Maternal Instinct Chapter Four
Noel stood his ground in the magic-made sandbox, the searing lights above making it look and feel like vast desert. He began to sweat even as Terra sent a wave of sand to knock him off his feet. But it didn't work. He had anchored himself to the ground with some strands of the Shimmer… For a moment, he considered pleading with Terra, with insisting she had a stronger mind than this, and that she could overcome May-Eye's control with will power.
Then he remembered it was Terra he was talking about, and dismissed the notion quickly.
This wasn't the Terra who had defeated him. That Tara, the denizen of the universe Savior had visited under the alias of 'Oz'… She has been different. Unlike in this world, that Terra had betrayed the Titans and joined Slade, and had sacrificed herself to stop a volcano, and had become a statue…
But that had been reversed, and she'd… she had changed. She fought with martial arts and knives instead of rocks, and she had been the last person (within reason) that Noel had expected to show up. He was expecting to converse with the other world's Raven when he turned around. When he saw Tara, he had expected an easy fight—after all, they were on top of a sky scraper.
There, his expectations had defeated him.
Here it would be different. It had to be different, because this time, Noel wasn't a creepy stalker named after Adrian Veidt. He was a Teen Titan. He was Savior. And he'd hang before he let Tara Markov defeat him.
Not. In. His. World.
"Let's get this over with," he said at last. "I need to get back to rescuing those fruits."
Terra, who looked rather absurd dressed as a ballerina, just shook her head, then raised her hand. "I think not!"
A gust of sand shot up from the ground in front of him, and a series of rocks flew through to stab him. Savior used the Shimmer to spring up over the volley and created a duo of Shimmer blades to lash out and cut...
As predicted, a duo of round stones flew up at him, and his blades cleanly cut them both in two, and for good measure, he had the strands explode into a starburst as thinly as he could get them, grinding the rocks to dust…
Noel shook his head. The technique she had just used was one that he himself had taught Terra. She should have known better to use it, especially so early in the fight…
Savior flung his hands out, and two Shimmer lines flew down and hit the ground behind Terra on either side, and then Noel used the rubber band effect to jerk himself forward, feet first towards Terra…
But the geokinetic girl rolled out of the way, and Noel missed. Using the Shimmer as a spring, he quickly changed directions and sprang towards Terra again… only to slam into a stone wall that she quickly erected.
He barely managed to stop facial injury with a last-second Shimmer shield, but it still hurt like glomp. "Glomp?" he asked aloud. "Did I just think glomp? I've been gone too long…"
Terra ran forward, pushing the stone barrier forward to crush Noel against a sand hill behind him, but Noel jumped over it and came down with a Shimmer hammer, smashing Terra right over the head with it—
Suddenly, a light energy field in the shape of a helmet flashed over Terra's head, and sent the Shimmer mallet flying backwards, throwing Noel off balance. He went with the flow, flipped over backwards and landed on his feet.
"What was that?"
"Mother isn't stupid, dear brother," Tara said. "She anticipated you would try and make me forget, and gave me suitable protection."
Noel swore. This fight just got a heck of a lot harder.
Terra rushed forward, a tornado of sand surrounding her.
Savior used the Shimmer to try and spring over her, but the tornado extended upward and sprayed him with tiny stinging grains of sand… Savior finally understood how Anakin Skywalker felt, as his jacket, mouth, nostrils, and hair were filled with the stuff.
And Terra didn't stop, rushing forward and punching Noel in the solar plexus with a rock-encased fist. "You've been a bad big brother, 'Savior'," Tara mocked. "Mother will see to it that you are severely punished."
"SHUT UP!" he barked, slamming his fist into the ground…
A sudden flash of realization flickered in Tara's eyes about a split second after he had done so, and she jumped to the right just as Noel's Shimmer lines burst from the sand below her. Her quick dodge was enough so that the Shimmer only scraped her leg.
"Nice try," she said. "But I'm not a fool."
