To describe everything that Al went through since the fateful day that Medi stole him, he'd have more than a hundred books, a million words each, a series dedicated to his exploits, a dozen movies, and a permanent spot on in the cultural zeitgeist to the day everything hits supernova.
There's been highs and lows, and for Al, today started high, then came the low, and it's a challenge, as he's trying to work within the limitations of this universe, within the time frame before the storms hit.
Don't ask Al why all the sudden things became even more complicated than they should, he couldn't tell you within a reasonable time, all he knows that the universe they're in has an intended plan, and it's doing everything it can to make sure it goes through, if he so much as push against it, there will be consequences.
The only thing he can reasonably do's mitigate the effects on Theodore and Lila, since it doesn't appear that they're part of the intended plan, necessary.
Though, things can change on a whim, that alone's getting Al's circuits in a twist, since he can't pinpoint anything, other than there's a storm coming from further north into Scotland that has potential to cause fires.
He managed to convince the servants from Harold's mansion to evacuate due to the storms through phone calls to their rooms, John (preferred to be called Hammond, but simplicity sake to Al, he's John) helped bringing them down from the hill, despite the torrential rainfall flooding the winding road up, he "borrowed" a patron at the inn's lorry.
They're all safe and sound, shaken up by the phone call, but Al didn't mince words, he truly believes there's one final act from the storms, and none of them wanted to be wrong if they stayed on the hill.
Of course, the troubles came when John tried bringing Arthur to the inn for safekeeping, and the stubborn man got into the basement.
Despite his blindness, what he lacks, Arthur made up with stubbornness.
Worse's that John can't open the hidden doorway, anymore.
None of them can, even with help from the librarians.
It didn't make sense until Al ran the numbers and they're not looking good.
Whatever the universe's planning, it has something to do with Arthur, and Al suspects there's no happy ending.
So, now, John and the others remained at the bottom of the hill, he attempted to return to the mansion with the "borrowed" lorry, but the rains washed away the road leading up to the mansion.
Underneath the cascading water, the remnants of the road, and it's not only the road coming down in the water, the trees are being uprooted, too.
There's a blockage going on, that there's no discernible way of anyone getting up the hill, or down.
Until Al rescues them, Theodore and Lila were trapped.
Can't have that, says Al.
No energy big or small, chaotic, or benign, shall prevent Al from doing what he does best!
… Elsewhere…
After finding their way back into the mansion proper, Harold not far behind, even with Lila's knife stuck in his heart, he's determined to kill them, and prevent them from telling all, what happened tonight.
The looming thunder didn't help, it's loud enough that it deafened them and the lighting blinded them multiple times, making it difficult to maneuver around the mansion, as they're disadvantaged by the layout.
Theodore's feeling the staticky energy as it's causing his ears to pop, there's no chance he can safely get them out of there without sending them somewhere else entirely, if they even arrived in one piece, at all.
With Harold and Gerald having home team advantage, it's a wing and a prayer, at this point.
That's before the moral dilemma.
Yes, Gerald did kill and wear Uncle Irvine like a skin suit in a failed attempt to escape his brother, but it was a desperate attempt, though morbid as it sounded.
Yes, Harold had every right to seek vengeance against his brother for abducting and experimenting on him, but he wasn't squeaky clean himself.
While there's sympathy for Harold's plight, he committed acts of crime himself.
Gerald wasn't blameless for his actions, either, but the retribution he deserved for putting Harold through the experiments had been paid, despite what Harold may claim.
Oh, this before the cherry on top.
Arthur.
Al told him what happened and what's cat and mouse, Theodore and Lila must find Arthur before he gets himself killed!
Fleeing through the halls with Lila in tow, his hand firmly around her wrist, Theodore's icy blue eyes sharply moved while trying to find the kitchen, of course by then, Arthur's already passed it, causing Lila to huff, "Y'know, for a blind guy, he's fast!"
Al can't track him, of all people, he doesn't have a cellphone, the old plastic brick could've been a club if he needed it, and without much way of tracking him, there's no way of knowing where Arthur's going.
