22
.
Timmy could feel the heat even through the wall of Boltzman's Shield pressing against his back and shoulders. The tile floor beneath his feet was scratched and burned from where the force of the blasts he set off pushed the barrier forward while he tried pushing back. Every now and then, he would hear a distant scream, and it made him cringe, his mind thinking up all kinds of horrible reasons for there to be screaming in the Spire. Behind him, the shield made terrible popping noises as thin cracks started appearing over its surface.
And then he heard Tootie's voice again, calling his name, and he strengthened his resolve to hold back the explosions until they died out, or stopped trying to fill up the hall, either was good for him. He poured more mana into the shield, sealing the cracks and groaning from the effort. When the heck were Cosmo, Wanda and the antis going to show up? Did Anti-Wanda get distracted by something shiny?
"-mmy!"
There was her voice again, but so much clearer now. Almost like Tootie was right-
"Timmy! Oh, wow, that's bright. What the hell did you do?" the Goth exclaimed in joy that became surprise that became annoyance as she held up a hand to shield her eyes, Romi doing the same beside her. Timmy just stared in shock at the girl standing before him in her magitech armor, bare of belt and weapons, but looking like she'd come fresh to a battle.
"I, uh, um..." he stammered, brain short-circuiting for a moment before coming back around, "T-Tootie? What are you doing here?"
"Rescuing myself. What are you doing?" Tootie shot back, squinting against the bright blaze that still lit up the hall in reds and oranges.
"...Rescuing you? Sort of?" the brunet returned lamely, face flushing with embarrassment as he started to wonder what he looked like to her at this moment, face half-covered in dry blood, back pressed against a strained wall and the Blue Crystal Rod shoved uncomfortably between him and it. Tootie gave him as best an appraising look-over as she could while shielding her eyes, a decidedly unimpressed expression on her face.
"Well, Prince Charming, you should have asked Caleb for a For Dummies book on rescuing damsels trapped at the tops of towers, 'cause you're doing a piss-poor job of it." she told him flatly and glared up at the inferno, "That fire is amazing, though. What did you do?"
"I blew up the nullification generators, and it kinda came back to bite me in the butt." Timmy replied with a sheepish laugh as the wall was shoved forward again, "Uh? Lil help?" Tootie tilted her head one way, then the other, as if trying to look at the hall full of fire from another angle.
"Well, um... I guess we... Hell." she muttered in frustration, "I wish I had a pair of sunglasses." Romi sighed beside her.
"I'd love to grant that now that the field's gone, but I still don't have my wand." the fairy told her helplessly.
"Chester's got it. He took it to the party in the park." Timmy spoke up and shook his head at their puzzled looks, "Long story, tell you later." He held out a hand. "Tootie, give me your glasses." The girl slipped the cat's-eye frames off and passed them over, watching through her blurred vision as the tinted blue lenses deepened to a glossy black in the immortal's grip. "Okay, put them back on. That should work."
She slid the frames back on and hesitantly peeked at the raging fire that looked to be dying down now. The new tinting made it much more bearable to look at the flames, and she grinned. "Nice. The fire's going down, but there's still a lot of it out there." Tootie commented and then tilted her head, "Um, why are you trying to hold it back with Boltzman's Shield?"
Timmy looked at her like she'd just lost her mind. "To keep it from flooding the hall and burning you to death?" he retorted, "I mean, it'll hurt like all get out if I get set on fire, but last I checked I'm allowed to not really care that much about what happens to me in fatal situations like this one." The Goth hummed to herself, folding her arms over her chest -and Timmy had a new sense of appreciation over how she was able to do that, being a girl and all- and staring up at the firestorm. "So... help?" he added, wondering if his struggle to hold back a cracking wall barricading an inferno was too subtle for her.
"If everything has mana, and fire has mana, and you can drain mana from stuff that's around you," Tootie remarked in that thoughtful tone that screamed 'I'm surrounded by idiots', "why haven't you just drained that thing?"
Timmy gave her a flat glare. "You wanna know why? Lemme show you." he growled and turned his focus on the flames, shattering the wall and latching onto the mana in the fire in nearly the same moment. The inferno surged forward, and Tootie and Romi threw themselves backwards with cries of shock and alarm, but the fire suddenly turned back in on itself, as though sucked into a drain. More and more flames spiraled around that central point, suspended right in the middle of the hallway.
