Chapter XIII – And Here Comes Teddy-zilla
"And I think we just found the source of the problem." Ruby said, staring at the building we were standing in front of, which was shaking and had ominous lights coming out of the windows. Go figure. "No kidding, Sherlock." Jack said sarcastically. "Who's Sherlock?" the red cloaked girl asked. "Never mind that, now. Are we going to get in or what?" I said, a little impatient to get this over with.
We all go silent as we reach the front door. I open the door and try to pull it open, but it won't budge. I struggle more and get the same results. "Anybody else want to try this?" I ask, wearily backing up from the door. "I'll have a go. It can't be that hard to open." Yang said. After a few attempts at opening the door herself, just when I thought she was going to turn it over to somebody else, she suddenly went ablaze and punched the door as if it had insulted her, blowing it apart into many, many splinters.
"You do realize you didn't have to do that, right?" I asked, backing away. "Yeah. I just felt like it." the blonde responded, shaking splinters out of her weapon. "We should probably get moving now. More Grimm are starting to arrive." Iris said, her eyes sky blue. "Good point. Let's-a-go!" Jack said, jumping into the house, which wasn't really needed since he could've just as easily walked in. "Why did he have to pull a Mario?" Bob asked me. "I have no idea. The author must've just felt like putting it in. He is a first-timer, after all." I answered, shrugging my shoulders. "Hey! I heard that!" a voice from the sky said.
After that fourth wall break, we all followed Jack inside, Iris clinging close to me for some odd reason. "Are you alright, Iris?" I ask her. "Yeah. I'm fine." She responded, letting go of me and looking at me with orange eyes. I really had to figure out what each eye color meant. "Alright. So where do we go from here?" Blake asked, looking around. There were four doors in front of us. Seeing a note on the wall in between the middle two, I took it off and read it.
"In between these four doors, only one will lead you to what you seek."
I looked on the back to see if there was more, but there wasn't. That was all that it said. "What does it say?" Weiss asked, looking over my shoulder, which wasn't hard given that I was only 13 and fairly short for my age. "In between these doors, only one will lead you to what you seek. So which one do you guys think it is?" I asked my friends, thinking of this as something similar to the Labyrinth in Greece.
"Let's check every one of them just to be sure. They all look the same to me." Bob suggested. "Not a bad idea. We all stay as a group just in case something went wrong. I noticed that the glyph underneath me was started to flicker. I looked at Ravena and found that she looked a little exhausted. Can you take over glyph management, Weiss? I don't think Ravena can hold these for much longer and we could end up getting crushed by our own weight." I asked her. She simply nodded and our glyphs changed color in response to her taking over. I opened the first door and found a room full of toys. "Looks like we're going to have to dig in here, guys." I said, nodding over to the enormous pile of stuffed animals in front of us. "That's just great. How long will this take?" Weiss asked, crossing her arms. "Not all that long if we go at it together." Jack answered for me, jumping right into the mess like a dog digging a hole for its bone.
We all immediately started digging through the toy mountain. When we were done, we found nothing. Sighing in disappointment, we all turned to leave, only to have the door slam shut on us. "What in Hades is going on here?" I said, trying to open the door. Yang shoved me out of the way and landed several punches that would've leveled a mountain in rapid succession. This door was far more durable than it looked because it didn't even chip or crack under the pressure of her attack.
"Are stuffed animals supposed to be moving?" Blake asked, looking at the floor. "Of course not. What are you talking.…?" I responded, stopping mid-sentence as we followed her gaze. The stuffed animals we had thrown around while we had been digging were all moving towards the center of the room. Scratch that. It looked like they were being pulled into a vacuum of air. Only the vacuum was a teddy bear. Alrighty then.
"That doesn't look like a good thing." Jack said, readying his claws. We all drew our weapons as the toys that were pulled to and piled up around the teddy bear suddenly gathered up into the shape of the toy at the heart, which we could still see since a hole opened in its chest and it seemed to be glaring at us.
"Awwww! So cuuuuuute!" Skyla squealed excitedly, jumping around. Bob pulled her out of the way as we moved to avoid getting stepped on by a massive foot comprised of plushies. "You can go on about how cute that thing is after we don't die fighting it. Alright, Skyla?" Ruby said, firing off several rounds at the teddy bear heart, which was the obvious weakness. Unfortunately, it seemed to be protected by a rather sturdy bubble because the bullets only rebounded, burying themselves into the walls and door.
Bob and Yang jumped onto the arms as the bear tried to punch them. Good thing it was slow for its size, otherwise it would've been a 'soft' collision with Mr. Angry Bear's plushie-barreled fists. When they were on, they sprinted right for the head.
I shot at the head with a fire arrow as they punched it from both sides. The head got blown clean off. Unfortunately, the only thing that seemed to do was make our adversary angrier, seeing as to how it moved in an angry fashion towards us.
Bob and Yang were thrown to the back of the room as the thing charged right at those of us still in front of it. I threw my sword into the air, shifted the Bowmerang to Boomerang Form, and threw it while setting it ablaze. Yang followed up with shots from behind and everybody else with a ranged weapon pretty much fired at it to slow it down. The Bowmerang cut and burned its way through and back to me. Catching my sword, I cut down some stuffed animals that were sent flying at me.
Throwing it up again, I caught the Bowmerang and went back to dual-wielding as I got it to its Edge Form.
And then I got an idea as to how to quickly end this fight. "Blake. Throw your weapon to somebody. I need it for a big slingshot." I said. She nodded, seeming to know what I was planning. I set myself on fire as the setup was finished. Jumping onto the ribbon, I felt the glyph that was underneath me change to holding me in the air.
"Fire at will!" I shouted. Right after that, I was a spinning bladed fireball headed straight for the giant's heart. I felt the bubble finally pop as I hit it and sawed the demonic bear in half as I flew through the fluffy mass of burning toys.
"And that is how it's done." I said, brushing myself off as I got up from the floor after hitting the wall next to Bob, who I helped up.
"Alright. Let's get out of here. This room was not what it looked to be." Jack said, removing stuffing from his claws as we left. "No kidding. I am definitely not getting a stuffed animal ever again. For myself or anybody else." I said, putting away my weapon.
