Drawings Can Be Dangerous
Chapter three, chapter three, are there author's notes? Yes, there are! Please wait while I find them, gotta- eurngh...
(Audience: (munches popcorn and waits)
Stupid... binder, gotta buy a better on- OKAY! Notes, notes, notes.... Lisa! Lisa the Gargoyle is named after my aunt! Isaac, Isaac was actually a second choice; his original name was something like Koebi, but I hated that, it sounded too... out there. SO, I gave him a nice, normal name! (Although I, personally, don't know anyone named Isaac.) Um... I mentioned fondue; I've never done fondue, but I wanna do fondue! Sounds fun, I'll get some chocolate and marshmallows and play Chubby Bunny... Like I mentioned in Chapter 2, the castle that Jack-tachi is trapped in IS based on that weirdo Disney movie, The Labyrinth. Cool movie. So 80's, I love it! Um... that's it, I guess. Bye.
****
It was not the same hallway. Instead of the clearly lit, pastel hallway that they group had been traipsing through for an eternity, it was a dark, cluttered corridor scattered with broken glass and melted candles. Bare brass stubs which were previously chandeliers jutted out of the ceiling.
Jack gulped uncertainedly, Double F and Charon huddling behind him. "What happened here?"
"Sally must've Really put up a fight," Charon tried to joke.
"I hope she's alright," Jack spoke to himself, taking a few fearful steps forward. Double F followed, Charon taking her usual spot at the back.
***
As Charon peeked around the corner, she started to snicker. She squeezed her lips together and tried hard not to laugh.
"What is it?" Double F asked.
"Yes, what?" Jack repeated.
"I... I was in English class (gr-her-her!) And- and we were learning about mythology, and I started drawing Medusa (ha ha ha!)"
"Medusa!" Jack cried out.
"Yeah, but-" Charon began to loose control. "But- but I only drew her head!"
"And?" Jack looked around the corner as well. As soon as he did, he started to laugh. Double F thought about looking around the corner too, but Medusa passed by the hallway opening anyway. Or, rather...
Her head bounced by. As the Medusa head bounced, she made little "Uh uh uh uh" sounds with each impact. She made her way slowly across the trashed floor until she was out of the three's eyeshot. Then-
"HAHAHAHAHAHA!"
"HEEHEEHEEHAHAHAHA!"
"BAGAHAHA! NO WAY, No way, a hahahaha!"
"It's just a little... it's hardly bigger than Barrel!" Jack pounded on the wall in ecstasy, unable to hold in his laughter.
"It's just like the things from Spirited Away!" Double F remembered, her laughter waning.
Charon tucked her arms in, like a kangaroo. "Yeah, she even did the 'Poit poit poit!"
And the three erupted into gales of laughter once again, not noticing that Medusa had heard them and was immediately at their feet. As they stopped laughing, their eyes fell upon her actually face. They immediately stopped laughing and began running in the opposite direction. They ducked behind a fallen bookcase and tried to recover.
"I didn't draw her like that!" Charon shreeked.
"Be quiet, she might here you!" Jack scolded.
Charon nodded, assumed the fetal position, and began talking to herself. "This's like everyone one of my nightmares... I'm always hiding from something like her..."
"I know Charon's drawings; they're not that detailed," Double F said between breathes. "Whatever brought these things to life must've filled in all the stuff we didn't!"
"This's all very confusing!" Jack sighed, putting his hand on the ground and resting his weight. Something very sharp poked into the space between his finger bones, hurting him emmensely. "YEOWCH! What the-?"
"My tail!" Double F grabbed her tail and saw, in shock, that the fur on the tip of her tail had been turned to stone! Every individual strand of fur had been seperately frozen, so she basically had a pincushion attacked to her back end. "Oh no!"
"Double F!" Charon went to stand up, but Jack pushed her back down.
"Charon, your hair!" Jack noticed. "It's stone as well!"
"What?!" Charon stroked her ponytail and felt the razor-sharp pinpoints at the ends of her hair. "GAH! MOM'S GOING TO KILL ME!"
