Coming to consciousness, Cherry found herself in a near-empty room, tied up in a chair. The last thing they remembered were last night’s events, when the bananas got them. She had thrown her sword to save Leslie, but got caught by the bananas herself. They knew Leslie was a kind soul. Cherry knew they’d be back to save her.
But right now, Cherry was gonna have to deal with being tied up in a really uncomfortable chair.
“Maybe I can try to untie myself..” they thought. As they fiddled with the rope tying their wrists together, the door handle jingled a bit. Cherry stopped what she was doing instantly as Pim entered the room.
“Well, well, well.. look at what we have here!” Pim said, spinning the Bananainator in his hands.
“Alright, asshole. Cut to the chase. Just do the thing.”
“Oh, you mean the thing where I turn you into a banana? I wasn’t planning on doing that to you... yet.”
Cherry raised an eyebrow. “Yet?”
“You see,” Pim hummed. “You’re here as bait.”
“Bait?”
“I know you have friends. Remember when you all came to eat here just 2 days ago? You all were wearing those little necklaces.”
“What do the necklaces have to do with anything anyway?”
“Friends often wear matching necklaces to symbolize their friendship. At least, that’s how it is where I’m from.”
“Does everyone where you’re from wear stupid banana costumes too or are you the outlier there?”
Pim gasped, as if he were offended. “A COSTUME? You think this is a COSTUME?”
“What else would it be?”
“Uh.. my SKIN?”
“You’re.. a banana?”
“Well, half-banana, if we’re going off technicalities. My mom’s a human. My dad’s a banana.”
“I don’t even want to think about the logistics of that- hold on a minute. Don’t you run a banana restaurant?”
“Yes? Cannibalism’s legal where I’m from, it’s fine.”
“Alright, not gonna question the morality of that. Why am I here as ‘bait’ anyhow?”
“Oh, c’mon, I just went over that. You’re here as bait so I can turn you & your friends into bananas! Simple as that.”
“Why bananas, though? Like, couldn’t you just kill us?”
“Why would I kill a potential employee? That’s the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard.”
“..Potential employee?”
“I’m sure you’ve noticed the lack of employees here, yeah? I turn people into bananas so they work here at the restaurant & then I can take over capitalism!”
Cherry was dumbfounded. “...what?”
“You heard me. I’m going to take over capitalism!”
“..first of all, you can’t take over capitalism. Second of all, why take over capitalism? Capitalism sucks bad, dude.”
“Why do you want to know?”
“Because what the fuck else am I supposed to do?”
“Oh, I don’t know.. stay silent, maybe?”
“Whatever. Better than talking to you, anyway.”
“Rude.” Pim crossed his arms. “Not like you’ll be needing to speak for much longer. I’m about to let the bananas out into the city. Soon enough your little friends will be crawling their way back to this place. Better get comfortable!”
With that, Pim left the room & shut the door, leaving Cherry alone to her own devices.
-
Leslie had stayed awake all night long.
Energy drinks & coffee mugs were scattered all across their apartment. One of those mini-whiteboards was on the coffee table, with incomprehensible writing & sketches on it. Various other papers laid around as well, with even more incomprehensible writings. Its laptop was sitting on the couch, with multiple tabs open all to the varying degree of “how to fight bananas”.
Leslie had to get Cherry back. It was racking its brain with any ideas - anything at all - to get its friend back. They were afraid Juniper, Nora, & Kalani wouldn’t believe them. Cherry getting kidnapped by bananas? It was absurd!
As they scribbled something down on another piece of paper, an alarm went off on their phone. They pulled out their phone to check it.
Class was in 15 minutes.
“SHIT!” it yelled, grabbing its laptop & the charger in a frenzy. They ran out of their apartment faster than they ever had.
-
“So, what’s the plan?”
“Uh.. I dunno.”
Juniper & Nora were relaxing in Kalani’s apartment. Juniper was sprawled across the couch, while Nora sat in the recliner. Kalani was hovering (not literally) over the couch, with a cup of coffee in her hand.
“I guess we could watch TV.” Nora shrugged. “Not like we have classes today anyway.”
“Sounds like a plan to me.” Juniper grabbed the TV remote & flipped the TV on, flipping through the channels.
“Have any of you heard from Cherry or Leslie lately?”
“No. Last I saw them was yesterday at the mall.”
“Same here. Usually Les sends us a good morning text, but.. nothing.”
“That’s strange.