In a few moments, the last of the flames vanished, a flash of light erupting that nearly blinded the girl and her fairy. When the light faded, Tootie and Romi looked up to see the brunet floating high above them, hanging like a puppet with all its strings gone slack. He looked like he'd been dipped in liquid fire, reds and yellows and oranges rippling over his body. Slowly, Timmy descended from the air before dropping the last couple of feet to the floor with a soft grunt of pain. When the color faded, leaving him to look normal, Tootie and Romi both hurried to his side, the Goth rolling him onto his back in concern.
"Hah... there. Now you see?" Timmy panted with a shaky smile, face flushed and damp and glazed eyes looking up at her. He looked feverish. "Too much... of one Element's mana... I get affected by it." he wheezed, "Same with taking it from antis... 's why my magic turned black..." Tootie sighed harshly, shaking her head as she grabbed his hands and pulled him to his feet, slinging one arm across her shoulders and wrapping one of her own around his waist.
"Let's just get out of here and go home and never speak of this night or day or whatever ever again. Please?" Romi asked her godchild as they started hobbling down the hallway.
"Sounds good. Let's get the rest of the team and beat it." Tootie agreed, worried tone creeping into her voice, "Timmy, who else is here?"
"Caleb, Cosmo, Wanda, Anti-Cosmo, Anti-Wanda..." the brunet muttered, "Last four should be putting up barriers... then coming here... if they got my note." Two puffs of light blue smoke bloomed in the air nearby, clearing to reveal the anti-fairies and their light counterparts floating by them. Timmy beamed at them. "Better late... than never, huh?" he remarked happily.
"Yes, well, Anti-Wanda stopped for a little snack along the way and didn't have a napkin." Anti-Cosmo told him in a faintly sheepish tone, holding a dripping piece of paper between two fingertips and away from himself, "You can imagine it's not easy to decipher your words when they're covered in mustard and chili."
"Was good eatin', though!" Anti-Wanda declared brightly and chomped the note out of her husband's grasp, chewed, then swallowed in one go. Wanda looked down the hall, at the blackened and smoldering floor and walls, then down at the feverish immortal before looking over at Tootie and Romi.
"Well, at least you found your friends. Shame you can't do it without causing trouble for yourself." the pink-haired fairy scolded, exasperated glare focused on Timmy. He managed a one-shoulder shrug, and she rolled her eyes. "Well, this Spire's out of commission now, so that's a bonus. I guess." she sighed, "As soon as the leftover nullifier waves fade out, we can grant a wish to get out of here."
"I beg your pardon, Wanda." Anti-Cosmo pointed out dryly, "But aren't we forgetting someone?" He gestured out towards the end of the hall in the direction of the elevators just as another distant scream echoed around the walls.
"Caleb!" Timmy realized, eyes wide and blinking rapidly as he tried to shake off the fever and stumble forward, "So... all this time... he's been screaming his head off? And nobody went to help him?"
"We thought it was Tootie!" Wanda exclaimed in surprise, gesturing between herself and Cosmo, who had been strangely silent throughout the conversation.
"We're antis. We don't help anyone, normally." Anti-Cosmo told the brunet flatly, "You're a very rare exception, Timothy."
Timmy didn't answer him, breaking away from the group to run back down the hallway with a fairly uneven gait, almost stumbling at points from the fever. Tootie raced after him, calling his name again as the fairies and antis flew on to flank them and stay close. A heavy feeling sank in his stomach as he drew closer to the starting junction and the screams became easier to hear, pain and terror clear in the echoing voice. He shouldn't have split them up; he should have tried harder to think of another plan, but he was too caught up in just wanting to find Tootie and Romi and bring them home.
This was all his fault. He was horrible at rescuing people; Tootie was doing a way better job than him right now.
~Dark Spire, Exterior
.
Remy didn't know whether to smile or scowl when he saw the top of the Spire explode outward on one side, sending debris and fire and smoke pouring out into the night sky. So he kept his mouth in a thin line, waiting, watching, certain that the lovely girl from his study would soon come out of there. He rubbed a thumb over the choker he had torn from her neck back in the manor. It had carried a small Heart of Dimmsdale charm on it to protect her from wishes and he pulled it off to dump into a gutter first chance he had.
As soon as she was out of the Spire on her silly rescue mission, Remy was going to use a wish to whisk her to his side and from there to some nice restaurant or maybe a movie. What would be playing this time of night? Horrors, yes?
Behind him, Juandissimo kept up his awful acting of flailing around like something vile had been shoved down his throat and he couldn't get it out. It was kind of annoying to hear but the boy didn't feel like addressing him on the issue. He was still miffed that his fairy godfather had gotten the notion to betray him -weren't fairy godparents supposed to be blindly loyal to their godchildren?- and decided to give him the silent treatment until the convenience ended.