"SHUT UP!" Double F and Jack held Charon down.
"Uh uh uh!"
"Medusa's coming this way!" Jack rubbed his head in thought. "How do we get rid of her?!"
"I saw this episode of Jonny Quest where Jonny showed Medusa her reflection and she turned to stone," Charon suggested.
"I actually think that might work!" Jack gasped. "I just need to find something that causes a reflection!"
"There's broken glass all over the place!" Double F said happily.
"Yes!" Jack pulled his fist down in excitement. "Now, how can we wrangle Medusa without being turned to stone?"
Charon and Double F pushed Jack out into the hallway. "You've got no eyes! You go!"
Jack saw Medusa's head bouncing down the hallway, nearly laughing again at how comical it was. Carefully avoiding her face, Jack lept behind Medusa and pushed her nose-first into the carpet.
"Okay, now!"
Double F and Charon immediately jumped up and began collecting glass and putting the pieces together, making a quick mirror. As the mirror was laid out on the floor, Jack picked up Medusa and held her over the glass. Medusa shrieked and was turned into stone near immediately. Jack dropped her, breaking her into five pieces.
"There!" Jack brushed his hands calmly.
***
"Riku, stop eating the Cheezits, you numbskull!" Lisa shouted before turning to Sally. "Okay, you see how I handled that? Short and firm, with a touch of insults because that's the only thing that gets through a boy's head."
"Is she always this mean?" Sally asked Isaac. Isaac was still sitting next to Sally, one wing stretched sympathetically over her shoulder.
"Not always," Isaac began to remember. "She actually used to be quite polite. I'm not sure what happened-"
"Isaac! No conferring with the prisoner!" Lisa growled, snapping him sharply across his cheekbone. "Now, Sally, knowing Riku, he'll start eating the Cheezits again soon. I want you to look over the edge and tell him to stop. Oh, there he is now!"
Lisa grabbed Sally her wrist shackles and pushed her to the edge. Sally saw a tall, blue haired boy (you gotta have blue hair if you're from Japan) eating the yummy cheese crackers from the buffet table. Apparently, he was close to eating all of them, and if he didn't stop, he'd probably scarf them all down before anyone else got any.
Sally mustered her strength and yelped, "Excuse me, Riku?"
Riku looked up from the Cheezits, surprised. "Um... yeah?"
"Could you please leave some crackers for the other guests?"
Riku looked around and saw some soldier Heartless standing around him, holding plates. "Oh, sorry! Sure thing!"
"Thank you!" Sally smiled. "It's very appreciate-"
"NO NO NO!"
Lisa pulled Sally back roughly. "I told you, the only way to get through a boy's head is through insults! Now, yell at him like you're supposed to!"
"But nobody likes being insulted," Sally mumbled.
"PRECISELY!" Lisa roared, her eyes turning white. "Geez, you nimrod, pay attention!"
Lisa slammed Sally back down onto her box, and Isaac softly caught her in his arms.
"Sally," Isaac whispered into her ear. "Take my advice; just do whatever she says. Don't put up a fight."
"But, the other people don't deserve to be yelled at," Sally shook her head.
"I know that just as much as you do," Isaac closed his eyes and shook his head. "But I've gotten three broken bones just this morning from disagreeing with her. You don't have to mean what you say, just say it."
Sally sighed as Isaac patted her shoulder again.
***
A Behemoth squeezed his way through the large corridor, his tusks scraping against the walls. His huge muscles rippled with every step he took, with his long front legs doing more work than his smaller back ones. His normally pink-and-purple skin was smudged black with dirt and grime. His horn, however, was sharp, shiny and polished.
As his shoulder accidently popped into a hallway opening, Jack pushed the girls out of the way. "The guarding's heavier; we must be getting close to where Sally is being kept."
"Oh man, the Behemoth's bigger than I thought," Double F gasped. "And it's only weak spot is its horn; how are we supposed to hit it?"
"Hey, it's a drawing! Maybe I can find a pencil and erase it!" Charon brainstormed. She began checking her pockets for pencils.
