Fallen Heroes
The motley crew of four travelers wrapped in coats, shawls, furs, and even blankets approached the foot of the Northern Mountain of the O.Z., slipping upon the ice below their feet. DG stumbled towards the Tin Man and grabbed the axe he had snatched from DeMilo's gaudy van yelling, "Dig!"
"Dig?!"
"Wait…wait!" they all protested as she walked right up to the sheer block of ice that was the side of the mountain.
The three men looked at each other in confusion and maybe even a little concern for her sanity as DG appeared to chant something that held no meaning for them.
"The Daughter of Light…came upon a glistening white mountain, frozen in time in a sea of ice…above all else she knew that…" DG swung the axe repeatedly at the foot of the mountain as Raw looked back at the Zipperhead, wondering if he thought she was as crazy as he did. Cain kept a watchful eye out on the kid, warming his frozen hands with his breath. She had fooled him before with her wide and innocent blue-eyed stare, but now that he knew who she was and all the magic, mystery, and history she held in her slender hands he had begun to put the little trust he was willing to give anybody into this slip of a girl.
Not knowing the stir she was creating behind her, DG proceeded with her arduous task, still chanting from memories barely seeping from the blocked recesses of her brain, "...that this mountain was more than it appeared…it was…home!" With a last final heave of the axe, DG revealed a frozen door. She laughed out of sheer relief that she wasn't crazy. Gingerly, she reached out to test the handle of the door.
The door didn't budge.
"Is it locked?" Cain asked.
Raw turned to the Tin Man and nodded.
DG, focused entirely at the task directly in front of her, silently reached up her left hand and held it out in front of the door. She was just following a hunch, remembering the Mystic Man's last words to her: "Let this guide you."
The young woman gazed at her palm as it began to glow a coppery light in the tornado shape that Father Vue had branded into her hand. To her great surprise, the door popped open. She stepped into the hole she had dug, followed by her three stalwart companions.
They entered into a Great Hall, long-abandoned, smelling of dust and disuse, their footsteps echoing among the great columns holding the gilded ceiling high above their heads. They walked forward, looking about them wonderingly.
DG's eyes rested on the focal point of the castle they had found themselves in: A Great Portrait of a queenly lady and someone who could be Glitch's unzippered twin brother dressed in royal regale.
"My mother was the queen?" DG stopped before the painting and wondered aloud, mouth gaped open in shock.
"That makes you…Princess" Raw said softly, bowing to her with a flourish.
DG smiled at her furry friend. Looking back at Glitch, she pointed to the larger-than-life portrait. "You knew my mother."
"I knew I wasn't an idiot" said Glitch smiling wide, "or a convict" with a pointed look at Cain. "I was the Queen's advisor." Glitch happily pondered his past while looking at the painting.
"The Queen sat…gazing hopefully out among her frozen realm…" DG haltingly said, waiting for her long-cloaked memories to slowly return to her. Cain's ice blue eyes took her in as she spoke. "Longing for her daughter to return!" Impulsively she ran to the grand, winding staircase.
"DG, wait!" Glitch cautioned, all three men following immediately in her wake, their steps echoing in the great marbled hall.
The friends stopped at the top of the staircase in what appeared to be a bedroom, furniture covered in sheets. DG stopped before a chair where a fur-lined coat lay draped. She ran her fingers through the soft cream and tan trimming, wondering why she felt drawn immediately to the luxurious clothing.
Raw came to stand beside her, gingerly touching the fur, as fine as his was coarse. "Sad…Mother waited, couldn't stay." Raw said, his liquid brown eyes looking deeply into DG's sapphire-blue ones. Cain, ever watchful, stood helplessly a few feet away, fists curling for a moment in frustrated silence as he watched DG wipe a sudden tear away from her cheek, walking away from the strong emotions Raw couldn't himself part from. Cain didn't even realize himself how drawn already he was to the young woman who had freed him from his metallic prison as he walked slowly to where she sat, wondering how he could take away the pain with which she was so obviously struggling.
Glitch bounded hopefully towards one of the cloth-covered pieces, which resembled ghostly statues mocking the once-lively room. "There is something so familiar about this," he said, sweeping the sheet away to reveal a beautiful wooden harp. Eyes wide, gasping aloud, Glitch took in the musical instrument which at one time meant…absolutely nothing to him. "Nope!" he said, tossing the covering away.