Still, it wouldn't hurt to have some extra reinforcements in case someone tried to foil his plans. Remy pulled out his phone again and dialed Crocker's number, waiting impatiently for him to pick up.
When he finally did, the old teacher was in a surly, distracted mood. "What now? I'm busy." he griped, the faint sounds of screams providing a proper Halloween background.
"I want the Snipers activated and under my command at Spire Two." Remy told him curtly and lifted an eyebrow at the sound of keys tapping and the screams growing louder. "What are you doing? Is that some Halloween audio thing you're playing for the hell of it?" he demanded in irritation.
"For your information, no. I found something interesting trying to hack the Spire Server Control System, so I'm hacking it back."
"And... it screams? What is it, some kind of custom computer that wails when you push the wrong button?"
"Something like that. So you want the Snipers active now? One moment, I've almost got him... ah, he still has a few more defenses left. That gives me some time to set up the activation." Remy rolled his eyes, tapping his foot against the pavement impatiently. "All right. They're active and primed to follow your voice-print. Just command them to do whatever. Now if you don't mind I'm trying to seize control of a rather advanced piece of technology." He hung up abruptly and Remy sighed, putting the phone away as hatch doors embedded around the lot opened, revealing several dozen of the beautifully sleek, black units that were called Sniper because of the laser rifles mounted to their undercarriage.
"Looks like we're all getting new toys to play with tonight." he mused with a smirk.
~Dark Spire, Interior
.
One wing flared and stretched to its full length, mana shooting through intermittently to create the red 'feathers'. Caleb half lay over the console, gritting his teeth as he tried harder to pull his own wing down. The other stretched across the console beside him, 'feathers' flared for examination via the screen.
He'd already lost control of that one and refused to lose the other. He screamed again, pain and panic and fury filling his voice as another of his firewalls crashed down. Enraged, Caleb thrashed wildly against the control console, half-controlled wing flapping against the monitors and machinery.
"Let go of me!" he yelled up at the leering old man hunched over his keyboard. He kicked at the console and floor with one leg, the other had seized up and buckled under him, forcing him into his current position to support his weight and keep his hands on the data pads.
The battle in his own system had raged for the last few minutes, with Caleb building up as many new defenses as he could behind ones that fell under the assault of worms and viruses while bolstering the download speed of the nullifier files. As firewalls were destroyed and control systems became exposed, the angelic android found himself with his worst nightmare coming to pass; control of his body was slowly being stripped from him, and he'd screamed in terror as his wings suddenly unfolded without his command.
From there he fought on three grounds; downloading files, rebuilding defenses, and trying to wrest back control of areas he'd lost. Splitting his focus only made him an easier target, and Caleb raged at that fact, screaming and cursing and thrashing as he lost his left wing and was forced to watch the smug look on Crocker's face as he typed out a command, moved that stupid little wired mouse to one side, and his wing, his beautifully crafted wing, obediently spread out and lay stretched for the old man to admire.
It was enough to make Caleb snap. If he'd had the Eternal Sword Pin, he would not have hesitated to use its power to murder that man in the viewscreen.
"Oh, please, do keep fighting me. This is quite fun to watch." Crocker chuckled as he went on typing, "You call yourself an angel, yet you swear enough to make a soldier faint. Oh? Now I'm getting access to some nice files. I think I'll just..."
"No! No no no!" Caleb shrieked, and in frantic desperation slammed his forehead against the console, stunning himself with just how panicked and disoriented he was becoming. It was just enough loss of focus that his right wing snapped up and control of it slipped away from him.
He could feel files in his mind being opened, scanned over, and copied. Copied! He shrieked again, growing past rage to full on wrathful, thrashing about harder as Crocker repeated the motion with his mouse and his right wing lay down over the console.
It was humiliating; wings spread out and bowed over the machine, Caleb felt horribly exposed and all he could do was give up on trying to get his wings back for the moment and focus on protecting what ground he had left. If he lost access to his core systems, if Crocker broke past those last barriers, it would all be over.
He'd be trapped in his own body while it became a puppet in Crocker's hands.
"Let me go! Let me go! Stop it!" he screamed, and still he refused to lift his hands away from the pads. All for the sake of information, for the sake of gaining knowledge of what the data entailed. Perfect neutrality was going to kill him one day. But he had eighty percent of the program downloaded and he just had to hold on, a little longer, a little longer.
