Obsessed with Smurfs (part 2)

Gargamel and Azrael decided that they would try and get one of the soft toy Smurfs out of the machine they found. But before they could put a coin into the slot a Mother and her daughter came up to it. The child was jumping up and down nagging the harassed mother for a go on the machine. The parent looked at Gargamel as if to say "Please let her go first or none of our lives will be worth living."

Gargamel looked back at the mum and then the child and quickly stepped aside. The girl inserted the coin in the slot and Smurf music started up.

"Gah! Even here I still can't get away from their infernal singing!" The mother just rolled her eyes at him and then helped her daughter press the arrow buttons on the machine to move the grabbing hooks. The wizard noted that the buttons could only be pressed once before the grabber dropped down into the pile of Smurfs. He was then taken aback when both the child and the mother squealed with delight as the grabber emerged from the pile with a Smurf firmly in it's claws. It moved to the front of the machine and dropped the soft toy into a chute.

The little girl grabbed her new possession and they both walked off happy with their prize.

"Well that looks easy," said Gargamel to his cat which was hiding behind a gaming machine. "Any fool can catch these Smurfs, I mean they are all trapped in this box and they are not even real, so easy pickings. I could do with one or two to keep us entertained whilst we wait for the full moon. You also need to keep in shape for capturing Smurfs Azrael. Tie one to a string and then I'll get you running, heh,heh,heh."

He still had lots of dimes left so he inserted one into the coin slot and tried his best to mentally block out the horrid singing. He pushed the 'forward' button and held it down for a couple of seconds and then the 'sideways' button for a little longer. He was aiming for a Papa Smurf that lay on top of the pile. The grabber plunged down into the mass of Smurfs and slowly came up.

He had missed Papa, but the grabber had another Smurf in it's claws, it looked like Lazy Smurf. But the grip on the claws gave way and the soft toy fell back to rejoin it's kin. "Aarghhh! no near and yet so far! How infuriating, how come a little girl manages to capture one, but this one gives me the slip?"

But unbeknown to him, the machine had him in its grip and it would make sure that Gargamel would be so hooked that he would spend all his money.

As we all know, Gargamel does not know when to give up and he saw getting a Smurf out of the machine as a challenge and he was not going to let a 'magic' box get the better of him. The Smurfs in the machine were about twice as big as a real Smurf and although he could just use magic to get one, he felt that it would be cheating as he could get plenty of extra money from the parking meters outside if he needed to.

He put another coin in the slot and pushed the buttons. Again the claw plunged into the mêlée of Smurfs but this time it came up empty. "Curses! I didn't even manage to grab one that time, no matter I'll just try again," he hissed to himself . Another coin went into the slot, the grabber claw obeyed his commands and this time Gargamel saw that the claw had 'captured' Papa Smurf by the head. "Yes, yes! Come to Papa, Papa! Mwa,ha,ha,ha!" he laughed out loud.

A couple passing by stared at him as if he was a madman and quickened their pace.

The claw then moved to the front of the machine and dropped Gargamel's prize into the chute. He grabbed it with a look of triumph on his face he did a little dance and put it in his satchel. "Right Azrael, I think I'll try and get a half dozen of them just for luck."

After about half an hour of trying he could not get the claw to grab another one, he was getting very frustrated by now but managed to stay calm, although his face was getting redder by the minute. He still was not going to use his magic as he also noted the many reflective surfaces inside the machine and he was mindful that they could ricochet his spell and make things worse.

His faithful cat Azrael was still hiding behind one of the machines and was having a lovely dream about stalking and eating Smurfs when he was rudely awoken by Gargamel picking him up by the scruff of his neck and whispering in his ear "Azrael, I need you to go into the machine and pick five different Smurfs for me, can you do that?" The half awake cat just yowled as Gargamel stuffed him up the chute.

Once inside the machine, Azrael picked up a Gutsy Smurf toy and dropped it down the chute for his master. "Yes! Now try and find a Smurfette," urged Gargamel. The cat dug into the pile of Smurfs until he could see some yellow and buried his head into the mass of blue and white until he could grab hold of the golden locks with his teeth. Out popped Smurfette.

