Dr. Horrible walked towards the conference room at the Evil League of Evil Headquarters. Dead Bowie had sent him an e-mail to meet him for evil plot consulting. Dr. Horrible knew that this meeting might help him actually reach a seat on the council. If he could actually help Dead Bowie in an evil plot, he was sure to get a promotion. His lab coat was freshly clean and was a vibrant shade of dark red. His black boots and gloves gleamed from polishing. Dr. Horrible had spent time on his outfit today, for this day could make or break his career in the Evil League of Evil.
Dr. Horrible paused before he opened the door to take a deep, calming breath. Ever since Penny had died on that fateful day, Billy had died emotionally. Now Dr. Horrible was the only being inside of his body. No longer did he care for the lives of the people, all he cared about was getting a seat on the council at the Evil League of Evil. And then one day to take over the Evil League of Evil. And once that was done, the world was next.
Dr. Horrible pulled his goggles over his eyes, blanked his face and opened the door. As soon as the door opened, he saw a ray of glitter fly towards him. Dr. Horrible tried to dodge, but he wasn't fast enough. The ray hit him square in the chest. All he heard before he blacked out was the maniacal laughter that floated through the room as Bead Bowie's smile grew even wider.
Jareth sensed a ripple of magic on the outskirts of the labyrinth. He had not gotten an alarm of a wisher and the magic was not of goblin origin. Strange…. Jareth's caution, as well as his curiosity, got the better of him and he decided to investigate. A crystal ball materialized in his hand and he threw it at the ground by his feet. Jareth disappeared in a cloud of glitter and reappeared just outside of his labyrinth.
Something caught Jareth's eye on the hill just past the Southern entrance. He walked up to it to find that it was, in fact, a person. A human male appearing to be of adult age with short blonde hair and wearing some sort of long red coat was lying on the ground unconscious, coated in a thin layer of glitter. Why would a human be sent to the Underground when no wish was made?
Well, that was a question that would need to be answered later. This human will be forced to run the labyrinth to win his own freedom. Jareth smiled at the thought. His labyrinth had grown far more dark and sinister in the years that had passed since that ignorant girl challenged him and won. Never again would he allow such insolence to defeat him. And thus, his labyrinth was the deadliest it had been in centuries.
Jareth summoned another crystal and threw it at the man on the ground. The man began to stir and slowly opened his eyes. Jareth amplified his voice with his magic to make it seem to reverberate off of invisible walls in order to place fear into the heart of this newcomer. "Welcome to the last place you shall ever know."
The man sat up and looked around in confusion. "Where am I?" How did I get here? Why am I covered in glitter? Who the hell is this guy? Is that a giant maze? Where are my goggles? Is the sky orange?
Jareth smirked as he heard the confusion in the mind of the man before him. "You, my mysterious friend, are in the Underground. I am the King who rules over this land, and you must run my labyrinth in order to win your own freedom. For if you fail," Jareth summoned another crystal and stared intently ant the newcomer, "you shall be trapped here forever and slowly watch yourself be turned into a goblin."
The strange man stood up and looked Jareth in the eyes. "You can't scare me. I'm Dr. Horrible. I've got a PhD in Horribleness." There was a slight tremble in his voice that Jareth almost didn't catch.
Jareth threw his head back and laughed. "We shall see." Jareth materialized a thirteen hour grandfather clock behind himself. "You have thirteen hours in which to solve the labyrinth before your soul be comes trapped in this land, forever. Such a pity." Jareth faded away into the background and reappeared in his castle. This was going to be and interesting day after all.
Dr. Horrible rolled his eyes. "Whatever." He brushed off as much of the glitter on him as possible, which wasn't much at all, and looked around for his goggles. He found them lying a few feet away and put them on his forehead.
Dr. Horrible started off down the hill and reached the outer wall. The stones were black and coated in a shimmering layer of red, as if freshly sprayed with blood. The walls reached a good 15 feet up; there was no entrance in sight. He let out an exasperated sigh and started walking along the outer wall. A good thirty minutes later he let out a frustrated yell, for he had still yet to find an entrance.