"More of that strange written language again. Luckily I can read one word in all this mess. It repeats often, so I'm assuming it's a reference to you." Crocker mused aloud, more a gloat than actual wondering, "Would I be right in assuming your designation is 'Caleb'? A Hebrew name for faithful, the ever-loyal servant of the divine. Didn't peg Hounder to be of Jewish faith."
"Get out of my head!" Caleb yelled, eyes blazing bright green with vengeful fury, promises of horrible revenge written all over his face.
"I guess that's a yes. So... Caleb, then. Short, to the point, significant. I like it. Know what I like the sound of better? My Caleb. How does that appeal to you?" Crocker asked him conversationally. Caleb snarled something that probably would have made the demons of Niflheim take offense. "I suppose it doesn't, not now. We can fix that once I've broken you like I broke Hounder's little detection device."
Another wall went down and the android was horrified to find a sob escape his mouth, struggling to pick himself up but unable to as his wings held him in place far better than anything else. "P-please! Get out of me!" Caleb begged, hating himself for it, "I'm the Guardian Angel of Heroes! You can't do this to me!"
"You sound like you're starting to break. Am I getting close to the best part of your programming? That explains these new barriers. Lucky thing Buxaplenty paid for the very best hacking programs money could buy." Crocker sneered gleefully, "Would you like to see what they do to firewalls like those?" Caleb shook his head furiously as he debated what to do, which of the two grounds he was battling on was more important. What to focus on; the download of the files, or protecting his core systems from being invaded and overridden?
"They eat them, Caleb; tear at coding like maggots on decayed flesh." the old man whispered darkly, watching the android shudder and cringe, trying to pull away from the screen and unable to move, "They writhe through the little cracks and pull them apart layer by layer. I imagine it would be quite like being flayed alive, if you were human. Can you feel it? I've already poured them into your outer systems; they'll be reaching that barrier... now."
Pain exploded in Caleb's mind, ripping another scream from his mouth. His firewalls began crumbling under the onslaught, the strongest ones he had left, the ones that stood guard over his core systems. They began cracking, strings of code falling apart and collapsing while the hostile programming chewed right through them and he shuddered as he made his choice.
"Crocker? What are you doing to him?" Timmy cried in horror behind him, and Caleb moaned softly, trying to shrink and hide behind his outstretched wings. He didn't want the boy to see him like this, at his lowest, at his most humiliated.
"Ah, the new Timmy, the one fighting on behalf of the dead Heart." Crocker returned almost reverently, breathing the name as if it were divine, "How are you doing? Have you gotten any stronger? I hope you have; I want to see you at your most powerful. Soon, very soon."
"Forget all that! What are you doing to Caleb? Stop it! Let him go!" Timothy demanded, stepping into the room and standing unsteadily before the screen as Tootie and the fairies rushed in and then hurriedly backed out, eyes wide and horrified at what they saw within the room. Crocker paid them no attention, focus almost entirely on the brunet and the redhead.
"No, I don't think I will. I'm going to take control of your toy there, and I'll tell him to come to me and help me with my plans." the old teacher returned evenly, "You've disabled that Dark Spire, haven't you? I don't care about it. I just want you to be strong for my purposes. Then, maybe I'll be forgiven for the death of Timmy Turner."
Timothy shook his head, still shocked that Caleb was caught up in some horrible computer trap. "You don't have to do any of this, anything at all! You weren't responsible for Timmy Turner's death!" he declared, holding a hand up to his heart, "I've been investigating with the help of my team; you were framed by Remy! He was the one who conspired to murder Timmy four years ago! You're innocent of it all! Shut off the Dark Spires and let Caleb go! Now!"
Crocker stared at him, expression giving nothing away as he clasped his hands together in front of him, just before the keyboard. Caleb slumped against the console, body going completely slack as he closed his eyes, waiting for the end of his choice to come to pass. Timothy stood in the control center, willing the old man on the screen to agree with him.
"It doesn't matter, in the end. We are all guilty of not seeing the Heart for the treasure he was to us. We are all murderers." Crocker told him bluntly, "Dimmsdale will burn without the Heart; my only interest is in gaining his forgiveness, not yours." He looked over at the redhead lying still on the console. "Just two more firewalls to go."
"Old man." Caleb growled softly, opening his eyes to glare up at the screen, "Are you recording this? Are you documenting what you're doing to me on that pathetic little computer in your wretched lair?"
"Purely for entertainment value, yes. Why?"
