Woooooo, that was a long hiatus. I'm so sorry to everyone who's been waiting. I sent out a few messages concerning it, but to those who didn't get them, there's an explanation for my absence on my profile, if you care enough to read it. But, I am here and have not forgotten about this story, and I do hope to be updating more frequently now that my life has settled down.
Much love to you all!
There's drug use and gun violence in this chapter, so mild warning for that.
Chapter 2: White Rabbit
Magenta didn't find it odd that she was sitting in a room with a vampire, a talking blob, and a white rabbit. The fact that she didn't find this odd was, in itself, odd.
The vampire - he looked vaguely familiar, with his sleek black hair and his flashing olive-green eyes - was grinning at her before taking a long swig of blood from a wine glass. "How's the paper tasting, Magenta?"
Magenta blinked a bit and realized that there was indeed a square of paper on her tongue. She reached in to pull it out and look at it; there was a small happy face on it, for whatever reason. "It tastes like paper," she told him.
"'Course it does," the blob laughed. It was nothing but a veiny pink thing, with one large, toothy mouth in the center. "It wouldn't be the real thing, if it had a taste."
The white rabbit leaned in closer to her. It struck her that it was wearing a black and white old suit, and that this was weird, because she was fairly sure that rabbits, Transylvanian or Earthling, didn't wear suits. "Are you alright, my love? Your eyes look a bit. . . . big."
"Big?" She said. And when she turned away to look into a mirror - were they in the castle zen room? She couldn't tell - and saw what the white rabbit was talking about. Her green eyes were quite literally as wide as dinner plates, bulging out of her head and drooping so that she couldn't see the rest of her face. Her hair was a puff of red framing them, her body comparatively small.
She felt her jaw drop, and for a moment didn't see it - until it fell out from under her eyes and to the floor, disconnecting itself from the rest of her face. She looked downwards, seeing her pale jaw lying on the floor, the red sliver that was her bottom lip on the top, her teeth gleaming a bit, her tongue hanging off the side. It began to melt.
When Magenta reached out to pick up the fallen body part, her arm shimmered and faded like a mirage, and she stopped to wave it in front of her face. It moved slowly, the white skin glowing and then dimming, until suddenly her arm fell off too. It lay next to her jaw on the carpet, and it too started melting, until a small white puddle lay in its place. The painted scarlet fingernails flashed a bit in the light of the room.
She screamed.
Riff Raff had immediately refused the small squares of paper Eddie had brought to his visit to their castle. Eddie had laughed a bit and muttered something about how it would get them all "super spaced out," and while Riff Raff didn't know what this slang meant, he didn't care to find out. Frank had refused the paper as well, opting instead for the bottles of wine Eddie had brought. Magenta had initially not wanted any paper, either - until Eddie had jokingly complained that his three new friends were "too scared" to try them.
Riff Raff knew Magenta better than anyone in the universe, and he'd known immediately how she would take that comment. His sister was usually reserved and sarcastic and fairly quiet. . . . until presented with a challenge. She was one of those people, the kind who would do something stupid just to prove she wasn't afraid of anything (which Riff Raff thought rather funny, for a woman who was still unnerved by the dark.)
"Don't talk about things you don't know about," Magenta had snapped at Eddie. "I'm not scared. I just don't see a reason to stick a random square of paper into my mouth."
"Of course," Eddie had continued to tease. "You're not scared at all. Not the slightest bit freaked out. I gotcha." He winked and laughed loudly. Then Frank, from his place with the wine in the corner of the zen room, had gotten in on it.
"Magenta, dear, of course you're not afraid," Frank had said, taking a slow sip from his glass. "That look of wariness and anxiety on your face. . . . only someone who is entirely not afraid would have it."
Eddie had sniggered, and thrown in, "Y'know, I'm not gonna lie to you, baby, I think you could use a little bit of Lucy in the sky with diamonds. Maybe it'll loosen you up a little. But, if you're too scared, I totally understand. . . ."
"Don't goad her," Riff Raff had said, but it was too late. Magenta had straightened her back and was looking at Eddie with fire in her eyes.
"You want to fuck around? Fine. I'll fuck around." And she'd reached for the squares of paper.
