5
After rushing through meeting the Cowardly Lion and a confusing string of events trying to stay in sequence at Emerald City, Justin, Harper, Max and the Cowardly Lion were taking the road west from the city toward the Superstition Mountains near the border of Oz with Wonderland, Neverland and Narnia. (As according to Justin.) Above the sky of the very green city, Alex forgot to write "Surrender, Dorothy" in the sky; she possibly couldn't spell it either anyway, but they still got to see the Wizard and he did still send them to bring back Alex's broom. Beyond the apple, pear, elm and oak trees of the Western Forest were the pine and fir trees beyond it, but gradually the trees showed signs of sickness and they found more and more trees that were dead and devoid of trees. From the surrounding shadows, eyes peered out from hollows, and moving shadows flitted from sounds off the dirt road. The screeching and terrifying winged moneys came on time, ripping Justin apart by his clothes and knocking Max around. Harper really was scared during the sequence. The monkey carrying her didn't seem to fly very well; nearly dropping her from the sky. Max and the Lion horsed around putting Justin back together, but eventually Justin got together with a few leaves and weeds stuffed into him along with the strewn straw. By time he got together, Toto had escaped the castle to show them the back way, and they were off to rescue Harper and deal with Alex. Halfway up the rocky slope, Max accidentally skewered from the plot.
"That stupid lion was slowing us down anyway." Justin and Max stared down from the rocky ledge of the Witch's Castle. They looked to where the Lion was or more accurately, where he no longer was. One second, Justin was having Max ascending up alongside him, telling him to help the Lion up alongside him, but when he looked back, the lion was scratching and pawing in a panic to stop his sliding then going over the ledge.
"Is this going to affect the movie?" Max's silver face looked to Justin.
"I don't know." Justin and Max were climbing up to a ledge where Toto was waiting. "I think the movie has a way of fixing things we screw up or get wrong." They lifted up over the top and looked down to the courtyard. Down below them, there were about twenty guards in Hessian uniforms with the large British bushy helmets. They were mixing in and out of perfect formation. Justin watched them closely; Toto was by him barking excitedly to get to see Harper again.
"Dude," Max was clanking and squeaking in his hinges. "There is a road over there! Why did we take the hard way?!"
"Quiet, Max…" Justin was watching for the time to slip in. "Now, in the movie, they sneak in wearing the uniforms of the guards… I can't recall how they got them."
"Maybe from the three guys who came up behind them?"
"What three guys?" Justin suddenly remembered then turned round to face three of the biggest guards looking over them with large bladed staffs. "Hey guys!!! You found us!" He looked to Max in the metal body. "This is why we needed the Cowardly Lion!!!" The guards reached to grab them, and Justin started swinging. Max lost his axe and started punching like a Knock-And-Sock 'Em Robot. There was a flurry of activity as they started scrapping, pushing, fighting and kicking down into a bushy ditch, but a few seconds later, only a certain few figures emerged.
"Those guys couldn't find worth a darn!!!" Justin was laughing as he pulled on a guard's coat and hat. "I just kicked mine and he went down!"
"I just flicked one to the nose and punched the other to the chest and they never got up!" Max was laughing as he took a coat and hat from his opponent. Justin handed him a staff and they were hurrying to the castle. The loud rickety drawbridge was raising up to seal them inside, Toto right behind them. Max clanking into the large castle with him, Justin looked up and around bare castle walls and noticed a great hall he recognized. The stairway to his left supposedly lead up to the witch's tower. Up atop on the next floor, Harper was wandering toward the room free and alone. She looked down and noticed Justin and Max.
"Justin! Come on up! We've been waiting for you!" She bent down to get Toto rushing toward her. Alex reappeared hurriedly as the witch eager and in a hurry to get out of the movie.
"What the freaking hell took you idiots?!!" She yelled at her brothers.
"Hey…" Justin was hurrying up to confront her. "It takes a while to climb a cliff."
"Justin…" Harper looked at Justin with Toto in her arms. "There was a road."
"You see, Justin!!!" Max swatted his brother. "I told you there was a road!"
"Enough!!!" Justin looked at Max being difficult then back to Harper as Dorothy. "Now," He cleared his throat. "Harper, are you ready?"
