BlackWolfStar15: Thank you SO much for pointing that out and so early on, too. That would've been a disaster. ^^'
Toony-Tornado: I'm really glad you're liking how I write this. Even now, I feel insecure about the changes wondering if it'll meet to people's expectations. And yea, I hope Jenna would like it. T-T Whoa, the weapons scene is one of your favorites? 0_0 Well, I hope you still like it after this! ^^'
"She's…" Victoria starts.
"Beautiful, I know," Alicia finishes.
We all continue to stare until Von Drake clears his throat. "Alrighty then. We now need to go over your weaponry!"
Monsanto chimes in through his speakers, "Yes, indeed. You will find that the professor has taken great care to design these weapons, so do respect them and handle them responsibly."
Yvette snaps, "How are any of these things supposed to be weapons? I mean, sure, the nostalgic trinkets are great and the girl is cute and all, but this isn't exactly going to help us!" She examines her wrench which has a thick and black rubber handle. She taps it on her hand and waves it around. She frowns. "So, what is this supposed to be? Some kind of magic wand that…" In an instant, a burst of lightening is shot from the top end of the wrench sending Yvette ten feet backwards and on the ground. All of the rest of us gasp.
Rose yells, "Yvette! Are you okay?"
Monsanto groans. "This is already turning into a fumble."
Yvette groans and slowly gets up. She looks at us, then at the wrench. "This…is…" She jumps up, yelling out with her wrench in the air. "AMAZING! I have a magic wrench! I'm like a modern-day mecha-sorceress" Becoming trigger happy, she starts to blast the walls in every direction, having us all crouch down and take cover.
"Yvette! Stop for God's sake!" Alicia yells, trying to get her to stop.
I could hear the desperation in Monsanto's voice as a couple of holes were made onto the blue walls. "Watch it, woman! These walls just got waxed, you know?!"
Finally, the blasting stops and Yvette breathes heavily looking at her newfound power.
"EEEEEE!" We turn to see Rose squealing in delight. Her panther doll, which has come to life, is licking her in the face. That's right. Her stuffed toy is now licking her in the face. "Oh my gosh! Dawn, you're alive now!" Rose giggles and tickles her. The little cat mewed in delight and pawed at her fingers.
Kayla runs up to them. "Wow! Can I pet her? Pleeeeease?"
Rose laughs and holds her out to Kayla. "Sure! She won't bite." Kayla reaches out her hand to her. But the little cat snaps at her hand, and Kayla pulls away.
"Ow!" Kayla waved her bit finger and put it to her mouth.
Rose says, "Oops. I guess she only likes having me around." Dawn snuggles in Rose's chest, confirming her assumption.
Kayla takes her finger out of her mouth shrugs and puts on her earrings, which are in the shape of satellite antennas. They each light up two small green lights in the center. "So, what do these do?" she asks.
"Oh those?" Monsanto said. "Those earrings will help you communicate with any non-human witnesses."
Kayla looked up at the speakers with a raised brow. "And how are they supposed to do that?"
Dawn lets out a little roar, and Kayla skips a step back looking surprised. She stares at the cat and says, "Did you just talk?"
The little cat nods.
"Whoa. I can talk to animals!"
"Mrow." Dawn said with a deadpanned expression.
Kayla gasped. "Hey! My hands are not scary-looking!"
Victoria studies her locket. She opens it and sighs. "My parents." She hugs the locket to her chest. I look at her sympathetically. From what I've read, she must really love her folks enough to want to leave the worlds she'd insert herself into. My thoughts were cut off when I see her hair slowly rising. Breezes of wind begin to blow all around her. "Uh…Victoria?"
She looks up. "What?"
I didn't know how to tell her this, but… "There's…air flying all around you."
She looks around and notices as well. The breezes turn to gusts and she rises off the ground. Victoria flails her arms up and down. "WHOOOAA! Someone get me down!"
I stammer, "I-I don't kn-know how!"
Kayla gets underneath Victoria with her arms out. "Don't worry! I got you!"
Lulu, meanwhile, with her back turned to us, was busy with her remote. I call to her, "Lulu! A little help?" She doesn't answer. I grunt and go up to her. "Lulu."
"Hmm…I wonder what happens when I push this?" However, she accidentally has her remote backwards, pointing to Victoria. When the button is pushed, Victoria's actions from the past several seconds go back in a static-like fashion, having her back down on the ground and clutching the locket. "Wow! Did you guys see that? I flew!"
