Chapter-2
The consequences of an Eternals boredom
In no mood for games both Phoenix and Ressie were not following their rule about abilities. Unhurt but thoroughly scorched and startled the two turned to meet their new foe. Hovering nearby in the sky a gigantic black dragon with flaming red eyes faced them and released another searing and foul-smelling blast at them that began melting the roof of Titans Tower.
Phoenix recognized their adversary at once. "Malchior!" she said in venomous surprise.
Now it was the dragons turn to be startled. It stopped its attack and thundered, "How is it you know my name? Who are you and what is that tower doing in this place?"
"We know you because we have fought you before – and won," Phoenix called out. With that Phoenix blurred and split into Raven and Starfire.
The dragons head loomed closer and inspected the two then pulled back with a deep laugh and rumbled, "Ah, sweet Raven! You've changed I see, as has your friend. What, did you miss my caresses and lessons? Have you have brought me here for more?"
"Caress and learn THIS!" Raven and Starfire screamed as both unleashed a monstrous blast of energy that struck the foul dragon vaporizing a tremendous hole through its chest.
Already dead and not knowing it, in utter shock and amazement Malchior twisted its long neck down and around to witness its more than fatal wound and blinked, seeing the golden sky through its body. "What.. how..."
With a final weak flap of its wings the fiery eyes of the dragon dimmed and it fell from the sky landing in the mustard moat with a tremendous thick splash that launched a massive amount of the spicy bright yellow stuff high into the sky. A huge column of acrid steam rose from where Malchior fell then stopped as it's body returned into the nothingness it had come from.
As gobs of mustard started raining down on them a rather amused Ressie looked at Raven and Starfire, "I take it you three knew each other?"
"You could say that" Raven growled.
"Fine shot, but I think that was a little overkill..."
"If you knew him, you would say it was not!" Starfire chimed in. "Raven, what is happening here? How did the dragon escape your cursed book?"
Raven looked up at the sky, the mustard rain was really coming down now. She had thrown up a rain shield over her as had Ressie while Starfire seemed to be quite enjoying it so far. "I'm not sure but we had better find out." She looked up again. Damn! This was now a torrent of the yellow stuff, far more than what had been thrown into the air by Malchior's splash! "What the fuck!" she spat and promptly phased through the roof to her and Starfire's bedroom. Ressie and a dripping yellow Starfire both quickly followed her lead.
Raven cast an evil eye at Starfire."Do you mind?!" Starfire looked down at the aromatic puddle at her feet. "Oops! Sorry," she said as all traces of mustard on her and the floor vanished. "Now to see about that book..." Raven's storage chest slid itself from the corner across the room to right in front of her. She held her hand over it and the chest became suffused with a soft cold blue glow and opened its lid for her.
"The mustard stopped raining."
"Err?" Both Starfire and Raven looked over to Ressie who was looking out the window.
She turned away from the window and gave a strange look at the two of them. "I said the mustard stopped raining. What's more, all traces of it are gone except for the moat."
"Okaaay ... This is getting stranger and stranger." Raven returned her attention to the chest. "First let's see about Malchior" A heavily bound book surrounded by a rippling black aura floated up out of the chest and into her hand." She sent a thought to it and the aura faded away. Taking a deep breath, she opened it.
"NO!!!" she exclaimed. The page that held the curse which bound the ancient and most evil dragon Malchior to it and the book was blank.
"Raven, how can that be?"
"I don't know Star. The wards on the chest and book were intact and undisturbed. There's no way that Malchior could have ever freed himself from it. Something very strange is going on here. First your Blue Wheel of Pleasure appeared in the refrigerator after you, um, scolded it," Raven's stomach rumbled and burbled again at the memory, "and you said the the refrigerator blushed when you thanked it."
"It did. It saw that I was most pleased by what it produced for me and appreciated me thanking it."
"Ah, yeah. Like I started to say before the blue goo did it's little number on us, all the refrigerator is supposed to do is produce treats for us when the munchies hit. It cannot 'blush' because you said something nice to it."
"But it DID! I saw it's color briefly change to a lovely shade of deep pink!"
"After what we've seen since then, I'm sure it did. Then there is this," she held up the book, "the curse holding Malchior vanishes and releases him and finally, that downpour of mustard. Something is very wrong here. Do you have any ideas Ress? You're being pretty quiet over there."