The smile spreading over Caleb's face was nothing less than pure malicious malevolence. "Good. That makes my job easier." he purred, resting his chin on the topmost edge of the console, "You see, I've finished getting what I wanted out of these servers. Now I'm going to give you something to make sure whatever you stole from me is useless to you."
"Caleb? What are you gonna do?" Timmy asked him in alarm, "What did Crocker steal from you? What happened?" The android ignored him, just took a deep breath... then began to sing.
"Gather, gather, twelve from virgin hens. One, one quarter, cup sweet snow in your hands." Caleb sang aloud. Both Timmy and Crocker stared at him in confusion, heads tilting. At the doorway Tootie scratched her head and looked up to the fairies.
"Any of you guys know what he's doing?" she asked as the singing went on, each lyric stranger than the last. Wanda scrunched up her face, as if trying to figure out what was the point of singing such a bizarre song. Cosmo scratched at his chin, thinking it over as well before snapping his fingers with a smile.
"I know this song! It's the 'Make All The Electronic Stuff Go Boom' song!" he laughed. Tootie's eye twitched behind her glasses as she glanced around at the rows and rows of servers blinking away in the room.
"Um... there's a lot of electronic stuff in there." she commented.
"Rise, rise, rise, mountains of snow. Sprout from single flower, quarter, quarter, twice I know. Draw your breath from before, brace for warmth." Caleb sang, that smile never leaving his face as Crocker bent back to his work, deciding that he'd gone insane.
"I'm just... I'm just gonna back up a little." Timmy remarked, looking faintly disturbed as he backed away from the android. What the heck was he doing?"
"Timmy! Put up a shield!" Wanda cried as she realized at last what was happening. The brunet gave a start, leaping back to the entrance of the room and throwing his hands forward to project Boltzman's Shield. Instead of the cool iridescent blue cascade that rippled before him, the wall was now a fiery red and gold, shapes dancing through like a campfire.
"See? Affected." the still-feverish boy grumbled to Tootie.
"Final firewall down in three..."
"Soft, soft, warm until soft."
"Two..."
"And when the land springs..."
"One..."
"Angel's kiss bless us all!"
Simultaneously, both the console and Crocker's computer flashed red light, grating electronic screams sounding from the machinery as sparks flew from the servers. Crocker pushed himself back from his desktop with a sharp curse, the video feed flickering as his computer sparked and popped and finally exploded. Timmy and Tootie, with the fairies hovering around them, watched in shock as the dozens of servers began exploding within the room, Caleb still slumped against the console and unmoving.
"Cosmo, Wanda! I wish Caleb was out here with us!" the brunet finally found his voice and blurted out the wish. The couple lifted their wands and, with a poof of pink smoke, the android appeared in the hallway, lying on the floor with both wings still unfolded. "Tootie, check if he's okay. I'm still holding the shield in place."
The Goth's idea of 'checking if someone's okay' involved poking them in the face until they woke up and growled at her. In Caleb's case, it took a couple of minutes before he opened one eye and glared at her with it. She grinned and looked back over her shoulder. "He's fine!" she declared.
"Depends on your definition of 'fine'." the redhead grumbled, pushing himself up and getting to his feet, "I cut that way too close. Just a hair slower in singing the Wonder Lullaby and I'd be some creepy old man's new toy." He shuddered, a look of disgust on his face. "I don't want to have to go through that again." he muttered. He looked back and scowled at his wings. "On top of that, I still can't get control of my wings back. Those viruses are still running and it'll be a bit before I can kill them and completely recover from the damage."
Anti-Cosmo lifted his hand, his face incredulous by what he'd witnessed. "Forgive me for not being 'in the loop', but how did a ridiculous song like that destroy every electrical device in that room and Crocker's computer?" he demanded to know in that trilling tone he got when genuinely baffled by something.
"Honestly? I don't know myself." Caleb told him with a shrug, "I just discovered one day that any electronic device that tries to record my voice singing that song self-destructs." He looked down at Tootie and Romi, frowning slightly. "Are you two all right? I assume you've both been sealed up here ever since you were captured."
"We're okay." Tootie told him, "We were kept fed and there was a bathroom here, so at least our little prison was built for living people."
"Yes, so if it's not too much trouble, may we please leave now?" Romi pleaded, hair a frazzled mess and expression one of someone on the verge of dropping out of exhaustion. Timmy dropped the shield and turned to face the group, smiling tiredly.
