Looking at the enormous Pigmalian army that amassed before them, Mena immediately turned to her friends. “What do we do?”

“If I had my regular body back,” Chad Abber said, lifting his fists and dancing back and forth. ”I’d give these porkers what for.”

War-Hog exhaled so hard it jostled the enormous ring in his snout. Chad gave a yelp and jumped behind Janus.

“Men…they’re all talk,” Ashlan sneered, (though Janus seemed to be enjoying Chad’s cowardice) “Even post-mortem.”

“Snoik…” Pigchard chimed in, looking at his newfound friends. “I think it’s best we come quietly. That way the brew won’t be upset, and perhaps…”—he tentatively held his hoofs together—"Maggie will return.”

“Can’t argue with that,” Ashlan responded, but even she betrayed a look of nervousness. “What will happen to us?”

Pigchard looked at the ground, kicking a nearby stone. “I’ll speak to them. Surely. I can reason with them. I am…after all, one of them. Only better dressed.”

“You better be right about this,” Ashlan said, but Mena flashed him a shiny white grin.

“You got this,” she told him. “I believe you. You’ve proved you’re a good man-pig-guy.”

Pigchard returned the smile, and everyone raised their hands to surrender.

“Excellent,” War-Hog said, as he motioned for his pig guards to gather them. “Like humans to the slaughter. Get em…”

Ashlan raised her eyebrow as cuffs were placed on her arms along with her allies. “You were saying, pigface?”

“Snoik…” Pigchard responded as they were escorted out of the glade. “Have faith in me…”

***

Pigchard remained silent as Mena and her friends trudged through the woods. As much as she had expressed faith in Pigchard earlier, she was feeling doubtful that a Pigmalian that had fled his city a long time ago could be much help. War-Hog led them to a clearing. A steep hill covered in dead grass lay before them.

“Up,” he demanded, as his fellow robed pigs paraded uphill with their captives.

“Ugh,” Chad groaned as he dragged his failing body up the hill. “Walking up a hill is hard enough, but it’s even worse when your skin is sagging.”

Janus gave him a gentle smile and patted him on the back. “Don’t worry, soon you won’t have any useless skin at all.”

Chad groaned even louder, much to everyone’s dismay. Mena could sympathize with him, being cursed with the eternal state of being ‘skinny-fat.’

Sweat seeped through Mena’s school outfit even without the sun beating down on her. “Phew,” she said, panting hard as she walked to the top of the hill. “Been a while since I dragged this bag of bones up a hill.”

Chad gave her a hostile glare, and she quickly giggled. “Sorry. I didn’t mean you. Oh wow!”

Everyone gazed down into the valley, where a whole city of pigs resided. The buildings were alternatively divided into subsections. At the front, there were smaller houses made from straw and sticks, but as they looked further into the distance, there were many tall buildings made of bricks. Mena deduced that upper-class “big pigs” resided in the brick houses, which were no doubt wolf proof.

“Get a good look at it,” the War-Hog announced, “It will be the last place you ever see before you are put before the great Archhog of Pigminton.”

Pigchard let out a squeal, causing everyone to look at him. “That tyrannical old swine’s still alive?” he muttered and said no more.

As they proceeded down the hill and into the front gates, Mena observed her surroundings of Pigminton. The straw and stick houses looked even more pitiful close up. Many of them falling apart and barely provided any shelter for their inhabitants. On an old bale of hay, a female Pigmalian fed her piglets who had all gathered around her. Their eyes looked bigger than their stomachs and one of them sighed, “Dead grass and weeds again, mum?”

“I’m sorry,” the female Pigmalian said, her eyes turning away from her hungry child. “It’s all we have.”

Miserable Magicaps, Mena thought to herself. What could have possibly happened to these pig- people?

As they walked beyond the lower-class neighborhood to the brick buildings, a soulless chill bristled Mena’s skin. Many of the suit-and-tie clad Pigmalians walked to and from a large cylindrical dome at the center of the city. They cast harsh glares at Mena and her friends. “Humannnsss,” one of them hissed in a tiny voice.

“I don’t know why they keep saying humans, ‘plural’,” Ashlan said twirling her triangular lion nose. “I’m a beast girl, Janus is a reaper and Chad, well, he used to be a human…the only human is…Rainy.”

“You’re not one of us,” War-Hog growled. “And that’s good enough for the Archhog.”

As they arrived at the dome, the War-Hog announced again, “Get a good look at this, humans. This is the last building you’ll ever see: the Colisquealum.”

“Sheesh,” Ashlan said, rolling her eyes. “Are you going to tell this about the last bathroom we ever use too. It’s getting old.”

“I agree with Lion-Breath,” Janus said, shrugging her shoulders. “I like ominous things too, but you’re really overdramatizing it.”

“Come on guys, give him his moment,” Mena said earnestly.

“Let’s get this over with,” Chad grumbled. “Not like this can be any worse than death.”