Juniper stopped flipping the channels. Ze had landed on the news station.
“The news? Really?”
“Leslie was gonna break into that banana restaurant, weren’t they? Maybe they’re on the news.”
“Alright.”
The news reporter appeared on screen, along with some footage of bananas with arms & legs walking around.
“Good morning, Cincinnati! Today we have some concerning news for you. Starting around 3:47 AM last night, people have reported seeing human-sized bananas walking around the city. Most of them seem to not be doing much harm, but others have reported that the bananas have broken into homes & buildings. We recommend you don’t go out today, & lock your doors, but if you must then please stay safe.”
Kalani, Nora, & Juniper looked at each other.
“What?”
“I’m as confused as you are.”
Kalani thought about it for a second.
“The book!” he exclaimed.
Juniper & Nora turned to look at him.
“The book?”
“The book said we had to ‘maintain the balance between good & evil’! Maybe this is our chance to do that!”
“Oh, you’re right!”
“Let me go get the book! Hold on!”
Kalani rushed to the other room.
“You really think someone would write a prophecy about fighting bananas?”
“Maybe the bananas are just a stepping stone to something bigger. Something more dangerous.”
“Like what?”
“I dunno. I’ve never been a prophesied hero before.”
Kalani ran back into the room, book in hand. She opened it up & flipped through a couple of the pages.
“What are you looking for?”
“How to get back into those sick outfits.”
“You forgot already?”
“Hey, not everyone has a perfect memory like you.”
“My memory isn’t perfect!”
“Didn’t you memorize 150 digits of Pi once?”
“I did. Not anymore.”
“Fair. How do we get back into the outfits?”
“Just pull on the necklace.”
At once, all three of them pulled on their necklaces. They were in their magical girl outfits once again.
“Alright! What’s the plan now?”
“I guess we go & find the source of the bananas.”
“But where is the source of the bananas?”
“I don’t know! That’s why we have to find it!”
“Let’s go do that then!”
-
“AAGH! SOMEONE HELP!”
As Leslie rushed to class, they heard a scream ring out from their classroom.
They swung the doors open. Natalie was the only human there, cowering in the corner. A couple of bananas were surrounding her. Leslie had no idea how the bananas ended up getting to college campus, but nonetheless, it knew what to do.
Pulling on their necklace, they got back into their magical girl outfit, with their scythes in hand. They ran up & sliced the bananas in half. Natalie looked at Leslie with relief in her face.
“Oh, thank you- Leslie?”
“Um.. hey.”
“Out of everyone who could have saved me, I was not expecting it to be you.”
“Well, y’know.. hold on, what are you wearing?”
Now that Natalie wasn’t surrounded by bananas, Leslie could see her outfit clearly. It was similar to the magical girl outfits, but everything that was white about the outfit was now black, & Natalie’s tie, skirt, gloves, & shoes were purple. She was also holding a small hammer in her hand, very obviously painted over with purple paint.
“Oh, uh..” Natalie stammered. “This was.. supposed to be a surprise. I was gonna rob a Walmart today after class, & you & your magical girl friends would show up, & I was gonna have a cool villain monologue &-”
“Is that a.. squeaky hammer as a weapon?”
“UM. NOO. IT’S A NORMAL HAMMER.”
Leslie took the hammer out of Natalie’s hands & hit it against the wall. It made a squeaky sound.
“Yup. Squeaky hammer.” Leslie yawned, handing the hammer back to Natalie.
“Well- it’s all I had! Shut up!”
“Ok, whatever you say.”
“Anyways, what’s up with those banana guys?”
Leslie rubbed its eyes. “Um.. so Cherry & I broke into that new banana restaurant last night &-”
“What new banana restaurant?”
“Y’know.. Banana Man’s Banana Land?”
“Haven’t heard of it.”
“Oh well. We broke in there last night & found out that the owner was, like, turning people into bananas, & then we had to fight off the bananas & then Cherry got taken by the bananas &-”
Leslie yawned in the middle of their sentence.
“& I’ve, um.. been up all night trying to come up with a plan to get her back.”
“You pulled an all-nighter? Jeez, no wonder you’re tired.”
Natalie spun the squeaky hammer around in her hands. “How about we make a truce? For now.”
“A.. truce?”
“I can’t fight you in the state you’re currently in. Not to mention, the bananas.. So we’re forming a truce!”
“Um... ok.”
“Alright! Let’s go, trucie!”
