Disclaimer: I do not own Beetlejuice in any way, shape, or form but for my ideas. Which, admittedly are mostly clothing designs for this fic's Lydia.
Summary: Lydia has forgotten more than just the short two years with Beetlejuice. With her true form revealed, she and Beetlejuice will take revenge on all those who did her wrong, duke it out with hellish minions, and evade destiny at every turn.
Author's Note: I've had this beginning in the works for quite some time and am anxious to get feedback on it. I truly think I've got something innovative here and I would like to know what the readers think.
On another note, this story tries to convincingly tie together the movie and cartoon and starts at the wedding scene from the movie.
Warning: Blood, cheesy puns, coarse language, and semi-nakedness. The last of which is not, I repeat not, sexual, rather it is necessary. If any of this bothers you, please press the back button now.
She was scared, but at the same time, confused. What was confusing wasn't why a creepy old ghost wanted to marry her or how anyone, correction anything given that goblin looking thing definitely wasn't human, couldn't notice how she obviously didn't want to get hitched. No, those things were very clear to her. What she couldn't figure out was Betelguese. He was coarse, crude, rude, and lecherous, but…but it was familiar somehow and that's what confused the hell out of her. She had not even known about him until a few hours ago!
"I tell ya, Lyds, this is gonna be great! We'll be thicker than thieves…" His voice fell away from her hearing after he had called her name. No, not her name, a long forgotten nickname. She stopped in her tracks so suddenly that the ghost beside her almost wrenched her arm out before he stopped to look behind him. Her body trembled, making the monstrosity Betelguese had put her in shish like dried wheat stalks, as her mind was assaulted by memory after memory.
They came flooding through, too fast for her to snatch but glimpses of scenes before her mind assimilated them back into her memories. Eyes shut tight against the onslaught, she sank to the floor with her hands over her eyes in a vain attempt to block the sounds out. Betelgeuse let go gently as she sank.
Her mouth opened in a silent scream that quickly blew up to a howl of the pain of loss and misery.
Pain! So much painreliefdangerlove. Snatches of sounds and images from a world that shouldn't exist.
But it did, she realized as the onslaught finally slowed. It existed, along with every friend she'd had when she was twelve. And something else. Her howl faded to a whimper, then stopped completely. She took a moment to catch her breath.
Betelguese and Adam Maitland watched on with excitement (BJ) or fear (Adam).
The young girl in front of them heaved herself up off the floor unsteadily and stared straight at Betelguese.
To Adam's shock, Lydia smiled at the ghost, a blinding smile that lit up the room. He then proceeded to be thoroughly confused.
"Though I know I should wary,
Still I venture someplace scary.
Ghostly haunting I turn loose-
Oh, gods, BJ! I've missed you so much! Adam watched as Lydia threw herself into Betelguese's willing arms.
"Shit, babes. I thought I'd lost you for good when you didn't recognize me the first time."
Beetlejuice buried his face in the raven's knotted hair and squeezed her close. He was so ecstatic! He had his best friend back!
Lydia smiled into the filthy, ruffled shirt of his maroon tuxedo. She had her best friend back!
…And Juno was going to pay.
Anger, searing, white hot, scorching, boiled in her veins and she gently pulled out of Beej's arms. He saw her burning eyes and panicked. "Lyds! I'm sorry! I know marriage wasn't my best idea. I-" She cut him off with a small smile and shake of the head.
"On the contrary, Beej, I don't blame you one bit. I blame Juno! I'll feed her to the sandworms for what she's done to us! I'll…" She continued in this vein for five long minutes, each threat getting more and more gory and impossible. Adam and BJ just stood there with their jaws on the floor, in BJ's case literally, at the language passing the tiny girl's rage-induced lips.
Right in the middle of a particularly gory and obviously impossible threat, she stopped. Not for lack of ideas, because this morbid little girl had ideas to spare, but because she had heard her father whimper as she went to draw breath. Her body seized up noticeably for a few charged seconds before she turned ever so slowly to face the two trapped in Delia's horrid sculptures. Her face was a mask of cold fury, only enhanced by the glimmer of tears at the corner of her eyes.
