Chapter 62
June burst through the ceiling in a succession of neon-colored explosions and quickly assessed her surroundings. In addition to the flagpole currently flying Team 4’s green and yellow flag, she also clocked one of the All-Stars that she had never spoken to but vaguely recalled as Animatorch, sitting stock still on a wooden chair right in the center of the circular rooftop area. She continued to scan the area and circled down to land in front of the seemingly unconscious man when suddenly, the chair on which he was sitting flung his limp body to the floor and sprang at her violently. The wooden wingback had cartoon eyes embedded in its back and a thin mouth with sharp wooden teeth on the front face of the seat.
Before the chair could harm her, June exploded a blast of fireworks from her outstretched hand, shattering the menacing seat into a million tiny splinters. She scarcely had begun to assess the damage, when each minuscule wooden needle exploded into micro-fireballs and ceased to exist.
“Huh,” June muttered as she shrugged and made her way over to Animatorch, who was lying unconscious on the floor of the tower’s rooftop lookout area. But as she approached, out of nowhere, she felt a blow to her midsection. The force of the attack flung her from the castle.
Fuck! That hurt! June thought as she flew from Team 4’s fortress toward the trees of the nearby forest. Her ribs were likely bruised at best and broken at worst, but not so bad as to take her out of the fight. Repositioning herself in mid-air, June transformed her legs into makeshift rockets and shot back toward the stone structure that her team was trying to capture. She tried to figure out what had struck her as she jetted back, but nothing stood out. The only things on the castle roof were an unconscious Animatorch and the flagpole with Team 4’s colors flying.
As she circumnavigated her team’s objective, June unlatched one of Team 3’s brown and orange flags that she had strapped across her midsection beneath her trademark neon-colored bomber jacket. She was careful not to drop it and grabbed the clasp that she would use to affix Team 3’s flag to Team 4’s flagpole and end this psychedelic cartoon nightmare. Time for a flyby!
As June burned past the tower, she reached out to fasten her team’s flag, but the pole bent down to avoid her attempt. What the fuck? Ugh. Animatorch must have animated the flagpole! Just as June had that thought, the mast swung at her like Babe Ruth would at an easy fastball right over the plate. Recognizing the threat, June had the presence of mind to both shift her whole body to fizzy sparklers and drop her team’s flag, just before the cartoon flagpole connected with her torso. No one was there to witness the awesome display, but luckily, there were camera drones to capture the spectacle as June burst into an impressive display of fireworks just before the pole made contact.
Bang! Boom! POP! The sound was deafening as June let loose. The flagpole, though nominally sentient, freaked the fuck out and started screaming as it jumped off of the castle roof and ran into the forest. Well, it didn’t so much run as it bent end over end, over and over again, like a slinky falling down a set of stairs.
June recomposed herself… literally. She swooped down to grab the brown and orange flag that she had just dropped, saving it from burning up in her explosions, and then took off after her goal, which was currently animated and tumbling into a densely wooded area. She hoped the rest of The Angels were having better luck.
***
“Die, you little bastards!” Bobby shouted at the trio of cartoon candles that were attempting to ignite his socks. Bobby kicked one away, full force, and watched it explode against the stone wall in a tiny fireball of death. As he danced away from the remaining pair of candlesticks, he yelled over at Bailey, “Hey! Word Girl! Please tell me you have some magical words or phrases in your back pocket to get us out of all this!”
“Not off the top of my head! At least none that don’t have unfortunate side effects. Painful side effects,” she shot back as she avoided a menacing broom that had not only grown arms but, for some reason, sharp wooden horns. She turned and focused her ire on the dusty opponent. Rather than try to fight the gnarly broom head-on, she sprinted to a nearby wall, reached out, and turned the doorknob of a conveniently located closet door. “Get in your home! “Komen”! The broom flew in her direction as if summoned to her outstretched hand. She stepped aside, letting the living broom fly past her, and heard an “ooofff. Ow!” come from inside the small storage space.
