Roxas Pan: Redux Ch. 1

We open at a view of the starry night sky above Stardon, with the second star from the right shining the brightest.

The camera leads us to a row of brownstone apartments, and one of them has its windows lit.

In the master bedroom, we see a red-headed woman with a pointy nose wearing a bright blue gown and fixing her hair in front of the mirror.

"Gru, hurry up!" Lucy called out to someone. "We don't wanna be late for the party!"

Digging through some drawers was a tall, bald man wearing a halfway-done tuxedo. His name was Gru.

"Lucy, if I can't find my cufflinks, we're not going to the party!" Gru yelled back as he shifted through a drawer of shirts. "If we don't go to the party, I'll never show my face in front of Mr. Sheepsbutt again!" In his frustration, he bumped his head on an open drawer above his head.

In the upstairs nursery, we see three girls playing. The first had glasses, brown hair, and a gray coat over a raglan nightshirt. She carried a clothes hanger in one hand and a wooden sword in the other. Her name was Margot.

Standing on a drawer, the second girl wore her black hair in a ponytail and pink unicorn footsies. She was also carrying a wooden sword like her sister. Her name was Agnes.

Nearby, the third girl wore a pink stocking cap over her blonde hair, and she wore a black cloak with too-long sleeves over her pajamas. Her name was Edith.

"Blast you, Roxas Pan!" Margot yelled as she lunged her sword at Agnes.

Agnes locked her sword with Margot's as she demanded, "Give up, Monty! Give up!"

Margot opened the drawer under Agnes' feet, making her fall into it. "Never! I'll teach you to cut off my hand!"

Edith tapped her toes impatiently as she said, "Yeah, that's cool and all, but when does the Boogeyman get to eat?!"

"We're getting right to it," Agnes answered.

At that moment, a teenage girl with blonde hair and a white nightgown came by. Her name was Namine.

"Margot, it was the left hand," Namine told her when she found her sister.

"Oh yeah!" Margot realized, then she switched her hanger and sword between hands. "Thanks, Namine!" She continued her play fight with Agnes.

As she went down a hallway, Namine asked someone, "Boys, do we really have to take that tonic?" She continued down the hall while a couple of figures came into the nursery.

Carrying a tray with medicine on his head with a big orange cat wearing a purple shirt. With him was a brown mouse wearing a blue/black cap, a red shirt with too-long sleeves, and blue pants. Their names were Tiger and Fievel respectively.

"We do not!" Tiger responded.

When Tiger arrived at a table, Fievel carefully pushed the tray off of his head and placed it on the table. "Got it, Tiger!"

"Now, to straighten things up," Tiger said. He picked up some pillows and headed for the beds, where the girls were still playing.

"Ya big flying wussy, I'll cut you into nothing!!" Margot shouted as she jumped off her bed and followed Agnes to another. Edith followed them on foot.

"And I'll cut you to pieces!" Agnes responded.

Fievel jumped onto the bed and tugged on one end of the sheets while Tiger pulled on the other.

Offscreen, Margot said, "Careful, Agnes! You almost knocked my glasses off!"

"Sorry, Margot," Agnes apologized.

Right after Tiger and Fievel had made up the bed, Margot and Agnes jumped right back onto it.

"You'll never leave the ship alive!" Margot shouted.

"Oh yes, I will!" Agnes shot back. "Take that!" She lunged her sword at Margot.

Meanwhile, Tiger had finished up a castle made of blocks, and he was about to leave when Fievel realized that the ABC blocks spelled BAC. He quickly fixed them and returned to Tiger. The two went over to the table to get the medicine ready.

Back to the girls...

"C'mere, you coward!" Margot shouted as she went after Agnes. "I'll slit your gizzard!"

"Not tonight, brotha!" Agnes yelled, then she lunged her sword at Margot. "Back, back, you villain!"

"Fraidy cat!"

"Stupid pirate!"

Tiger was distracted by the girls' playing that he ended up pouring some medicine on his paw. When he saw what he had done, he held it in front of Fievel. "You try it."

"No, you try it," Fievel responded, holding up his hands.

