Jinx responded to the death threat by tossing a hex at the monster in front of her. It simply darted under the hex, however, and kicked her hard in the stomach; sending her flying through the air.
Pushing aside the thought that she should be glad to have retained all of her lunch, Jinx added a series of cartwheels to her motion, allowing her to slow to a stop in a more controlled fashion than simply hitting the floor. Which turned out to be a good idea: her opponent hadn't waited to start charging towards her, and was only seconds away when she slowed to a standing position; she'd have been at its mercy if she had to get off the ground, assuming it actually had mercy.
With no time to make a real decision, she arbitrarily chose a direction to start running, tossing a hex at the bear as she went. She heard a bark as she ran down the long, red hallway.
"Don't bother running, you'll merely die exhausted."
Jinx snorted in derision. She was already exhausted, running had nothing to do with it. "You'll have to do better than that," she said, purely for her own amusement.
A wall of ice suddenly formed a few feet in front of her. On instinct, she shifted her posture and shoulder-checked the wall instead of running flat into it. The pain in her shoulder was a little too strong for the adrenaline to mask, but the wall thankfully vaporized when she broke it, instead of leaving sharp edges to cut herself on. The impact stopped her forward movement though, and a glance behind revealed her aggressor was also her pursuer. She once again threw a hex at it and started running.
Another bark. "Did that fit your criteria?"
Wait. "You understand English?" Jinx asked with surprise, as she continued running and looked for a corner to turn.
It barked again as it closed the distance, reminding her why she needed a corner. "Thorn may not have seen fit to learn your language, but I don't have the luxury of ignoring information. That you yet breathe is one of the consequences."
I kinda like those consequences, Jinx thought as she pulled herself towards a corner with both hands, hoping the creature couldn't perform the same turn nearly so well. The walls felt as sturdy as the metal they were in the normal Tower, even though they had the texture of the roots they looked like now. "How'd you come up with crap like that?" she asked in annoyance.
A bark in response. "The Puppet King insisted I was evaluating you based on a single extraordinary event, that you were in fact not worth direct attention. I would have arranged your demise in advance if I had known how large a pest you clearly are."
Glancing over her shoulder revealed that she did in fact gain several feet on the bear when they rounded the corner. Best not to run in circles, though; if it gave up on the chase and resorted to more of those ice walls she'd be in trouble. Maybe an open area, force it to run around without walls to help it out...wasn't Ops somewhere around here? "What 'extraordinary event'?" she demanded
The bark she heard seemed to have an edge of...incredulity, she guessed; it was too subtle to be sure. "I discovered it was you that opened the cave with one of the Green One's murals, which contained the ritual that cast me upon the world, that I may establish the dominion of the Green One across it."
Jinx had no idea why this...thing was holding a conversation in the middle of chasing her down. Then again, that barking thing let it say a couple of sentences with less than a second of its time, it could probably hold a debate with Kid Flash. And she didn't know why he held conversations in the middle of a chase, either.
But if it wanted to answer her questions while she was running, who was she to argue? "Establish it how?" She realized the stretch of hallway she'd chosen to sprint down was sparse on intersections, which might mean the unusually long Ops room was on the other side of the wall and she just hadn't gotten to its entrance yet...but it definitely was not comforting with a demon catching up behind her.
Oddly, the next bark continued for half a second, sounding more like a howl as a result. "Once your metal companion is brought under our control, the control powers of the Great Pumpkin will be released, allowing the Puppet King to directly control all five inhabitants of this Tower. With this city under his control, I will then gather the energy to send forth a wave of plant growth across the countryside, uprooting your unliving edifices and sprouting living defenders. By command of the Green One, all fauna on this globe will serve flora in life, or feed flora in death. As the final task entrusted unto me, I will see it completed in memory of the Green One."
Jinx was certain the last sentence meant she'd struck a nerve...assuming it had the equivalent of a nervous system; she had seen the inside of...Thorn, she thought it was just named...and oil innards pretty much ruled out biological expectations. But now wasn't the time to ponder; she saw an opening coming up on her right, which seemed more like an open doorway than another hallway, so she needed to act.