Bailey had expected the broom closet to be empty, or at least devoid of other humans. Instead, one of the All-Stars lunged out of the opened door, broom in hand, and tackled her.
“Get out of here! Hurry!” he screamed as he hopped to his feet, weirdly letting Bailey off the proverbial hook.
“Wha- Who…” Bailey gathered herself before standing up. She maintained a defensive posture since she didn’t want to let this guy get the jump on her. Not again. He was tall and lanky with disheveled brown hair and dressed all in white like the rest of Team All-Star. His clothes looked unkempt and wrinkled. The broom squirmed and struggled in his hand.
“I’m Handimorph. My brother, Animatorch, he’s causing all this.” He used the staff of the broom to motion around at the cartoon chaos surrounding them all. “We need to get out of here before it gets much, much worse!”
Just then, they heard a loud Bang! Boom! POP! From outside the fortress tower. Bobby used the noisy distraction to sneak up behind Handimorph and put him in an armhold. “Explain. Quickly,” he ordered with an authority that seemed incongruous with his typical affability.
“MyBrothersPowerIsToAnimateInanimateObjectsButTheyArePsychoticAndTheMoreHeMakesTheWorseHeGets-” Before Handimorph could continue, a fork with cartoon eyes flew at Bobby’s head. Handimorph used his meta ability to turn his free hand into a large cartoonish wooden cutting board to shield Bobby from the attack. Thunk. Two more animated forks screamed across the kitchen and embedded themselves into the makeshift shield. Thunk, Thunk.
“Invaders!” one of the small silver utensils shrieked as it flew at the two young men. Thunk. This time, the fork lodged itself into the broom. Both exploded in a blast of fire and forced Handimorph to shield Bobby from getting burned. Bailey was starting to think her lack of sleep over the last month had caused her to go batty, but the chaos didn’t seem to phase Bobby, who brushed himself off and continued to question their possible ally. “So your brother creates psychotic exploding cartoon minions, you can turn your hands into inanimate objects, and we need to get the hell out of here before something MORE crazy happens?”
Handimorph nodded vigorously. But Bailey shouted, “Crazi-er!”
“See, the problem…” Bobby continued as he looked from Bailey to the lanky boy with cartoons for hands, “...aside from my poor grammar, is the fact that we need to claim this fortress to earn a point for our team.”
Bailey, who had moved toward the window to look outside at the fireworks display that Skyrocket was creating, or becoming, turned to Bobby and smiled. “That may not actually be an issue. If I’m not hallucinating, the flagpole just jumped off the roof of this tower and is currently slinking its way to the forest.” She blinked a couple of times and added, “And, If I am hallucinating, then none of this matters anyway. Maybe I’m sound asleep in a comfy bed somewhere, sleeping like a baby. Freshly showered, with a soft pillo-”
“Hey!” Bobby snapped at her and grinned wryly. “Stay with me Heiroglyph. I can’t afford to lose you right now. Flagpole. Forest. Skyrocket. Correct me if I’m wrong, but all that seems like good news. I was getting a little worried after Handimorph here warned that things might get worse, but I’m sure Skyrocket can handle a fight with a psychotic, newly-born flagpole. Which means… we just need to mop up here and wait for her.” However, as if the universe was laughing at Bobby’s assessment, things immediately devolved further. The ground began to rumble and shake. Handimorph instantly paled and ran for the door, only to be stopped by an angry-looking writing desk.
“So… worse?” Bobby asked, almost rhetorically, as he braced himself in the arch of a doorway.
“Uh-huh,” Handimorph nodded as he backpedaled, visibly searching for a nearby exit.
The earthquake intensified, and the floor began to move oddly. It felt like a boat pulling away from port. It finally dawned on Bobby what was happening. “He’s animating the whole fucking tower!? How strong is your brother?”