Savior shook his head, and charged forward anyway. Lines lashed out and wrapped Terra up in a Shimmer cocoon, hoping he could cut off her supply of oxygen till she passed out and then figure out a way to undo the spell…
No dice, though. No sooner than he finished the cocoon, Tara's eyes glowed so brightly that they shined through the Shimmer wrappings
And then, a flash of reflected light caught Noel's eye—metal? What metal was in here? When the object in question finally moved so that the light wasn't reflecting off of it, Noel gasped. The steak knife from earlier was now being held in a massive hand of rock and sand…
The blade plunged downward at the tether between Noel and the cocoon around Terra; Savior tried to jerk it away, but the knife and it's giant hand wielder just showed too much dexterity—as if it was literally Tara's hand holding the blade…
Noel retracted the cocoon as quickly as possible, burying the Shimmer far enough inside himself that the blade would have to cut him to get to it… Then he allowed as much of it as he could to explode out of his palms when the blade had passed. The Shimmer struck the big knife just above the hilt and broke it in half, which Terra didn't seem to realize: she kept slashing at him with the now-bladeless handle.
…
Meanwhile, Tara fell to the ground and took a long, well-needed breath. Maybe Mother had been wrong about how hard this fight would be… Brother Noel was never a pushover… But she had moved the planet, hadn't she? Mother knew she could win.
So, she could. She just had to convince herself she could.
If only Savior hadn't broken the knife…
A blue-white sonic cannon beam lanced out and struck Mammoth in the chest, driving him back towards the foot of the big bed. Robin ran forward and threw a boomerang at his brainwashed peer, hoping to disable his weapon before someone got their skull shattered. It could happen if Cyborg hit them with just the right frequency…
Unfortunately, the million-dollar teen blasted Robin's thrown projectile out of the air and fired at him with the cannon. Tim changed directions and backflipped over a shot, only to be hit by a wider diffused burst that followed it immediately. His ears ached from the blow, and he found himself rolling across the big quilt that paved their battle ground… a weaving of a cute little duckling stared him in the face…
Suddenly a massive shadow fell over him and he rolled out of the way just as Cyborg's fist slammed into the quilt, puncturing the duck. Robin attached an ice disk to Cyborg's chest and got up and ran even as it exploded, partially encasing Cyborg in ice.
"Fight it Vic!" Robin shouted. "That witch isn't your mother. She shouldn't control you. Remember what happened before? She's going to try and bake you in a pie, and EAT you!"
"Mother knows best," Cyborg said. "If that is what is best for us, then I will gladly join the others and be eaten."
"You're psychotic!" Mammoth shouted, slamming his shoulder into Cyborg from behind, knocking the cybernetic teen forward. "Ain't no three eyed fat ugly cow on a magic power trip gonna digest me!"
"Brother Baran!" Cyborg blurted, sounding truly aghast. "You have no right to insult our dear mother that way! You should be ashamed!"
"I'll show you ashamed!" Mammoth barked, blasting forward with a kick and pistoning back both fists to punch Cyborg in the face…
But Cyborg caught both fists, and Mammoth and Cyborg were caught up in a power struggle, each pressing forward, trying to overpower the other… Robin, seeing Cyborg's attention totally focused on Mammoth, quickly took advantage of the situation and ran behind Cyborg, opening up the back panel on his chassis…
He grabbed two wires in order to crosswire him…
KRAKOW!
Robin was suddenly rocketed back by Cyborg's massive arm, a solid blow across the chest that sent Robin flying halfway to the bed's enormous pillows.
But he had managed to hold on the wires, though they were now somehow wrapped tightly around his gloves… and he felt a little dizzy… Had Cyborg's blow spun him around that much without him realizing it?
Robin struggled to his feet against the quaking surface of the bed, but couldn't find his footing fast enough to stop Cyborg from running forward and tackling him. Robin rolled over some more, further entangling his hands in the wires he was supposed to be using to crosswire Cyborg…
Meanwhile, Cyborg deployed his sonic cannon and fired it at Robin from only a few feet away. Robin managed to avoid three shots, then did a massively difficult pushup on his entangled arms. He twirled around on the bed and swept Cyborg's legs out from under him, but Vic activated the jets that Viridian had helped him install in his back, and he didn't fall over.
"Say 'good night'," Cyborg told Robin, charging his sonic cannon up, aiming at Robin from point blank.
Robin gritted his teeth and waited to get blasted by the column of blue sound—not even he could hope to dodge at this close. It would take Kid Flash to pull that off…
Suddenly, he heard a crunch of metal and a sonic cannon discharge that managed not to hit him.
Mammoth! Robin looked up to see Baran and Cyborg struggling on the 'ground' a few feet away. Mammoth was apparently madder than Noel in a room full of people with a grudge against his mother.
