The Wizard of Oz
Retold by Mutitoon
Chapter Four
Many hours after meeting with each other, Dorothy Gale and Tenchi, the scarecrow, were walking down the yellow brick road, which was in a forest, with Toto following close behind without his leash, due to Tenchi's lack of balance and Dorothy's helpful nature.
"Whoa!" Dorothy said for the fifith time as Tenchi fell on her again.
"Sorry." Tenchi said.
With a heavy sigh, Dorothy did all she could from losing her temper.
"Who's that?" Tenchi asked, pointing in front of the group. Dorothy looked and saw a young girl with a dark tan skin, green hair and eyes and wearing a green, two-piece outfit.
The girl, which Dorothy and Tenchi saw, wore a headdress, which made an oval on top of the girl's head and went to the three tufted ponytails: one to the left, one to the right, and one to above her head in a curve. The headdress almost covered a shiny black opal-like on the girl's forehead.
The outfit made the girl look like an acrobat from the Middle East. The top used brown strips of cloth to hold the two pieces of green cloth, which were held together by a purple, spiked stone, over the girl's chest, and the bottom was green at the hips with white, fluffly legs and a strand of green cloth, which had a similar stone near the bellybutton, hung in front of the girl's legs. The sandels were green and had strips of green cloth that went to the ankle. She wore gold bracelets and earrings.
"Who are you." Dorothy asked the green girl.
"I'm JunJun, the acrobat for Lady Elda." The girl announced gruffly, like a boy.
"You work for that vampire-witch?" Dorothy exclaimed.
"Yeah! So?" JunJun asked rudely. Then, the girl made an announcement, "Give me the slippers, or your pal's gonna get hurt."
"You don't scare me!" Dorothy yelled at the tomboyish girl.
The green girl grinned before she jumped into the air and threw green fireballs at Tenchi. The scarecrow screamed at the sight of the fireballs, causing Dororthy to throw herself in front of her friend to protect Tenchi from the fireballs. When the fireballs neared the human girl, the hair-tie that Zeniba enchanted started to glow.
"What the?" JunJun exclaimed as a transparent, purple shield appeared in front of the girl and the scarecrow. The shield caught the green fireballs and blew them back to JunJun, who was shocked about the backfired attack. The fireballs hit the green girl, but they did not harm JunJun very much, just left a few burns.
"Ouch!" Dorothy said after seeing the green girl's misfortune.
JunJun recovered from having her fireballs 'returned' to her and said, "This isn't the last time you've seen me!" The girl changed into a green ball and flew away.
Seeing the exit of JunJun, Dorothy and Tenchi had a bad feeling about the threat.
Hours after the encounter with JunJun, Dorothy, Toto and Tenchi were still in the forest. They were near a log cabin, when they realized that it was sunset.
"I'm so hungry!" Dorothy whined with her hands on her stomach. Toto whimpered out of hunger. Tenchi, however, was not hungry, due to the fact that he did not need food.
"Dorothy, we'll find some food soon." Tenchi said, trying to calm the girl down.
Then, a shout was heard from the log cabin.
"Dammit!"
The two friends looked at the cabin. Then, a bowl, which was filled with a stew, flew at the group.
"Whoa!" Dorothy exclaimed as she and Tenchi jumped out of the way. The bowl hit the ground and shattered into pieces.
"That was close!" Tenchi announced as he clumsily got to his feet.
Then, the door of the cabin opened to reveal a man that was completely made of tin. The metal resident of the cabin went to the duo.
"You two okay?" The metal man asked with a gruff voice as he offered his hand.
Dorothy took the man's hand and looked up at the man's tin face. His face was well-detailed from the form of the face to the shape of the nose to the curtain beard and the brown eyes were the most human on the tin man's face, but the body, which had a small door on the chest, was simple. This strange difference caused Dorothy to be curious about the tin man.
"I'm fine." The girl answered as she got to her feet with the tin man's help. After Dorothy got to her feet, the metal man withdrew his hand from the girl's.
"What's wrong?" Tenchi asked the helpful metal man after seeing the quick withdraw.
"It's nothing." The tin man said.
"It's something." The scarecrow accussed.