She quickly stopped, then turned on her heel to face her pursuer. She tossed a hex at it with one hand, then threw another hex at the first with her other hand; the hexes collided with a flash, sending magenta sparks in every direction. Some of them hit the bear, and she leapt through the opening to avoid the sparks headed towards her.
Having adjusted to being bathed in a red glow, the white light streaming in front of her was unusually bright by comparison, and she reflexively shut her eyes. It was only a split second later that she opened them again to attempt a smooth landing, but it was too late; she tripped and fell forward...and down a short staircase. She finally "landed" half a second later, grunting as she caught herself before her head hit the floor, but her legs were still sprawled up the stairs.
Enormous windows and a recessed area in the middle of the room. This was Ops alright, though it lacked a lot of its charm when viewed from slightly above the floor. She pushed her feet against the stairs, shifting on her hands to face the entryway when her legs touched the lower level of the room. She pushed herself into standing position with her arms, then threw a pair of hexes at the entryway, expecting it to stop being empty any moment.
The demon didn't disappoint; it charged through the doorway and straight into her barrage, letting out a short growl as it briefly flashed magenta. She turned around, blinking a few times as the white coming in through the windows entered her view, and jumped over the semicircle couch to land on the circular table...which was still a table. She looked back at the entryway, to see that the bear was standing just inside the room...and her peripheral vision noted that everything other than the walls, floor and ceiling were still in their normal form, albeit slightly discolored from the ever-present red glow.
She couldn't figure out why it was just standing there. But then the doors slid closed behind it. The metal doors, which instantly turned into the root-wall texture as soon as the two sides were touching. Feeling a hint of panic, she looked at the less-often used side exits of the room, to discover they were similarly walled off.
"This may not have been the best idea," she muttered to herself as she hopped off the table to use the couch as cover.
Her opponent barked. "The best idea is to submit. Your death is inevitable, but your evisceration needn't occur."
Jinx rolled her eyes; even if she were OK with dying here, she wasn't about to trust a "needn't" masquerading as a "wouldn't". She tossed a hex at the door to her left and another at the clear area behind her to test a theory. And as she feared, the hex impacted fruitlessly against the door and the area where the window would be, magenta splashing off without any damage done. Holding this monster off sounded a lot better when she had the option to retreat.
But it was still a vast improvement over the thing's long-term plans. And she didn't want to consider its short-term plans. "I did not come all this way just to get threatened by Smokey the Bear's goth cousin!" she exclaimed, right before silently darting around the table to the other end of the couch, keeping low to the ground.
She wasn't particularly surprised when it came flying through the air to land where she just was, claws first. That was why she moved, after all, and she stood up to toss a hex at it. But prying the table upright with its foot, and kicking the entire table at her, was unexpected. She didn't have time to actually toss the hex; the only reason she managed to lean back to avoid a table to the face was because the table was too big to clear the edge of the couch, and it tipped into her instead of knocking her flat.
She went stumbling backwards a few steps, just long enough to see three claws puncture the table with a snap, again right about where she'd been knocked from; if she had hexed the table she'd be breathing out of her back right now. Her next step back set her foot against the slope separating the lower area of the room from the raised portion; fortunately her acrobatic expertise let her reflexively adjust her foot to the angle instead of falling over backwards.
She ran off to the side, towards the entryway, as the bear pulled its paw back through the hole it made and shoved the top of the table forward. It watched her, not even flinching when the table hit the floor with enough force to splinter into pieces.
It barked, its face keeping the same blank expression it'd had all along. "Your usefulness died the moment I was brought back to the world. Fitting that I shall send the rest of you to join it, one piece at a time."
Being in the middle of playing "run and gun" with a couple of overgrown pumpkins didn't keep Cyborg from wishing he knew what all the barking was about. He only knew they weren't talking to him. He hadn't seen any sign of Raven, so he guessed Jinx had done her job. But then, why wasn't she out here helping him with these things? And where was that bear, anyway? Or Robin, or Starfire, or Beast Boy...too many questions, no time for guesses.