"Pipe down! You'll alert the fairies to your whereabouts." Dr. Horrible looked around to find the source of the small yet commanding voice. His eyes fell upon an odd looking creature that bore a striking resemblance to a blue centaur about the size of a medium dog.
"What could fairies ever do to hurt me?" There was much arrogance in Dr. Horrible's voice.
"They now desire the taste of human flesh. They would swarm you and eat you alive if they found you. And believe me, that's not a pretty sight for anyone."
Dr. Horrible dismissed the warning. "Do you know how to get into this godforsaken labyrinth?"
"I do."
"Can you show me?"
"Show you what?"
"How to get into the labyrinth."
"What about it?"
Dr. Horrible was getting annoyed. "Why must you delay me further with your insistent avoidance of the answers to the questions I asked?"
"Perhaps you are simply not asking the right questions."
"And what is that supposed to mean?" The centaur shrugged and Dr. Horrible started to think. He would solve this infuriating riddle. "How do I get into the labyrinth?"
"Now you're getting it! You get in," the centaur pointed to large cast-iron doors, "there." The doors began to open.
"Those weren't there a second ago."
"Things are not always what they seem in this place. You can't take anything for granted." The centaur began to trot off. "And remember to keep your voice down; you wouldn't want to be attacked by fairies, or worse." He disappeared behind some rocks and never emerged from the other side.
Dr. Horrible raised an eyebrow but passed through the newly opened doors. He looked around to see two straight passageways going off to the left and the right. Hmm…. The cast-iron doors closed behind him, trapping him within the labyrinth's walls. He looked back at the doors and rolled his eyes. "Now, the question is, left, or right? Hmm…. They both look the same…. Most people would go right, but I'm evil, so I'll go left."
Jareth smirked as he gazed into his crystal ball at the mysterious man who had just gained entrance into his labyrinth. It had taken this particular man a while to find a way in, and like many before him, he needed one of the residents of the labyrinth to help him. Were all humans so unimaginative that they can't even imagine a door? For that is all it really took. No matter, it's not like this strange human had a chance of winning.
Figuring he had some time to kill before anything truly eventful happened, Jareth decided to investigate the mysterious arrival of this strange man. He quickly changed into his owl form and flew past the barrier into the Aboveground.
It took an hour of walking before boredom and frustration set in, a combination which was usually frightfully dangerous when dealing with a villain from the Evil League of Evil. Lacking anything to maim, threaten, destroy, etc, Dr. Horrible opted instead to lean on a wall of the Labyrinth and pout.
Or, this is what he would have done were it not for the fact that the wall was not, in fact, a wall. He landed flat on his ass with a bewildered look on his face. "Things are not always what they seem my ass!"
He stood up and looked down at his coat where he had landed on the floor to notice that the shimmering red layer on the stones had managed to make its way onto his coat. Upon closer inspection, he discovered that the red was just more glitter….
Jareth had been tracking the trail of magic for a little while before he found its source. Jareth sauntered up to the culprit and confronted him. "Dead Bowie, I should have known you were behind this."
The accused turned to face Jareth and grinned broadly. "Hello Jareth. Long time no see."
"Indeed, Brother. I see you still have yet to conquer this world. And even if you did, Father would still never give you the throne; the selfish, second-born, half-breed bastard son who had, on many occasions, tried to usurp his old brother's powers."
Bowie's face became wrought with anger. "I haven't bothered you in over 200 years, so don't even try to play that card on me!"
"Very well. In any case, I am here on other matters. You sent a human into my realm when a wish had not been made. Why?"
Dead Bowie grinned. "Ah, yes, him. He was merely an inconvenience. I couldn't let that little rat make his way onto the council. He is not worthy of the title!"
"And so you sent him to me?"
"Do with him what you will. I'm sure you wouldn't mind having an extra goblin around."
"It would seem I have little choice. Fare-thee-well Brother. May we not meet again." Jareth morphed back into his owl form and once again flew though the barriers between worlds.
