Werthers shivered and attempted unsuccesfully to move his free arm lackadasically upwards, knocking some of his feathers to the floor. Officer seargant Seargeant Officer Jarmish sighed and lifted the wing gently, then let it go.

“Sorry it just feels so…fragile…” officer seargant Seargeant Officer Jarmish sighed again, this time tensing his rectum for stability as he lifted the wing again and tucked the box under and in the wing like it was teeming with anthrax. “Be careful with it, Werthwims. You don’t want to, ehrm, activate it before you give it to Soiled Trousers. It’s quite dangerous. I mean it’s not, like, teeming with anthrax or anything but it’s still quite dangerous.”

Werthers stood there, his magic machete in one wing-arm and his non-anthrax containing box in the other, and wondered what in the unholy cluck had led him to this point. Why the cluck was this happening to him, and what in the cluck was he doing? How was he alive? Did he even want to be alive anymore?

“Well, go on then. Get going,” officer seargant Seargeant Officer Jarmish sighed.

Werthers thought officer seargant Seargeant Officer Jarmish sounded close to crying but the eyeholes on his ostrich suit made seeing whether he was quite difficult.

“Go on, you old…you…oh cockhammit!” officer seargant Seargeant Officer Jarmish embraced Wertherts in a trembling embrace and sobbed deliriously. “You’re best cockhamned partner I’ve ever known! And I’ve know a lot of them! I’m a hamned officer seargeant after all! Just, cluck, just be careful! We’re going to get that triple X secret clearance from the agency, I just know it! I just know it! Now go out there and kick ass!”

Werthers waited for officer seargant Seargeant Officer Jarmish to finish crushing his organs.

“Go on! Go!” officer seargant Seargeant Officer Jarmish cried, still not letting go.

Werthers pulled and pushed, trying his best to escape as his lungs ran low on oxygen. Officer seargant Seargeant Officer Jarmish clutched him tighter.

“Get the cluck out of here already cockhamnit!”

Werthers felt blood vessels in his eyes bursting when suddenly the vice grip released. Officer seargant Seargeant Officer Jarmish wiped tears from his cheeks, saluted Werthers, and pressed a button on his left palm. A jetpack constructed itself upon his back seemingly out of thin air and propelled him high in the air and off into the distance.

Werthers sighed and walked around aimlessly. It could have lasted five seconds or five years, all he knew was his crotch was in pain and his face felt like the top of a bowl of lasagna. Every once and awhile he would hear skyrates grumbling about booty and dubloons but never once asking why a man in a not so convincing ostrich suit was wobbling around.

Eventually this torture ended and another began when Werthers walked right into a door. His nose numbed, his feet off kilter and his weak arms slipping, Werthers sumbled forward. He heard a muffled voice as the door creaked open.

“Now, let me tell you every detail of my deep doodoo cover.”

WSHHHHH

Werthers couldn’t see much, but he could magic the depressed trigger of his magic machete click back and the thud of a body, as well as the unconving gasps of the crude, stinky, harpieesque women that were surrounding whoever had just died.

Werthers stood there shivering as the women squabbled back and forth near unintelligibily, trying to cope with the realization that he had essentially just murdered someone. And then, his ear buzzed.

fffzzzz “Werthinkles” ffzzz “come in” ffzzz fzzz “come in Werthins!”

The volume clipped out and then clipped back in, several decibels louder, amplifying the crackling of the seargeant officer’s breathing.

FZZZ “COME IN, PARTNER!” FZZZZZZZ

“MAAaaAAAawwwwffffqqquaaaAAAAaawk!” screeched Werthers, his ear pounding like it was on fire.

The women argued about what sounded like ghosts having syphillis for a moment. Suddenly Werthers felt his stomach lurch as one of the women started turning back to look at him. Werthers’ feather clad fingers tightened on the magic machete.

FZZZ “WERTHENTHROLLOP!”

Werthers jolted and shivered, firing the magic machete.

