The room was quickly filling with smoke. If they didn't get out soon, they'd all die.
"What are we going to do?" Juliette screamed.
"My hair! My hair!" Amélie also screamed as her long wig caught on fire.
Flynn shook his head as he started working on picking the lock. "You know, here's an idea. Just take the wig off."
Claude and Antoine tried helping Amélie but they kept wincing when their fingers got too close to the fire. Juliette dramatically lied down on the chaise lounge, dropping her head back and resting her hand against her head.
"Keep working," Rapunzel told Flynn. She ran over to Amélie and grabbed the wig off her head and threw it on the ground. Amélie screamed as the pins in her hair were ripped out. "There. Better?"
Amélie looked almost unrecognizable with her real hair. It was patchy and thin and a total mess. Flynn couldn't help but crack a smile as he worked on the lock.
Pierre stared dreamily at Rapunzel. "You are wonderful."
Rapunzel blinked, gave him an awkward nod before turning back to Flynn. His confidence boosted ten-fold that Rapunzel decided to stand by him instead of Pierre.
The automaton had given up and was lying on the ground, slowly burning as the fire washed over him.
The lock clicked and the door opened. "Ah-ha!" Flynn announced, standing up. "Take that, Pierre."
Pierre frowned at him. "I beg your pardon?"
Rapunzel shook her head but was smiling as she walked out of the room. The others ran out after her.
She turned to the group. "You five, get to safety. Try to get out of the palace, ok?"
"You're not leaving us?" Juliette asked, grabbing Flynn's arm. "We need someone to protect us."
Rapunzel shot a glare at Juliette and it made Flynn feel happy. He gingerly prided Juliette's fingers off his arm. "Sorry, lady. But Blondie and I have someone to go check on. You guys are on your own." He started whistling as he walked away from them.
"Just be careful," Rapunzel said to them. "If there's no way to leave the palace, then find another room to hide in."
"Preferably one that isn't on fire," Flynn called over his shoulder.
Rapunzel caught up to Flynn and they would have started walking away when Pierre called out to Rapunzel to wait. Flynn felt his hackles rise. Pierre rushed over to Rapunzel, still looking at her with that awed expression. Ok. Flynn was seriously getting tired of the guy.
"Will you be all right?" he asked Rapunzel, who nodded.
"I can take care of myself. But thank you."
He reached out and patted her arm. Rapunzel just smiled and turned away. Flynn made a point of giving Pierre a smug grin.
"What kind of name is Pierre anyway?" Flynn asked as they hurried down the hall, leaving the group behind them.
"It's French," Rapunzel replied.
"I know it's French. It's just… a stupid name if you ask me."
Rapunzel smiled at him. "Flynn, are you ok?"
"Yeah. I'm good, Blondie. More than ok."
"Good. Because we really need to focus on saving the king and queen."
"Right." He felt like an idiot for being bothered by freaking Pierre when Marie might already be dead.
They reached the room where they last left the king and queen, only to find the door open and no sign of either monarch.
Flynn skidded to a halt. "Now what?"
"The guard told us the master is staying in the underground tunnel that leads outside. Maybe they took them there."
"Good idea. Let's go." He started running, then paused. "Uh… where is it exactly? Not that I don't know… I just… need to hear you say it."
Rapunzel shook her head as she ran past him. "Follow me."
They ran through the palace, fortunately not running into any other automatons, until they reached the kitchens. Rapunzel walked right past the counters and wood stoves towards a door at the back of the room. When she opened it, it revealed a long, dark corridor leading down into a basement.
But it also revealed another automaton standing guard right behind the door.
Rapunzel stumbled back as the guard reached for her. It pulled off its hand to reveal a gun, just like the first automaton they had run into.
"Rapunzel, look out!" Flynn shouted, grabbing her around the waist and pulling her behind a large, wood counter. The guard fired its gun but hit the wood instead of them. She gave Flynn a nod of thanks. He couldn't deny that it felt good to have his hands on her waist but the second he realized this, he let her go.
The guard's creaking, mechanical footsteps were loud in the room, as if impending doom was to follow. He was getting closer.
Rapunzel grabbed Flynn's hand, sending another shockwave over him, as they hurried around the counter, keeping low. The door was in sight but they'd have to cross an expanse of openness to reach it, giving the guard ample time to shoot them.
"What do we do?" Flynn asked, looking around for something, anything to use as a weapon. He still had his sword but it wasn't going to do much against a gun.
Rapunzel lunged forward and grabbed something off the counter. She came back with… a frying pan in her hands. An old-fashioned iron pan.
She smiled at him. He couldn't help but smile back.
