The Penultimate Solution

Chapter 1

All was quiet in the forest as the Smurfs were fast asleep in their mushroom houses. A full moon shone down on their village, bathing everything in it's silvery light.

Not a creature was stirring and every smurf was fast asleep, apart from Papa Smurf who had woken up with a start and could not get back to sleep.

"Oh, this is no good," he said to himself. "What is smurfing, why do I have such a feeling of foreboding? I've just got to get some sleep and try and figure this out in the morning."

Eventually, he managed to doze off, but it was not a restful sleep.

The same silvery light shone through Gargamel's thin curtains into his bedroom and he was tossing and turning fitfully in his bed. This was disturbing Azreal who thought that the had found a nice warm spot at the foot of the bed.

The cat jumped up to the shelf above the bed and gave his owner an angry glare. How dare he disturb his sleep.

Now Gargamel was starting to mutter in his sleep "I'll get you rotten Smurfs! Humph, you won't get away this time!" This was yet another futile chasing dream and he always hated the nightmarish endings.

Azreal had enough of all the noise and jumped down off the shelf and went to find a quieter spot far away from his master. He soon found a nice spot by the fire and settled down.

After a while, even Gargamel grew less noisy and settled down into a deep sleep. He then had the best dream ever, the dream he had been wishing for all his life, the dream that would give him the solution to his blue nightmare, the solution about how to destroy the Smurfs forever!

He did not stop smiling to himself all through the rest of the night.

A few hours later dawn was breaking, Greedy as usual, was the very first smurf to be up even before the dawn. He had been busy preparing breakfast as he always did everyday of the year.

There was a knock at the door and Brainy walked in attracted by the lovely smell coming from Greedy's house. "Hi Greedy, what's for breakfast?"

"Oh, hi Brainy" said Greedy "Just the usual, I'm just making sure everything tastes just smurfy. Tell you what Brainy, can you call every smurf to breakfast for me?"

"No problem Greedy" answered Brainy, "As I always say, you can't start work on an empty belly."

Meanwhile in Gargamel's hovel:

"That's it Azreal!" Gargamel shouted, literally jumping out of bed and making the cat jump into the rafters of the ceiling in shock.

"I know what to do," cackled Gargamel as he rubbed his hands gleefully, "It's perfect, it's pure genius and so simple and deliciously evil, heh, heh,heh. Quick you stupid fur ball, get yourself down from there. We must hurry and get all the ingredients for my plan to work, it has to be done today. There will be just enough time to get everything in place, before Mummy comes back from visiting her friends abroad."

Throwing off his nightshirt and then slipping on his ragged black tunic, red leggins and shoes, he grabbed Azreal and hurried to the door. The cat was not happy about missing his breakfast, he grumbled under his breath from Gargamel's arrogance.

Back in the Smurf village, every smurf was sitting down at the long bench tables tucking into their breakfast. Papa Smurf was at the head of one of the tables and was just picking at his food, he was not his cheery self this morning and some of the other smurfs were taking notice, "Pappy?" asked Sassette, "What's wrong? You haven't said a word all morning."

"What? Oh sorry Sassette, it's just that I've had a bad night and something is bothering me, but I'm just not sure what it is."

"What can we do to help Papa Smurf? " asked Brainy.

"Oh, don't worry yourselves my little Smurfs," said the village leader, "I'm sure this feeling will pass soon, just my age creeping up on me."

He got up from the table and picked up his plate, " I better be getting back to my lab and make myself a little 'pick me up' potion," he added, "I'm sure I'll feel more smurfy afterwards."

The other Smurfs watched him walk back to his house, still concerned of Papa Smurf's unusual behaviour, "I don't like this one bit!" said Brainy. "No, not one bit!"

"Why?" asked Sassette, "Is Papa Smurf not allowed to feel a bit unsmurfy sometimes? Even he can't be smurfy all the time."

"Yes, I do know that, but it seems to be affecting him a lot and that is always a cause for concern. Something bad is brewing, even I'm feeling it."

"Well, let's leave him be for a while and maybe visit him later this afternoon and see if we can cheer him up."

"Sounds like a plan"

Back in Gargamel's hovel, Gargamel and Azreal were just about to start the day, "Now Azreal," said the evil wizard, "For my plan to work, we need to gather together all the required ingredients before the end of this morning. So we need to work fast."

