Chapter Forty-Five: Day's Happening at Bodega Bay pt 2

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Torch woke up from a nap that snuck up on him a few minutes after Brother Lord had visited an hour ago. This was the third time it happened. He was starting to think that Brother Lord was the one making him fall asleep. Whatever the case, it was making him feel lots better. Master had even said so, his temperature had gone down, his flame felt better.

He rolled over and shuffled out of the blankets that had been wrapped around him in a swaddle, slid down the bed gently and walked over to the door. Master had said he could start leaving the room now as long as he wasn't alone.

Upon reaching the door, he waved at a large brown Goliath tarantula and it walked over to him. After exiting the room, he was soon followed by a large twelve inch long black emperor scorpion. They were his body guards and he didn't mind having them. His brothers didn't seem to mind either. Jester was even friendly with the scorpion.

He'd started attending classes with Blade and Pinhead in the martial arts, kickboxing and meditating. He still had that lingering cough that Master said would take a long time to lose but he was feeling whole lots better.

Brother Lord would sometimes take the classes with them and Blade would be happy about that because then the teachers wouldn't be so mean to him. Torch and Master still had their secret project going in the hidden room.

But Jester was looking better too. He was getting more con. . . . conf. . . uh, better at the stuff-

"Alright Torch, let me see your paper." Chug said and Torch handed him the paper he was scribbling on.

Right now, Master was teaching him to write.

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Blade took a deep, calming breath and let it out slowly. Jester was going to pay. Today's practice was trying to catch the little bugger and get the blue diamond from him. He almost had it when Jester had to go and pull that sneaky stunt of trapping him chest deep in a bowl of red jello.

Tunneler was no better, he'd gotten snagged by a boon net and tangled himself up in it like a spider's web trying to get out. Blade was on his way to free him when the jello sprung up from the ground below and Jester swung away laughing his head off and taking his hat.

"Pinhead!" Tunneler shouted.

"Hey, I said I was gonna get you out and get you out I will!" Blade shouted and wriggled in the jello.

"When? When the jello melts?! I'm getting a headache over here!" Tunneler shouted.

They had to shout to hear each other.

"Maybe your magic coat should sprout you a pair of wings and fly you over here!" he said sarcastically.

Blade imagined himself with black wings. "Hmm, not a bad image." he mumbled to himself and went 'gaah!' when his coat opened up himself a pair of black dragon-like wings, splattering jello everywhere and thrusted him upwards with a very strong flap, flapping to keep him in the air.

Jester stopped in his tracks and awed at Blade's new features. "Cool!" he shouted and was caught by Pinhead who sat on him and fished out the blue diamond from his pocket.

"I got it!" he shouted, holding up the gem.

"Yes! We won!" came Tunneler. "Now can someone get me down?!"

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"Blade, come on, show us the wings again. Please, please, please!" Jester pleaded, taking hold of Blade's waist and refusing to let go, thus being dragged back to the attic room.

"Jester, let go! I don't know how that happened!" Blade grunted. Jester was heavy now with all his arsenal attached to him. He never removed them, not after the totems attacked them in their sleep. "That's why I'm going to see the brother." Blade finally lost his battle in pulling Jester off of him and fell to the ground.

"Just try to think of the last thought you thought of when the wings came out." Tunneler suggested.

"It is worth a shot, boss." Pinhead said.

"Fine, I'll give it a try." Blade sighed. "If Jester will let go and get off of me." he growled.

Jester stood up and then helped Blade up.

"So, what was your last thought?" Tunneler asked.

"Well, you suggested that my magic coat should sprout me some wings and fly over to you, so I imagined myself having wings and then there they were." Blade said.

"Right, it was much more than just imagining it, wasn't it?" Jester snickered. "Come on, make it a grand entrance like before."

"No, really, that's all there was. I just pictured myself having wings and then I did." Blade said.

Jester, Tunneler and Pinhead all nodded their heads and hummed knowingly.

"Oh, alright, I suppose I did imagine something along the lines of . . . . (clears throat) b'tmn." he mumbled.

"Wha-a-at?" Jester asked, grinning mischieviously.

"I was thinking . . . b'mn." Blade mumbled.

"We can't hear you." sang the three.

"I was thinking of Batman!" Blade said in a loud clear, annoyed voice and the wings came out.