"I think we can go to the park now. The nullification generators have been destroyed along with the Spire Server Control Center. This tower's pretty much out of commission." the brunet agreed and looked worriedly at the android, "Now are you sure you're okay, Caleb?"
"I'll be fine once I get back to New York and get my systems scanned and these viruses purged." the redhead dismissed airily, waving one hand aside, "Would you wish us to the parking lot outside? If there were any units active outside when the Spire shut down, they'll be offline and I can take a few back with me for analysis." His gaze sharpened towards the smoking room behind the brunet. "I am not happy with what that human did to me, and I'd rather take out my frustrations on his little creations."
Timmy sighed, rolling his eyes. His teacher tended to go off on long-winded rants if he didn't get what he wanted, so better get him his toys now. "Fine. Cosmo, Wanda, I wish we were all outside the Spire and on the lot below us." he declared, thrusting a finger into the air.
"Finally! I thought we were going to be here all night." Wanda sighed in relief, lifting her wand in tandem with her husband and poofing them all away.
~Dark Spire, Exterior
.
When the pink smoke cleared, Timmy's jaw dropped in horror, blue eyes wide as he took in the sight of a cloud of sleek black machines, some armed with strange rifles and some not, floating around the group, Remy Buxaplenty standing a short distance away with a puzzled look on his face.
"I was expecting a beautiful girl to come out of there, dragging that sorry Goth and her fairy after her." the blonde remarked with an annoyed lilt to his voice, glaring at the brunet, "Instead I find you, mongrel, with that irritating angel, the antis and..." He paused, blinking at Cosmo and Wanda floating nearby with stunned expressions on their faces as they kept their eyes on the new units. "Both of Turner's fairies? Here? How-?"
"Run!" Timmy yelled, racing forward to throw himself at the boy billionaire, knocking them both to the ground. Caleb grabbed Tootie by the hand and bolted, darting over the pavement as Romi screamed and raced after them, flying as fast as she could while several of the black units broke away from the pack and followed them. Cosmo and Wanda hesitated, gazes going back and forth between the scuffling boys and the remaining armed units aiming their guns at the two, several other black units deploying butterfly nets in preparation for capture.
"Anti-Cosmo! Get them out of here!" Timmy roared as he was shoved back against the pavement, the blonde taking that chance to swing back a fist and punch him squarely in the face.
"Let's go, idiots!" the anti-fairy cried, grabbing both fairies by the backs of their shirts and taking off into the air, beating his wings rapidly as his wife followed after, chucking boots and yowling black cats after the units that swerved to follow them. Juandissimo watched them zip away in streaks of pink, green and deep blue, and found himself longing to join them in their escape. Then he sighed and turned back to watch the battling boys with a grim expression on his face.
"Where is she?" Remy demanded, gripping the brunet by the collar of his turtleneck and shaking him fiercely. Timmy coughed, hands clutching at the other boy's wrists. Nose bleeding and head swimming from pain and fever, he forced his eyes open to smile widely at the enraged blonde.
"Wh-who?" he asked in return.
"Your sister, you insufferable mongrel!" Remy snarled, shaking him harder, "That girl you sent to my mansion to find your little girlfriend and her fairy! She said she was coming here, so I came as well and instead of her, I find you!"
Timmy laughed, shaky and forced, before suddenly striking back himself and slamming the heel of his hand against the side of Remy's head. The blonde fell aside in shock, pain and surprise that the brunet would even do that, one hand rising up to press against the throbbing sore spot. Timmy scrambled to his feet, pulling the Blue Crystal Rod free and swinging it to knock one of the new black units down. The others hummed as they hovered further out of reach, armed units moving back while netted ones quivered as if in anticipation.
"Y-you came here... for Timantha?" the immortal asked incredulously, rubbing his arm across his face to try wiping blood away. He laughed again, then spat out a mouthful of the liquid onto the ground. "You just keep digging yourself deeper... don'tcha?" he added, shaking his head.
"Where is she?" Remy growled, scrabbling up to his feet and running straight at the brunet again. Timmy tried leaping away, swayed unsteadily instead, and held up the rod in an attempt to hold the blonde at bay. Remy slammed right into him, hurling him back enough to smash the brunet against the base of the Dark Spire and press the rod hard across his ribcage. Timmy cried out in pain, gasping as it became harder to breathe. Remy applied more pressure to the replicated staff, glaring furiously at his rival while the brunet kicked weakly at his armored legs. "Tell me where she is, or I'll break your ribs with your staff." he growled, "My Sniper-class units will hunt down and fire on your little allies and Turner's fairies. I don't know how you got both of them working for you, or even how their magic affected you. I don't care now." He leaned more weight on the rod and grinned coldly at the strangled cry of pain that elicited. "The girl you call Timantha; where is she?"
