literature

The Dark Portal, Part 3

Deviation Actions

TheEyeShield's avatar
By
Published:
1.2K Views

Literature Text

Charley, Lily and Dottie found themselves in a quiet suburban area of Norwich.
  “Hey, I know where this is,” Lily realised. “That house over there is where Treguard’s niece lives.”
  “Are you sure?” asked Charley. “Why would there be any evil artefacts here?”
  “Of course I’m sure,” Lily was adamant.
  “Let’s go and investigate,” Dottie suggested. “Perhaps we can spot where Mogdred’s got to.”
They went into the front garden of the house that Lily recognised. There was a man there, crouching behind the hedge, where he was planting bulbs. He looked up sharply when he saw the three kids.
  “What do you want here?” he asked suspiciously. “What do you think you’re doing, just walking into my garden like this?”
  “Hey, you’re William, aren’t you?” Lily asked. “Fay’s husband, right?”
  “Yes, and who are you?” William frowned.
  “I’m Lily,” Lily replied. “I came here before, remember? We know Fay’s uncle, Treguard of Dunshelm.”
  “Oh yes, now I remember you,” William agreed. “What do you want this time?”
  “Well, I’m not really sure,” Lily confessed. “Is Fay in? Could we talk to her?”
  “I suppose so,” sighed William, rising to his feet. “I’ll take you in to see her.”
Fay was quite pleased to see Lily again, and welcomed her, Charley and Dottie into the house. She invited them all to sit in the living room, and instructed William to bring tea and biscuits for them all.
  “It’s nice to see you again,” Fay said to Lily. “I’m glad you turned up before and reminded me who I really am. I remember it now – I remember all of it: Treguard coming to me on my twelfth birthday, rescuing Smirkenorff with Will, and then getting my memory wiped by Aesandre. I’m glad I could help my uncle defeat the evil Green Eye.”
Charley, Lily and Dottie looked at each other awkwardly.
  “What’s the matter?” asked Fay. “The Green Eye is defeated, isn’t it?”
  “Well, yes, but we took so long getting you to Knightmare that Merlin had to hold the Eye at bay for too long, and his evil alter-ego was ripped out of him,” Lily explained. “That’s kinda why we’re here.”
  “You mean Mogdred,” Fay realised. “I’ve heard all about him. Do you need my help in some way to deal with him? I’d be only too pleased to lend a hand. How can I help?”
  “Well, we don’t exactly know,” admitted Dottie. “Mogdred is trying to gather five evil artefacts, and we followed him here to your house.”
  “You mean there’s an evil artefact in my house?” Fay asked.
  “We assume so,” said Charley. “And we have to get our hands on it before Mogdred does – it’s our last chance to stop him.”
  “I see,” Fay nodded. “Hmm, well, I wonder what the artefact might be. Will! Do we have any evil artefacts lying around the house?”
  “What’s that?” asked William, entering the room with a full tea-tray.
  “Is there anything lying around that you think might be evil?” Fay asked, rising to her feet. “These kids have…”
  “Fay, look out!” Lily suddenly exclaimed, having spotted something alarming creeping out from behind Fay’s vacated armchair. “Mogdred’s right behind you!”
Fay jumped and turned around, ducking slightly as she did so. Charley, Lily and Dottie saw Mogdred make a grab for Fay, but Fay herself could not see him.
  “Where is he?” Fay asked worriedly.
  “He must have made himself invisible to you!” Dottie exclaimed.
  “And we’re invisible to him!” Charley cried.
  “Quick, Fay, come over here!” Lily urged. “I’ll protect you with my golden power shield.”
Lily created a magic forcefield around Fay just as Mogdred unleashed some lightning at her. Mogdred snarled to see his power deflected by an unseen barrier.
  “I must collect this woman!” Mogdred fumed. “By all the powers of evil, none shall stop me in my mission!”
Mogdred reached out and penetrated Lily’s magic field, just as Dottie tried to pull Fay further away from him. As Dottie and Mogdred came into contact through Fay, the watch that Dottie was wearing fizzled and then exploded in a light blue flash. Dottie screeched and threw the flaming device to the floor. The spell had now been broken, and Mogdred could clearly see Charley, Lily and Dottie standing beside Fay. Sneering horribly, the fiend made himself visible.
  “So, you are the ones who have been trying to frustrate my attempts to gather the five artefacts!” Mogdred exclaimed. “Yet I do not know you – who are you?”
  “We were sent by Merlin,” Dottie replied levelly. “And we know all about you and your evil ways, Mogdred.”
  “Do you now?” Mogdred chuckled. “And yet you have not been able to stop me.”
Mogdred reached out for Fay again, but Charley knocked him back with a blast from one of his zap guns. The attack did not damage Mogdred physically, but the sheer surprise of it caused him to stop what he was doing and step back in alarm.
  “Quick, run!” Lily cried, dragging Fay out of the room with the others following behind. “We can’t let Mogdred get Fay. She must be the final artefact.”
  “But how can I be?” Fay asked worriedly. “I’m not evil. Am I?”
  “No, you’re good!” Lily exclaimed. “It’s like Candyman’s paintings, and Von Kreepsula having to be there when we closed the Universal Eye – evil and good can’t exist without each other, and the four evil artefacts need a fifth one to represent good!”
  “But why me?” asked Fay.
  “It must have something to do with you being Treguard’s niece,” said Charley.
  “Of course!” Dottie exclaimed in realisation. “Fay, we’ve got to protect you from Mogdred.”

