Chapter Ten
Fool Cross Over Nirvana (Grudge Prohibited)
The duo knew they had to be prepared for the battle that was in front of them, so the best course of action was to equip themselves with any weapon they could get their hands on, or at least whatever their pooled together amount of $14.27 could get them. Luck smiled on them though when they found the hardware store was having a sale on gardening supplies. How convenient.
"Who sells an axe for six dollars?" Margaret commented scanning the bladed weapon in her hands through an automated check out line.
"I don't know," Rigby answered, "but check out these cool titanium hedge clippers!" He held up an extremely large pair of clippers over his head. The weight, however, got the better of him as he toppled backwards onto the tile floor of the store.
"Maybe you should get some smaller ones," Margaret said as she bent down to pry the tool from the raccoon's hands. She had to admit, the thing was surprisingly heavy.
"What?" he complained, "why would I do that? The bigger the better, right?"
His usual smile appeared on his face as he thought about what he was going to so with the plant like abomination in the park. Margaret allowed her self to listen to the raccoon's ranting and slid the clippers through the scanner. $10.85 altogether. "Not too shabby," Margaret said to herself.
Moments later, the two of them found themselves by the front entrance of the park, looking nervous and still disconnected from earlier. They knew they had to do what was right, and fix the mess that they both started. Truthfully, they just wanted to save Mordecai and get the hell out of there, but if they could get away with saving the park and everyone else as well, it would be a nice added bonus.
They both stared up at the archway into the park, and looked inside toward the distance. Margaret could see that the horrid purple grass had begun to spread itself out, and had covered nearly half the park. Rigby looked at all the trees and noticed some of the vines and ivy had wrapped themselves around the trunks, slithering and pulsing along the wood. The raccoon giggled as a sick thought crossed his mind, but wiped it from his brain as he tried to stay focus.
"Are you ready?" Margaret asked her smaller friend, clenching the handle of the axe in the palm of her hands.
"No," Rigby answered as he clipped the air with his weapon, still trying to keep balance behind him while he held the giant hedge clippers in front. "Are you?"
"No," the female repeated his answer. "Wanna go in anyways?"
Rigby looked up her and donned a serious action-hero type expression. "H yes!"
Margaret nodded to him and tried to copy his face before the both of them sprinted under the archway, into the park, there hardcore expressions fading as they entered.
A sudden burst of adrenaline shot through their hearts as they ran forward into the battlefield. Everything seemed to go swimmingly at first. Nothing attacked them and everything seemed to remain relatively normal, up until they got to the discolored grass that had spread beyond the house. Their feet touched the purple growth, and a symphony of discord laughter erupted from the ground.
"Mama came home!"
Margaret's blood pressure rose, no longer out of fear or stress, but in shear anger at these repulsive little creatures. As she continued her run toward the house, she began to occasionally twist the bottom of her foot as she plowed across the field of purple, tearing into the grass and pulling some of them from the roots. Each ghastly scream of pain they let out was music to her ears. She had no intention of ever being called "mama" again, even from her own future children if she ever had them.
The ground began to shake violently as the grass grew exponentially high all around them, trying to trap them. They attacked in drones of hundred strands usually, doing their best to stop them in place, or trip them up, hoping for the two of them to fall and be tied to the ground. The field didn't count on Rigby though, screaming at the top of his lungs as he flayed through the tall grass with ease.
Snip Snip
The infant grass screamed even louder than before as hundreds, thousands, even tens of thousands of grass strands fell beneath the hand of the raccoon.
All that screaming caught the attention of all the vines wrapped around the trees and benches in the park. Several of the green rope uncoiled itself from its home and lashed out at the raccoon. The first one grabbed Rigby by his foot, causing him to lose his balance and fall. The second and third one disarmed him of his tool and chucked it far away to the side of the lawn, somewhere he couldn't reach. The fourth vine grabbed his other leg and lifted him up high into the air with the others helping. They knew who this little furry person was. They could feel every inch of him self and recognized the shape and form. The four vines agreed that the best course of action was to eliminate the intruder and then focus on "mama".
But as their thoughts drifted to pulling apart the raccoon, limb from limb, an axe came down upon each vine, slicing apart from their body, and freeing Rigby in the process. He came down from the air, falling right into the red robin's arms.
