Unlikely Trio Adventures Pt.6

The Adventures of the Unlikely Trio

-----Chapter 6-----

The Leaning Tower of Pizza

It had been a long five chapters, but there it was, at long last, in the distance, rising up from below the horizon (in a normal way mind you, I’m going to resist going into the realms of ridiculous once again by taking that sentence literally).

“The Leaning Tower of Pizza” said the trio, train driver and Caution at the same time.
“Hey, how come we all said that at the exact same time?” asked Ceame, questioning the realism of the story.
“That doesn’t really matter, what matters is, we’re finally going to have our damn pizza” replied Colin.
“Not good enough!  I want to know why we all said that at the same time and that’s that!” shouted Ceame who dived forward and hit the brakes on the train.  The train came to a screeching Halt.  The train driver disposed of it once again while the others covered their ears.

“Okay, so you stopped the train when we were RIGHT near the Leaning Tower of Pizza, and we only have one hour and a half left before it collapses.  You really expect us to go off and have a fun little episodic mini adventure at a time like this!?” Qpzm shouted angrily.
“That is exactly what I expect” said Ceame, who would have had a grumpy expression on his face, and would have folded his arms at this point; but alas, has no face or arms.
“Sigh” said the Train Driver, ignoring the fact that onomatopoeias aren’t meant to be said as actual words.  He started the train up again promptly.  “If you must know, the reason we all said it at the same time is because there is a magical force that only exists in the land of non-fiction that causes such a thing to happen often.”
“What do you mean, the land of non-fiction!?  This is a fictional story!  The land of non-fiction is out there!” said Colin, pointing in your general direction.
“…Yeah, let’s just keep them thinking that eh?” said the Train Driver, with a smug expression on his face.  Ah, smug.  What a word.  Say it over and over, go on.  Smug.  Smug smug smug.  Great fun.

“Finally, the train arrived at the station.”
“Thanks for letting me know” replied Finally.  Finally walked across to the train tracks where the train stopped at Last.
“Phew, that was close” said Last.  “Nearly ran me over.”

Silly names aside, the trio plus two walked through the city they had arrived at to the Leaning Tower of Pizza.  It loomed over them in a most disturbing manner.  Then the author remembered it wasn’t supposed to be some big evil castle thing and decided to describe it differently.  So forget that just then, instead, it loomed over them in a most friendly manner.

“Ah, it’s good to be back” said the Train Driver.
“You’re telling me” replied his back, who was in the jolliest of moods.
“Wait, what do you mean, “back”?” asked Colin.
“If you were talking to my back there, he meant he’s quite happy to be a back, if you were talking to me though, I meant, err, nothing” the Train Driver answered.  “Anyway, I have some business to attend to.  I’ll meet up with you guys later.”  With that, the Train Driver skipped off elsewhere.

“Well, this is it then” said Colin.  “In we go.”  With that, the trio and Caution headed in.
The lobby was even more magnificent than they had imagined.  The interior of the tower had a large reflective marble floor, with a matching ceiling, so if one looked into the reflections of either, the tower appeared to be infinitely tall.  There were various tables and chairs around with people sitting, talking and eating pizza.  How rude of them, talking with their mouths full.

The trio plus one strolled casually over to the large, white, modern looking reception desk in the centre of the tower, who had quite a nice young lady dressed in equally futuristic white clothing.  The whole thing looked like an iPod which had turned into a reception desk or something.

“How can I help you?” the lady asked.
“We’re here to have some Pizza” said Colin leaning forward with one arm on the desk.
“What kind would you like, regular or special?”
“Special?” said Colin.
“Special is where you make your own sir”.
“Well, I don’t know about making a sir, but I sure would like to make a Pizza.  Let’s go for it.”
“I’ve got the cheese from the moon right here!” said Qpzm, pulling out a large lump of cheese wrapped in foil.
“If you would like to go to the door on the balcony above, you can enter the cooking area.  Have a nice day.”