"M-my... my face." Timmy gasped out, pushing back on the rod to gain space and breathing room. He clenched his teeth together from the effort, grimacing as his vision grew hazy again.
"Who cares about your stupid face? Where is the girl?" Remy snapped.
"No... haven't you noticed?" Timmy growled back, glaring at the blonde as he forced him to take a few shuffling steps back, both of them gripping the Blue Crystal Rod, "The blood... on my face... doesn't it look familiar to you?" Green eyes grew faintly confused, tracing over the features of his face rapidly before returning to glare back at him.
"No, it doesn't. Stop changing the subject!" Remy hissed.
"I am not!" Timmy snapped, giving the blonde a swift kick to the stomach that had Remy double over with a grunt, releasing his hold on the staff. The young immortal yanked it free and over his head before snapping his leg upward to catch the other boy's chin, flinging him backwards. Juandissimo immediately waved his wand to heal his godchild's injuries, glaring angrily at the brunet for daring to kick him like that. Timmy leaned heavily against the rod for support, breathing hard and wincing at the cracked ribs. "That," he bit out harshly, "was for beating me over the head with your stupid poker!" Remy groaned, twitching before rolling aside to get up and scowl at him.
"I did no such thing to you!" he spat as he got to his feet, pulling his rapier free, "But if I had the opportunity, I'd love to cave your skull in and see if you can survive that!"
"And what's with all these new units?" Timmy yelled in frustration, "I destroyed the Spire Control Center; they shouldn't even be active!" He swung the rod suddenly, hitting one of the downed silver units like a giant golf ball and launching it in Remy's direction, "They should be dead like these things!"
The blonde dodged the sudden attack and dashed forward, thrusting the rapier ahead of himself. Timmy cried out in pain as the steel plunged through his body, just under his rib cage. He cringed -that was going to leave a hell of a scar on both sides of his body-, one hand clutching at Remy's shoulder while the other held onto the staff.
"You should have stayed dead." Remy murmured darkly, twisting the rapier and listening to the brunet whimper, "Now where is your sister?"
"T-too bad." Timmy returned with a grim smile, lifting his head as he focused on the excess fire mana still stored in himself, "I was looking forward to being the boy who would be queen, but running me through the gut with your sword? Deal-breaker!" Remy had a brief second to look completely baffled by his words before Timmy unleashed the extra mana, wrapping himself in the flames and driving the blonde back. The boy billionaire cried out in shock and alarm, releasing the rapier and slapping at his arm to put out the extra flames. "Gail Fortia!"
The wind rushed out from him, carrying the flames up and outward into the black units. Timmy watched carefully to see how the units reacted, eyes widening as his spell fizzled out as they drew close to each unit. 'Nullifiers? Each one has its own nullifier!'
"The Dark Spires now have backup control centers sealed within the cores of each tower! There's no way you can shut these units down and we'll still get information on what dirty tactics you use!" Remy declared arrogantly, narrowing his eyes as Timmy pulled the bloodied rapier out of his body and held it out to him.
"Thanks for the info. You want this back?" the brunet quipped dryly.
"I'd rather have your sister." Remy grumbled.
"Yeah? Well, you're not getting her." Timmy shot back, tossing the sword away, 'Especially since I'm the girl you're so gung-ho on nabbing! How do I get myself into these messes?'
"You'll tell me where she is, or my Sniper-class units will gun down your little friends back there." Remy threatened, his voice hitching a little halfway through. His eyes darted around, then up at Juandissimo, who just gave him a sad, disappointed look and shook his head. "I will! I swear I'll have them all shot up with lasers and... and stuff!" he declared shakily.
"No. You won't." Timothy returned grimly, stepping backwards until his back hit the base of the Spire again, "You murdered Timmy Turner four years ago for these Dark Spires; I'm not going to let you murder any more innocent people." He reached back, placing his open hand against the smooth black granite. "If the backup control system is protected by being stuck in the middle of the tower, then I'll just have to get rid of the whole thing."
"You can't! You have no allies with you, no equipment, and you don't have the magical power to take out an entire Dark Spire all on your own!" Remy declared with a triumphant smile, pointing at him victoriously, "Face it, Neogene; you have nothing and will be nothing!"