"Hey good looking," she said winking to him.
Rigby smiled back at her, before playfully putting his arms behind his head. "Yep! All the ladies want the Rigby! Once you go fur, there is no return!"
"That doesn't rhyme," she said with a curious smile on her face.
"DON'T RUIN MY MOMENT," he screamed in her face, causing her to sigh and drop him right on his tail. The raccoon rubbed his backside before pointing his finger directly at Margaret. "You!"
She reacted back to him by losing her smile and pointing her own finger behind the small man. "That!"
Rigby looked at her with confusion and then turned around to see what she was pointing at. A long wave of purple grass was coming towards them at an alarming rate, stampede formation. Their echoing laughter and use of the word that Margaret now dispised echoed loudly through the air as they rushed toward them.
Rigby stared blank eyed at it for a second before returning to Margaret. "Run while screaming?"
"Totally," she answered before turning on a heel and dashing as fast as she could get away from the trouble.
The raccoon followed her lead and pushed all four of his paws to their limit. Running as fast as he could to try and keep up with Margaret. He found that he didn't need to really out run the rush of grass, he just needed to out run Margaret, though it would surprise him to realize that, while not as serious, she was thinking the same thing. They both wanted to save Mordecai, yes, but they were also intent on saving themselves so they could save him. Once again, saving anyone else in the process was a nice added bonus. They both quickly looked behind them. Neither looked like they were going to out run anyone at the pace it was coming at them.
As the grass approached their feet, it lifted itself up into the air, tightening themselves around each other as much as they could, changing formations and moving in bizarre directions, creating the shape of a large mallet that was about to come down on the bird and mammal. The grass exploded into a glee filled parade as they locked onto their targets. Right as the purple charged itself down onto the ground, and Rigby and Margaret were saying their last words, again… a flash of steel and white zoomed across in front of them, reaching out a hand and collecting the two of them.
A loud boom sounded behind them as they looked around to see what had just happened. The mallet had come down and left a powerful dent in the ground. It would've killed them easily. But they had survived, and found themselves inside the park golf cart that was always being used by…
"Skips," they both screamed happily, looking at the yeti in the driver's seat as he pressed his foot down hard on the gas. The cart reacted and they were off like a rocket.
He sized them up quickly and noticed how roughed up and haggard they looked. The yeti could tell that most of the damage wasn't from the grass and vines themselves, but stemmed from something else. Rigby sat in the back seat looking like he had just crawled out of a crippling depression, and Margaret sat next to Skips looking overworked and exhausted. The yeti decided not to press them about their personal lives at the moment and remained focused on the current panic.
"What happened?" he asked them in his usual monotone voice.
"It's a long story," Rigby said holding on to the seat so he wouldn't get thrown out of the moving cart.
Skips only rolled his eyes, and did a quick sharp turn, avoiding some vines that were rushing toward them.
"Lemme guess," he began, "you and Mordecai screwed up again?"
"Actually," Margaret said stepping in, "it was Rigby and myself. Mordecai's still at the house, probably worried about us."
"Good to know," Skips said as he did another sharp turn, causing the bird and raccoon to slide in their seats. Something caught the eye of the driver in front of him that shined and sparkled in the sunlight. He reached his left hand down out of the cart and swiped the sparkling object up.
"I think this is yours," he said as he handed Rigby his hedge clippers from earlier. The raccoon took them from Skips' hand and hugged them close to his chest, accidentally poking himself lightly in the nose with a pointed end. He pushed them away and rubbed his nose. No blood it looked like. Rigby then snatched up his weapon again, and cautiously held them close this time.
"So how exactly do we stop this thing?" Skips yelled as he swerved around some of the growing purple grass. "Do you two even know how?"
"Yes we do," Margaret said hastily, "we just need to turn the hose off! That'll stop the sprinklers and keep it from growing any more out of control!"
Skips nodded in agreement. "But how are you going to kill it?"
Rigby and Margaret glanced at each other again.
"Won't getting rid of the water kill it?" Rigby asked the yeti.
"It'll slow it down, but it ain't gonna do much damage to the thing."