“He probably doesn’t even know what he’s doing. He’s put a little piece of his own consciousness and rationality into each of his creations. After a certain point, his judgment becomes impaired. He’s probably unconscious now and instinctively awakening anything he comes into physical contact with.”
The rumbling intensified as the tower lurched forward. Bailey grabbed the windowsill and Bobby pulled Handimorph into the arch of the doorway. They all managed to stay standing as dozens of cartoon household objects tumbled to the floor and rolled toward the edges of the open space of the tower’s ground floor.
“Okay. So how exactly do we stop your brother from killing us all?” Bobby yelled at Handimorph.
“The only way is to get all his creations out of his range. I'm not sure what his control radius is, but it's far. We’d need to somehow separate him from all this and get him onto grass, or someplace where he isn’t touching anything other than the natural world.”
“So we just need to get him off the roof and onto the lawn a mile or so away. Got it!”
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“Yeah. That would do it.” Handimorph shrugged.
“Or, we could get him onto the lawn here and just destroy his little animated army!” This time, it was Bailey who spoke. She winked at Bobby. “I’ve got an idea, my little Angel.”
“Hey! Watch it! I’ve got a reputation to uphold.”
“Fine.” Bailey shot back. “Ready to do something devilish?” She knew she didn’t even have to ask.
“Do you even need to ask?” Kidd Grimm flexed. “What do you have in mind?”
***
June zigzagged through the forest trees, trying to catch up with the Gumby flagpole, when a huge rock, nearly the size of a boulder, flew past her head. Why did rock-throwing feature so heavily in these challenges? She didn’t have time to process as more rocks came flying toward her. She was able to dodge them easily enough, but unless she found the source of the rocks, she would tire out, and Mr. Flagpole would disappear into the forest. Was it another meta? She didn’t think anyone on team 4 had such an ability, but Toon Tower had proven to be unpredictable. As June continued her evasive maneuvers through the trees, she glimpsed the tower in the corner of her eye. The only way she could explain it was that it seemed like the tower itself had come to life and was chucking chunks of itself at her. The concept of self-mutilation as a weapon sent shivers down her spine, but June couldn’t dwell on it. She needed to catch up to that flag!
She continued to dodge the oncoming projectiles and focused on closing in on the manic mast. June realized that she would have to be careful with her powers. She could accidentally ignite the flag just by getting too close while in her shifted form. She wasn’t sure how that would affect her team’s chances, but the worst-case scenario was that no points would be awarded, and all the work her team had done so far would be wiped out in a reset. It was a Catch-22. Without her powers, she wouldn’t be able to catch up to her target. This whole situation was maddening.
June decided to risk it. She shifted her body fully into human form and, using her feet as engines shooting powerful pyrotechnics to propel her, was able to catch up to the flag. She fired blasts from her hands like thrusters to adjust her position. It was less agile than shifting her entire bottom half and using it for both propulsion and steering, but desperate times. Okay. No time to waste. June put her head down and shot forward at the bounding standard.
***
“So your powers are stronger based on how old the word you put power into is? So the root languages of Latin and Greek would be the strongest?” Bobby asked as a follow-up to what Bailey had just explained.
“Pretty much. I’ve played with it a bit, but it can be dangerous if I don’t fully understand subtle differences in language. Sometimes, even historical context can affect the… well, the effect. So, I usually stick with English unless I’ve trained otherwise.”
Bobby thought back to where this whole diatribe started. “So a word like demolish would still be pretty powerful? Powerful enough to destroy this humble abode?” he asked.
The tower interrupted Bobby’s inquiry, shifting and groaning as it had changed direction. The trio had gotten accustomed to the shifting of the floor, and each had adjusted their balance so they could continue to defend themselves from psychotic side tables and crazy kitchen utensils. None of them thought they’d ever have to get used to the idea of adjusting their balance to destroy flaming cartoons inside a stone Kaiju tower…but here they were!