He had discovered, much to his surprise, that hanging around the Great Pumpkin was comparatively safe. The other pumpkins hadn't tried sweeping him off the ground horizontally, just plunging the ends of their vines against the ground or slamming vertically. He guessed they were trying to avoid the forcefield around the Great Pumpkin, though whether for its sake or their own he had no idea.
He jumped to the right, avoiding the vine coming down in front of him. He then jumped to the right again, dodging the vine coming from behind. The second vine hit the first, and a quiet squeak emanated from the pumpkin ahead of him. Cyborg took the opportunity to fire his sonic cannon at it while it was distracted, and was rewarded with a loud squeal as the thing visibly recoiled from him.
As Cyborg ran forward to keep the other pumpkin from hitting him, he realized that the two of them had become...clumsier since the barking started. He'd seen them take out his turrets concurrently several minutes ago, so why were they tripping each other up now? What changed in the last few minutes? He supposed they could be remotely controlled; mind-controlled pumpkins made at least as much sense as mind-controlling pumpkins. But then, why stop controlling them? And if they were free now, why were they still fighting him? Things just kept making less and less sense to him.
Whatever the reason, the reduced coordination gave Cyborg an idea. When a vine slammed into the ground behind him, he quickly turned and jumped towards it. The vine itself was far too thick for him to grab onto it with one hand, but one of the chainsaw gashes he'd inflicted in the last couple minutes was long enough for his fingers to fit through. He held on with his hand, and used the vantage to fire his sonic cannon at the other pumpkin.
Squeals emitted from both of the pumpkins, and the vine writhed wildly. But in what Cyborg suspected was the first vegetarian rodeo biathlon anywhere, he kept his grip and continued firing in the general direction of his target. He wasn't sure how effective it was actually was, before his "host" figured out that swiping one of its other vines against his would dislodge him in short order.
He went sailing through the air from the sheer force applied to him. In fact, his sonic cannon was still firing when the other pumpkin stopped his flight. Unintentionally, if the crunch of his metal body colliding with its orange shell was any indication. He felt the shriek better than he heard it, and he fell to the ground shortly thereafter, landing with a clang.
It wasn't until he got back on his feet next to a vine that he understood why it reacted so loudly: only three of the pumpkin's four vines were still attached. He was just in time to see the pumpkin shell itself, unbalanced because of its limb deficit, fall against a rock outcropping. Its less damaged side had been facing him, so the turret-inflicted injuries were facing the rock. A sickening squishy sound accompanied the collision, and the three attached vines went as limp as the one keeping him company.
Shaking his head to clear some of the disorientation, he realized he hadn't run into the pumpkin anywhere near the vines. His sonic cannon must've taken the vine off, probably slicing through the damage it'd taken from his turrets. Not at all how he expected grabbing onto the other pumpkin to have turned out, but at least things were defying expectations in his favor.
He suddenly realized he was distracted from that other pumpkin, which was still behind him. He turned around, gasped when he saw one of its vines raised into the air, and jumped to the right. The vines pounded the ground to his left, hitting only the severed vine on the ground. The force of the impact deflated it, pushing a large amount of bloody red pulp into a pile out the open end. Almost as if it were a tube of King Kong's toothpaste, if King Kong used toothpaste and was also a vampire. Cyborg chose to entertain the mental image of King Kong with sparkling fangs and a cape, as an improvement over figuring out what the acrid scent filling the air reminded him of.
Since the remaining pumpkin was already in front of him and off balance, Cyborg fired his sonic cannon at it, too. With a squeal it walked away from him, laying low to the ground behind the Great Pumpkin; his last couple shots were blocked by the forcefield. He ran to the left, circling towards the now-solitary bodygourd while increasing his distance from the Great Pumpkin. No need to be in vine's reach if he was just going to shoot at it.
A bark rang out, again not saying anything to him. What was going on over there?
The pumpkin moved to the side as Cyborg circled, keeping the Great Pumpkin between it and him. He chuckled, amused not only because the giant gourd was afraid of him, but because the sight of it scurrying with four vines near the ground in spirals made it look like an oversized toy.