"Uuuuuuuuuugh," Rigby bemoaned loudly, "why can't it ever be something easy!"
Margaret groaned audibly as well, massaging the bridge of her beak. "So what do we do then?" she questioned the two of them.
The large white beast pressed down on the gas, and hit a grass hill, causing the golf cart to jump into the air for a second.
"You just got to find its heart and kill it," Skips said as the cart hit the ground and sped towards the now in sight house.
"And how do you know this?" the red robin asked Skips.
The yeti's eyes remained fixated on the house in front of him. "You don't want to hear that story," he said in a low, surprisingly nostalgic tone, "trust me."
Rigby rolled his eyes and clipped his clippers together a few times in an act of annoyance. "Well then, where are we supposed to find-"
Before he could finish his question though, a vine rushed toward him from the side, slamming itself into his gut and propelling the raccoon from the golf cart. Margaret cried out his name as he skipped along the grass, but her voice went unheard, as Skips just kept on pushing forward.
"We have to go back for him," the red robin said at the yeti.
Skips shows no sign of sympathy and slowly shakes his head. They were approaching the house at a steady speed.
"We need to be more concerned with the gardening," he said turning the corner of the house and quickly making their way to the back, "other wise, this whole place will grow out of control and take over the city."
More good news that Margaret wanted to hear today. How could it get any better? She did her best to try and put Rigby in the back of her mind and focus on saving the park, but it was still hard not to care about someone who might have just died, especially a friend. Of course, she had a feeling that Rigby probably wouldn't have cared if it happened to her, but tried to put that in the back of her mind as well, hoping it wasn't true. They needed to think of their next step. No doubt the hose faucet would be guarded with prison guard style security. And then there was still the matter of finding the…
"Look out," the bird screamed pointing in front of the golf cart.
The purple grass had grown long in front of them and angled them selves, forming a ramp in front of the incoming cart. Skips tried to swerve out of the way of it, but couldn't make the turn, causing them to skid at full speed and hit the ramp head on. They left the ground and flew high into the air.
Though they were floating high toward imminent death, Skips took the advantage and began leaning out of the cart to see what the damage was. They had gotten a lot of air, launching them higher than the house itself. The yeti tried to calculate a landing point and found that they were going to land on the other side of the vine mess that originally was the hole from earlier. He couldn't help but become fascinated with the transformation the thing had gone through overnight. Then again, he was also impressed that Mordecai and Rigby could summon a horror from that hole only a few weeks earlier. He chuckled under his breath when he realized how hilarious the circumstances leading up to that event were, but that was a memory for another time. At the moment, they needed to think of something to save them.
The yeti then felt someone tugging on his fur. He glanced over to Margaret who was now pointing down toward the center of the jungle of vines. Skips looks directly under them to whatever it is she's pointing to and finds a gaping hole in the center, with a large, green, bleeding heart.
"Found it," they both said in unison.
And is if the heart of the creature knew what the two had discovered, several vines grew from it, rushing towards the golf cart, wrapping themselves around the machine, and forcefully pulling everything down, cart and all. It happened so fast, Margaret didn't have time to react. Skips, however, being used to these action sequences, quickly grabbed the girl, tucked her under his armpit, and shot out of the golf cart. It was then dragged into the maw of the yard, and swallowed into the darkness.
Skips and Margaret landed near the back of the house, and while good for them for being so close to the faucet, it was also just as bad since the purple grass was expecting it. Margaret reacted first this time, knowing where she was and what was going to happen. She dashed to her feet, picked up her axe that she had lost grip of during the fall, and began to sprint toward the faucet. Skips, on the other hand, was not so lucky this time. He knew any sort of grass this stained in such a color, was bad news, but before he could get to his feet and skip away, the grass surrounded him, filled the air with laughter, and grappled the yeti to the ground. He pulled and struggled as much as he could away from them, but their grip was just too much even for him.
Margaret peeked behind her to find the yeti subdued.
"Go on without me," he said with an uncaring tone as the grass wrapped around him tightly, making sure no part of him could be seen.
