Author's Note: I had more time, but I haven't felt like writing and I'm sorry. I hope you guys like the update, nonetheless. Please read and review!
In honor of a very disturbing and very Jhonen Vasquez video, we have this title. It's called The Left Rights- White on msivideo's channel, if you're curious and you know the type of stuff he produces.
Chapter Seventeen: Bad Choices Made Easy
Cosmo hinged on desperation. "I don't know what you're talking about. Do you know where she is? I can't find her or Timmy and I was supposed to do something. I don't remember what."
Juandissimo suppressed a groan. The taint burned the back of his throat and he examined Cosmo closely. In his mouth he clasped two wands and neither of them responded to his innate magic. The taint must have gone too deep. There was a way to remove it, but it required visiting Fairy World, a luxury closed to Cosmo at the moment and not one Juandissimo would willingly indulge it in to help his rival. He had to keep Cosmo from reaching Wanda before he spread the taint; it traveled through Bonds, no matter how tattered their Bond might be at the moment.
"You got quiet!" Cosmo said. "What's going on? What happened?"
"You are a menace to everyone around you," he said and grimaced. "Wanda is not here. You should cease looking for her."
Cosmo shook his head and Juandissimo scrutinized his eyes. A chill went through him. It wasn't that Cosmo had disregarded his question before. It was that Cosmo didn't recognize him. There was no flicker of recollection in those eyes.
"I can't," he said. "There's something after me and she can stop it. She can get rid of it. She always does stuff like that. She always takes care of me."
A shadow amassed around Cosmo and baleful red eyes glared at Juandissimo. It disappeared back into Cosmo and he sensed waiting, as if determining what threat he posed to its purpose. Cosmo quivered, panting in anxiety and his big green eyes, flecked with black, pleaded with him.
"You know where she is," he said. "You can take me to her. You gotta help."
Juandissimo thought fast. The last place he wanted to bring Cosmo was back to contaminate Wanda. However, if he foisted Cosmo onto someone else, Doombringer would be angry with him for shirking his duty and harm either Remy or Wanda. He sighed and shuddered, wondering which would be the least ruinous. Remy showed promise- Doombringer wouldn't strike out at him when she had a plan. Wanda, well, how much more could be done without permanently injuring her? He hated to think like that…
Cosmo barked at him and he gritted his teeth. He needed to make a decision and stop thinking about it.
Producing his wand, he pointed it squarely at Cosmo. Cosmo gawked at him.
"What…what are you doing?" he said.
"You are not safe for Wandita or Timmy," he said. Fairy spells didn't need to be precise. He didn't even need to specify a location for Cosmo to go.
"I have to see them-" Cosmo protested and Juandissimo shot golden magic at him. The tainted fairy vanished with a pop and Juandissimo ran. He had at least six hours before Doombringer realized which side he was playing and pursued him. He could use the time to establish some sort of defense and rescue Remy and Wanda.
Juandissimo stared around him. There was a high fence with barbed wire at the top on his right and stacked, rotting wooden boxes alongside it. Beyond the high fence was an abandoned warehouse and it reminded Juandissimo how close they were to Doombringer's operations. The waning moon was hard to see beyond the warehouse's stories and he turned his attention to his left, where the sidewalk ended and cracks had developed in the pavement. Weeds grew in the cracks and vials littered the dirty ground. A strange mist blew and concealed three feet from his vision.
"Traitor," a male hissed and issued from the mist. Unlike Cosmo, whose taint had only begun, this one had alternating black and purple. He wore a half crown and Juandissimo gritted his teeth. Doombringer hadn't trusted him to bring in Cosmo.
"What do you plan to do about it?" Juandissimo said smoothly.
"What do you think?" he retorted. He had a barrel chest and had shifted into a Doberman to Juandissimo's German shepherd.
Juandissimo blasted him, the half-breed ducked, and Juandissimo jumped upon him. In a flash, the half-breed was gone and he appeared above Juandissimo. The Latino fairy rolled to avoid the ploy and generated glue on the area he thought the half-breed most likely to fall upon. With the glue in place, he launched himself into the air again and the half-breed brushed the glue, his tail getting stuck. He darted forward but the glue held firmly, securing him by the tail.
"Give me the wand," the half-breed demanded. "Give it to me now."
"I have a better idea," he said. "Forget what you saw here or I will make you forget."
"You let him go," he hissed. "You betrayed Doombringer."
"She kidnapped my godson and true love," he countered.
"Not much of a true love if she married that idiot, is she?" he scoffed and Juandissimo throttled his temper. He had the upper hand here and he should know better than to listen to weaklings beneath him ramble.
"You will forget what happened or I will make you forget," he repeated. The half-breed snorted and Juandissimo approached, careful not to touch the glue he had laid down.
"You're a lightsided fairy," the half-breed scoffed. "You don't have the gumption."
Juandissimo smiled and his teeth flashed in the moonlight. He descended upon his prey and the wand glowed hot in his teeth. Warning sparks shot out of it.
For a few moments, the half-breed whimpered and then it escalated into throaty half screams.
Wanda collapsed, exhausted, in the butterfly net. Spent, she rested against the iron and felt her strength seeping out. Crying took too much effort and the most she could imagine was sitting there waiting for the next ordeal. Maybe she'd die. Right now, she had nothing left in her to care. She saw sparkling blood in her mind's eye and she missed Cosmo and Timmy.
