"This 's ahl mah fauhlt!" Bemoaned Hatter, still on his knees and refusing to rise. "Sh' woultn' 'ave gone if Ah'd triet 'arder tah stop 'er!"
Mirwana tried her best to comfort him, but he wouldn't stop berating himself for allowing Scrub into the 's typically pale complexion was even paler, he felt even guiltier, if that was possible, than Hatter. Even if it wasn't his fault at all.
Jareth held onto Sarah who had started to silently cry, tears running down her cheeks in rivulets. He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and rocked her back and forth in his arms. "Sshh, my precious thing. We'll try to help her. We have to."
"B-b-but there're Gnoolies! What if she's been bitten already?!" She wailed and buried her face into his shoulder. Jareth glanced helplessly at his sister.
"SH' 'ASN'!" Screamed Tarrant, now in a blind rage. He jumped up and nearly pushed Mirwana away. "SH' CAN' BE!" He pointed an accusing finger at Sarah. "WHA' KINT O' FRIENT AHRE YEH TAH EVEN THINK SH' 'AS?!"
"There is a way we can get her back." Willy said in a hushed, distant voice. Tarrant whipped around in surprise, Sarah started and stared hard at him with red-rimmed eyes. "Something of this sort happened to my heir's grandmother. We retrieved her with the elevator and cured her with the Vita-Wonks."
Hatter's went wide and from the intense auburn back to a baby blue. "Ef yeh can do tha', Ah'd owe yeh mohre than mah own life." He pledged. "Anythin' yeh wan', yeh'll ge' from me, even..." He breathed deep and reached up. "Even meh.." His hands reached the top of his head where his hat was supposed to be. "Hat?" He felt around and ran his eyes over the ground behind him. "What happened to my hat?!" He asked in surprise. "
Sarah giggled bit, despite the circumstances. "Umm... Chessur took it a little while ago."
Tarrant ground his teeth and stormed back to the castle shouting. "AH"M AH GONNA SKIN THA' SHUKM JUGGLING URPAL OF AH CAT ALIVE!"
The remainder of the merry band watched him leave. "Well, that takes care of us having to deal with an irate madman while we're in the delicate situation of trying to rescue our friendly, neighborhood weirdo." Quipped Jareth dryly.
Sarah slapped him on the arm half-heartedly. "She's not weird, she's just intangably quirky."
"And disaster-prone." Added Willy. "Did she ever tell you about the time she drank kerosene? Twice?"
"Nooo, she forgot to mention that tiny detail to me." Sarah replied. "When did she do that?"
"In infancy, must've enjoyed the taste or something. Well, anyway, it didn't affect her adversely." Willy noted as they made their way to the Great Glass Elevator.
" 'Cept for maybe making her go dotty." Muttered Jareth under his breath. "Fighting squirrels..what in the world is wrong with that miniature chit?"
"Mumbling is very rude." Was all that Willy said.
Sarah glared at the Goblin King. "My best friend is not a chit..she's a smart, albeit somewhat different, pleasent person. She is in no way rude. If anything, you are the chit."
"I am hardly a woman." Argued Jareth with amusement. "And as for her being rude..have you heard her nickname for me?"
"No, I wasn't aware she'd made one up for you." Sarah said, stifiling a chuckle."What is it?"
Jareth's jaw muscles twitched. "Glitterboy."
To his surprise, she didn't laugh. "That's not so bad, considering what she calls her two-year-old cousin, Cassandra-Gail."
"What does she call her?" He asked, curious.
"Sandy-G."
He stopped, arched a perfectly shaped eyebrow, and shook his head."That is most definitly worse." He agreed. "I feel sorry for the child."
{~Meanwhile~}
Hatter grumbled through the halls of Marmoreal, throwing curses. "As soon as I find you Chessur.."He left the threat unfinished because he thought he glimpsed a bit of bluish, cat-shaped mist.
{~Later~}
Willy hesitated to press the button labeled 'Minusland'. He hated to put everyone in such danger and hated to have to go back to that depressing world.
"What the hay are you waiting for? Push the darn button!" Complained Sarah, stomping her foot against the glass bottom of the Elevator.
Irritated, Willy decided that it might be funny to not tell her about the Elevator's abilities. So he pushed the button.
The Elevator jerked downward at what might have been a hundred miles an hour. Then it swerved to the left and caused Sarah to crash into Jareth. Mirwana stumbled, and landed ontop of them in a heap. Willy, however, was able to keep his balance during the wild, roller coaster turns and sharp downward, swirling plummets.
Multiple times, the two rulers and the young Champion were thrust against the walls, causing a number of colorful curses from even Mirwana,even if she tried to say them quietly instead of shouting them to the heavens like her companions.
Then,suddenly...it stopped. The Elevator doors slid open with an obnoxious 'ding'. Willy stepped out and glanced back at the three of them still in a pile on the floor. "What are you waiting for? Let's boogie!"
"I'll boogie him..right up his velvet covered arse!" Jareth swore as he pushed himself to his feet. He helped up Sarah and Mirwana, who both shakily rose and dusted themselves off.
"Never again." Sarah declared solumnly. "After we rescue Scrub, I refuse to ever enter this Elevator, or any other for that matter, ever again."
"Scrub had better appreciate this, I've aquired bruises in places I'd rather not mention in my sister's prescence."
"Thank you for that rather interesting imagry, Jareth." Mirwana sighed and limped out of the Elevator.