He grabbed the pan from her and stood up, using the pan as a small shield. The guard turned to him, the gun pointed at Flynn's face. He lifted the pan to cover his face right as the guard fired. It hit the pan, but instead of bouncing off like he thought it would, the bullet only lodged itself into the pan, so close to hitting his face.
Flynn frowned, lowering it. "Well, that was disappointing."
The guard jerked forward. A tip of a sword was poking through its stomach. Rapunzel was behind the guard. She gave her sword a tug and the automaton face-planted to the ground. Flynn hadn't even seen Rapunzel sneak around to kill the guard. She had used him as a distraction. He was both impressed and hurt by this.
He held up the frying pan. "I thought this would stop the bullet. Frying pans, huh? Not a very good weapon choice."
Rapunzel patted his arm. "It's ok. But it did technically stop the bullet and you were a good distraction."
"I thought the bullet was going to bounce off," he grumbled as he tossed it to the side.
"Sorry." To her credit, she did actually sound sorry.
They stopped at the top of the stairs.
"Where does this lead?" he asked.
"The basement."
"Oh good. And here I thought we weren't going into the creepy basement of doom. Good to know I was wrong."
She laughed as she started walking down the stairs. "The tunnel is in the basement. We just have to find it."
"It's a secret tunnel, right? I can't imagine a secret tunnel is easy to find."
They reached the bottom of the steps and entered a large cavernous space full of barrels and caskets. Rows of wine bottles rested in stands. Blessedly, the basement was empty. Flynn's body was getting a little sore from all the fighting, not that he would tell that to Rapunzel. She wasn't even breaking a sweat.
"Start looking in every corner and crevice," Rapunzel said, walking over to a row of wine bottles. "The entrance has to be here somewhere."
Flynn pulled on a bottle of wine, hoping it would open up a secret compartment. Hey, if it can work for a book shelf, it can work for a rack of wine bottles. But alas, no hidden doors opened up to reveal the secret tunnel. He frowned in disappointment.
He started pressing his hands against the wall, searching for something that might reveal a doorway. He kept walking along the wall and didn't notice Rapunzel was doing the same thing as him until they reached the same spot on the wall and their fingers touched.
"Oh," she said, pulling her hands away. "Sorry."
He cleared his throat. "It's ok." Neither one moved where they were, standing so close together. "Why did you move your hands?"
"What?" she asked, flushing slightly. It was a strange sight, seeing Rapunzel look nervous.
"You told me that you've spent what felt like a lifetime with me. So, why are you nervous?"
Her eyes flashed as she looked at him. "Because that lifetime wasn't with you. Not yet, anyway. You still see me as a stranger. I… didn't want to make you uncomfortable." He could tell it caused her pain to say this.
He leaned in close to her. Rapunzel's breath hitched. Damn, she smelled good despite having fought tons of automatons and been in a burning room. "You're wrong, you know. You're not a stranger to me. I might not know you, but…" But he felt like he did. He might not have spent that lifetime with her but he felt like he had experienced it all. He wondered if he ever would. Time travel was a fickle thing after all.
His eyes dropped down to her lips. She did the same to him. After their eyes met again, Flynn leaned in closer and…
…the wall in front of them opened.
Both of them jerked back, the moment gone. They looked at where the wall once was and instead found what looked like… a secret tunnel.
They must have pressed on the wall when they were standing there. Flynn was so caught up in the moment, he hadn't even realized.
Rapunzel didn't look him in the eye as she asked, "Ready to go in there and save the king and queen of France?"
If Rapunzel was going to pretend what almost happened didn't happen, then that was fine with him. He was never one to really talk about his feelings.
So, instead of trying to pick up where they left off, he cleared his throat and straightened his jacket and said, "Ready."
First thing Flynn noticed about the tunnel was how musty and dank it was. Mold was growing on the walls. He just hoped he didn't get cancer out of this. That would be a definite bummer.
Even though the tunnel was dark, the occasional torch in the wall gave them enough light to get by. Enough for Flynn to sneak glances at Rapunzel. They almost kissed. Now, he was a man who was down for a one-night-stand as much as the next guy. In fact, he probably had a problem for how often he had one-night-stands. But with Rapunzel it felt different.
She knew a version of himself that didn't exist. He still didn't quite understand how that was possible but he knew she wasn't making it up. There was too much conviction in her eyes for her to be making it up.
So, he felt weird about the kiss. Like he was using her. He wasn't the same man she knew and it wasn't right to lead her on if he was never going to see her again after this.
Wait. Was he ever going to see her again? How did that work? Once they saved the queen and king, he still had plans to grab his diamond and head off into the past to buy a private island. Things were always cheaper in the past. How did Rapunzel factor into any of that, if at all? Did he even want her there?