Slumping to the bottom, she shut her eyes and dropped, not into sleep, but unconscious. Dripping, sparkling blood haunted her for hours.
Morning dawned and Timmy realized belatedly the cell now had a window. It wasn't much, just a small slit to allow a minimum of sunlight, but it gave him a little hope. Tootie had fallen asleep (or unconscious- he wasn't sure which) and he had pulled her into his lap. Not out of any sense of camaraderie, mind you, but her sudden illness made him very nervous. Everything was wrong here and Cosmo hadn't come back.
"I wish I was a kid again!" he called and she muttered sleepy protests. He saw no magic cloud, heard no accompanying 'you got it', and his spirits sunk. Shaking his head at himself, he pounded the floor with his fist. Stupid Timmy. He should have realized that wasn't going to work.
Food appeared like magic in front of them and Tootie stirred, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. An overhead light switched on, bathing them in an unnatural fluorescent glow. It was better than the slim daylight and he welcomed it, although Tootie looked especially washed out. The light made it better to see the food, which included buttered waffles and orange juice. He blinked and cautiously sniffed a plate. It didn't smell poisoned, but it wasn't like he had vast experience with people poisoning him.
Tootie straightened and pushed herself out of his lap. She continued rubbing her eyes and groaned. He watched her carefully, in case she suddenly started screaming again. Aside from looking exhausted, she showed no signs of randomly convulsing and shaking like she had yesterday. Once they got out of here, he was wishing he forgot all about this, no matter what happened as a result.
"We got food," he said and she blinked blearily at him. "Think it's poisoned?"
"Are you going to use me as a test subject?" she said groggily. Timmy grinned sheepishly. He hadn't thought about it, but he had subconsciously already decided it.
"What was bugging you last night, anyway?" he said. Still trying to rid herself of the fine grit, she used her free right hand to grab the plate and put it on her lap. There were two napkins with utensils on it and they looked reasonably clean, although for all Timmy knew they too were laced with poison. This was weird. It was like eating a buffet Vicky had made.
"Do you really care?" she asked.
"Duh, otherwise I wouldn't be asking," he said. "Aren't you supposed to be jumping all over me because I'm talking to you?"
Timmy reached for his plate. She had started to chew her waffles (she made a face, but since she didn't drop dead, he assumed the waffles weren't to her liking and not that they were going to kill him).
"Cosmo and Wanda were my fairy godparents before they were yours," she said and he dropped the plate. It bounced against the floor and the waffles bounced too, a couple of them sliding off the plate and onto the floor. One waffle half stayed, half touched the ground like its predecessors. Timmy ignored it.
"What?" he exclaimed. "That's not…that's not possible!"
"How exactly is it not possible?" she said in a high pitched tone. Having finished with her eyes, she stacked the waffles back on his plate. He was a boy. He wouldn't care.
"Because Cosmo and Wanda- Cosmo and Wanda-" he didn't have any steam for this, but he was going to plow on anyway. "Because Cosmo and Wanda are mine and they would have told me if they had you first."
"Not if their memories were erased like mine," she countered.
"If your memories were erased, then how do you know you had them?" he shot back, feeling petty and not caring one bit.
"I tried last night to place them in my room and talking to me, the way I've seen you talk to them when I was spying on you don't be mad," she said and the last few words ran together. He narrowed his eyes.
"Great. You were spying on me. Not only are you stalking me, but you're spying on me too. Next you're gonna tell me you have a tracking device on me," he muttered.
"Actually…"
"Tootie!" he snapped and she bristled.
"The point isn't that I'm keeping close tabs on you! The point is that I had Cosmo and Wanda before you and that's the reason Doombringer brought me here! Not because I'm in love with you, not because Vicky is the only other human you encounter often enough to get fairy dust by proxy and I'm her sister, but because if Doombringer really thinks we get power from our fairies, then I must have some too even if I don't remember having them."
"You can't have had Cosmo and Wanda," he whined.
"Give me one good reason why not," she countered.
"Because Cosmo and Wanda are my fairies," he said weakly. "My godparents. They love me."
"Maybe they loved me too," she said and shook her head. "I wish I could remember."
"See? You don't remember if they loved you, so-" he stopped at her glare. It was almost like seeing younger Vicky staring at him through those glasses. It sent chills down his spine.
"You won't either," she shot back. "When you lose them and Jorgen wipes your memories, you won't remember ever seeing them, let alone if they loved you."
Timmy's mouth dropped and he tried to think of a clever retort. Unfortunately, none came to mind. A hollow feeling filled his chest and he lost what little appetite he had. He didn't like thinking about losing his godparents. Cosmo and Wanda were one of the few things that made him happy. Of course, he didn't love them more than his real parents, but there were times that he thought he might prefer them. Not just for the magic, you know, but times when they were there when he needed them and his parents weren't. His parents didn't wake up in the middle of the night to comfort him. Cosmo and Wanda did. His parents didn't usually talk to him after Trixie had rejected him for the umpteenth time and make him smile. To think he might forget everything his godparents had ever done for him…
"How do you know about Jorgen?" he said instead.
"Spying," she said. "Plus, you guys are really loud. Haven't you ever heard of an indoor voice?"
He didn't smile. The hollowness continued.
Underneath the waffles was a message and Tootie pried it out from beneath the soggy, cold meal.
"I'll be here for you at noon," she read.
Timmy hugged his knees. "Cosmo and Wanda, where are you?"
A bright light burned and eliminated vision. And then…nothing.