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“When I find where that stupid koopa has gotten to, I am going to make him swallow his own feet.”

Pheagle emerged from the overturned train car with several loud cracking noises. What was left of the small tourist train car had cracked into pieces. Pheagle brushed graham cracker crumbs out of his feathers as he looked around the area.

The first thing he noticed was that everything seemed to be much more brown, and he had a faint scent of chocolate in the air. Pheagle took several steps around, hoping that there weren’t some kind of devil dogs that would bust him for stepping where he wasn’t supposed to be. After what had happened during that stupid tour, he couldn’t exactly be faulted for walking around to try and find a way out of here.

There was a loud “THUNK”ing noise next to him. Pheagle turned his attention to his right. He nearly jumped when he spotted what was inside the small crater. The eagle immediately looked to the sky, seeing several more bright lights in the night sky. Instinctively covering his head, he started running to get out of the way, looking for shelter.

A lot had happened to lead the Philadelphia eagle into this situation. Pawpy had talked him into going on some three-hour tour into some other dimension. (The fact that it was a three-hour tour was probably a warning flag.) The guys all got into some kind of a train that was made out of graham crackers with oreos for wheels, and it seemed to travel in the air on some kind of a holographic train-track.

Then all of a sudden, the train fell to pieces with them in it. It wasn’t because Pawpy got hungry and started eating the seats (They were probably stale anyways.) It was because of some kind of Konpeito star shower. He remembered it almost too well. Well enough to suddenly have a flashback. But now wasn’t the time – more and more stars were falling from the sky.

Eventually, Pheagle made it under some kind of a building. Just as he expected it was a house made entirely out of candy. However, it actually wasn’t made out of gingerbread like he had expected it to be. It was instead made out of some kind of chocolate, dark chocolate at that. A youth spent listening to fairy tales had taught him better than to try breaking off a piece of the house and start eating it.

The eagle waited, leaning against the house. Maybe there was somebody inside he could speak to and get some kind of help out. Or maybe he could just wait out that star storm before he could spread his wings and catch Pawpy and get payback for all the various things the koopa had done to him all at once. Maybe there was some kind of giant cherry he could beat him with.

Unbeknownst to the bald eagle outside the house, the house he was in was in fact inhabited. The candy witch was busy resting, as soon as there something appeared inside her perpetually bubbling cauldron.

“Haggy… Haggy… HAGGY! HEY! WAKE UP!”

The witch still continued to sleep. Meanwhile back at the castle, King Saccharum put a finger to his chin. He had seen where the eagle had fled to, the house of the candy witch. She seemed to be sleeping – at least, that’s all the unicorn could tell from his view from her cauldron.

“FREE PIE!”

Immediately the witch hopped out of her bed, still in a rather cartoonish nightgown. She immediately pulled her wide-brimmed pointed hat over her head and walked over to the cauldron. It seemed that the king had wanted her attention for something.

“What is it my king, because I shall bring you anythi-“

“You really do not need to rhyme.” The unicorn’s visage said in the bubbling cauldron. “You happen to have a visitor outside.”

“Oooh a visitor, shall I turn this one into a candy treat even if that is no small fea-“

“RHYMING.” Saccharum ordered, “I believe you know what to do… ground him. He has wings.”

“Perfect, I will certainly get him.”

The witch changed into her black dress, and listened for the visitor outside. There was a small thunking noise at the roof. She neared one of the still closed windows and spoke very loudly.  

“Nibble nibble little mouse, who is nibbling at my house?”

Outside, the eagle looked over at the window. He couldn’t see anyone looking back at him. Pheagle just shook his head, maybe whoever was inside the candy cabin was crazy. He certainly knew better than to eat random peoples’ houses, even if they were made out of edible things.

“I said… Nibble nibble little mouse, who is nibbling at my house?” the witch said again.

Pheagle immediately sensed that this was a trap. He simply just stared at the window. He considered turning around, only for a star to land right on the ground right there next to him. Bits of cocoa powder from the ground erupted from the new crater, some clinging to his talons.

The witch got impatient and simply pushed open the shutters. One of them smacked right into Pheagle’s beak. It crumbled to the ground with a small “plop”. The witch looked to her left, then at the eagle in front of her.

Fortunately, he wasn’t hurt from the shutter opening up so rapidly. Chocolate had a tendency to break easily – but even then, it had smacked him right in the face. After pulling his talonized hands away from the face, Pheagle just stared at the candy witch.

And held back laughter. Just as he expected, there was a witch in the house – but he didn’t expect the witch to be wearing a black dress and a pink nighty underneath it. It didn’t even cover her nighty up the whole way! He finally chirped a laugh at the witch.