"Its only weak spot is that little bitty horn on its forehead?" Jack asked.
"Yeah."
"And to get to it, we have to get past two stomping hooves, a gaping mouth, and two gigantic tusks?"
"Um... it does magic spells, too."
Jack's shoulder sagged defeatedly. "Wonderful."
"No way!"
Charon startled everyone by pulling a piece of wood out of one of her pockets. It looked like a thick piece of wooden tubing, possibly bamboo. It was about the height of small computer monitor, and the width of a walnut. "No way! I thought I left this at home!"
"What is it?" Jack asked.
"That's not what I think it is, is it?" Double F tapped the wooden tube.
"Oh yeah!" Charon was suddenly overcome with bravery and jumped into the hallway. "This's my secret weapon! BEHEMOTH!"
The Behemoth's head jerked upward, but he could not look behind himself; the hallway was too cramped. He responded by crawling forward, away from Charon.
"Hey!" Charon yelped. "HEY! COME BACK!"
The sabercat clenched her fist and roared angrily, the tone fluctuating and, at times, forming words.
"What's she doing?" Jack asked.
"That's her home language," Double F explained. "English is her second language; this's the language that her and her Nai Nai speak."
"Nai Nai?"
"It's her grandmother on her mom's side."
"Oh."
Jack yelped in surprise and stumbled back suddenly, Double F snapped her hands around his arm. The hallways around them began to grow in size, the floor vibrating turbulently. By the time it stopped, they had either shrunk 2 feet or the hallway had grown 30.
"We didn't just go back into your world, did we?" Jack asked, remembering when he had accidentally left Halloween Town for the teen's world.
"No, 'cause we'd be bigger," Charon answered. The hallway began to shake again, but this time there was a distinct rhythm.
Baddadumbaddadumbaddadumbaddadum...
"AH!" Charon twirled the wooden tube in her palm, and with a dim flash of light, it transformed into a scythe! It was smaller than her (from her head to her knees) with a black, aged blade of iron. The curve of the blade was meager; it was almost a straight line.
As the Behemoth thundered toward her, Charon lept into the air and sliced of the tip of its horn! She rolled off of his back and onto hers while Behemoth roared in pain and skidded to a stop.
"HA-HA HA-HA!" the sabercat laughed as Behemoth slowly turned. As he galloped towards her again, she kept her ground and, as he passed over her, chopped off the rest of the horn, making the Behemoth fizzle into oblivion.
And with that, Charon collasped into an exhausted faint.
***
"Shiro! I need you to go get more Ritz crackers! Well- Don't sass me! I don't care if Kurai needs you! I need more Ritz crackers! Don't Sass Me! Hurry up!"
Lisa huffed and slammed herself down on Sally's left side, her right side being occupied faithfully by Isaac, who had picked up the fairy book once again. She growled, "Stupid idiot; thinking she needs to be there for Kurai all the time."
Lisa turned to Sally. "You, that's what you where trying to do; you were trying to validate yourself through a relationship. You need to get away from that."
"Wha-?" Sally sat in amazement with her mouth open for a nanosecond before flying into a fit. "I am not trying to 'validate' myself! I'm in love!"
"A HA!" Lisa laughed uproariously, slapping her knees. "That's- that's great! I haven't heard that one in a long time!" She shoved Sally playfully, pushing her into Isaac's ribs. "Love is just a pointless subject matter for fairy tales! It's just like dragons, or Big Foot, or... fairies!" Lisa reached over and pulled the fairy book out of Isaac's hands, ruding thowing it into the paper tornado. "Fun to read about, but it doesn't exist."
Sally scoffed in resentment and looked to Isaac for relief. Isaac was hanging his head very low, his shoulders shaking and his breathing very quiet.... he was crying?
"Isaac?" Sally leaned in closer to him. "Isaac, are you okay?"
"We were.... she.... it's hard to say," Isaac tried to speak through a cracking, weepy voice. "My throat's tight.... I need to go for a walk."