What's with these guys and glitter? Dr. Horrible noticed that in the new passage there was another choice to be made. Follow the path up the hill, or around the hill? Logical or lazy? Save energy by going around or get a vantage point of where I am and go up? Hmm…. He started off up the hill.
Approximately 30 minutes later, seeing no end to this godforsaken hill that should have only taken like 10 minutes to conquer, Dr. Horrible threw up his hands up in frustration and threw his goggles on the ground. It took him a few minutes to compose himself before he grabbed his goggles back up and headed back down the hill. Three minutes later, he realized that he was back at the bottom of the hill and that he had CLIMBED THAT SHIT FOR NOTHING! And now my goggles have red glitter on them too….
Dr. Horrible headed down the path that went around the hill and took many turns throughout the labyrinth for the next hour or so. It was at this point that he figured out that he was lost. In his renewed frustration, he kicked the wall nearest to him. He screamed in a combination of pain and anger.
He then got a brilliant idea. Could I? I don't know…. Isn't that cheating? Wait, I'm evil. Of course I can. Dr. Horrible began to climb up the wall.
As he reached the top of it, an invisible force knocked him off the wall and slammed him into the ground. A low and taunting voice with an amused lilt floated down around him. "Ah, ah, ah. There is no cheating in my labyrinth."
Dr. Horrible quickly responded, "If you're not cheating, you're not trying!"
The voice laughed manically. "You best hurry. For in nine hours and twenty three minutes, you'll be mine."
"You bastard!" Dr. Horrible shouted at the voice, but got no response. He looked down at himself. "And now there's glitter all over me again! Damnit!" He stood himself up and stomped off in a random direction, losing himself even more in the labyrinth.
Jareth couldn't help but smile into the crystal as this Dr. Horrible stomped off into many-a-dead ends. The fool actually believed he could cheat. In my labyrinth. Jareth shook his head and lowered the crystal from his face. He had to admire the man's determination to win when he had nothing to go back to, even if he could win.
Jareth may keep the man as his personal servant. He was in need of a new one after all. The previous one had somehow managed to fall into a spike-pit in the labyrinth. Why he may have been in the labyrinth, Jareth didn't know. Possibly trying to escape, for no one could put up with Jareth's ever-changing, irrational moods.
One moment he could be content, then a fit of rage would just overcome him and Jareth would decimate the furniture and sometimes even the walls of his own castle. No one but Jareth knew why these fits came on, but he would never admit to his subjects his weakness.
Dr. Horrible calmed back down, after about ten minutes, enough to notice that there was a humming noise coming from far off. Dr. Horrible continued walking for a few minutes only to realize that the humming was getting louder. Well, this can't be good. He started to pick up his pace.
The humming started to sound more like buzzing as it grew louder. Then, Dr. Horrible saw it, a swarm of what appeared to be very large insects. Only moments later, the insects looked a lot like tiny people with wings. Fairies. What had that centaur said? They have a taste for human flesh….
Knowing he had very little time, Dr. Horrible sprinted as fast as he could through the labyrinth. He came to the end of a long passageway that had two doors. One door had a blue shield mounted above it, and the other a red shield. Only a small sign between them shed any light on the matter. 'Just like a truth and a lie, one can save you and one can kill you. Choose wisely.'
Dr. horrible looked back and forth between the two of them. He didn't have time for this. He felt the first few stings of bites on his skin and charged through the red door.
He made it barely two steps through the door before the floor gave out and he fell into a very long dark hole. Hands protruded from the walls grabbed at him as he fell. They were no ordinary hands though; these hands were adorned with sharp claws that shredded both clothing and flesh from the momentum of his battle with gravity.
After a few moments of sheer pain and a few ragged gasps of air scented with his own blood, Dr. Horrible tried to comprehend what was happening. Sharp metal-like claws dug into his flesh and he was being held aloft by them. Confusion and pain wracked across his face. "Why hold me?" his voice was weak and almost inaudible.
