Failure was something that Dr. Jamison Junkenstein never handled well. That much was no secret, of course. That had been the whole reason he'd gone down this twisted path of revenge against the town of Adlersbrunn and its monarchy. It's just a shame that such a venture had ended just like all of his others.

This particular failure hadn't been as devastating as it could have been, of course. He'd lost an army of his automatons to the four strangers that had shown up to aide the King, but he'd managed to slip out of the castle courtyard with his life at the very least. Well, perhaps it was a bit of a misnomer to say that he slipped out. The last thing he remembered before passing out from blood loss was the feeling of two big, strong arms hoisting him up off the cold stone and throwing him over a broad shoulder.

That was the biggest relief after the whole ordeal; his beloved monster had survived as well. He wouldn't have known what he'd do if something happened to his greatest creation, not after he'd worked so hard to give him life. Besides, he'd already stolen all the good parts out of the mortuary. It would be a real pain in the ass if he had to start from scratch again.

Of course, alive though his darling creation may have been, that didn't mean there wasn't a bit of repair work to do. When the good doctor next awoke, he'd found that his own wounds had been sloppily dressed with whatever pieces of cloth were in the immediate area, which included the lab coat he'd been wearing at the time. His creation had been sitting there nearby, a myriad of arrows still sticking out of him at all angles. Despite this, the green patchwork of a man didn't seem bothered in the slightest.

Dr. Junkenstein had gotten straight to work, first working quickly - though not necessarily quietly - to remove a few bullets from his thigh and shoulder before setting to work yanking arrows out of his creation's thick hide and sewing up the holes. His monster put up significantly less of a fuss than the doctor himself had. Only when all of the recovery work was done did the doctor allow himself a moment to rest. He flopped heavily into a creaky old armchair, staring up at the single Edison bulb hanging over his head as he held a small bag of ice against his bruised eye.

"I won't stand for this, y'know," Dr. Junkenstein grumbled aloud to no one in particular as he slumped down in his armchair, "They haven't heard the last of Dr. Jamison Junkenstein! I'll rebuild my automatons! They'll see! I'll be back to raze that whole village to the ground! I won't stop until I'm the one sitting on that throne with that ol' geezer of a King begging at my feet! Oh, just you wait, I'm gonna - Oi! What'd I tell ya 'bout messin' with yer stitches? Knock it off!"

Junkenstein's monster looked up when his creator cut into his ranting and raving to scold him for fiddling with the seams that kept his body parts sewn tightly together. He gave a deep, rumbling growl, but relented and did as he was instructed. The good doctor was just lucky he was in the mood to behave at the moment. Dr. Junkenstein settled back down and continued his angry grumbling.

"We can't just go rushing in there as we are, though... If those four fools are still around, there's a chance it'll all just fall apart like last time. I might be mad, but I'm not stupid. I know better than to stick with a failing plan. We need something more, something to tip the scales in our favor..."

But what could that something be? He could build as many robotic servants as he wanted, but sheer numbers wouldn't do anything to further his quest for revenge, not with those four travelers still in the King's employ. His monster, his Modern Prometheus, had nearly been enough to push past the resistance, but they'd just barely fallen short. If only he had another creature just like him...

"Aha! That's it!" he shouted triumphantly, leaping up to his feet with suck suddenness that his monster lept up as well in preparation for an attack. Dr. Junkenstein was grinning from ear to ear. It was a wild grin, the smile of a madman who had just had a fantastic, terrible idea. He hobbled quickly over to his portly creation, his peg leg making a distinct metallic ping as he hurried across the cobblestone floor, and he grabbed the artificial man by his broad shoulders.

"How could I have not seen it sooner? The answer's been right in front of my nose! All I must do is make another you!"

The creature's beady black eyes merely stared down at the doctor, clearly not understanding or caring what he was on about. That didn't stop Junkenstein's mind from running wild at the possibilities, though. He was already formulating a plan in his head. He needed to source new parts, of course, but the trickiest part was the animation of those stitched-together parts. He'd already learned through process of trial and error that application of electrical energy wasn't enough to give life to flesh. He needed a different sort of spark.

The doctor's eyes wandered down to his creature's wide chest. It was the spark of life - the enigmatic stone that the Witch of the Wilds had given to him - that had finally given rise to his prized creation. He'd embedded that very stone into his monster's chest, ensuring that it was, in essence, immortal. Could he still tap into that power to create a second creature? If so, he'd prefer to find a way to do so without removing the stone.

