Yakko made his way through the dark castle, and he hoped he wouldn't see any of the guards. The guards might be on the Warners' side now, but Yakko still didn't trust them entirely, as they would have gone through with executing him and his siblings if not for Dot, and he worried they might ask questions that he didn't want to answer. Also, he was afraid that seeing the guards could set off more flashbacks, and Yakko had decided that the whole plot device with the flashbacks had run its course.
Wakko and Dot were not far behind. Dot stopped to catch her breath, and then she noticed that Wakko had slumped against the wall and fallen asleep again. She shook him.
"Wake up, Wakko! WAKE UP!"
Wakko squinted at Dot and muttered, "Sawing wood was my job yesterday, Mrs Farmer Lady. I thought I was supposed to count the sheep today."
Dot shook Wakko a little more, and his eyes fully opened.
"Wakko, are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
"Sure, Dot," Wakko said with a yawn, "but I don't think a witch would fit into an Easy-Bake Oven."
"No," Dot said, "Yakko's gone off to the tallest tower."
"How do you know that?" Wakko asked.
"I'm clairvoyant!" Dot declared, swirling around in a dramatic way and turning her nightgown into a stereotypical fortune-teller's outfit (she even had a crystal ball).
Ever literal-minded (and also still half-asleep), Wakko said, "You're not Claire Voyant. You're Dot Warner."
Dot rolled her eyes and kept dragging Wakko along. She was only joking about being clairvoyant; she just had a good idea of where the plot was going. After all, the tallest tower was the only part of the castle the Warners had not yet looked into, and so there had to be something important about it that would wrap the story up.
Something about this situation seemed vaguely familiar to Wakko. The way he and Dot were going, being half-asleep, and being moved around by someone else...
As fighting raged down below, Angelina struggled not to panic as she ran. It wasn't easy to run, as she had three kids to carry.
At first, Angelina had help: one of the guards, Sergeant Squirrel, had carried Yakko while Angelina carried the younger two, but then they'd run into some trouble and the sergeant had decided to try fighting off the Ticktockian soldier and give the royal family time to run.
Angelina hoped Sergeant Squirrel would be okay. He was in a similar position as the queen, being a recent single parent to his baby son Skippy. In a case of lucky timing, Skippy was having a visit with his Aunt Slappy in Acme Falls. Angelina wished she had thought to send her own children to Acme Falls, where the royal family's doctor and nurse lived.
Now, Angelina was glad that she had a prehensile tail, using it to carry Yakko. Angelina hoped Yakko, the lightest sleeper of her kids, wouldn't wake up yet, as this wasn't a good time to answer the inevitable barrage of questions Yakko would unleash.
It was actually Wakko who started to wake up. He raised his head and squinted at his mother.
"Go back to sleep, sweetie," Angelina said, her tone being more of a plea than an order. Fortunately, it worked, as Wakko was the heaviest sleeper of Angelina's children. He closed his eyes and nestled his head back against his mother's chest.
The highest tower in the castle seemed like the only viable hiding place, as the lower parts of the castle were swarming with King Salazar's soldiers. The soldiers of Ticktockia were far more numerous and better-trained than those of Warnerstock, which had not been to war in living memory. Angelina used to be proud of that, but now she realized how unprepared and unprotected her family's kingdom was.
The present-day Wakko and Dot were relieved as this flashback faded away.
"I guess that was why Yakko made us sign those waivers about traumatic flashbacks," Dot remarked.
Now fully awake, Wakko admitted, "I ate mine. I thought Yakko said, 'wafer.'"
Dot hadn't seen Wakko look so sick since the time he tried the very first sample of Dr Scratchansniff's elixir. That elixir was the only food or drink Dot had ever seen her ravenous and omnivorous brother spit out.
"No offence, Scratchy," Yakko had said at the time, "but this elixir seems like snake oil to me."