The robin didn't want to leave him like Rigby, but she had no choice. She turned herself back toward her goal and tried to pick up the pace of her sprint. She zigzagged herself left and right, doing her best to avoid the traps the gardening was setting up for her. Margaret made sure to keep watching the ground, noticing the loops and trick ropes the grass was forming into, jumping over areas that shot them selves up like spikes, and dropping down low to roll under the clotheslines that they kept making. It would surprise anyone to know that she actually knew what she was doing. Working at a busy coffee house can certainly get you some exercise, and have you learn a thing or two about avoiding physical contact in a bustling environment.
Just ahead of her was the finish line: the faucet was within just a few feet of her. But the grass sensed this and began to raise their wall around the perimeter. Margaret knew this was a now or never situation, and made a leap of faith toward the end. Time slowed down for the bird as her feet left the ground and she stretched herself out, arms first, toward the faucet. Her body went over the grass, noticing the grass as they began to stick straight up like spikes. Her belly grazed the top of the wall, cutting her, causing her to wince and spasm her body for a split second. The spiked growth caught her feet as she finished passing over the wall, causing her to flip forward completely and land on her back, her axe dropping to the ground with her.
The wind was knocked out of her, but her mind was still reacting with bullet speed accuracy. Knowing she was on her back made her susceptible to the ground, and she once again tried to make a mad dash to her feet, but the grass seized the opportunity and latched her feet to the ground. She got on to her knees, and found them to be pinned a second later. The robin looked around, trying to examine her predicament. A wall had sealed her within this hell, surrounding her between where she had landed and the wall of the house. There was barely any light coming in as vines above her sheltered her from the bright morning sun, only allowing a few small patches of sunlight in. Her eyes then glued themselves in front of her as she saw the faucet within arms length. She instantly reached out her wing and grabbed the faucet knob, only to be greeted by about twenty blades of grass spears as they ran through her arm. Margaret let out a scream, but didn't stop with what she was going to do.
"Don't you love us mama?" the little things said as they began to wrap themselves around her fore arm, moving ever closer to her shoulder and neck.
Margaret bit down on her beak and grunted.
"SHUT UP," she screamed turning the faucet. As she turned, her joints and muscles fought through the grass that was currently protruding through her arm, cause her to flinch in pain. Trickles of blood slid down the grass as she turned the sprinkler completely off. When she felt the crank could no longer turn, she knew it was done.
A loud symphony of "why" erupted from the ground as the grass grew from the ground and tried to coil itself around the faucet in an attempt to turn it back on. Margaret swiftly placed her other hand on top of the hand already on the knob and held it there. Not wanting to admit defeat yet, the purple grass began to poke and stab her wings with their razor sharp ends.
"Now what do I do?" Margaret thought to herself as she gasped in pain.
A sudden high pitch scream came from directly above her, as she turned her attention to it. Vines from above the ground danced and played with each other, blocking out the sun and the sky altogether. A moment of darkness passed over the small glimmers of light over head in a hurry, stopping directly over her. When a pair of blades pierced through the flesh of the vines, she knew who it was.
"Rigby," she screamed as loud as she could.
The raccoon burst through the roof of her claustrophobic nightmare, and landed cleanly on the ground. He looked like he had been through hell, covered in bruises, a black eye (she couldn't figure out how a raccoon could get a black eye), and a couple of nicks and cuts here and there along his tail.
He let out an irritated grunt. "You already got the hose? I wanted to save the day!"
Margaret let out her own exasperated sound before saying anything to Rigby. "Still gotta kill the thing's heart, remember!"
"Oh yeah," he remembered. "Where is it?"
"It's in the middle of the hole! Think you can get it? Skips and I are kind of tied up right now."
Rigby smirked. "No one can stop the Rigby!"
As soon as he said this, a green vine wrapped itself around his foot and flung him through the wall of purple grass that was keeping all of them in. Rigby slid across the ground, hitting the wrapped up bundle of Skips in the process.
"'Cept that," the raccoon groaned.
He looked up from his position and saw the gaping hole in front of him. This was it. He was going to be the hero this time. No one was going to blame him for all of this trouble if he could prove that it could be fixed just as fast as it was caused.
The familiar feeling of a vine wrapping around his leg again caused him to act this time, gripping himself around the vine as it made an attempt to toss the raccoon across the park again. But when it let go to fling the raccoon, it noticed the furry creature hadn't left. The green rope began to shake violently in an attempt to try and cause the raccoon to fall to the ground, but the boy held on tight to the vine, his arms and legs crossed around it while still keeping a steady hold of his heavy clippers.