Fuck, it was confusing.
The next time he snuck a glance at her, he caught her looking at him. They both quickly looked away.
"So, Blondie," he said, his voice echoing off the walls, "what's going to happen after we save the king and queen?"
"Uh, I'm not sure."
"But you come from the future. You know my future."
"I know a future version of you. Or at least a version of you. That doesn't mean anything I've experienced with you will be what you experience with me. So, no, Flynn. I don't know what comes next." Her voice sounded incredibly sad and it just made him feel strangely more guilty, even though he hadn't done anything wrong. "And we should probably stop talking unless we want to alert the master that we're on our way."
"Smart." He stayed silent after that, which was a feat for him.
They ventured further into the dark tunnel until they started to hear voices. Mechanical voices.
They sidled up against the wall and took careful footsteps as they got closer. The tunnel opened up into a wider, cavernous space. Just beyond it was another tunnel and judging from the light coming down it, that was the way outside. Morning had come.
The space was filled with automatons. And standing in front of them on a barrel was the Master. Flynn assumed anyway. He looked different from the guards. Somehow more human and yet somehow even less human. He was dressed in a frilly coat and stockings, typical of men of this era, unlike the guard uniform of the rest of the automatons.
On the other side of the room was a large cage…
…and inside it was Marie and Louis.
"There," Flynn whispered, pointing to them. Rapunzel gave him a nod.
Ok. So they were still alive. Good. It was just going to be tricky getting to them since they'd have to sneak past an entire group of Scattal hell-bent on killing them.
"You did good, my creations," the Master said, his voice less mechanical than the others but still not human. "You found me the queen. Now, get the surgery table ready. It's time I get a new heart." He clutched his chest, doubling forward, his face full of pain.
"Master, are you all right?" one of the guards asked.
"Yes, I'm fine." He stood back up, slipping a smile on his face. "Just prep the table. Get the queen ready."
The group of guards scattered. A couple remained by the Master while some fetched a table and operating gear from the corner of the room. Two others went to the cage. Water dripped down from the ceiling and formed a puddle near the cage door. The guards gave it a wide berth as they opened it and grabbed Marie by the hair, pulling her out. She screamed.
"Unhand her!" Louis said but he was hit in the head by one of the guards and slumped to the ground.
"Rapunzel," Flynn whispered. Her eyes flashed. He didn't normally say her name. It felt nice on his lips. "If we're gonna save the queen, I think we need to do it now."
She nodded. "You cause a distraction. I'll go get her."
"Why do I always have to cause the distraction?" he asked but she was already sneaking into the room. He huffed and ran forward, straight for the Master.
The guards whirled around and held up their gun-hands. Flynn froze. "Oh, hey. Sorry. I was coming down here for some… ice cream. What are the odds, huh?"
The Master's eyes filled with rage. Out of the corner of Flynn's eye, he saw Rapunzel sneak up on one of the guards holding Marie and killed him.
"Who are you?" the Master asked him.
"Oh, me?" Flynn pointed at himself. "I'm Flynn Rider, expert thief extraordinaire, at your service." He bowed.
"And what are you doing here?"
Rapunzel knocked out the other guard and grabbed Marie, clamping her hand down on the queen's mouth.
"I'm just causing a distraction," he answered and whirled around, stabbing the first guard he saw with his sword. Rapunzel was pushing Marie ahead of her towards the outside tunnel.
"Stop him!" the Master shouted. His eyes practically bulged out of his face when he saw Marie running up the tunnel. Rapunzel was currently waking the king up and getting him out of the cage. "Stop her!"
The guards didn't know who to follow. Rapunzel, Marie, or Flynn.
Rapunzel pushed Louis forward and told him to follow his wife before she joined Flynn in fighting off the guards.
They stood back-to-back together as they sliced and diced at the automatons. But the issue was, Flynn was getting tired from all this fighting and he noticed even Rapunzel didn't have as much energy. They were quickly getting surrounded.
"Follow the queen!" the Master shouted and a couple of the guards took off in the direction Marie and Louis went. Flynn was too busy blocking a swipe from a guard to stop them.
One of the guards raised its gun-hand at Rapunzel and fired. She gasped as she flew back, landing hard on the ground.
"Rapunzel!" Flynn shouted, running over to her. She was bleeding from her shoulder. He scooped her into his arms.
"I'm fine," she gasped. "It's only the shoulder." She winced. "Though, it really hurts."
The Master chuckled as he stepped off the barrel. "So, you two thought you could stop me, is that it?"
"Yeah, pretty much," Flynn said, holding Rapunzel close.