"What the hell's he thinking?" Lila questioned why Arthur's risking his life in this stunt, Theodore couldn't answer her, Al didn't have much, either, other than the standard trope that he wants answers.
Yeah, telling Arthur that his beloved Uncle Irvine was not only dead, not by the hands of either Harolds like he thought, oh and that Harold's one in the same, his brother killed Uncle Irvine, and tried to wear him like a suit in hopes of escaping Harold, surely, he'll understand.
Sounds like an 80's horror movie the more Lila thinks about it, must be a blessing neither men were called Frank, though a bigger blessing that they don't have to worry about a golden Rubix cube to usher BDSM demons.
Because that's just what they need on top of everything else!
Of all movies that she unscrambled, Lila never wanted to do that with the movie, ever again, not only did the static not help, the sight of Skinless Frank's enough for her young self.
Scrambling she and Theodore searched for Arthur, while avoiding Harold and his brother, even if Gerald tried helping them, or simply wanting revenge for Harold's treatment, they're not risking anything with the brothers.
Harold wants them dead for obvious reasons.
Gerald, anything can go, he already stole Uncle Irvine's body, who knows if he wants to make sure his brother's out of the picture this time before he steals someone else's, this time successfully.
Lighting's intensifying by the minute, getting brighter, going longer before dissipating, the thunder that came after's getting louder, enough to pop Theodore and Lila's ears the more they hear it.
Al's keeping watch on the timeline when the storm hits, he's got a way to get to them, but his radars warned him that when he arrives, they must get inside, and he needs to leave immediately.
Or else.
They're trapped in the blast caused by lighting contacting the mansion.
Which.
He hasn't been able to pinpoint where it's hitting, yet, and it's not the lighting rods installed on the roof.
Wherever it's going, they don't want to chance it catching them in the crosshairs.
In all the storms Al's ever had the luxury of experiencing, when they're bad, they're bad.
Out of an episode of 'Scooby-Doo' here comes Theodore and Lila running through the halls, not too far behind, a pissed off Harold with a colt, and his Terminator eyes.
When Gerald stabbed him through the heart, the shock's enough for him to lose his sunglasses, and those glowing red circles are bright enough for them to see in the darkness.
Like the Terminator, Harold's looking worse the more they see him, he's become paler than a ghost, his face's gaunt, he still has Lila's knife, of course, but it's not in his heart this time, though someone neglected to tell him that by forcibly removing the knife's going to make things worse.
Ah, thankfully, one mystery's solved, here's Arthur, using his cane to guide himself.
"What the hell's the matter with you, we told you we'd deal with it!" Lila couldn't help but shout at Arthur for risking his life.
Slightly disoriented by the thunder, Arthur stated, "He killed my uncle!"
Not a thinker of consequences, this.
Grabbing his arm, Theodore responded in between deep breaths with, "It wasn't him. Too much time. Need to go. Now."
Can't exactly monologue when there's a crazed Terminator after them, his brother nowhere to be found, but still somewhere in the darkness.
Lila grabbed Arthur's other arm, and the duo helped Arthur maneuver around the mansion faster, trying to reach a point in the mansion where they can hide and Al's able to materialize.
Argue as he may, Theodore's natural strength and Lila's stubbornness kept Arthur from being Scrappy.
Nobody needs to be Scrappy!
Even Lila knows better!
They're not too far from where they can block off both brothers and have time for Al to show up, when, of course, a bullet rung out, and Harold cornered them.
"Have you done running about like two dogs with no direction?" Harold growled at him, in between flashes of lighting, it looked like he's lost weight, his clothes started sagging, his face loosened, sliding off, drooping over his reddened orbs, he lost his human eyes, having them fall out when they died from the lack of blood circulating, and the nature of his body theft.
When he noticed Arthur's presence, Harold scowled at him, saying, "Speaking of dogs, where's yours?"
