And now, the battle has begun! I called the chapter 'Round II', since it's the second round of the mob vs the servants, except with the first mob's descendants. Will they succeed or will the servants ensure that they leave with their heads behind their tails? Read on to find out!
Lumiere then signalled to the servants by flicking his candles, although this went unnoticed by Henri, who was still holding him as he thought that the candelabra was providing light to the darkened room.
'NOW!' he shouted and all of a sudden, to the shock of the mob, the room lit up and the objects jumped out of their hiding places and started charging towards them. It was something they had not expected and Henri certainly hadn't as he dropped Lumiere in shock.
'Arrggh!' he screamed, as felt some hot wax on his palm, 'that candle stick just burned me!'
'Well, what did you expect, you idiot, it was LIT!' Stephane said, 'Of course it was going to burn you!'
'No, I mean it came to life! The candle stick is alive I tell you and so is the rest of the furniture! Some of them even have human faces!' Henri said, shaking nervously but he quickly shrugged it off, for he was the leader of the Muscular Men and co-leader of the mob and this was no time to be scared, especially not in front of Amandine, as he didn't want her to think he was weak.
Pierre shot him a 'I told you so' look while the others saw the objects that they thought were motionless, now coming to life in front of them, when they had least expected it and it was making them nervous and scared, which irked their beloved goddess at seeing their cowardice.
'Don't just stand there, you morons, GET THEM!' Amandine screamed at her incompetent henchmen. Why did she think they could do this? These were SUPPOSED to be the strongest and bravest hunters in the village and all they proving to her were that they were nothing more than pathetic wimps.
Uncle Gaston would be rolling in his grave if he were to know that this generation of hunters who idolised him, dressed in his jerkin, albiet in different colours and competed in the sports that bore his name were cowards and sissies who couldn't hunt to save their lives, never mind those of the villagers.
'They're just FURNITURE and USELESS HOUSEHOLD OBJECTS that you should be attacking or stealing to use for cheap labour! They're standing in the way of me getting to the beast and you must stop them!
Even though you are incompetent cowards, you are bigger and have weapons to easily overpower them! We did not come all this way for you to be intimidated by silly objects!' she screamed.
'But they're ALIVE!' shouted Beauden, 'like they have some sort of magic in them and they are going to attack us for sure!'
'I told you so!' said Pierre, 'I said that they were looking at us and that they were alive! But you didn't listen to me! What shall we do? We've got DEMON furniture and objects charging towards us!'
'Attack them of course, Pierre, you effeminate dope!' Henri said, 'We are not a bunch of sissy girls like you, we are the best hunters in the region, if not France and our reputations are on the line so..'
'CHARRRGGGEEEE!' Remy screamed, 'Let's get these sissies and make sure that they leave with nothing but wounded pride and their heads between their tails!' as the servants hopped towards the mob.
'GET THEM BOYS!' Amandine shouted, 'Take out the objects that dare try to stop me from killing the beast for try as they may to protect her, they are about to let their guard down, courtesy of me..'
'Ahem,' the mob said.
'Sorry, courtesy of US, so lay siege and eliminate the useless furniture and household items!' she said.
'Come on, lads, no one lives forever!' Henri said, 'Let's do it for Amandine and to honour our great idol, Gaston and make him proud by doing what he failed to do! Get those evil objects that are standing in the way of our destiny!'
'CHARRRRGGGGGEEEE!' both the mob and the servants yelled as they charged towards each other and the second round of the battle that those before them had engaged in years ago had begun.
It soon became clear that these descendants of the first mob were no different to their predecessors, badly underestimating their opponents and they found themselves overwhelmed by them, as they were more than willing to put up a fight.
The hapless mob didn't know how to respond, totally unprepared for an army of household items who were attacking them before they could land the first hit.
The older men were quickly eliminated, as their skills and fighting spirit had rusted up over the years which made them easy pickings for the objects and the men were soon on the receiving end of having pots and pans hitting them on the head and being knocked out by cupboards, drawers and chairs.
Some were punched in the jaw by the coat rack and chairs which sent a few rotten teeth from their mouths flying through the air. One man had even been thrown into a chest that licked its lips and let out a belch, like the unfortunate man was an after dinner mint.
The few remaining older men were wrapped up by rugs and tossed out of the castle, humiliated and ruing another blown chance to raid the castle and defeat its occupants who clearly had the upper hand which left only Amandine and the younger boys.