With a nervous nod, Tiger licked his paw and recoiled. "Yech! No wonder the kids hate this stuff!" he said while Fievel giggled.

Meanwhile, Agnes and Margot were nearing the end of their battle. "Take that!" Agnes said, lunging her sword at Margot. "Take that! And that!" She placed it underneath Margot's arm, and Margot fell to where Edith waited.

Right at that moment, Gru came in. "Girls, settle down, please!" He walked right through Tiger and Fievel's block castle, catching the duo's attention.

"Here we go again," Tiger muttered, then he and Fievel went over to the blocks.

"Oh, hey, Dad," Margot said casually while Edith was biting on her leg hungrily.

Thinking that they're still playing, Agnes shouted at Margot, "You ol' dirty rat!"

When he heard that, Gru jumped to attention. "What?! Agnes, what was that for?!"

"Oh, she wasn't talking to you," Margot began to explain. "She's Roxas Pan..."

"...and Margot's Captain Montana Max," Agnes finished.

"Then what's Edith doing?" Gru asked. He pointed at Edith as she continued to gnaw on Margot's leg.

"Oh, she's the Boogeyman," Margot told him. She said to Edith, "Okay, you can stop biting now."

"Sorry," Edith apologized. She stepped away from Margot.

Gru nodded as he continued to search through some drawers. "I see. Have you seen my-" He stepped on Tiger's tail, sending him flying into his halfway-done block castle. "Tiger!" He went off. "Where are those cufflinks?!"

Tiger found Fievel under a block and asked, "You okay, Fief?"

"Yeah," Fievel responded with a thumbs up. He and Tiger continued to fix their block castle.

Margot got back on her feet and asked, "Cufflinks, Dad?"

"Yes, the gold ones," Gru answered.

Hearing this, Margot turned to her sisters and whispered, "Girls, the buried treasure! Where is it?"

"I don't know," Agnes said with a shrug.

"Me neither," Edith added.

"Okay...where's the treasure map?" Margot questioned.

"It got lost, maybe?" Agnes answered.

The girls whirled around when they heard Gru yell, "Cripes! My shirtfront!" He was holding up his shirtfront, which had a map drawn on it.

Cheering, Agnes ran over to Gru. "Yay! You found it! You found it!"

"Yes, I did, and don't pull on me, Agnes!" Gru shouted when Agnes started pulling it off of him. "This is my last cl-" The shirtfront popped up and came into his face. Distressed by the map as it is, Gru pushed it down with a moan.

Lucy came right in. "Gru, what are you doing? We're gonna be-"

"Lucy, look!" Gru ordered, pointing at his shirtfront.

Lucy turned and found the map on Gru's shirtfront. "Gru!"

"It's only chalk, Mommy," Agnes told her.

"Agnes, why?" Lucy asked.

"It's not her fault," Margot said. "It's in that story Namine told us, and-"

Gru's head perked up when he heard the words "Namine" and "story." "Ha! I should've known!" He poked his head into the hallway and yelled, "NAMINE!"

Namine arrived at the nursery in a second. "Yes, Dad?"

"Would you please-" Gru began, but Namine ran over to her mother.

"Mom, your dress looks lovely!" Namine complimented.

"Thanks, Namine!" Lucy said. "I was worried that it wouldn't work for my figure, but I guess it did after all!"

"Lucy, I hate to break up the girl-to-girl chat, but I'm trying to talk to Namine!" Gru told her.

Namine found Gru's shirtfront and asked, "Dad, why did you color on your shirt?"

"Why did I..." Frustrated, Gru pulled on his face and groaned.

Lucy took a wet cloth and rubbed the map clean off the shirtfront. "Calm down, Gru. See? It comes right off."

"But-but that's no excuse!" Gru stammered. He grew stern and told Namine, "Namine, haven't I warned you about stuffing the girls' heads with all this nonsense?!"

"But it's not!" Namine protested.

"It most certainly is! Captain Chicken Pox! Roxas Pirate!"

"Roxas Pan," Namine corrected as she put some toys away.

