Drawings are Dangerous
Charon's creativity goes out of hand when a poltergeist brings her sketches to life. Now she, Double F, and the citizens of Halloween need to fight off No Face spirits, giant black jaguars, and their leaders: gargoyle versions of Jack and Sally! This's goofy, but I love it!
Charon and Double F sat outside of Lock, Shock, and Barrel's treehouse, their usual first stop in Halloween town. They were both bored, they had run out of things to talk about, and both were stuck in their disgusting school uniforms.
Charon wore her hair back in her ponytail, hoping that the meager rubber band wouldn't snap on her. Her white polo shirt was tucked into a khaki skort, which she liked because it was the only clean thing in her wardrobe at the moment with pockets. Surprisingly, she wore shoes this time; specially designed Nike tennis shoes, specially modelled for paw feet. It her hands she held a book (although the boo itself had no title, she called it "Faeries of the World"), on which she had a few scraps of white computer paper. She toyed with a mechanical pencil in her free hand.
Double F, her hair pulled back into a braid, had long ago untucked her yellow button-down shirt. Her dark plaid shorts were stiff and uncomfortable; brand new clothes never really fit her right. She wore tennis shoes over her rounded paws as well, although these were Adidas, not Nike. In her hand she clutched a three-ring binder, stuffed to the brim with drawings of Neopets and Kingdom Hearts characters.
Double F's wings twitched; this was her sign of displeasure and boredom. "How long are they gonna be?"
"I dunno," Charon sighed, checking her watch. "They should've been here 5 minutes ago."
"Did they say how they were getting here?" Double F asked her friend with the watch. She scratched her tail absentmindedly.
"On the bathtub," Charon answered, turning her eyes skyward as she remembered Lock's little speech about when to meet him.
"On the bathtub?"
"In the bathtub, sorry." Charon began to sketch and doodle. "If they'd ridden on Jara, they would've been here by now."
"Who?"
"Jara," Charon explained as she showed Double F her quarter-finished picture. "Didn't I explain her to you?"
"Uh uh," the anthro-griffin replied.
"Big black jaguar, really friendly?" Charon finished her drawing and began to color it in. "Travels with Nalami and Marius?"
"Not ringin' a bell."
Charon shook her head, exhaled through her nose, and began to draw some more. In no time at all, she had produced drawings of all three of the creatures she had told Double F about. And more....
"Okay," Melanie pointed to a picture of a generic big cat. "That's Jara?"
"Yep," Charon replied, a smile plastered onto her cleft lips.
Double F pointed to another cat, this one skinny and graceful looking. "That's Nalami, the black cheetah."
"Right."
A larger black cat, this one bulky and intimidating. "Marius, size of a horse, really mean."
"Uh huh."
"And that's No Face!"
Charon giggled. "Yeah!"
"Good job on No-Face; you forgot the little spots above his eyes though."
"Oh well, I'll fix it later."
"And Isaac and Lisa!" Double F pointed to the last two pictures. "Jack and Sally's Gargoyle Twins!"
"Yeah! But I might give Lisa a different name, like... that!"
Double F read Lisa's secondary name. "Wow, pretty!"
Charon squealed in happiness. She handed the book to Double F. "Your turn!"
"Okay," Double F took the pencil and began to sketch at lightning fast speed. "That's a Shadow, a Darkball... gimme a minute.... gargoyle, there's a white mushroom..."
"Wow!" Charon was amazed at how little time it took for Melanie to draw all of her favorite Heartless. "You are So better than me at drawing!"
"Aa, we're even," Double F inwardly bragged. "You've just got your own style."
It was true; if you had looked over your shoulder, you would've seen how different they were. Charon's drawings were crude and one-dimensional, yet accurate; most of the drawings were one continuous pencil stroke. Double F's, however, had more of an anime-manga touch; they strayed slightly from the original designs, but were recognizable.
"Yeah, but your style's better."
"Charon."
"CHARON! DOUBLE F!"
"Lock!" The two teenagers jumped up, leaving their drawings on the ground. "Finally!"
Lock waved at them from the bathtub, Shock and Barrel behind him, holding two bags of chocolate. "Hi girls! Ready for the fondue!?"
