Author's note: Again, this chapter takes place at the same time as the last one.
"What is the meaning of this?" Jareth demands.
"Just doin' what you told me to, Queenie," Hellboy shoots back blowing out a thick cloud of cigar smoke into the kings face.
"I don't recall telling you to destroy my Labyrinth," Jareth quietly responds, rage seething just below the surface.
"Yes, you did," Hellboy inform him. "You told me to go through the Labyrinth, and that's just what I'm doing."
Without a word, Jareth produces a crystal and throws it at the wall behind him. A glow starting at the point of impact grows along the wall in spider web like tendrils until a section of wall that's about fifty feet wide is glowing. Jareth turns back around with a smirk plastered to his face. Hellboy gets the sudden urge to punch it off and his right hand starts to curl into a fist. The sound of stone grating against stone can be heard by all.
"That should slow you down," the king sneers as he saunters a few steps away from the group. "You will now have to try and solve my Labyrinth. I've made the wall unbreakable, so don't bother trying."
One thing that Hellboy can never turn down is a challenge. Pulling his right arm back, he lets his fist fly. For the first time in his life, Hellboy is unable to bash down a wall. It towers over them completely unscathed. He stands there staring at it for a few heart beats, switches Toby to the other shoulder, and then he pulls out the Samaritan. He points the over sized weapon at the offending wall and shoots. The wall continues to stand unmarked and Hellboy is starting to lose his temper.
Ludo and Didymus watch, unsure of what to do. While the desire to help is strong, Jareth is still their king. Hoggle tries to get Liz's attention while staying out of Jareth's line of sight.
"Psst, little missy," he whispers hoarsely desperately tugging on her hand. "I know another way."
"What's this?" Jareth asks mockingly spotting the dwarf. "Are you helping these people, Higgle?"
"Hoggle," Hoggle automatically corrects. "And so what if I am? I don't work for you no more so I can do as I please."
"Remember your place," Jareth threatens as he stalks toward the now cowering dwarf.
The king's path is suddenly blocked by Liz. Jareth looks down on the woman that dares stand up to him. The courage in her dark eyes once again reminds him of the courage Sarah's hazel ones had shown him when she ran the Labyrinth. Of course he knew behind the courage was fear with Sarah, not so with this one.
"So what if he's helping us?" she challenges. "You've already stated you didn't think we'd be able to get through even with a map and a tour guide. So why not let them help us?"
Jareth smirks and backs off. He forms another crystal and starts playing with it. He lets it roll around his hands and arms for a minute. Suddenly, he throws it at the damaged wall they just came through. Bricks lying around on the ground jump back to where they had been previously been before Hellboy's arrival. Within a short period of time the wall looks like it has never been touched and now the glowing tendrils cover this wall just like the one across the way.
"This should make it more interesting," he gloats. "This spell will make the walls of the Labyrinth impervious to your attacks, and it will follow you everywhere. Such a pity that you'll never make it in time." Then glaring at Hoggle he adds, "I'll deal with you later, Hogwart."
"Hoggle," the small man corrects again quietly.
With another smirk, the king disappears in a cloud of glitter. The small group stands there as idle bits of glitter floats around on the breeze. Toby starts struggling again and Hellboy rests his right hand on top of him causing the kid to immediately stop his thrashing.
"Hoggle, you said something about knowing another way," Liz says, turning toward the worried dwarf.
"Yeah," he mumbles. "But it's a couple of corridors back and there's no way to gets there now. We'll have to go the long way. Comes on, follow me."
With that, Hoggle limps past the place Jareth was previously standing and heads down the passage way. Liz follows just behind him with Didymus and Ambrosius by her side, Hellboy trails along in their wake and Ludo brings up the rear. Hellboy keeps an eye on the walls, but true to Jareth's word, the glow follows them keeping Hellboy from wreaking more havoc on the Labyrinth.