"Well, the jokes on you because I have you surrounded." He really did. An entire group of guards had their gun-hands pointed right at them.
The two guards that went after Marie and Louis came back down into the room. The king was nowhere to be seen but Marie was being dragged back into the room.
"Look at that," the Master said. "It looks like your plan didn't work after all." He nodded at some guards. "Lock these two up. And keep an eye on them. We're taking the queen with us." He started to walk away.
One guard came over and grabbed Flynn by the jacket. "Let me go," he said. "I paid good money for this jacket." The guard just laughed as he threw Flynn into the cage. They tossed Rapunzel in after him. She cried out as she landed on her wounded shoulder. They shut the cage door and locked it.
Flynn could only watch as the master left the tunnel, heading back into the palace, with a few of his guards, Marie getting dragged behind them. Him and Rapunzel were stuck and for the first time, there wasn't anything he could do about it.
Flynn whistled at the nearest guard. "Hey, you." The guard turned to him with a stoic expression. "Yes, you. I have a deal for you." He gripped the bars of the cage. Flynn wondered why there was even a cage large enough to fit two humans under the palace of Versailles to begin with but he figured it was best not to ask too many questions.
"There is nothing you can offer me," the guard replied, turning away.
"Yeah, but you haven't heard how good it is. Life changing even. Blow your mind amazing. Don't you want to hear it?"
The guard kept his back to him.
Flynn huffed, slapping the bar of the cage. Rapunzel groaned behind him. He sat back down beside her. "How are you doing?"
"I have a bullet hole in my shoulder, Flynn. I could be doing better."
"That's the attitude," he replied without his normal bravado. Seeing Rapunzel hurt was doing something to him…
Making him care.
She leaned against the wall and gripped her shoulder. Blood was slowly seeping past her fingers.
"Let's tie that off for you, at least," Flynn said. He ripped the end of his jacket off and wrapped it around her shoulder. "I hated this frilly jacket anyway. Didn't go with my bone structure."
She smiled faintly. "I think it's a good look on you. Blue was always your color."
He dropped his hands once he was done bandaging her up. "So, is this the end? We're gonna die in here?" He glanced around the cage. "I don't know. I always thought I'd die an old man on my private island, surrounded by money I never spent. I never even got a wanted poster of myself from all my thieving. No matter the time period or planet. That never happened."
"Why would you want it to happen?"
He stared at her with raised eyebrows. "Uh, because having a wanted poster of yourself is spectacularly badass, if I say so myself."
"Badass, huh?"
"Very badass. The badass-est."
He managed to make her laugh softly.
"Ok, seriously," he said. "Any plans for getting out of here?"
"You're the thief. You know how to pick a lock."
"Not something like this. I can't reach the lock on the outside of the cage from in here. Normally I'm very confident in my abilities to escape any and all situations but… I'm not so sure about this one. I've never been in a life-or-death situation before." He looked at her. "What about you?"
"I can't tell you. It might be a spoiler for your future."
"Ah. That's right. Damn time travel." His head thudded against the wall. "You think Marie is really going to die?"
"That's the master's plan. If we don't save her… then yes. She could die any minute now if we don't get out of here."
Flynn looked at her out of the corner of his eye. "So, Blondie, I just have to ask since we could die… Do you love me?" He had been wondering and was curious for an answer.
She quickly looked away from him but he caught the blush on her cheeks. "I… there's a lot I want to tell you, Eugene." He didn't correct her this time. "I'm just not sure what I can and can't say. This is your first time meeting me. But this could very well be the last time I'll ever be with you."
Panic seized his heart. "Don't say that. You're not going to die from a bullet to the shoulder."
She finally looked back at him, resting her head against the wall. "It's not even about me dying or not. It's… if this is the first time you're meeting me then… what's left? After we part ways, will I never see you again?" She had a far-off look in her eyes. "We're working in reverse. I shouldn't be telling you this but… I remember the first time I met you."
He went still. "Oh yeah?" He tried to play it cool but felt like he was utterly failing at it.
"Yeah." The smile on her face was one of peace. "It was so confusing. It was like you knew me. And I realized that was true. You did know me. You changed my life that day."
"How so?"
Her smile slipped. "I can't say more. What I've already said is too much." She grabbed his hand, making his stomach flip. "Just trust me when I say you changed my life for the better."
They stared intently into each other's eyes.
That's when he heard the water droplet plop into the pool of water near the cage door. He blink and pulled away from her. She frowned.
"Was is it?" she asked.
He looked over at the puddle of water. Flynn remembered how the gauds had avoided stepping into it when they grabbed Marie out of the cage. "They're made of metal," he whispered.
