Chapter 39: Trapped in A Train With Witches, Part 2
Earlier, before the witches boarded the train
Gothy immediately disliked the conductor's cabin.
It was very obvious that with all the computers, machines, and radars, the train wasn't meant to be operated by a human conductor and more by an automatic pilot. Heck, the only seats present in the entire wagon were lounge chairs nailed on the black ground next to a vending machine serving various forms of beverages. Ozzy merely kicked the machine and somehow managed to score herself a large cup of coffee with whipped cream.
"What the Hell is wrong with you?" Gothy snapped.
"Drinking what could be my last cup of Joe before we possibly die," Ozzy said. She allowed Elvis-in-mini-mode to take a quick sip before he crawled up and slipped through the collar of her ripped, red-and-black camouflage shirt. "Good. Stay put."
"You're not hiding him in your hair?" Gothy frowned.
"If the witches are smarter than they look, they might figure about my hammerspace Troll hair. The last thing I need is for them to put their fingers on my head to find my pet who acts as my main source of transportation." Ozzy tapped on her chest. "Padded bra for a reason. In case ya forgot, I'm kinda flat."
"Gee, I couldn't tell." Gothy scoffed. She turned to look at the view the cabin had of the tracks flashing towards them. Anytime now, they could be reaching a station being boarded by witches.
"You got a problem with me or something?" Ozzy drank her coffee.
"Maybe. I don't know what to make of you." Gothy shrugged without even bothering to turn and look at Ozzy the way most people should be looking at each other when talking.
"Why? Because of how I almost made out with Charles while I was high? It was an accident, get over yourself."
"Get over it?" Gothy turned to look at her. "He made it clear he shouldn't be doing it, he made it clear that you were breaking his personal space, you violated that, and now you give him space, smother him with gift shop presents, and suddenly you two are flirting! Am I missing some sort of detail on this fucked up fourth-date teenage hookup shit?"
"Fancy that. You wanna play the protective big sis." Ozzy finished her coffee, crushed the paper cup with her bare hands, turning it into a crunched-up ball that she tossed effortlessly at a nearby trash can. "I don't really give much of a hoot about your dark past and family problems, but Audrey wasn't wrong when she pointed out that your little quest has turned you rather self-centered. All this to find your older sister, you make yourself a BFF and a girlfriend on the way, all great stuff. But then again, you don't like the people that your BFF likes, you think you can get away with murder after being responsible for the death of the Grand High Witch's daughter, and now, just because Audrey said it, you try redeeming yourself to be there for the brother you purposely ditched. If I didn't know any better…" Ozzy got up and crossed her arms. "You might be no different than your mom."
"Take that back… now." Gothy said venomously.
"Don't get me wrong. You're no diva like they described her. Obviously you didn't do everything she did. But do some math here," Ozzy continued. "She abandoned her own kids in favor of others. For your big sis, it was the princess with the magical hair. For her son, your little brother, she favored you." Ozzy scoffed when she saw Gothy's eyes widen. "What? I mean, it's obvious. If your mom has such a record at abandoning her kids, why did she let you stick around? Was it because you were a girl? Or something else? Then there's the fact that nearly everyone in your family is involved with some princess. Your mom and sis had Rapunzel, you have Crystal, and yeah, as weird as it may look to you, Charles has me. And finally, there's the self-centered narcissism where things have to revolve around you. You might not be as physically vain as her, but you sure as heck hate it when things don't go your way or when it comes to sharing people." Ozzy pointed at Gothy close enough to poke her forehead. "Keep in mind that this whole world tour is because you want to find your sis, not some grand TV show road trip. Sure, Audrey and Crystal are motivated to help you, but let's be real, Audrey does it for finding a purpose in life and Crystal because she has a new valid reason for not going back home. As for Beatrice, Charles, and me? Sure, we're glad to help, but we're mostly Audrey's friends. Not yours."
"You bitch…" Gothy snarled.