Lisa pulled hurriedly shoved Isaac off of the pulpit. "And bring Ritz crackers!"
***
Jack found him behind an air conditioning vent located on the wall of the ballroom. Past him walked a thousand feet, and just barely visible past them was a large, orange raised platform.
"I think we took a wrong turn somewhere," Jack shrugged. "Is Charon waking up yet?"
"Sorta," Double F fanned her friend softly with her wing. Charon was sitting limply on the floor, her breathing loud and labored. Her scythe was sitting haphazardly in her lap, the wood scorched black.
"We have to keep going. I don't see Sally anywhere."
"She... might be... moving...." Charon gasped.
"That's right! She could be walking around, or the rooms could be changing around and stuff." Double F lifted Charon up by her shoulder. "This place is weird like that."
"Well, we can't just sit and wait for Sally to come to us," Jack took Charon off of Double F's shoulder and carried her in his arms. "We have to keep going. Get her scythe."
"Okay." Double F shook the polearm, trying to make it shrink, but failed and dropped it on her foot. "OW!"
***
The building was starting to become more of the pastel cheese-colors that greeted the group of 3. One particular large room looked like a very dingy gray hallway. One thing that set this room apart from the hallway was the fact that a large, three headed dog occupied the bulk of the room. In the southeast corner, there was a tiny counter, like the snack bar at the movies.
And behind it was a sabercat, an anthro-griffin, and a skeleton. A very mad skeleton.
"Alright, let me guess," Jack growled. "Charon, English class, mythology."
"Well, both of us, actually," Double F pointed one finger to the ceiling. "Cerberus is one of the bosses in-"
"Kingdom Hearts," Jack spoke with her. He continued from that statement while Double F stayed quiet. "You know, I'm learning more than I ever wanted to know about that place from you."
"Is that a good thing or bad?" the griffon-girl asked.
"Depends on whether we get out of her alive," the Pumpkin King threatened.
A large, black dog head sniffed past their corner, then withdrew itself.
"Charon, take a look around. What's going on?"
"Look!" Charon pointed. She was back on her feet now, but her throat was sore and dry. Her words were wheezy.
Jack looked up from the glass booth. "It's that gargoyle we saw with Sally!" Jack ducked behind the counter again. "Girls, quickly!"
"Okay!" The cat and the cat/bird hid alongside Jack, waiting for Isaac to pass through.
Isaac's feet clanked together, his tail dragged behind him, and his eye sockets were wet and foggy. He admitted that he was not completely sure of where he was going, nor did he care. His thoughts were clamoured with Lisa's words. Useless subject matter for fairy tales, she called love... It doesn't exist, she said.
"But I love her," he began to think. "And she... she used to love me."
With a jolt of fear and adrenaline, Isaac was suddenly yanked off of his feet and behind the counter with the group of three. Jack held his mouth shut while the girls held down his wings. Jack looked to his twin with a snarl of pure loathing, matched humourously by a squirming, fearful, big- eyed ping-pong ball before him. The Pumpkin King dug his fingers into Isaac's face.
"Where is Sally?"
"Sallaifo'orwifisa."
Jack growled and threw Isaac down on the floor, forgetting that he had covered the gargoyle's mouth. Isaac shook his head to recover, and somewhere in that white little dome of his, a light went off.
"Wait, Sally? The ragdoll woman!" Isaac yelped. He began to stand up, but Double F roughly and mercilessly shoved him down. "I can bring you to her!"
"Wait, really?" Charon asked, her voice still dry.
"As in, out of free will?" Double F scratched her head. "We thought you'd, like, put up a fight or something."
"Oh heavens no!" Isaac smiled. "I want to help her just as much as you do. Moreso, now that I think about it."
"You'll take us to Sally?" Jack gasped. "You won't put up a fight or anything?"
"No, sir, Your Majesty," Isaac bowed. "Just tell your friends to let me go and I'll take you to her."
Alright! We're going somewhere! This was supposed to be the last chapter, but there's still more plot development and character development to go. I like development!
