to know what they're doing."
Ray replied,
"I, like all citizens of Floofiness, have the ability to know exactly what's going on in other places, but only in places I've been. This cotton candy hair you two gave me isn't my only ability. By the way, I figured out I can change the flavor."
"Coffee flavored!" Mikey suggested, "Do coffee flavored!"
As Ray's pink and blue Afro faded into a rich, chocolatey brown, Gee looked out at the long, winding road before them.
"I wonder how far it is to the edge of the district bubble," he mused out loud.
"Well, however far it is, at least we've got a squad." Frank reassured him.
"Wait, this squad isn't quite complete..." Gerard said, as he reached into his storage case and got out a dice-sized silver cube. He pressed a few buttons on the cube, and then set it on the ground. The cube shot a green beam of light into the air to form a tiny, green hologram of what appeared to be another boy around 18-19.
"Everyone, say hello to MaTT. He's a navigational AI, which means Helena's already programmed the location were supposed to go in his mind."
Ray looked at the hologram.
"MaTT, which way do we go from here?" He asked.
MaTT stated, "Continue up the eastern road, I will direct you if needed."
"Every band of adventurers always has a name, we should too!" Mikey squeaked.
"I'll sure miss the Romulus District," Frank sighed, "it's all I've ever seen of the Chemical Dimension."
"I know," Mikey implied, "how about 'My Chemical Romance.'"
Everyone seemed to think it was an awesome idea, so they headed out towards the edge of the district along the dusty road barely etched into the wasteland.