He could feel it; fairy magic coating the black granite, protecting it from outside attack, the mana that formed the rock and the metal and the plastic and everything inside the tower. Timmy closed his eyes, focusing, clearing his mind and concentrating only on that flow of mana in the tower.
"Wh-what are you doing?" Remy questioned shakily, curious as to what the brunet was planning with his back to the wall. Literally. He looked up at Juandissimo in confusion. "What is he doing?"
"I do not know, amigo. Contemplating defeat? The futility of life?" the Latino fairy replied with an indifferent shrug, "The unsexiness of the idea that you have the hots for his 'sister'?"
"I didn't ask for your opinion on that." Remy growled, turning back to glare at the brunet, pulling a dagger from his belt and stalking forward, "But I'm going to go break his concentration."
Mana could become anything he wished if he could picture it and enforce that image in his head onto reality itself. Anything was possible if he could imagine it and just do it. Images of the Spire blueprints swept through his mind, hours spent poring over them all to find weak spots and plan attacks. He knew how the Spires were built from foundation on up; he could see it all perfectly in his mind.
And he was not in a good mood after all he'd been through tonight.
Just as Remy drew close enough to drive the dagger into him, Timothy opened his eyes and lashed out, gripping the boy's wrist and taking him by surprise. He stepped forward, forcing the startled blonde back as he growled in new frustration and fury. "You have really, really gotten on my nerves tonight, Remy." he hissed, "You kidnapped my friends, you hurt your own fairy, you teamed up with pixies to murder Timmy Turner, you threw my anti-fairies out a window while they were hurt, you clocked me on the head with a freaking fireplace poker, and worst of all, ruined the dress Caleb bought for me!" The boy billionaire's eyes seemed to just bug out of his head at the list of crimes being listed off.
"So you know what? I'm going to tell you something, and you'd better listen good, because I'm only saying it once." Timothy went on icily, sliding the Blue Crystal Rod back into his harness and plucking the dagger out of Remy's hand to show it to him, "I am an immortal; I can never die. I can take this dagger, which has your name written on it, and stab myself in the heart with it. Just stab it right in there. It'll hurt, but it won't kill me. I'll bleed all over it, and then I'll send it to the police, with a note, that says 'Remy Buxaplenty used this knife to kill Timothy Neogene, the adopted son of Hounder and heir to the Hounder Organization.'"
"And then I'll go to your house and lie down on the floor and wait. Wait for the cops to show up and take pictures and collect evidence and put me in a body bag for autopsy. And you'll be hauled in and arrested and charged with my murder. And I'll just get up and walk out of the morgue. Just like that."
Narrow blue eyes met horrified green, faces brought so close together their noses nearly touched. "Now, Remy," Timmy finished harshly, "be glad, so very glad, I'm the good guy."
With that, he flicked the dagger down so it stuck into the pavement, a dome of iridescent mana flowing down from over the both of them and creating a large enough Boltzman's Shield to cover the immortal, the boy billionaire and the Latino fairy, then threw his hand back to snap fingers at the Dark Spire, the sound cracking unnaturally loud in the dead silence.
A blast of fire and roaring thunder went off around the base of the Spire, wrapping and skipping around the dome to leave the three of them untouched. The ground shook violently, but Timmy stood firm, holding the terrified blonde up by his wrist so he could watch every moment. Behind the brunet, the bright flames lighting him made him seem so much fiercer, blue eyes so inhumanely bright, and the Dark Spire shuddered. Metal and granite groaned and screamed with unearthly voices and finally, the entire tower lifted off, ribbons of mana streaming out from the sides of the building to create translucent stabilizing wings.
Higher and higher, the Dark Spire rocket climbed into the skies above Dimmsdale, until it was little more than a speck of pitch black against the deep purple of the night. And then it exploded, a massive blast that formed a tiny sun to shine down on the miserable city. Whatever black units hadn't been destroyed by the ignition and launch immediately dropped out of the sky, smashing themselves against pavement in their deactivation.
When the smoke cleared, Timmy dropped the dome and shoved Remy back from himself, breathing hard and pressing one hand over the gushing wound below his ribs. The other boy was pale, trembling and unable to look away from him.
"Run." Timmy whispered, and Remy fled the lot with Juandissimo flying after him, the fairy glancing back at him in horror. Police sirens filled the air and Timmy decided he just didn't care anymore. He took a seat on the ground, surrounded by dead anti-magic units and sighed heavily before twirling a finger in the air.
"Whoo hoo." he muttered tiredly, "Happy Halloween, Dimmsdale. Hope you liked my fireworks show."