Chapter three, chapter three, are there author's notes? Yes, there are! Please wait while I find them, gotta- eurngh...
(Audience: (munches popcorn and waits)
Stupid... binder, gotta buy a better on- OKAY! Notes, notes, notes.... Lisa! Lisa the Gargoyle is named after my aunt! Isaac, Isaac was actually a second choice; his original name was something like Koebi, but I hated that, it sounded too... out there. SO, I gave him a nice, normal name! (Although I, personally, don't know anyone named Isaac.) Um... I mentioned fondue; I've never done fondue, but I wanna do fondue! Sounds fun, I'll get some chocolate and marshmallows and play Chubby Bunny... Like I mentioned in Chapter 2, the castle that Jack-tachi is trapped in IS based on that weirdo Disney movie, The Labyrinth. Cool movie. So 80's, I love it! Um... that's it, I guess. Bye.
****
It was not the same hallway. Instead of the clearly lit, pastel hallway that they group had been traipsing through for an eternity, it was a dark, cluttered corridor scattered with broken glass and melted candles. Bare brass stubs which were previously chandeliers jutted out of the ceiling.
Jack gulped uncertainedly, Double F and Charon huddling behind him. "What happened here?"
"Sally must've Really put up a fight," Charon tried to joke.
"I hope she's alright," Jack spoke to himself, taking a few fearful steps forward. Double F followed, Charon taking her usual spot at the back.
***
As Charon peeked around the corner, she started to snicker. She squeezed her lips together and tried hard not to laugh.
"What is it?" Double F asked.
"Yes, what?" Jack repeated.
"I... I was in English class (gr-her-her!) And- and we were learning about mythology, and I started drawing Medusa (ha ha ha!)"
"Medusa!" Jack cried out.
"Yeah, but-" Charon began to loose control. "But- but I only drew her head!"
"And?" Jack looked around the corner as well. As soon as he did, he started to laugh. Double F thought about looking around the corner too, but Medusa passed by the hallway opening anyway. Or, rather...
Her head bounced by. As the Medusa head bounced, she made little "Uh uh uh uh" sounds with each impact. She made her way slowly across the trashed floor until she was out of the three's eyeshot. Then-
"HAHAHAHAHAHA!"
"HEEHEEHEEHAHAHAHA!"
"BAGAHAHA! NO WAY, No way, a hahahaha!"
"It's just a little... it's hardly bigger than Barrel!" Jack pounded on the wall in ecstasy, unable to hold in his laughter.
"It's just like the things from Spirited Away!" Double F remembered, her laughter waning.
Charon tucked her arms in, like a kangaroo. "Yeah, she even did the 'Poit poit poit!"
And the three erupted into gales of laughter once again, not noticing that Medusa had heard them and was immediately at their feet. As they stopped laughing, their eyes fell upon her actually face. They immediately stopped laughing and began running in the opposite direction. They ducked behind a fallen bookcase and tried to recover.
"I didn't draw her like that!" Charon shreeked.
"Be quiet, she might here you!" Jack scolded.
Charon nodded, assumed the fetal position, and began talking to herself. "This's like everyone one of my nightmares... I'm always hiding from something like her..."
"I know Charon's drawings; they're not that detailed," Double F said between breathes. "Whatever brought these things to life must've filled in all the stuff we didn't!"
"This's all very confusing!" Jack sighed, putting his hand on the ground and resting his weight. Something very sharp poked into the space between his finger bones, hurting him emmensely. "YEOWCH! What the-?"
"My tail!" Double F grabbed her tail and saw, in shock, that the fur on the tip of her tail had been turned to stone! Every individual strand of fur had been seperately frozen, so she basically had a pincushion attacked to her back end. "Oh no!"
"Double F!" Charon went to stand up, but Jack pushed her back down.
"Charon, your hair!" Jack noticed. "It's stone as well!"
"What?!" Charon stroked her ponytail and felt the razor-sharp pinpoints at the ends of her hair. "GAH! MOM'S GOING TO KILL ME!"
