Author's Note: New chapter out, Not much to say this week other than the usual Read, Review, Favorite and Enjoy!
Chapter 36: We Require Your Help, Magic Mirror
A mirror had been put in the chem-myth-ry lab, not a unusual thing to consider when you recall that the room had been turned into a temporary storage dump for the girls of the school while their dorm was being rebuilt. But this particular mirror was special, for it was the perpetrator of that incident in question. Not that anyone would recognize the mirror right now, having regained the appearance of a ordinary mirror, albeit one that had a feminine looking mask floating in it's reflection for a face. Not that it's past actions or it's current looks were of any concern to the mirror right at the moment. No, right now it was looking at a little bird that some time ago had flown into the classroom.
"That's a interesting predicament you've found yourself in." Schlechtester stated looking at the little bird, who was holding onto a pair of reading glasses and reading through a magic book. "Do you honestly think that I don't recognize you?" The raven squawked at the mirror seemingly in acknowledgement. "I told you so." The bird gave the impression of a eye roll before she resumed reading through the book. The door groaned loudly as someone walked into the classroom, admittedly it took her a minuet to deduce the identity of the young man that walked inside of the classroom. "Mira, I didn't know you had a interest in gender shifting." The Mirror made a show of sniffing something in the air before speaking knowingly. "Ah Riddlish. That explains it."
"So glad we're all caught up now. I take it you're also aware of the Jabberwocky that you released when you demolished the girl's dormitory?" Mira questioned cocking a brow at the mirror suspiciously.
"I knew that a Jabberwocky was being kept inside of the dormitory basement, having fled from Wonderland when my sister decided to try and curse it to death. For some strange reason everyone seems to unanimously agree that a school full of children is the best place to keep all of their potentially explosive garbage." Schlechtester stated rolling smokey eyes.
"If you knew that there was a vault full of dangerous magical artifacts under the dorm then why did you drop a boulder the size of a swamp troll on top of it?" Mira asked glaring angrily.
"Neither the matter of the vault, or what was inside of it are relevant because neither you, I nor our homeland's monarch are suppose to be here right now!" The mirror snapped glaring at it's ward.
"How did that work out for you?" Mira questioned looking at her adoptive mother before letting out a deep sigh. "We don't have all day to go back and forth on this. How do we stop the Jabberwocky?" Mira's question peaked the interest of the mirror. "It was beaten once already."
"Do we need to repeat the poem of the Jabberwocky?" Schlechtester asked cocking a illusionary brow at Mira.
"Two problems wrong with that statement, the first is that the vorpal blade is locked inside of Wonderland, the second is that it is designed to kill, which seeing as how the dragon is still alive means that it is not the method used to incapacitate the beast." Mira replied using a fair amount of deductive reasoning.
"Fantastic, but shouldn't you be studying it's former prison for those answers?" The Mirror asked her voice full of suspicion.
"Or I can just ask it's former prison guard." The Mirror cocked a brow suspiciously at Mira to this statement. "It was trapped in a glass statue, do I really have to come out and say it?"
"No, I was not the one who was responsible for trapping the Jabberwocky, that is a question that is much better suited to your headmaster." Schlechtester stated in a obvious tone of voice.
"We'll that's tough, because we already set the bait for the Jabberwocky and it seems that we have no means by which to fight against it." Mira stated crossing her arms in visible dissatisfaction. "Plan B it is." Mira went over to her bag, and quickly noticed the presence of the raven that had rifled through it. "Hello there little fellow." Mira firstly noticed what book that she had apparently left open, one which detailed various species of magical birds, which was strange since Mira memorized the contents of that book some time ago. Also of note was that the bird seemed to have at some point in time stolen Apple's reading glasses, a realization that it also seemed to come to because it then immediately took off. "I don't have time to go chasing after your gifts to her, my apologies." Once Mira was done apologizing to Raven she then got to work, setting up a magic circle, selecting a appropriate image from the school's on-mirror archives, and standing before her quote on quote mother. "I am going to attempt to restore your proper appearance, in exchange I want you to subdue the Jabberwocky so that it does not create any more chaos." Mira stated in a matter of fact manner.
"And after? It sounds like your plan is to trade one monster for another, namely me." Schlechtester stated cocking a knowing brow at her 'daughter.'
"A bridge that I will set on fire when the time is appropriate, for now we still have a monster on the loose, and we still need to do something about it." Suddenly Mira heard a roaring noise coming from outside in the courtyard. "Right now."
The Jabberwocky had grown significantly since the girls encountered it in the forest. It was now as tall as the girl's dormitory under which it use to reside. A large humanoid and lanky creature featuring a face with Pupil-less eyes and a mass of hair like tentacles, with two large wings the span of the school courtyard on it's back.
