AN: Ta-Da! A long chapter! Featuring hints of Dadvid!
The Dark Warlock Daniel whistled happily as he held a feather duster in his hand.
He lightly brushed it across the delicate spikes and gears of his torture instruments. He deftly waxed the Iron Maiden's exterior and interior for a proper shine. He lovingly polished the enormous stone statue of the Great Cthulhu (a minor god of pain and suffering to the Greatest Lord Zeemug) and re-arranged the sacrificial blood-candles around the altar.
He took no small amount of pride and glee in knowing that as soon as that brat with the Hood-Dee was under his power, he would make very good use of these instruments before Cleansing him.
He was in the middle of seeing that Cthulhu's great, ruby eye was properly glowing with malevolence when the door opened. "Sir, we have a report!"
He sighed. "High-Scout Pikeman, what a pleasant surprise! However, I believe I told you not to interrupt when I am having my private time for my collection." He said with a cold, fixed smile and unblinking gaze.
The zit-faced winged monkey in uniform gulped, "W-well, sir, we've managed to locate the boy you asked about. He seems to be gathering a squadron of individuals."
"A squadron, eh? No doubt the work of his Hood-Dee." Daniel muttered to himself. "Do these new individuals seem to pose a threat to us?"
"N-no, sir. In fact, they seem rather… um… stupid?" Pikeman shrugged.
"A diabolical ruse," Daniel smiled to himself, fingers steeped, "I honestly didn't think you had it in you, David."
"Sir?"
"All these years of bumbling and cheeriness, oh yes, I see your game. And don't think I didn't notice how fast you arrived when young Gwendolyn was down for the count to usurp her lands. Oooooh, Professor Mayweather was right. It's always the quiet ones." He delved deeper into his monologuing as the monkey assistant became increasingly uncomfortable in his presence.
"Um, sir?"
"WHAT?!" Daniel rounded on the poor guy, violently brought out of his soliloquy.
Pikeman cleared his throat, standing at full attention, "I wanted to say we've established a way to stop these intruders that I think you will find pleasing." He said, sleezily.
Daniel waited for him to elaborate, tapping his foot as gloating silence stretched, "Any day now, Pikeman." He growled.
"Y-yes, sir." The monkey replied, eyeing the red sparks forming around his master's fingers. "I've instructed the minions to erect our Greatest Trap to the southern border of the Chartreuse City! They'll go in, but they'll never come out! A perfect way to simply snatch the boy and his little friends at your leisure, sir."
"Oh, that's wonderful news! Truly excellent!" Daniel beamed, flipping his mood around faster than a lightbulb. "They'll be like flies in a web and I'll have all the time in the world to rip them out whenever I want. A couple new fiends Cleansed and working around the castle would be just the thing to spruce up the… lacking staff I have."
"Y-you mean, except m-me. Right, your Wickedness?" The winged monkey gave a weak chuckle.
"Oh, yes, of course, Pikeman. Of course." Daniel's cold, smiling poker face set in once more, causing cold shivers to run down the assistant's spine.
Daniel turned out the window, staring out into the distance beyond the eternally-red sky around his domain. "Soon… so soon they shall all be mine. And with them… I can finally gain power through the great Zeemuug… hehe… hahaha… HAHAHAHAHA! Laugh with me, Pikeman! AHAHAHAHAHA!"
"Hehehe" "HAHAHAHAHAHA" "Ha hahahahaha!" "HAHAHAHAHAHA!" "Hahahahaha!"
The wicked laughter (and accompanied nasally-pubsecent laughter) echoed across the barren wastelands of the West.
"Are you. F*cking. Serious?!"
"What is this nightmare?" Neil whimpered. "It's like if gym class and boot camp had a Satan-baby."
"It's like space camp!" Space-Kid shouted gleefully, "But deadlier!"
"OOH! OOH! Me first! ME FIRST!"
The motley crew of journeyers stood in front of what was probably once a very beautiful flower meadow, but had been ripped apart and (for lack of a better term) defiled. The dirt was torn up like a tractor had clumsily shredded through it. Pools of a murky, putrid-green substance oozed and bubbled in low-points and dugouts. Above it was a virtual web of rope and twine with logs and poles sticking out of the ground with barbed-wire strung across like Christmas Tree garlands.
