Chapter 9: The Confrontation
Helper flew above the wide walkway leading to 'small world' and gazed down at the scene below. There were seven small figures running from a large toon cab. It seemed like a normal situation in the Kingdom, typical toon troubles and all. However this was not a normal situation at all; the cab had a grim determination and his headlights were a sickly familiar green color, and the figures running from him looked...different from all of the toons that lived in the Kingdom
One of these small figures tripped and fell, but the cab didn't falter. He continued to drive straight towards them.
"BENNY, STOP!" Helper shouted down to the cab to no avail. He continued speeding towards his target, perhaps even speeding up!
She dove for the figure, knowing she would be too late. Suddenly, she landed in the front seat of the crazy cab. She spun around to look at the damage, but the kid (well, teen that is) was completely unharmed! She had strawberry blond hair and a pretty little face, which was first annoyed, then shocked, as if she recognized Helper.
"Hay! Get off!"
The gruff voice jerked Helper back into her tricky situation. She needed to get Benny away from those teens. She grabbed the wheel and yanked it to the left. It worked...at first. The car took a sharp turn to the left before Benny caught on and wrenched the wheel out of her hand, bringing him back to his targets.
"Hay, kid! What do you think you're doing?" Benny yelled in an annoyed, almost robotic voice.
"Saving you're...taillight and...keeping...you...from making...a horrible...mistake!" She shouted back, struggling to get the wheel to turn. Benny was putting up a good fight, which gave her an idea "I'm real...sorry...'bout this..."
With that, she perched on the seat and gave the wheel one last hard tug to the left. All at once, she released the wheel and jumped into the air. Benny was still trying to turn when she suddenly let go of the wheel, causing him to snap to the right and crash into one of the stone planters that lined the walkway.
"Ouch!" Helper cringed as the concrete split from the force of the crash. She landed on the walkway and looked around. The group of teens was gone, leaving Helper and Benny alone on the walkway. Cautiously, she approached the unconscious toon. He seemed out cold. She gently touched his side and sighed.
"Uhh..." Benny groaned suddenly making Helper jump back and grab her staff, activating it. He opened his eyes groggily "What happened? How long was I out?"
"Benny?" Helper asked cautiously. She looked closely at his eyes, which no longer had that unhealthy green and were back to their normal headlight-yellow color.
"Where's Roger? Where am I? And who the heck are you?!" Benny started shouting, his panic rising.
"Benny, you're alright" Helper calmed the cab down, determining that he was back to his old self. She deactivated her staff and stood up straight. "I'm the Helper and you're in Fantasyland, just outside of ToonTown. You, uh…you weren't yourself; you were chasing people and your eyes were green! There's a toon in ToonTown worried about you."
"That's gotta be Roger! I'd better go see him...and ice my hood, pronto!" With that he zoomed back to ToonTown.
Helper was going to follow him and check back with Oswald and Donald, who she assumed were helping Roger clean up the fountain mess. Suddenly, there was a loud BOOM! and a flash of green light coming from the direction of the castle. Helper whipped around and was met with a hard blast of wind to the face. When the wind died down, she looked up in horror to see the last bit of a massive green mushroom cloud billowing up from the front of the castle, accompanied by the sound of hideous, mad cackling that she knew all too well.
"Maleficent!" She snarled. She darkened and sounded more like a crazed, wild animal. She launched herself into the air and perched on the highest tower of the castle, sulking in the shadows and observing the events unfolding below her...
The leader of the small group looked around. They had run from the toon cab and to Main Street in an attempt to escape, when the center of the hub exploded underneath them, launching them all into the air. The rest of the small group looked unconscious, bruised and scraped up. He struggled to get to his feet, but ended up falling back into his stomach in pain.
Suddenly, a black slit appeared in the air in front of the teen, as if someone had ripped a hole in reality. There was a strong gust of wind and a flash of light, which forced the teen to shut his eyes. When the wind died down, he made the mistake of opening his eyes. Before him stood Maleficent, the small group's not-so-mortal enemy. She looked around at the rubble that was once the grand centerpiece of Main Street, and laughed triumphantly. She leered down at him on the ground.