“I’ve never used that specific word before, but it should work!” Bailey said in a chipper tone. She thought for a moment and added, “But, we’ll have to write it big enough so it covers the whole tower or at least a lot of it. If I write it just on one brick, it’ll likely just destroy that single brick….probably.”
Bobby sensed her hesitation and thought quickly as he dodged a pair of ketchup and mustard bottles that lunged at him while holding hands. If he wasn’t imagining it, they seemed to be crying as they flew to their deaths. He sidestepped them and they splatted against the wall. The shards of broken glass burst into flames all around him. Then, something clicked for Bobby. “Bailey, does it matter what material we use to write the word?” He dipped his finger in the lingering wall ketchup and held it out to show her.
“No. It doesn’t,” she answered with a wry smile.
Bobby returned the expression. “I think it’s time we take this outside. Food fight!!”
***
“Shut the fuck up!” June shouted at the living flagpole, who was now dancing around the forest, mocking her. At some point during the chase, it had sprouted a mouth—a filthy one at that.
“Come on, Fireface, is that all you got? Fuck Face Fire, Face,” the flagpole mocked. “Go all day, I can. Don’t have lungs like a fleshbag. Am almighty!” The oversized rod managed to flex like a bicep.
June shivered at the screeching tone just underlying the gruff, gravelly voice of the pylon. It seemed like the longer the animation of the object, the more self-aware it became. This thing couldn’t shut up about its feelings. Right now, it seemed to be going through an impetuous, angry phase. Was this The Terrible Twos that her parents’ friends always talked about? Still, June didn’t have time to question the nuance of emotions and the meaning of life because that damn tower was still throwing chunks of its stony flesh at her. To say her fury was growing was an understatement, but tempering that rage was a bitter determination. No way in hell was she going to let this point slip away. She knew she could outsmart this foul-mouthed toddler.
“Fleshbag need break? Tired?” the flagpole taunted. “Too hard for Firefuck thin small brain?”
“Oh, hell no! You don’t even have a brain!” June reverted to junior high school insults as she flew toward the pole with a rush of speed. A stream of colorful sparks erupted from her hands and feet. She was a rainbow, streaking through the forest, right on path to tackle her target.
The flagpole once again danced out of the way of June’s attack, which positioned it between June and the mobile tower. This is what June was hoping for. As skinny as it was, the beam was now providing some protection from oncoming cobblestone attacks. If she could just get the timing right, she’d be able to get the point and reset this instance of the game.
***
Hanging out of one of the Tower’s first-story windows, Bailey put the finishing touches on the “H” in “Demolish.” She looked over at Handimorph while making sure that Bobby was also in range to hear her and yelled, “I just want to go on record saying that I’ve never tried this before, so if we all die, it’s Kidd Grimm’s fault.” Even though the tower wasn’t moving super fast, wind battered them all as they tried to finish off their tasty graffiti.
“Hey, a crazy plan is better than no plan at all.” Bobby retorted. The concept was to take all the ketchup and mustard, really anything that could act as paint, and write the word “demolish” as big as they could on one side of the tower. Then, Bailey could activate it with her power and hopefully bring down the whole fortress, destroying every crazy toon object inside. The whole process brought up memories of Bobby’s brief time as a graffiti artist. He enjoyed the danger and scale of the art form, but his living situation growing up had required staying off the cop’s radar. He looked up at his work and felt a pang of embarrassment. It looked dreadful, but at least the word was technically legible.
“What happens if this doesn’t work?” Handimorph asked as he finished carving out his last letter in the stone. His right hand was currently in the form of a sharp ice pick. There weren’t enough condiments, so he offered to etch the “OL” part of the word into the durable stone.
“That sounds like a future us problem. Let’s cross that bridge if we have to,” Bobby ordered. “I’m done with my part. H-Glyph, ready to do this thing?”
“Wait!” Handimorph screamed. “What about my brother?”