-
“Did I ever tell you guys my sibling’s coming back to Cincinnati?”
“They are?”
Juniper & Kalani were in the back of Nora’s car, driving around. They were still looking for the source of the bananas walking around the city. They thought it would be nice to have some conversation so it’s not boring.
“Yea, they said somethin’ about dropping out of college.” Nora explained.
“I get it.” Juniper nodded. “College can be stressful sometimes.”
“When are they comin’ back?” Kalani asked.
“Oh, sometime tomorrow. I’ll have to go pick them up from the airport.”
“Ah. Good luck.”
“Thanks-”
Nora was interrupted by her stomach growling. “Oh, maybe we should get some breakfast, huh?”
“How about we go back to that banana restaurant? The food there was pretty g-”
“THE BANANA RESTAURANT!” Kalani perked up. “That might be where the bananas are coming from!”
“Oh, you’re right!! How did we not think of it before?!”
“To the banana restaurant we go!”
-
It had probably been a few hours. Cherry couldn’t tell how long she had been here, & everything hurt a lot. Their limbs were starting to go numb due to the lack of blood flow.
“Oh, that’s it!” she grumbled to herself. “I’m getting myself outta here!”
They attempted to untie the rope binding their wrists together. It was kind of difficult, considering they couldn’t see what they were doing. After a couple of minutes, Cherry had successfully freed her wrists!
“Finally!” she sighed, shaking her hands to get the blood flowing again. “Alright, now I gotta get the legs free.. let’s do this.”
Once their hands felt normal again, they went to work on untying the ropes around their ankles. It was easier this time, now that Cherry could actually see what she was doing. She got the knot untied in no time.
Finally, after who knows how long, Cherry was able to stand up! Sitting in a chair all tied up in a skirt was incredibly uncomfortable. They pulled on their tie & poofed back into the hoodie they were wearing before.
“Alrighty..” she stretched. “Let’s see if there’s any way outta this stupid room.”
Now that they weren’t tied up in a chair, Cherry could get a good look around the room. There was a door, but Cherry assumed there was a good chance it was locked, & she did not want to attempt to lockpick anything again.
There was a desk to the side, covered in old newspapers & diagrams. Cherry walked up to it, hoping it could give them some clues on how to escape. She grabbed one of the newspapers. It was from sometime in 2019, based in a place that Cherry had never heard of.
“BANANA ECONOMY IN SHAMBLES!” the front page of the newspaper read.
“Banana economy?” Cherry wondered. This intrigued her, so she kept reading.
The newspaper talked about the economic crash of the banana society. Cherry didn’t even know there was a banana society.
There was another newspaper right under it, published about a week after the first newspaper. The headline on this one read, “HUMAN ECONOMY DOING FINE.”
“Why are bananas getting news on how humans are doing?”
Cherry thought back to what Pim had said about himself early.
“My mom’s a human. My dad’s a banana.” he had said. That means Pim could easily pass as a human, which he had! Cherry & the others had simply just thought he was wearing a banana costume.
“He must have moved here because our economy was better..” Cherry mumbled. “Still not sure what he means by ‘taking over capitalism,’ though.”
At that moment, they heard the door opening. Cherry quickly threw the newspaper back on the desk as Pim entered the room, Bananainator in hand.
“HEY!” Pim yelled, aiming the Bananainator at Cherry. “How’d you escape?!”
“You kind of suck ass at tying knots, dude.” Cherry replied, tugging on her necklace & transforming back into Hero Mode.
“Ohh, you’re gonna pay for this!”
“I’d like to see you try!”
-
Despite all the bananas walking around the city, it was actually quite a nice day. There was a mild breeze, but it was sunny, & everyone knows sunny weather is the perfect time for motorcycle rides.
Leslie sat on the back of Natalie’s motorcycle, fighting off any bananas that got close (which was few, due to the speed of the motorcycle). The velocity of the motorcycle was enough to keep Leslie from passing out.
Earlier in the classroom, after the truce was made, Natalie mentioned that she had a motorcycle they could use to get to the banana restaurant & save Cherry. As Leslie’s only other form of transport at the moment was walking, they agreed to hitch a ride on the motorcycle.
“So.. you ride this motorcycle to class?”
“Of course! Way faster than walking.”
“Alright.”
It was silent for a second.
“It’s a nice motorcycle.” Leslie said.
“Thanks!” Natalie grinned. “Got it for my 18th.”
“Sweet.”
