What the Nellie?!? [AO Only]

[Nellietopia]

At once, the core of 1.2 billion nellies arose from their habitual 45,906 days of hibernation. Of course, when they came out from their burrows, they were surprised to find out that not only were they not in Nellietopia, they had all somehow decided to burrow about 4 centimeters deep into a 16-hectare plod of dirt floating in the middle of some forbidden ocean in the middle of nowhere.

They hissed to one another.

"Well, that just about sucks it raw."
"That's the last time I go to sleep."
"I don't think we're in Kansas anymore."

The various responses were so varied that I could write a long list of them instead of detail what they decided to do. The Supreme Leader of the Nellies hissed his kin to heed his calls. "Don't panic! We've been in lots of worse situations before, and the last thing we need to do is to make things worse by panicking."

"Did he just say 'start panicking'?"
"When should we start panicking?"
"I don't think I'm appropriately dressed for panicking!"
"Why panic when you go hysterical?"

"We are NOT panicking. Just to make that clear. What we are going to do is to ask for some good help around here." And with that minor crisis averted, the Nellies called upon AFLAC to rendezvous with the floating colony. The Duck (he changed his name because "Guard" didn't seem too stately) pulled out a map and pointed at a big blob in the middle of the Sea. "This is where you are." He pointed at another point, less blobby and less middle of the Sea. "This is where you should be. Somehow, you guys were shoveled out of the ground and put into this nice little raft set aloft for as long as you have been to eventually settled on the shores of Rushmore somewhere. Of course, these currents will never take you there in time, more likely to pull you into the Nullibi Currents, which basically are a set of circular currents where you spend eternity in limbo before the alternating currents spill you out of them. Anyway... we can current a drift on the Snorth Currents which should take us back to Atlantian Oceania in no time. And then we can prepare for the invasion of those nasty sobs who stole our land."

"No..." the Leader hissed. "I smell an opportunity."

The Duck shrugged his shoulders. "I smell Goose poo, but that's probably the Bovine Geese Corps. The ganders are restless without a fight. I say invade."

"And I say we take some other land and start anew."

"Why not invade them both?" the Duck suggested, in a twisted sort of compromise. "Start up a new empire."

"No. No empire. That's the last thing we need. Do you know how hard it is to copulate?"

"I'd rather not."

The Supreme Leader of the Nellies took a glance at the map laid out and pointed at a spot on the map, not to far from the Nellietopian homeland. "This plot of land is sufficient for us."

"But... no one occupies that land," the Duck mused. "What's the point of invading it?"

"We'll invade it because we want it," the Leader said, tired of the "invasion" conversation. He decided to turn it into another opportunity. "I need you to get the Bovine Goose Corps prepared for an aerial assault. Have your scouts prepare ideal marine assault locations for the Nellies to begin Operation: Colonize!"

The Duck gave the Leader a big squinting eye. "You're trying to make me look like a fool by invading a land empty of threats or enemies?"

"Absolutely not. In fact, we're on the attack against... erm... Kittens!"

"Kittens?"

"Yes, super secret ninja kittens, armed to the teeth with... frying pans and... bookmarks!"

The Duck nodded. "I can understand frying pans, but bookmarks?"

"The worst thing you can do to a Nellie!"

"Alright, ninja kittens armed with frying pans and bookmarks. We'll set course today." The Duck quacked his orders to the Bovine Geese, whose squawked into action, while the rest of the AFLAC forces assembled for roll call and final preparations to invade the island. The Supreme Leader of the Nellies was excited to have this second chance to try this government thing. Maybe this time will be different...

[Nellietopia]

"...AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!"


This was not a normal way to start the day. The Supreme Leader of the Nellies awoke from a terrible terrors in his sleep, such that it shook his faith in the very fabric of reality (or whatever is the appropriate equivalent. He glanced over at the nearest nellies and pinched them. At first the moans seemed to confirm his nightmarish dreams before they groaned some responses: "What was that for?"

The Supreme Leader heaved a sigh of relief. "Nothing... I just thought that... maybe... nothing, it was nothing..." Clearly, they were acting like normal nellies and not like... not normal nellies. He numbed away those thoughts of ethereal fantasy and focused on what was real. The "invasion" was scheduled for the next day, and even though the Bovine Goose Corps could not locate any of the "enemy" kittens, he had told AFLAC to look hard for them. "They'll be hiding in the shadows. Remember, these are super secret ninja kittens. If the super secret didn't give you a clue, then the ninja should" - he had thus told them.