"Yes! I knew it! Told you so!" exclaimed all three at the same time.

"Yeah, yeah, very funny." Blade pouted, the wings folding back into his coat and he continued walking.

"Wait! Why ask the brother? Didn't the kid make it? Maybe he should be the one you should be asking." Jester suggested.

"Yeah, Jess does have a point." Pinhead said.

"I suppose. But the brother knows more about magic than the kid does." Blade said.

"But the kid does know more about potions and chemistry." Tunneler inputted.

"Yeah, there's that too." Blade agreed.

"So, ask the both of them together. Don't make things so hard for yourself just because you're the leader." Jester said and skipped ahead of them, his bells jingling down the hall.

"He's right you know. Jester was the leader before you and he didn't even act like it one bit, unless it was demanded it of him." Tunneler said.

Blade sighed, "I know you guys are right. I . . . put too much in things. It's kinda hard to let go of an age old tradition, you know. Old habits and all that talk." Blade chuckled.

"'Rome wasn't built in one day'?" Pinhead questioned.

"'Nobody's perfect'." Tunneler said.

Then the four of them just started spouting old sayings, laughing all the way to the attic room.

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"Hey, kid, Blade's got a new question for you and your brother!" Jester hollered, climbing up the bookshelf that had his and Blade's bed.

"Give me away why don't ya!" Blade called out, shaking a fist at Jester.

Chug came out of the room carrying a bundle of pink and baby blue blankets in his arms. "Be with you guys in a moment!" he called out to them. Torch had come out of the room as well, with a small spiral notebook and a container that was rattling.

"Hey Torch, how ya feeling?" Jester called from the shelf.

"Better!" Torch answered and ran after Chug.

"How long has it been since Torch has actually been around us for more than a few seconds?" Tunneler asked.

"Uh,. . . ."

"So? He's happy. Leave him be." Blade said with a shrug and climbed up the work desk and paced.

"But you said you'd explain what happened to you and Jester when we were all together." Tunneler said.

Blade paused in his step. He had completely forgotten about that. 'And was kind of hoping they would too.' he thought to himself. "Um, I will, but . . . ."

"Okay, what's your question, B?" Chug asked, Torch in his arms.

Blade let out a mental sigh of relief. 'Saved by the kid.' he thought and cleared his throat. "Uh, it's about my coat." he said and asked for a video replay of their session for a better explaination.

"Oh, that's nothing. See, the coat is magical and reacts to your neural patterns. So if you wanted a pair of wings to save you from, I don't know, falling out of a tree and splatter yourself into a million pieces then you'll get some wings, or a few extra legs like a spider. It's also fire resistant but can absorb heat for later use like in cold weather conditions. And you don't have to be magical for it to work either." Chug said.

"You don't?!" questioned all six puppets.

"No." Chug smiled. "If it can work for The Beatles, it most certainly can work for animated wood and metal brought to life." Chug said with a smile. "Though it does require a lot more discipline for non-magicals to get the coats to work." he mumbled.

"Beetles? Why would insects that can already fly want extra wings?" Tunneler asked.

"Not those beetles, THE Beatles! The music group!" Jester said and then gasped. "You've met The Beatles?! For Real?!" he squealed. One of their former masters was a huge Beatles fan.

"Yeah." Chug merely said.

"Now how can that be when you're only nineteen and they were in the sixties?" Blade asked, crossing his arms.

"I was seventeen when I first met them in person, but I was thirteen when I attended my first concert of them." Chug said.

"Doesn't really explain much, unless you can actually time travel." Blade said.

"We can." came Kokiri's voice.

"Lies! Since when?!" Six Shooter shouted indignantly from his cell.

"Ever since we were little. It helped big time for history class." Chug answered, mumbling the last part. "This hat I wear actually belonged to Peter Lorre."

Blade gasped. "Peter Lorre, the Silver Screen Menace?" Another former master loved watching old horror movies.

"Uh, yeah, he gave it to me when I was thirteen." Chug said.

"Wait, you said you attended your first Beatles concert when you were thirteen." Tunneler said. "How could you have gained Peter Lorre's hat AND attend a concert in the sixties without ruining the timeline?" he asked.

"He just said they could time travel!" Jester stated.