"Alright!" Charon lept into the bathtub, nearly landing on the marshmallows and coat hangers.
"Never had fondue before!" Double F giggled.
"Should we get our stuff?" Charon asked, pointing to their books.
"Nah, you can leave it," Barrel said as he yanked on the bathtub's chain, making it turn around. "Nothin's gonna happen."
"Wow," Charon sighed. "A place where you can leave your stuff on the ground and no one steals it."
"It's paradise," Double F let herself relax. "Well, paradise with dead people."
And the kids laughed and left, riding off into the forest. And their papers lay motionless by the treehouse... for a while.
***
"Oh.... what is thiss?" a single voice spoke to itself. "Little drawings- Oo, it is Jack! But wait, it is not! Jack does not have wings!"
A mouth formed out of thin air and floated above the ground, a la the Chesire Cat. It spoke with a high-pitched voice, squeaky and annoying. "There is Sally, and Sally does not have wings! Oo, these are not creatures of this world!"
A body formed around the mouth; a thin, gangly man in jester's clothes with purple skin and green eyes. "My, my, these creatures are marvelous! These creatures deserve to live and breathe on their own, not just live upon a piece of paper!"
He held his lanky hands above the papers and began chanting something in Celtic. As he chanted, a dust devil began to form under his palms. This dust devil tossed around the papers to a point where they burst to pieces and formed a miniture, white tornado. And the man kept chanting, until...
A thin, bony hand shot out of vortex and dug itself into the dust....
***
"So you look for the ones that are about to fall off?" Sally tugged weakly at the vine of a pumpkin, Jack standing behind her.
"Yes, ma'am. That's how you know they're ripe." Jack bent down and gave Sally's vine a strong jerk, snapping the jack-o-lantern away. "It's a bit hard, but it's tried and true."
"Oh, I never knew that," Sally memorized. "Thank you."
"Now, this one's pretty big," Jack pondered. "So, we'll need some help carrying it back to town; you can't carry a pumpkin this big back to town by hand or-"
"Or you might drop it."
"Right!" Jack gave Sally a friendly tap on the arm. "You're learning very quickly, Sally; I'm impressed."
Sally blushed, closed her eyes childishly, and smiled. "Thank you!"
As she opened her eyes, something caught the corner of her eye. She turned to head to get a closer look at it.
It was a black lioness; a black lioness with glowing green eyes. As Sally watched, the lioness turned to Sally and looked her straight in the eyes. Straight at her with those empty, gaseous eyes for 30 seconds before looking away, picking up the pumpkin by the stem, turning to Halloween Town, and walking.
Sally watched in curiosity for a few lingering moments before looking at Jack, who had also been temporarily hypnotized by the monster. "Do you know that thing?"
"No," Jack responded, shaking his head. "I've never seen anything like that before."
"Where do you think it came from?" Sally asked.
"Well, my first guess would be another holiday, but I doubt it," Jack scratched his chin. "Let's head back to town, see if anyone knows."
***
No sooner had the two psuedo-monsters gotten to town than they saw another outside-creature. This one, however, wasn't a cat; it was a mushroom. A short, white mushroom with little arms.
And it was playing charades with the town monsters.
"Um... five words!" shouted Sadir, the werewolf. "Five words!"
"First word...." The Mayor tried to analyze the vague movements.
"She's pulling something!" cried Poppy, the gray witch.
"No, it's rowing, like on a boat!" argued Cronus, the cyclops.
"What is going on here!" Jack yelled more than he asked, scaring the little mushroom and everyone around it.
"Yah!" The Mayor's face snapped to the worried side, then just as quickly moved back to the happy side. "Oh, Jack, you scared us! We were just playing charades with your little friend here!"
"I don't know this thing," Jack spoke blatantly.
"You don't?" Sadir marveled.
"We thought she was a friend of yours!" Poppy wheezed.
"It's not a she!" Cronus yelped.
"Kish kish!" giggled the mushroom.