Natalie pulled up into a parking spot at Banana Man’s Banana Land & stopped the motorcycle. “We’re here.” she nodded, hopping off of the motorcycle seat.
As Leslie hopped off of the motorcycle as well, another car pulled up into the parking lot as well. Leslie recognized it as Nora’s car instantly, due to the parking ticket on the windshield wiper that Nora had flipped over on its back & wrote “NORA’S CAR” on.
Nora, Juniper, & Kalani exited the car & spotted Leslie.
“Les!!” the three of them exclaimed, running over to it.
“Oh, hey!” Leslie waved.
“Are you ok?” Juniper asked.
“Yea, I’m.. I’m fine.” Leslie said, yawning.
“Your friend here stayed up all night long.” Natalie leaned against her motorcycle. “They never would have gotten here if it weren’t for me.”
“Jesus, Les. You must be exhausted.”
“Wait a minute,” Nora glanced at Natalie. “Aren’t you the girl who stole our book yesterday & demanded to join us?”
“Yea. That was me.” Natalie shrugged. “What are you gonna do about it?”
Nora, Juniper, & Kalani summoned their weapons.
“Oh.”
“Hey, wait,” Leslie said. “We have a truce.”
“A truce?”
“Yea, me & Leslie here formed a truce. Once we’re all done with this banana business, your group & I are back to being rivals.”
“We’re rivals?”
“Listen, I was gonna do this whole thing where I robbed a Walmart & had a big villain speech & it was gonna be cool!”
“I see. Does this have anything to do with the almost-matching outfit?”
“Yes. I made it myself, in fact!”
“Oh, you did? That’s cool.”
“Thanks. Self-taught.”
“Alright, enough small-talk.” Leslie stretched. “Cherry’s in that restaurant & we need to save her.”
“Cherry’s in there?”
“It’s a long story, but she’s in trouble.”
“Well, we have no time to waste, then! Let’s go!”
-
Either it was the adrenaline or the fact that she would be turned into a banana if she fucked up here, but Cherry was handling her sword better. Not completely better, but it was fine for the time being.
Pim was attempting to shoot Cherry with the Bananainator, but they were blocking every shot with their sword.
“Why won’t you just give UP already?!” Pim yelled, firing another shot from the Bananainator
“I don’t give up very easily.” Cherry responded, blocking the shot with her sword. “Plus, I’m a big fan of not being a banana.”
Pim fired a few more shots, but Cherry blocked all three of them, albeit barely. The two of them had been at this for a while, & Cherry was noticeably getting more & more worn out.
“You’re getting tired!” Pim grinned. “Might wanna take a rest for a second!”
“& let my guard down? No thanks.”
“You know, overworking yourself is very- OW!”
A hammer flew into the room, hitting Pim directly in the back of the head. It made a squeaky noise as it hit the ground.
“Who did that?!” he yelled, turning around.
“That’s what you get, banana boy!”
There stood Natalie, with a grin on her face. Behind her stood Nora, Juniper, Kalani, & Leslie.
“You’re gonna PAY FOR THAT!” Pim turned his aim toward Natalie.
“Try me, bitch!”
Pim fired a shot. Natalie ducked, along with everyone else, & hit the window in the main room, shattering it.
“OH, YOU-”
Natalie ran off before Pim could finish his sentence.
“HEY, WAIT! GET BACK HERE!”
Pim shoved past everyone else & ran up the stairs to chase after Natalie. The other 4 went down & over to Cherry.
“Cherry!!” Leslie smiled, embracing her.
“Les! You came back!”
“Of course I did! I spent all night trying to come up with a plan to save you!”
“All night? Jesus, Les, we are getting you a nap after this is done.”
“Speaking of.. this situation, we’ve got some fighting to do!”
“Yeah! Let’s kick some banana ass!”
The group started heading up the stairs.
“So what’s the banana guy’s deal anyway?”
“Oh, Pim? Turns out he’s using this restaurant as a front to take over capitalism. Also, that’s not a banana costume.”
“He wants to take over capitalism? That’s not possible!”
“That’s what I was saying!”
“Are we just skimming over the part where you said he wasn’t wearing a banana costume?”
“Oh, yea, his mom’s a human & his dad’s a banana.”
“That sounds disgusting. & also genetically not possible.”
“Don’t we share 50% of DNA with bananas?”
“Yea, I guess so.”
They arrived back upstairs to the main area of the restaurant. Pim was trying to shoot Natalie with his Bananainator, but she was dodging every shot.
