Time Out For Dr. Dred III

The whole building shook.

'W-hey!' Howler exclaimed. 'We're going up!'

'Yeah,' Drak said. 'I think Dred is using a hoist for the heist. I'll be you're thinking we're hopelessly trapped, aren't you? Well, just leave it to me.' He quickly turned into smoke and flew at the door.

But he bounced off of it and landed back on his backside in solid form.

'You know what,' Drak said. 'We're hopelessly trapped. This vault is airtight.'

Frankie growled. 'That makes me mad!'

'Being hopelessly trapped?' Howler asked.

'No.' Frankie pointed down. 'Losing my shoes.'

'Losing your shoes?!' Drak and Howler both looked down to see Frankie was standing there in his stocking feet.

'Yeah,' Frankie said. 'I was afraid I was making too much noise, so I took my shoes off.'

'And you left them in the hall?' Howler asked.

'Yeah,' Frankie said. 'They were new shoes.'

A slow smirk spread over Howler's muzzle. 'The agony of the feet, eh?'

'Boy!' Frankie growled. 'I'm so mad, I could…I could…'

'Uh, knock down the vault door maybe?' Howler suggested.

Frankie growled and the bolts in his neck sparked with electricity. 'Yeah! Knock down the vault door!'

He charged at it.

:[

Jess jumped as the vault door was suddenly knocked over.

'I think you overdid it, Frankie,' Howler remarked.

Frankie got up. He ran over to the boots sitting at the hall that Jess hadn't noticed before.

'There they are, my shoes.' He quickly put them on. 'Now I'm not so mad.'

Oh, that was why they kept beating Dred. He overlooked the powers of the monsters he was dealing with. Locking them in a vault would have worked…if one of them wasn't a patchwork monster. Those guys were known for their strength in supernatural circles. Of course he'd be able to knock down a vault door.

As Drak and Howler started to come out of the vault, though, there was a loud explosion.

Jess grabbed onto the nearest pillar. The whole building shook. Frankie fell right onto his butt. Howler dropped onto all fours. Only Drak seemed to be able to maintain his balance as the feeling of free-fall took hold. Grinding her teeth, Jess lifted a hand. Her magic moved through her and the entire building was teleported.

It landed back on its original foundations with a heavy thud.

:[

The Dredgible plummeted downward.

'What's going on, Dr. Dred?' Vampira demanded, scrambling across.

'All hands on deck!' Dr. Dred screamed. 'Prepare for battle!'

'The Drak Pack?' she demanded.

'Forget about the Drak Pack!' Dred pointed out to a military build-up, who were already charging in their direction. 'They've never tried to kill us!'

:[

Jess frowned and turned to look out the window.

There were some trucks parked outside…with a very familiar insignia. Cursing, Jess's mind began racing. She already knew what'd happened. She wasn't sure how she felt about it. Dred and his people were insane. They killed and injured without thought or bother. They were also…really kind of pathetic.

But she couldn't afford to worry about them.

She looked at the three boys.

:[

Drak didn't know what'd happened, but he didn't like it.

Something had shaken the building and then he'd smelt magic. They'd landed with a thud. Drak straightened up as Howler and Frankie scrambled to their feet. Turning on his heel, Drak marched away. This time, he used his nose to track down his prey…as unappetising as that prey smelt.

Drak stopped at a corner and peered around. He felt more than saw Howler and Frankie stop by him and look around the corner too. It looked as though all the money in the building had been pulled out and put in the hall. And who was standing by it, glancing around nervously and muttering to himself?

'Uh oh,' Howler said. 'Look. My eyeballs are getting warts. It's Toad.'

'But what's that weird gadget he's-a got?' Frankie asked.

It could only be one thing. Drak smirked. 'The Time-Stopper. Dred must have left Toad here as a guard.'

'What'll we do?' Frankie asked. 'He'll-a zap us the minute we try anything.'

As he spoke, Toad glanced around and then slipped a note out of the pile and into his pocket.

'Hey, I've got an idea!' Howler nodded his head. 'Give me some room.'

Drak and Frankie stepped back as Howler positioned himself. He took one deep breath…two, and then three, but he didn't let out any gust of wind. The money all around Toad was thrown into disarray by the force of Howler's inhales. In surprise, Toad fell back into it. And, quite promptly, Toad began fawning over the money.

'Ohhh! Look at all the pretty money!' Toad began to stash the money. 'Oh, Dr. Dred wouldn't mind if I just took a few samples.' He began wandering away from the Time-Stopper to stuff more and more money in his pockets. 'Rich Toad! Rich Toad! Rich…'

Drak had shot over and turned the Time-Stopper on Toad. Activating it, he froze the mutant frog in time. Then he yanked open the back of the machine. Frankie and Howler ran over and watched him work. Drak looked at the wiring. It was getting so that he could recognise Dred's work on sight.

And he knew exactly how to rewire it.

:[

Jess leaned against the corner the Drak Pack had been hiding behind.

Drak worked fast, rewiring the Time-Stopper. And he looked like he knew what he was doing. Huh. It seems Vincent James Junior's got a certain proclivity for machines. That was something she wasn't expecting. Jess turned her head as she heard the sound of the doors being forced open. She turned and began gathering her magic.

She didn't want to reveal herself.

But she also didn't want her grandmother's work to come to nothing.

:[

Drak heard and smelt them coming before they kicked the doors in and ran in the room from every entrance. He saw the insignia that had haunted his nightmares since he was a young child. If he hadn't just done what he did, he'd be more worried about it. Drak tucked the wires away, turned the dial all the way up, and then flicked the switch on the machine. In the same movement, he pounced back, grabbing Frankie and Howler as he went.