Realizing that this wasn't working, it slammed itself onto the ground, crushing Rigby into the ground. But the raccoon didn't relent (though he wanted to), taking the pain. The vine tried it again and again, doing its very best to coerce the latched animal off of it. As the vine quickly belted back to get ready to slam down again, Rigby let go, allowing the momentum of the vine launch him into the air. In the back of his mind he noticed that he had been thrown around more than usual this week.
As he reached his peak in the air, he came down from the sky, extending his shears and pointing them in the direction of the heart. Hundreds of vines grew from that place, rushing themselves toward the raccoon. One of them clipped his arm, causing him to spiral out of place and disorient himself. He reached out to something to try and balance himself out, and ended up grabbing a hold of one of the vines reaching out towards him. Though it freaked him out, it was enough to balance himself.
Purple grass and vines all surrounded him, trying to defend their home from the predator. But it was all for naught, as the raccoon came down onto the heart, clippers ready to stab and slice, he approached the heart, swung out his weapon…
…and missed. By a large margin it turned out. He wasn't even close to the heart.
In that very moment as he passed the beating organ, his mind began to panic and tried to look for a way out of the situation. He reached out for another vine that had grown out from the heart and tried to take hold. But he was only able to keep his balance for a half second before it began to shake violently and rapidly in an attempt to throw him into the darkness beneath him. It shook, danced, and eventually slammed itself into the soil walls. The impact of the wall caused Rigby to leg go of the clippers as they flew not below, but above him as a result from the recoil. The clippers flew high up, ignoring the vines descending unto Rigby, and barely nicked the very bottom of the monster's heart. It was just enough.
A glass shattering screech bellowed out from everywhere as the heart began to bleed out fertilizer and a clear ooze from the growing stab wound. The vines began to move unpredictably and dance madly. Within seconds the vines had begun to turn brown, dry up, and die, one by one.
Seeing the opportunity that was given to him, Rigby began to climb the vine he had attached himself to as fast as he could. When he noticed the vine was drying out and breaking apart, he jumped to a still green one and climbed up a little faster, repeating the process when he needed to. Three vines later, the raccoon was on surface level, and climbed up onto solid ground. He quickly looked around himself to see everything was dying all around him: The vines receded and broke apart as they toppled to the ground, while the purple grass shrieked out in pain and returned to its natural color of green.
Rigby looked back at the hole and looked inside. The soil walls were beginning to cave in and fill the bottomless pit. He took a few steps back as he heard the scream of the heart, launching itself from its home into the sky. It let out one more miserable sound before exploding into a clear ooze that covered the area, Rigby, a wrapped up Skips, and to her dismay, Margaret as well. When the hole was completely filled again, a beautiful flower garden grew in its place, filled with some of the most colorful and exotic flowers the raccoon or any of them had ever seen.
Realizing that there were other people there too, Rigby turned back toward Skips and Margaret to see if they were alright. The grass that had enveloped Skips had uncoiled itself from around him and set him free, covering him in slime in the process, while Margaret still lay on the ground in utter pain from all the puncture wounds on her hands and arms. She looked over at Rigby for a moment and gave him a thumbs up before returning to her moment of agony. The house that had been covered in vines this morning was now free over its grasp.
The back door flew open as Benson stepped out of the house to see what had just happened. Pops appeared in the doorway behind him, with Mordecai slowly tailing the two men. In front of them was a beautiful garden, surrounded by dead earth life, a confused yeti, a bruised and beat up raccoon, and just next to the back porch was Margaret, still writhing in pain. When Mordecai saw her, he pushed past his employers and ran over to the robin's side.
As Pops stepped out of the house, the first thing he saw was the stunning garden in front of them, blooming with a new array of colors and wild flowers that the lollipop man had never seen before.
"MAGNIFICIENT!" he cried out in inflated delight, "SIMPLY MAGNIFICIENT!"
"WHAT THE CRAP HAPPENED," the gumball machine shrieked, wasting no time in raising his voice.