Cyborg took a brutal thrashing before he finally got Mammoth off of him with a powerful uppercut that sent Baran flying off the bed entirely…
Robin took quick note that Cyborg was now also somewhat wrapped up in his own service cords---the same cords which Robin was holding… He couldn't crosswire Cyborg with them, but perhaps a good jolt would snap him out of it…
The only problem was, those cords were also wrapped tightly around Robin's hands, and if he plugged them together, they would light him up just as well. Then Cyborg turned, and in his giant panda suit, rushed forward in order to pummel Robin. When you have a half-ton metal death machine rushing at you, some alternatives suddenly become more pleasant. Quickly adjusting as much as he could to make sure there was no skin exposed to the wire (which was really only a token gesture—as tight as these wires were digging through his gloves, the green hand-sheaths wouldn't provide much of a defense), Robin plugged the two ends together, electricity surged through his body, and then he immediately thought: That was stupid!
Then he blacked out.
The desert seemed to stretch on for miles as Savior ran—even though it was really just big sand box in a big room in a rather large bank.. Right?
That was what it was, Noel told himself. If he had been teleported elsewhere, then those fruit-people were as good as dead….
BOOM!
Another explosion of sand appeared in front of him as he ran forward, the Shimmer reinforcing his tired legs.
He turned and looked back to see Terra, riding a big rock, flying towards him, her hands out ready to direct deadly earthen projectiles at him.
"No more running. At this rate, she'll just exhaust me," Noel whispered.
Two rocks from the sandbox hovered up as Terra's eyes glowed. The rocks were both about the size of a hope chest, enough to break some serious bones…
The two stones flew at Noel, but he didn't run. Lashing out a pair of the strongest Shimmer strands he could muster, Noel diverted the rocks away from himself by pushing his talent against them. But this was a position of weakness, because the Shimmer was far better at pulling than pushing… So Noel used a third strand to spring high into the air over Terra's head… He had intended to come down on her with a kick to the stomach or something—her head was still off limits thanks to May-Eye's foresight, but perhaps some other type of pain would snap her out of the control of that witch.
Then, something much unexpected happened. The rock's that the Shimmer was attached to shifted, closing around the Shimmer and then twisting into knots and grinding itself until the Shimmer was stuck inside the rock. Noel couldn't retract it!
A sadistic smirk stretched across Terra's face, and several more rocks flew up towards Noel as he started to fall…
Some more free Shimmer lines shot out to intercept them, but rather than taking advantage of his weakened position (and the fact that Terra's power was capable of moving a lot more mass than Noel's)… Terra did the same thing with the other rocks, 'grabbing' the Shimmer strands, and instead of pushing against Noel's weakness, she pulled the rocks out away from her, as far as she could…
Noel's wrists began to ache as they were being pulled six different directions by the rocks they were attached to—but he couldn't let go of them…
Tara's sadistic smirk didn't fade, and then she mocked the turn of events. "You're like the nucleus and the rocks are electrons. I wonder what will happen if I split this atom."
Noel grunted, and then tried to push the rocks forward, reversing the momentum to keep Terra off guard… But the geokinetic had other plans, and instead went with Savior's change in momentum, and crossed to of the rear rocks in the air, readjusting them until they had tangled Noel' up in a makeshift straightjacket of his own metahuman talent.
"Mother will be pleased," Terra said, hovering her rock over to stroke the five o'clock shadow on Noel's chin. "Brother Noel will be chastised, and from then on he shall be a good little boy."
"Sorry, Markov, but I'm not your brother." He quickly pulled all the spare Shimmer strands he could still manipulate into his body, then, switched the momentum of every rock he could force to give. The resulting transfer of motion sent him arcing over Terra's head, where he came down behind her in almost a Shimmer hammock, his feet facing towards her. She turned around, even as her eyes began flaring, and all the rocks shot straight outward again, locking Noel in position… "Hey Tara!" He said. "You know your atomic structure—now let me introduce you to STRING THEORY!"
Then, a mass of all the Shimmer he had left in his body shot out of his feet and smashed into Tara's stomach, knocking the wind out of her. Immediately all the rocks, including the one she was standing on, all dropped to the ground below and broke. The released Shimmer strands flew back into Noel, and he almost thought he heard the energy sigh in relief.