"SHUT UP!" Double F and Jack held Charon down.
"Uh uh uh!"
"Medusa's coming this way!" Jack rubbed his head in thought. "How do we get rid of her?!"
"I saw this episode of Jonny Quest where Jonny showed Medusa her reflection and she turned to stone," Charon suggested.
"I actually think that might work!" Jack gasped. "I just need to find something that causes a reflection!"
"There's broken glass all over the place!" Double F said happily.
"Yes!" Jack pulled his fist down in excitement. "Now, how can we wrangle Medusa without being turned to stone?"
Charon and Double F pushed Jack out into the hallway. "You've got no eyes! You go!"
Jack saw Medusa's head bouncing down the hallway, nearly laughing again at how comical it was. Carefully avoiding her face, Jack lept behind Medusa and pushed her nose-first into the carpet.
"Okay, now!"
Double F and Charon immediately jumped up and began collecting glass and putting the pieces together, making a quick mirror. As the mirror was laid out on the floor, Jack picked up Medusa and held her over the glass. Medusa shrieked and was turned into stone near immediately. Jack dropped her, breaking her into five pieces.
"There!" Jack brushed his hands calmly.
***
"Riku, stop eating the Cheezits, you numbskull!" Lisa shouted before turning to Sally. "Okay, you see how I handled that? Short and firm, with a touch of insults because that's the only thing that gets through a boy's head."
"Is she always this mean?" Sally asked Isaac. Isaac was still sitting next to Sally, one wing stretched sympathetically over her shoulder.
"Not always," Isaac began to remember. "She actually used to be quite polite. I'm not sure what happened-"
"Isaac! No conferring with the prisoner!" Lisa growled, snapping him sharply across his cheekbone. "Now, Sally, knowing Riku, he'll start eating the Cheezits again soon. I want you to look over the edge and tell him to stop. Oh, there he is now!"
Lisa grabbed Sally her wrist shackles and pushed her to the edge. Sally saw a tall, blue haired boy (you gotta have blue hair if you're from Japan) eating the yummy cheese crackers from the buffet table. Apparently, he was close to eating all of them, and if he didn't stop, he'd probably scarf them all down before anyone else got any.
Sally mustered her strength and yelped, "Excuse me, Riku?"
Riku looked up from the Cheezits, surprised. "Um... yeah?"
"Could you please leave some crackers for the other guests?"
Riku looked around and saw some soldier Heartless standing around him, holding plates. "Oh, sorry! Sure thing!"
"Thank you!" Sally smiled. "It's very appreciate-"
"NO NO NO!"
Lisa pulled Sally back roughly. "I told you, the only way to get through a boy's head is through insults! Now, yell at him like you're supposed to!"
"But nobody likes being insulted," Sally mumbled.
"PRECISELY!" Lisa roared, her eyes turning white. "Geez, you nimrod, pay attention!"
Lisa slammed Sally back down onto her box, and Isaac softly caught her in his arms.
"Sally," Isaac whispered into her ear. "Take my advice; just do whatever she says. Don't put up a fight."
"But, the other people don't deserve to be yelled at," Sally shook her head.
"I know that just as much as you do," Isaac closed his eyes and shook his head. "But I've gotten three broken bones just this morning from disagreeing with her. You don't have to mean what you say, just say it."
Sally sighed as Isaac patted her shoulder again.
***
A Behemoth squeezed his way through the large corridor, his tusks scraping against the walls. His huge muscles rippled with every step he took, with his long front legs doing more work than his smaller back ones. His normally pink-and-purple skin was smudged black with dirt and grime. His horn, however, was sharp, shiny and polished.
As his shoulder accidently popped into a hallway opening, Jack pushed the girls out of the way. "The guarding's heavier; we must be getting close to where Sally is being kept."
"Oh man, the Behemoth's bigger than I thought," Double F gasped. "And it's only weak spot is its horn; how are we supposed to hit it?"
"Hey, it's a drawing! Maybe I can find a pencil and erase it!" Charon brainstormed. She began checking her pockets for pencils.