He jumped in surprise as Rigby raised his arms above his head and let out an energized, "Ooooooooh!"
The raccoon then proceeded to do a celebratory dance around the newly formed garden, his tail wagging and rejoicing with him. Mordecai observed his friend dancing around while everyone else seemed confused or in pain.
"Dude," the blue jay started as he grabbed Margaret by the hand, "why are you dancing? Margaret's injured!"
Upon pulling her up, he looked down at his own hands which were now colored bright red from the blood that was dripping out all over her wings. His face changed from agitation to horror as he quickly began to panic for the woman.
"Benson," he screamed to the gumball machine, "call 9-1-1!"
The gumball machine curiously walked over to the red bird and gently took her other wing into his hands, making sure not to get any blood on himself. He studied her arm up and down, seeing several spots where little trickles gradually escape the skin.
Margaret pulled her wings away from the both of them, and achingly smiled at the two men. "I'll be fine," she said trying not to show pain, "I just need another good long shower."
"Another?" Benson pried. The red robin forced a giggle, but was only able to retain an awkward smile at the two men before turning her attention back to the raccoon.
Rigby had ceased his joyous dancing, and had begun to make false accusations about the gardens "mama" which Margaret couldn't help but frown at, but also find highly amusing at the same time. She knew that didn't make any sense, but her psyche was still damaged, so she had an excuse to think that way.
"What happened?" Benson asked as he approached Skips.
Mordecai followed behind him with an irritated glare. "Rigby probably screwed something up," the blue jay said, automatically thinking of the worst case scenario.
It couldn't have been Margaret's fault. She was the one who was injured and might need possible medical attention. Yes, Rigby was pretty banged up and bruised too, and yes, Mordecai did have a bias towards the girl he had a major crush on, but that was beside the point. Margaret was in worse standings then Rigby, so he must have been the instigator for the whole series of events.
"They left the sprinkler on overnight," Skips explained as he tried to brush little bits and pieces of dead plant off his ooze soaked fur.
They? That would imply that it was someone else other than Rigby who screwed up this mess, and while Mordecai tried to figure out who the other culprit was, Benson automatically turned around to face Margaret, his face a deep shade of purple. The bird looked away and did her best to look innocent.
"And we umm…," she murmured, "we kind of used up all your fertilizer too."
A loud hissing whistle erupted from the gumball machine as steam began to pour out of every opening of his body. By the looks of it, he looked like he was about to run over to the avian creature, choke her to death, and use her dead body to bludgeon the raccoon into submission.
"They fixed it though," Skips interrupted. "She turned off the sprinklers, and Rigby killed the vine things."
Benson's fury began to slowly subside on hearing this. Sure he was still mad at them for disobeying everything he had told them to do, but they were able to at least fix their mistake, even if it took them a day to do it. And if that wasn't enough, all their "hard work" had paid off with a beautiful garden that was sure to become a centerpiece of the park if used correctly. So overall, Benson was conflicted.
"Well," he tried to say something, unable whether to add anger or astonishment to the conversation, "both you and Rigby get yourselves cleaned up, find some rakes, and pick all this dead mess up from off the lawn."
He puffed out one more bellow of steam before returning back into the house. He passed Pops on the way in, who was still enamored by the new garden, grabbed him by his arm and drug him inside.
Skips gave a deep sigh toward the exiting gumball machine. Not that he really cared since he did his best to try and keep his emotions out of the crossfire of life. He realized then that he would have to get a new golf cart. Perhaps this time he could just build a new one. Maybe he could build one with a V8 engine, and power steering, and energy saving solar panels. After all, he had to stay green, didn't he?
"Skips," Margaret said, disrupting the yeti's train of thought, "thank you." The bird admitted that Skips still scared her a little bit, but she couldn't help but admire the determination he had going for himself.
He nodded to her before walking away into the distant tomorrow. Margaret watched him and understood that even if the yeti was very quiet and emotionless, he had a lot of drama going on around him. Like where did that dust cloud come from, and how did he fade away into it? It was all too overly dramatic for her tastes. She always hated bad writing.
Her attention turned to Mordecai, who seemed as though he was still contemplating who the other person could possibly be. She smiled at him, and punched him in the shoulder. It caught him off guard, leaving another red stain on his feathers, but also leaving the female to wince in pain at her knuckles.