He reconnoitered with Guard Duck, finalizing plans. Evidently, he too was startled by the Supreme Leader's cautious approach. "GAH! ZOMBIES!" It took a quite deflection of a single arm to throw off the bazooka that the Duck had just pulled from nowhere (literally). The two of them were on edge for moments after that before finally the Leader resurfaced back to reality. "I suppose you've been having tremors as well."

"I just had this funny feeling that the whole world was filled with zombies because some stupid git forgot to wipe his hands. And now we're left fending off the zombie apocalypse."

"Weird... me too, oddly. Did you find the cure in time?"

"No, ran out of bullets."

It was an unfortunate way to end the conversation, but the Supreme Leader had other, more pressing matters to attend to. "So, the invasion is tomorrow. Are all plans set?"

"Yes, sir," the Duck replied. "I've got the aerial team set to soften our approach. Then we'll send in the wombats to tackle any kittens that survive the blast, before we let in the ground invasion of the nellies."

"And please tell me what you are going to use to 'soften' the approach?" The Leader prayed that it was going to be something innocuous.

"Fabric softener, actually."

Totally non-sequitor. The Leader winced at that.

"A crack team of researchers discovered that the easiest way to neutralize the threat posed by super secret ninja kittens armed with frying pans and bookmarks is using fabric softener. Not sure how or why, but that's research. So tomorrow, the Bovine Corps is going to dive bomb the beach with fabric softener. Once their fur becomes uncontrollably irresistible, we'll unleash our next secret weapon against them: cat-nip."

"This isn't exactly making much sense, General..."

"No worries, if both part A and part B don't work, we have a fail-safe part C." The Duck pointed at a gray remote pad with a single big red button.

"What does that do?"

"It's a big red button. What else does it do?"

[Nellietopia]

The sun rose on the day of the invasion. Clouds obscured the view completely, but I'm pretty sure it would have been spectacular to observe. Nothing looks quite as remarkable as the sun rising, its radiant colors flooding the sky rich with fiery tones and the hint of a light verdure ray emanating from the source, the bright orb rising splendidly and slowly as its warmth penetrates deep into the atmosphere with its full spectrum of brilliance. Sleepy eyes greet the dawn with eager anticipation for the day's events yet to follow.

Of course, since it was cloudy, there wasn't any bit of that.

The hordes of stinging nellies lined up in endless rows aboard the raft. The geese were lined up in an infinite array of sorties, ready to dive into enemy airspace. The wombats were ready, the llamas were set, and everything about the wallabies said "GO!" In the end, the only thing that the Supreme Leader of the Nellies was worried about was that big red button that the Duck had previously shown him. What does it do? Would it end all life as we know it if it were activated? Why was it big and red? Such questions pressed the Supreme Leader, even to the moment when the invasion actually began.

They had feedback for every single moment. "Bovine Geese Corps reports no super secret ninja kitten action, neither frying pans nor bookmarks to spy from afar. All quiet on the cistern front."

"Okay, that's enough..."

"We're waiting for your final word to begin the invasion, Supreme Leader."

The order beckoned.

"Seize the island!"

In an instant, the geese swarmed over the island. The wombats rolled out and swept the beaches. The wallabies secured the fronts. The llamas spat. And a wave of purpure nellies stormed behind. The only thing that the Duck could say at length - "Where are the %$#^ing kittens?!?"

The Supreme Leader shrugged all eight of his analogous shoulders. "I haven't the faintest clue."

[Nellietopia]

On the sixth day, the island was virtually secured. Nothing in the way could prevent the new home of the Nellies from being established. The Duck was really sad that there weren't any super-secret ninjas with frying pans and bookmarks, but the Supreme Leader of the Nellies offered an ingenious suggestion to say why there weren't any kittens on the island (which won't be shared here for the sake of brevity).

And so the great commission of building anew the great cities of Nellietopia and homes for all of AFLAC. The capital city of Nellietopolis was born anew with purple silk adorning the great buildings and structures of the metropolitan area. And a new radical idea - a super highway for all of the Nellies to traverse upon - the Silky Way. This great highway would extend to all of the minor cities, lower counties, and other communities of the entire country. After all, it was hard to travel on foot all of the time, even if most nellies had 8 legs. And soon enough, there would be enough infrastructure set-up for the cartography guilds to beginning mapping out areas where nellies were choosing to congregate - the thick, damp marshes of the island were a hospitable home for all of the nellies.