"I'm just saying!" Ozzy raised her hands in defense. "Besides, what do you plan on doing once you find your sis? Are you going to have us all move into one big house wherever she lives? When Beatrice, Crystal, and I have to go back home, are you going to visit? And what about Audrey? What will happen to her? And Charles?" She sighed and crossed her arms before finally giving Gothy a disapproving sad expression. "They don't have a home. You forget that they're refugees as well. Sure, they had every reason to leave the other side of the mist because their families back there were shitty, but once you do find your sis, where will they go? They'll be homeless refugees…"
Ozzy shook her head and walked to the main dashboard. They now had a view of the landscape turning into a mountainous range. "So yeah, call be a bitch all you want and go ahead trying to play the sister role you never had, but unlike you, I've thought this through. Unless you come up with a brilliant source of income that will give you and your siblings some kind of dream cottage where you can be a sitcom happy family, I intend on asking Charles to come with me to the Troll Lands. He might dislike me for the rest of my life, but at least there he could actually have a family where his dad doesn't beat him and his mother and sister don't abandon him like the piece of trash they treat him."
Gothy gasped and looked at Ozzy in awe. "You… really do care for him…" That was the best she could spit out, since the rest of her really wanted to punch Ozzy for comparing her to Mother Gothel.
"In case you forgot, I'm not what people think off when it comes to Rock Trolls: destructive and heartless. Unlike what they think, I do have a heart… I'm just horrible at expressing my feelings the right way."
Before Gothy could say anything, the train started slowing down. The girls realized they were reaching a station, which was packed all the way to the end by women. Every single one of them was dressed to impress, had their hands and feet covered by fancy gloves and high-heeled shoes, and most of them had hats.
"Witches on the train!" Ozzy spoke to the others through her ear mike, causing Gothy to twitch a bit. "Everyone, hide!" She made a dash to the laundry chute door and popped it open (seriously, who designed this train?). Before she could jump in, Ozzy noticed that Gothy was distracted by the window. "Gothy, come on!"
"Uh, I think I missed the memo about the werewolves…" Gothy pointed at the window, grateful that the conductor's cabin window happened to be one-way only. Otherwise, the nine-foot-tall, dark furred, icy blue-eyed hounds clawing their way up on the train would have seen the terrified look on her face.
"Ugh! Them again!" Ozzy ditched the laundry chute and pulled out a guitar from her hair. From the other side of the train, one wolf was more invested in pressing its nose against the window, sniffing viciously. The upcoming raindrops tapped on a large wound it had on its head. A wound still healing up, and judging by the size, something big must have hit it.
"Oh no, I recognize that canine bitch…" Ozzy grumbled. "I bashed him on the head with a guitar when we were escaping Villainapolis."
"Why'd you hit that thing?" Gothy exclaimed.
"That 'thing'," Ozzy air-quoted, "was the reason why I had to stitch up Charles' chest when he was passed out for two days before we got on the train."
"It tried to maul Charles?"
"Yeah, but your bro had a breastplate. Avoided death but made the stitching difficult…" Ozzy looked at the window. The wolf stopped sniffing and seemed to aimlessly smile at the window, exposing its sharp fangs. It raised its hands in the air and hammered it down on the window. The girls yelped when its claws sank through the glass.
"Look at that, it remembers you!" Gothy pulled out her silver dagger as more wolves started clawing their way through the glass.
"Sure, and we got a big lesson today that wolves serving a psycho demigoddess have better nostrils than those blasted witches! We didn't even booby trap the train for hounds!" Ozzy tightened her grip on her guitar as the wolves continued to hit the window. "Guys! Where are you?" She shouted in the ear mike. "Kory Lokidottir's pets are attacking the conductor's cabin!" As the cracking glass worsened, Ozzy used her hair to push the glass back in position, engaging in a dangerous push game opposing her strong hair and dozens of wolves. Alarms started going crazy and a voice shouted in the background. "TAIL CARS SEPARATED! TAIL CARS SEPARATED!"
"Guys! What happened?" Ozzy shouted.
"LOKISDOTTIR SPLIT OUR CAR FROM THE REST OF THE TRAIN!" Crystal's voice shouted. "SHE'S AFTER AUDREY!"
"Where are Beatrice and Charles?" Gothy exclaimed.
"I'M GETTING RADIO SILENCE FROM THEM! EITHER THEY'RE DEAD OR WITCHES ARE IN THE SAME ROOM AS THEM!"
"I got to go find them!" In a sudden panic, Gothy rushed to the cabin's door. She froze in her tracks when the door's window showed her dozens of witches in the corridor. All of them turned their purple pupils to stare at Gothy, grinning with their elongated toothy mouths. They made a run for the door but Gothy was fast enough to bolt it shut. That didn't stop the witches from scratching and hitting onto the door.
"I can't keep this up!" Ozzy kept pushing the wolves out of the cabin. At the same time, the witches were trying to break the door open.