Giant maces, axes, and beams swung treacherously back and forth throughout, threatening to knock them into the unknown bubbling ooze. Knives, spikes, poisonous darts were all hooked up to small high-tension tripwires.
A sign pounded into the muddy ground said "ROPES COURSE" in blocky army print with a messy red scrawl painted over it reading "HELL".
"Welp, it's been nice, guys, but I can live without my wish. If anyone needs me, I'll be back on my pole." Neil swung on his heel before Max grabbed his collar.
"Yeah, not happening," The shorter said not taking his eyes off the course. "We've made it this far. In for a penny…"
"The hell's a penny?!" Neil struggled futilely with straw-filled arms and legs.
Max tossed him into the fray and Neil-Crow shrieked as he hit several tripwires and knives and darts embedded themselves in his face. Nikki screamed 'No Fair!' as she deftly started jumping and leaping across the ropes. Space Kid toddled on the bridge and started walking right towards the swinging obstacles.
The foul-mooded adventurer braced himself, briefly padding his hoodie to see to it that Mr. Honeynuts was still secure.
Then he jumped in.
"I. F*cking. Hate. Everything."
Max swung lazily, wrapped completely in a cocoon of ropes and suspended upside-down as blood rushed to his head.
Space Kid had fallen into the sludge and giggled as it 'tickled' his suit (hence, the slow sizzling and hissing from the material where it made contact), but couldn't move anything out of the sticky goo.
Nikki was in a similar situation to Max where her limbs were completely restricted by ropes, but the tangle was made only worse when she ferally struggled to free herself, triggering a tripwire and causing her to get hit by a dart in the shoulder. Thankfully, given her dazed, woozy state, it seemed like a normal sedative tranquilizer dart instead of the poisoned ones.
Neil was looking more like a pincushion at the moment, every surface of him was perforated with a knife, needle, or pin somewhere. He had stopped complaining after very narrowly avoiding a flaming arrow whizzing by his ear.
Still, they were all down and chances of getting out were slim to none.
"What now?" Neil asked.
"I wanna chase the purple foxy-boo." Nikki slurred, grinning dopily.
"Uh, Max? I think this stuff is getting in my suit."
"EVERYBODY SHUT UP!" Max fumed angrily. He hated this. No good ideas and he was having flashbacks to his imprisonment in Woodscouts. Still, he had to try something, "Nikki! Can you reach that peg in the ground?"
"Imawodduburgsliveintoggglepots." She garbled.
"Neil! What about you?! See anything?"
"I'll try. Maybe I can reach… that…" *fwoop wip wip wip!* "Auuuugh! Nope, nope, another tripwire."
"Space Kid, what about-"
He looked at the tiny figure grunting to keep his eyes and dismembered face-bits away from the ooze that was starting to fill up his suit and helmet.
"Oh, come on! Anyone!? ANYONE!?" Max shouted angrily. He struggled helplessly in his cocoon.
Then it happened.
He felt something shift by his stomach and the ropes around him wiggle. He looked down.
At a fluffy arm poking out.
"No."
His motions betrayed him as Newton's Laws kept him swinging, easing the arm further out.
Then the torso;
Two legs;
The other arm.
"No!"
The disheveled head of his Teddy Bear popped out silently and it seemed to fall in slow motion as it fell down towards the ooze.
"NOOOOOO!"
Its arm caught on a tripwire and a small dart flew straight at the bear, pinning its ear to a beam. Max's relief was incredibly short-lived as tiny ripping sounds worked their way down the seam, the worn threads unable to keep up the weight of a fully-stuffed bear.
His heart dropped as the last few threads fell apart instantly.
Mr. Honeynuts fell straight down into the-
"Gotcha!"
A pale hand caught the small stuffed animal just before it would have splashed into the acidic goo.
Max watched the hand drag the bear away from the path of ooze and towards the edge closer to safety. He followed the hand up the arm and to a familiar face beaming down at him.
"DAVID?!"
"Well, howdy Max!" He chirped.
"The Good Witch" Neil shouted happily, "You've come to rescue us!"
"That's right, Scarecrow! Just a flick of the ol' magic wand and we're good to go!"
"Well, what are you waiting for, asshole? GET US OUT OF HERE!" Max screamed angrily.
David backed away, putting Mr. Honeynuts on the ground as he started doing squats.