He aimed a shot for the vines, since the transparency of the Great Pumpkin's forcefield meant he wouldn't know if a shot to the edge would be blocked until he tried. But before he could shoot, an incoming orange shape entered his peripheral vision.
The normal-sized pumpkin flew straight over his head, draping a long thin vine behind his sonic cannon. The vine coiled tightly around his arm, in front of his elbow, as he watched the gourd continue a short ways in the distance. When the vine went taut, the pumpkin was drawn to the ground, and landed on four shorter, but thicker, vines.
"These guys again?" Cyborg said to himself with disdain, identifying this as the same kind of pumpkin he first met, way back in the warehouse. It failed to pull him off his feet there, too. He took aim at the new target, but was distracted by a long shape hitting him on the back of his head. Another one of the same pumpkins floated over his head, latching its long vine onto his arm.
A third one wrapped around his arm, not even a second later. Then a fourth, then a fifth. Then more.
By the time he remembered to fire, there were ten vines wrapped behind his sonic cannon. Their pumpkins hurriedly pulled away from him to either side, dodging his shot, and he almost lost his balance before setting his feet against their combined strength.
He growled as he pulled back against them, struggling to stay on his feet. He tried to aim his cannon at them, but it was the cannon itself that they were pulling, and his elbow was no match for a force sufficient to move the weight of his entire body. He tried undeploying his cannon back into his arm, but although the reconfiguration worked it failed to dislodge them; they hadn't grabbed onto a moving portion of his limb.
The sight and sound of the bodygourd coming his way underscored the urgency; it could flatten him rather easily if he couldn't move. He grabbed the vines with his hands and tried crushing and pulling them, but they were too thin to fully squeeze in his fists, and had too much tensile strength to tear.
The stomping grew louder, and he felt his feet slowly being dragged forward, he was almost out of time. If he fell forward he'd be following their plan, and if he could move backward he wouldn't be in this situation in the first place. Only one option left.
Right as the large vine began its thrust towards the ground, Cyborg detached his entire arm. He went stumbling backwards, away from the giant vine hitting the ground, as his arm sailed forward. The smaller pumpkins, unprepared for the sudden decrease in weight, flew off to both sides from their own exertions. The five ones flying to the left shrieked briefly when they hit the Great Pumpkin's forcefield, before they exploded in sparking orange pieces; the remaining five lost their counterbalance and continued floating away, dragging his arm along with them.
Thankful that he had the chainsaw option in both arms, he deployed the remaining one and slashed at the vine in front of him. It squealed and took a small step away from him. He charged after the smaller pumpkins, or more accurately the arm with his sonic cannon, with his chainsaw raised high.
"What is your problem with my arm?!" he yelled as he ran. He would've guessed it had something to do with joints, but the bears had joints too so that didn't make sense. What else could...oh! "Is it because I have opposable thumbs?"
The rumbling behind him indicated that the bodygourd had gotten over its shock and was coming to help its little helpers. But facing it with one sonic-cannon-less arm was a losing proposition all around, so he continued on his quest to claim his arm from its buddies. It might be a losing proposition itself, he realized, but he'd just have to find a way to make it work.
Jinx heard another bark, halfway through flipping from one side of the transmogrified Ops room to the other.
"Excellent. I expected my creations would have difficulty dealing with your metal master without my direct guidance, but he has already been deprived of a limb with tolerable losses."
She growled as she turned to stare down her opponent. "He is not my master!" she yelled. "And I'm not his mistress either!" she added. She winced inwardly as soon as the words left her mouth; some definitions of 'mistress' implied things she'd rather not consider, even though the statement itself would be still be accurate.
Another bark, before it started running at her on two legs. "An intriguing notion, in its own way. But ultimately meaningless."
She was fairly sure the adrenaline output keeping her alert was approaching deficit-spending levels by now, but she had been paying attention to the demon's tactics thus far. It was running on two legs instead of four because it did a better job jumping in a different direction that way. It was expecting her to jump to one side, and then it'd follow and take a swing at her; she already had tears on her skirt proving how effective it was.