Lulu notices my mouth agape and chuckles, "What?"
I point to Victoria. "I think you just saved her life with the rewind button."
She looks at Victoria. "I did?"
Lulu hits forward on Victoria, and she's in the air again. Lulu then hits rewind, and she's on the ground again. "Stop that!" shouts Victoria.
Lulu laughs, tosses the remote in the air, and catches it in her hand with her other hand on her hip. "And they say television is bad for you!"
"Yes, we made sure to make these every day items into the proper weapons for self-defense." Monsanto said. "We figured they ought to symbolize what matters to you the most. For example, Lulu has an affinity for television shows that have made a difference in her life. Rose has her little stuffed animal she holds near and dear to her. Victoria holds her family the closest to her heart. As for Yvette…well, she likes cars."
Yvette twirls the wrench in her hand and grins. "Damn right."
I look at Alicia. Her eyes are closed for some reason; as if she's deep in concentration.
Lulu turns to me. "Hey, let's see what yours does!"
I look at my nano. "Um…I guess it provides us with motivational support? Music is powerful that way, you know," I say with a sheepish grin.
Von Drake adds, "It sure is! Hit the play button! Put it on that…uh, what is it you youngins listen to these days…Skillz! Put it on that one song that goes…!" He then proceeds to make a bunch of nonsense noise that I can only describe as attempts to imitating dubstep. I scroll through my artist list and ask,
"You mean Skrillex?"
"Yeah, yeah! That one!"
"Okay?" I reluctantly select the song.
Alicia snaps out of her trance and yells at me, "WAIT, HANNAH! DON'T…!"
A little word of advice: Before you pick any song of your choosing, please check your volume first. Unless, you have a death wish for your ears, that is.
The moment I hit the select button, the song, Kyoto by Skrillex, blasts throughout the entire room. Sound waves can be seen floating from the device.
I can barely hear yells from them telling me to turn it off. My fingers search desperately for the pause button. Finally, I find it, push it, and turn the volume down. My ears ring terribly and I rub my ears as the others do the same. My face turns red. I put the player in my pocket and I say, "Sorry, guys. You okay?"
"Tell me, can computers get tinnitus? Because I think I just got it," Monsanto said.
Dawn yelps out in pain. Rose pets her and coos, "Shhh…It's okay, mommy's here."
Lulu, still holding her ears, has one eye open and smiles at me, "Nice."
I giggle. Then, I turned to Alicia. "Wait, how did you know what was going to happen?"
Alicia gazes off elsewhere. "I don't know." She looks at her pin, which is already on her shirt. "I guess…I had a vision."
Von Drake claps his hands, "Yes! You can see into the future! But only for an extended period."
Alicia looks at him. "And how long is that?"
"Oh…up to five minutes," Von Drake said. "That goes for that remote, too, Lulu. You can go backwards and forwards up to thirty seconds."
"Thirty seconds?! Why?!" Lulu yells.
Von Drake chuckles. "Well, we don't want you all to be having too much power. That's the thing the villains have, remember?"
"Indeed," Monsanto adds. "Jenna didn't exactly have the foresight to give limitations to every antagonist's newfound power. It's already causing quite a stir in our world So don't asking for more than what you have."
Lulu crosses her arms with a pouty look on her face. "Okay."
Von Drake chimes in, "Well, now that everyone has their powers figured out, let's move on to your first mission!"
"First mission?" I ask.
"Of course, dear girl! The first world you will all be going to! And we will start with good old Louisiana! Dr. Facilier is one of the many who managed to get a hold of those hozodingers…"
Victoria corrects him, "Horcruxes."
"…and is in his shop now!"
Alicia asks, "Hold on. If people knew in his world that he's a bad guy, then why doesn't the town go full-on mob on him?"
"Well, Evangeline sort of announced to the worlds not to touch them."
Alicia raises a brow. "Why?"
"Jenna's request. She didn't want them to get hurt again, you know?"
"Shouldn't they know that they have these great objects of power?" Victoria asks.
Von Drake rubs the back of his neck. "See, she didn't want to cause a panic. That's why we're sending you fine young heroes."
"And another thing," Alicia starts sternly. "Monsanto, you're a big smart computer, right? Why not just pinpoint where Jenna is?"
"Oh, we've certainly tried," Von Drake said, "Monsanto even used to be her hideout!"
"Jenna was here?" My heart did a flip. We were all standing in the same room she was in.