“Oh shit,” Bobby murmured. “I totally forgot…”
“It’s not just to make sure he’s safe,” Handimorph added. “We have to get him somewhere where he isn’t touching anything man-made. Or else we will have to deal with this sort of thing all over again.”
“Noted,” Bobby sighed. He looked at the distraught member of the opposing team. These were War Games. How ruthless were they supposed to be? Without knowing the judging criteria other than the team points, Bobby hoped his mercy wouldn’t be looked at as a weakness. “Go! You have two minutes before we blow this thing.”
Kidd Grimm and Hieroglyph stood shoulder to shoulder on the porch of the moving castle, ticking off the seconds until Handimorph finally exited the front door with his brother in a fireman’s carry. He tossed the unconscious Animatorch off of the slow-moving dwelling and dove off, himself, rolling to dampen the impact. Bobby turned to his powerful teammate and nodded.
Bobby watched as Hieroglyph focused her will into the word. “Demolish” began to glow. The whole structure began to rumble until the entire word was glowing with radiant purple energy. Bobby started whispering a story. If anyone had been able to hear over the cacophony, they may have heard “Han Feizi” and “shield.” A large brilliant shield materialized out of the words, and he raised it to protect Bailey and himself from the oncoming onslaught.
Then, starting with the ‘H’, the word began to erase itself. It reminded Bobby of a long fuse being lit and dwindling down to nothing, or like a rewind on the scribing of the word. Unlike a long fuse on a bomb, the demolition effect started immediately and ended once the “D” was gone and none of the word remained. Bobby tried to keep Bailey in his field of view to further study her power and its effects on her during use. She was grimacing and drenched in sweat.
And then it was over. A huge pile of rubble lay on the ground where Team 4’s stronghold once stood. Bobby kept the shield raised over his head. Wait for it... All of a sudden, the rubble burst into a giant fireball that quickly dissipated into a small bonfire, probably due to the flames igniting some shrubbery in the area. Thank the gods this didn’t happen in the forest. That could have spread to the whole War Games area.
“Who are you two? You’re crazy powerful,” Handimorph said in awe as he wandered over.
“We’re fucking Kidd Grimm and Hieroglyph. Hands behind your back, we are taking you to our brig.”
***
June lunged at the flagpole, and once again, the flagpole danced out of the way. Its dexterity and agility were maddening.
“Ooooohhh, I’m shivering in my metal now!” Was its grammar improving? June was really astounded by the growth of the filthy flag thing. She was also growing more and more annoyed. How was she going to catch this thing with her hands tied behind her back? She wished she could just shift fully and destroy the rust rod.
She was, however, perceiving some patterns in its movement. Each time it jumped over her, it would land in the spot where she had just been. It would throw out a distracting barb while it did so, but still… pattern. Then it happened. A detonation followed by a long loud rumbling that sounded like an earthquake. The shaking caused her opponent to stumble. She flew at it, and as usual, it jumped over her. She spun quickly and fired a stream of fireworks at a tree to fell it right onto the spot where she previously flew. The tree pinned the iron mast to the ground.
A horrific stream of expletives erupted from its mouth, and June casually walked over, grinning. “I guess this fleshbag fireface beat your ass.”
The flag pole struggled beneath the log but had no chance of escaping. As it continued to swear at the combustible challenger. “Whatever helps your little ego, buddy.” she teased as she untied Team 4’s flag from the pole. “But, I’ll be taking this and earning a point for Team 3, thank you very much.” Bobby and Bailey waved at her and sauntered over with their captor as she unfurled their team’s brown and orange banner and attached it to the goal. Immediately, a loud horn went off in the War Games Area, and two portals opened up in front of the group. They had just pulled their team within one point of tying Team 1, who had been in the lead since day one.
June walked toward the orange portal and, over her shoulder, winked at her teammates and said, “Good Evening Angels! Took you long enough!” and then stepped through the glowing doorway.