"The F*CK ARE YOU DOING?!"
David huffed, "Well, it's bad form to do this much magic without stretching." He started arching his back and reaching over one side with his arm one way, then another.
"Outta my way."
David shrieked as a gruff, old man in familiar plaid and boots stomped past him towards the suspended kids. The Quartermaster lookalike (?) raised his hooked hand and swiped at some specific ropes, causing the whole course to come crashing down into a perfect bridge with Nikki, Max, and Neil on the stable ground by it. The Quartermaster then hooked Space Kid's collar and yanked him out of the ooze with ease, setting him aside to let the caustic slime drain out of the suit, revealing it to be as empty as his helmet.
"Thank you, stranger!" David beamed, hiding his confusion with a strained smile.
The man grumbled lowly under his moustache, the main words they could make out being "plot progression", "protagonists", and "the Jeeewwws". Still mumbling, he stalked back into the dense woods they had just come from.
Max stared after the character, still wondering if he was the Quartermaster or… something. Then again, there was that freaky shit with his Quartersister/cousin/fiancé/whatever-the-f*ck-they-were. For all he knew…
"Hey, Max?" The boy turned and saw David crouched on one knee to better look him in the eye as he held out his hand. A familiar object in hand.
Max rushed over and grabbed the teddy bear out of his hand as he hugged it close to him. Then he held it away for a second to examine the torn ear forlornly.
David noticed the disfigurement and frowned before glancing at a pole that hadn't fallen over completely and still had the ear tacked on. Max didn't notice as the taller walked over and gently tugged the dart and ear off the pole.
He knelt again by the small human, getting his attention as he held out the shredded ear. "Max? I'm not the most powerful warlock, I know, but I do know some magic I can do right now. If you'll let me?"
Max looked between the sad little ear and Mr. Honeynuts for the longest while as seconds ticked by silently. Finally, inch-by-inch, he slowly set the stuffed bear in David's hands. David smiled comfortingly at the show of trust.
The warlock took the torn ear and cupped it in his hand before gently blowing into it. Max might've called it a cheap imitation of a magic trick if there wasn't a glowing, blue-white light beaming between his fingers. David then took the cupped hand of light and pressed it to the bear's torn spot, closing his eyes as the light glowed brighter.
Then, he took it away.
Mr. Honeynuts had his ear right back where it was supposed to be.
Max stared for a few seconds as he approached the bear being held out by the warlock. He finally got it and held it in his hands. Experimentally, he tugged gently at the ear. Good as new.
The boy held the teddy close to him, burying his face into it to hide a wobbling lower lip and misty eyes. He peeked over the toy at his companions. Neil was busy de-porcupine-ing himself, Nikki was getting over the worst of her tranquilizer, and Space Kid was hopping around, shaking out the last of the goo in his suit.
He looked back at the warlock and said something, barely audible behind the fur of his bear.
…
…
"thanks."
…
…
…
"You're welcome, Max."
Barely heard, barely responded, but David's stupid face was still barely holding back a smile that would put the sun to shame. Max hated that. He hated those kind of smiles.
"Got it!"
They turned and saw Neil as he finally removed the last dart from his back with the help of a now-much-more-sober Nikki.
Space Kid was wobbling around, his body being limper with gaping holes in his fabric.
David smiled and held his hand as light pulsed from his palm down on Space Kid. The unusual child 'oohed' as the rips and holes mended themselves and he was back to being the bouncing, bounding bundle of… consciousness he was before.
He repeated it with Neil and repaired the small holes created by the pinpricks in his sack-cloth skin.
Nikki had worn off the tranq by then, so he didn't need to do much besides insist on healing the tiny puncture wound in her shoulder from the dart.
Once they were all patched up (literally, in Neil's case), they looked across the bridge to the shining, green spires of the Chartreuse City.
"Well, this is where I leave you guys." David said, wiping a tear away. "I hope you meet the Wizard and he grants your hearts' desires." He looked off doe-eyed into the distance at the gleaming city, clasping his hands together.
"Yeah; f*ck that noise." Max replied. "C'mon freaks, let's get going."
"Woo! I'mma freak!" Nikki screeched delightedly as she bounded ahead on the wooden bridge. The others followed along as David watched and waved goodbye as his bubble carried him Northward.
AN: Hope you enjoyed!
-Crow