"If only I had magic…" Gothy's eyes widened and she ran through her purse. She managed to pull out two purple cards, each bearing a different colored glyph. She quickly ran to the dashboard and slammed the card with a blue glyph on it. Ozzy found a replacement with a chunk of ice growing out of the card and pushing out the wolves, acting as a pillar under the glass. Gothy ran back to the door and slid the other card underneath the doorway. One of the witches must have stepped on the glyph, because a fire now engulfed the corridor. The witches screamed in agony as the flames consumed them, their bodies disintegrating into black ash that fell onto the ground. Even after killing off those witches, the fire continued to spread.
"Wow…" Ozzy whistled. "At this rate, you might just be able to bond with Charles over witch homicide and pyromaniac ethics. And some magic. Where did you get those cards?"
"Oh. Luz Blight-Noceda gave me a bunch of those before Crystal and I left Witchachusetts." Gothy couldn't stop looking at the fire before eventually turning away. "I guess the booby traps are flammable enough to turn this train into a human bonfire."
"Knowing Charles and Beatrice, they should be capable of surviving the flames." Ozzy checked the window again. "We need to go help Crystal and Audrey. Seems like the wolves are gone."
"Maybe if we stop the train?"
"Guys? We got a problem!" Beatrice's voice shouted through the mikes.
"We know! Crystal and Audrey got separated and are dealing with a psychotic demigoddess with a grudge!" Ozzy exclaimed. "Are you and Charles OK?"
"No!" Beatrice sounded anguished. "The Grand High Witch! She captured Charles!"
"WHAT?" Both Gothy and Ozzy panicked.
"Man, that's the second time he gets captured!" Ozzy said. "Beatrice, are you still in your hiding spot?"
"No! I'm running through the air vents. It already doesn't help that I'm carrying his satchel, which he ditched with his ear mike! He told me before we had to hide to bring you his satchel, Ozzy!"
"His weapons are weakening Beatrice… and he knew he was the most likely to be captured…" Ozzy struggled to hold back a tearful choke. "Why didn't I disagree with his buddy system in the first place?"
"Hey." Gothy placed her hand on Ozzy's shoulder. "It's OK. Nobody could have seen it coming…"
"But I'm supposed to!" Ozzy shoved Gothy's hand away. "I'm the Princess of the Rock Trolls! I'm crazy-prepared for any possibility when I have to load up Elvis for a tour or have a back-up for my back-up for my back-up plan at any party I host! I'm supposed to be ready for anything! If this small slip-up shows that I couldn't even see the possibility of him getting captured… the only guy that's not some jerkass, lazy sycophant, then how that's gonna reflect on me when I have to take my mom's place on stage?" Ozzy groaned and collapsed on her knees.
Gothy blinked in shock. "Wow, you're… rather insecure for someone who's rather flamboyant?"
"Gee, you think?"
"Look, I can tell you're… worried that you won't be a great Queen, but right now we got split from our friends, and right now my little brother… and your apparent love interest after only knowing him for a couple of days, is being dragged around by the homicidal witch mother of the homicidal teen witch who had a petty grudge on me!"
A horrible crushing sound alerted them. The sides of the door had been damaged by two hands crunching the metal in their palms and throwing the door towards them. Ozzy pulled Gothy out of the way, sparing them from the flying door as it crashed onto the dashboard, damaging the circuits and causing it to speed up. They got up, only to witness the thrower standing by the doorway.
"The Grand High Witch herself…" Ozzy mumbled. "You're more hideous than I imagined."
"Ugh. A brat from Troll royalty." The witch wrinkled her nose. "Human brats already smell of dog droppings, but for some reason my nose was telling me that this cabin smelled a lot of dog droppings and volcanic rocks. A Rock Troll. I hate rock music."
Ozzy gasped in offense and grabbed her guitar. "I'll crack your head open after I make you tell us where Charles is!"
"You mean him?" The Grand High Witch took a step back, revealing her four main acolytes closing in behind her. Saoirse dragged along Charles, tied up and gagged by the large snake ornament coiling around him. He let out muffled shouts as the snake's head gagged his mouth.
"You brats think you're so clever, tricking out the train with what could weaken my witches…" The Grand High Witch pointed at the flaming corridor, revealing that for a quick second, it was closing up what looked like a small bare pathway. "But Charles here is fireproof. The flames just let us walk through like the Red Sea splitting up for Moses and the Hebrews."
"Let him go!" Gothy pointed her silver dagger at the Grand High Witch. "Now!"