“WHY WON’T YOU STOP DODGING?!”
“Why won’t you stop having bad aim?”
“I- SHUT UP!”
The group looked toward each other.
“So what’s the plan?” Kalani asked.
“He seems to rely on that Bananainator he has too much.” Cherry said. “If we can disarm him & break it, he won’t be able to fight back.”
“What about the other, uh.. banana guys around?”
“I dunno. I guess we just fend them off?”
“Sounds good to me!”
Kalani aimed her wand at Pim, who was busy trying to hit Natalie with the Bananainator.
“Just as a warning, this is the first time I’ve ever used this thing.”
“Some training before-hand would have been nice, wouldn’t it?”
“Yeah.”
Kalani fired a magic blast at Pim. It hit him smack-right in the face.
“OW!” he hissed, turning his attention toward Kalani. He fired the Bananainator at Kalani, but Juniper slid in & blocked the beam with eir spear, sending it flying into the sky.
“So that’s how you wanna be, huh?” Pim scoffed. He snapped his fingers a couple times. “BACKUP! BAAAAACKUP!!!”
All at once, a few dozen bananas approached Pim. He pointed at the group. “Get them!” he commanded.
The bananas turned toward the group.
“Ah, shit, here we go again.”
“Again?!”
“Don’t worry about it.”
The group readied their weapons as the bananas raced toward them.
Cherry, despite being tired from blocking Pim’s attacks earlier, still had some fight left in them, & was slicing some bananas in half. Nora used her whip to push back some of the bananas, & even cut some of them. Leslie used its scythes to dice the banana in half. Juniper was stabbing bananas with pheir spear, & Kalani used his wand to send magic blasts at the bananas.
As Leslie sliced a banana in half, they noticed that Natalie was being surrounded by bananas. Pim had his Bananainator aimed at Natalie, & there was no way she could avoid it.
They had to act fast.
Pim had his finger on the trigger. Leslie ran over to where he was standing, scythes in hand. Its plan was to use one of its scythes to flick the Bananainator out of his hands. However, there was a rock on the ground & Leslie had tripped, their scythe cutting deep into Pim’s glove.
“OUCH!” he shrieked, dropping the Bananainator on the ground.
Leslie swiftly grabbed the Bananainator from the ground & rolled over, standing up. Pim noticed this very quickly.
“HEY!” he yelled. “Give that BACK!”
Leslie smiled as it threw the Bananainator into the ground as hard as it could, shattering the device into various pieces.
“NO!!” Pim screamed, running over to the now-broken Bananainator.
All of a sudden, all of the faceless bananas (the ones that weren’t dead, anyway) all transformed back into humans. They looked around, confused & unaware.
“Where am I?”
“Why the fuck am I in a parking lot?”
“How’d I get here??”
The group just kind of glanced at each other, not wanting to explain that everyone had just been turned into bananas.
“Uh.. don’t worry about it!” Juniper gave a thumbs up to everyone. “Just go home! Everything’s normal now.”
Everyone just shrugged & walked away.
Pim was grasping at the remains of his Bananainator. “My plan.. it’s RUINED!!” he sobbed.
“Damn. That sounds like a skill issue.”
Pim glared at the group (+ Natalie), tears in his eyes.
“Just you wait until my BOYFRIEND hears about this! I’ll have my revenge on you, just you wait & see!!” Pim yelled, running away.
The group looked at each other.
“Well.. we did it.”
“We did! Isn’t that neat?”
“Yeah!”
“So, Natalie..” Leslie looked at her. “Does this mean our truce is over?”
“Oh! Uh.. yeah! No more truce! From now on, I’ll be your worst enemy! Mwahahaha!!”
“Alright, you have fun with that.”
“See ya later, heroes!” Natalie chuckled, hopping on her motorcycle & riding off.
Cherry sighed, leaning against the wall of the building. “So... I guess we’re officially heroes then, huh?”
“I.. guess so, yeah. We just kind of saved the world.”
“Well, we didn’t save the world. We saved capitalism, which is frankly worse, but who cares?”
“Let’s just ignore the capitalism part & say we saved the city, huh?”
“Yeah. Let’s go with that. C’mon, let’s head home.”
“Alright! Nap time!”
So, they all got back into Nora’s car & drove back to their dorms, with the thought of their heroic actions in the back of their minds. They had saved the day! But.. what would come next, they wondered?
They were sure it would be fine, whatever it was.