Raw bowed his head over the ghostly covered bed, muttering aloud. "Bad things…bad things happen here," he said, turning to the group with a great sorrowful look shadowing his leonine features. Once again, Raw was overcome by dark emotions that, though long past, were rushing into his heart unwanted. He didn't care if he wasn't being brave enough to withstand them; he just wanted to be far away. Turning towards DG he held out his paws.
"What bad things?" DG asked, looking for answers…endlessly hoping to fill in the frustrating holes in her brain that made her feel like her skull was emptier than Glitches'…and he had half of his surgically removed.
"We go…we go now" he said, nodding encouragingly, pulling DG up to her feet.
"No…no! I need to know. Raw, please," she pleaded. Nothing could be more painful than this horrible not knowing.
Raw shook his head. "Bad things…" he muttered again, turning to Cain for support. The Viewer should've known better. Cain was always for the truth, even when it hurt the most. Cain nodded once. "Tell her," he said simply.
Before he could lose his nerve, Raw walked slowly over to the mirror, tore the sheet covering it off, and put a shaking paw on the gilded frame. His back arched and he gasped in pain as his heart flowed out with memories long past onto the glass, revealing the very bed that stood directly behind them. Upon the copper pillows and bed clothes a pretty little girl lay sleeping as her mother, the Queen, sang a soft lullaby to her.
"Two little princesses dancing in a row
Spinning fast and freely on their little toes
Where the light will take them, there's only one way to know
Two little princesses dancing in a row…" she sang. The kindly mother leaned forward and kissed her youngest daughter, the creamy fur of her coat tickling the girl's arm. "My Angel, my Light…sleep well," she whispered, leaving the room.
The four watched the scene long past on the mirror as Glitch cried, "Wait! That's you. I knew you, too." He blinked away a stray dreadlock, uncharacteristically focused on the memory the Viewer was showing them.
DG caressed the same cheek she just watched her mother kiss so many years ago, all her longing to find her real home expressed in that one simple gesture. "Oh, I wish I could remember…" she whispered.
A small brown terrier looked up from under the chair shown upon the mirror, ears alert as a tall, slender girl walked into the room. "The majestic queen of the O.Z. had two lovely daughters she," quoted the girl in sarcastic tones far beyond her twelve annuals. "
"That's Azkadellia," gasped Glitch. "Marbles or not, evil like that you don't forget."
DG couldn't tear her wide sapphire eyes away from the image playing out before her. "Azkadellia is my sister!" she said, in horrid realization.
Azkadellia continued her chant, "One to darkness, she be drawn, and one to light, she be shown. Double eclipse it is foreseen, light meets dark in the stillness between. But only one…and one alone…shall hold the emerald, and take the throne. Only one, and one…alone." The dark-haired beauty held out her arms menacingly, a dark mist flowing from her fingers, taking the 6-year-old DG's breath right from her body. The girl child's eyes stared unblinkingly and vacantly as she lay upon her richly covered bed.
The 21-year-old DG's eyes could not have shown more shock as she cried aloud, "She tried to kill me!"
"No," Cain correctly softly. "She did kill you."
"But that can't be!" DG said, looking down at her obviously alive body.
The queen in the glass before them stayed a moment before DG's doorway, looking curiously at the retreating figure of her oldest daughter. Her gaze become more worried as she looked in at the resting body of her youngest…something didn't seem right, so she advanced quickly into the room. Lavender gasped miserably as she reached her prostrate daughter's figure upon the bed. "Oh! Oh, I'm sorry I didn't protect you! I never thought…" Without hesitation, the queen funneled all of her light magic into one powerful breath into the dead child's mouth. Suddenly, the 6-year-old gasped awake, and Lavender fell forward in immense relief. Tears running down her cheek, the mother said as she looking lovingly into DG's eyes, "Oh, my Angel. Fear not, my child. There is one thing that can stop her…the emerald at the eclipse" Lavender then bent and whispered something just beyond the watching four's hearing into the child's ear. "The secret to finding it now lives inside of you. When the time is right, you will return." Never had any of the misfit band been more entranced before; even Cain, who was usually hyper-alert to his surroundings, couldn't tear his eyes away from the golden-framed mirror.
It was a mistake he would long play out in his mind, berating himself over and over again in disgusted guilt.
A voice behind them broke the Viewer's concentration as the light upon their faces dimmed and the four turned suddenly around.
"Mother never could leave well enough alone," said a melodious voice, at once at odds with its message.
A Longcoat marched immediately to the Tin Man's side where he wordlessly reached for the gun Cain lifted his duster to reveal. Cain's chagrined face frowningly met Zero's triumphant one. Zero blatantly brandished Cain's beloved gun as a trophy Zero would long treasure…almost as much as he would treasure the killing of his hated enemy with said enemy's own gun.
