Chapter 25
Air hit Oswald on the head before he heard what sounded like a wet suckling sound. He found himself out of the burning blot and falling until he landed on a squishy ground. Grabbing at his throat, his body retched as he forced himself up to his hands and knees. A clump of blot was forced from his body before he could sit back on his heals and open his eyes. Finding what he had fallen onto looked like a branch made of blot, he looked around at the interior of this blot to see it similar to the one from his own Wasteland. Green bloticles lit the way down the tendril he sat on, splitting as one went higher and another led the way downwards.
Coughing turned Oswald's attention back to where he had landed and found Mickey behind him. Oswald quickly turned around and rose to his feet, reaching out to help Mickey. He grabbed the mouse under the arms and pulled him up as his body expelled the same substance. He let go as Mickey put his hands out to hold himself up before saying, "Not doing that again." He held his throat as it sounded like he had laryngitis and looked worse off.
Mickey looked up at the rabbit, raising a hand to wipe the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand. "Do I sound that bad?" Mickey asked, testing his own voice only to find it deeper and scratchy. He sat back and rubbed his throat with the same hand as he mumbled, "Great."
"It'll heal," Oswald said, his voice sounding similar. Silently he added, I hope as he rose back to his feet. Looking up to see the inside of this blot he noticed it tapering off a few yards above them, stalactites of blot hanging down with a drip of the thick liquid occasionally falling. He turned back to look at Mickey as the mouse pushed himself up to his feet and asked, "So what's the plan?"
"This," Mickey stated, raising his Gremlin Gun up. He pulled the trigger and shot at the stalactites, making them disappear in a purple vapor. He gave a look back at Oswald and added, "I wanna find the heart."
Oswald gave Mickey a nod, raising his gun to add to the shots of purple laser and vapor. He guessed they had popped in about the middle of the chest and, if this blot was made similarly enough to the last one, the heart cavity should be just above them. Leading the way, Oswald carefully followed the tendril upwards. He felt like he was acting trigger happy as he shot at anything not holding onto their walkway.
Keeping his eyes open for any blotling or consumed toon, he was surprised to find the inside of this blot relatively peaceful.
The blot lurched, making Oswald lose his footing. He fell onto the tendril and held on with a startled scream until the blot stopped, leaving them on a steeply angled tendril. He looked up in time to push his head closer to the tendril he held as another from higher up swung, no longer attached on both ends. "Great, now how are we supposed to get up there?"
"Like Tarzan!" Mickey exclaimed as loud as his damaged voice would allow.
"You're crazy," Oswald said, carefully turning his head to try and gauge how far above his head the tendril really was. He watched as Mickey jumped from behind him, grabbing hold of the tendril as it slowed down in its pendulum swinging.
Mickey grabbed at the tendril to pull himself up before looking down. "You coming?"
Oswald carefully let himself slide backwards enough so that the tendril wasn't directly above him. He put both remote and gun in his pockets before carefully getting to his feet. Once he had his balance he looked up to find Mickey was puling himself up to a stable part of the tendril. Taking in a deep breath, Oswald pushed himself upwards and took hold of the tendril. His hands slipped slightly, getting him to grip tighter and close his eyes until he was sure he wasn't going to slide off. He opened his eyes and glanced down, almost panicking as a cloud of purple vapor came up to them.
"Hurry up! Sadie's doing too good out there!" Mickey called out, seeing the same.
Oswald scrambled up the tendril, taking Mickey's outstretched hand as he made it to the small platform. As Oswald got to his feet, the blot shifted again. Gravity forced the brothers against the wall, as if the blot had whirled around in a fast motion, before it righted itself. Oswald fell on his back against the platform he had just worked his way up to and checked on Mickey to see the mouse scampering away from the ledge, his eyes wide as he held a hand to his chest.
Oswald took a glance back over the edge, guessing the mouse had just narrowly escaped falling and saw the thinner vaper even higher. "We gotta go!" Oswald ordered, scrambling to his feet. He pulled Mickey to his feet and dragged him up the tendril, only stopping when they reached the opening to the heart cavity. He released his grip on Mickey as he peaked over the edge into the room above him. The space was filled with tendrils snaked around a pulsating heart. Mickey poked his head up next to Oswald to get a look as the rabbit asked, "You think this will stop him?"
"I think Sadie's gonna stop him," Mickey admitted, pulling himself up into the room. "This is more of a hunch."
"A hunch!" Oswald exclaimed, following him up. "We're risking our lives on a hunch!?"
"We've done worst," Mickey said with a shrug.
Oswald stepped over to one of the tendrils holding onto the heart and followed it to the wall. "At least this one might be easier. None of those pulsating things."
"Let's see how easy." Mickey raised up the paint brush in his left hand and shot at a different tendril, watching as it absorbed the green liquid and started withering away until it fell apart in twigs.
