A/N: I don't own the rights to Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. I do, however, possess the soundtrack. Hot, huh? Here's another longish action-packed one for ya.
"We're going to what?" Constable Crane asked moments before the red-faced Oompa Loompa was dashing back towards them with a squirtable, plastic bottle. "And what's that?"
Mr Wonka took the bottle and saluted his loyal worker.
"This, my annoyingly inquisitive friend, is WonkaVite spray," William replied, beaming. "A while back I invented a formula to reverse the process of ageing. Normally I put it in pills 'cause it's easier to track the dosage, but I find it's always good to be prepared. Ya never know when some experiment's gonna come back and bite you in the – well, it's just not conducive to a pleasant work environment."
Mort frowned. Apparently he hadn't taken the leisure time to read Roald Dahl's sequel to that book about the little boy who won a chocolate factory.
"How's making those creatures younger gonna help matters?" he said, raising his voice over the buzzing and explosions that continued above.
Wonka tutted.
"Seriously, would ya use your brain? It's not about makin' them younger. It's about makin' them too young…and you can stop right there, Mr Sparrow, don't think I can't see you creepin' up on me." William glanced shrewdly at the pirate who was frozen in a mid-pilfering stance. "Any Oompa Loompa who thought they'd try a little of this stuff for their own gain wound up in diapers. That's nappies to you."
Jack clasped his hands ruefully to the hilt of his cutlass before enquiring, "'Ow do you mean too young? How young can your tonic make 'em?"
"All the way."
"Eh?"
"Watch," Mr Wonka instructed. He strode out into the centre of the platform near the charred debris of the cannon he'd operated. Either side of him, Oompa Loompa squads were still bustling with the remaining guns, loading them and blasting out explosives.
William walked over to one of the racks, picked up one of the large candy cannonballs and pushed it into the back of a gun's chamber. Holding out the spray bottle, he squirted WonkaVite on the surface of the ball. Then he shut the hatch and nodded to the driver to lock a target.
The contaminated candy ball burst out from the barrel and careered towards its prey. The unfortunate Whangdoodle vainly attempted to swerve away, but too late. A blast of orange fire painted part of the void and fizzled out.
"It's gone!" Jack cried out in such a voice of astonishment that he instantly felt it necessary to clear his throat and act less interested.
"What do you mean gone? What's gone?" said Crane, blinking at the spots in his vision.
"The Wingdoddle thing. Whangdoodle, that's the one."
"But that's just imp-."
"What you have all just witnessed," Wonka interrupted, arms spread in showman style. "Is the wonders of WonkaVite. That poor critter we just shot is now hundreds of miles below us in a place known as Minusland."
Ichabod was rolling his eyes, mouthing the word 'drivel', but seeing as the others' gaze was fixated, William continued.
"See, we just made the Whangdoodle so terribly young that he went backwards, and of course if you reverse in numerical terms, you become a Minus. You appear in the only place that can predict the origins of things that are to come or that once were. If you don't grab someone outta there like greased lightnin', those dastardly Gnoolies will nab the Minus and it'll be gone forever."
Mr Wonka realised he'd lost the pirate at basic mathematics and so concluded, "In other words, we killed it." It wasn't as though these people needed to know about the awful, invisible monsters living at the base of his factory.
"Great," Jack exclaimed. "Let's blast the bijesus out of 'em."
The chocolatier rushed across the platform, spraying the racks of cannonballs with the lethal potion.
"Okie dokie," he said at last. "I've called off the loading squads, seein' how I'm the only one now who can put the ammo in the machines." He waggled his gloved fingers at the others, making the plastic squeak. "My Ammunitions crew don't have mitts. But now we don't need to worry about the Whangdoodles hittin' the explosives back since one itty bit of contact with them and whoosh – off to Minusland."
He giggled.
"What about the other side?" Mr Rainey asked.
"What?"
"Wouldn't it be better to have the squads on both sides firing this stuff?" the writer suggested. "Might kill them off quicker."
William pondered this for a moment. He clapped his hands decisively.
"Capital idea, Mr Morton, sir. Someone's gonna have to get over to the guns on the other platform. Better take the spray with them before I have to handle the ones I did already."
Ichabod raised a hand in question.
"Er, how is anyone supposed to get over there?" he wondered, eyeing the unfathomable chasm.
"Duh!" Wonka scoffed. "Elevator?"
"Oh really?" the constable replied with much the same mockery. He made a sweeping gesture towards the glass lift to bring it to attention. The world's tiniest but most epic battle was occurring between two young Oompa Loompas and a swarm of Whangdoodles just beyond the closed doors.
William spun on his heel to see a cluster of his workers, armed with a full orchestral suite, bashing out a quick rendition of 'Cirith Ungol'.
"Hush it! I'm tryin' to think over here!"
The musicians broke off with an array of colourfully awkward notes before traipsing off scene.
"We're gonna have to come up with some other way of gettin' over there," Mr Wonka finished.
"Way ahead of you, Mr Wonka," Jack called.
The pirate was balanced precariously on the raised ledge at the front of the platform. He glanced calculatively at the elevator cable passing over his head and unbuckled his weapon belt. Slinging it over the cable, he took hold of both ends of the strap and tested his weight.
"Come on, Bodders. Time to prove you're not such a milksop after all."
"You must be insane," Ichabod blurted. "I'm not crossing that."
"I can't swing over and carry the potion."
"Couldn't you find someone more apt?" whined the constable.
"Mr Wonka's got to man the cannons 'ere, Ed can't grip well enough and Mr Rainey, no offence, I just don't trust you not to go berserk. So nab the bottle, Crane, and let's go."
Pride once again at stake, Ichabod took out his chocolate-stained handkerchief and wrapped it around the neck of the bottle for fear of residue. He took a deep breath, climbed up beside Jack and – Mort smirking – wrapped his arms around the pirate's chest.
Jack pushed off over the abyss, the cable sagging under the weight of both men. They slid, narrowly avoiding collisions with several passing Whangdoodles, their faces lit by deafeningly close fireworks. At last they reached the other side and bowled in amongst a crowd of Mr Wonka's employees.
Captain Sparrow got to his feet, immediately ducking an insect air raid, and bustled over to the back of the nearest cannon. He beckoned to the constable who was unsteady from the journey.
"Get a move on, constable. I'll put these thingies in the hatch and you spray 'em nice an' proper. Savvy?"
No sooner had their gunner begun firing, the other platform joined in pelting the Whangdoodle army. The void filled with bursts of dazzling colour, the winged creatures popping out of existence all over. After at least an hour of loading artillery and slashing at stray martyr bugs, a cheer rang out from the opposite side of the elevator shaft.
Jack ran to the head of the platform.
"We did it, Bodders! Look, they're on the retreat!"
Sure enough, the sorry few insects were vanishing into the depths in search of their jungle home.
However, there's always one little sod there to ruin the occasion. This particular sod soared into the range of an Oompa Loompa gunman on the far side of the pirate and constable's platform. It waited until the last possible moment before smashing itself into a speeding candy-ball. Although this killed the creature instantly, the strategy worked. The non-contaminated but still dangerous explosive hurtled back to the platform.
"Jack! Look out!"
Constable Crane threw himself forwards, pushing Sparrow out of the missile's line.
The candy-ball detonated.