Jack rubbed his temples, Sally standing faithfully behind him. "(sigh) Listen, has anyone ever seen-"
Jack stumbled back as the black lioness rubbed against his leg, still carrying the pumpkin from earlier. Sally pointed to the cat.
"Do any of you know that?"
The group of five (including the mushroom) shook their heads.
"This one-" Cronus pointed to the white mushroom. "-showed up after the girls came, though."
"Girls?" Jack and Sally spoke in unison.
"Oh, yes, Charon and Gina!" The Mayor remembered, twiddling his fingers. "They left a while ago with the Boogie Boys to cook fondue!"
"I wonder what that has to do with anythi-" Jack snapped back into reality. "Did you say fondue?"
"Who does fondue anymore?" Sally asked herself.
"I'll see if we can't find the girls," Jack told the town members. He tapped Sally's shoulder. "Sally, could you bring the little mushroom with us?"
"Okay," Sally near-mindlessly followed him out of town and into the forest, holding the mushroom's hand and leading him away.
***
"Cover Barrel in fondue, throw him a bag! Cover him with chocolate and see if he gets mad!"
"Nope!"
The five children in the bathtub laughed uncontrollably as Barrel, coated in chocolate and Nerds candies, popped out of his burlap sack and delivered his line.j
"This is too ridiculous to be real!" Charon laughed through a sugar induced high.
"Gahahahaha!" Double F's falcon-esque cry shot through the air.
Lock looked away from the giddy group and saw Jack, the Pumpkin King, and Sally, the-not-yet-but-probably-would-soon-be Pumpkin Queen, standing before him. "Oh, Jack, Sally, hi! D'you want some fondue?"
"No, thank you," Jack waved his hand. He waved the mushroom to his side. "Do any of you know this thing?"
"No, I don't think so-" Double F began to say before she saw the White Mushroom. "HOLY HEARTS, where'd that thing come from!?"
"A mushroom?" Charon lept out of the bathtub, crept up to the mushroom, and bopped it sharply on the head. It bounced and wobbled, like rubber.
"Ah! Kishkishkishkishksih!" Mushroom scolded.
"Oh, neato!" Barrel squiggled out of his sack and tried to wiggle out of the bathtub, but he was still slippery from the chocolate.
"How'd this get off the paper!?" Charon breathed.
"Off the paper?" Sally gasped.
"I drew that!" Double F pointed to the Mushroom. "I drew that! I even did a little speach bubble above its head so that it said 'Kish kish'! And I drew that!"
Jack looked above his head to see a Shadow Heartless leaping through the trees, zooming over their heads and deeper into the forest.
"Cool!" Shock laughed.
"We should find out where they're coming from," Jack said determinedly. "Lock, Shock, Barrel, you head back to your treehouse."
"Why?!" The kids whined.
"Go!" Jack pointed to town.
"Okay!" The Terrible Trio sent the bathtub on its way, leaving the two teens from the Real World behind.
"Double F, Charon, if you really did draw these things, which I don't believe at all, you should know how they think. You come with me."
"Okay..." Charon nodded. Double F half-bowed.
"This could take a while, Sally," Jack said, adressing his soul mate. "Why don't you head back home?"
"Okay," Sally responded, kissing Jack on the cheek. "Don't take too long."
:"I won't," Jack smiled before returning to the teenagers, who were pretending to gag and laughing. "Girls?"
"Sorry!" they both giggled, standing in attention.
****
As Sally stumbled her way through the forest, two large figures watching her, camouflaged in the gnarled branches.
"Did you see the way she acted around him?" said a female voice, obviously disgusted.
"Yes, I did. What about it?" replied her male counterpart, sounding tired and submissive.
"She acts like she doesn't have a mind of her own!" Woman spoke grudgingly. "She's just his little puppet!"
"Lisa, I seriously doubt that. You know most women tod-"
Lisa, identified earlier as Sally's gargoyle twin, grabbed Isaac's (Jack's gargoyle twin) neck in her right wing-claw and pulled his face to hers. "Most women today would not put up with that at all!" Lisa pivoted her neck to watch Sally again, still keeping a tight hold on her companion. "That guy must have some kind of spell on her."
