Title: Learning to Live 20: Finding
Author: purplerhino
Disclaimer: ::Ahem:: Points to all previous disclaimers.
Spoilers: Everything.
Rating: PG-16
Characters/Pairing: DG/Cain, AZ/Jeb, Glitch /SemiOC
Summary: Scraps pointed to the short, husky man in the middle. "The Collector."
Beyond the hallway of treasures the four found a huge, cavernous room packed ceiling to floor with crates and boxes. It was lit brightly from above by vast skylights, glass panes, that were too large to hold up like they were except by magic or exceptional engineering. Or both.
Here and there, a gun lay atop a crate, or some grenades that looked odd, or something that looked like a landmine. The crates were marked with numbers and what could only be names for the weapons within. The whole room smelled of metal, oil, wood and the straw used as packing. Jeb was astounded by the vastness of it all.
"Holy shit! There are enough munitions here to supply the O.Z.'s army for fifty years." DG spun in a slow circle to take it all in.
"All the newest, most deadly. Highest bidder takes them. The clink of coin rings a death knell. Money soaked red with blood," Scrap's voice was soft, small, childish.
Jeb turned to see the haunted look on Scraps' face. She was holding her opposite hand to her arm, just under the stitched wound. Evidently the adrenalin had worn off.
In the middle of the room were four statues, three life-sized and one out of proportion. Scraps pointed to the four figures caught frozen in a moment. They were made of granite, running - two faces twisted in anger, one completely blank and another with an odd expression. They were perfectly detailed.
At their feet was an egg made of glass in a metal shell. Every once in a while it would shimmer gold then stop.
Scraps pointed to the short, husky man in the middle, "the Collector."
Next, to the man holding a knife as big as one of Jeb's, but with a gutting hook at the back of the tip, and a saw-like edge where Jeb's was flat.
"Mr. Greer. He's evil. Cuts for fun, to hear the screams. Loves to cause pain and take life. He plays with living toys. Games of life and death, and he never loses, but they always do. Carves flesh and calls it art." Scraps had gone from sounding like a lost child to sounding… flat. Empty.
Jeb looked at the two monsters. This was surreal.
"Lump," Scraps pointed to the huge figure. Half-again as tall as the average man, and thick with muscle under a fine-looking suit, his face was impassive. "He's a tic-tok golem," Scraps explained. "Gears and springs and magic hold him together under clay. But brains he has little of."
Then she moved closer to stand before the fourth figure. A man in his early thirties or so, a machine gun in hand. "Micha. He was kind, but not brave. Feared the Collector and Greer. Does as told, no matter his feelings. Fear rules over heart and head."
She looked at Jeb, her silver eyes boring into his blue. "I turned them to stone. The Liquid of Petrifaction was atomized within, and sprayed when tossed. As long as the egg is active, stone they will remain."
"I don't think anyone can blame you, Scraps. Pipt deserved to be a pigeon stand at the very least." Jeb could still see the pattern of scars across her back. This guy had the mercy of being unaware, frozen in time. Better and kinder a fate than others.
Scraps moved away from the statues and Jeb found himself following. A quick look showed the others were as well.
Scraps took them to a place over to the side. There, three of the oddest, largest bomb shells Jeb had ever seen sat upright. They were at least eight feet tall and four feet around.
"City killers. They level twenty miles around them. Little remains," somehow Scraps' words filled the cavernous room by virtue of their meaning.
Behind Jeb, DG spoke up, "This guy invented the nuclear bomb. Fat Man and Little Boy, O.Z. style."
"Huh?" Jeb spun and noted they were all looking at DG.
"On the Other side, there were these weapons, they leveled cities as well. They incinerated everything in the immediate area, but they did more than that. They poisoned the ground, anything they touched. The poison went into the air and carried on the wind. It made the survivors of the blast sick, the lucky ones died in days, the others lingered with cancers. Children born after the blasts were deformed and full of defects if they survived, because the poison sank into the cells."
Jeb was aghast, and he wasn't the only one. The looks of shock and horror on his father's face as well as Glitch's were certainly mirrored on his own.
"Why? Why would anyone do such a thing?" Glitch asked softly.
"Why would the witch want to bring eternal darkness and kill everyone in this world? I can't answer that." DG had her arms wrapped around her middle. "And the worst part is, it was the country I grew up in who first used that weapon. Once, to show its power. And, a second time to show they had more of the bombs available. It ended a terrible world war at a terrible price."
Jeb knew once thing for certain: He never wanted to visit the Other Side.
"These don't poison." Scraps moved past them to stand four feet away from the metal. "No lingering death. Just a flash and fire and concussive blast that pulverizes everything that refuses to burn."
"Right, we have to get rid of them, and any plans or schematics he had on how to build them," Jeb's father spoke up.
"I can set several of those smaller bombs up to take them out. Hour timer to let us get out and back to the cave in the mountainside," Jeb offered.
"Traps all around," Scraps looked at Jeb. "Touch anything and it kills. But there is an emergency switch in the invention room. It shuts down every trap and magical weapon in here. The Collector…"
"Was worried about getting himself caught in his own traps. You said it before." Glitch looked at the others. "I think we better shut everything down, set it to blow and get the hell out of here. No one will weep to see this sandcastle get washed away."
"It was never a home, just a prison and place of death. It can sink into the sands outside, trickle away with time," Scraps nodded. "Ashes to ashes and dust to dust."
"Okay, Scraps, which way to the workshop?" Cain looked at the 'statues', as if they would suddenly rear up and attack them.
"This way," she started to walk away.
Cain watched Scraps move. She was bloodied and wounded yet had managed to pull him out where panic had gotten the better of him. Not one of his proudest moments but much as she had when DG and Glitch had been zapped, she was much more…. lucid than she had been. Still enigmatic but more purposeful.
'Heat it up and it floats to the top,' she'd said.
This entire place made him twitchy from the moment they'd come through the gate. Now it had developed into a mad itch to be done and away. Every turn here appeared to be deadly.
"Wyatt," DG's hand slipped into his. "If there's any way to get them…"
He knew exactly what she was thinking; there was a damn museum of magical artifacts back there. Priceless, no doubt. And they had almost cost Jeb and her their lives.
"There won't be. I don't want any of you within six feet of any of those alcoves. Let them go into the desert."
Scraps dropped back with a grin that did nothing to comfort Wyatt.
"We throw the switch; it shuts down all traps and mechanical magics. Including the collection." Scraps danced away to walk by Glitch again, threading her arm through his.
"Gee, thanks Scraps," he muttered under his breath.
"An hour timer. We can collect what's portable. The shoes, the wand, anything we can carry." DG tugged at his hand.
"Deeg, that monster was addicted to collecting that stuff and willing to kill to do it," his eyes cut into hers.
"But he just wanted to possess them. I want to take back some of the Gale heritage and the other artifacts have such history… To let them be destroyed…. They could go to a museum or be studied. I don't want them for myself," she looked offended, easily catching his warning. "I'm not willing to kill for them, or allow anyone to die. But if we can…"
"We'll see," he sighed.
She squeezed his hand and almost skipped like a kid. Sometimes, it was easy to forget she was still a bit of a kid. He was so whipped.