Unfortunately, it didn't have long to rest, because Noel immediately shot out a strand and inserted it into Terra's ear, hoping he could disable the control via her nervous system rather than with a bonk…
Suddenly, an image of the witch's three glowing yellow eyes flashed in his mind, and it was like he was forcibly blasted away from Terra like a concussion grenade.. He landed in a pile of sand, and more of it filled his jacket…
"Noel!" Terra shouted in a mock sing-songy voice, up and about again… Already.
But…
When he was in her mind… he had learned something… It had stuck.. the one thing Noël needed. He knew how he could break the control without being able to bonk her… Now he just had to find a match and some wood…
Robin's eyes opened and immediately ached from the influx of unwanted light. But they adjusted quickly, and focused enough so that he could see Cyborg standing above him, looking down at him…
Crap! I'm dead! Was Robin's first though. His second was to notice that Cyborg's panda outfit was completely gone, not just fried… Gone.
"Vic? Is that you?"
"Yeah," he said. Man, he sounded exhausted. That shock must have taken a toll on him physically, even as Tim knew it did himself. "Thanks. It may take a month to repair all the damage to my circuits, but I'd take that over being May-Eye's pawn any day. You alright? You got some nasty burns on your hands."
He brought up his hands and saw that the gloves had been removed, but there were lines burned in all around his hands where the wires had gotten really hot from the charge. If he hadn't been wearing the gloves, his hands would be mangled and unusable now. Robin smirked and shook his head. "Could be better, but could be a lot worse. What about Mammoth?"
Cyborg sweatdropped. "Mammoth? Mammoth was with you? Or… with me?"
"He was one of the few not affected by May-Eye's spell. He was fighting you when I got here… You blasted him off the bed."
"Bed?" Cyborg asked. Suddenly, he looked around, and, apparently, finally realized where they were. "Oh. That would explain why the ground is so springy."
Robin shook his head and attributed it to electron-frazzlement, then ran to the end of the bed and looked down…
Right into a big hairy face. "AAAAHHH!" Mammoth screamed..
"AAAAAHHHH!" Robin screamed in return.
After a moment, Mammoth, who had climbed up the bed spread to the top, pulled himself up to the top of the bed. "Ugh. You heroes have got to stop just popping up into my face like that. You're going to give me a heart attack."
"Your diet," Cyborg muttered so quietly that only Robin could hear, "is gonna do that."
"What was that?" Mammoth asked, glaring at Cyborg.
Vic's face stretched into a big goofy grin his hands clasped each other behind his back, and he sweatdropped again. "Nothing."
Mammoth gave him a 'whatever' face and then walked to the edge of the bed and looked around. "Selinda isn't here…"
"We'll find her," Robin said. "IF you don't fly off the handle and run into a black abyss again."
"Black abyss?" Cyborg asked. "Nobody told me about a black abyss?"
"It was in the atrium. Something in Raven's counter spell must have weakened May-Eye's hold on the building.. and saved some of us from falling under her sway."
"Didn't she use intoxicating pies to control us last time?" Cyborg asked.
"Spare me the details!" Mammoth barked. "I don't care how she's controlling my sister, I just want to find her and get out of this hell hole."
"So, he's on our side?" Vic asked.
"For now," Robin said with a nod. "Starfire and Savior also survived, but they headed in a different direction. We're supposed to meet them again in the Atrium in about 9 and a half hours. Until then, we need to find and rescue as many as we can. And remember that there were a bunch of civilians in the bank as well. We don't have any idea how many total people are here, so keep your eyes open."
Cyborg nodded. "Anything else?"
"Yeah. Don't say anything about Savior to Mammoth. They had an unpleasant confrontation earlier, so he might…"
"AHEM!" Mammoth barked, interrupting the two. "I'm going now. If you two love-birds are coming, hurry up!"
Greatly annoyed, Tara ran forward. Mother… Oooh, she was going to kill Brother Noel when she got her loving green hands on him. Tara had bruises in places she didn't know bruised, and her stomach was still feeling queasy from how hard 'Savior' had hit her in the abdomen earlier.
Nevertheless, she had to press on. For the love of her dear Mother May-Eye… She had to…
Patter, pitter, patter, pitter…
What was that? Tara thought. She could have sworn something white had just ran by… It must have been Noel... He was the only white thing in this sandbox. She followed the figure over the hill of sand, ready to pelt him with earthen projectiles as soon as she made contact…
But when she got over the hill…. No! Nothing! But I know I saw him!