"I Seriously doubt that, Lisa," Isaac's raspy voice squeezed its way through his compressed throat.
"Shut up, Isaac." Lisa responded to her friend's comment by smashing his skull into a tree branch and leaving him to nurse his bruised... uh... bone. She stalked through the trees, following Sally (who had broken into a speedwalk) as best she could. "I don't want my creatures helping a town ruled by some chauvinistic pig!"
"Now, come on, Lis!" Isaac screamed, earning him another wing claw to his neck to shut him up. "I don't think we're helping a pig! That woman's just a little more submissive than you!"
Lisa growled, letting go of Isaac's neck again. "Either way, she probably shouldn't stay hanging around him."
"What?!" Isaac snapped.
Sally had stopped to rest, giving Lisa a chance to stretch her wings. "We need to seperate her and knock some sense into her little twig-filled head!" She crouched down against the tree, ready to pounce.
Isaac opened his mouth to speak, but Lisa was immediately in his face, her eyes glowing white and her voice eerily distorted. "Do you have a problem with that, Isaac?"
Isaac whimpered and shook his head. "No, ma'am."
"Good," Lisa snarled as her beaming eyes changed from white to green.
***
Sally hiked her way back to town, her cloth legs catching on the Clinger Tree roots. All of these new monsters; it was strange, but she felt nothing from them. They had no minds, no emotions, no nothing. She wasn't sure how she knew these things; she just did. It was-
A shuffle in the branches above her made her pick up the pace of her already labored walking. She didn't want to meet up with one of those giant cats, just in case they were hostile.
She kept on walking like this until she heard another noise; the awful sound of bone hitting a hard surface. She began to panic and forced herself into a "run", tripping and nearly falling, pressing her palms against tree trunks to stay erect.
But, she couldn't keep this pace up forever. She stopped to rest, thinking to herself, "I don't know why I followed Jack into this forest. I hate forests."
But she thought nothing else as she suddenly heard a disturbance behind her. She snapped her head around just in time to see a dark, shadowy figure leap on top of her and knock her out with one snap of its wings.
DONE! Oo, things're gettin' good!
Charon's creativity goes out of hand when a poltergeist brings her sketches to life. Now she, Double F, and the citizens of Halloween need to fight off No Face spirits, giant black jaguars, and their leaders: gargoyle versions of Jack and Sally! This's goofy, but I love it!
Charon and Double F sat outside of Lock, Shock, and Barrel's treehouse, their usual first stop in Halloween town. They were both bored, they had run out of things to talk about, and both were stuck in their disgusting school uniforms.
Charon wore her hair back in her ponytail, hoping that the meager rubber band wouldn't snap on her. Her white polo shirt was tucked into a khaki skort, which she liked because it was the only clean thing in her wardrobe at the moment with pockets. Surprisingly, she wore shoes this time; specially designed Nike tennis shoes, specially modelled for paw feet. It her hands she held a book (although the boo itself had no title, she called it "Faeries of the World"), on which she had a few scraps of white computer paper. She toyed with a mechanical pencil in her free hand.
Double F, her hair pulled back into a braid, had long ago untucked her yellow button-down shirt. Her dark plaid shorts were stiff and uncomfortable; brand new clothes never really fit her right. She wore tennis shoes over her rounded paws as well, although these were Adidas, not Nike. In her hand she clutched a three-ring binder, stuffed to the brim with drawings of Neopets and Kingdom Hearts characters.
Double F's wings twitched; this was her sign of displeasure and boredom. "How long are they gonna be?"
"I dunno," Charon sighed, checking her watch. "They should've been here 5 minutes ago."
"Did they say how they were getting here?" Double F asked her friend with the watch. She scratched her tail absentmindedly.
"On the bathtub," Charon answered, turning her eyes skyward as she remembered Lock's little speech about when to meet him.
"On the bathtub?"
"In the bathtub, sorry." Charon began to sketch and doodle. "If they'd ridden on Jara, they would've been here by now."
"Who?"
"Jara," Charon explained as she showed Double F her quarter-finished picture. "Didn't I explain her to you?"
"Uh uh," the anthro-griffin replied.