Some of the young boys who were only about thirteen or fourteen and had never been hunting or taken part in a fight before, were completely overwhelmed by the whole thing and the mops took advantage of this fact by wrapping themselves around the hapless youths, dunked them into the buckets filled with soapy water and dragged them across the floor, their screams muffled by the mops.
'Hey check this out!' the melodramatic mop said as he dragged an unfortunate youth along the floor and dunked him into his bucket friend, 'I'm literally mopping the floor with this kid!' proud of his success and oblivious to the boy's screams.
'Good for you,' the bucket said, rather sarcastically. The mop soon discarded his victim and sent him out with the boy sobbing and coughing up bubbles, having swallowed a large amount of soap.
However, one cocky young boy had evaded the mops and was acting tougher than he really was by waving his fists around and kicking some brooms away, doing some very bad kung-fu moves and he was still looking for a fight.
'Come on, who wants a piece of me?' he said, rather arrogantly, not realising that Monique was coming up behind him, deciding that he needed to be taken down a peg or two and that he wasn't as tough as he thought he was.
'Oh honey, I don't want a piece of you,' she said, tapping his shoulder and he turned around and was shocked at seeing the vanity waving her drawers around in the same manner as he waved his fists and her brush and comb jumped out, ready to attack,
'I WANT THE WHOLE THING!' she said and the young boy was soon being whacked by Monique's drawers, brush and comb, the vanity chuckling as the boy sobbed hysterically for his mother and was in pain, having realised that it was more than he could handle.
All of his pride, supposed toughness and bravery had disappeared and he pathetically begged Monique to stop, which she finally did as she was bored of the bratty coward.
'That'll teach you to be cocky,' she said, as she released him and he ran out of the castle, embarrassed, bruised and sobbing in defeat, 'You're nothing more than a silly little boy, so go home and play with your toys and leave the fighting to the big boys,' smirking as she said it.
'Why Monique, I never knew you had it in you!' Babette said, chuckling, having seen the whole thing and found it amusing.
'Now and again, I'm full of surprises, honey,' Monique said, then noticed the baker's and fishmonger's sons charging towards them, 'Speaking of which, you better take care of these doofuses, they look like they want to tear off your feathers.'
'Don't remind me,' Babette said, shuddering. In the first battle, she had been weak and helpless as that horrid man tore her feathers without any mercy before Lumiere burnt him to save her but she wasn't going to be now. She was going to fight back and called to her fellow featherdusters,
'Come on girls, let's get these ruffians!' as they swept furiously towards the two boys who were fast approaching them. For them it looked like it would be too easy as all they had do to was tear off their feathers, it wasn't like the featherdusters could fight back, or so they thought, as the baker's son said,
'The featherdusters are coming, the featherdusters are coming! They're gonna get us!' as he hid behind the fishmonger's son, scared.
'Oh come on, you're seriously not scared of a harmless featherduster, are you?' the fishmonger's son said, rolling his eyes at his stupid companion, 'What are they going to do, tickle us to death?'
'No,' the baker's son said weakly.
'Then stop acting like a baby and tear their feathers off!' the fishmonger's son said. However, Babette and the featherdusters had other ideas and soon proved to be formidable opponents when they whipped up huge piles of dust from the floor which got into their eyes, blinding them and making them sneeze and cough.
'Say, you're kind of cute,' Babette said to the fishmonger's son, who blushed for he wasn't particularly attractive due to his buck teeth and chubby frame.
'Oh, thank you,' he said, just as she jumped on him and dusted him all over, which made him yelp and cough violently due to the dust covering him.
'Mon Dieu, ma cherie Babette is fighting that hooligan!' Lumiere gasped at seeing the love of his life attacking the fishmonger's son, which she had never done in the first battle, having been a damsel in distress when that villager tore at her feathers and he rescued her,
'And she's winning! I never knew she could do that before!' he then said, smiling.
'Yes and it looks like we're winning the battle too,' said Cogsworth, looking on proudly as his army was clearly having the upper hand over the incompetent villagers who were just as useless as their predecessors as their lack of fighting and hunting skills were finally catching up to them. They had definitely not signed up for this!
Amandine couldn't believe what was happening as she witnessed the carnage taking place and the growing pile of casualties surrounding her as each boy or young man had their butts handed to them by FURNITURE and HOUSEHOLD OBJECTS of all things and being thrown out of the castle as the mob was growing smaller with each member being disarmed and attacked.