"Its only weak spot is that little bitty horn on its forehead?" Jack asked.
"Yeah."
"And to get to it, we have to get past two stomping hooves, a gaping mouth, and two gigantic tusks?"
"Um... it does magic spells, too."
Jack's shoulder sagged defeatedly. "Wonderful."
"No way!"
Charon startled everyone by pulling a piece of wood out of one of her pockets. It looked like a thick piece of wooden tubing, possibly bamboo. It was about the height of small computer monitor, and the width of a walnut. "No way! I thought I left this at home!"
"What is it?" Jack asked.
"That's not what I think it is, is it?" Double F tapped the wooden tube.
"Oh yeah!" Charon was suddenly overcome with bravery and jumped into the hallway. "This's my secret weapon! BEHEMOTH!"
The Behemoth's head jerked upward, but he could not look behind himself; the hallway was too cramped. He responded by crawling forward, away from Charon.
"Hey!" Charon yelped. "HEY! COME BACK!"
The sabercat clenched her fist and roared angrily, the tone fluctuating and, at times, forming words.
"What's she doing?" Jack asked.
"That's her home language," Double F explained. "English is her second language; this's the language that her and her Nai Nai speak."
"Nai Nai?"
"It's her grandmother on her mom's side."
"Oh."
Jack yelped in surprise and stumbled back suddenly, Double F snapped her hands around his arm. The hallways around them began to grow in size, the floor vibrating turbulently. By the time it stopped, they had either shrunk 2 feet or the hallway had grown 30.
"We didn't just go back into your world, did we?" Jack asked, remembering when he had accidentally left Halloween Town for the teen's world.
"No, 'cause we'd be bigger," Charon answered. The hallway began to shake again, but this time there was a distinct rhythm.
Baddadumbaddadumbaddadumbaddadum...
"AH!" Charon twirled the wooden tube in her palm, and with a dim flash of light, it transformed into a scythe! It was smaller than her (from her head to her knees) with a black, aged blade of iron. The curve of the blade was meager; it was almost a straight line.
As the Behemoth thundered toward her, Charon lept into the air and sliced of the tip of its horn! She rolled off of his back and onto hers while Behemoth roared in pain and skidded to a stop.
"HA-HA HA-HA!" the sabercat laughed as Behemoth slowly turned. As he galloped towards her again, she kept her ground and, as he passed over her, chopped off the rest of the horn, making the Behemoth fizzle into oblivion.
And with that, Charon collasped into an exhausted faint.
***
"Shiro! I need you to go get more Ritz crackers! Well- Don't sass me! I don't care if Kurai needs you! I need more Ritz crackers! Don't Sass Me! Hurry up!"
Lisa huffed and slammed herself down on Sally's left side, her right side being occupied faithfully by Isaac, who had picked up the fairy book once again. She growled, "Stupid idiot; thinking she needs to be there for Kurai all the time."
Lisa turned to Sally. "You, that's what you where trying to do; you were trying to validate yourself through a relationship. You need to get away from that."
"Wha-?" Sally sat in amazement with her mouth open for a nanosecond before flying into a fit. "I am not trying to 'validate' myself! I'm in love!"
"A HA!" Lisa laughed uproariously, slapping her knees. "That's- that's great! I haven't heard that one in a long time!" She shoved Sally playfully, pushing her into Isaac's ribs. "Love is just a pointless subject matter for fairy tales! It's just like dragons, or Big Foot, or... fairies!" Lisa reached over and pulled the fairy book out of Isaac's hands, ruding thowing it into the paper tornado. "Fun to read about, but it doesn't exist."
Sally scoffed in resentment and looked to Isaac for relief. Isaac was hanging his head very low, his shoulders shaking and his breathing very quiet.... he was crying?
"Isaac?" Sally leaned in closer to him. "Isaac, are you okay?"
"We were.... she.... it's hard to say," Isaac tried to speak through a cracking, weepy voice. "My throat's tight.... I need to go for a walk."