She stared at them as the temperature in the room dropped to tundra level, or so it felt to Adam and BJ, as her anger solidified from its white hot burning to a freeze that would make steel brittle. "And yet, Juno is something that can be forgotten in time." Her voice was whispered ice. "Nothing compared to denying me what is rightfully mine." She took a deep and ragged breath.
"How could you?...How could you?!" She shook with anger. BJ didn't know what to do.
"Lyds?" She couldn't hear anything but the blood rushing in her ears and so didn't hear Beetlejuice.
"How could…You knew what you were getting into when you married mother! What would happen when she had me! You knew…and you still broke the second she died! Then, along comes Delia and what do you do? Bend over backwards to keep the first woman to show interest in you!" The subzero chill poured out of her in almost visible waves.
Adam's mind was whirring. Something didn't add up. He and Barbara knew Lydia was special when they realized she had seen them at the window, but she was acting as if there was more to it than just having a ghost sense. Much, much more.
BJ was still confused and worried. No surprise there. It was Lydia yanking off her self-imposed leash here.
Charles and Delia, on the other hand, were trembling and sputtering. Charles tried to say something, "Pumpkin, it was for-"
"Don't say it! Don't you dare say it!" the girl shrieked. "There is no excuse, not even 'for my own good'," she included sarcastic air quotes, "that would make it okay to have Lucifer, Lucifer, the strongest of them all, put that…thing on me without permission! And you!" Her head whipped to face Delia. "You ignorant, idiotic, city bitch! To agree with something you had not one iota of knowledge about."
She stalked over to the trapped woman and shouted in her face, "Do you realize the pain that ridiculous thing put me through! It drove me to the brink of insanity! Had he put any more power in you would have put me in an insane asylum permanently!" Delia frowned, "At least no one would have to deal with your abnormality."
She was promptly silenced by a jab to her throat. Lydia smirked, "Tenketsu, you know I love 'em."
He did not like what he was hearing, not one bit of it. "Lyds, what did Chuckie and the Ditz do to you?" He was getting so angry that his eyes were starting to glow. He knew who Lucifer was, if only in passing, and he had done something to his Lyds.
But instead of getting a straight answer, he got a "Beetlejuice?"
It was calm, eerily calm. "Yeah?"
Her blank eyes stared at nothing as she backed up. "Uncover their eyes, please?" Beej obeyed automatically, too curious as to why she had asked him to do so.
Adam was not so quiet. "Lydia, hon, what's going on? What did they do?" They had seemed like good parents, if a little odd. And why is it taking Barb so long to get help?
The dark child answered with a humorless smirk, "It is high time those two realize just why sealing away a Black Sandling's power is a very bad idea."
Charles' and Delia's eyes widened in shock. She wasn't supposed to be able to take it off by herself! That man in the red suit had assured them that it wasn't possible! They started thrashing against their restraints, knowing instinctively that the situation was about to get much worse. "Oh, Lucifer didn't tell you how powerful we grew? Pity." The goth child smiled sickeningly sweetly.
"Lyds, what-"
She threw him an impish grin. "Did you never wonder why I was so at home in the Neitherworld?" She turned back to her ex-parents with shuttered eyes and started ripping the monstrosity BJ called a dress in two, right down the front. "Pure breathers are never at home in the Neitherworld." Shrugging the dress off her shoulders, it pooled around her knees leaving her in a black lace bra and underwear set. She raised an eyebrow at Beetlejuice as she knew she had most definitely not put those on this morning.
Beej just blushed and looked down for a moment. Rolling her eyes in mirth at her best friend, she put her fingertips together in hole shape over her abdomen. With a grim look, she started chanting.
Forbidden Seal I now unlock.
Darkness true dissolve the block.
Everyone watched as a blood red shape, similar to an eight pointed star, with inscriptions at every point appeared on her pale belly. It pulsed in time with her heartbeat.
Fallen Angel's work destroyed.
No more Bitch Fate's clueless toy.
There came a faint male bellow of rage from beneath their feet followed by a faint feminine shriek from above their heads. It seemed Lucifer had lost his powerhouse puppet and Fate had lost this century's entertainment.
Human shell I cast away.
Demoness is here to stay!