"Big black jaguar, really friendly?" Charon finished her drawing and began to color it in. "Travels with Nalami and Marius?"
"Not ringin' a bell."
Charon shook her head, exhaled through her nose, and began to draw some more. In no time at all, she had produced drawings of all three of the creatures she had told Double F about. And more....
"Okay," Melanie pointed to a picture of a generic big cat. "That's Jara?"
"Yep," Charon replied, a smile plastered onto her cleft lips.
Double F pointed to another cat, this one skinny and graceful looking. "That's Nalami, the black cheetah."
"Right."
A larger black cat, this one bulky and intimidating. "Marius, size of a horse, really mean."
"Uh huh."
"And that's No Face!"
Charon giggled. "Yeah!"
"Good job on No-Face; you forgot the little spots above his eyes though."
"Oh well, I'll fix it later."
"And Isaac and Lisa!" Double F pointed to the last two pictures. "Jack and Sally's Gargoyle Twins!"
"Yeah! But I might give Lisa a different name, like... that!"
Double F read Lisa's secondary name. "Wow, pretty!"
Charon squealed in happiness. She handed the book to Double F. "Your turn!"
"Okay," Double F took the pencil and began to sketch at lightning fast speed. "That's a Shadow, a Darkball... gimme a minute.... gargoyle, there's a white mushroom..."
"Wow!" Charon was amazed at how little time it took for Melanie to draw all of her favorite Heartless. "You are So better than me at drawing!"
"Aa, we're even," Double F inwardly bragged. "You've just got your own style."
It was true; if you had looked over your shoulder, you would've seen how different they were. Charon's drawings were crude and one-dimensional, yet accurate; most of the drawings were one continuous pencil stroke. Double F's, however, had more of an anime-manga touch; they strayed slightly from the original designs, but were recognizable.
"Yeah, but your style's better."
"Charon."
"CHARON! DOUBLE F!"
"Lock!" The two teenagers jumped up, leaving their drawings on the ground. "Finally!"
Lock waved at them from the bathtub, Shock and Barrel behind him, holding two bags of chocolate. "Hi girls! Ready for the fondue!?"
"Alright!" Charon lept into the bathtub, nearly landing on the marshmallows and coat hangers.
"Never had fondue before!" Double F giggled.
"Should we get our stuff?" Charon asked, pointing to their books.
"Nah, you can leave it," Barrel said as he yanked on the bathtub's chain, making it turn around. "Nothin's gonna happen."
"Wow," Charon sighed. "A place where you can leave your stuff on the ground and no one steals it."
"It's paradise," Double F let herself relax. "Well, paradise with dead people."
And the kids laughed and left, riding off into the forest. And their papers lay motionless by the treehouse... for a while.
***
"Oh.... what is thiss?" a single voice spoke to itself. "Little drawings- Oo, it is Jack! But wait, it is not! Jack does not have wings!"
A mouth formed out of thin air and floated above the ground, a la the Chesire Cat. It spoke with a high-pitched voice, squeaky and annoying. "There is Sally, and Sally does not have wings! Oo, these are not creatures of this world!"
A body formed around the mouth; a thin, gangly man in jester's clothes with purple skin and green eyes. "My, my, these creatures are marvelous! These creatures deserve to live and breathe on their own, not just live upon a piece of paper!"
He held his lanky hands above the papers and began chanting something in Celtic. As he chanted, a dust devil began to form under his palms. This dust devil tossed around the papers to a point where they burst to pieces and formed a miniture, white tornado. And the man kept chanting, until...
A thin, bony hand shot out of vortex and dug itself into the dust....
***
"So you look for the ones that are about to fall off?" Sally tugged weakly at the vine of a pumpkin, Jack standing behind her.
"Yes, ma'am. That's how you know they're ripe." Jack bent down and gave Sally's vine a strong jerk, snapping the jack-o-lantern away. "It's a bit hard, but it's tried and true."
"Oh, I never knew that," Sally memorized. "Thank you."
"Now, this one's pretty big," Jack pondered. "So, we'll need some help carrying it back to town; you can't carry a pumpkin this big back to town by hand or-"
"Or you might drop it."