Except for one little spot on the map. It seems that in the middle of this island, there arose a spattering of hills and mountains, which wasn't entirely inhospitable, but only just so slightly harder to navigate through. And then came some reports...

"Creatures unlike any that we've seen?!?" the Leader cried. It was an unusual report to bring to the Supreme Leader, especially in the middle of a finance briefing (the Nellie Scout Cookies were selling hot). The little messenger backed away and escaped the briefing room. Immediately, the Duck's interest was piqued.

"Could this be the hide-out of super-secret ninja kittens with frying pans and bookmarks that we've been looking for?" the Duck said.

"Absolutely not," the Supreme Leader replied, still infuriated. "If it were kittens, it would say kittens." Still, there was no doubting that "creatures unlike any that we've seen" required some extra attention, and the Duck's eagerness provided an opportunity to defuse the situation. "Perhaps, this is a task that AFLAC should take over, because we need to ensure the territorial security of the new homeland?"

"Absolutely, we'll started immediately." At that, the Duck pulled out his big red button. The Nellies in the room universally lunged forward to stop the Duck from pressing the button, but it was a little too late.

[Nellietopia]

Of course, the big red button didn't do much beside summon AFLAC for an emergency meeting. The nellies in Council were all relieved to learn that, but that prompted other questions. "How many big red buttons do you have?"

"This one is number 44," the Duck replied.

The Supreme Leader sighed. "Eh, how do you know which one you're using?"

The Duck shrugged. "I've never been wrong, so far."

The nellies collectively facepalmed (without palms... maybe facepodded?) as the Supreme Leader tried to put a scolding turn on the conversation without upsetting the Duck. "You should really label those things."

"No time, we've got to figure out what's going out in those hills over there!" And with that, the Duck took to flight with the Bovine Goose Corps. That left the nellies with the Wombats, and it was on these occasions that the nellies remembered that Wombats eat nellies. In the next moment, the Supreme Leader banged the gavel and yelled out, "Meeting adourned!" just as the nellies scattered away before the Wombats got too hungry.

[Nellietopia]

[been on a long hiatus... story resurrected with intent to finish quickly]

The hills weren't a particularly big feature. But they were significant enough that the marshes that made up much of the island didn't seem to penetrate far into them. And the few places where the earth actually carved up into the sky, exposed rocks made it difficult for any vegetation to grow. Of course, that made it equally difficult for any landings, but that did not stop the Corps from doing their duty. It was a hard crash for the first few, but the others that followed easily adjusted their paths and filtered out into the difficult terrain, with the wombats and weasels closely following.

The rocky hills were easy to pierce with eagle eyes, but the wooded terrain needed some more exploration. The wombats patrolled the area near the edges searching for any clues to the disturbances. But the farther they looked, the less they found. The woods were deep - too deep for any reasonable cause of the disturbance. Hardly a living thing crawled there. There were even clues to previous nellie habitations that had either been abandoned or evacuated even. But what was the cause?

As it turned out, the cause would soon appear.

Because the place that they had ignored - the rocks that eagles' eyes would pierce - was not completely barren. For it was not what was on top of the rocks that mattered (there was nothing), it was what lied beneath.

"Commander! The hills... they're alive!"

And the only sounds that could permeate the great distance from the hills to the command thereafter was the ominous bleat - "baaaaah..."

[Nellietopia]

"Baah?" The Supreme Leader was a bit perplexed.

"Yes, 'baah'." The Duck was only slightly more in-character with the characterization of his bleat. "It's something that I've long suspected."

"Suspected?"
"Long?"
"Something?"
The Duck's quizzical suppositions sparked murmurs from the Nellies who could only speculate what the Duck was really thinking. The Supreme Leader was less impressed. "Well, what do you think it is?"

"It must be worse than we feared," the Duck answered. "Those super-secret ninja kittens with frying pans and bookmarks must have been tipped off about our invasion plans, so they quietly retreated to the rocky hills to hide away in the caves, giving us a false sense of security. And after they retreated to the mountain fortress, they aligned themselves with the only thing worse than frying pans: sheeps on ships."

"Sheep on ships?" the Supreme Leader restated. It sounded funny even when he said it. "I don't mean to cast aspersions on your hypothetical situation, but would there need to be water for there to be ships? I guess I can get the sheep part though..."