Arthur shrugs as he responded with a sly, "You must forgive him, when he catches a sniff, he just can't help himself. Where's yours?"
Scoffing, Harold pointedly replied, "I'll deal with him after I deal with you. Stubborn as always, are you, how did you find your way here without trapping yourself?"
True to his nature, Arthur responded with, "I got better."
As Harold talked, skin around his mouth started sagging, showing a reddened exoskeleton underneath, permanently reddened by the exposure of the blood, revealing a mix of natural and metal teeth.
"Hey kids, are you ready to get out of there?" Theodore heard Al in his head, nervous, "my radars are saying it's almost upon you!"
The storm's just a stone throw from the mansion and Theodore can hear the ominous thunder roaring in the distance.
"We're being cornered by the Terminator!" Theodore tells Al how Harold's disguise failed from the stabbing.
Al tried to come up with a way to disable Harold, but due to the primitive nature of the bizarre experiments, it's impossible for him to jump a signal. Nothing radiating so much as a buzz for him to use to give them time.
Even if Theodore uses his natural strength to wrangle Harold, it won't be much, and just taken up time.
"What do we do?" Theodore asked him, hoping for miracles, but of course, he should've known better than to ask, and it wasn't for naught, though.
There are clanking noises coming from the ceiling, the lighting's happening within seconds apart, and there's glowing eyes starring down at them.
Silently, Gerald dropped from the ceiling, his hands torn off, but using his arms, he hugged a piece of copper pipe ripped out somewhere in the kitchen.
Harold was about to dodge when Arthur broke away from Theodore and Lila, running towards him, causing him to lose focus of his brother, as he tried to shoot Arthur.
Stabbing him through his chest with the copper piping, Gerald grappled with Harold, causing him to lose his grip on the colt, sending it to the ground.
"I should have turned you into a sculpture!" Harold's coarse voice rattled as he struggled with his brother while Arthur retrieved the colt.
Pulling him away, Theodore and Lila stopped when they heard the storm outside suddenly stop.
"Cheese it!" Lila panicked as she tried to flee with Theodore and Arthur, but the first lighting strike hitting the mansion boomed throughout, it's hit something in the garden, and they smell something burning.
The next lighting hit the back of the house, the rattling felt like an earthquake, the jolt enough to send the three to the ground.
The one after hit the hallway where the guests slept, the bolt starting a fire, compromising the flooring, and a series of misfortunate events occurred, sending the trio and the Thornton brothers through a hole as the supports weakened, the flooring collapsing inward.
Instinctively, Theodore pulled Lila close to him, before attempting the same for Arthur, but the force of the fall made it difficult for him to keep a grip on Arthur, as they're plunged into the darkness below.
His bum's sore, but Theodore's no worse for wear, when he opened his eyes, he and Lila are covered in decades worth of insulation dust, wood particles, probably should get checked by Al for exposure to asbestos.
Coughing, Lila's disoriented as Theodore held her, her chestnut eyes wearily moving around, focusing on Theodore as he cradled her.
As the dust settled and he regained feeling in his bum, Theodore slowly moved from the rubble, glancing up, he sees they've fallen a considerable height.
Arthur's nowhere to be found and amid the rubble in the exposed basement, Theodore sees Harold standing, his brother nowhere, either.
The copper pipe sticking through him, unfazed, he leered at Theodore and Lila, his face completely exposed, showing no connective flesh on his metallic face, his burning eyes shining through the darkness.
Reaching for the pipe, Harold ripped it out of himself, wielding it as he slowly walked towards Theodore and Lila, intent on killing them.
Something's wrong, however, and they quickly realized that Harold lost the ability to communicate, his larynx no longer functioned since there's no more blood pumping.
Even then, there's emotions behind the burning red eyes, hate, lot of it, and even if he can't communicate with them, the copper pipe's doing it for him.
"Harold Thornton!" Arthur cried out, having emerged from the rubble, wielding a saber that he found underneath, his dark sunglasses gone, revealing his dark brown eyes, staring vacantly.
