The Past Returns- Chapter 24
"Yes, Cecilla. It is I. Your beloved husband." The old man replied, staring at the dark-haired woman who covered her face with her hands.
"How did you find me?" She asked.
"I asked around in Mississippi. They told me you had left for Chicago to visit a friend. I had heard that three bikers had rescued you from Lawrence Limburger plus saved your farm. I knew you would get involved with one of them. I used my amulet to pinpoint your exact location." Claud replied.
"Please, Claud, let me be. I love him." She motioned at Throttle who had just fired his blasters knocking Greasepit into a wall.
"You said the same thing about me till I began getting old. Then you left me."
"You went to Greece. I heard on the news you died in a plane crash." She replied.
"You can see I'm still alive. Why did you leave me? Was I not better to you than ten sons, Cecilla?"
He was. But Cecilla's curse prevented her from growing old with the person she loved.
"What could I do?!" Cecilla cried, and paced the floor, "You have no idea what it's like watching people you love: your mother, your father, brothers, sisters, friends, get old around you and then die while you stay young. You never age. You stay the same. Year after year. Decade after decade. Husbands growing older and then dying while you stay the same! I couldn't bear to watch it anymore."
"And that's why you left me. And you'll do the same to the one called Throttle."
"No...I could...never do that to him."
"But you will. He won't be young and handsome forever. He will grow old as me some day." Claud replied, "Which is why I can't let you go. You will come with me."
"I will not."
"You are my wife! You will do as I say or the building goes down on your friends!" Claud yelled.
Claud held up a crystal and after uttering a strange incantation in a tongue unknown to men, he lifted up his hand causing the Last Chance Garage to lift off of its foundation.
Cecilla gasped.
...
"What the h-? My building!" Charley screamed.
"I've heard people say 'when pigs fly', but flying buildings?" Modo said.
The Biker Mice, Charley, Minerva, Carbine, Limburger and his two comrades saw the building approach them.
Throttle glanced over to see Cecilla standing next to a strange old man in a suit, tie, and dress shoes. He looked like any ordinary man except for the shimmering amulet he wore around his neck.
"Who's that clown Cecilla's with?" He wondered.
And from the looks of things, she didn't look happy. She looked scared. But he was more worried about his friends and himself as the building came towards them.
"I believe it it time we made a hasty retreat." Limburger said, getting into his limo driven by Fred the Mutant. Carbunkle climbed in followed by Greasepit whose large body hung outside the back door window.
"Get out, you cretins! There's not enough room!" Limburger screamed, trying to kick them out of the limo. Carbunkle felt the sole of Limburger's shoe strike him in the face. Limburger saw the building getting close.
"Drive!" He yelled at Fred.
"Oh, Yeah!" Fred cried happily at seeing the building. He rode towards the building.
"No! Turn the car around and drive the other way, you fool!" Limburger shouted.
Fred backed up and drove with Greasepit still sticking out of the car window.
"Oh, darn." Fred pouted, because he missed getting hit by the building.
...
"I've heard of inflation, but this is too much." Vinnie said.
''What's that psycho done to my building?" Charley asked.
"It's gonna crush us!" Minerva exclaimed.
"We won't let it, darling. Get behind me." Modo told her, gently pushing her behind him while shielding her with his body. A faint blush formed on Cecilla's face on being that close to Modo. The same blush was in Modo's face. Then he got serious.
The mice got ready. Throttle brandished his blasters, Vinnie held up lit flares. Modo aimed his laser cannon at the floating building hovering a few feet from them. Carbine took out his blaster.
"Stop! You can't destroy my building!" Charley cried out.
"If we don't, we're gonna be street pizza, Charley-girl." Vinnie replied.
"How is it able to fly to begin with?" Modo asked.
"That guy who Cecilla's with is the clue. He's using some kind of magic. We gotta put a stop to it." Throttle said, glancing over at Claud and noticing him gripping a tight hold onto a shimmering necklace.
...
"Stop it, Claud!" Cecilla cried out with outstretched hands and a bowed head, "I will go with you."
Claud simply waved the building with his hand. It flew away from the Biker Mice and their friends. It went back into its foundation.
"I knew you'd see things my way." Claud smiled down at Cecilla.
Suddenly, a fist knocked him down. Throttle activated his Knuke Knuckles. The glowing fist shown like a beacon.
"When you attack my friends and upset my girl, you've made a big mistake!" Throttle threatened him.
He grabbed him by the collar and was about to beat some manners into him, when Cecilla stopped him.
"Leave him be, Odysseus. Throttle, " She looked down, then up, "Claud is...my...husband."
Everyone gasped. Mouths open and jaws dropped.
"Husband?!" Everyone said.
"Talk about your soap operas." Minerva said, in shock hand to her lips.
"I knew she couldn't be trusted." Carbine said.
"Give me a chance to explain everything." She said.
"You could've told me this from the beginning." Throttle said, letting Claud go, "We never shouldn't have..."
"I thought Claud had died. I...Throttle, I am sorry about all this." She said.
"I'm sorry for attacking you and your friends. But I couldn't let you wind up as another one of my wife's victims as I was." Claud said.
"They weren't victims. They were husbands and I loved them all!" She shouted at Claud.
"Forgive me. husbands. That she left as soon as they got older." Claud corrected.
"Like you intended to do to me." Throttle said.
"No...I...I told you at the farm what happened to me ...how I drank the elixir. How I never aged. I am always young. I look now as I looked then when I was twenty-two. That was hundreds of years ago."
"Where can I find that stuff?" Vinnie asked, intrigued.
"Trust me, you don't want it. It has created nothing but pain and sadness in my life." Cecilla told him.