This was supposed to be easy and those objects should have been defeated and destroyed by now and she would have been fighting with the beast, slaughtering her and finally winning her trophy husband, Leon, so why were these idiots making it so difficult and surrending so easily?
They were wimps, that was why and the village was in serious trouble if its so-called hunters could be so easily defeated by household items, which could somehow walk and talk and attack humans that were clearly bigger and stronger than them and were armed with weapons.
If Gaston was alive, he would have been enraged at those pathetic excuses for men who were mocking him and the things that he was famous for and Amandine did not want to shame her family name any more. She had to restore the little dignity it had left and get those sorry idiots focused on the task again.
'What's going on?' she said, 'why are you getting your pathetic behinds handed to you by HOUSEHOLD ITEMS?! Why are you letting them get the better of you? Why aren't you destroying them? WHY!?'
'YOU'RE ALL SUCH WIMPS!' she practically screamed at them but no one was taking notice as the battle continued and yet another villager was tossed out, having been chased away by some rogue brooms that had been whacking his behind.
Then she realised that this could be a blessing in disguise.
At least the boys and men would keep those objects distracted while she, SHE, alone could go and look for the beast. And what was stopping her? If she could lead an incompetent mob to the castle and let them distract its occupants, she was more than capable of taking on a beast.
She didn't need the boys and men anymore as she could do this herself and with no one in the way to stop her, the long-awaited victory that had eluded her family for so long, her lovely beast fur coat and her ultimate prize, Leon, would soon be hers and she cursed herself for not thinking about it earlier.
'Well, if you want something done, you've got to do it yourself and I don't need those idiots anymore, they can distract the objects while I hunt down that creature! The LeGumes will be victorious through me!
The beast will be dead and Leon will be mine, all mine!' she said, laughing evilly, as she made her way up the stairs, determined to find Rose and to end her life once and for all.
With the battle still going on, Pierre had snuck away into a quiet corner to calm his nerves by looking at himself in the mirror, as he usually did and not paying attention at all to what was going on and not even fighting, for he hated it and tried to avoid it whenever he could and this was proving to be no exception.
He was so absorbed in his reflection that he didn't notice Amelie and Raymond, followed by the paint bottles and brushes come up behind him.
'Hey, pretty boy!' Amelie shouted, which got Pierre's attention and he looked confusedly at the palette that was talking to him.
'You talking to me?' he said, rather stupidly which made Amelie roll her eyes.
'Yeah I am,' she said, 'Do you like looking at yourself in the mirror? Do you love seeing how handsome you are and wishing that you could marry your own reflection?'
'Why, yes I do,' Pierre said, rather sheepishly at hearing the latter, since that was what the boys had often said to him but he didn't realise, since he was too stupid and self-absorbed, that the palette was toying with him so she could attack him.
'Well, let me help you with your MAKE-UP!' Amelie shouted and before Pierre realised what was happening, both she and Raymond got the paint bottles to squirt and splatter paint on his face, which made him scream in pain.
'My face!' he wailed, 'my beautiful, beautiful face!' as he collapsed and rolled on the floor, looking ridiculous with various paint blobs on his face, as they stung his eyes while the paint bottles continued squirting him, splattering paint onto his clothes and hair, which made him wail even more.
He took great pride and care in his shiny long blonde hair and did not want it to get dirty or have anyone touch it and now it was being ruined by paint, which was more than he could bear.
'No, don't touch my hair! You DO NOT touch my hair!' he said, trying to bat the brushes away as they twisted his hair tightly, making him wince in pain, 'it's the only thing I care about the most!'
Amelie and Raymond smiled at seeing the boy looking like one of Sophie's pictures, as he kept rolling on the floor, trying to get the brushes and bottles out of his hair and off his clothes.
They then felt a pang of sadness, for they still didn't know where Sophie was, but hoped that she was safe at, but excited in fighting against a mob and being on the winning side.
'Now he looks better than ever!' Raymond chuckled. Pierre, looking ridiculous and hideous, with various paint colours splatted on his face, hair and clothes, ran out of the castle crying at having his beautiful hair and looks ruined.
Elsewhere, Mrs Potts, Chip and the teacups were pouring hot tea on anyone who tried to get near them and Chip was clearly enjoying taking part in a battle that he missed out on the first time, feeling the rush and excitement of it all.
'You look like you could use a nice cup of tea,' Mrs Potts said to a young man as he approached them.