"Or what? You'll give me a makeover?" The Grand High Witch taunted. "Have hair grow underneath my wig? Stab me on the back? Please! Your mother was an attention whore who couldn't even cast her own magic! You're a mere mortal, and just as useless as your mother. Your older sister was easily manipulated by a demon into possessing magic, but she managed to defeat her." She cupped Charles' cheeks and squished them affectionately, making Charles muffle out signs of uncomfortable protest. "And Charles here is so exceptional!"
"Leave him alone!" Ozzy swung her guitar at the Grand High Witch, only for Nicola and Zelda to push her down. Charles managed to pull himself away from Saoirse but the Grand High Witch grabbed him by the snake ornament and lifted him up in the air.
"Face reality, Gothy Gothel. There's nothing exceptional about you. You were damn lucky to have successfully murdered my Leona."
"Did you honestly think that your speech was going to break me?" Gothy asked drily as she kept her dagger pointed at the Grand High Witch. She then felt someone stand behind her and immediately turned just in time to stab Pamela in the stomach. The witch hissed in fury when she felt the silver blade pierce through her. Gothy pulled out her dagger now covered in blood, only for the Grand High Witch to stretch out her spare arm and pushing Gothy against the wall. Her dagger fell in the process, making room for Saoirse to pull out a bronze snake out of nowhere. It coiled around Gothy's wrist, petrifying itself until she was properly shackled. At some point, Nicola and Zelda had managed to rip the guitar out of Ozzy's grasp, giving Saoirse a chance to shackle her as well. The girls continued to agitate as the witches forced them up. Pamela, still injured from Gothy's stabbing, used a cloth to wrap up Gothy's dagger, and presented it to the Grand High Witch. In his restraints, Charles looked furious as the Grand High Witch took the wrapped dagger.
"We're a few minutes away from crossing the border to the Wastelands," the Grand High Witch sneered at the girls while she talked to the witches. "The train tracks were built on top of a canyon. I'm thinking, for the sense of evil poetic justice, we shove those two off the train into a plummeting death." She pointed at Gothy and Ozzy. "You can see the irony in it, right, Gothy Gothel?"
"Obviously. My mother dying by falling while rapidly aging and nearly every villain I knew back on the Isle dying of similar clauses. Your irony doesn't escape me!" Gothy spat.
"At least once you die, I'll be able to make an extreme amount of money by selling your soul in Hell to the creepy moth. And let me tell you, when your sold is sold to him, it gets hopeless to escape him." The Grand High Witch then eyed Ozzy. "As for you, I could care less as to what happens to you in Hell. And by now, Lokisdottir must have eliminated her Auradonian adversary… If Jareth's brat still lives, the wolves will finish her."
"Do anything to Crystal and I will personally haunt you from the grave," Gothy said venomously.
"I'm sure you'll try. I killed thousands of children and their dead souls failed to haunt me." The Grand High Witch patted Gothy on the head mockingly. "We'll make sure to kill you two very quickly. Do you have any last words for your brother?"
This caused Gothy and Ozzy to look more panicked than ever. "Don't hurt him!" Ozzy exclaimed, nearly begging.
"Hurt him? I'm going to raise him." The vile sorceress held the restrained Charles close to her in a tight hug. "He's such an adorable darling. Anything you want to tell your sister before we kill her, sweetie?" The Grand High Witch looked worried when Charles suddenly started agitating and hyperventilating.
"I think the gag might be suffocating him, Your Excellency…" Nicola began.
"I'm not blind, you worm!" The Grand High Witch snapped her fingers and the snake head removed itself from Charles' mouth. He let out a desperate gasp of air and stuck out his bruised tongue while doing so.
"Ab…sin…the…" He choked out. "Gothy… I want… absinthe…"
"You can't be serious…" Gothy frowned. "I'm about to die and your last word to me is absinthe?"
"I need a damn drink while I watch you idiots die!" Charles snapped despite his bruised tongue. "I can't stand any of you! You were willing to dump me for Cassandra the same way our mother abandoned all of us! And Ozzy's just a sex-craving bitch! She didn't care that I wasn't comfortable, and if the Grand High Witch hadn't stepped in, Ozzy wouldn't have given a damn if I didn't want to do what she wanted to do because of my condition! So yeah, I want a drink while I watch you two get thrown out the train!"