"That's it?" Dexter asked sitting behind a tree looking at the creature sharply. As it walked with chicken like feet the grass around it started to change color and produced a odd mix of different colors and strange smells under the sweep of it's long whip like trail. "Yah that's it." So good news is the plan to lure in the giant reality warping monster into the courtyard was working, bad news was they were also in the courtyard with said reality warping monster. "Mira there's a big ugly dragon out here that's doing really funky things with the lawn. Where's that Dragon slayer plan that you were talking about earlier?"
"We're going with plan b." Mira's voice replied from Dexter's Mirror phone that was set on speaker.
"'Plan B!'" Dexter replied fearfully grabbing hold of his phone and held it close to his face. "That plan B Plan B?" Suddenly a huge shock wave rippled through the air and slammed the Jabberwocky in it's face hard enough to legitimately stagger the beast. "Oh I hate that plan!"
The humanoid Mirror walked out the Chem-myth-ry lab, notably through the newly formed giant hole big enough for Tiny the Giant to fit inside, and glared at the dragon with a look of contempt, because what better way to beat one incredibly unstable and dangerous monster than to chuck another incredibly unstable and dangerous monster at it. She even had those damnable blasting wands again.
"Any brothers, sisters, sons, daughters or anyone to whom simply do not wish to die today. Leave!" Schlechtester stated squeezing every singular ounce of mercy that she intended to spare this day out in one sentence.
"R-run." Dexter stated his voice quaking in fear. "RUN!" Dexter and the other so called heroes in training suddenly took off in all directions getting as far and as fast away from the reality breaking dragon and murderous glass monster as they could.
The Jabberwocky breathed a stream of mutli-colored magic at the glass witch, Schlechtester responded by producing a fan of flaming lances with a wave of one of her blasting wands and met the rainbow beam half way. The Fire and chaotic magic mixed together producing a large and thick barrier of solid blue ice in a explosion dividing the courtyard in half. Wishing to neither go around this barrier or waste time trying to go through it the Jabberwocky jumped up and landed on the barrier growling at Schlechtester.
"Sometimes they make it just too easy."
The Mirror witch flipped one of her weapons in the air and chucked it at the ice wall dripping dirt. The Earth element mixed with the Riddlish magic inside of the ice wall and turned into lightning, hollowing out the insides of the ice and replacing it with a mixture of liquid oxygen and hydrogen. Finally Schlechtester fired a bolt of freezing energy at the ice wall, mixed with the riddlish magic, and turned to fire exploding the volatile contents of the ice wall and turning the ice into shrapnel that dug into the Jabberwocky's body.
"RRAAWWRRGGG!" The beast was knocked off balance by the blast and glared at The Mirror responsible angrily.
"Have I got your attention now?" Schlechtester asked in a mocking tone while she grabbed her flying blasting wand with one hand.
The Dragon fired several spiraling bursts of magical energy at his opponent, and Schlechtester responded by aiming her blasting wands downwards and shooting herself into the air. The mass of chaotic energy exploded and consumed several trees and a line of potions in the explosion. As a result, there was now a line of potions in the Chem-Myth-ry lab that had a orange scent to them, while the trees were now hanging fruit in the shape of potion bottles.
"That'll work." Schlechtester slammed into the ground fist first, releasing a powerful Necromancy spell that was flipped on it's head by the riddlish and served as steroids to the mutant plant and took control of it, hurling it's potion payload into the dragon's face with several implosions. "So, you seem pretty solid against blunt force impacts, lets try something a little sharper." To this end the Mirror woman looked to where Dexter and several of his classmates had been hiding and noticed that they left behind their weapons. "Perfect, now to draw it's fire." In the mean time a loud shriek had gone through the air, and not from the Jabberwocky this time. Everyone, including the big bad dragon in question, looked up to the sky to see that the clouds in the sky had pooled together into a circle. Lightning came down from the sky and slammed into the Jabberwocky, transforming into a prison of dirt and earth in and around the dragon and sticking into the ground. "That'll work." Schlechtester smirked as she saw the giant four winged condor liked creature sail over the courtyard and perch itself on top of the school.
"What is it!?" The boys had taken refuge in bookend, where they watched the battle between the Witch and the dragon through the zoom in camera on a mirror pad, and now the newly arrived bird beast.
"I'm looking I'm looking!" Humphry stated as he rapidly looked through a book. "Okay okay, 'the Thunder Bird is easily recognized do to it's distinctive plumage which when observed from ground while it is flying high above resembles a human face which led early peoples to believe that the Thunder Bird was the face of their god.'" To Humphry's blurt, Dexter zoomed in the bird who was making a show of flapping her wings while hurling bolts of lightning at the beast, seeing quite clearly the two large butterfly like spots on her wings and the fan of it's tail resembling a set of teeth locked in a grin.