"Well, unless he went to the concert right after a visit from Peter Lorre or the other way around-"

"Tunneler, we're aliens, our time frame doesn't exactly work as they do on Earth." Chug said, stopping a possible argument.

Six Shooter looked at his brothers and then at the two brothers. "Explain." he demanded.

"We're from a planet called Mystica and my age right now on Mystica is nineteen." Chug said in a slow manner as if he were talking to a child.

"And on Earth?" Blade questioned, holding his hand for him to continue.

"On Earth I'm one hundred, ninety-six." Chug answered. "It takes ten Earth years to make one Mystican year."

"If you're almost two-hundred, how old is your brother?" Jester asked.

"I'm almost twenty-one." Kokiri answered.

The puppets remained silent.

Kokiri sighed. "Two hundred-eight."

"Seriously?!" Six Shooter asked. "You're only two hundred and eight?! I'm over three-thousand, three-thousand and eighty-eight if you want to be precise! How can you be stronger and more powerful than me?" he asked.

"When I combined it with science and common sense." Kokiri answered.

"But how does that help?" Six asked.

"Really?" Kokiri questioned. "You really need to ask that question after how many years? Do you not know how water works? Or how it can act as a conduit for electricity?" Kokiri asked. "Or that when it evaporates it goes from a liquid state to a gaseous state?"

Blade, Jester, Tunneler and Pinhead started to snicker.

"Basic science, man. These things are taught in elementary schools." Kokiri said.

"Well, we didn't have elementary school in my day." Six said in that sarcastic manner.

"Didn't stop the rain from falling down, though, now did it?" Chug chuckled.

Torch scratched his head. "I don't get it." he said.

"The clouds, bairn, when water evaporates from the sun it turns into the clouds and after a while the clouds turn back into water, sometimes even little elaborate ice crystals called snowflakes." Chug said.

"Why do you do that?" Six asked.

"Do what?" Chug asked.

"Talk to Torch like he's a little baby?" Six asked.

"Because he is. You wanna make something of it?" Chug said, growling at the last part.

There was a sudden subtle rumbling noise, like faraway thunder, and things started to move across the desk. Blade lost his balance and fell. Then it suddenly stopped.

"No, no, whatever you say." Six said, middle arms twiddling their thumbs, his lower arms behind his back and his top arms in held in front of him in a surrender.

"Good. Now, Kegs, you can .. . . Uh, take over." Chug said and left with Torch back to his room.

"You were this close." Kokiri whispered to Six Shooter, making a little space between his thumb and index finger. "We're near the edge of a cliff, remember? Don't piss him off." He stood up and left the room.

"What the hell just happened?" Blade asked.

"The kid got mad, that's what happened." Jester said, completely nonchalant about the whole thing.

"Why do you still want Torch? He's out of your hands! All six of them! Just leave him alone!" Blade said in a not loud voice, more of an annoyed, exasperated voice.

"I've been trying! I know there's a better opportunity here with the original brewer and the brother, but I just can't! The formula wasn't the only thing Sutekh stole!" Six said.

"Yeah, we get it. He got your whole family!" Jester said.

"No, no, no, I mean the formula wasn't the only magical thing he stole. There was a whole archive hidden deep inside a cave. And there was .. . . . ugh! There was something else down there!" Six Shooter growled and started hitting his head. "It. . . It was shiny, there was a blue light. . . ." he sighed and leaned back against a wall. "I saw it when I was a kid." he said in a more calm tone and looked out the window. He could see the driveway from where he stood, and he could see the brother's blue car. "It looked like that, actually."

"Looked like what?" Blade asked, climbing up to see where Six was looking.

The others climbed up too.

"Like that. Like the brother's car." Six said and a brief flash of memory sprung up, but it was all jumbled and flashed too quickly for him. Except one: the sound of a loud monstrous roar.

"The brother's car? Now you're just sounding desperate." Jester smiled. "I mean, sure, they can time travel, but how can the brother get his car deep inside a cave without damaging it? He loves his cars."

"I said, it LOOKED like the brother's car." Six growled. "When are you going to return my hat?" he asked.

"When you start being nicer to Torch." Jester said and looked down at the drive way. "You think the kid will let us ride the megs around the driveway?" he asked.

"That sounds like fun! Let's go ask him." Blade said.

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