"Magenta, please, he's only -" But she'd waved her hand to quiet him. Riff Raff felt a twinge of annoyance; she'd been like this since she was a child. Easily provoked. Usually he could talk her into seeing sense, and he'd been about to try again to do so when she popped the small square of paper right on her tongue.
She'd sat back and looked at Eddie with defiance, and he only giggled. Riff Raff had put a hand on her arm and began to plead with her. "Magenta, take that out of your mouth. . . . you're being childish. . . . you don't have anything to prove. . . ."
Everything he'd said to her was met with a firm shake of the head and a swat at his hand to keep him away. So Riff Raff had instead leaned in closer to the pizza delivery boy and muttered, "If there's anything poisonous, anything that'll hurt her, then I swear I'll -"
"Heyyyyy, calm down, Igor," Eddie giggled again. "Your girlfriend is fine. The stuff won't kill her." He held up his bottle of alcohol and took a long swig. "But I promise it'll be a fun show."
It was roughly an hour later when she started screeching.
Magenta backed up away from her fallen body parts and ended up tilting backwards onto the floor. She blinked rapidly and moved her hands in front of her face - her hands? She looked again. Yes, her hands. They were both present and accounted for, and there were not any melted bits of her lying on the floor. She immediately felt her face; her jaw was still there, and her eyes were of normal size.
"Magenta!" The white rabbit was next to her suddenly, its large, soft paws on her back. "Are you alright? Why did you scream?"
She paid no attention to it, and instead noticed that the floor around her was made out of glass, and they appeared to be hundreds of feet into the air. The dim lights of a city glowed under them. She scrambled to her feet.
"What the fuck? Where are -" she began, but when she turned, she saw that the rabbit was the only one of her companions who was still there. The other two were gone, having been replaced by ten-foot-tall shadows. Cold air seemed to emanate from them, a type of cold that penetrated Magenta's skin and froze the marrow in her bones. The white rabbit was still there, looking at her with what she supposed was concern, but in the spike of panic she almost didn't register it.
She tried to open her mouth to speak, only to realize that she couldn't; the shadows had indeed frozen her. She couldn't seen any inch of herself, but she knew, something in her mind knew that she had become nothing more than a statue of ice.
A statue of ice, oh fuck, oh fuck. . . .
"Magenta? Magenta? My darling, what. . . ?" Riff Raff was kneeling next to his sister, shaking her, but she seemed locked into position. Her eyes were wide, her pupils almost entirely devouring the green of her irises, and she stared at him with blank horror.
"What. . . ?" Riff Raff repeated. And then he whipped around to face Eddie, who was still giggling in the corner. "What did you give her!? You told me it wouldn't hurt her -"
"Cool it, Igor." Eddie said, leaning back in the chair and accidentally spilling a bit of beer on his shirt. "Elsa's just having a trip, is all. She'll be back to her old saucy self in maybe eight hours."
"Eight hours!? She'll be like this for eight -"
"Riff Raff, do pay more attention to her," Frank said, an eyebrow raising as his gaze strayed past Riff Raff. "It looks like she's found her ability to move again."
When Riff Raff turned back to her, he saw that she had indeed moved. Gotten up and moved away from him, stumbling with an alarming speed out of the zen room.
"Magenta, wait!" He got up to follow her out into the darkness of the hallway, Frank and Eddie laughing behind him.
Fucking hell, we are never inviting that little shit Eddie into this castle again.
Cheryl had volunteered to go to the odd castle on her own this time. It wasn't that she minded the company of her coworkers, but she tended to get overexcited at the prospect of aliens, much to her own embarrassment. When she observed the suspected alien aircraft today, she wanted to be on her own to squeal and get excited without one of the men teasing her.
She was off to the side of the castle, observing the freshly-cut tree stumps around it. It had been exactly nine days since the castle had first appeared, but none of the agents had caught sight of anyone in or around the castle since that first night. It was late in the afternoon, soon to be evening, and she was collecting samples of rubble and dirt from around the castle. Dr. Scott had been adamant about not entering or touching the castle itself, not yet. If it was of alien origin, then it would be best not to get too close to it until they knew it was safe. The good thing was that it was so far out into the middle of nowhere that the general public likely wouldn't find it easily.