"Right!" Jack gave Sally a friendly tap on the arm. "You're learning very quickly, Sally; I'm impressed."
Sally blushed, closed her eyes childishly, and smiled. "Thank you!"
As she opened her eyes, something caught the corner of her eye. She turned to head to get a closer look at it.
It was a black lioness; a black lioness with glowing green eyes. As Sally watched, the lioness turned to Sally and looked her straight in the eyes. Straight at her with those empty, gaseous eyes for 30 seconds before looking away, picking up the pumpkin by the stem, turning to Halloween Town, and walking.
Sally watched in curiosity for a few lingering moments before looking at Jack, who had also been temporarily hypnotized by the monster. "Do you know that thing?"
"No," Jack responded, shaking his head. "I've never seen anything like that before."
"Where do you think it came from?" Sally asked.
"Well, my first guess would be another holiday, but I doubt it," Jack scratched his chin. "Let's head back to town, see if anyone knows."
***
No sooner had the two psuedo-monsters gotten to town than they saw another outside-creature. This one, however, wasn't a cat; it was a mushroom. A short, white mushroom with little arms.
And it was playing charades with the town monsters.
"Um... five words!" shouted Sadir, the werewolf. "Five words!"
"First word...." The Mayor tried to analyze the vague movements.
"She's pulling something!" cried Poppy, the gray witch.
"No, it's rowing, like on a boat!" argued Cronus, the cyclops.
"What is going on here!" Jack yelled more than he asked, scaring the little mushroom and everyone around it.
"Yah!" The Mayor's face snapped to the worried side, then just as quickly moved back to the happy side. "Oh, Jack, you scared us! We were just playing charades with your little friend here!"
"I don't know this thing," Jack spoke blatantly.
"You don't?" Sadir marveled.
"We thought she was a friend of yours!" Poppy wheezed.
"It's not a she!" Cronus yelped.
"Kish kish!" giggled the mushroom.
Jack rubbed his temples, Sally standing faithfully behind him. "(sigh) Listen, has anyone ever seen-"
Jack stumbled back as the black lioness rubbed against his leg, still carrying the pumpkin from earlier. Sally pointed to the cat.
"Do any of you know that?"
The group of five (including the mushroom) shook their heads.
"This one-" Cronus pointed to the white mushroom. "-showed up after the girls came, though."
"Girls?" Jack and Sally spoke in unison.
"Oh, yes, Charon and Gina!" The Mayor remembered, twiddling his fingers. "They left a while ago with the Boogie Boys to cook fondue!"
"I wonder what that has to do with anythi-" Jack snapped back into reality. "Did you say fondue?"
"Who does fondue anymore?" Sally asked herself.
"I'll see if we can't find the girls," Jack told the town members. He tapped Sally's shoulder. "Sally, could you bring the little mushroom with us?"
"Okay," Sally near-mindlessly followed him out of town and into the forest, holding the mushroom's hand and leading him away.
***
"Cover Barrel in fondue, throw him a bag! Cover him with chocolate and see if he gets mad!"
"Nope!"
The five children in the bathtub laughed uncontrollably as Barrel, coated in chocolate and Nerds candies, popped out of his burlap sack and delivered his line.j
"This is too ridiculous to be real!" Charon laughed through a sugar induced high.
"Gahahahaha!" Double F's falcon-esque cry shot through the air.
Lock looked away from the giddy group and saw Jack, the Pumpkin King, and Sally, the-not-yet-but-probably-would-soon-be Pumpkin Queen, standing before him. "Oh, Jack, Sally, hi! D'you want some fondue?"
"No, thank you," Jack waved his hand. He waved the mushroom to his side. "Do any of you know this thing?"
"No, I don't think so-" Double F began to say before she saw the White Mushroom. "HOLY HEARTS, where'd that thing come from!?"
"A mushroom?" Charon lept out of the bathtub, crept up to the mushroom, and bopped it sharply on the head. It bounced and wobbled, like rubber.
"Ah! Kishkishkishkishksih!" Mushroom scolded.