A red field of energy erupted out of the machine.

:[

The golden cuff vibrated around her wrist.

Reacting to its cues once more, Jess teleported out of the mint building. Landing on the street outside, she looked up and watched in amazement. Everything had unfolded…backwards. Jess had known, logically, that Dred would have had to cut the mint building from its foundations in order to lift it as he had.

Jess landed in time to watch the foundations repair themselves, knitting back together as if the laser was fusing the stone. Dr. Dred's blimp could be seen flying backwards and leaving the area. Narrowing her eyes, Jess tried to determine if he was on board. She didn't know if reversing time would reverse damage done to bodies.

But she couldn't see anything.

Jess stood out there in the street for a few more minutes.

She waited until she saw the Drak Pack's vehicle fly away, all three boys inside, before she returned home.

:[

Jess shook herself off as she walked up into the den.

The invisibility spell removed, she stretched her muscles.

'How did you find it?' Her grandmother's spirit was waiting for her.

'You knew Dred would try to steal the mint building, didn't you?' Jess responded with a question of her own.

'But of course.'

'And you knew the Helsing Society would show up.'

'They worked out that where Dred went, the Drak Pack would soon appear.'

Jess turned her head. 'How?'

'The cuff.'

Jess looked down at the golden cuff on her wrist. She traced the patterns with her fingertip. 'What is it?'

'It is the last remanent of my father,' her grandmother said.

Jess looked up at her in question.

'My father was a seer,' her grandmother said. 'He came to live here because there were people here who did not fear and shun him for his visions. His visions, however, were unspecific. He saw fragments, but never the whole picture.'

This was new. Jess's grandmother had said her father came from a Spanish settlement before. She had never, however, elaborated on why he left. Various history books had left Jess with the impression that it had to do with money. However…it made significantly more sense that he had left due to superstitious fear.

Given when her grandmother had been born, religious intolerance would have been significantly worse.

Jess even imagined people would have said her father's visions were due to possession by the devil. She shuddered at the thought of what could have happened to him if he hadn't fled.

Her grandmother nodded. 'My mother found that she could complete the picture with her magic. So, when he started dying, he asked my mother to take his powers and turn them into something that future generations of Circe could still make use of.'

Jess took the cuff off and held it up.

Her grandmother chuckled. 'The Seer's Shackle.'

'Shackle?' Jess snorted in amusement.

'Well…' her grandmother shrugged. 'Alliteration. Also, before he came here and met mom, his visions were like a shackle for him.'

'Did Dracula know him?'

'He did.'

:[

The room was silent as Vince sat on the easy chair, running a hand through his hair. Big D stood at his back, observing the other two. Frank and Howard stared in open horror. They knew it'd happened, sure, but the details had never been shared with them. They'd never known with the gut-wrenching detail that Vince had known.

'A-a-a-and th-that was them?' Frank asked, his fear increasing his stutter.

'That was them,' Vince said.

Howard shuddered. 'O-oh, yeah. You were older when it happened t-to you, weren't you, Vince?'

Vince nodded.

'H-how'd we get away then?' Howard asked. 'They don't seem to be the kind that'll leave us be because we live in a city and in a mansion.'

'They don't know where you are,' Dracula said. 'You see, you two could be hidden here with them none-the-wiser. It wasn't until Vince's home was attacked that I realised more drastic measures would be needed. I told you about the witch that was around until she died of cancer a few years back.'

'Yes.' Vince looked up at his uncle.

'She was the witch that mixed up the potion,' Dracula said. 'The same magic that, even now, is working to keep you hidden. It is what allows you to shift between your natural forms and human ones at will.'

Frankie looked at his hands. 'That's a potion?'

'One brewed by the most powerful witch of her age,' Dracula said. 'That's why it works so well. there is, however, one crucial detail you should be aware of about this witch.'

'What's that?' Vince asked.

'She was Jessica Brenton's grandmother,' Dracula said. 'And that makes the girl heir to her power.'

:[

'So,' Agent Black sat down behind his desk. 'Dr. Dred was going to try to steal the entire mint building, was he?'

'Yes, sir. It was insane, but he literally uprooted the whole structure.'

'And how was he was stopped?' Black asked.

'There seems to be some debate on that. The Dredgible was attacked and forced to drop the building in mid-air. However, the building somehow landed safely. So, we must assume our resident witch was there.'

Black frowned. 'Why must we assume that?'

'Because the Drak Pack were also spotted in the area. Dr. Dred found a way to stop time. The security cameras took pictures of them trying to stop O.G.R.E. and of the one called Drak rewiring the machine Dred used to stop time.'

'And do we have the machine?' Black asked.

'No, sir. He rewired it to reverse time, which we assume put everything to rights, and then they made their escape. However, it overloaded the circuits and the machine exploded at the end.'

'So, we weren't able to catch them again?'

'No, but in this instance, it seems it was the Helsing Society they were running from.'

'Interesting.'

:[

'So they got away again?' Vi demanded.

Pryce huffed in irritation. 'I won't say this day was a total loss, but all the same…I haven't wanted to do this. It draws far too much attention. And it might get your wayward fledgling witch back into line.'

'Oh, yes?' Vi asked eagerly.

'I believe it's time this town was put under Emergency Protocol 1.'

AN: I was a little stuck until Encanto came out.

I needed a way not only to produce a tool for the next two episodes, but to establish that, throughout history, the Circe bloodline has gained powers and tools by marrying or otherwise joining with not only regular humans but with those with supernatural natures/abilities as well.

So I'm not afraid to admit Jess's great-grandfather was inspired by Bruno Madrigal.

Thank you, Lin Manuel Miranda, for curing my writer's block.