"So we now know that the lightning slinging bird really is a lightning slinging bird. Good to know. Why is it here?" Dexter asked lowering the mirror pad and resting his chin on his fist as he thought about the situation. "This is the second monster to appear here today, both extremely rare, both incredibly dangerous. Can we get the headmaster on the pad?"
Humphry quickly went to work summoning the wrinkled face of the Headmaster, or Headmistress as the case may be, on his own Mirror pad.
"This better be good." Milton frustrated look intensified ever so slightly at the sound of someone losing their sanity with laughter. "I'm currently dealing with a uncooperative person trying to check the mirror Network for the Jabberwocky."
"About that, we've already succeeded in luring out the Jabberwocky into the Courtyard. Mrs. Shards, the lovely woman that she is, is in the process of trying to subdue him and his friend." Dexter explained making it quite clear that he was tired and scared.
"'His friend?'" Milton asked a tone of dread audible in his voice. Wordlessly, Dexter picked the pad up, and used it to show him the battle between the thunder bird and the Jabberwocky raging in the courtyard. "Oh."
"On a related note, does the school make it a habit to keep extremely dangerous monsters locked in the basement?" Dexter asked making his point by raising his finger in the air.
Schlechtester held the Long Sword she took from The heroics class and threw it to intercept a bolt of switching bolt from the Jabberwocky causing a explosion. The bits of the sword landed on the lawn, interacting with the riddlish magic that was already in the grass and switching elements of the two turning the grass into a sea of sharp and pointed long swords.
"On the bright side we might never need to buy a sword for the school ever again." Dexter commented finger dragging along a blade that had gotten precariously close to the town.
"Dex!" Daring suddenly appeared in front of Dexter, carrying Apple who was in the midst of a rather wooden predicament. "I found the girls!"
"Very good, can you get away from the sharp pointy things now?" Dexter stated gesturing to the sword that Daring nearly just landed on right now.
"Oh right." Daring disappeared again and reappeared behind Dexter. "Alistair's knack is pretty handy: Just saying!" As in Alistair Liddle, the descendant of the original Alice Liddle, who during her trek through Looking-Glass Land became the pawn to the original White Queen and gained the power of a pawn, the ability to gain the power of any of the other suits simply by wandering into the heart of enemy territory, in this case that territory was the magical forest, that Daring ran into looking for the missing students. And the set piece he has chosen is the queen, undignified in that it was a feminine title yes, but with the ability to instantly travel across 'the board' in a instant, so long as he has a clear line of sight. "Thanks for the explanation voice in my head." Daring replied much to the irritation of the person telling this story. "Dude why you gotta be so negative?" Little did he realize that if he continued this behavior it would result in strict disciplinary action of the electrical kind. "I got it, I got it! Heesh."
"You're... hearing voices in your head?" Apple asked catching on to the existence behind the scenes. "Cerise and Ramona were the same way earlier." Except that it wasn't just a voice, as it managed to zap Ramona of all people into submission when she refused to deny it's existence. "They got Kitty's cat ear's and Bunny's bunny ears." Which made the annoyingly intelligent princess suspicious of the connection between the mysterious voice in certain people's heads and the Wonderlanders.
"Apple I think the voice person wants you to..." Stop what she's doing, is what Daring would have said had a bolt of lightning not come down from the sky and nailed him miraculously sparing Apple from any harm.
"Lovely, Daring's turned into a lightning rod and I've turned into a egg." Dexter stated rolling his eyes. "It looks like our best hope is to let the crazy mirror woman and Thunder Bird do all the work here."
"Thunder Bird?" Apple questioned cocking a brow at Dexter. Dexter handed Apple his Mirror pad and pointed to the courtyard where the Jabberwocky was located. "That is not a Thunder Bird."
"Apple, I know you're something of a animal lover..." To Dexter's statement Apple shoved his Mirror pad in front of him, showing what was now a battle between a huge phoenix and the Jabberwocky, the first of the two was now piling out chunks of ice against the Wonderlandian Dragon, icing over the wings, and making it land on the ground that was covered in sharp pointy grass. Between that and Schlechtester shooting at it with her blasting wands the Jabberwocky concluded the need to vacate the area, and thus flew back into the magical forest. The massive fiery bird made a show of descending to the ground and attaching itself to Schlectester's arm as she held it out, returning to the form of a normal sized raven in the process.
"How long do you intend to maintain that ridiculous form?" Schlechtester asked cocking a brow suspiciously at the little bird. Towards this end, the bird squawked at the humanoid mirror before taking off into the woods. "Children."
"So we've got a Jabberwocky, some kind of shape shifting bird monster, is there anything else that we should be aware of?" Dexter asked mirror chatting with both the Headmaster and a young looking woman who claimed to be Mrs. Yaga.