'Oh, thank you madame,' he said, 'all this fighting is making me thirsty, it is,'
'Here you go!' said Chip and he poured the hot liquid on the man who cried out in pain.
'Ahhhh, I'm scalded, I am!' he screamed.
'Take that, you scurvy scum!' Mrs Potts said, as Chip and the teacups laughed and smirked at the young man's expense as he ran away screaming, while Katrine was dodging the Etienne triplets as they swung their musical instruments, trying to land a few hits on her, as she tried to avoid them.
For a bunch of talentless musicians who had never hunted or took part in a raid of a castle before, they were proving that they were capable of fighting even if they were using musical instruments as weapons and Katrine was finding it difficult to evade them, as she didn't have any arms to land any punches.
'Ha, ha, tough luck dummy!' Thomas taunted, as he swung his flute, barely missing Katrine as she dodged it.
'Yeah..for you!' Katrine said, finding her inner strength as she head butted the eldest triplet, who wasn't expecting it and yelped in pain before being knocked out cold, his brothers following suit as they too received head butts, their last thoughts being,
'Did that dummy just head butt us?' before collapsing on top of Thomas on the floor, dazed and confused and the brooms swept them up, which eliminated three more members of the mob, whose numbers of men and boys were drastically decreasing by the minute, as they were proving to be no match for the servants and were being easily defeated by them, just like the first time.
And the co-leader, Henri, while he managed to land a few hits against some mops and buckets, he too succumbed as Remy and George snuck up behind him and Remy shouted to distract him from chopping a broom in half,
'Hey loser, you're all washed up!' which made the boy turn around and before he could land the first hit, George, full of soapy water, scooped him up and he landed inside him, thrashing furiously as the washtub jumped him up and down.
'May I, Georgie?' Remy said, seeing the boy struggle and thrash against the water, as George moved him around, getting an idea to scrub him.
'Be my guest,' George said and Remy rubbed himself against the hapless boy who screamed in pain at having the metal grooves on his skin, which would be more than painful as his jerkin was being ripped to pieces and being thrown and thrashed around by a rouge washtub and washboard didn't help his cause as the latter was laughing his head off, enjoying his pain.
'I could do this all night, I swear,' Remy said, as the battle went on around them with neither party giving up the fight but the invaders were getting nowhere fast and now that the co-leader was having his butt handed to him by a washboard and washtub, it was inevitable that these young men and boys would be the losers.
Back in the village, Leon, Madeleine, Jean-Luc and Martine, unaware of the battle that was taking place in the castle, were resigned to their fate and feeling hopeless about not being able to stop Amandine and the mob and save Rose, when all of a sudden, they heard the whinnies of Sabine outside and the sound of wood breaking.
'Come on Sabine, you can do it!' Sophie said, still on the horse, 'just one more kick and we can rescue Leon, his mother and those strange people from the basement!'
Sabine whinnied and used all her strength to kick open the doors, which were all but hanging on by a thread and needed one final push before they would give way and the prisoners would be free.
'What the devil is going on out there?' Madeleine said, as she went over to the doors, 'what is Sabine doing?' then realised that they had been broken open by the horse, as her final kick made them fly off their hinges and were fast tumbling down towards the floor and the group.
'Leon, look out!' she cried, quickly running away and shielding her son and his friends from the impact of the falling debris, as the doors fell on the floor in pieces, sending wood chips and dust flying in the air but miraculously missing the group, who coughed at the dust that the debris had made, but they were no longer trapped in the basement.
'Sabine!' Leon cried out at seeing the brave and tough horse looking down at them and whinnied in triumph at having saved her masters and also eager to get back to the castle and to her love, Philippe, as they got out of the basement and went over to the horse, who was panting heavily from her rescue mission.
'You did it girl! What a brave, clever and tough horse you are! But how did you do it?' Leon said, nuzzling and hugging her but had an inkling that he knew already.
The answer soon came in the form on Sophie, who was now hanging off the horse, having been tangled in her reins, with a dazed look on her face.
'You've got to try this sometime,' she said, dizzy and disorientated and for Leon, how the doors were opened, it didn't take a genius to figure it out and he put two and two together.
'Sophie, you clever little paint bottle!' he said, 'you saved us all, but how did you manage to do that?' as he untangled Sophie from Sabine's reins and kissed her, which made the little paint bottle giggle.
'I saw that you, Madeleine and those two strange people..' Sophie said, tilting towards Jean-Luc and Martine, who looked at her in shock and disbelief at seeing an ordinary little paint bottle talk and how she managed to get Sabine to free them.