Oswald pulled the Gremlin Gun from his pocket and started firing into the tendril before him. The tendril started absorbing it, like the one Mickey had done with thinner had, only for it to crack on the outside and leak out thinner vapor. Oswald took a step back but continued to fire until the tendril was a shriveled husk. He stepped back over to the tendril and gave it a gentle kick only for the remains to break away into similar sticks and dust. A cloud of thinner vapor rose up, getting Oswald to raise an arm to cover his nose from the deadly vapor. He waved away what stayed by his head and looked over at Mickey to see him simultaneously shooting thinner at one of the tendrils and blasts of purple at another. Oswald followed the remaining tendril and stepped over to what he thought of the main body of the thing. Keeping a farther distance, he started shooting it when the Blot leaned again. Falling face first, Oswald reached out and grabbed hold of the tendril as gravity fell on its side.
"Ozzie! Mickey!" Sadie's voice cried out. "Get outta there!"
"We're trying!" Oswald called out. He looked down along what had been a floor before letting go to slide to the wall. Landing he looked back up and shot apart the tendril he had been holding onto as Mickey landed beside him.
"Catch that when it falls," Mickey ordered. Raising his voice he called out, "Sadie! Help me make a hole!"
"Will do!" Sadie called back a moment before the whirl of her machine gun fired up.
Oswald focused on the tendril he shot at, a small part of himself proud he was keeping all of his shots clustered together. A cough forced its way from his lungs, getting him to pull up his shirt collar over his nose. His eyes started to burn as the purple vaper started taking over. Squinting he watched as the tendril broke apart, leaving the heart to fall towards them. He quickly caught it as it fell and turned to see the two had made a hole wide enough for them to leave. "You can stop!" Oswald ordered.
Mickey turned and saw the glowing red heart in Oswald's hands, dropping both weapons to his sides as Sadie ended her assault, as he ordered, "Go!"
Oswald jumped through the hole, throwing Sadie a "Let's go!" as he back tracked their way out of the studio.
"O'Hara! Get these people outta here!" Oswald ordered as he saw the man standing outside the studio's doors.
"What the-" O'Hara exclaimed before the fire alarm sounded.
"This way!" Mickey called out, getting Oswald to skid on his heels. He turned and saw Mickey and Sadie out running a dark cloud of purple. Quickly he ran to catch up with the two as other toons and humans in the studio left their rooms only to panic at what was seen.
"Hope this place has a good ventilation system," Oswald said more to himself as an open door came in sight.
They broke out into fresh air and Oswald ran to the closest clump of grass just beside the building. He dropped to his knees, his throat feeling like it was on fire, and looked back at Mickey. "Never doing that again," Oswald stated.
"Don't plan to," Mickey said, shaking his head. He pocketed the Gremlin Gun before swapping the brush into his right hand. He held out his free hand for Oswald to give him the heart.
"Deja-vu," Oswald mumbled, handing it over.
"Except this time, it's not mine," Mickey said with a horse laugh.
"What do you plan to do with it?" Sadie asked as Mickey stepped around Oswald to place the heart on the grass.
Before the mouse could answer Oswald jumped to his feet and exclaimed, "You're gonna try to bring him back to life, aren't you!?"
"Did you or your kids ever play Kingdom Hearts?" Mickey asked.
"Yeah, what?" Oswald asked, eyeing his brother. "Banking on the idea that the heart remembers?"
"Yap." Mickey took aim and shot the heart with paint.
Oswald watched as the heart first absorbed the paint before tendrils started to grow out of it. They started blue, the same as the pain leaving the brush, and drew out a pencil line image of the mouse.
"What on Earth is he doing?"
Oswald turned to see both toon and humans gathering, unsure who had asked.
"Step back! Mouseton Police!" O'Hara called out as he forced his way through the crowd. "Give them space. Don't crowd."
Oswald turned his eyes back to Mickey as the heart on the ground started turning the paint black and white, tendrils wrapping around the pencil lines and starting to look like the mouse. Beads of sweat started dripping down the mouse behind the brush's face, peaking Oswald's concern. He stepped over so he stood beside Mickey and reached his right hand across himself to take hold of the brush. Mickey looked over at Oswald as the rabbit said, "Let me help."
Mickey looked at his brother for a moment, as if debating, before giving a nod.
Oswald gripped the brush like he would to use it, noticing the paint shooting out of the bristles to double. Following the paint down to the heart, he watched in amazement as a new Mickey Mouse formed before their eyes.
"Someone call for an ambulance," Sadie called out.
"They're already on their way," O'Hara informed.
Mickey leaned against Oswald, getting the rabbit to glance at his brother to see he was fighting fatigue and loss of paint. Oswald tried to help hold him up, putting his left arm around Mickey, as the Mickey on the ground gained his signature red shorts and yellow shoes.
Mickey dropped to his knees, leaving the brush in Oswald's hand to finish the last of this world's Mickey Mouse. The last thing Oswald remembered was thinking This had better work.