"The problem with riddlish is it's inherent unpredictability, people are getting mixed and matched with bits of things that they don't understand or can't control properly." Mrs. Yaga explained panning to the various students under her charge, which included two giant werewolves, two fairies sprinkling down magical fireworks, ogres, trolls, goblins and a fiend, most of whom had been invariably tied and or pinned down.
"Ogres, trolls, fiends, werewolves, fairies, thunder birds, phoenix's, dragons, riddlish." Humphry listed off fearfully. "Is there anything else that I missed? Because I don't know how this swirling vortex of death of a school could get any worst!" Dexter proceeded to hold Humphry by his shoulder and slap him in his face several times.
"You missed one." Mrs. Yaga directed the Mirror pad above her head, where she showed the giant mass of swirling rotating darkness that was zipping back and forth above their heads. "It's an Obscuris, I don't know where it came from but we're working on getting away from it."
"Do I even after ask what that big scary thing is?" Apple asked cocking a brow suspiciously.
"Think of it as a curse, a lot of human run kingdoms go out of their way to make magic out to be a bad thing, so when one of the 'cursed' appear among their numbers they end up developing a self loathing, that internal hatred in turn becomes the focus of their power." Mrs. Yaga pointed up to the sky where the mass of darkness rampaging around was located. "That is the end result." Mrs. Yaga grabbed her chin with her hand as she thought about this situation. "The weird thing is that it's appeared at all, logically if a student was suffering from a Obscuris it wouldn't be appearing just now because of the riddlish."
Unless the obscuris was formed here, is what Apple wanted to say, now feeling the blatant racism hanging in the air, and the monster born from it.
"We need a way of beating it, the Jabberwocky, and we need to find Raven." Apple stated aloud prompting those present to look at her. "When I got infected by it's magic, Raven was able to push it back out." Most of it anyway, Apple noted examining her arm that was still like a stiff tree branch. "If she did it before, she might be able to do it for the others too." Maybe even help that poor person inside of that swirling vortex of darkness flittering about.
"Raven isn't the only person missing, the Jabberwocky didn't just switch around the students magical abilities it switched them around too, teleporting them all around the forest swapping them with all manner of animal, plant and mineral or worst yet, turning them into some manner animal, plant or mineral." Mrs. Yaga's words caused Apple's face to scrunch up in complete and utter horror. "We need to take that thing down, preferably before we all start speaking jibberish. Any ideas?"
"Who did you swap with?" Apple asked looking at the now much younger witch suspiciously.
"The White Queen. Why you ask?" Mrs. Yaga asked looking at Apple suspiciously.
"Ramona, Cerise and Daring all got swapped with people from Wonderland too, and they are all hearing voices in their heads..." Apple asked much to the chagrin of the clouds circling above.
"Yah no, I'm not getting hit by lightning today." Mrs. Yaga stated in a dismissive tone of voice.
"So you know about it." Apple stated sounding a little bit hopeful.
"Know it and want nothing to do with it." Mrs. Yaga stated without room for compromise. "Narrator's are inter-dimensional beings that serve as a bridge between worlds, communicating the events of one to another. They don't like it very much when people find out they actually exist. Fortunately for them though only the wonderlanders actually know about them."
"But if it's like that then it knows..."
"Because they're like that they are sworn never to interfere." Mrs. Yaga snapped glaring down Apple. "Now, does anyone have any actual ideas?"
Morgan was in one of the mirror's in the ladies toilet in the school, exiting through it she was instantly transformed into a young lady who was at the appropriate age to be going to the school. Immediately the witch removed the ring from her finger and put it in her pocket.
"Great. Back here again." Morgan stated confirming her appearance in the mirror. "Peachy." The juvenile witch kicked in a brick next to the wall and pulled out a great sword and shield from within it.
"Excuse me." Morgan turned around to see a young lady walk out of the bathroom stall. She was wearing Maddie's clothes, the most obvious hint about that is that she had her top hat with a playing card lodged in it and the distinctive green suit. But she wasn't Maddie, her long purple hair with a large chunk hanging over her eye was the chief clue to that. "I think I'm in the wrong place, do you think that you can help me out?"
"Who are you?" Morgan asked cocking a brow suspiciously at the girl in question.
"My name is Brooke, Brooke Page."
Author's Note:
DJ: Yes it would be, but no that raven isn't making a potion.
Charlie: Laughing at other's misfortunes is one of man kind's greatest past times. But I believe that Cerise got switched with Kitty and Ramona with Bunny. They'll certainly help, that much I'll guarantee.
Wade: Yes it is. But you say that like the boys aren't equally scrambled. If her wooden bits weren't stiff as tree branches she'd probably be able to pull it off.