'They're not strange, Sophie, they're my friends, Jean-Luc and Martine,' said Leon, as the two grinned sheepishly.
'Did that paint bottle just talk to you, Leon?' Jean-Luc said.
'Yes, her name is Sophie and she's one of my friends in the castle,' Leon said, sounding like it didn't faze him at all, which it didn't, which made Jean-Luc look at him in confusion.
He had known that there was a beast in the castle, having seen it in the mirror that Leon showed everyone, but not about enchanted objects that were there and yet, there was one right in front of him that had freed them from their prison.
'Amazing,' he said, 'I didn't know that the castle ware was alive, especially since a little paint bottle was able to save us and get on a horse to do so. I'm learning something new each day.'
'Are there others like you back there?' said Martine to Sophie, 'Are your mother and father paint bottles too?'
'Yes, there are many servants who are objects and my mama is a palette and my papa is an easel and that bad lady and her mob..' Sophie said,
'Amandine,' all of them said together, shuddering as they said it, as Sophie kept talking,
'..are going to do something bad to them and hurt Rose, which is making Leon very sad. I saw them throw you in the basement from the window in Leon's mama's room, so that you wouldn't be able to go and save Rose and I decided to help you.
I then saw Sabine outside and got the idea that she could break down the doors, so I went over to her and I tried to get on her but couldn't, so she lowered herself down for me..'
'Oh, she's good like that,' Madeleine said, 'she did the same thing when Leon was first starting to ride her as he was such a tiny little thing and Sabine sensed that he was struggling to get on her, so she lowered herself and he was able to get on.'
'..and I got on her and she kicked down the doors to get you out of the basement so you can stop the mob and save Rose before that bad lady hurts her, so she and Leon can be together again.' Sophie said.
'What a brave little paint bottle you are!' said Madeleine, 'thank you so much! Your parents would be so proud of you!'
Yes they would be proud, Sophie thought, and also worried about me and angry that I ran away.
'Rose,' Leon said, his heart aching again at the mention of her name.
'That's the fourth time you've said her name,' Jean-Luc said, 'you must go and rescue her from Amandine and her grotesque followers that used to be my friends, well, never were in the first place since they only used me!'
Leon was hoping that Amandine hadn't gotten to her already, although the servants would've have done everything that they could to stop her and the mob from going any further than the foyer, which was true, unbeknownst to him.
But what he didn't know that at this moment, his worst fears had been realised as Amandine was kicking down every door down the hallways and the West Wing in her ruthless pursuit of Rose.
With that in mind and not wanting to waste another second, Leon, with Sophie safely in his bag so that she could go back to her parents, who would be no doubt be extremely worried about her wellbeing, mounted Sabine, who had some time to catch her breath which was just as well, for she was about to gallop faster than she had done before.
'Leon, you're not going to the castle now, are you?' Martine said, 'you've only just come home!'
'No, Martine, this isn't my home now, it never was,' Leon said to her, as he looked back at the village and his cottage, which had been the place he had wanted to escape for as long as he could remember and where he had been cruelly treated for being different, for the last time,
'My real home is in a castle in the middle of a forest with my true love, Rose and it's now in danger all because of me. I have to go back to it; it's where I belong now. I have to save it,' he said, as a few tears fell from his eyes.
'Then let us come with you, you can't do this alone,' Martine said, 'Don't refuse our help this time.'
Madeleine had also insisted on coming too, as she had mentioned before, despite Leon telling her not to since the ride would be faster than normal and that he didn't want her to get any sicker, but she refused, as she wanted to help anyway she can, as did Jean-Luc and Martine.
Leon reluctantly agreed, since Madeleine wouldn't be changing her mind, but insisted that she dressed warmly, which she did, wearing her shirt, skirt and boots but with a different cape, since her old one was now torn to pieces and they both mounted Sabine, racing out of the village and headed towards the forest with Jean-Luc and Martine following them on his horse, Artemis.
As he rode Sabine with his heart beating crazily and his hair coming loose from its ponytail and flying in his face, Leon hoped that he wasn't too late and that he and his love, his sweet beast Rose would be together again.
Go Leon! Go back to Rose and save her from that conniving woman!
Read and review and if you want to see what the characters look like, check out singertobe's DeviantArt gallery, as she has done a fantastic job of creating them and I thank her very much for doing them! :)