"That's just why it's so wicked!" the Duck replied. "They're thinking that just because we're on land and they're at sea, that they can't hurt us, but they're wrong! They can hurt us. And we'll need to strike back hard and strong. If we're to survive this affront to our new glorious homeland, we'll need to drive those stupid rams back into the sea!"

And with that, the Duck pulled out another big red button and pressed it just as quickly.

[Nellietopia]

The atmosphere in the tent was tense. Geese lined the entrance as the little wombats and mongooses awaited the news directly from the top. Nerves ran rampant as the Duck slowly walked into the tent. After the latest revelations about the ninja kittens and the sheeps on ships, even the Nellies (who had originally concocted the whole scenario) were convinced of the threat.

"Critters!" the Duck quacked. "We are assembled to get rid of the one threat that really threatens our existence as a peaceable society with respect for the rule of law. Or at least the ones that want to think that way. So we're going into those hills, and we're going to flush out the enemies of our great society!"

Honks and shrieks cried out in roaring applause.

"And I have the instrument of our victory!"

With that said, a team of geese marched in, carrying atop their wings a gigantic pole. They continued to pull it into the vacuous tent amid the cheers until at last they reached the end - a large rubber dome. The Duck continued his great inspirational speech. "There's only one way to flush out ninja kittens with frying pans and bookmarks, allied with sheeps on ships."

A hushed murmur rang through the crowd. "A giant plunger?..."

[Nellietopia]

"Heave!" With that command, AFLAC forces lifted the giant plunger into place. It was settled atop the rocky craggs that hid the many networks of caves and tunnels. The other exits were carefully blocked so that any escaping attackers would be met with hostile force. The Duck quacked happily. "It's time to send those %$#^ing sheeps on their %$#^ing ships to the bottom of the %$#^ing sea."

He quacked the command. "PUSH!"

The Bovine Geese depressed the plunger and a rush of air flew in every direction. The plunger slowly rose, an in-rush of air filling the space between the rubber dome. Attentive ears waited for the sound. "baaaaaah..."

The Duck became incensed. He knew that his plan was working. "PUSH AGAIN!" The plunger fell again, with an even greater rush of air. The suction on this attack was so great that the wind blew everyone nearby - the Duck included - away. As the plunger rose again, a cacophony of exasperated bleats accompanied the shrill sound the of the rushing air.

"They're on the run!" the Duck cried. "Push it once more!"

"No! Stop!" From under the rubber dome, a weary band of ungulates emerged, waving a white flag. Of course, this confused the standing geese, who confused the white flag of the ungulates for something else and rushed wings flapping into attack. The ungulates rightly stood their ground, lowered their heads, and head butted the attacking geese.

"That doesn't seem the type of thing a sheep on a ship would do," the Duck remarked.

"Sheeps on ships?" the flag-bearer said. "We're goats on boats! Get your facts straight!"

The Duck nodded. "As it would seem." He brushed his bill with his wing, as scratching his non-existent chin with his non-existent fingers. "So what brings you to our fair island, and where are those ninja kittens with frying pans and bookmarks?"

"Your island?" the goat replied. "I believe you mean our island. It was ours before your critters decided to swarm it and make a big mess. I mean, what is up with the purple spiders in the first place?"

"Don't test my patience," the Duck said. "Just because you've got a white flag doesn't mean we're going to treat you hospitably for too long."

"Well, at the very least, can we have a little talk about what you're doing? We can be reasonable, no?"

The Duck continued to brush his bill. "Reasonable? You mean like, no fighting? What's the fun in that?"

The goats bleated. "We could just go back to our boats and make your lives uncomfortable."

"No, no!" At that moment, the Head of the Conclave of the Nellies slowly descended on the scene, hanging to the rocks with a thin thread of purple silk. "We can talk."

[Nellietopia]

In the slightly distant future...

"... so what happened next?"

The Duck regaled the kids with the events of the time over a drink of Nellie Scout Juice (which isn't actually juice per se...). The Duck clearly reserved a lot of misplaced feelings about the whole episode in Nellietopian history. He turned to the kids and recounted the whole of the anticlimactic conclusion. "Well, the Nellies in their Conclave decided to tell the whole story. The invasion of the island was a farce, and in fact there were no super secret ninja kittens with frying pans and bookmarks. There were no sheeps on ships. There were only goats on boats, and given their critter nature, it was agreed to integrate them as well in our miltary corps. And so the conquest of Nellietopia was complete without so much of a conquest in the first place."