"Yes, and I used to able to track her to bring her back here once her missions were finished," Monsanto answered. "But I haven't been able to find her in a while now. There must be a malfunction in my programming. My guess is that the Master Villain must have had a hand at messing with my software."
Alicia puts her hands on her hips and looks down. "I see."
Yvette crossed her arms. "Hang on. If all this has been going on, then why doesn't Evangeline just take every power from all the bad guys? Why can't he just bring Jenna to us? Isn't Evangeline supposed to be this big ball of magic or something?"
Von Drake laughs, "What? You think Evangeline is just some all-powerful being? Even a ball of gas can only do so much!"
"Yes, Evangeline's powers are quite limited," Monsanto points out. "She's a wish granter, but not a miracle worker. The only reason she was even able to bring Jenna's soul to our world is because she had the energy to do so. Normally, anyone who asks for a wish to be granted on a star has to do have of the work by putting in the effort to make it happen. Jenna was dying, and pardon my tactlessness, but the dead can't exactly have their wish granted if they do not have the life in them to put in the effort to make the wish come true. But Evangeline used all of her strength to make it happen, not counting on the consequences. In between the soul transfer and the resurrection of countless villains, her powers have been reduced to helping just one the one girl. Now that most of that energy is gone, Evangeline won't be able to provide a wish of that level for another…I'd say fifty years."
"Fifty years?!" Lulu says.
"Correct. In other words, your friend made a couple of big wishes and simply got lucky because Evangeline decided to play favorites. And it cost her quite a lot of her wish-granting gift. Evangeline may be a celestial being, but that doesn't make her powerful. Even stars are subordinates to God."
"Computers believe in a God?" Yvette asks.
But Von Drake cuts in. "Oh, and don't be telling anybody about this! This is top secret!"
Lulu crosses her heart and says, "Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye."
Yvette turns to her. "What?"
I chuckle. "My Little Pony stuff," I tell her.
"Eww," Yvette grimaced.
"Anyway," Von Drake continues. "Let's get to it!" He points to the large door in front of us. "That there doorway is a portal. It'll take you to the world I send you."
"And one more thing," Monsanto extends two robotic arms down from the ceiling and sticks a chip on the back of each of our shoulders.
"Nice!" Yvette says as she got her chip. "I'm part robot, now!"
"Yipe!" Lulu yelps as it sticks onto her skin.
It's my turn. The hand places a chip on my shoulder. "Gah!" I hiss through my teeth from the slight pain and rub the patch of skin where the chip was now. It feels tingly, and it clings like a small bird with talons.
"Whoa, hold up!" Alicia said as she backed away from the arm trying to give her a chip. "I don't like this. What's with the chip?"
"It's a tracking device for emergencies. And when you are finished, you can all simply push onto the chip, have it scan your fingerprint, and you will be well on your way back to here, safe and sound."
I turn to Alicia. "Come on. We need to do this."
Alicia looks at me for a moment and sighs before turning around and letting the robot hand place the chip on her.
Rose yells, "Wait! Don't we get some kind of protocol or tutorial or something?"
Von Drake laughs. "You are all heroes now! Training comes through experience!" He pushes a button.
With that, the door slowly opens with a loud screech, revealing a bright light. I can't help but feel a little frightened. I can tell the others are feeling the same way as they also don't immediately advance to the portal. We're all scared.
Then, Lulu perks up and says, "Hey, c'mon, guys! We have each other now!"
Victoria smiles, "Yeah, together, there's nothing we can't do!"
Yvette grins, "Besides, this is Disney. I doubt much harm will come to us, being ladies and all."
Dawn roars, showing us her willing to go on. Rose smiles, "I have Dawn and you all as well! I'm feeling fully prepared!"
Kayla says, "We just go through, right? Then, let's go already! For Disney!"
Alicia adds, "And Jenna." She looks at me.
I nod and turn to the portal. Despite the fear, I form a huge smile on my face, which is something I haven't been able to do in a while. "For Jenna." I hold Alicia's hand with one hand and Kayla's with the other. Alicia holds Lulu's. Kayla holds Victoria's. Lulu hold's Yvette's. Victoria holds Rose's while Rose holds Dawn.
We may not know the dangers ahead, yet our will is strong, and our courage is high. So, with that, we run into the blinding light.
And enter a world known to make dreams come true.
Author's Disclaimer: I do not own the songs and anything Disney-related. Each author owns her OC and I own my two. All rights go to Disney.