Tara whirled around, looking in all directions… Was it a trap? Had he hoped she would walk into it and then… he would pop out of the sand? And then do what? Hit her on the head in the vain delusion that it would 'cure' her and make her see through Mother's allegedly false love?
No. Noel knew it wouldn't work—he'd already tried. And Mother had given her a magic helmet to protect her precious little head from injury….
Suddenly, Tara heard footsteps behind her and whirled around, pushing outward, eyes aglow, and a burst of sand and rock flew in the direction of the noise. But it hit nothing.
Nothing again! I could have sworn…
Why was she getting so upset over a couple of mistakes… Maybe she was beginning to wonder if… if he was right? Was there really something more to Mother than met the eye? But how could that be! After all the love Tara had been shown…
Patter, pitter, patter, pitter…
Tara turned just in time to see the tail end of a jacket and white spiky hair retreat over and behind a sand hill, and immediately went on the offensive. "I HAVE YOU NOW!" she shouted, jumping over the hill, standing literally on a whirlwind of sand and burying the figure, then propelling herself downward into the mound, the earth swirling around her. He wasn't going to escape this time!
She hit him—no… She hit… NOTHING!...
"HOW!... Tara blurted, then trailed off.
Because suddenly, a flaming blue something-or-other streaked by her, and she jumped away. Not fire! It wasn't possible! Noel couldn't know about that. He had to be guessing. Mother had said her spells would protect her against everything but one small weakness, and that she had specifically designed the arena to make it impossible to obtain that one thing. So… how?
Of course… the Shimmer had gone in her ear. Curses and drat!
Terra's eyes widened as the burning cloth—which she realized was Savior's headband—came at her again, streaking around as it was tossed about on white lines. How was it on fire? Didn't Noel make sure EVERYTHING he wore was flame proof?
Tara staggered backward and tripped, then rolled away. She quickly regained herself, and her eyes flared again as she tried to bury the flying torch in sand, and put out the fire. A torrential swirl of sand flew into the air and started to buff the flaming headband with the sand… The fire danced and flickered, and got smaller.
It's working! She thought, and elation built up inside her…
Suddenly, a figure in white pants and a familiar white jacket ran by and dived behind another pile of sand—and this time she knew it had to be Noel for real, because she'd seen colors other than white!
She turned away from the flaming, now falling headband and leapt over the sand to see Noel with his head half buried in it, and came down with a powerful stomp kick… But Noel rolled away and sprang up and slugged her in the face. Terra staggered backwards, and then wiped a trickle of blood from her mouth...
And suddenly realized why it had obviously not been another decoy… Red hair. Dark blue eyes… Brown shirt…. He wasn't in his battle body!
Tara's eyes grew wide as saucers for a split second, then it was all over. The Shimmer suddenly appeared behind her, detached from Noel, and wrapped itself around her arms and legs, then plugged itself into her ear, as if it had been somehow pre-programmed to perform this action. Tara immediately found herself completely immobilized… and unable to access her powers.
"Now," Noel said, "About your so called mother." He reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a specialized lighter/fluid-container and a piece of his normal-body shirt. Which he quickly set ablaze.
Then he dropped it on the skirt of Tara's ballerina suit, which also quickly caught on fire. Noel touched the Shimmer and it immediately went back into him, causing him to transform from white pants and a brown shirt to brown pants and a light blue shirt… He must have mixed and matched his normal and battle body clothing.
All the Shimmer except the line in Tara's ear which disabled her powers returned and by this time, she was too busy dealing with the fire to care…
"OUCH! OUCH! HOT!"
Anger flared in Tara's eyes, and suddenly, sparks appeared around her head as the helmet spell flickered out, and suddenly Tara seemed scared and confused… As if she was no longer under the spell. Which Noel assumed to be the case…
"I'm on fire!" Tara screamed. "Put it out! Put it out! NOW!"
Noel's eyes rolled, and he lashed a Shimmer strand out to the top of the other sand hill and grabbed something—a small fire extinguisher—and pulled it to him, then immediately sprayed Tara thoroughly.
"Tara," he said. "It's called 'stop, drop, and roll'. Remember it."
Tara glared at him. "What is up with you!"
"What?"