Suddenly, he had a thought. Could he take the next step in creating artificial life? Could he really engineer an analog for the natural process of creating a new being? If anyone could do it, there was not one so mad and so brilliant as him. He was suddenly very glad that he'd had the forethought to make his creature so large, and for a reason entirely different from his original plans. He suddenly glanced back up into that pig-like face, shooting his creation a lopsided grin that just oozed with a request the large creature wasn't going to like.

"So, I, uhhh... I don't suppose you'd be open to, err... Becoming a vessel for my next great creation?" Dr. Junkenstein asked hesitantly, walking a pair of fingers playfully across the surface of his monster's stomach. The implication of this proposal was not lost on the creature, and he reacted accordingly. The doctor suddenly found his neck enclosed in the vice-like grip of a gigantic fist, his feet lifting several inches off the ground.

"Gurk! O-okay, okay! Bad idea! I get it!" he choked out, clawing at the massive fingers that were currently squeezing the life out of him. The genuine fear in his eyes seemed to effectively communicate that he had promptly abandoned that plan, because the creature had released him just as his vision began to fill with a swirling of stars. Dr. Junkenstein gasped, desperate to fill his aching lungs with air once more. Well, that idea certainly wasn't happening. Now what?

"Well... Looks like the only choice is to get my hands on another spark of life. You don't suppose that witch would be willing to part with another one of those, eh?" he asked, to which his creature gave a small grunt. The doctor's shoulder's slumped a bit at that.

"Yeah, you're right... I still owe 'er one for the last one she gave me. She probably wouldn't give me another..."

But perhaps he could find one? After all, the Witch of the Wilds did live in a mystical part of the Black Forest. Surely, somewhere out there, there must be more of those crystals...

By nightfall, the doctor and his creation were deep in one of the darkest corners of the Black Forest. The moon was obscured by a thick covering of clouds that threatened rain but never quite delivered. Rather than lament at the lack of light to see by, the cloudy weather could possibly help them. In the darkness they could more easily see the glow of the crystals they sought.

"Alright, now if I were a magical life-giving crystal, where would I be?" Dr. Junkenstein wondered aloud, parting the thick branches of a bush with his arms to look behind it. His creature let out a grunt and shrugged his massive shoulders.

"Well... you look over that way, then. We'll find it faster if we split up. You know what they look like, right?"

A grunt in the affirmative was his reply.

"Good. Now hurry up and be careful. Who knows what that witch'll do to us if she finds us snooping around here. Probably turn us into newts or some crap like that."

With that, his monster lumbered off through the forest in the opposite direction, the sound of trees crashing to the ground following him all the way. Not exactly inconspicuous, but the big guy was more than capable of taking care of himself. The doctor himself, on the other hand, was considerably more... squishy. He had to be just a little bit more careful.

Dr. Junkenstein continued his trudge through the forest, keeping a keen eye out for anything glowing green. That damn witch had to keep them around here somewhere. Finally, after about an hour of searching in the dark, he caught a flash of green out of the corner of his eye. He turned in that direction, catching sight of a patch of foliage that was being lit by some glowing object below.

Eureka! Dr. Junkenstein took off sprinting through the dense underbrush towards the source of the light. He couldn't believe it! So these woods did contain the crystals he needed! If only he'd known, he wouldn't have made a deal with that damn witch and her servant.

As soon as the doctor came to the point of the lights origin, he stopped. The smile dissolved from his face as he stared down at the source of the light. It was no crystal, though it emitted a similar glow. It looked to be a device of some sort, the outer casing consisting of a single smooth piece of gleaming silver metal.

"Wot the..." he mumbled to himself as he picked the device up off the ground. He turned it over in his hand, trying to find some sort of control panel or some other hint as to the device's purpose. Before he could make heads or tails of it, however, a new light pulled his attention away.

A sudden flood of bright white light from above practically blinded Dr. Junkenstein. He shielded his eyes, peering up into the sky to try to find the source of the light. What he saw baffled him. It seemed to be a huge floating disk of the same kind of metal as the device in his hands, a ring of glowing lights encircling the perimeter. The center of the disk was an open circular portal from which the blinding light was streaming. It was impossible to see anything within.

"Hooley dooley..." the doctor whispered to himself in utter amazement. He was so stunned that he loosened his grip on the mystery device in his hand. Rather than fall to the ground, however, the device floated in place in midair. Actually, now that he thought of it, he sort of felt like he was floating himself. He looked down, and was quite surprised to find that he was currently hovering several meters above the ground. Before he had the chance to call for his loyal creation, he was abruptly pulled upward into the floating disk at breakneck speed, and everything went black.