And with that, Gargamel set off to the swamp to collect some foul herbs, which took some doing as they wer truly foul and made him heave a few times. Azreal wisely kept out of the way.

They traveled into town and managed to find a butcher who was prepared to sell him a couple of buckets of pig entrails for a few pennies, they were going to be thrown out for the dogs anyway. "Oh, the gods this is revolting!" gasped Gargamel as he tries his best to hold his breath, "But this is the 'piece de resistance'."

He then visited a potion shop and purchased a large bag of explosive substances, using the last of his meager savings. "It will be worth it in the end," Gargamel said to himself, "I'll soon be so rich that I'll be able to own this rotten town!"

They got back to he hovel just before noon and sat down to have some lunch. Soon after, they get themselves prepared and got to work, "Oh, this is going to be such fun!" said Gargamel, "Pity, I won't be able to find out what the Smurfs would do about it, but I will find out eventually. Come Azreal! Let's get the cauldron boiling, we have lots to do and you'd better have a nose peg, as this is about to get quite disgusting."

He pulled out the congealed mass of guts from one of the buckets, "Yuck, yuck,yucky!" grimaced Gargamel as he held his nose, resisting the urge to vomit.

Azreal just looked at him with a look of disgust, his master had done some gross things in the past but this was just weird even for him. He slunk off to lie on the bed, at least his master was not going to disturb him there in the daytime.

Meanwhile, back in the Smurf village, Papa Smurf was alone in his home and was mixing up a potion in a small cauldron over a fire, "This potion should give me second sight, so that I can find out what is wrong."

He ladled some of the potion into a cup, after a while the potion was ready and once it had cooled enough, Papa Smurf took a couple of sips. Straight away, he felt a little lightheaded. He sat down on the chair and watched the steam rising from the rest of the potion that was still bubbling away on the fire, the steam moved side to side, as if it was dancing.

Slowly but surely, it formed itself into a familiar figure, Papa Smurf gasped at what he saw, "Gargamel, I should have known! But, wait, what's this?"

The steam took on an orange glow and it showed the Smurf village burning and the fire going out into the forest, consuming everything before it. Animals and Smurfs were running in all directions and there was something else there, but it was not clear. Before Papa Smurf can interpret it all, there was a loud knock at the door and the vision vanished.

"Papa Smurf, Papa Smurf," shouted Brainy as he pounded on the village leader's front door, "Quick! Come see!"

door, "Quick! Come see!"

Papa Smurf was still feeling lightheaded and fell off his chair, hurting his back in the fall.

"Oww!" he groaned, "What on earth is going on Brainy, you've made me hurt myself! "

About twenty minutes earlier, back at Gargamel's hovel, Azreal was outside pacing up and down. He had been thrown out of the door by Gargamel for somehow getting in the way of his genius.

"Meerow, merrow-meeeeerow!" complained Azreal to himself and then he took out his frustration on a nearby bush in the vegetable garden and tore all the leaves off it, he then pulled up a few carrots and bit through them for good measure. Satisfied with his act of vandalism, he went off to find himself a nice sunny spot, far away from his demented master.

He walked down the rise and found a nice patch of warm earth just beyond the muck pond and no sooner had he settled down on a nice patch of warm earth that there was an almighty explosion from the hovel!

Azreal could only watch in horror as the familiar tower collapsed on itself and fire took hold of the flimsy thatched roof. Then a couple of massive fireballs and shooting stars came out of what was left of the tower and filled the sky with acrid black smoke. The cat could watch no longer, so he ran up the nearest tree and clung on for dear life.

After five or ten minutes passed, the pyrotechnics died down and the fire had gone out. Now it had consumed part of the roof and fallen through into the interior of the hovel, where the bare stone floor afforded it no fueld to continue burning.

The cat was still in the tree and he strained his ears trying to listen for Gargamel's usual cursing or crying for help. But there was no sound, it was deathly silent.

Even the birds and insects were silent. Getting a bit worried now, Azreal climbed down from the tree with difficulty and fell the last three meters. "Meerooow!" he shrieked.

Azreal ran all the way to what was left of the hovel and walked over the shattered front door that lay in splinters on the dusty ground. He gingerly picked his way through the rubble of the tower, sneezing a couple of times due to the dust being blown around by the wind. He started to call for his master as loud as possible, but there was no answer, just the gentle crackle of smoldering thatch coming from the bedroom area.