"You've had you jerkometer on high all day today—even for you!" Tara spat. "And then you just stand there while I'm on fire and expect me not to go off!"
"Fire takes three seconds to do damage. I gave you 2.5."
Tara stared at him, and said nothing for a minute, even as the sandbox disappeared around them and the giant kitchen returned. "So where exactly are we?"
"I'm not sure," Savior said. "But would you care to help me rescue some giant fruits that used to look like people?"
After a beat in which Tara mentally assessed whether or not Noel was being serious, she quietly said, "I-I'd be glad to… I guess."
Jinx and Gauntlet made the back and front respectively of a line progression that consisted of themselves, Billy, Ed, Billy, Billy, and Billy. A white line on the ground was all that remained of the ice cream that Jinx just had to grab on their way out of the sweets room. Well, at least it would serve as a line back to the room if they needed to make a hasty retreat.
They traveled down a spiraling hallway that Gauntlet was sure couldn't have been in the bank's original floor plans. "You know," Gauntlet said, "I've been wondering. Jinx, you've been here in Jump City longer than I have, right?"
"Yeah," she said.
"Well, I have this pamphlet that shows a layout of Titans Tower, and something is confusing me. When the Boogeymen attacked the T-Tower, the Orb of Archetypal fell from the Evidence Room down to Raven's room. But these plans clearly show that Raven's room is several stories above the evidence room."
Jinx glanced back at him with disdain. "How do you know those are reliable? Where did you get them?"
"The Internet."
"Then I rest my case."
"But," said Gauntlet. "I got them from The Question's official website, and he is a detective on par with Batman. He wouldn't make mistakes like that."
Jinx sweatdropped. "Well, if I remember correctly, when me, Gizmo, and Mammoth first took over the tower when Slade hired us, Raven's room WAS near the top."
"So her room just got up and moved?" Gauntlet asked. "That explains it then…"
The utter sincerity in Robert's voice upon saying this made Jinx stop dead in her tracks and struggle not to facevault. He couldn't be serious… could he?
"What'cha stoppin' for?" Billy1 asked?
"Y'all are a'holding up the line, Llarenes!" Billy3 shouted from the back. "Move it!"
"Tarnation, Billy!" said Billy2 to Billy 3. "Didn't pappy ever teach us how to treat the lady-folk?"
"Shut'yer pie hole!" Billy3 retorted. "I'm gonna say whut I wanna being sayin', ya'hear?"
INSTIGATOR just blinked twice and would have shaken his massive head-body if he had room in the relatively narrow hallway. "This unit has a predilection for taciturnity," he said. "Please be quiet."
Billy4, the last Billy in line in front of Jinx, guffawed. "Ya know, Ed, it ain't nary a wonder you never made much'f'any friends at the Academy. Using all them fancy big words and such."
Ed ignored Billy4, gave an angry grunt, and continued walking.
"You know," Jinx said after a few minutes of nervous silence—nervous and silent mostly because it took a lot to anger INSTIAGTOR and not even the Hulk would like him angry—"Titans Tower was destroyed completely or partially several times since it was first built. We added all that stuff to make it an 'H'… Then the Lord of the Night leveled it. And Whim. And Sorceress. Then Professor Chang vaporized most of Raven's room with his Zynothium laser. And that thing that happened when Murdercrow possessed me."
Jinx trailed off, as she did not like to talk about that incident. "What I'm saying is, it's no surprise if it's been redesigned since the initial version that those schematics were made from. Why do you even care?"
Gauntlet shrugged. "I guess it's because Chaltab feels the need to cover up Legend Maker's glaring plot holes." After a beat, Gauntlet added, "With something more than 'a wizard did it.'"
"Would it not," INSTIGATOR pointed out, "be easier to simply make no attempt at elucidating the matter. Most readers do not possess a copy of the schematic in question."
Suddenly, the dead end wall that they would have found at the end of the hall collapsed, and after a few more minutes, the Titans, Billies, and Ed emptied out of the hall into another fairly large room.
It still wasn't as big as the candy room, but it was sufficient. It was done in the décor of a rather large private library, with a fireplace at the far end and an massive oven in corner.
"Books!" Billy2 shouted. "What in tarnation does a witch need with this many books! She gonna learn her 'childr'n' how to read, rite, and do 'rithamtic r'sumthin'?"
