It was a bright and sunny day in New York City. This couldn’t be said for the elaborate underground Mole-Rhino Kingdom of Atlantia. Located 500 feet below New York City’s awful sewer system, little sunlight could reach Atlantia’s labyrinth of tunnels. Then again, the hybrid mole-rhinos that lived there didn’t mind. Sensitive to sunlight, the mole-rhinos, or mhinos for short, powered their mazes of tunnels by using artificial light. Atlantia was made up of dirt tunnels (for mhinos that preferred nature to be surrounding them at all times) and one large, high-tech, silver core where the mhinos had technology that was far more advanced than that of humans. Such technology included teleportation, weapons capable of firing on their own, and vending machines that delivered FREE food and drinks.

In this core, there dwelled the four mhinos that had joined together many eons ago to form M.O.L.E.: Mole-Rhino Organization of Laughing Entrepreneurs. Together, they ruled all of planet Earth. These four mhinos were Mondo, Scrit, Norpin, and Fiddle. Mondo was the blind messenger of the group. Using her heightened senses in advantage to her blindness, Mondo delivered and received all of M.O.L.E.’s packages and messages, including anything from tanks to magazine subscriptions. Scrit, or “Strict” as called by his peers, was the main supervisor of all of Atlantia, and he supervised not only Atlantia but M.O.L.E. as well, just to make sure everything was working correctly. Scrit went deaf in an accident with an evil vending machine. Norpin was the construction worker, known for building most of Atlantia, who carried note cards to help his muteness. Then there was Fiddle. Fiddle was Atlantia’s four-star chef, in charge of feeding every one of the mhinos that dwelled in Atlantia. Fiddle suffered with anger-management problems, and he would spit in cream of mushroom soup when he got angry. If one member of M.O.L.E. was taken away, all of Atlantia would crumble. It was a good life though, and there were few problems with anyone rebelling against this system.

But then one day, Fiddle got a little angrier than usual. That morning, he had spit in everyone’s decaf espresso and had severely burnt the scrambled eggs. Half of the mhinos had raw bacon and the other half had to deal with eating without a plate because Fiddle had thrown them against a vending machine for making him pay for his tortilla chips. Not only that, but in his meditative yoga class he had ripped a yoga mat in half and thrown a crystal vase out the window.

“Chef Fiddle! Where are your manners?!” demanded Scrit while putting in his specially designed hearing aid to listen to Fiddle’s ranting.

“I’ll tell you where my manners are,” Fiddle replied. “Down the toilet! I say it’s my turn to rule Earth! I’m tired of just sitting around feeding every single mhino there is in this underground city! Nobody gives me any credit for what I do!”

“Chef Fiddle, you’re the most amazing chef there is in this kingdom! Everybody loves your cooking! Besides, no ordinary mhino can rule all of Earth by themselves! Atlantia would crumble!”

“Well I’m no ordinary mhino!” Fiddle shouted. “I deserve a chance to rule the world by myself!”

“Hmmm......” thought Scrit. “Alright then. You think you’re so smart, eh? You have one month to rule Earth. If by that time Atlantia/M.O.L.E. somehow prospers, you can remain ruler for the rest of your life. But if you fail and the city has crumbled, then M.O.L.E. will come back together and you’ll continue your chef duties. But remember! You’re still an amateur, so Mondo, Norpin and I will be staying in Atlantia to monitor your work.”

“Fine!” yelled Fiddle. That was how Atlantia began to crumble like a cookie underneath a pickup truck.

When Fiddle was ruler, he changed many aspects of Atlantia. For one, he changed M.O.L.E. to M.H.I.N.O., which stood for Mhino Hoping In Newsroom Obviously, because Fiddle often stood in Atlantia’s newsroom to hope for the best. Secondly, he had to go find a replacement chef. Eventually, he built a robot that could make some of the most luxurious, mouth-watering food he had ever tasted in his life. Then, he spent much of M.H.I.N.O.’s money on expensive for the free food and drink vending machines. Finally, he forced the mhino population to double the work they were doing originally to speed up the progress on Atlantia’s constantly developing society. Fiddle was amazingly pleased with himself, and he constantly sat in the new and improved newsroom to think about his future career as a world ruler.
But then it all failed right before his eyes. Fiddle had spent so much on upgrades that M.H.I.N.O. was in serious debt. The worker mhinos that weren’t as fit had quit because they couldn’t keep up with the newly doubled worker pace. The robot had begun to malfunction and spilled on anything it cooked, so mhinos everywhere went hungry. It was all too much for Fiddle to handle, so he quit ruling the world and went to Mondo for advice.

“Mondo! Atlantia is crumbling because of me! HELP!” he shouted.

“Your anger has created many problems before, but this one is the worst. I believe you should seek help from Norpin, if he can even begin dealing with your bad attitude,” he said, and then he wobbled away. In need of desperate help, Fiddle rushed to Norpin’s office. When he got there, Norpin wasn’t there! But Fiddle found his note cards on his desk, and they had much writing on them that said:

“Fiddle, I have left you these notecards not only because I am mute, but because I cannot deal with your attitude. I can still help you, though. All you need in order for Atlantia to prosper once again is to work as a team. This is advice from your friend Norpin.”

Fiddle then immediately ran to Scrit’s office. Inside, Scrit was sitting on his leather sofa, staring with those cold, steel eyes that told you he wasn’t pleased.

“Scrit! I’m so sorry for what I’ve done. I’ve realized what I’ve done wrong. I can’t help anyone without my team. We need to get M.O.L.E. back together!” Fiddle exclaimed.

“I understand. I’m allowing you to go back to your chef duties as normal. All of your new laws will be removed, and the upgrades will be destroyed,” Scrit replied calmly.

That was how Fiddle’s reign of selfishness ended. All four mhinos got back together as friends again, and Fiddle learned a valuable lesson. He learned that working as a group is sometimes the only way to rule an entire planet and that sometimes you can even have some fun doing so. Also, from then on the team of laughing entrepreneurs was known as T.E.A.M.: Team of Enthusiastically Awesome Mhinos.