Two hard-faced pig-men in sunglasses heaved aside towering doors, allowing War-Hog and his entourage entry. Inside, the Colisquealum’s entrance hall, the ceilings were as massive as the building itself. To the left and right, stood hulking marble statues of a muscular boar with horns held the tabletop kingdom above his head. A large carpet rolled up to the entrance desk, which overlooked an enormous plate glass window, revealing the stadium itself.

“If this where we’re going to be tried?” Mena asked, wide eyed.

“Hah, as if,” War-Hog chortled as they reached the end of the hall. “You humans don’t get a trial.”

“I wish you’d stop calling us humans,” Ashlan growled, and balled up her fists.

A very tall pig walked up to them. Sporting white robes and a white priest hat emblazoned with silver bacon, he greeted Mena and her friends. “Welcome,” he said in a luxuriously smooth voice. “The Archhog welcomes you.”

“Another thing that annoys me,” Ashlan growled. “People who talk in third person.”

“Janus should remember that,” the pixie reaper said with a wry smile.

The Archhog walked to the front desk, and he stood beside the chair. “I’m not the Archhog, but rather his official spokesboar.”

A tiny pig with jet black eyes hopped on the chair. He was also wearing ceremonial robes and was remarkably older with scruffy grey hair on his chin.

“Why does he need a spokesboar?” Mena asked.

“Ahem,” the Pigmalian leader said in a remarkably tiny voice. “You have fiddled about in Pigmalia for the last time, color thieves.”

“Aw,” Janus remarked, “Isn’t he the cutest little pork chop!”

The Archhog hopped onto the table and jumped up and down frantically. “Do not laugh, color thieves or it will be all the more painful for you.”

“Color thieves?” Mena asked in utter disbelief. “Did those miserable, megalomaniacal witches get over here too?”

“Yes,” the Archhog replied. “Those noble witches warned us of the fiends who had snatched all the color for the land, killing all the plants we feasted on and rendering us impoverished.”

“Wowie zowie!” Mena exclaimed, her eyes wide with shock. “Are Bubbel and Karen really that skilled to convince the king and the Archhog?”

“I think all high-ranking leaders are simply that stupid,” Janus laughed to herself.

“How dare you!” the Spokesboar proclaimed lifted his large white sleeves. “The Archhog received his mighty rank from the goddess Pigsephone herself.”

“Uh right,” the Archhog muttered under his breath.

“Anyway,” the Archhog said, calmly returning to his seat. “You all are sentenced to death for your heinous offense.”

Mena gasped, before the Archhog added. “Without prejudice of course. You impoverished our people and so we kill you.”

It was at that present moment that Ashlan lost it.

“Excuse me,” she said, bearing her fangs, her catlike eyes glaring with the intensity of a lion about to attack. “Do you UNCULTURED SWINE know who I am? My father is King of the Subconscious Jungle, you wouldn’t even be fit for an after-dinner snack for him.”

The tiny religious swine narrowed his eyes. “Did you call us ‘uncultured swine?’” he roared in his tiny voice. “That’s it. I sentence you to death with extreme prejudice. Your own prejudice of course”

War-Hog was about to lead them away, when suddenly Pigchard chimed in. “Father, don’t do this…snoik!”

The room was silent, but Mena’s eyes bugged out and she exclaimed, “Wowie zowie! What a killer plot-twist!”

Pigchard ignored Mena and implored his newly-revealed father. “Please, father. You’ve done enough to humankind, we don’t need anymore senseless bloodshed…especially with what you did…to Molly.”

The Archhog was silent for a long while, seemingly in contemplation. “The prodigal hog returns…” he said at last. “But I could tell you the same exact thing, Pigchard. Humankind has done enough to us. They will bring us to the brink-of-extinction.”

PIgchard made direct eye contact with father His eyes were now tearing. “Please…please stop. Both sides need to stop.”

“It’s too late for that Pigchard,” the Archhog responded. “For them and for you, you left us for people who needlessly fried our hides and made bacon…but now, it is the dawn of a new-age for all of Pigmalia. Goodbye.”

“No,” Mena screamed, but she had a black bag pulled over her head.

After five minutes of being lead in complete darkness, Mena heard chanting ominous chanting in the background. “Ba-con, ba-con, BA-CON, BA-CON, BACON, BACON!”

The bags were removed, and after they got over the white light blinding them, Mena was standing in the middle of the Colisquealum. It was filled with pigmalians, all of them with bibs, clutching forks and knives and chanting loudly as they thumbed their silverware.

The Archhog stood high above them on a ledge, overlooking them. The spokesboar raised his hands triumphantly. “Welcome ladies and gentleswine. We have gathered here today for a holy feast. From now on, instead of plants, we shall eat HUMAN BACON!”

Mena looked down and squeaked in horror. They were standing inside a giant frying pan, ready to cook them into delicious bacon bits.