"Hey," he cried out childishly, "what was that-"
It was then that Mordecai finally realized that Margaret was naked.
"Uh…," he embarrassingly grunted, "ummm…"
The blue jay studied every inch of her body, from the tips of her wings, to the curve of her tail feathers. Margaret noticed and gave the bird a sly look.
"Like what you see?" she asked him in a jokingly seductive manner.
"Did she just ask me that?" the blue jay pondered. The options cluttered his brain on what to say next. If he said no, then he would have insulted her and ruin his chances of ever being with her. But if he said yes, then he might look like a creep and make her think he only cares about her body and not her personality. But what if he said nothing at all? No, that wouldn't do. It would just make him look like some shy guy who's no good around women... which he was.
"You look," he gulped nervously, "goooooooood…"
Margaret raised an eyebrow at the extended pronunciation of the compliment. She began to understand what Rigby had been talking about back at her apartment.
"Thank you," she said smiling at him.
Mordecai sighed deeply in relief and fulfillment. That was probably the most difficult thing he had to do in his life.
Margaret watched him relaxing, though his body still looked tense. She then cocked an eyebrow and gave him a funny look. The blue jay jumped and quickly asked, "what's wrong?"
"You might wanna go clean yourself up," the female said as she pointed to the bottom of the blue jay's beak.
Mordecai gave her a confused look, and then realized that he was drooling. He steadily wiped all the saliva off his beak and chin, and returned to smile back at her.
"You don't look so well," she continued.
Mordecai wanted to say something to break the ice then and there, but his mind and his eyes were too focused on her body and it was racking hard on his, well... everything.
"I, uh...," he tried to cough out, "I gotta go." He began to walk away from the girl, starting off slow at first but then belting into a full on sprint a few seconds later, as he dashed right into the house.
Margaret watched the process of his escape in total amazement. She wasn't insulted from what just happened though. Actually, she was a little flattered, happy that men still gave her that reaction, as conceded and superficial as it sounded about herself. She put a mental note to the side to go visit Mordecai and try to comfort him later, of course, wearing new clothes when she does.
"Where's he running off to," asked Rigby approaching the female from behind.
"To take a long cold shower," she joked.
Margaret took in a deep breath and exhaled in reprieve. She and Rigby had just saved the day, albeit with some injuries. Her wings still hurt, but at least they were beginning to stop bleeding. She looked down at the raccoon and gave him a great big smile.
Rigby was starting to notice that this woman smiled and giggled entirely too much. It was beginning to sicken him slightly. He began to think about earlier that morning, about what he said to her and all the things he might have been in denial about for the longest times. The key word being "might" as he still refused to even give his brain a moment of thought about that morning. He'll just keep all of his inner demons inside him and dismiss them for the time being till he can't remember what he was upset about in the first place.
"Hey," he started, "about this morning…"
"I won't tell Mordecai what we talked about, okay?"
Rigby was glad to hear it. Not like he wasn't surprised to hear her say this though. Margaret never really was one to gossip behind other people's backs.
A rumble grumbled from within their stomachs, signifying that it was almost lunch time. A lot had happened to them within the past few hours, within the past week for that matter, but overall, it seemed like things were beginning to get back to normal. The duo walked back to the house together, ready for a long shower (not together this time), ready for some bandages and wrap for their wounds, and ready for a nice hot meal. And as they sat at the kitchen table eating cold cereal for lunch, they sincerely enjoyed each others company.
Status quo had returned to their lives at last... for now.
Fool Cross Over Nirvana (Grudge Prohibited) - Yasushi Ishii
Author's Notes
Oh my god. I'm actually kind of scared right now. This fic is just becoming so popular, and I just realized this the other day. I'm looking at all the hits it's getting, the feed back I'm receiving, and I've even got some fanart here and there. It's settled... I'm finishing this fic to the very end. No skimping out on anything. I won't let this end up like Imaginary Secrets. I will finish this sucker and that is that! And if I get lazy on anything, I expect you guys to find me and force me to finish it. Thank you everyone! Thank you so much for everything thus far! Stay tuned for Eleven next week!
So Until Next Chapter...
Adieu...