“Hey! What’s so funny? You broke my shutters! Do you know how expensive it is to get chocolate shutters?”

“I didn’t mean to break them – you opened them up on my beak.”

“Well look at the damage done by the star storm and now that!” The witch said.

Pheagle simply rolled his eyes.

“Listen, I’ll just be leaving now.”

“Not so fast.” The witch said. “Cocoa powder that makes the soil, start wrapping his feet in aluminum foil.”

Just as Pheagle raised his foot to walk away from the crazy witch, he heard some kind of crinkling noise. Then his feet started to feel a little heavy, yet numb. Pheagle put his raised talon back on the ground with a small thud. He tried to bend his toes, only to find that they didn’t respond to his commands.

All he could see was that his feet up to his lower feathers were wrapped in some kind of aluminum foil. It looked almost golden, like what you would see in a pack of rolos. He lifted his numb and stiff foot again, trying to find out just what the heck that witch had done to him.

Out of bile curiosity, Pheagle pulled at some of the foil surrounding his foot. His beak dropped nearly fell to the ground the second he saw what was underneath. No, it couldn’t be. Careful not to scrape himself, he gently stroked his ankle with a finger. He still felt his finger against his skin, but it didn’t feel like skin. It felt like something much more smooth. Like chocolate.

“You can’t walk out now!” The witch nagged.

Pheagle immediately turned around, somehow maneuvering on his stiff feet. The witch smiled once more, as she held her hands out to the eagle. All of a sudden, he felt himself stiffened just a little bit.

“This shall keep you from escaping. Coming up from the cocoa soil, cover up his legs and his tail with foil!”

Then, he felt the squirming around his waist and below. Pheagle struggled against this strange sensation, only to find that he was completely stiff from the waist down. He glanced down at his feathery legs – now, they were completely encased in foil. And he knew just what was happening underneath that foil. He pulled his arm, curled his talonized hand into a punch, and then threw it at the witch.

She actually held out a finger, somehow stopping the punch dead in its tracks. The last thing he felt before it went into that strange callous like sensation was his fingers locking up, keeping them in a fist. His forearm felt surprisingly stiff, yet limp. He tried shaking his arm – somehow that strange chocolate was attached to his body, and thankfully didn’t flop around or break off. (That would have been horrifying.)

“It’s funny when they struggle. Cover up BOTH his arms and his wings!”

Pheagle didn’t even have a chance to spread his wings before the foil encased them. His entire right arm went numb, then his left. Pheagle couldn’t even close his fingers on his left talon. His elbow had locked into place – he couldn’t even bring his hand up to his face just to survey the damage. He was trapped in front of the witch, essentially only able to stare forward at her.

His heart raced, stomach churned. This was surprisingly grotesque, he didn’t’ think he’d feel this unless he went on a sugar rush chasing a candy football around. The witch simply smiled, before climbing out the window and standing in front of him, bringing her hand over his football jersey.

Pheagle wanted to shy away from her touch, yet his wings and the stiffness of his appendages didn’t let him do it. His heartbeat started to slow down, as foil covered his entire abdomen. He tried harder and harder to take a breath, accidentally chirping a few sounds of alarm. His lungs were being constricted by this chocolate shell! No wonder he couldn’t move – it wasn’t a chocolate exoskeleton after all.

The football player waited for death, yet it didn’t come. His world didn’t go dark, he felt himself unable to breathe. And yet he didn’t asphyxiate. He didn’t die, some kind of magic was keeping his head alive. The witch simply smiled, stroking over the eagle’s beak.

“You’ll still be able to see and hear… once someone removes the foil from your body. YEEE HEEE HEE HEE HEE HEE HEE!” The witch cackled.

Pheagle’s beak was squeezed shut by the encroaching foil. It wrapped all around his head. He didn’t even have the time to shut his eyes before his world seemed to go dark. Pheagle tried with all his might to move… yet he couldn’t. He was stuck in darkness, underneath that candy foil.

“Dark chocolate eagle, I like it.” He heard the muffled voice of the witch say.

Pheagle suddenly felt his rigid body tilting. He was being carried somewhere – but he couldn’t tell where. After what seemed like an eternity, he felt himself standing under his own weight again. He still couldn’t see what was happening. All he could tell was that the witch had said something, then walked away. Now he was stuck – a dark chocolate eagle.

The witch walked into the house, looking right at her bubbly and fizzy cauldron. She gave thumbs up to the unicorn king on the other side.

“Good work, Haggy.” The unicorn said, “We saw your performance. He didn’t even struggle… I certainly hope that the fat one or the moth comes across the eagle.”

“Do I have to turn them into chocolate, too?”

“Nah, we have… plans for them.” The unicorn said.