Jinx tossed a vertical hex at it, expecting it to jump forward at her again, which it did. She then did a backflip and leaped off against the wall. It was mid-pounce when she passed over its head, keeping it from either swiping at her or from dodging the pair of hexes she threw at it. The bear growled softly, but by the time she had landed on the other side of the room it had already recovered and was walking slowly around the room.
She realized that responding with indignation earlier may not have been the best response. She was who she was, though, and disregarding her independence like it did infuriated her to no end. But now that she was thinking about the rest of what it said...
"So why are you wasting my time?" she demanded. "Couldn't you just fill me with ice or something, and get this over with?" It was certainly one of the odder questions she'd posed in her life, but the reasoning seemed important. If it wanted to capture Cyborg it should be out there capturing him, and if it wanted to kill her first it should really just do it. So why was it holding back?
It barked and it slowly walked across the room, towards the couch. She kept her eyes on it as she backed away, trying to silently catch her breath while she had the chance. "The dominion of the Green One is the only goal. Every bit of magic wasted before I turn your body into an icy corpse is magic unavailable for the next part of my plan, and I do not sabotage myself for insignificant reasons such as you."
She wanted to be indignant again, but the exact wording piqued her curiosity more. "Your plan? I thought it was the Green One's plan."
The creature suddenly moved forward at an accelerated pace, kicking a chunk off the couch towards her. She had barely enough time to dodge, but before the torn mix of frame and cushioning had even hit the wall the bear kicked another piece of couch at her; this one was aimed ahead of her, and she had no way to dodge since she was already in motion.
Jinx barely had time to raise her arm before the framing side rammed into it, pushing her arm into her face and shoving her head against the root wall. She grunted in pain, the wall feeling solid regardless of what it looked like, but that wasn't what she was worried about. She quickly rolled against the wall back the way she came, as the demon landed in front of her with its claws hitting the wall. It wasted no time walking towards her on two legs, swiping a claw at her diagonally.
She stepped back, ducking under its arm. For an instant she considered turning and running, but taking her eyes off her opponent seemed like the last mistake she could ever make. It followed with a short horizontal swipe with its other arm, and she had to lean back to avoid it; far enough that she had to hop away to avoid losing her balance. It hopped forward to keep up, slashing at the air in front of her.
She wondered why it'd slash at the air instead of at her, before realizing where her arm would be if she tried hexing it at this range. She also wondered why it was only making short swipes, instead the long swings or penetrating strikes she managed to avoid from Thorn, then realized she just answered her own question. It was keeping her on the defensive, waiting for her to make a mistake while she couldn't fight back effectively.
Stepping back from another horizontal swipe, she realized she'd have to make a mistake; she was getting close to the wall behind her and would be literally cornered if she kept this up much longer. And if she just moved away, it'd follow and skewer her. So she'd have to jump past it, hoping it couldn't react in time. Damn it, I'm back on the "path of least stupidity" approach.
When it swiped with its arm farthest from the wall to the side, she ducked and then leapt diagonally past her foe. She successfully kept the thing from clawing her.
She did not, however, avoid the hard kick to her stomach that sent her tumbling into the air.
Spinning through the air, Jinx was on some level glad that she still retained possession of her last meal, especially since this was the second time her stomach had been a target recently. Her only conscious thought, though, was that the glimpses of the ceiling were getting closer and closer. She covered her face with an arm, and shut her eyes.
She grunted when she rammed into the ceiling, and started falling. She groaned when her side landed on the edge of the sloped section around the outside of the room, and she started rolling. And she whimpered when she hit the floor, after falling through the gap for one of the side exits.
Trying to ignore the feeling of fire under most of her skin, Jinx got back onto her feet, ignoring the protests from her muscles and the tears trying to form in her eyes. She wasn't wholly successful in pushing the pain from her mind; but bruises or not, exposing her insides to air like the bear was intending would be the opposite of soothing. She took some comfort in the fact that all her limbs were still working, even if they'd really prefer to be resting right now.