Lydia wrenched her hands apart level with her sides, triggering a blast of firework sparks in black, blood red, and white straight out from the seal on her stomach. It continued for a full minute and when they petered out, the seal was gone and the youngest Deetz was paler and trembling with the effort to stay on her own two feet. Beetlejuice was by her side in an instant. He reached out to support his BFF with an arm around her waist and her opposite over his shoulder, but she had other ideas.
She turned to clutch his shoulders just before she screamed in pain and black, translucent dragonfly wings ripped out of her back. Rivulets of blood slid down her back and dripped from her wings. She whimpered and buried her head in Beej's chest as they watched in alarm as long, spindly feelers parted her knotted hair with difficulty and flattened against her head, and her ears shrunk to nothingness. She dug clawed fingers into his flesh as a leathery, black tail forced its way out of her spine under his hands. A bulbous tip grew, expanded, and changed color into a perfectly triangular and hair-splittingly sharp steel arrowhead.
Adam and Beetlejuice were floored at the changes, too stunned to even make a sound. They all noticed the lack of noise however coming from the rest of the room and saw that the two captives were unconscious. They were wondering what to do with them when-
CRASH
Broken wood flew everywhere from the newly created hole in the living room ceiling. Barbara glared from atop her mount.
Beetlejuice's eyes bugged out of his head, "SANDWORRRMMM!" He tried to shove Lydia ahead of him as he turned to run, but she twisted out of his grasp and ran with a reserve of energy she didn't know she had…in the other direction.
"Lydia, no!" Adam shouted and started after her. Only to stop in his tracks when said semi-naked demoness nearly sideswiped him with her tail. He would have continued, but…
"RAORRR!" A purely inhuman sound bellowed out of the petite body that had stopped right in front of the enormous striped annelid, wings and arms thrown wide to catch its attention. Hell, it shook dust from the ceiling, it was so loud!
What proceeded was what could only be related to as a master reproaching a badly behaved pet, that could talk back. Deep growls, sharp whines, hisses, body weavings, and rumbling purrs filled the otherwise silent room.
Barbara, BJ, and Adam were too afraid to move or make a sound lest they break whatever spell was being woven. The goblin thing that had stood silent and forgotten since the girl had first screamed snuck back through his portal to escape and report to his higher ups.
"You can come down now, Barbara."
The ghost blinked owlishly at the young female that she swore was Lydia. "Oh, alright." She sluggishly slipped off the side of the sandworm to stumble into Adam's arms a few feet away.
They watched as Lydia pet the giant worm on the nose. "Lydia, what in the world happened to you, dear?"
The teen leaned against the sandworm's nose and squeezed her arms around its head. She said nothing for a long moment. Refusing to look at them, she sighed and made her decision. "In remote places on the planet of Alt-Saturn, the home of the sandworms, there are small oases capable of supporting no more than one hundred Breathers at a time. It is in these places that a species of humanoids made their home. They called themselves the Sandlings, in honor of their new home. Driven by desperation, they cut off all communication with the Neitherworld and fell into obscurity for everyone on the Outside." Lydia smiled sadly, "They were few, but they were safe and happy." The sandworm slid all the way into the room at a quiet hiss from the child and coiled up in front of the fireplace. It took up half the floorspace.
BJ asked, "Whaddaya mean safe, Lyds? The Neitherworld is safe…relatively, know whut I mean?" He was still very tense because of the sandworm. Knowing his history, Lydia was surprised he wasn't cowering in the corner or something of the sort. Lydia let go of the finned annelid's head and turned to him with a frown.
"And how many powerful, power-hungry Neitherworldians have you encountered in 600 years Beej? They left decades before you died." Beetlejuice scratched his head in thought.
"I dunno, a handful, maybe, not countin' me. Most of um are pretty weak." Lydia snorted as she climbed up the sandworm's coils.
"Never count yourself, Beej. You were never power-hungry, money-hungry maybe, just anxious to get Out. I should know." She mumbled the last part to herself. Her wings flittered agitatedly at their current uselessness as she leaped and climbed. The sandworm watched carefully, ready to catch the young sandling if she fell, but no one but she could tell. Barbara spoke up here.