So it was with this knowledge in mind that Cheryl noticed the woman jump out the window.
It was so quick she almost didn't see it. A window on the side of the castle, on the bottom floor and only about four feet from the ground, opened quickly. Cheryl caught it out of the corner of her eye and turned quickly, one hand holding a camera and the other hovering over the gun at her side. But it wasn't the Dalek-styled alien she'd been expecting (and maybe hoping for.) What she did see,`however, was a woman jump head-first out the window and belly-flop onto the ground below. The woman seemed unscathed, scrambling up and breaking into a run across the clearing, stopping every few seconds to hop into the air and flap her arms desperately.
Cheryl stared, might've even giggled at this woman if not for the fact that she'd just come out of an alien spacecraft. The sight continued in this odd fashion, the woman in the distance thrusting herself into the air and flapping her arms enough that Cheryl almost feared that she would dislocate her arms. The woman eventually jerked around so that her eyes were directly on Cheryl's face, and she broke into a run toward Cheryl.
Cheryl's hand went from hovering over her gun to tightening around it, and she was about to scream "Stop!" when the woman jumped again, waving her arms, and landed flat on her face in the grass.
The woman lay motionless on the ground, and Cheryl, still gripping her gun, approached with caution. At about two meters' distance, she said carefully, "Miss? Are you alright?"
The woman's head snapped up, a few strands of grass caught in her giant mane of red hair. Her face was painted white, with dramatic violet and red makeup adoring her eyes and lips. She seemed to take a second to focus on Cheryl, but when she did, she whispered, "I need you to help me."
That in itself was enough for Cheryl to get closer and kneel down, taking a hand off her gun and hovering it near the woman. "It's all alright, miss. Everything will be fine. What's the problem?"
The woman pushed herself up to look at Cheryl more closely, and she said, with all the seriousness in the world, "I'm a bird. I'm a bird trapped in a woman's body. I can't fly anymore and I don't know how this happened to me."
The words struck Cheryl dumb for a moment, until she got a good look at the woman's eyes. Her pupils were dilated, so much so that Cheryl couldn't tell what color the irises were. Ah, she thought at once. Drugs.
"Alright, miss," Cheryl said, standing up fully and reaching for the woman's hand. "I see you seem to be having some trouble. Want me to drop you off at the police station - ?" Cheryl paused suddenly, remembering that this woman, no matter how high she was, had just come out of an extraterrestrial ship. Police might not be the best option. "Actually," Cheryl said, pulling the woman to her feet, "why don't you come to work with me? My coworkers and I can help you."
"You don't understand," the woman grabbed Cheryl by the front of her shirt and pulled her closer, until her face was merely inches away. "I need to get back to my nest. I know I have a nest somewhere. I don't remember where it is. I think I have chicks."
Cheryl did laugh a bit at that one, and gently took the woman's wrists and pushed her back a little. "I'll help you find your nest, miss. . . . what is your name?"
"My name?" The woman blinked a few time, and she repeated "my name" a few times before finally stating, "I think it started with an M. . . . Magenta. That's my name. It's Magenta."
"Okay, Magenta," Cheryl said kindly, "let's get you out of here, shall we?"
And so she took the Magenta's hand and led her out to the car, not noticing, as she drove away, that a blonde man had barged out the front door. Not hearing one bit as he screamed "Magenta! Where did you go!?"
"Damn it, Eddie, she's gone!" Riff Raff burst back into the zen room only to find that Eddie and Frank were drunkenly lapping at each other's mouths. A gross suction sound reverberated around the room when they detached themselves from each other, Frank giving him an irritated look and Eddie looking highly dazed.
"Wha. . . ?" Eddie said, turning his head to Riff Raff, red lipstick smeared around his cheeks and chin. "What d'you mean, she's gone?"
"Magenta is gone! Out of the house! Off the property! Gone!" Riff Raff was not often an emotional man, but the panic that filled his voice was near palpable. "She ran off, and I lost her in all these damn hallways, and I checked the entire fucking castle from roof to floorboards and she's not! Fucking! Here!"