"Azkadellia," Glitch cried out in surprise.
DG moved slightly towards the dramatically cloaked woman. "You're my sister," she announced, still trying to wrap her head around that fact.
Azkadellia stepped forward, the light from the bedroom window highlighting her girlishly pink cheeks that matched the satin lining of her chocolate brown leather coat. "DG," the deceptively soft voice said, "The little sister I thought I no longer had. I've always wondered what you'd look like." The declaration of wonder did not reach her coldly focused eyes as Azkadellia stared down at DG.
Glitch stepped forward, sternly protective. "Leave her alone," he commanded with a voice unlike its usual vagueness. It was a voice strong enough to shake DG out of her shock as she put her hands on her hips and cocked her head like one used to facing down evil Sorceresses despite growing up in Kansas. "What do you want?" she said, for all the world like she didn't care in the least.
Azkadellia looked DG up and down slowly as she clearly gave the impression of being completely unimpressed. "Well, up until a moment ago I wanted your death," she giggled girlishly, "but now it seems you have something I need." It was intonated in the evil woman's voice that she much preferred the former option.
"What?" DG asked, looking askance at her newly discovered older sister.
"The emerald," Azkadellia said flatly, "You know where it is."
DG shook her head. Raw moved closer to DG, focused on pushing any emotional strength he could muster into his friend. Cain and Glitch flanked her, tall and protective, each in their own powerful way.
"Don't tell me you haven't dreamed of it," said the older woman. "Heard it calling to you begging to be found from its dark hiding place."
"No, I haven't," DG replied.
"No?" spoken as if to a small child.
"No," DG's voice had gotten a little smaller despite herself.
"What did she whisper," insisted the dark-haired beauty, attempting with all of her power to draw the information she so desperately needed out of the creature she saw as pathetic in front of her, "in your ear?"
DG shrugged her shoulders in reply. "I don't remember."
"That's a shame," said Azkadellia as she turned on her heel towards Zero, her unspoken message to him lighting his face up in expected pleasure. The more a victim resisted, the more fun he had torturing the information out of them.
"How can I tell you what I don't know?" DG said exasperatingly.
Turning back towards her sister, the sorceress clasped her hands out in front of her and opened them up to reveal a Liquid Viewing Container, all tarnished copper in its frame brashness and sickly green in its contents. An image of the queen appeared to be searching...looking for… "DG, where are you?"
"Mother?" DG gasped as her sister tossed the container to her. DG looked at the fading image of her mother crying out once more, "DG, where are you?"
Locking eyes with Azkadellia, DG asked, "What have you done with her?"
"Put her away for safe keeping, like any good daughter would," the false niceties returned.
"Where?" DG queried.
"Somewhere you will never find her," the Sorceress replied, enjoyment of the cat-and-mouse game curling up into her wicked smile.
DG had confirmed what she needed to know. The container did not actually hold her mother; it was just a viewing device, as she had suspected. Giving the arrogant woman a determinedly sweet smile, DG suddenly smashed the magical device upon the marble floor, smashing its contents at her sister's feet.
The mauve smoke provided a perfect screen to escape as Azkadellia jumped back in surprise. Cain would provide more of a distraction…at least that's what he told himself…and maybe finally get his revenge on Zero for killing his beloved family…and encouraged the others to make a run for it.
"Go! Go!" his firm voice commanded in the confusion.
DG, Glitch, and Raw made for the stairs with Azkadellia and two of her Longcoats on their heels. Zero and the rest of the Longcoats held back to deal with that deadly Tin Man.
Cain didn't hesitate. He grabbed his fedora and launched it at one of the Longcoats as a distraction as he landed a kick squarely in the Longcoat's gut, doubling the traitor over in pain. Turning his attention to the other one, the Tin Man soundly blocked one blow whilst successfully landing one of his own, his fist cracking upon contact with the taller man's face, duster flying. He moved quickly between the two downed men, reaching for Zero's arm, and wrestling his gun from Zero's grasp by cracking Zero's arm over his uplifted knee.
ZERO.
Cain was determined. He would get his revenge. After ten long annuals of staring madly into the scene of Zero torturing his innocent wife and child he would make the world a better place by ridding the O.Z. of this sadistic bastard. The Tin Man was focused on one thing, and one thing alone. DG's childhood bedroom would turn into a bloodbath with Zero swimming in his own blood if Cain had any say about it.