Meanwhile, Jareth appears in the outermost corridor surveying the damage done by the giant red oaf. Producing crystal after crystal, he starts to repair the walls. As the last brick takes its place back where it belongs, Jareth runs a gloved hand over the once damaged area. Resting his forehead against the cool surface, he sighs.
All he wanted was to get Sarah back. At first he tried to convince himself that he was doing it for revenge on the only mortal to ever best his Labyrinth, the only female to ever turn him down. But now that she's here and he can see her, hear her, smell her, touch her, and almost even taste her, he's not so sure he what he wants. His pride and ego wants revenge on her. His heart wants her.
A short time later, Hellboy and gang find themselves in the hedge maze. The glow that had followed them down brick halls now follows them on the bushes that make up the walls. Hellboy experiments with another punch, but gets the same results as before.
"Let me try," Liz says while she walks up to the hedge as blue flames engulf her hand.
"My lady," Didymus exclaims. "Your hand, it is on fire!"
"Yes, I know," she answers with a small, sad smile.
Hellboy watches curiously as the others watch in fascination. Liz puts her hand on the plant willing it to burn. She concentrates and the flames get bigger and hotter engulfing the bush. Pulling her hand back and dousing the flames dancing around her fingers she watches as the flames disappear from the hedge leaving no trace of her efforts. Liz gives a shrug and they follow Hoggle through the maze.
Toby squirms every once and a while, but usually to readjust himself. Being thrown over Hellboy's shoulder is not the most comfortable place to be. The kid seethes about the way he's being treated. He could be watching music videos or playing with his Game Boy or even seeing if Sarah had some junk food stashed somewhere in her apartment. But no, he's stuck here being dragged around like a sack of potatoes. His dad is a big time lawyer, Toby's sure that there's cause for some sort of lawsuit here.
Fairies can be seen flitting about and it takes all of Hoggle's willpower not to go after them with his sprayer. Hellboy and Liz ignore the little nuisances. As they pause for Hoggle to determine which way they should go, Toby finally notices the small beings. One hovers next to a nearby bush and he reaches out a hand to touch it.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Hellboy tells him, looking back over his shoulder at the kid.
"Why not?" Toby asks petulantly.
"Because fairies bite," he answers.
Toby quickly pulls his hand back as the creature takes a lunge at the retreating hand. They continue on for a while longer. Up ahead they can see an archway that looks like it might be the exit. Hoggle leads them towards it.
"This hasn't been so bad," Hellboy observes. "I don't see what the big deal is about this Labyrinth."
"That's 'cause you've got a guide," Hoggle grumbles. "If I wasn't here you'd find yourself in an oubliette, or the firey's forest or worse yet the bog of eternal stench before yous could blink."
They pass through the archway into a garden filled with flowers of every color that could possibly be imagined. The fragrance is almost overwhelming with the heady scent of all of the flowers. On the other side of the garden they can see another archway.
"Humph," Hoggle mumbles to himself. "This shouldn't be here."
"What do you mean 'this shouldn't be here'?" Hellboy asks, his amber eyes narrowing.
"Well, you see it's like this," Hoggle explains. "The Labyrinth is a living thing. Not like yous and me, mind you, but it's alive nonetheless. It's constantly changing and the weird thing is I ain't never seen this garden before."
"Should we go another way?" Liz asks.
"We can't," Hoggle says. "We don't have enough time to find a way around this. We just need to get to the other side."
"It's just a garden." Hellboy points out. "How dangerous can it be?"
"Nothing is what it seems in this place," Hoggle cautions as he carefully takes a step onto the garden path. "Well, come on. Just don't touch nothin'."
They carefully walk through the garden in single file, careful not to touch any of the plants. About half way through, Liz leans over and sniffs a rose the same shade of red as Hellboy's skin, and that's when all hell breaks loose. Hundreds of fairies come flying out of the bushes at them.