The tin man gruffly huffed at the straw-filled man's words. Then, he noticed the silver slippers on Dorothy's feet. He turned around and started walking back to the cabin.
"What a strange man." Tenchi stated to Dorothy.
Then, the metal man turned around and pointed a finger at Dorothy, and a beam of light went out of the finger and went through the girl's chest. Dorothy fell to the ground from the impact of the light going straight through her.
"Dorothy!" Tenchi yelled out in shock as Toto barked at the tin man.
The girl sat up and felt her body for the bullet wound, but she could not find one. Seeing that she was not harmed by the light, she got up to her feet and started yelling at her attacker.
"WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKIN'!"
The tin man rubbed his metal hair and replied, "I'm sorry! I thought you were Beryl."
"Huh?" Dorothy asked, "Why would you think I'm her?"
Just as confused as the girl, the attacker answered, "Well, those slippers that you have on might confused some people."
Dorothy looked at her feet and the silver slippers. She looked back up to the tin man and said, "I can understand why. I did accidently killed her."
The metal being was taken back, when he heard that Beryl was dead. He smiled and said, "Would you join me for dinner?"
"What a minute!" Tenchi announced, grabbing Dorothy's left arm, "Why should she?"
"Hey!" The tin man said, "It's a way for me to apologized for shooting at her."
"And it's also a way for us to tell each other's stories." Dorothy added.
Tenchi thought about the idea of dinner for a moment and said, "Good points."
"But first," The girl said, "what's your name?"
The metal man was silent for a moment before he answered.
"The name's Jigen."
Later that night, Dorothy and Toto had finished eating a bowl of stew, when she told her story to the tin man, Jigen. The four was in the cabin, which was one large room. There was a bed, a table with a chair, a fireplace, a small bookcase and a few dishes.
"So, you killed Beryl." The metal being said, "I should be grateful."
"Why?" Tenchi asked.
"She's the witch that turned me into this." The tin man replied, pointing to himself.
"You are a livin' person before?" Dorothy asked, curious about the origins of the tin man, who answered with an explaination.
"Yeah, I was a witch's son, who was looking for a little more independence from his mother. Some time after I built my cabin, Beryl found me and offered me a chance to rule all of Oz by her side, but I refused. So, she turned me into this: an unfeeling piece of metal. She came back to me a few more times, and she made the same offer every time. I refused to even humor the idea of joining her, even if it meant staying like this forever. Mother found out about my 'condition' and rushed right here. She scolded me for allowing something like this to happen, but she did lessen the curse. She told me that, besides agreeing to be Beryl's beau, I need a beating heart to change me back to flesh and blood."
"So, you've been waitin' to get back at her?" Dorothy guessed.
"Yeah," Jigen nodded his head, "Mother also infused my magic guns into my hands, knowing how much I wanted to attack her."
"Dorothy, maybe the Wizard of Oz might help him." Tenchi said to the girl, who said, "That's a good idea."
"The Wizard of Oz?" Jigen asked the two friends.
"Yeah!" Tenchi bluntly answered, "The Wizard of Oz is gonna gave me a brain, and help Dorothy get home."
"So, you're thinking that the Wizard of Oz is going to help me?" The tin man asked the scarecrow.
"Yeah." Dorothy nodded.
Jigen thought about the idea of going the Wizard of Oz before he gave his answer.
"Normally, I would say 'no', but since I know who killed Beryl, I join ya kids."
"Kids?" Tenchi asked in confusion.
Dorothy said nothing, because she was yawning.
"Looks like it's your bedtime." Jigen announced, "Dorothy, you can take my bed."
"Thank you." The girl yawned as she went to the bed.
"Dorothy, take off your slippers. They're good for walking but not for sleeping." Jigen suggested.
The girl obeyed and took off the slippers and placed them next to the bed. Then, she turned to the two 'men' and asked, "Where are you two gonna sleep?"
"I can't sleep." Tenchi admitted.
"I can't sleep either, thanks to this curse." Jigen confessed.
Dorothy felt terrible about her friends, because they could not sleep. Jigen saw this and replied to it.
"Kid, this is nothing, so don't worry about us."
Dorothy smiled and laid on the bed and went to sleep, and Toto slept on the floor near the bed. Tenchi and Jigen watched the girl all night.