"Or maybe," Jinx said with annoyance, "it is just for show like the candy room and serves no real function but to reinforce the illusion that everyone possessed is actually May-Eye's child."
"If you say so," Billy2 said.
"Hey guys!" Gauntlet shouted. "That oven is lit! I think there is something—or someone in it!"
Robert ran forward to examine it… And didn't notice behind him a spiked fence shoot up from the ground and surround Jinx, Ed, and the Billies… "What?" Jinx blurted. She tried to jump out over the fence, but a metal grate shot out of the wall and she slammed into it and fell back down. Before they could protest, the section of the floor they were standing on and trapped in shot upward and through a hole in the ceiling, leaving Gauntlet alone…
He still hadn't realized it when he used the gauntlet to create a giant crowbar and jerk the door to the big oven off. Inside, there was a pie and he was greeted by a sweltering heat that he reconfigured his gauntlet energy field to block out. He then formed it into a giant pair of oven mitts and dragged the pie out of the oven, hurling it into the floor of the library and hoping he wasn't too late…
"Guys help me dig this person…." He suddenly realized that everyone else had vanished. "…Out…" Where did everybody go?
Gauntlet shrugged off the disappearance, perturbed but certainly not helpless, and dug into the pie with claws made of his yellow energy, probing he pie. Finally he found what felt like a person, and wrapped his hand around it. He pulled out, blue berry splattering on his shield as he jerked from the pie… a single human arm.
"NO!" he shouted, and began to feel sick and depressed. "I was too late! I'm sorry, whoever you are!"
Gauntlet reached into the pie again, and pulled out a leg, then another leg. Then a bare foot. When THAT happened, he turned and hurled over the side of the pie. With his stomach now fully empty, Gauntlet turned back and began digging until he got everything he could out…
Everything but the head. He reached in and searched around, his shield now covered in blue-berry goo. Finally, he found hair, and pulled it up and out… "Progeny!" he gasped. "The guy who has my exact opposite luck with women! I shouldn't be crying! I should be happy!" Gauntlet tossed the head behind him, and felt guilty for being having such a selfish thought…
Then, something occurred to him.
"PROGENY!" he blurted.
Gauntlet whirred around to see the blue-berry covered human jigsaw puzzle finish pulling himself together, and gulped, then sweatdropped.
"Um… Hey, Arturo. Long time no see."
Progeny looked dazed for a second, then shook his head. "No, brother Robert. No pleasantries. You have disobeyed Mother. It is now my job to tattle on you."
"If you tell your mom, I'll tell my mom!"
"Mother is the mother to all her children, brother Robert," Arturo said. "You will be much better off once she has disciplined you."
Gauntlet gave and exasperated sigh. "And the fact that she was about to bake and eat your body parts… doesn't bother you at all?"
"…" said Aruturo… "Mother would never do that!"
Gauntlet nodded. "Right. I guess that explains why you were wrapped in a blueberry pie and shoved into a lit oven. That 'Mother' of ours really knows how to show affection."
Progeny snapped at this. "YOU THINK YOU CAN MOCK MOTHER WITH IMPUNITY?"
"I mock Savior and yet still live," he said, "Of course I think I can get away with mocking some stupid three-eyed green ugly witch. Who is ugly."
"YOU WILL SUFFER!" Progeny shouted, throwing his arms forward. "SUFFERRR!"
Meanwhile, Jinx, INSTIGATOR, and the Billy Numerouses arrived at their destination… And where aghast to find themselves in… a giant cradle? What was with this place? This was supposed to be a bank, not a nursery.
"Great." Jinx said. "Just as long as we don't have to put up with teething…"
Suddenly, shadows appeared at the far end of the room, and Libre and Kid Wykkid rushed at them. Wearing diapers. Worse… They were being led by Scalpel, who was wearing some sort of goofy, overdone Victorian outfit.
"Tar my feathers," Billy3 complained, "This deal just keeps getting screwier and screwier."
"Shut up," Jinx ordered. "I know I'm a turncoat and you probably don't feel like letting me lead you any more, but that is Nigicalnack Hastionfarlock of Blacktrinia, and he is NOT to be trifled with… even if he is dressed ridiculously. So, shove your grudge against me where the sun don't shine for now. We have to take them out. Titans… I mean… HIVE"
After a beat, Jinx just bit the bullet and finished it.
"GO!"
And they charged.
Next Chapter: Return of the Gingerbread Army!