A floor below the Sorceress commanded her Longcoats to stop their useless running after the three escapees. "Wait!" she cried, marching to the bannister. Unshackling the buckles that held her sweeping leather coat in place, she bade her dark children to fly to her assistance. "Bring them to me," Azkadellia murmured almost lovingly to her minions. The Longcoats watched in fascination as her tattoos flew from her chest as Mobats descended upon the fleeing three.
Cain reached for the gun, but briefly lost his focus on the best tactics to subdue an enemy in his blind determination to kill. Zero kicked Cain resoundingly in the chin and away from the gun. Kicking him in the groin, Zero then forcefully jabbed his palm upwards so hard into Cain's mouth it knocked the big man to all fours, wiping blood from his lips.
Not again.
Glitch noticed the dark flying monkeys first. Veering away from his two companions, he began to dance between the tree-like columns along the green and gold marbled floor beneath him. At first, the slender man was so fast it was hard for even the mythical creatures to follow him. A bit of him over here, a part of him over there…that was Glitch, all over it seemed. The mobats, large in numbers and acting as one, were not veered from their evil purpose. Screeching and howling, the large creatures easily flew amongst the columns, focused on their target for the pleasure of their mistress. One by one they landed on Glitch, tearing and clawing at the downed head case, clicking their communications to one another as Glitch blacked into unconsciousness.
The floor above, Cain stood up to find himself facing Zero and two Longcoats who were no longer doubled over from his first attack. Still focused and trying to taunt Zero into fighting him single-handedly, Cain said "Now I know why they call you 'Zero.' Still can't fight your own battles." The scene was all too familiar.
The ploy worked. Slicking back his greasy hair, Zero signaled for the Longcoats to back off as he growled, "I do my share."
How Raw got separated from DG he never knew in all the chaos. He found himself alone and all his courage he had mustered to support DG melted away as he blindly tried to hide and fight off the mobats. "DG!" Raw cried out to the brave girl he saw as his savior for freeing him from the papay's cocoon. Having taken care of the former advisor, the mobats ganged up on the Viewer, as Azkadellia commandeered her Longcoats to bring the leoline creature to her. Viewers were always welcome in her dungeon, where she could strap them to her magical viewing machines and force them to read her prisoner's hearts.
It took two punches for Zero's men to realize he couldn't take the 6-foot, solidly built Tin Man himself, so one grabbed Cain from behind, holding his arms tightly as the other Longcoat punched him repeatedly. This worked fine for the members of the evil army until the Tin Man pushed himself up with all his might and used the man holding him as leverage as he soundly kicked the one in front of him, sending both Longcoats to the ground. Cain once again turned to face his real target: Zero.
The mobats flying just below in the great hall now turned their attention to the other Gale sister, surrounding her as she tried to fight them off. Adjusting her hold on the Slipper's jacket, one mobat lifted DG high into the air.
"Put me down!" DG screamed, kicking and fighting for all she was worth, as her sister lifted her chin up proudly at her evident success.
In DG's old bedroom, the two fight-weary enemies faced each other again. With his armor, his men, and his stolen weapon, Zero had the upper hand. Zero smiled sardonically down at Cain as he delivered a final blow straight down at the platinum blonde head, a surge of evil pleasure rushing over Zero as he watched the Tin Man fall helplessly to the floor.
"No Iron Suit for you this time," Zero gasped out between breaths as he retrieved Cain's gun from the floor, "no wife and child crying for years to free you from it."
Cain stumbled as he barely stood, shock entering his crystal blue eyes. "My family's alive?" he said, looking up at the man he hated so much.
"Hardly matters now," Zero replied through bloodied teeth.
With nothing further to say, Azkadellia's head Longcoat lifted Cain's gun and shot him squarely in the place which once held his heart, sending the Tin Man through the icy upper story window, crashing into the frozen lake far below.
Tossing the now dead Tin Man's gun to the childhood floor of the youngest princess, Zero smiled proudly at the defeat of his greatest enemy and went to report to his Sorceress.
As the mobats flew DG through the Great Hall, she saw her friend sprawled uselessly upon the green and gold marbled floor below as two mobats picked mercilessly at his already-tattered clothes. "Glitch!" she cried helplessly.
The mobats dropped her unceremoniously in front of their beloved mistress. DG looked up at her newly discovered older sister, her sapphire blue eyes wide and shocked.
"Welcome back Little Sister," Azkadellia said in her soft yet emotionless voice, "there's no place like the O.Z."