"Oh, neato!" Barrel squiggled out of his sack and tried to wiggle out of the bathtub, but he was still slippery from the chocolate.
"How'd this get off the paper!?" Charon breathed.
"Off the paper?" Sally gasped.
"I drew that!" Double F pointed to the Mushroom. "I drew that! I even did a little speach bubble above its head so that it said 'Kish kish'! And I drew that!"
Jack looked above his head to see a Shadow Heartless leaping through the trees, zooming over their heads and deeper into the forest.
"Cool!" Shock laughed.
"We should find out where they're coming from," Jack said determinedly. "Lock, Shock, Barrel, you head back to your treehouse."
"Why?!" The kids whined.
"Go!" Jack pointed to town.
"Okay!" The Terrible Trio sent the bathtub on its way, leaving the two teens from the Real World behind.
"Double F, Charon, if you really did draw these things, which I don't believe at all, you should know how they think. You come with me."
"Okay..." Charon nodded. Double F half-bowed.
"This could take a while, Sally," Jack said, adressing his soul mate. "Why don't you head back home?"
"Okay," Sally responded, kissing Jack on the cheek. "Don't take too long."
:"I won't," Jack smiled before returning to the teenagers, who were pretending to gag and laughing. "Girls?"
"Sorry!" they both giggled, standing in attention.
****
As Sally stumbled her way through the forest, two large figures watching her, camouflaged in the gnarled branches.
"Did you see the way she acted around him?" said a female voice, obviously disgusted.
"Yes, I did. What about it?" replied her male counterpart, sounding tired and submissive.
"She acts like she doesn't have a mind of her own!" Woman spoke grudgingly. "She's just his little puppet!"
"Lisa, I seriously doubt that. You know most women tod-"
Lisa, identified earlier as Sally's gargoyle twin, grabbed Isaac's (Jack's gargoyle twin) neck in her right wing-claw and pulled his face to hers. "Most women today would not put up with that at all!" Lisa pivoted her neck to watch Sally again, still keeping a tight hold on her companion. "That guy must have some kind of spell on her."
"I Seriously doubt that, Lisa," Isaac's raspy voice squeezed its way through his compressed throat.
"Shut up, Isaac." Lisa responded to her friend's comment by smashing his skull into a tree branch and leaving him to nurse his bruised... uh... bone. She stalked through the trees, following Sally (who had broken into a speedwalk) as best she could. "I don't want my creatures helping a town ruled by some chauvinistic pig!"
"Now, come on, Lis!" Isaac screamed, earning him another wing claw to his neck to shut him up. "I don't think we're helping a pig! That woman's just a little more submissive than you!"
Lisa growled, letting go of Isaac's neck again. "Either way, she probably shouldn't stay hanging around him."
"What?!" Isaac snapped.
Sally had stopped to rest, giving Lisa a chance to stretch her wings. "We need to seperate her and knock some sense into her little twig-filled head!" She crouched down against the tree, ready to pounce.
Isaac opened his mouth to speak, but Lisa was immediately in his face, her eyes glowing white and her voice eerily distorted. "Do you have a problem with that, Isaac?"
Isaac whimpered and shook his head. "No, ma'am."
"Good," Lisa snarled as her beaming eyes changed from white to green.
***
Sally hiked her way back to town, her cloth legs catching on the Clinger Tree roots. All of these new monsters; it was strange, but she felt nothing from them. They had no minds, no emotions, no nothing. She wasn't sure how she knew these things; she just did. It was-
A shuffle in the branches above her made her pick up the pace of her already labored walking. She didn't want to meet up with one of those giant cats, just in case they were hostile.
She kept on walking like this until she heard another noise; the awful sound of bone hitting a hard surface. She began to panic and forced herself into a "run", tripping and nearly falling, pressing her palms against tree trunks to stay erect.
But, she couldn't keep this pace up forever. She stopped to rest, thinking to herself, "I don't know why I followed Jack into this forest. I hate forests."
But she thought nothing else as she suddenly heard a disturbance behind her. She snapped her head around just in time to see a dark, shadowy figure leap on top of her and knock her out with one snap of its wings.
DONE! Oo, things're gettin' good!