"You, I got it right here while Alex looting the castle." She reached down to a bucket of water by the door of the witch's tower.
"I was not looting the castle!" Alex resented that implication as she reached over and lifted a burlap sack of stuff from the castle. She noticed the bucket of water. "Harper, what are you doing with that?"
"Well, Alex…" Harper looked to Justin and Max. "We're getting ready to end the movie, you know. The witch melts at the end… no disrespect, and I'm really sorry!"
"I'm not letting you melt me!!!" Alex looked to them as if they were crazy.
"Alex, that's how the movie ends if we want to get out!" They were backing her along the upstairs corridor.
"No!" Alex resisted. "The movie ends when we… meaning I with you guys go to Emerald City. That's how we get out!"
"Alex, are you afraid of getting wet?" Max was getting close to his sister.
"No, I just…" Alex looked behind her brothers and Harper. "Hey look, it's Peter Pan!!!" They looked away and she dropped her bag to race down the hall in her long black dress, losing her hat in the process. Justin looked back at her running away.
"After her!!!" They took off after her to catch her. Alex was a bit fleet of foot as Max tried to keep up, but his tin body was slowing him down. Alex raced through a hall looking for an exit. A door, a room, a courtyard and her guards watching her race through. Harper and Justin suddenly appeared and now they were being chased, catching up with Max and now hurrying up a stairway looking for another way to catch Alex.
"Hey, guys…" The Cowardly Lion came strolling into the unguarded courtyard. "Did you know there was a road? I landed into a nice thicket of moss." He chuckled happily at his ability to survive his fall, looked around and glanced down an open archway leading down into the castle catacombs. "Where are you guys?"
Alex pushed open a door that smacked into the Cowardly Lion, pushing him down the staircase into the castle catacombs underneath. Listening to him howling and screaming down the stairs, she looked once at him then round the main hall. Now, she could escape, but then she hard her own guards rushing and looking for Justin, Harper and Max. Cursing out loud, she ran away from her choice of freedom, taking a route back upstairs into the tower, through a gated passageway and up to the castle parapets. Up top, she ran into Harper and her brothers again.
"Alex!!!" Justin tried to grab her, but she elbowed him to his straw chest and nearly broke him in half at the waist. She turned and ran up the stairs of another tower trying to head down. Hurriedly tucking his shirt to his pants, he watched Harper take a bucket of water from an alcove and race after her.
"Justin, I got a question..." Max clanked up to his brother. "If Alex is afraid of water, why are there so many buckets of water around for us to destroy her?"
"Because the movie is trying to help us stick to the script!!!" Justin found another pail of water in a small room. "After her!"
The clamber and noise of guards closing in were surrounding the ways down into the castle. Alex skidded to a stop to see them coming up another way. She raced out another doorway to a familiar location in the movie. It was the tower on the roof where the witch finally caught Dorothy and her friends, only now; it was where Justin and Max were catching up with her to end the movie. There was a door near her and guards rushing to catch up behind her. Alex darted toward the door then raised her broom. Why was she running when she could fly?!
"Back!!!" Alex waved her broom at Justin, Max and Harper with the buckets of water. "Back, I say!!!" She gritted her teeth defiant against getting wet. "I am not getting doused and melted in this movie! The four of us are going to Emerald City and getting the hell out of this movie!"
"Alex!" Harper stared at her ready to splash her best friend. "That's not how the movie ends!"
"Don't care!!!" Alex was backing from them along the balcony of the tower. "There is no way I'm getting killed in this movie!!!"
"Hey guys!!!" The Cowardly Lion threw the door open behind Alex, knocking her over as she stumbled backward and over the edge of the balcony. "Wait up for me!!!" He heard the sound of screaming and looked behind him. It was just for a second, but he noticed Alex going over the ledge, her pilgrimess boots vanishing over the top and then the sight of Alex falling… falling… falling… Justin looked over just in time to see Alex bounce off a crevasse and then fly back up into the air and into the ravine below into violently rushing waters cutting the canyon floor.
"You know..." Justin turned to Max and Harper. "I have seen this movie seventeen times, but… I never knew there was a river down there!"