A high-pitched hiss, and the black glowing ball that accompanied it, reminded her why she was using her limbs against their will. She quickly pressed her body against the wall, grunting as the pressure spiked the pain in her back, and the attack flew past her and impacted uselessly on the corridor's seal. Whatever joint-seizing thing the first bear way back in the park had done with its black orb, it actually made her feel worse than she did now; she wasn't about to have an encore.
She jogged out of the dead end and into the room, away from her opponent, in spite of the vibrations she was feeling very clearly in her legs. It barked, another one of the half-second ones.
"My plan is the Green One's plan. The Green One gave me the task, to approach as I saw fit. This city as the starting point, the casting of Thorn and Leaf, the endowments of the gourds, the agreement with the Puppet King, the growth of the Great Pumpkin, the design of the magic that compels your kind to serve the Green One's cause. All are fruits of the seeds that I have sown. And what are you, but an exemplary parasite, too obsessed with survival to see the divinity you struggle against?"
Jinx breathed sharply through her nose as she glanced at the likely source of the bark, to see it walking slowly and deliberately, towards her. "Maybe you should ask Thorn, oh wait!" she taunted, managing to keep the struggle with her body out of her voice.
The creature barked again. "Ah, the blight revels in its corruption. But yes, I do wonder how you managed to banish Thorn, it had more than enough brute force to offset its lack of finesse. I suppose I'll ask Thorn once I cast it again."
The implication, that any of these abominations could simply be reconjured no worse for wear, was not an appealing one to think about; even if it were a short-term improvement over guessing how many bruises she'd have after this. Although, if it were easy to recast them or whatever, it'd have done so by now. Still...
"So why are you telling me all this, if you're just going to kill me?" she prompted.
Another bark. "Victory is inevitable. But you and the metal man have repeatedly escaped what I thought to be inescapable. Only a fool discards the obvious in favor of delusion, and I am no fool. Inevitable does not mean imminent. If you somehow manage to escape my grasp here, then you deserve to know what your world's future is going to hold. Because you may not live to see it."
The bear charged across the room at her, on all four legs. Jinx, not sure she could handle the kind of legwork her acrobatics would take, responding by running in the other direction. Gritting her teeth against the searing sensations running through her legs each time her foot hit the floor, she wondered how long she'd be able to handle that. But, well, quitting was for quitters. And she was neither a quitter, nor willing to be a critter's fritters.
She rolled her eyes at her own sad attempt at comedy. She wished Cyborg was up here; a meat shield would be a lot more useful than a comedian, but he could be both.
Sometime in the past several years, Cyborg had gotten used to chasing after his own limbs. He wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a cause for alarm.
The quintet of normal-sized pumpkins had been running away from him, dragging his arm behind, for a couple minutes now. They couldn't run as fast as he did, though, so even with having to dodge their much larger cousin's attempt to smash him he was still catching up to them.
But he was still aware that it'd only take one wrong move on his part for him to end up smashed against the ground, and it'll be all over then. And he had absolutely no idea what kind of situation Jinx was in, either. He needed to cut this chase short, somehow.
While still running forward, he retracted the chainsaw attachment in his still-connected arm, then entered a couple remote-control commands for his other arm. He wasn't sure it'd actually work, the receivers in his arms weren't particularly robust and the signal jamming effect he'd been dealing with all night was still active.
But the rocket propulsion on his arm kicked in, thrusting forward then turning to come back to him, bringing a set of squeaking gourds with it. He grabbed the wayward limb with his other arm, and quickly pressed the shoulder against its socket, reattaching it to his body.
A louder squeak above him caught his attention, and he glanced over his newly-returned shoulder. The long vines of the smaller pumpkins had gone behind him, and had wrapped around one of the larger pumpkin's giant vines, and it looked like it was trying to maintain its balance.
Cyborg smiled, as an LED turned on in his mind. "You like hanging onto my arm so much?" He grabbed the vines trailing around his arm with both hands. "Let's go for a ride!"
The squeaks turned into a cacophony of squealing, as Cyborg sprinted towards the Great Pumpkin, dragging his now-unwilling pursuers with it. The softer but constant rumbles in the ground told Cyborg that, as he hoped, the larger pumpkin was too off-balance to attack.