Eddie didn't seem prepared at all when Riff Raff lunged at him, his almost clawed hands wrapping around Eddie's neck. "Not dangerous, is it? That shit drove her mad, and it's your fucking fault, you brought it, I swear to the Queen of Transsexual if she gets hurt you won't live to see midnight -"
Eddie did it on purpose.
He tried to kill your precious sister.
He succeeded, I bet.
I bet she went and threw herself into oncoming traffic.
Riff Raff felt a sharp, hot sting on his side, and he yelped, letting go of Eddie. The sting came again, and he rolled off of the Earthling, onto the floor. Again, the sting, and then he felt a high-heeled shoe place itself on his shoulder. Frank's voice, as cold and deadly as a demon's, slithered into his ears. "Now, Riff Raff, you know it's highly inappropriate to attack our guest. No matter how upset you are."
Riff Raff looked up to see Frank standing over him, a foot on his shoulder and a whip in his hand - where did he get that? - and a poisonous look in his eyes. His master turned to where Eddie sat, eyes wide with alarm as he held his neck. Frank said, his voice going as sweet as pie, "Now, I'm truly sorry for that, Eddie. Riff Raff can get a bit over emotional when it comes to his dear sister."
"S - sister?" Eddie stuttered out.
"Why yes," Frank said, and Riff Raff would've strangled him, too, if not for the stinging on his body. "Magenta is Riff Raff's precious, much adored little sister. Didn't you know that?"
"I -" Eddie had gotten up, his beer loose in his hand, and he said slowly, "I think - I should probably - go now."
"If that is what you wish," Frank said warmly. "I assume you know where the front door is? I'd show you out myself, but you see, I have something to deal with in here."
"I - yeah - I'll see you around. . . ." Fearful eyes still focused on Riff Raff, Eddie backed out of the room, and Riff Raff could hear him start to run as soon as he was out of sight.
Frank turned his head back to Riff Raff and immediately brought the whip down again, the burn ripping through Riff Raff's body as he convulsed under it. Frank spoke again, with all the venom of a snake. "You don't attack my playmates. At all, ever. I don't care what's going on in that bald head of yours, and I don't care if they've broken all of Magenta's limbs. Now if you're that concerned about your sister's whereabouts, then I suggest you go check the monitor to look for her. And keep this moment in mind, should ever you decide to do something this idiotic again."
Riff Raff opened his mouth to protest, but Frank snapped the whip upwards, ready to bring it back down on Riff Raff's body. Riff Raff winced, and Frank took his foot off of him, satisfied with the reaction. Slowly, Riff Raff stood and made his way for the nearest monitor.
He checked all the footage for the last hour or so. Eventually, he found something, but it wasn't his sister. . . . it was an Earthling woman, and she appeared to be taking multiple photos and samples of the area around their castle.
"Master? There appears to have been an Earthling -" He cut himself off as soon as Magenta appeared on the monitor.
"What? What did you say there was?" Frank hurried over and pushed Riff Raff out of the way to see the screen, and together, they watched as the Earthling woman and Magenta spoke before Magenta - who looked lost and empty-headed - was led away by the hand to somewhere off camera.
"Magenta - my angel - she's been kidnapped -" The panic flooded his chest, his stomach, all of his airways. He moaned, the sound resembling one of physical agony.
"Oh, damn," Frank said, his irritation evident. "What was that human doing so near our castle? And where, exactly, is she taking my maid? Magenta's the only one around here who can cook!"
The woman in the passenger seat of Cheryl's car - Magenta, what an odd name - went back and forth between babbling incomprehensibly and being silent for long stretches of time. A few times she'd gone so quiet that Cheryl had had to turn to look at her to make sure she was still breathing. Cheryl noticed, on one of these, glances, that a small square of paper with a smiley face on it was stuck to Magenta's skirt. LSD, just as Cheryl had suspected.
She was fairly sure that this woman in her car was human, but she hadn't ruled out the possibility of alien, not quite yet. She could be like Klaatu, a humanoid alien, Cheryl thought.
"Where's Riff Raff?" Magenta was looking at her with heavy scrutiny. "It's been too long since I've last seen him. Do you know where he is, Goorgflutz?"