Willy tapped his cane impatiently, earning three angry pairs of eyes burning holes through him. He didn't so much as flinch, they had more pressing problems than a few bumps and scrapes and he told them so. "We need to look really hard. She could be anywhere, and Minuses blend in very well with the mist."
The whole place was nothing but mist, grey, shapeless mist. Finding the right Minus would take ages. "And remember.." Willy's face was the most serious they'd ever seen it. "Watch out for Gnoolies, you can't really see them, but I've developed a type of senser that can detect them." He brought out a purple device with an orange light that pulsed slowly on and off. He gave each of them one. "It will set off an alarm when a Gnoolie comes too close-"
"What'd we do if that's the case?" Sarah inquired as she examined the Gnoolie-detector with interest.
"Run." Willy answered earnestly. "As fast as you can, back to the Elevator and shut the door. The Gnoolie will try to follow you, so don't leave until the alarm stops going off."
So it was that Jareth, Mirwana, Sarah, and Willy all went off in search of Scrub. Each of them went in a different direction, and Sarah was feeling cold and alone.
That was when she saw it. She gasped and gulped, her throat constricting with fear. Magnus Rex, in all its hideous glory was swaying horizontally in the mist. His single eye was frozen and staring. Its formerly sludge-brown body now the grey of polluted air. Sarah stared, confused as to why it wasn't attacking her. "Maybe that's a side-effect to being a Minus? Paralysis?" She asked of herself. "I'll have to ask Willy sometime, but for now..." She trudged on through the grey, growing more and more depressed by the vacant landscape as she wandered through it.
{~Meanwhile~}
Willy, too, was busy searching for his friend. She had to be there somewhere. He wasn't sure of the limits of Minusland, but it couldn't be all that big. So absorbed was he by his thoughts that he almost missed the puff of human-shaped mist that floated right in front of him. "What the...?" He exclaimed, then took a harder look. Scrub stared ahead, unseeing, and lay on her back in a horizontal position. "Happy days are here again!" He shouted, then took from his coat an old-fashioned fly-spray canister and pumped the handle three times. He wasn't sure how big a dose he'd given her, but that was a necessary risk to ensure her safety from Gnoolies. With a pop, she disappeared. Hopefully to reappear back in Underland.
Speaking of which, he heard a sound that made him cringe.
beedeepie, Beedeepie, BEEDEEPIE!
And that was all it took to send the chocolatier off like a shot to the Elevator. "GUYS!" He passed Jareth, who stared at him as if he were crazy. "TIME TO BOOGIE!" He passed Mirwana, who raised an eyebrow. "ACTUALLY, I DON'T REALLY GIVE A DARN ABOUT HOW YOU GET THERE, JUST RUN, D*****! RUN! They were quick to follow when they heard their detectors beedeeping in unison with his.
Jareth turned back in the direction they'd gone. "What about Sarah? Where is she?"
"COMIN' THROUGH!" A decidedly feminine blur rushed past the worried monarch. She hopped into the Elevator and started to kiss it. "Thank you, sweet, sweet Elevator for just being here!" She praised and stroked the glass.
Willy wrinkled his nose in disgust. "Please stop, you're getting saliva all over my ride back home."
"How come you don't kiss me with that much enthusiasm?"Pouted Jareth as he slipped inside and wisely sat down to await the bumpy ride.
Sarah chose not to answer and stayed blessedly silent for the remainder of the trip back to Underland.
{~Back in Underland~}
"Gotcha!" Hatter captured Chessur and regained his hat. He replaced it proudly on his head and frowned at the annoying feline. "You got cat hairs all over the brim!"
A commotion outside got the attention of both the Hatter and the cat. It sounded like..muffled cursing?
Sarah stumbled out of the Elevator holding her stomach. "I take back everything I said...I hate you." She moaned at the Elevator. "And the sadistic mind that thought you up."
"Hey!"
Sarah continued, ignoring Willy's displeasure. "If I had a hammer big enough, I would swing it at you with all I had!"
"Now, now, Sarah. Play nicely." Admonished Jareth with a pained smirk. He held his side, which had not fared so well on the ascention. "Ow."
Mirwana collapsed to the soft grass and promptly fell asleep. Sarah and Willy stared down at her in bewilderment. Jareth glanced at her and remarked off-handedly. "That's how she deals with pain, she sleeps it off. Don't worry, she'll be alright."
Sarah searched around her."Hey, we're in Underland again, aren't we?"
"The time for obvious statements is at hand." Jareth snarked. "Of course we are. Where else would we be?"
"No, where else would Scrub be? I don't see her anywhere!" Yelled the now panicking girl.
"I'm over here." Cried out a weak, high voice somewhere off to the left. The four of them glanced at each other, then raced off to the source of the voice.
There she was indeed...or someone who seemed to be her. She had white hair and wrinkles covered her once smooth face. Her body was bent over and she held her side with arthritic fingers. The only way they could tell it was her was by her eyes, which were narrowed in barely controlled anger.
"Wilbur Wonka, Jr." She began in a dangerous voice.
"What?" He asked, pleading with his eyes. "It wasn't my fault!"
"Of course it's not your fault." She said sarcastically. "My current craving for a glass of prune juice is entirely unrelated to your having turned me into a granny." She paused thoughtfully. "What's the deal with prune juice, anyway? It's not really prune juice, it's plum juice, because a prune is a juice-deprived plum. So it's more like prune puree." She mused.
Jareth had the guts to laugh. "At least we know she's back to normal.." He chuckled. "Her sort of normal, anyway."