"Pan! Pirate! NONSENSE!" While the kids protested, Gru continued, "Absolute nonsense!" He started to make a bow tie, only to make a mad tangle.

"Now, Gru..." Lucy tried to say.

"Now, Gru...now, Gru..." a frustrated Gru mocked. "Now Gru will have his say!"

Lucy fixed his bow tie. "Calm down."

"Lucy, Namine's growing up. It's about time she has a room of her own!"

Everyone in the room was horrified. "Dad!" Namine yelled.

"Gru!" Lucy yelled.

"What?!" Margot and Edith shouted.

"No!" Agnes cried. Tiger and Fievel dropped their blocks in shock.

"I mean it!" Gru yelled, his voice rising. "Young lady, this is your last night in the nursery! And this is my last word on the-" He stepped on Tiger's tail again, and he began to stumble. Tiger managed to stop in front of the newly-rebuilt block castle, but Gru knocked him right into it again. Tiger and Fievel ran out of Gru's way.

Gru stumbled into a toy wagon and careened crazily around the room. The wagon's handle put a stop to the wild ride, and Gru flew right into a drawer. Tiger and Fievel crashed into a wall.

After a moment of calm, the family said in unison, "Awww..." Gru smiled weakly, but it was quickly replaced with a look of bewilderment when the family ran right over to Tiger and Fievel.

"Poor Tiger and Fievel!" the family said. Agnes petted Tiger and Fievel's heads.

"Poor Tiger and Fievel?!" Gru repeated in disbelief. Mad, he jumped back onto his feet. "This is the last straw! Out you go!"

Agnes hugged Tiger and Fievel. "No, Daddy, no!"

"I'm sorry, but there'll be no more pets for nursemaids in this house!" Gru shouted as he dragged Tiger out of the room. Fievel rode on his friend's tail.

Lucy picked up Agnes, who sadly waved at her pets. "Goodbye, boys."

"Bye, kid," Tiger responded as Gru took him and Fievel down the stairs.

While he dragged Tiger and Fievel to the backyard, Gru muttered, "Poor Tiger...poor Fievel...but poor Daddy? Nope!" Once they were in the yard, Gru searched for a rope. "Where is that rope?"

"Found it," Fievel said, holding up a rope.

"Oh, thanks," Gru said. He took the rope and tied it around Tiger's neck. With a sigh, he told the two, "Don't take it so personally, you two. It's just that you're not really a couple of nursemaids. You're well...a cat and a mouse." He fixed a bowl of water for Tiger. "The kids aren't kittens, they're people. And someday in their lives, people have to grow up."

***

In the nursery...

When Namine got into bed, she protested, "But Mom, I don't want to grow up!"

"Don't worry about it, Namine," Lucy said. "It's time to go to sleep."

Margot sat up in her bed, her gray coat off of her nightclothes. "I can't believe he called Roxas Pan nonsense!" Edith nodded in agreement as she took off her black cloak and hopped right into bed.

"He didn't really mean it," Lucy told her. "Your dad is just stressed out of his skull, that's all."

Agnes was still crying over Tiger and Fievel. "Poor guys! Out there all alone!"

Dabbing Agnes' eyes with a tissue, Lucy said, "Don't cry for them, Agnes. It's a warm night, so they're gonna be just fine. Okay?"

Agnes nodded, then she felt something under her pillow. "Oh Mommy?"

"What is it?" Lucy asked.

"I found the buried treasure," Agnes told her, holding up Gru's cufflinks.

Taking the cufflinks, Lucy told the girls, "Girls, don't judge your dad too harshly. He loves you very much." She was about to close the window, but Namine stopped her.

"Wait, he might come back!" Namine told Lucy.

Lucy gave Namine a questioning look. "He?"

"Roxas Pan. A couple of nights ago, I found something of his."

"What's that?"

"His shadow..."

"Shadow?" Lucy blinked in surprise.

"Tiger had it, and I took it away..." Namine explained as she drifted off to sleep.

Lucy nodded, then she turned off the lights. "Good night, girls. We'll be home soon." She left the nursery to catch up to Gru.