WSSHHH WSHHH WSHHH WSHHH WSHHH

FZZ “IS” FFFfffffzzz “everything okay?!” fffzzz “Did you find” ffzzz “Soiled Trousers?” ffzzzz

Had any of the women that were now cowering on the ground screeching at eachother been wearing trousers they would’ve been soiled, but other than that, Werthers could hardly say he had found his quarry. Not that he was all that sure how to communicate anything to seargeant officer Officer Seargeant Jarmish by way of earpiece anywhatnowhow.

“I don’t like how it feels when birds attack me!” cried one of the belligerent women.

BBKKKRRDDSSSSSKKKTTTTCCKKCKK

Werthers wasn’t sure if he was hallucinating but it looked like the giant chicken’s beak had broken through an adjacent wall and was ready for a hood chomping. With an awkward clamber and stumble Werthers finally found the gumption to sieze control of himself and run the hen away.

As Werthers boinked down the deck his earpiece needled him with crackling ire.

fffzzzz “Alright, Werthenanickan” ffzzzz “to communicate to me” fffzzz “that you have found” ffzzz “Soiled Trousers” ffzzzz “say absolutely” ffzzzz “nothing at all” fffzzzz

The crackles cut out as Werthers ran in aimless circles around the deck, knocking over five different soapy buckets of deck cleaner and bumping two skyfishing skyrates overboard.

fzzz “What was” ffzzz “that?” fffzzz “Did you say something?”

Werthers continued running, this time in haphazard figure eights.

ffzzz “I didn’t hear” ffzzz “you say anything” ffzzzz “so obviously” ffzzz “you have succeeded!” ffzzz “Well done” fffzzzz “Werthwurtin! Well” ffzzz done! You’ve made” fffzzz “me and the agency” ffzzz “very proud indeed” fzzzz

PT

Suddenly, a lit cigarette bounced against the back of Werthers’ head. He stopped and watched it roll down the deck and into soapy sludge.

PT

Another lit cigarette, this time at his forehead.

PT PT PT

There wasn’t even time to process these lit cigarettes, which danced all over his cranium in a most unpleasing—

PT PT PT PT PTPTPTPTPTPTPT

Werthers was running from the cigarettes now, the eyeholes of his suit making seeing much if anything near impossible as they had begun to congeal into one rubbery piece. It was like being haled on with light burning sticks of tobacco. If only Werthers could just—

BFFFFF

He had flown through a doorway and collided with the firm paunch of none other than—

“Worms! Worms, you look concerned! It’s just I, Ronaldo Skripper!”

Werthers stumbled back as Ronaldo pushed the door closed behind him. A cold light shot through a high up hole in the ceiling. They were inside a damp storage closet.

“C-c-c-cigarettes,” stuttered Werthers nervously.

“Wowmie! Youfe nefer towd me youfe fmowked!” Pripkin lit up, figuratively and a cigarette, and attempted to hand it to Werthers. Upon realizing this was impossible, Pripkin huffed and stuck the cigarette into the hidden mouth crack of Werthers’ enormous rubber beak. Pripkin smiled and patted Werthers on the shoulder, “Fewur youfe go, chuppy.”

Werthers inhaled deeply, so deeply that the entire cigarette was sucked into his mouth, garbling around and putting itself out in his bile and saliva. Werthers hacked in frustrated surprise and spat it out on the floor.

“Cawk hammit Wowmie don’t youfe wafte a perfectwy hood figawette!” Pripkin scolded, scooping the cigarette up, wiping it off with a kerchief, and placing it back in Werthers’ mouth hole.

Werthers was careful to inhale slowly this time, and was able to get off with weakly concealed coughs as his lack of smoking experience pained his lungs.

“Muwch bettaw, Wowmie, muwch bettaw. Anywhatwaynowhow chewck thif owt,” Pripkin produced his somewhat repaired smoking staff, which had somehow gotten about a foot longer. There were numerous spots covered in generous helpings of skyduct tape. “Yeaw, I fee youfe ftawing awt awll the tawpe. Don’t wowy, I juft need to paint ofer it awnd nobowdy will be abwe to tewll, twuft me.”

Wethers sighed as Pripkin continued to fetter on about how soon enough his cigarette holder would be fixed, no, even better than it had ever been, he only needed a little more time to fiddle with it.