A few of the hands ripped themselves from his arms, causing more weight to be placed on the lower claws, allowing them to pierce deeper into flesh. Dr. Horrible let out a cry as the pain intensified. Where the hands had removed themselves, now gaping wounds stood with rivers of blood flowing out of them. "It's our job to hold you up. We're helping hands. Now, which way would you like to go?"
Dr. Horrible couldn't think, he just wanted the claws out of him. "Down…."
"He chose down!" "He chose down?" "Kaaaaaaaaay!" The hands released their prisoner, allowing him to fall to the bottom of the long hole.
He hit the ground with a wet thud, but he was still alive, if only just. His blood had already begun to pool as a scaled creature with wings scurried into the oubliette. It picked Dr. Horrible up in its mouth, careful not to impale him upon its fangs, and carried him off.
After actually attending a few of his kingly duties, Jareth figured it was best to check up on his latest runner. He gazed into one of his crystals expecting to find the runner lost even farther into his ever-changing labyrinth. Jareth found it odd that this particular runner had actually managed to avoid countless traps and was actually making it through with ease. However, his luck could not last forever. Jareth discovered at the moment that, this runner's luck had indeed run out.
All he could see was a small pool of blood and a few drops trailing off, suggesting that the runner had been there not too long ago, but was sheltered by one of the magics of the labyrinth.
Jareth had an inkling as to what had taken his runner, particularly since it was that oubliette. He sighed and teleported to the pool of blood in order to follow the trail. It took him only about two minutes to find what he was looking for.
The adolescent dragon that Jareth had been raising for the past decade was playing with its new "toy" and billowing harmless happy flames from its mouth.
Jareth put his hands on his hips and addressed the dragonling. "Ah, what have we here?"
The young dragon pushed its new plaything behind its side in order to obscure the view Jareth had of it. "Nothing…." The dragon's voice was rumbled through the air, yet still high pitched, further showing its young age.
Jareth raised an eyebrow. "Nothing? Nothing? Nothing, tra-la-la?"
The dragon looked nervous, like a child having been caught doing something they shouldn't be. And in a way, it was.
Jareth's voice was very stern. "Come now Synge, give me the runner."
The dragon hung its head and pushed its plaything at Jareth. He picked up the limp, blood soaked body and slung it over his shoulder. He then summoned another crystal and flung it at the floor, sending him and his cargo into a medical room within the castle.
Jareth gently laid Dr. Horrible down on a clean stone slab with drains. He removed what little was left of Dr. Horrible's clothes and grabbed the showerhead at the end of the slab. Jareth began to rinse out the wounds that had become filled with dirt. As each wound was cleaned, Jareth magically healed it.
The man in his hands had lost a lot of blood, and might not have survived if Jareth hadn't of gotten there when he did. As Jareth healed the wounded man, he subtly admired the muscles that were slowly showing themselves under the sheen of blood. This man was very attractive, although he had yet to reach Jareth standards.
Jareth gently caressed the wounds with feather touches as he healed them. He watched as the skin knit together under his fingertips and grinned at how much power he held over this frail person. And yet, he didn't want to abuse it. There was something about this human that he actually admired.
After about an hour of healing, Dr. Horrible was as good as new, he just needed some rest. Jareth had kept him unconscious during the whole ordeal, figuring it was best for both of them. He slung Dr. Horrible over his shoulder again and carried him off to a guest suite.
Jareth opened the door and walked inside the pre-prepared room. He gently placed the human down on the bed, covering his exposed body with the few blankets that adorned the bed since the air was still warm from the leaving summer. Jareth left the room not wanting to frighten the man should he awaken whilst Jareth was present. He figured it would be a bit more comforting to wake up alone.
Jareth walked to his study, there was still a lot of paperwork to be done.
Author's Notes – Props go out to Stalker of Stories and Demon1992 for helping me. Mainly Stalker for being my Beta. And yes, I am using a lot of quotes from Labyrinth. Labyrinth is my absolute favorite movie and I am completely a Jareth fangirl.