"Lydia, dear, maybe you should put some clothes on. I'm sure it would make it easier on…the men," she was reluctant to put the Ghost with the Most in the same category as her husband. After all, he had made it quite clear that he was a raging pervert and shameless groper.
"Huh? Oh, uh, hmm. Sorry Barbara, I don't own anything with an open back. Though, I really would like to get this blood off. It's starting to itch," she wrinkled her nose. Beetlejuice cackled.
"No problem, babes. One de-icking coming right up." He snapped his fingers and the blood was gone, revealing Lydia's beautiful pale skin. In a spark of BFF insight, he also fixed her hair. He knew from experience how hard it was to fix a head full of knots and really didn't want the blow up she might have had if she discovered that fact. He stopped to think a moment more before his head turned into a brilliant light bulb, "I've got a brilliant idea, babes! One Spooky Boutique special comin' right up!" He raised his hand out in a reaching gesture, but Lydia stopped him.
"You mean my store is still in business," she asked, shocked.
He cackled gleefully with his arms around his middle and said, "'Course, babes. It's only been about a year and a half since you started it. The Neitherworld loves it!" He reached out again and snagged something out of the air. He tossed it up to her without his usual flare and she just caught it before it hit her in the face. "There ya go, Lyds. One of our best sellers in formal wear."
"Ours, Beej?" She raised an eyebrow, amused.
"Of course, babes. Who do you think's been runnin' the store since it popped up in the Neitherworld?"
"You've been running the Spooky Boutique? With no mishaps," she asked a bit skeptically. Beetejuice looked sideways and blushed a little. He mumbled something juiced to only be heard by Lydia and she smiled. "B, that's the most selfless thing you have ever done." He gave her his customary crazed cackle.
"Anything for you, Lyds. You know that."
"Lydia," Barb queried. She wanted to know what the poltergeist had said, but the ravenette just shook her head and turned to examining what Beetlejuice had got for her. She gasped.
"Beej, you changed the color scheme on my voot suit? And what's with the backs?" She held out the three piece suit for everyone to see. As the name implied, it got its inspiration from the plain zoot suit of the 1920s. But, there were a few distinct changes that Lydia had made. This particular suit was a dark purple and black striped jacket and pant set with a shimmery dark purple dress shirt. Here and there were white stitch cobwebs that only graced the black stripes, like they went under the dark purple stripes instead of over them. There were white widow spiders with black back markings for buttons on the shirt and jacket. She turned it around and fingered of the slits in the back of the suit. They were positioned right between stripes and were hard to see if you weren't looking for them.
"Well, babes, I started changing the colors of the merchandise when our customers asked if it was possible. They really like to mix and match colors and I've had a few ask for really odd combinations. As for the back, ya have wings dontcha? I'd think you would want 'em available to you, know whut I mean?" Lydia rolled her eyes before looking to her wings. She knew exactly what he meant. But that was assuming Barb and Adam let her out of their sight after this.
"What kind of combinations, Beej? They've got to be really out there for you to say they're odd," she smiled fondly.
With the most serious face she had ever seen on him, he replied solemnly, "Neon polka dot stripes and plaid stripes with pastel cobwebs." Lydia blinked, then her eyes watered and she cringed.
"BJ, why did you agree to make that?! That's horrible, even by Neitherworld standards!" He shrugged.
"Money is money, Lyds. I love money, so I didn't think about it too much."
Lydia smiled wryly, "I seem to remember you doing that a lot when it came to you and money. You've mellowed." The ghost gave a small smile and stared at the floor. He still wasn't comfortable with what he termed mushy stuff, but his Lyds had always been different.
"Well, without my babes by my side arguing with me, it got too easy and I lost interest." He looked back up at Lydia's surprised expression.
"You're kidding, right?"
"Nope. At the risk of sounding cheesy," he popped into a giant cheese wedge with arms, legs, eyes, and mouth, "you're the only one who's ever kept me grounded." He popped back. "In a manner of speaking, 'a course." He inched his way skyward, hands stuffed in his pockets, to float across from his best friend.
She giggled, "Still as punny as ever, Beej." He cackled happily right along with her.