Ozzy blinked, a look of hurt confusion in her eyes. "But… I thought…"
"You actually thought I wanted to forgive you? I'm Frollo's son! Forgiveness isn't in my genes! I don't even like you and you just jumped at me after barely knowing me! You're just as sinful as my father!"
The Grand High Witch just gave out an ecstatic grin as she watched the scene unfold. Confident in her triumph, she snapped her fingers, summoning the gold snake ornament to free Charles and coil itself back on her dress. The moment he was freed, an emotional, crying Charles ran to hug her. "You were right!" He sobbed. "I don't know what I was thinking! They never loved me!"
The witch stroke his hair playfully. "It's alright, darling. They can't hurt you..."
"Does he still want absinthe?" Saoirse pulled out a bottle from underneath her wig. "I got a Pernod…"
"Give it!" The Grand High Witch snatched it and gave it sweetly to Charles. "Here you go, darling."
"Thanks, maman…" Charles uncorked the bottle and immediately drank from it.
"Oh, sure! I hope you choke on absinthe, you fire-tempered traitor!" Gothy snapped.
That's when Ozzy snapped from her hurt state to a realization. "Hey, wait a minute! Isn't absinthe a flaming drink?"
Ozzy got her answer when a horizontal pillar of purple flames erupted out of Charles' mouth the moment he finished gulping down the absinthe. The witches freaked out when he breathed his fire on them, unaware that in the corridor, Beatrice had managed to extinguish the flames and extended her arms to drag Gothy and Ozzy out of the conductor's cabin and into the corridor. Charles managed to keep the witches cornered by the dashboard with his purple flames. Seizing the opportunity, Ozzy used her hair to break apart the drawbar, separating the conductor's cabin from the rest of the train. Her locks then flew in to wrap themselves around Charles' waist and pull him towards her, crashing the teens onto the ground as the train slowed down to a stop. Ahead of them, the rapid burning conductor's cabin moved on, carrying the angry five witches… until out of nowhere, a black-and-white sandworm rose from the canyon, grabbed the vehicle, and dragged it down with it.
"OK. I did not see that coming…" Beatrice admitted. Once the train stopped and they got back on their feet, she handed Charles his satchel back.
"Let me get this straight…" Gothy sounded angry as they got out of the train. "You had a backup plan in case you got captured where you played the backstabbing prisoner, faked being nice to the witch, and left a bunch of people to burn in a confined space while we escaped?"
"I'm tired of repeating myself…" Charles let out a cocky smirk. "It's in the family. What did you expect?"
Out of nowhere, he pulled out Gothy's dagger and casually put it back in her purse. She said nothing for a few seconds before finally embracing him in a hug. Charles stiffened a bit before returning the hug.
"I'm so sorry, Charles…" Gothy sighed.
"Hey!" Beatrice whistled. "I hate to break the reconciliation, but Audrey and Crystal need us!"
"How far behind do you think they are?" Gothy asked. In the opposite direction, smoke was in the air in large quantities. Numerous wolf hounds could be heard hollowing.
"I don't like that smoke…" Charles looked unnerved. "Audrey can turn into a demonic phoenix. She's both powerful and weak in that condition."
"Then we'd better go! Come on!" Gothy took the lead and started running, Beatrice in tow. Charles started following them, but Ozzy held him back.
"Charles, wait."
"Ozzy, if it's about what I said, I didn't mean it!" Charles said urgently. "Well, except for the part where the Grand High Witch removed my lung problem. That was real."
"So, you did forgive me?"
"Yes! I mean, kinda… Look, we need to talk more about it, alright? Otherwise, we'll be dead before…" Charles found himself interrupted again when Ozzy spun him so he could face her. "Ozzy, what are…"
Ozzy held Charles close to her and bent down to press her lips against his. His purple eyes widened in surprise at his first kiss and it took them a while to close as Ozzy spent the next seconds kissing him and giving his lower lip a quick nibble before pulling back.
"I was so scared when Beatrice said you were captured…" She sighed as she kept her face close to his. "You do mean a lot to me, you know?"
"Jesus… The stuff that can happen to a guy in less than a week…" Charles blushed. "That was… a great first kiss, but we need to get back to the others."
"Yeah, we'll bring this up once we're done." Ozzy agreed casually and let him down. The two ran after Gothy and Beatrice.
"By the way, nice lip gloss!" Charles told Ozzy while they ran.
"Volcanic strawberries and dulce de leche! Popular lip gloss for Rock Trolls!"
"Neat!"
They caught up with Beatrice and Gothy and continued running towards the chaos ahead.