The Duck swilled the last remnants of his drink while the kids reflected very pensively, as kids do. "Wow, that must have been so amazing!"

The Duck shrugged a wing. "Not so much. The AFLAC lives for the glory of the Corps, and quite frankly, the mere idea that we were duped into invading an island that had no hostile population was a bit deflating. But I can see the logic in securing ourselves a new homeland. There were, in fact, developments, however, that led to us looking back fondly on that home from which we were left stranded upon that raft..."

In the present-day

The peaceable resolution of that episode was a good thing in some ways. Goats on boats seemed to be the logical step in the development of the Nellietopian naval forces in AFLAC. And goats could bleat better than sheeps. But the Duck lamented the lack of combat. All of the lost geese were promptly returned to their units ceremoniously, and the only casualties came from a wee wombat getting a splitter. That's not war!

But the Duck looked at the map quite often, and reasoned to himself. "Why not reclaim the homeland?"

The Supreme Leader of the Nellies looked at the map. "Why? We were banished."

"Well, by whom?"

"We don't know."

The Duck tipped his bill. "Well, why not fight to reclaim the homeland from those homeland-uprooting usurpers?"

"We're not interested in a fight," the Nellie replied. "We're just still trying to piece together something of a semblance of government, of a society worth mentioning to other societies."

"Who cares about them?"

"Well, if we wish to be taken seriously - perhaps in the noble ventures of war and peace? - then we'll need to have a strong society. Sometimes, your bellicose habits get in the way of thinking rationally."

The Duck took offense to that remark. "I think fine. You're missing the opportunity for something else. As long as there's something out there that can usurp our lands, we'll be forced to uproot ourselves and move on to some other hapless territory. And while I'm happy to be going out conquering lands, I can't help shake off the idea that there's something that comes behind us and decides to play little jokes with us. Do you want to spend the rest of your life living off rafts and picking up the scruffs of land that we merely happen to find?"

The Supreme Leader of the Nellies suddenly saw the flash of reason in the Duck's desires. He nodded. "Well, in that case, it is a threat to our security. It will need some time to deliberate."

The Duck nodded. "You seem to think that I can't think of our interests, but I'm not completely insane."

"So it is proven."

The Duck put down a folder atop the map on the table, turning to face it towards the Supreme Leader. "I've had the liberty to plan this out. Please share this plan with the Conclave and I look forward to protecting our kind from these faceless, upstarting, usurpers."

The Supreme Leader glanced at the folder, reaching forward with his large pedipalps. He looked through the contents quickly and read the label upon the tab - "OPERATION: HOMELAND". He nodded once more. "I will see this done."

[Nellietopia]

The marshes of Archaenellietopolis were deep and dark and muddy. And the goats couldn't stop bleating - after thirty-two hours limbering on an old boat down the marshy river, nearly everyone else had gotten tired of the %$#^ bleats. The geese were the most agitated, such to an extent that the next very bleat would have sent the birds stammering across the deck.

"Bah, bah, black boat, have you any milk? Bah, bah, black boat, tastes like silk. Bah, bah, baaaaah - bah, bah baaaaah..."

The geese started to honk back. "Would you cut it out?!?"

"But you can't be on a boat and not sing a sea shanty!" the goats replied.

"But we're on the river!"

"Alright, then it's a river shanty."

"HOOOOOOOOOOOOONK!" And then the birds began to fly away.

To be fair, I'm not sure if there was a conversation at all, but given that everything else has been a skewed conversation of sorts (and this story makes no sense otherwise without any context of language and communication), we'll assume that that's what they said. In any event, the geese flew off, tolerating little more of the goats' bleats. The rest of the animals were stuck on board, either to swim in unsafe waters or to flail their limbs in vain hope of flying away. Some of the animals resorted to equally futile yet slightly effective task of shaving a portion of the fuzzy llamas on board and making some haphazard ear muffs (lacking obviously any supply of Nellie Scout Mufflers - the perfect muffler to muffle anything).

Duck's voice came through loudly on the radio. "Do you see anything of note?"

The wombats answered. "It's impossible to see. If it's not old crumbling webs or tall limbering trees, it's the damned goats bleating all day and all night. No one's had any rest since we passed the sandy shores of the Calanian desert. In fact, the geese just abandoned ship."

"The what? Tell them to get back on the boat!"

"They won't," the wombat chided. "I won't blame them either."

The geese honked back - "We're performing aerial reconnaissance, and ... I don't think you're going to like what we see..."