"Lydia." They looked to Barbara curiously. She stared pointedly at the clothes in the youngling's hands, "The clothes?"
"Oh, right," Lydia responded. She had actually forgotten about putting them on. She had had and still did not have any qualms about being only half-dressed in front of her best friend. Also, with being a Black Sandling, she never burned and never tanned. She was doubly comfortable with wearing little. She had the shirt on in no time flat, but the buttons on the jacket were giving her trouble. Seeing her fumbling, Beetlejuice snapped his fingers and the girl had all of it on instantaneously. "Ack! BJ, you forgot a tail hole," Lydia whimpered painfully. Her tail was smooshed to her backside in a way it really ought not to be. She was lucky she couldn't get cut by her own tail or the jacket would have been ruined from blood. Wide-eyed, his fingers clicked before the last syllable faded from his ears. His Lyds let out a relieved sigh as she stretched out the poor appendage to shake the last of the pain.
"Sorry, Lyds."
She smiled at him, "It's okay, B, no harm done."
An almost awkward silence fell for a minute or two. Barbara eventually decided to break it for a very important, to her, question.
"Lydia, what happened to your parents?"
Everyone else looked over to the two limp figures with varying expressions. Lydia only glanced at them briefly before returning her attention to Barbara. "He may have sired me, but what they did does not merit any sympathies or apologies," she said coldly, "from neither me, nor any other Sandling." She lay on her stomach on the sandworm's head, wings folded down and tail swaying agitatedly. She could see Barbara had so many questions, but she wasn't up to saying more than, "They sealed what shouldn't have been kept from me." Her eyes drooped in exhaustion. Today had been physically and emotionally draining.
"Babes, we can talk about this tomorrow. You should catch some Z-s." Only after he had said that did Lydia really realized how tired she was after these last few hours. High amounts of emotion, realization, and a broken seal really did a number on her energy reserves.
"Okay, Beej," she replied through a yawn. "Put my-the Deetz adults in the wine cellar. It's as close to a dungeon as we have." A dungeon? What had happened to his best friend that she would suggest locking them, anyone, in a dungeon? Beetlejuice worried. "Alright, Lyds." He snapped his fingers and it was done. "Let's get you to bed. You look dead on your feet." Expecting the usual physical manifestation, he was surprised when all that happened was a sleepy I-am-agitated growl and flare of power from the teen in front of him. Had she just counteracted his juice, he wondered?
A low hiss came from the beast she was using as a perch and he was suddenly reminded of his intense fear of sandworms. "Uh, Lyds," he asked apprehensively. She let froth a growling shh while stroking the nearest patch of striped skin. The beast calmed and listened intently to the girl as she started up again, finality in the undertone of her voice. With a nuzzle to the Sandling, the sandworm was gone through the hole in the ceiling still open to alt-Saturn. Without so much as a flicker of energy, the portal closed and Lydia was left falling asleep on her feet.
"C'mon, babes. Bedtime."
The Mailands couldn't believe how tender and sweet the poltergeist was being. He had been nothing but conniving and lecherous until the little Goth had collapsed earlier. They were still a little paranoid, but Adam actually stopped Barbara from confronting Beetlejuice when he picked Lydia up bridal style and started floating up the stairs to her room.
Adam and Barb followed sedately behind, forced by Adam, and stood in the doorway of her room to watch protectively.
"That was some adventure, huh, babes," the ghost asked gently, floating absently over Lydia's bed after tucking her in. "Almost like old times," she agreed. Drowsily, she inquired, "Hey, BJ, remember Clair Brewster?"
"Yeah, what about the Barbie wannabe," he replied. "She doesn't stand a chance against me now," the youngling murmured. "She never did, babes." Beetlejuice wasn't sure if his Lydia heard him or not, but a smile turned her lips even as she finally succumbed to sleep. Heeding no nevermind of the two non-living beings watching, he juiced Lydia into a nightgown and settled down to sleep at the foot of her bed looking like a black and white guard dog.
"Well, that's that," Adam stated and turned himself and his wife from the doorway. He was content to leave the two to sleep, but with a gut feeling that the future would be very, very chaotic for a while yet.
A/N: Don't forget to review! :)