But Azrael did not give it to Gargamel. The feline suddenly felt very angry about something. Seeing the toy Smurfette reminded him of the fight he had with her at the castle and the way she had 'branded' him for life by causing that cage to rip his ear. This Smurfette can't fight back. His animal rage rose up inside him and he started to rip at the blue material that the Smurf toy was made from. It felt good ripping his claws made short work of the stitching down the sides and he tore out huge chunks of fluffy stuffing. He was unstoppable now and he grabbed another Smurf and tore into that one, then another and another and the machine started to fill up with loose stuffing.

He could not hear his master banging on the window of the machine and shouting at him. It felt good to be massacring all these Smurfs.

It only took him about five minutes to destroy most of the toys and all the stuffing had blocked up the chute. Gargamel was just glaring at Azrael from the other side of the glass and the cat felt that it was safer for now to stay where he was.

"Imbecile! What have you done? You only needed to get two more, now there are none left! Come, get out of there, we need to leave before they find out what's happened," said Gargamel trying to control his rage.

By now some other people had noticed what had been going on and had gathered around the wizard and the machine, some with a look of amusement other with angry faces. Gargamel just ignored them and called Azrael to the front of the machine. The feline had to dig his way out of all the stuffing and whilst Gargamel held open the flap, he made his way out of the machine but it was akin to jumping out of the frying pan into the fire as by now the owner of the Arcade was marching up to the gathering crowd and he started to shout "What is going on? Who is responsible for this damage?" Gargamel had tried to sneak away with Azrael tucked under his arm but the owner was onto him as several people were pointing at the wizard. He reached out and collared Gargamel by his cowl "Not so fast mate! Are you going to pay for this damage?" growled the owner. "Err, yes but I'll need to get the money first," croaked Gargamel.

Just then a small boy no older than six years old came up to the shaking wizard and started to cry "Your bad kitty, broke all the Smurfs, now I won't be able to have one, it's not fair, boo hoo," sobbed the little child.

Gargamel would usually say something witty back but for some reason this crying child stirred something inside of him that had not seen the light of day for years. He actually felt sorry for the child and wanted to help him.

Before he could even think of what he was doing he reached into his satchel and brought out one of the two Smurf toys that he had managed to get. "Here, take this Scottish Smurf if it will make you stop crying," he held out the toy to the boy. The child took the gift from Gargamel, smiled at him and ran off to find his parents.

"Very touching, but it won't get you off the hook," said the owner, "Come, we are going to my office and the police will be waiting for you." he added.

But Gargamel was not going to come quietly, the thought of being in custody again was too horrid a prospect and he flipped open his poison ring and dabbed some Smurf essence onto his wand, said some magic words and disappeared into thin air, leaving the people in the Arcade in a state of shock.

"Oh! not doing that again, it always makes me feel so sick and sleepy using that type of magic," groaned Gargamel as he got up from the floor of the castle. Azrael was just sitting there but his eyes were still spinning. "Meeroowww!" was all that he could utter before collapsing in a heap. "Do you know what Azrael, I think I'll have a kip as well. Gargamel took the satchel off his shoulder and took out the remaining Smurf toy, it was the Papa Smurf. He held it by the neck right in front of his face, "Just you wait until we get back to our world. I will bring unimaginable terrors upon you all, you mark my words!" said the evil wizard to the inanimate toy.

Taking the toy with him, he got into bed and was asleep within a couple of minutes.

It made for a strange scene, Gargamel in bed cuddling a Papa Smurf soft toy, but what he did not know yet was that the phial of Smurf essence that he kept in a leather pouch around his neck had been resting next to his heart for the last week or so and slowly but surely it had been irradiating him with 'Smurfiness' and his cold dark heart was being thawed out and shown the light of what it meant to be a Smurf.

There was still three weeks to go before the wizard could even attempt to invoke a 'Blue Moon' and maybe by then, for the sake of all Smurfdom. Gargamel would return a changed man

The End