"Goorgflutz" was what Magenta had been calling Cheryl for the last ten minutes, so Cheryl decided to go with it. "I don't know where Riff Raff is, miss."
"Yes, you do," Magenta said, her voice becoming increasingly aggressive. "You did something with him. Where is he? What did you do?"
The harshness in her voice unnerved Cheryl a bit, and she sent a silent prayer to whatever god existed that this woman didn't try to attack her. "I don't. I don't even know who he is."
"You stole him!" The sudden scream was enough to make Cheryl jerk the steering wheel a bit and almost swerve off the road. "You fucking son of a bitch, you stole him from me, I'll kill you, I swear to fuck I'll murder you -"
And then they did swerve off the road, because Magenta lunged from her seat and landed a punch right in Cheryl's jaw. Cheryl's hands violently jerked the steering wheel, and the car spun to the side before catching on a tree. The airbags blew open, and Cheryl heard Magenta screech in protest as she was trapped against the seat.
Cheryl wasted no time, unbuckling herself before wriggling out of the car door and equipping her gun. She pointed it to the yelling woman in the passenger seat, breathing deeply, her jaw burning in pain from the punch. Stronger than she looks, Cheryl thought.
Keeping one hand with the gun carefully aimed at Magenta, Cheryl reached for her walky talky and spoke into it. "Dr. Scott? You there?"
Static. More vicious sounds from Magenta. And then: "Cheryl? Vhat is going on out zere?"
"I found someone at the castle. A woman," Cheryl said, circling around the car to look closer at Magenta.
"A voman?"
"Yes. Magenta is her name. Lots of red hair, a little over five feet tall, in her mid-to-late twenties, and out of her mind on LSD," Cheryl said. "I was driving her over there in my car, and she attacked me and now we've crashed. She's stuck in the passenger seat, but -" a glance at Magenta's hands, which were getting closer and closer to the seat belt buckle, "- I don't think she'll be stuck for long. I'm a little ways out of town, down Triffid Avenue."
"Try to keep her zere. Michael and Dave will be over as soon as possible."
"I will -" Cheryl heard the click of the belt buckle.
Almost faster than possible, Magenta was out of the car. She landed right on her side, a squawk of irritation rising from her mouth. Cheryl kept the gun aimed.
"Now, Magenta," Cheryl said, "I don't want to hurt you, just let me -"
But Magenta lunged at her without any regard for the gun. Cheryl fired, but Magenta's hand hit hers, forcing the gun upwards and away from them both. Another punch was landed in Cheryl's throat, and she let out a choking cough as Magenta forced her down to her knees. The gun was snapped right out of Cheryl's hand and soon it went off again, but this time, Cheryl felt the bullet go into her abdomen.
She flailed her hand, desperate to grab something, and ended up with a handful of Magenta's hair. But the other woman seemed to feel no pain as she pulled away, a few coppery strands ripping from her scalp. Magenta forced Cheryl to her back, gasping for breath as she aimed the gun to her. When she spoke, her voice was a pitiless rasp. "Answer me right now, Earthling. Where is Riff Raff? What did you do to him?"
Cheryl was going into shock. Blood began to darken the grass under her. "I - don't -"
"Don't lie to me!" A kick, right onto Cheryl's wound. Cheryl exhaled suddenly and sharply, and she couldn't speak again. "Where is he? What did you do, you stupid Earthling? What did you do?"
Cheryl could only sputter helplessly, and Magenta snorted. "Pathetic maggot," she whispered coldly. "I didn't even want to come to this planet. . . ."
Cheryl had two thoughts before she passed out. One: An alien. This woman is an alien.
And two: Bitch is hard core.
Magenta was fairly aware of herself as she ran at her highest speed down the street, back toward the castle. The effects of the drug Eddie had given her - she had indeed worked out that it was some sort of drug - were still persistent, but not as indiscernible from reality as they were during the first hours. She was still fairly convinced that the Earthling she'd just assaulted and left for dead had done something to her precious brother. And she didn't feel any guilt over what she'd just done, and likely wouldn't when she was completely down from the drug high.