No reply came.
"Ressie?" Raven said as she turned and looked towards her. Ressie still stood by the window giving them the same strange look.
Starfire shot over to in front of Ressie and wildly waved her arms up and down. "Hello! Schlorfager to Ressie! Is not anyone there?!" Starfire then grabbed hold of Ressie's arms and began shaking her. Ressie! Res'al! Are you in there?" She turned her head and called out, "Raven! I fear the strangeness has now taken hold of Ressie!"
A bemused look came across the the face of their companion as she was shaken by Starfire like a terrier with a rabbit. "Sssstttaarrrr... I'mmmm jjjjuuussssttt ffffiiiiinnnnne" she rattled out. Startled, Starfire stopped shaking her.
"Sooo then... what's with the look" Raven questioned.
Ressie giggled. "You two don't get it do you?"
"It is YOU who is responsible for this?" Starfire hotly said. Now now face-to-face she tightened her grip and her hands glowed with brilliant green energy as she continued "You think that this is one of your 'amusements'? I say that this is NOT a very..."
Ressie held up her hands as best she could, "Whoa there! Down girl, down!" she got out before Starfire really got on a roll. She phased her arms through Starfire's grip and continued, "No, I am not the one causing this. Or should I say, 'the ones'."
"Ones?" Raven and Starfire said at the same time.
"Yes, 'ones'. As in you two. More precisely, the two of you combined with the rather special abilities you've given this little realm of yours." Starfire and Raven just blinked and stared at her. "Oh come on girls! Think! For quite a while now you've stayed only here. When was the last time you two wandered the mists of Eternity or dim-hopped? No idea? Then I'll tell you – by outside reckoning, literally ages. 36,666 Earth years to be exact."
"That long?" Raven asked. "Yes, that long" Ressie shot back.
"But we have been having the most pleasant of times here!"
"Star, that may be quite true but didn't you recently add 'battle practice' to the diversions here? And Raven, when they are desired you arraigned for the simulacrum's to show up at random times. Why?"
"Toooo make it more interesting" she slowly replied.
Starfire's eyes opened wide "And this place we made to keep us entertained, to respond to our desires and adapt to out needs!"
"Sooo..." Ressie was moving her hand in a circular 'come-on, come-on' motion.
Raven and Starfire looked at each other and back at Ressie. Raven spoke first: "So you're saying that we're... Bored?" Starfire picked up and finished the thought: "And this place sensed that we were in need of something different and changed itself to surprise us! We wanted something different and this place obliged by acting different and creating for us things that we did not intentionally desire!"
Ressie touched her finger to her nose which promptly lit up and flashed bright red a few times. "Bingo! - and yes I did the nose. Nice touch?"
Raven looked thoughtful for a moment, "I'd say, more unexpected than nice. That brings up an interesting point though..."
"Yes," Starfire chimed in. "Why has there not been any, um – unusual events yet linked somehow to you. For me so far it was the cheese and the box of cold food."
"And the mustard rain I'm willing to bet" Raven took over. By now she had floated over and joined Starfire standing by Ressie near the window. "For me it was also the cheese – the effects of that stuff is..." her violet eyes became soft and misted over, "incredible." She took Starfires hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. "We definitely will give that a try again sometime." That got a deep blush from Starfire. "Out of curiosity, how long were we under the influence of that stuff?"
"From the time you left to find what Starfire was eating until I found you two was almost 20 years – quite a trip I'd say."
"20 years! Yes, I'd definitely say that was aimed at me as well as Star. Then there was Malchoir, but like Starfire just said – nothing directed at you. Why?
"Good question" Ressie answered. "My best guess is that it's because this place was created by you and is specifically attuned to you. You made it as a place to be sheltered and nurtured and that implies staying occupied and entertained. Add to that the fact that like I said before, you two haven't left here for quite some time whereas I haven't spent near as much here."
"But you have been with us the entire time! Starfire protested.
"Well, yes and no." Ressie tapped a finger to her head. "You forget that wherever I am, I'm not all there. More of me is in other... What?"
She gave Starfire and Raven a very puzzled look as both of them had their hands over their mouths and were beginning to chortle and snigger. Unable to contain themselves they broke down and began laughing hysterically.
A thoroughly confused Ressie repeated "WHAT?!" All she got back was a jumble between guffaws.