Sharply, Harold moved his body, his red eyes staring directly at Arthur.
Struggling Theodore and Lila moved, dust and pieces of the wood and stone falling off them, they fled from their spots as they haphazardly moved through the pile of rubble.
Slowly, Arthur and Harold circled each other, wielding their weapons.
Theodore tried intervening, but was stopped when Al suddenly popped up in his head, warning him that he can't wait any longer.
He needed to get them out of there, now!
"Al!" Theodore called out to him and Al immediately responded to him with an exasperated, "Don't blame me! Anything goes here. Forget it, it's time for the o' Al intervention!"
Despite Theodore's pleas, Al wouldn't listen, he had to get them out of there, and fast.
The universe doesn't care at all Al's radars and doesn't change for no one.
Using the energy he accumulated, Al appeared in the unlikeliest place, underneath Theodore and Lila's feet, sending them into the console room, falling to the ground, as quickly as Al appeared, he sent them elsewhere as one final lighting descended from the skies above.
Reappearing in the middle of the town, Theodore and Lila rushed out of the TARDIS, staring up to the hill as a lighting struck the mansion for the last time.
Something out of summer blockbuster, the mansion exploded into pieces, with a thunder louder than an atomic bomb, sending several vehicles within the vicinity into a frenzy as their alarms went off.
"Oh god, Arthur!" Lila grimaced as she sees the fire rising from the remains of the mansion as the rain poured.
Al popped up behind them, telling them that the storm's dissipating, within the hour, the rain will subside.
"Can we go back to the mansion?" Theodore quickly asked him.
Looking off to the side for a mere minute, Al affirmed that he and Lila's able to go back up there, but warned against it, the fire's raging.
"What about Arthur?" Lila pointed out that Arthur's still in the mansion.
Looking off in the distance, Al goes quiet, when he starts talking again, he tells her, "The energies stabilizing, everything's green, now, I don't see anything indicating there's a set point."
The events that transpired have come to their natural conclusion, thus all is right in the universe, and it should mean that everything moving forward's blasé.
Since Al remained adamant, Theodore went with Lila back into the mansion via a rift, bent on finding Arthur, at least his body if it came down to it.
The pouring rain helped put out much of the fires already, but there's still hot spots, as they searched for Arthur somewhere in the area Al pulled them from, completely obliterated.
They found the remnants of Harold, a crispy metal skeleton, its mouth frozen open, his grip around the copper pipe.
No sign of Arthur and they're about to give up hope when they heard a murmur coming from somewhere behind a pile of sone.
Rushing around the pile, Theodore and Lila found Arthur under a large burlap, soaked in the rain.
Struggling Arthur tried to lift it, but the weight of the water made it difficult, Theodore and Lila helped pull it off.
Dazed, Arthur blinks, he goes, "Am I alive?"
Nodding, Theodore replies, "Yes."
Helped up, Arthur responded with, "Good. I love it when I do that."
Shocked, Lila asked him how he survived the lighting strike, Arthur replying that he doesn't know. One minute, he's sword fighting with Harold to try to keep him away from them, next he's under a wet burlap.
There's time for talk later, Theodore took them away from the mansion, bringing them to safety as the fire raged on in areas.
By morning, the damages were assessed, it took hours to make a dent in the damages from the rain as workers removed chunks of the washed road from the mud pile.
It took at least three days before there was a makeshift road built to get up the hill, by that point, the fire naturally burnt out, leaving a smoldering rubble behind.
At the end of the assessment, the fire chief declared that the extent of the fire caused damages that resulted in extreme destabilization, thus he ordered for the condemnation of the mansion, before laying out plans on filling in the hill, with orders from the council that it's no longer possible for any houses to be built on the hill due to the extent of the damages from the storm, and the fears of it happening, again.
The tunnel leading to the mansion's filled on orders from the fire chief, out of fear that the next major storm resulted in it either flooding or collapsing, causing further destabilization, and rather risk it, wanted to be safe.