Lisa pulled hurriedly shoved Isaac off of the pulpit. "And bring Ritz crackers!"
***
Jack found him behind an air conditioning vent located on the wall of the ballroom. Past him walked a thousand feet, and just barely visible past them was a large, orange raised platform.
"I think we took a wrong turn somewhere," Jack shrugged. "Is Charon waking up yet?"
"Sorta," Double F fanned her friend softly with her wing. Charon was sitting limply on the floor, her breathing loud and labored. Her scythe was sitting haphazardly in her lap, the wood scorched black.
"We have to keep going. I don't see Sally anywhere."
"She... might be... moving...." Charon gasped.
"That's right! She could be walking around, or the rooms could be changing around and stuff." Double F lifted Charon up by her shoulder. "This place is weird like that."
"Well, we can't just sit and wait for Sally to come to us," Jack took Charon off of Double F's shoulder and carried her in his arms. "We have to keep going. Get her scythe."
"Okay." Double F shook the polearm, trying to make it shrink, but failed and dropped it on her foot. "OW!"
***
The building was starting to become more of the pastel cheese-colors that greeted the group of 3. One particular large room looked like a very dingy gray hallway. One thing that set this room apart from the hallway was the fact that a large, three headed dog occupied the bulk of the room. In the southeast corner, there was a tiny counter, like the snack bar at the movies.
And behind it was a sabercat, an anthro-griffin, and a skeleton. A very mad skeleton.
"Alright, let me guess," Jack growled. "Charon, English class, mythology."
"Well, both of us, actually," Double F pointed one finger to the ceiling. "Cerberus is one of the bosses in-"
"Kingdom Hearts," Jack spoke with her. He continued from that statement while Double F stayed quiet. "You know, I'm learning more than I ever wanted to know about that place from you."
"Is that a good thing or bad?" the griffon-girl asked.
"Depends on whether we get out of her alive," the Pumpkin King threatened.
A large, black dog head sniffed past their corner, then withdrew itself.
"Charon, take a look around. What's going on?"
"Look!" Charon pointed. She was back on her feet now, but her throat was sore and dry. Her words were wheezy.
Jack looked up from the glass booth. "It's that gargoyle we saw with Sally!" Jack ducked behind the counter again. "Girls, quickly!"
"Okay!" The cat and the cat/bird hid alongside Jack, waiting for Isaac to pass through.
Isaac's feet clanked together, his tail dragged behind him, and his eye sockets were wet and foggy. He admitted that he was not completely sure of where he was going, nor did he care. His thoughts were clamoured with Lisa's words. Useless subject matter for fairy tales, she called love... It doesn't exist, she said.
"But I love her," he began to think. "And she... she used to love me."
With a jolt of fear and adrenaline, Isaac was suddenly yanked off of his feet and behind the counter with the group of three. Jack held his mouth shut while the girls held down his wings. Jack looked to his twin with a snarl of pure loathing, matched humourously by a squirming, fearful, big- eyed ping-pong ball before him. The Pumpkin King dug his fingers into Isaac's face.
"Where is Sally?"
"Sallaifo'orwifisa."
Jack growled and threw Isaac down on the floor, forgetting that he had covered the gargoyle's mouth. Isaac shook his head to recover, and somewhere in that white little dome of his, a light went off.
"Wait, Sally? The ragdoll woman!" Isaac yelped. He began to stand up, but Double F roughly and mercilessly shoved him down. "I can bring you to her!"
"Wait, really?" Charon asked, her voice still dry.
"As in, out of free will?" Double F scratched her head. "We thought you'd, like, put up a fight or something."
"Oh heavens no!" Isaac smiled. "I want to help her just as much as you do. Moreso, now that I think about it."
"You'll take us to Sally?" Jack gasped. "You won't put up a fight or anything?"
"No, sir, Your Majesty," Isaac bowed. "Just tell your friends to let me go and I'll take you to her."
Alright! We're going somewhere! This was supposed to be the last chapter, but there's still more plot development and character development to go. I like development!