"So?"
"Live wires. Electricity. Water." He nodded at the puddle.
Rapunzel's eyes widened. "They can't step into water," she whispered back. "It would kill them."
"If I can convince one of them to step close to the cage, I can grab the keys, and push them into the water. We'd be able to escape."
"But how are you going to convince one of the guards to get close enough?"
He flashed her his most charming smile. "By doing what I do best. Talking to the point of annoying someone. It's helped me get out of my fair share of scrapes by now. Just watch and learn, Blondie."
Rapunzel eyed him curiously as he stood up and headed over to the cage bars.
"Hey, you!" Flynn called out to the nearest guard. The automaton let out a machinal wheeze as he turned to Flynn, eyeing him over with suspicion. Flynn honestly didn't blame him. "I had a question."
The guard motioned for him to speak.
"I noticed there weren't any bathrooms in this cage. What do I do when I have to… you know."
The sigh that escaped the guard was both utterly human and completely robotic. "Just go in the corner."
"Ah. Gotcha. You see, the thing is… I don't want to go in the corner." Flynn crossed his arms. "I have some self-respect, my good sir. And I demand to be taken to the nearest bathroom."
"There are no bathrooms in the Palace of Versailles. At least not back in this time."
Shoot. He had wondered where the bathrooms were before but just tried not to think about it. "Ok then. No bathroom. At least give me a bucket to do my business in. It's the courteous thing to do if you're going to keep us down here forever." He paused. "You were planning to keep us down here forever, correct?"
The guard exchanged a look with the other guard in the room. "We don't know," he muttered.
"Ah!" Flynn rocked back on his heels. "You don't know. Which means your master doesn't trust you enough to give you information." He shook his head. "Man, that's got to be rough."
"You don't know anything," the guard said, taking a few steps closer to the cage. His foot was only a couple inches from the pool of water. "My master trusts me. That's why he had me keep an eye on you two."
"Understood. But," Flynn said before the guard could walk away, "may I just suggest a different alternative? You really think the master cares about me and Blondie? No. He only wants the queen. He's having you do his grunt work. Which, if you ask me, doesn't exactly speak to trust, now does it?"
Fury formed on the guard's face as he lunged towards the cage. "Be quiet, you-," he stopped. For a second, Flynn thought he was having a convulsion when he realized the guard was glitching out. When Flynn looked down, he saw the guard's foot in the water.
Flynn grabbed the keys around the guard's waist before he could get electrocuted himself. Sparks began to fly off the guard. The other automaton frowned and walked over. "What is going on?"
By the time the second guard asked that question, Flynn already had the door unlocked. He threw a wink at Rapunzel. "What did I say?"
The electrocuted guard fell backwards and landed on the ground with a loud thud. The second guard widened its eyes and backed away from Flynn as he rushed right at it. He grabbed the guard around the torso and threw it against the wall. The guard's head smashed into the wall and it dropped to the ground, joining its dead comrade.
Flynn ran back to Rapunzel as she was slowly walking out of the cage.
"Impressive," she said.
He gave her his best bow. "I know."
"Now we need to go save Marie."
They ran back up the tunnel and made it into the basement. It was a clear shot to the kitchen from here.
Flynn reached the kitchen and was almost out of it when he remembered Rapunzel. When he turned back, he saw she was still on the stairs leading up to the kitchen.
"You know Blondie, you got to keep up better than this," he said, starting to run back towards her when a swarm of guards – about ten of them - burst into the kitchen, putting a barrier between him and Rapunzel.
The row of guards all had hand-guns and were aiming them at Flynn.
"Run!" Rapunzel shouted.
"Rapunzel, what about you?" He caught her eye between the row of guards. She had a grim determination on her face. Somehow at peace with her decision and somehow impossibly scared too.
"Save Marie. You have a clear shot to the rest of the palace. I'll try to hold these guys off." She gave him one last look full of things unspoken before she banged her sword against the wall and the entire collection of automatons turned to face Rapunzel. "Follow me!" she said, running back down the stairs to the basement.
"No, Rapunzel," he said, lunging forward but one of the guards near the back turned to him and pointed its gun straight at Flynn's head. He dived out of the way a second before the guard fired its gun.
The guard then turned to follow its comrades down the basement steps and after Rapunzel.
He wanted nothing more than to go after her but he knew she was right. He had to save Marie Antoinette. If she died today, then the entire world could be changed for the worse.
Flynn stared at the stairwell, now empty of guards. He could hear the clang of metal on metal down below as Rapunzel held the guards off.
With a deep breath and a heavy heart, he set off to save the queen of France.
Hope you're enjoying the story so far. Until next Saturday.