A few feet away from where he thought the forcefield was, he adjusted his grip further up the vines' length, then jumped forward with all the force he could muster, pulling his fists in front of him at the same time. Normally he'd use that type of dive to score a touchdown, but he figured it'd work as well here as it would in a game of football.
As he landed flat on the ground with a reverberating clang, the overhead squealing grew louder. Cyborg looked up to see the orange shell of the giant pumpkin tipping forward, towards the Great Pumpkin. On contact with the forcefield, the squealing turned into an outright shriek as orange sparks coated the creature.
Cyborg yelled in pain when the thing exploded, sending a massive wave of air pressure over him. Since he was still low to the ground, he wasn't pushed away, but his internal alarms told him that the sheer volume of the explosion had fully overloaded one of his core audio receptors; he was literally deaf in one ear. Not too surprising after having to jury rig his audio system earlier in the night.
Unfortunately his olfactory senses were still working in top condition, as he could smell the fumes of incinerated pumpkin blood all around, which was at least an order of magnitude worse than their non-charred scent.
He noticed the vines wrapped around his arm had gone limp. He looked behind him, and saw no recognizable trace of any of the giant vines, nor the smaller pumpkins. Clearly the vines exploded too, which should take care of the smaller pumpkins that were so close to it. And if it didn't, well, odds were he wasn't going to find them any time soon.
But what he was really curious about was the sound of his landing. He knocked on the ground beneath him to verify, and he heard a metallic clang in his functioning ear. He stood up, stared at the ground...and realized it wasn't "the ground" at all.
With the low light and vegetable distractions he hadn't noticed before, but he was standing on the metal cover for the obstacle course's pit. The Great Pumpkin was resting on it as well. Which Cyborg guessed made sense, it was the smoothest spot out here and one wouldn't want to risk their horribly oversized pumpkin from rolling away. It gave him another idea, though.
Cyborg turned and ran away from the Great Pumpkin, until he was off of the metal and back onto earth. He entered some commands on his arm, and with a mechanical buzz the two sides of the cover started sliding open, slowly. Most of the obstacle course's systems were off-limits to wireless connections, but he made an exception for the pit doors because of the possibility of someone getting stuck inside.
The Great Pumpkin was too wide to fall through completely. Its round shape did, however, fall several feet into the hole. With no sound, nor any indication of its forcefield reacting. Seemed to support his guess that this was just an oversized pumpkin instead of a monster.
He reversed his commands, ordering the doors closed again. The sound of the hydraulic mechanism struggling mixed with the intermittent sound of cracking, as the door fought with the gourd obstacle in his way. The crack turn into a crunch, and—
Cyborg yelled as a sudden jolt of electricity shot through his systems, bringing him to his knees. The effect quickly subsided, and he looked to see the pit doors closing underneath an orange shell...with an orange pile formed underneath it, filling most of the pit's volume.
He quickly checked his systems, and it turned out his communication system had blown its fuses. The destruction of the Great Pumpkin must have spiked its output, and he felt the energy the instant before his fuses kicked in to prevent damage. So theoretically, all the kids were free now, and he could call for backup...except his communication system was in no state to contact anyone. He wasn't sure if the systems in the Tower...
He ran towards the Tower at top speed. He still didn't know if Jinx needed help, and standing around out here wasn't going to improve his knowledge or her situation.
Jinx picked herself up off the floor. Playing tag with this monstrosity hadn't been very fun.
But the bear just stood there. It took her a second to notice it was wearing a frown, the first facial expression she'd clearly seen it show.
It barked. "So the two of you in fact have thwarted my plan. Impressive. Which means there is no sense remaining here any longer."
She heard a low booming sound from around the creature, then she felt something like wind, blowing from behind her towards the bear. As she stepped away, she saw a red bubble form around her opponent. A couple seconds later, she realized that the rest of her surroundings were gradually losing their red glow.
Through the main entryway, which had apparently opened without her noticing, the Puppet King charged into the room. He was holding something in each hand, though she couldn't tell what. "No," he was yelling at the bear, "you can't leave me like this!"