They looked at her and tried to talk but the two could only get out a word or two before again collapsing in laughter. "Mmfff ... Head... (wheeze, snort)" Raven said tapping her head which set off Starfire, "Yeep... not all..." (chortle, sniff)" then Star did the same and Raven would look at Ressie and again lose it, "Pfffftttt!... not all there!..." This went of for several minutes with Raven and Starfire both leaning on each other to hold themselves up.
Now rather annoyed Ressie rather hotly asked once again "WHAT... IS... SO... FUNNY?"
Finally, still trying to hold each other up Starfire and Raven flowed together into Phoenix once again and calmed themselves enough to coherently answer. "Oh my! (sniff) That was just too much. Definitely evens the score with you from earlier in the glade! Woof.
Ah ha... (chuckle), we're sooooo sorry! (snigger) But you tapping you head and saying that 'you're not all there' is the understatement of all time and knowing you as we do puts that phrase's meaning on many different levels.
"But I'm NOT all here!" Ressie objected. That almost got another round out of the now combined Raven and Starfire but Phoenix was able to contain it to just a broad smirk and a few chuckles. "I think you should know that both Earth and Tamaran use that same turn of phrase to describe one's mental state."
"Well so am I. You know full well that my mind is in many different places right now!"
"That's... not what we mean. No, we mean a 'normal', physical, single persons mental state. That phrase is along the lines of others like 'scatter-brained', or 'one brick short of a hod' or 'swimming with the Flinngles". In other words – loony." Phoenix cocked her head a little, "You know, actually, all those terms do seem to fit you..."
Ressie glowered at her. "My point was that unlike you, I've never made this place my only focal point of consciousness. Because I am never only here I don't think it felt any need to, um, 'entertain' me."
"I suppose that makes sense. You're pretty sure about this ? We mean, you've seen this before right? ... or are you just winging it?"
"Yes I'm very sure of this, no I've never seen this before and yes, I'm winging it. Rather brilliantly I might add."
"And being so modest about it as well."
That earned Phoenix another dark look from Ressie. "I keep telling you that while this place is quite nice, you can't stay just here – or really, anywhere – for so long. Our kind being around anywhere in realspace makes Things start to happen that are not intended. That this place is of your own creation just makes it potentially more chaotic and from what we've seen so far, it has one helluva lot of potential to become even more unpredictable. Question is, what are you going to do about it."
Phoenix knew that one day they would do this but it didn't make it any easier now that that time had come.
"Do we really have to?
Yes. You know we do. What if this place decides my father might be 'good entertainment' for us? It already released Malchior – not that he or Trigon could ever again be any real threat to us, but still, if it ever thinks that releasing something like them outside of this place would be more of a challenge...
True. We most definitely do NOT want to be responsible for what they could do. Raven...
Yes?
Cannot we perhaps at some other time, make this place again?
We will Star, most definitely we will."
Phoenix sighed. "I suppose you had a good idea all along what's needed, but what we are going to do is..." The room blurred and faded from view along with the rest of Titans Tower leaving she and Ressie floating in the sky. Phoenix took one more look around her: directly below them was the bright yellow circle of the mustard moat with the Bourbon lake in front. On its left shore the small stand of pie trees that Star so loved was in full bloom, in back over a low rise was Gin lake flanked on its shores by clumps of bubble gum bushes now bursting with multi-colored balls.
"We're going to miss this place" she sniffed. As she turned back and looked to the Big Rock-candy Mountains they began to glow with a soft warm orange light as if a sun was setting behind them. The lighting started to shift and soon the entire mountain range began to light up in a wondrous display of softly muted colors as it refracted through their crystalline slopes.
Phoenix's eyes misted over at the beautiful sight, "I think this place knows it's time is up, that it's time for it to – die. It's putting on one last show for us."
"This is definitely one very special – home – you two made for yourselves. I never really understood the attachment a being could form to a simple location in space but I think that having been here with you two for so long in this very special place, now... perhaps, I do."
The light from the mountains began to dim as did the sky. Phoenix gave another little sniff, "Goodbye. We will always keep you in our minds and one day we will create you again. Like the Phoenix – like us – you will rise again."
With that the entire landscape and then the realm itself along with the avatars of Ressie and Phoenix dissolved back into the softly glowing quantum fog of Eternity.
"Well, you got us out of the house so to speak. Now what?"
4
