The day started pretty well, all things considered… Until a voice Fuchsia Pig recognised but couldn’t place crackled, ‘Help’ through the Marine radio. Little did she know the Pork crackling was Rusty Boar; the bully from long ago.

Past Pirate, Dragon Doctor Hue suspected the S.O.S might be a bluffing Buccaneer’s beckoning and tried to warn Fuchsia of this reckoning. But Fuchsia’s a peaceful pig, prone to philanthropic practices.

Since returning to Earth, Fuchsia Pig’s body halted its hair-suit havoc. The ‘powers’ they all (all but obstinate Auburn Snake) generated on Mars -courtesy of golden Meteor sap- grew stronger the longer they possessed them.

Ella-phantastic’s elephant ears returned to baby elephant size, but she heard every thought (and its location) near, far and wide! The world is so overwrought with over-thought that Earthly bodies fall by the weigh-size.

Only becoming a musical prodigy quieted the constant hurly-burly of hurdy-gurdying worldwide cogitation. In Ella-phantastic ear-drums, the planet’s populous was out of tune with itself and yodelling.

Doctor Hue’s ever-growing chameleon capabilities and healing know-how rocked, but they still had ‘catapulting from Mars by Meteor strike’ hangover jet-stream-lag.

Fuchsia’s hands sometimes lit the night sky like Aurora Boar-realis and sent anything nearby flying high. She accidently teleported the entire ship to Doubtful Sound. (Not a weird noise you’re hearing but the water in New Zealand’s south.) She longed (and shorted) to control her boar–geoning apigtude. Auburn Snake called her the Flying Sorcerer. What a hot-air-baboon, for a sneaky snide snake.

Rusty Boar trapped behind the crooked arm of a fjord, harboured an avalanche of doubt, deep inside the ice of dazzling Doubtful Sound. Carnivore cruises, Royal Carob beans, and Custard cruise line didn’t understand his boar-ish communication. His S.0.S intimated uninterpretable garish grunts instead of a pork crackling help!

Ella-phantastic ears honed in on Rusty Boar’s thoughts and location, and transmitted the destination to distressed Fuchsia Pig. (Who couldn’t bear anyone’s suffering, even though she’s a pig and not a bear.) When perplexed her gift’s a hex, but when her face contorted with distorted thoughts of the thwarted she teleported them at once.

There he sat. The face matching the voice. Memories of his taunting name-calling surged in her mind. They called him Rusty Nails. He hammered nails of humiliation from her trotters to her tail. The last news of him; the Swine flu to Hawaii.

‘Hello gorgeous!’ He winked and flirted. Unaware, here stood the little piggy he battered with his belittling banter.

Fuchsia’s Pigface traversed the entire colour spectrum. She blushed crazy blazing hue-phasing embarrassment… She felt like that naive blubbering adipose piece of…shoat, all over again. She glowed more colours than Doctor Hue.

Everyone stared at her. ‘What? I’m just reflecting Doctor Hues colour off the ice!’

One Judas tear threatened trickling. She blinked it goodbye.

‘What’s wrong with your eye? Why do you keep blinking? You won’t turn us into a mouse or something, will you, you a-swine-ine astro-nut? Asked Auburn Snake. ‘Hmmm, mice yum.’

Auburn Snake morphed into a flying cashew nut, a pistachio, an almond …He changed 24 times until Doctor Hue managed to catch the morphing kernel of instability and reconstitute his snakey form.

‘Will ye ever learn?’ Said Doctor Hue. ‘Ye be knowin’ what happens when ye disrespect someone yet ye continue to scorn!’

Fuchsia’s mind pondered Rusty Boar. No, she decided, he cannot hurt me anymore. I am as thin as a rake and Rusty Nail’s trapped in a cell of ice, with a rusty nail in his foot, how fitting… plus I’ve got superpowers! She exhaled the past and sighed, It’s time this little piggy went to mark it. I can’t believe he chatted me up. Guess we better save the sorry swine.

They looked up to see an astonishing sight. The grisly Martian beasts had hitched a lift on their ship from Mars! They held a giant cauldron large enough to hold a full-grown-boar.

‘Hey baby’, crooned a sleepy Rusty Boar oblivious to the Aliens’ carnivorous intent.

Fuchsia looked at the enchanted sword in her hand and gulped. ‘Where did that come from?’

Fuchsia swung the sword, holding her emotions in check: nothing. She handed the enchanted sword to Doctor Hue who grasped exactly what to do. While he unleashed and healed Rusty Boar. Ella and Auburn ducked down, ready for …

Kapowee, Fuchsia released her amplified emotions and set the Aliens in motion. Ella-phantastic took Fuchsia’s other hand and directed the Martians on a trajectory bound for the red planet. Ella muttered ‘there’s no place like home, there’s no place like home.’

Fuchsia was so relieved they saved Rusty Boar. Forgiveness washed over her like a shower of baby gurgles.

Written for Featured Fiction hosted by the magnificent Melissa Barker-Simpson and shared with WIPpet Wednesday hosted by the lovely K.L. Schwengel, where authors post snippets from the current Works In Progress.

This is chapter 5. For Chapter 6, click here. Each chapter can be read on its own or to start at the beginning click here