Azreal was seriously getting concerned now, he did not like his master much, but he was all that he had in the world and he did worry about him.

There seemed to be an undamaged area just behind the overturned heavy wooden table, Azreal crept round the back of the table and that is when he saw one of his master's shoes, all singed and still smoking.

He crept further round and saw the ragged black tunic, but where wer the legs? And why was the tunic so flat? Further still he crept and the whole horrifying sight came into view. Azreal gave a strangled shriek and ran like the wind out of the hovel and did not stop running until he got as far away as he could.

Back to the present time in the Smurf village:

Papa Smurf managed to get to the front door but painfully as the fall had given him an attack of sciatica, then he opened the door, "What is the meaning of this?" he yelled, "I'm trying to concentrate here!"

He soon stopped shouting when he heard loud explosions. The village leader saw a couple of fireballs shooting up into the sky from the forest's edge, towering over the trees like hungry giants looking for their next meal. Brainy stood there, also in shock at what he was seeing.

"What on earth is going on?" asked Papa Smurf.

"That's what we are trying to tell you!" cried the myopic smurf, "You've got to come, we think Gargamel has blown himself up good and proper this time!"

Tracker Smurf came running into the village, his eyes were full of fear, telling that he had seen a horrific sight. "Everysmurf!" he announced, "Listen, I've just been up a high tree to get a better look and Gargamel's hovel is destroyed! I mean, it's flattened!"

"Did you see Gargamel?" queried Brainy Smurf.

"No", said Tracker, "But Azreal was running away from the hovel looking terrified!"

"Oh my Smurf" gasped Papa Smurf, "We'd better get over there and see if Gargamel is OK"

All the smurfs stopped and looked at Papa Smurf. "Why should we do that?" asked Grouchy, "We are better off without him, it's his fault if he's killed himself, why it might be the best thing that he's ever done for us!"

"Grouchy Smurf!" growled Papa Smurf, "I'm ashamed of you!"

"Even Gargamel", explained Papa Smurf, "Regardless how of how mean and cruel he was towards us, he had never killed any one of us. He always uses humane traps and luckily for us, he moves too slowly to catch us once we manage to escape, even his cat is useless."

Papa Smurf then took a deep breath and said "He is just a lonely Human being, who has a fixation on destroying us, so why is he no different to the other trappers in the forest who hunt other creatures for profit? This does not make him evil. To him, it's just a means to an end and in his case, it's to get rich enough to leave the cursed country."

"Yeah", spat Grouchy, "But it's personal to me, as he is hunting me and my kin and I don't like it!"

With that, Grouchy turned around and stormed back to his house, his cheeks burned with anger and frustration.

"Grouchy is entitled to his opinion," said Papa Smurf, "But for myself, I would not be able to forgive myself if I did nothing to help and I would like to think that every smurf would feel the same as it's the smurfy thing to do for any living creature."

Papa, then walked off and headed to the center of the village a few meters away and shouted, "Everysmurf, gather around!"

Smurfs from all over the village came over and formed a semi-circle in front of Papa Smurf, who was standing on a mushroom podium. "I'm sure you have all heard and seen the explosions that came from Gargamel's hovel," he said, his voice booming with confidence, "I'm getting some Smurfs together to make a search party to find Gargamel and see if there is anything that we can do for him."

"Oh Pappy," wailed Sassette, her eyes filling with tears, "What if he is? You know, if he is?"

"I know what you are trying to say Sassette," said Papa Smurf as he held Sassette in his arms, "But if the worst is waiting for us, we can only do what needs to be done."

Papa Smurf lets go of Sassette and turns back towards the crowd of his fellow smurfs, "Now come on my little smurfs," he ordered, "Grab some first aid kits and bandages, also can somesmurf get the bottle of healing potion from my lab?"

The door to Grouchy's house flew open and the bad tempered smurf stormed out of it. He marched all the way to Papa Smurf, with steam still fizzling out of his ears, "I've thought about it Papa Smurf," he told the village leader, "And I would like to come along to help, but I still hate Gargamel!"

"Thank you Grouchy," said Papa Smurf, "You are being a true Smurf. Come on everysmurf, lets get moving, time is of the essence!"

In total, seven smurfs set off for Gargamel's hovel, they were Papa Smurf, Sassette, Clumsy, Brainy, Tracker, Hefty and Grouchy. They were all nervous about what they would find in the destroyed home of their arch enemy.