Colin noted the large balcony that spanned all the way round the walls of the tower, a spiral staircase leading up to it.  From this balcony, more staircases lead to higher balconies, one even reaching the very top of the tower.  The trio plus one headed up to the door on the first balcony, entering the cooking area as instructed.

This particular room made no sense, as technically to exist there would have to be an extension to the tower, which there was not, but regardless, the cooking area was a large modern looking room, with similar iPoddish qualities to it as the reception desk had.

Standing in the middle, was the train driver.  “Greetings friends”, he calmly said.
“You work here?” shouted Colin, surprised at this sudden plot twist.
“Yes, I am in fact…” the Train Driver grabbed the shoulder of his uniform, and somehow pulled off every element of clothing with one swing of the arm, revealing a large red woolly jumper with a big “P” on it, a pair of dark brown trousers and a dark red cape flowing behind from his collar.  “The Pizza Man!”

“Gasp!” yelled Qpzm.
“Oh, don’t you start with the onomatopoeias too” said Ceame in an irritated manner.  The newly revealed Pizza Man walked over to them and took the cheese off Qpzm.
“We shall make a fine Pizza with this!” he said.  He walked over to a large machine, which dispensed a pizza base covered in tomato puree.  He began to grate and scatter the cheese over the pizza.  “Yes, I had to make sure you got here.  I too knew of the prophecy, that only you three could save the Leaning Tower of Pizza from being destroyed.”
“Speaking of prophecies, I need to go find the special message that awaits me!” said Caution, who finally had got tired of his lack of lines in this chapter.

“Ah yes, Caution.  Your message awaits you at the very top of the Leaning Tower of Pizza.  It is a long arduous trek to the top, worthy of only the strongest willed people.”
“I’ll just take the lift.”
“Fair do’s.”
The Pizza Man, now finished with placing the cheese, rather dynamically and coolly threw the Pizza into an oven.  “This will take a while” he said.  “You can go see your message if you like.”
“I agree” said the Pizza Man.
“Wait, who spoke before you?” said Colin confusedly.
“Me, the oven” the oven replied.
“Oh right.  Okay then, let’s go kick the ass of those stairs!” Colin exclaimed extremely excitedly, exiting the room as he did.
“But we’re taking the lift” said Caution.
“Oh yeah…”

The Plot stood outside the Leaning Tower of Pizza.  It had taken a while to get here (well, that’s a lie, it actually took a bus to get here) but finally the Ending was in sight.  The Plot could see the Ending, tied up on a balcony about three quarters the way up the exterior of the building.  The Plot quickly ran into the tower, and observed its surroundings.  It spotted a door high up on one of the internal balconies that appeared to correspond with the location of the balcony on the outside of the building on which the Ending had been spotted.  It ran up the stairs as quickly as possible, as the various customers eating Pizza watched, confused at its apparent hurry.  Finally, the Plot had reached the door it had initially spotted.  It knew this because the door was covered in spots.  It opened the door and saw the Ending lying on the floor.  Unnoticed before however, was a group of large, dark, tall men standing next to it, all dressed up mighty fine, in blue suits and black snappy shoes.

The elevator dinged as it reached its destination and the trio plus one stepped out onto the roof of the tower.  The place was pretty much deserted, aside from a handful of people enjoying the view.  Quite why there was a giant hand up here holding this group of people was quite the perplexing mystery, but nonetheless, it was there.

Already though, one thing had caught Caution’s eye.  Caution screamed in pain, but thankfully there were some doctors within that hand who quickly put it back into his eye-socket.  Quite why it slipped out is anyone’s guess, but it’s a good thing it was caught anyway.  After this, the four walked over to a sign at the other side by the edge of the tower.  “This is it” said Caution.  “This is the sign has my message on!  At long last, I have finally located it!”  They all leaned forward in unison to take a closer look…

…Cliff-hanger!