In the next six days, they put up a fence where the path leading used to be, with a plaque and warning on it. With work, there's more ways for the water to drain into when there's another storm. On the bare hill, there's already young grass growing after workers filled the inside of the hill, with cement and dirt, ensuring that there's no fears of collapses.
There's still much to do, but it's progressing much better than expected.
At the pub with plates of food and glasses of beer, Theodore and Lila spent time watching over the rebuilding process, as they noticed that none of the workers found the sizzling metal skeleton of Gerald.
With her pretzel drowning in beer sauce as she's deep in thought, Lila discussed the unusual nature of the situation they were in.
"I don't get it, why did it want Arthur up there?" Lila couldn't wrap her head why the universe wanted Arthur to abandon all matters of common sense to have a showdown with Harold, leaving Theodore to say that maybe it doesn't make sense to them, but to the universe, it makes some semblance of sense.
Of course, he's been drinking the local beer since they've been here, so his mind's probably swimming at this point.
"You think it was intentional, at least?" Lila pulled the pretzel piece from the beer cheese, dripping as she twirled it, "killing Irvine so Arthur would become invested in this?"
A man's desperate attempt at escaping, he'll look anywhere for something he can use, and using someone like Irvine to draw attention to the mansion's a good way of doing it, especially if he's spied on him for quite a while.
Pondering this as he shoved a piece of pretzel dipped in beer cheese into his mouth, the hot cheese hitting the roof off his mouth, Theodore washed it down with beer, Theodore gave his thoughts.
"Suppose it was purely coincidental, my dear Lee, Gerald was desperate to escape, and he simply decided on Irvine. He probably thought the man's elective nature would've given him a chance to escape the imprisonment, hadn't his brother stopped him," Theodore summer sized his thoughts.
While they don't have the whole story, at least they know how it ended.
"Kinda sad though, how do you begin to tell people what happened?" Lila mused as she reached out to tear another piece from the large pretzel on the plate in front of them.
Shrugging, Theodore tells her that Arthur probably won't, Hammond's the only other person who knows the full story, and even then, they can't hope to prove what happened.
"Fair enough," Lila sighed.
They hear movement and see Arthur and Hammond coming towards them, readied to return to the city life.
"I think we've spent enough time here, there's nothing left I want to pursue," Arthur sighed as he turned his head towards them, wearing a new pair of sunglasses.
Yawning, Hammond goes, "Ever since the mansion burnt down, everyone's at a lost what to do since that was their bread and butter."
Blinking, Lila reminded him, "What about the ghost stories, they're always popular."
Hammond agreed with her, but told her that without the mansion, it got harder to sell the stories.
Visualizing and whatever the hell they called it.
"Sorry it didn't end the way you wanted," Lila gave her condolences to Arthur learning what happened to his uncle and he thanked her, before telling her while he didn't get what he wanted, he got something from this, and it was the truth.
Nodding, Hammond goes, "At least that's something."
Checking the time, Hammond tells Arthur they needed to head out, and Arthur agreed with him, but wanted to say his goodbyes to Theodore and Lila.
"Fine, you know where to find me," Hammond sighs as he leaves to stay near the Ratty-Tin while Arthur bid the two farewell.
Shaking their hands, Arthur thanked them profusely for their help, modestly they tell him it's their jobs, but Arthur chided them for their modesty.
"You have no idea how long I waited," Arthur profusely told them.
Gesturing, Theodore tells him that now he doesn't have to wait anymore, he has his closure, now he can work to heal, move forward in life.
"Thank you for your help, Doctor," Arthur shook his hand in gratitude one last time.
Showing his pearly whites, Theodore modestly replied with, "It's what I do best."
Turning around, Arthur went on, leaving the pub to return to the Ratty-Tin.
"You know, I don't think they found Gerald, what was left of him," Lila brought up that during the evacuation of the hill while filling it with cement, none of the workers found what little remained of the eldest Thornton brother.
Drinking his beer until there's nothing left in the glass, Theodore then said, "Another time, my dear Lee, it's too early for another house call."
THE END