"I see that Tia Dalma could not detour your hopeless mission in saving the Kingdom." She said dramatically "It's a shame, her method of disposal would have been peaceful compared to how I will make you suffer for your foolishness" she raised her hand and it ignited with green flames "At long last, farewell, Finn Whitman"
"Well, well." A sudden voice echoed around the hub. It was slow, filled with sarcasm and hate. "Looks like you've finally graduated from chasing mice to tormenting injured children. Bravo!"
"Who dares speak to me in such a manner?" Maleficent's face twisted in anger. "Show yourself, you filthy coward!"
"I'm the coward?" The voice asked, almost amused "You never do your own dirty work! You force almost anyone to do something for you and wonder why that plan goes wrong. Hiding behind your goons" it said in disgust "…If you're not a coward, then you must be completely pathetic."
"I know you will change your attitude," she was visibly struggling to keep calm now. "Once you see my latest achievement"
With a grand wave of her purple robes and a swirl of green fog, a small figure appeared between Finn and Maleficent. His peach face was several shades too white to be healthy, his black fur was riddled with scrapes, and his chest was barely moving. His iconic red robe was in tatters and his large brown shoes and white gloves were filthy and torn. The hat was missing altogether.
The Sorcerer's Apprentice was defeated.
Maleficent laughed triumphantly at the sky. Finn stared in horror at the sight in front of him. The voice was silent for a moment.
"Am I supposed to be impressed?" The voice responded. It sounded little less sure than before, but Finn couldn't tell if he was hearing his own terror in the mysterious voice. "You can catch anything and anyone with the right bait."
"Then what would yours be?" Maleficent asked smoothly
The voice didn't even falter.
"The death of villainy" It said darkly.
Just then, the drone of airplanes pierced the air. From behind the castle, seven World War Two airplanes flew to the hub in perfect formation. Except for their size (about half the normal size for a plane of that time) they were exact replicas of the British Royal Air Force. They circled the crater containing the teens and Maleficent, performing astounding aerobatics and dive bombing the Wicked Fairy. When the guns started firing, they released not steel bullets, but a soft sparkling dust that sizzled when it made contact with her green skin. However, she was not taking this lying down; she combated the dust with black-green fireballs. For every shot of dust that hit her skin, she blocked three more.
"Well, I see that you were somehow able to get the Kingdom's pests to work together." She shouted without breaking concentration.
At the mention of pests, the diving became faster and steeper, and the onslaught of dust increased. Some planes distracted her while others unleashed buckets of dust from behind. Sensing the lost battle, Maleficent shouted at the mysterious voice once again.
"This is not over! I will make you pay for this" she turned her face to Finn, who gasped at the angry red welts left from the magic dust "And you and I have unfinished business that will not be left unfinished, I assure you!"
She raised her hands and quickly left through her black portal. The moment she left, the planes stopped their fire and taxied to a stop around the concrete crater. The planes stopped and the pilots and gunners hopped out. The gunners were all females and ranged from four to six feet tall and wore dresses made of flowers. Their clear wings glowed gold, as did the rest of their bodies. The pilots, who rushed around to look for microscopic punctures in their planes, were similar in size, but were all males, and they did not glow or have wings,. Instead, they each wore work gloves and black suction boots, different colored coveralls, and huge goggles. They all had different colored skin, large noises and horns on top of their heads.
As much as Finn wanted to watch the small creatures, he had a job to do. He was still very hurt and for some reason he could not go All-Clear to lessen the pain. He started to crawl towards the small apprentice, when that malevolent sounding voice returned.
"Get away from the Mouse." It threatened darkly
At this, all of the fairies and gremlins stopped their work and looked to the castle, as did Finn. Similar to Bald Mountain, the highest tower seamed to unfurl black bat wings. A few moments later, a demon-like figure threw itself at the hub...
And at Finn.
A/N: Don't worry, the story dose get better! Plus the next chapter further explains what just happened. As always, questions, comments, and requests are all welcome. References...
-Tia Dalma was the sea goddess in Pirates of the Caribbean (I think)
-Finn Whitman and the rest of the group are from a series of books called Kingdom Keepers by Ridley Pearson. (I highly recommend this series!)
-The Sorcerer's Apprentice and Night on Bald Mountain are shorts from Fantasia
-the Fairies are from the Tinkerbell universe (books and movies)
-the Gremlins are originally from a book, and a movie that never got made.