Biting and scratching with their tiny teeth and nails, the fairies cause a multitude of welts and small wounds. A well placed bite on the rump of Ambrosius causes Didymus's steed to rear up, unseating Didymus and bolting out of the garden as fast as his legs can carry him. Didymus, never being one to run from a fight, immediately stands back up and does battle with the little winged pests.
Hoggle brings out his sprayer and sprays for all he's worth, but it's just not enough. It barely does any damage to the vast number of fairies and the reservoir is quickly emptied leaving Hoggle to swat them with his hands
Ludo does his best trying to squish them with his mitt sized hands, howling with the pain they're causing him. Toby swings his arms wildly trying to protect himself. Hellboy also waves his arms around trying to get rid of the little monsters. A bite to the tail causes him to bellow as he wildly spins around trying to splatter the offending beast that bit him and in the process causes Toby to go flying off of his shoulder into the bushes. As soon as Toby scrambles free of the plants, he gets his feet under him and makes his break for freedom. Hellboy starts to go after him until he notices Liz.
She's also sweeping the air with her arms, but she doing more damage than anyone else. The flames are already past her elbows and they're quickly starting to spread.
"RED!" is all the warning she needs to yell out.
Hellboy grabs Hoggle and Didymus. Stuffing them both into his left arm, he starts pushing Ludo towards the exit.
"RUN!" he yells to the large orange beast.
Ludo needs no further encouragement to try and escape from his tormentors. Hellboy pushes Ludo through the archway and out to another part of the hedge maze. Noticing the golden glow of Jareth's spell still following him, Hellboy finds a dead end in the hedges. Hellboy quickly shoves Ludo toward the dead end and then drops the other two next to the beast.
"Get down!" he orders, forcing Ludo down to his hands and knees. Using his own body as a shield, he tries to protect them as best he can as the firestorm over takes them. The heat is incredible as the flames rage past their shelter.
After about a minute, the fire subsides. Hellboy idly notices that Jareth's spell is still in place around the bushes and for a change, he's actually thankful that the arrogant jerk created those spells. Of course, if he hadn't created the spells in the first place, this probably wouldn't have happened, but there's nothing to be done for it now.
Hellboy carefully steps out of the protection of the hedges and looks around. There is nothing left of the hedge maze except the bushes that they were hiding in. For at least a half mile in every direction there is nothing but scorched wasteland. The others peek out from their shelter and look around in awe of the devastation.
"What the bloody hell have you done to my hedge maze?" growls a voice behind Hellboy.
"Liz," is all Hellboy says.
He trots back to where he sees her lying on the ground. After checking for any injuries beyond the ones caused by the fairies first, he then carefully picks Liz's small, limp form into his large arms. Heading back towards the others, he sees that Jareth is still there. He seems to be barely containing his anger.
"I will ask you again," Jareth snarls. "What have you done to my hedge maze?"
"I already told you," Hellboy snarls back. "Liz."
Jareth looks at the unconscious woman and notices that the burning power that he had sensed in her earlier is now just a glowing ember. He watches as Hellboy gently puts her down with her back to one of the untouched bushes. Hellboy gently brushes her hair from her face as he intently watches her. Jareth idly wonders if Liz is aware of Hellboy's feelings towards her.
"Is she…?" Hoggle starts to ask.
"No," Hellboy answers automatically. "She's just unconscious. I'm not sure how long she'll be out though."
"The fair maiden did all this?" Didymus asks disbelievingly as he waves his staff towards the devastation.
"Yeah," Hellboy sighs as he picks her back up. "Come on, we need to get going."
As Hellboy scoops Liz back up into his arms, the others step out onto the quickly cooling ground only to be faced with their king.
"Where is the boy?" he asks.
"Damn good question," Hellboy replies as he stands back up. "He took off after the fairies attacked."
With a twist of his wrist, Jareth produces another crystal and looks into it. What he sees causes him to smile. Without another word, he disappears again.
"Damn," Hoggle mutters.
"What's the matter?" Hellboy asks.
"Toby's in an oubliette," the dwarf answers. "And I'm not sure which one."
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