"Snake oil would taste better," Wakko had mumbled weakly, as Dot made a gagging noise (and added a cough for emphasis).
In hindsight, that memory had some humor in it, but for once, Wakko and Dot weren't in the mood to laugh, not until they found Yakko. They kept moving.
Yakko was finally on the staircase that led up to the highest room in the castle. It had never really been used for anything, except for one winter's day when Yakko, Wakko, and Dot filled the room with water and opened the window, so that the cold air would freeze the water and make the room an indoor ice-skating rink. Mom and Dad had been conflicted on whether to scold the kids or praise their ingenuity (they settled on doing both).
On that last, scary night, Mom had chosen that tower room as a hiding place for some reason (he hadn't seen the same flashback that his brother and sister had).
Mom and Dad really ought to have built a panic room, Yakko thought ruefully. Then maybe Mom would still be here. Yakko didn't want to dwell on this particular thought too much, but he did.
Maybe Mom knew she wasn't going to make it. Perhaps, very deep down, Mom had some awareness that she was part of a tragic backstory, and thus she was likely doomed. Maybe she had left Yakko, Wakko, and Dot alone so that they wouldn't have to see her demise.
Yakko felt his eyes get watery, and he wondered if it had been a bad idea to get out of bed at all. Being alone made all of this thoughts go to depressing places, and Yakko was supposed to be the laid-back and always witty one of his siblings.
"You're just getting closure, Yakko," he told himself. "Go inside, stay for just a minute, then get out and go back to bed."
"Good idea," a cute little voice said behind him, and Yakko did a double-take.
There stood Dot and Wakko a few steps below, and they waved at him.
"What are you two doing here?" Yakko asked, trying to sound unbothered. Yakko hoped Wakko and Dot hadn't seen him cry. After Dot's fake death, Yakko had promised himself that nobody would ever see him cry again. "Were you guys sleepwalking or something? That seems to run in our family. Sometimes Dad would-"
"We know what's important about that room," Dot interrupted.
"We had another flashback," Wakko explained, and he looked uncharacteristically solemn for a fleeting moment.
Yakko smiled sadly and patted Wakko and Dot's shoulders.
"Don't worry, there shouldn't be too many more flashbacks," Yakko said. "No more sad flashbacks, anyway. The story's almost over."
"Thank goodness," Dot muttered, and Wakko agreed.
"It was getting too sad," Wakko said.
The Warners continued up the stairs until they reached the single room at the top of the tower. The door was closed and boarded up, but the kids didn't question why. Instead, they simply knocked down the door with the biggest mallets they could create.
The room was small and round, with one window and no furniture. Yakko remembered waking up in this room, with his mother looking scared and cradling a sleeping Dot close to her, and Wakko just waking up. Yakko and Wakko had started to bounce up and down, before Mom told them to be quiet. She had told Dot's story for the last time, they'd gone back to sleep for a while, and Yakko had woken up to see his mother leaving.
Yakko leaned his head against the door, remembering the last kiss Mom gave him, and that she'd assured him that she wouldn't be gone for long.
"Hey, Yakko, look what we found!" Dot called to him.
Yakko turned around and saw his siblings with two family portraits: Wakko held up the portrait of the entire royal family, the one with baby Dot in Mom's lap, little Wakko in Dad's lap, and little Yakko at Dad's side. The potrait Dot held up was the one of just the kids, with Dot on the chair and her brothers flanking her.
"Huh," Yakko said. "So this is where they were." He had figured Salazar would have simply destroyed all of the Warners' portraits.
As if she'd read Yakko's mind (or just the above line) Dot said, "Why didn't Salad-Bar get rid of these paintings?"
"Maybe it's just a plot convenience, like with our sail-powered sleigh," Yakko said with a shrug.
"Oh yeah," Wakko said, "I wondered where that sleigh came from."
None of the Warners felt comfortable staying in this room any longer, so they picked up the paintings and returned downstairs.