It barked, in what she assumed was a rebuttal to the Puppet King since she wasn't hearing any words herself. The Puppet King's wooden face lacked the kind of articulation that'd let her make a guess at his emotional response.
At the corners of the room, the root walls turned back into the normal walls of the Tower, and the wooden floors and ceilings followed suit as the effect grew. Or more precisely, she realized, the effect that made them roots or wood was shrinking, restoring the Tower to its natural state.
For a moment she considered hexing the bear. But she didn't see a good result happening. Best case scenario was that she actually stopped its teleportation. And then it'd have to get away on foot, which would leave it no reason not to shred her with the magic power it was conserving. And then she wouldn't be around to stop the Puppet King from doing whatever it could with the four Titans he presumably still had. No, risking her skin to doom the city was stupid all around.
When the effect shrunk past her position, the room around her returned to the expected nighttime lighting as well as its normal hue; it took a second for her eyes to adjust to the dimness. As the rest of the spherical shape shrunk towards the bear, she saw the vines from the hallway were attached to the outer edge of the shape, quickly retracting inside; it seemed to disappear past the edge.
The creature barked once more, as the last of the vines entered the red sphere. "Enjoy the undeserved freedom you've earned, while you can. You won't keep it for long, I will see to that."
With a high-pitched ringing reverberating around the room and an intense flash of red light, the sphere disappeared, taking the bear with it. The Ops room looked like it should, other than the pulverized furniture.
And the presence of the Puppet King, who she turned to face directly. "On your own?" she asked patronizingly, as she flexed the fingers in her right hand. The soreness in her legs was distracting, but she was dealing with a wooden half-pint, who'd have difficulty outrunning her aim.
"Only briefly," he responded with a hint of malice, presenting the items he had in his hands. One was a control bar used for marionettes, although the lack of strings meant it wouldn't work for conventional puppetry. The other was a tiny wooden figure, with black clothes, grey skin, an upside pink cone on its head...
"Is that supposed to be my hair?" she yelled, while making a fist with her hand. "I do not have a flattop!"
"Perhaps you'll have more respect for your head when I'm done," he said as he raised the control bar.
Jinx growled as anger ignited in her stomach. "After all the kids, bears and pumpkins underestimated me; you're seriously trash-talking my freaking hair? Son of a birch, how does a girl get taken seriously around here?!"
The only response was a pink light glowing on one end of his control bar. She grit her teeth, as she felt a chilling wind howl through her body, threatening to pull her spirit into the cheap replica.
But she'd already figured out how she wanted to deal with this, even while struggling to keep her eyes open. With a brief shout, she thrust her fist towards the Puppet King, unfurling her hand to throw a special hex at him.
The purple impact tossed him back a few feet, but he held onto the control bar. "Your power has failed," he proclaimed as he stood back up.
She rolled her eyes. "You are already dead," she countered flatly.
He gasped, as the base of his fingers took on a purple glow. He didn't seem able to voice anything when his fingers literally fell off the ends of his hands, forcing him to drop the control bar.
As the icy wind she felt stopped, the glow on the ends of his hands snaked up his arms, warping them into chaotic curves. The distortion shoved splinters through his "skin", while the lines continued up to his shoulders. When the lines from both arms met in the middle of his body, his torso split into two pieces, which both fell to the floor.
She was kind of disappointed that his eyes didn't display any emotions, as his entire body collapsed into a pile of sawdust.
She heard a deep, almost awed, exhalation from the right. She quickly looked in that direction, to see Cyborg standing inside a side entrance to the room, staring in her general direction. With the immediate threat finally gone, the adrenaline was subsiding and she was becoming much more aware of the pain throughout her body, but Cyborg didn't need to know that. She didn't feel like justifying anything right now, either.
Jinx turned to face him directly. "What?" she asked, trying to sound more confused than annoyed.
It was a second before he responded. "Hokuto Shinken," he muttered.
"...OK, I'm just going to repeat myself, what?" she said with entirely genuine confusion.