She'd always been a very fast runner, so it wasn't taking her long at all to make her way down the road. With the weapon in her hand she felt protected. She had no idea what it was or what it even did, really. But she was alone on this strange planet, and it was better than nothing.
So when the motorcycle ran by her and then immediately stopped right behind her, she turned around and pointed the weapon with no hesitation.
The person on the motorcycle stopped and took off his helmet, and despite her muddled mind trying to tell her that this was a reanimated corpse, she knew by the face that it was only Eddie. He looked up at her and jumped back at the sight of her weapon.
"Jesus Christ, woman, what are you doing?" He flung himself backwards and put up his arms in a "please have mercy" gesture. "Put it down, fuck, don't shoot -"
"Eddie," Magenta said, her voice a hiss of venom. "Give me one damn good reason I shouldn't shoot you right now."
"Shit, fuck, I didn't know you'd have such a bad trip, where the fuck did you get - ?" He got to his knees as his eyes stayed on the weapon. "Put it down, please, God damn, I didn't mean for you to get so whacked out!"
She moved closer. "Another Earthling. She did something with Riff Raff. Where is he? You were in on it, weren't you? You fucking gave me that drug to distract me, to fucking make me weaker while she got him, and then she tried to take me too. You shithead, Eddie, I should just fucking kill you - !"
"No! No no no no, God no, please, I wanna live, I didn't do anything!" Eddie looked ready to cry now. "Fuck, first your crazy brother and now you, what the fuck is wrong with you people, please -"
"Riff Raff?" Magenta said, the mention of her brother piquing her interest. "Where is he? You know where he is, don't you?"
"Yes! Yes, I know where he is, I'll take you to him, just please, don't shoot me -"
"Take me to him," Magenta said, her voice filled with threat. "Now."
"Jesus fuck, okay, get on, just get on the motorcycle, I'll take you right to him!"
"Well, let's get to it then," Magenta said, and soon they were on the motorcycle, Eddie leading the way and Magenta keeping the weapon pressed firmly into his back.
Frank was regretting his decision to ever choose the two siblings as his companions on this trip to Earth.
Well, technically, he'd only chosen Riff Raff. Magenta was a condition of having the blonde man; he'd refused to go anywhere where she wouldn't be. What Frank was regretting, in particular, his agreeing to have her come along. Extra help and a good cook was what he'd expected out of her, but what he'd gotten was Riff Raff's emotional crutch.
Riff Raff was in near hysterics, walking around blubbering about how his darling, his love, his angel was kidnapped by Earthlings. Frank was more concerned about what that Earthling had been doing so close to his castle uninvited, and what information about them Magenta could possibly reveal in her mentally unbalanced state. It was irritating, to have his normally stoic handyman such an emotional mess over her. Irritating for a few reasons.
One, Frank was just a bit disgusted over the siblings' relationship. He knew they were brother and sister. He also knew that they held an intense romantic and sexual relationship, and had for years before they'd started working for him back on Transsexual. On their home planet, incest between consenting adults - which Riff Raff and Magenta were - was not illegal. It was, however, strongly looked down upon. Frank himself had an older brother and a younger sister, and the thought of having any sort of non-familial relationship with them made him sick to his stomach. That went for any of his close relatives, to be honest.
Two, Riff Raff was so irrational and emotional that he wasn't being useful at all. Frank had asked him several times to wipe off the monitor in the zen room and get whatever he needed so that they could go track down Magenta, but all that he was getting in response was a sobbing man who insisted that they go right now, she could be dead, and he couldn't live with himself if she was dead. "Unhealthy, much?" Frank had responded, which only made his handyman cry harder. So hard that Frank had relented and packed him into the truck without making him do anything else. Damn, is it like this with everyone in relationships? Frank himself was aromantic, and while he loved sex and sexy people probably more than anything, he didn't care for romance or relationships at all. And over emotional shit like this only turned him off even more.
And lastly, he was just the slightest bit jealous. Not of their romance, but of how Riff Raff seemed to jump at sex with Magenta at any moment (Frank had walked in on and overheard them quite a few times) and yet continually rejected Frank's own advances. Frank was not used to not getting his way. Especially not when it came to sex. Magenta was beautiful, sure, and he'd love to get her into bed at some point. But he found Riff Raff far sexier, to be honest. Might've been because he had a strong preference toward blonde men. This blonde man, in particular, seemed so hell bent on rejecting him that he was growing increasingly bitter. Especially since he knew that Riff Raff and Magenta had an open sexual relationship, that they did and had brought other people into their escapades.
Frank seemed to be the exception for both of them. Which he was not okay with, especially not as far as Riff Raff was concerned.
"We're going, Riff Raff, stop whining," Frank snapped as they got into the truck. Riff Raff only let out a few more panicked sobs from the passenger seat.
They pulled the truck out onto the street and began to drive. Frank had a tracker built into the truck, and a bit of DNA from Magenta was all that was needed for the Transsexualite technology to point them toward where his domestic was. He'd found Magenta's hair brush and ripped a few strands from it, and within seconds of receiving her genetic code, a holographic arrow manifested in the truck, pointing them right into the direction where Magenta had been taken. Frank followed the arrow, driving away from the castle and away from the town, wanting to smack Riff Raff again for crying so much.
They were barely a mile up when Frank saw Eddie's motorcycle coming toward them. Eddie himself waved at them, his arm almost flapping hysterically, and Frank noticed another pale limb wrapped around Eddie's torso. Eddie pulled over, and Frank saw that instantly recognizable red hair on the person riding with him. Quickly, he pulled over, and said to his handyman "Look, Riff Raff, I think we found her -"
"What!?" Riff Raff immediately looked up from where his face had been buried into his hands. "Where!? Where is she!?"
The Frank pulled the truck over, but Riff Raff almost jumped out before he'd even stopped completely. Eddie had pulled over on the other side of the road, and Magenta came sprinting off the motorcycle. The siblings crashed into one another right in the middle of the road, and Frank turned his head away in mild distaste when they began to whisper to and hold each other tightly.
Frank instead made his way over to Eddie, who was hunched over the motorcycle, looking so traumatized that Frank immediately knew Magenta had done something to threaten him. He leaned against the vehicle and gave Eddie a pitying look. "Did she try to kill you?"
Eddie jerked his head up to Frank and blinked a few times before muttering, "Y'know, Alice. . . . I don't think I like your servants very much."
"Oh, I don't either," Frank said, turning to look at where the pair stood in the road, their mouths locked together and their hands far too grabby for such a public area.
Eddie stared at them too and said, "Are they, uh. . . . are they really. . . . y'know, brother and sister?"
"Full flesh and blood, yes."
"Uh. . . ." Eddie shook slightly and ran a hand quickly through his messy hair. "I, uh. . . . I don't know how I feel about that."
Frank shrugged. "I don't bother trying to stop them, so who cares, really? Anyway," Frank leaned toward Eddie and ran a finger along his knuckles. "I understand if they might've traumatized you a bit." Eddie's blue eyes went back up to Frank, and Frank smiled at him. "You don't have to come back to my castle, if you don't want. We could just. . . ." Frank leaned forward and nipped at Eddie's ear, ". . . . find somewhere else."
"That, uh, that'd be nice. . . ." Eddie said, leaning into Frank a bit more. "It might be a while before I can, uh, be around them again. . . ."
Frank giggled. "Understandable, little toy."
Cheryl was, luckily enough, found by Dr. Scott soon enough to get her to a hospital. She told the doctors it had been a mugging, that she'd crashed her car and been ambushed by an unidentified man soon afterwards. She told Dr. Scott a far different story, and had given him something highly important: a few long, curly, coppery strands of hair that Cheryl had grabbed from the woman who'd assaulted her. The woman who'd referred to her as "Earthling."
Dr. Scott, in that moment, was alone in the lab, waiting for the tests on the hair to come back. Testing for what, he wasn't sure, but as he sipped his tea and thrummed his fingers irritably on his wheelchair, he hoped that something pointing toward alien life came back. Something. Anything. Anything to prove to the other members of the FBI that aliens and UFOs were not just silly child's play. . . .
The results came back soon enough.
The hairs did not come from a human.