Timmy went up to the front door of Trixie’s house and rapped boldly on the knocker. Her father came to answer it.
  “Yes, little boy?” he asked disdainfully.
  “Is Trixie home?” Timmy asked winningly.
  “Yes, she is,” came the snooty reply.
  “Can I talk to her, please?” Timmy persisted.
  “Oh, very well,” Trixie’s father sighed. “But I’m getting very bored of all you lovelorn boys turning up to see my daughter. Wait right there.”
Timmy stood on the threshold. After a few moments, Trixie appeared. She regarded her visitor with a look of disdain.
  “Who are you and what do you want?” she asked shortly.
  “I’m Timmy Turner,” Timmy reminded her. “I’m the kid who left you that night-blooming plant, remember?”
  “Oh yeah, that thing,” Trixie frowned. “Well, what do you want?”
  “To get my plant back,” Timmy replied with what he hoped was a winning smile.
  “Well I like that!” Trixie exclaimed. “You can’t give something to someone as a gift and then just demand it back – that’s very bad manners, you know.”
  “But I thought you didn’t like the plant,” Timmy protested.
  “Well, I don’t, but I’m going to keep it anyway,” Trixie insisted. “You see, you gave it to me as a present, and I always keep presents whether I like them or not because it reminds me of how popular I am.”
  “How about if I tell you that the plant’s going to kill you?” Timmy ventured.
  “I’m so not interested in this conversation anymore,” Trixie yawned.
With that, Trixie shut the door in Timmy’s face. Timmy went over to a large tree in the garden, behind which Mona, Cosmo and Wanda were hiding.
  “Well, that didn’t work,” Timmy sighed.
  “We’ll just have to climb this tree,” Mona decided. “Then we can sneak into Trixie’s bedroom and get the plant.”
  “And there’s still hours to go until midnight!” Cosmo celebrated. “It looks like everything’s gonna be okay!”
  “Have you never heard of tempting fate, sweetie?” Wanda sighed.
At the top of the tree, Timmy peered through all the upstairs windows he could see, which were about ten metres away.
  “There’s Trixie’s bedroom, on the left!” Timmy exclaimed. “But how are we gonna get in?”
  “How about you wish for something?” Mona suggested. “What about wishing for a rope ladder, some sort of suction device and one of those round glass-cutting things for breaking through windows?”
  “I knew you’d be good at this, Mona!” Timmy grinned. “Cosmo, Wanda – I wish we had all that stuff that Mona just said.”
Cosmo and Wanda conjured up the things Mona had asked for. There was a sort of plunger loaded into a gun, to which Mona tied the end of the rope ladder. She shot this at Trixie’s window, where it stuck fast. She then secured the other end of the ladder to the tree, and she and Timmy crawled over to Trixie’s window. Mona then placed the glass-cutting device on the window, cut a small circular hole, and reached in to undo the window. It swung open.
  “Piece of cake!” Mona grinned. “Now, let’s go and get that plant.”
However, a setback occurred as Trixie walked into the room. Mona and Timmy froze still, hoping that they would not be seen. It was now fairly dark outside, and Trixie was obviously ready to go to bed. It was not long before she was settling down to sleep.
  “Let’s wait until she falls asleep,” Timmy suggested. “I don’t really want her to catch me sneaking into her bedroom.”
  “Well, there’s still a couple of hours ‘til midnight,” said Wanda. “Are you sure the plant won’t do anything before then, Cosmo?”
  “Absolutely,” Cosmo replied confidently. “The plant blooms at midnight.”
  “It should be safe to let her fall asleep, then,” Mona agreed. “But keep an eye on that plant.”
For twenty-five minutes the would-be rescuers waited, becoming more and more uncomfortable with every passing second. Just as Timmy was about to suggest that Trixie might be asleep, Mona noticed a most alarming thing. The plant appeared to be moving.
  “Timmy!” she hissed. “Look at that plant – does it look like it’s moving to you?”
  “Yes, it does,” Timmy agreed. “And those tendrils are definitely getting longer!”
  “It’s waking up!” Wanda exclaimed. “But it’s still more than an hour and a half ‘til midnight!”
  “Hmm, well, come to think of it, some plants from the Planet of Really Dangerous Plants are so dangerous that they bloom early and kill you before they’re really supposed to,” Cosmo remembered. “Guess I should have mentioned that, really.”
  “Oh, Jesus Christ!” Mona exclaimed. “We’ll have to go in now!”
  “But Trixie might still be awake,” Timmy dissented.
  “If we hang around anymore then she might not still be alive!” Mona pointed out. “We’ll have to make a move.”

  “Hello, Fay,” Mogdred smiled sinisterly. “Will you hide from me forever? I really need you to come back to Knightmare with me, you know.”
  “Yes, I know,” Fay replied. “But I’m not coming with you.”
  “Of course not,” Mogdred nodded. “Yet I am not going back alone. I am being accompanied by someone you know very well, Fay. Unless you want me to do my evil worst to him, you will come to Knightmare too. Farewell.”
And with that, Mogdred was gone. Everyone pondered the meaning of his words.
  “Fay, you can’t go to Knightmare,” Dottie piped up. “If Mogdred manages to perform that spell…”
  “The Gruagach will win!” Lily finished for her. “Hell on Earth will reign, and that’s no exaggeration. All that stuff we did to stop the Green Eye, all the time Mona and Dottie spent on the Black Pearl, everything your uncle’s done over the past thirty years – it’ll all be for nothing!”
But Fay was not listening. She ran from the room and began to rush all over the house, yelling at the top of her voice.
  “Will!” she cried urgently. “Will, where are you?”
  “Oh dear,” Charley sighed. “This can’t be good.”
At length, Fay rushed out into the front garden. The others followed her.
  “Will!” she cried desperately again. “He’s not here – Mogdred’s taken him!”
  “Looks like it,” Dottie agreed.
  “I have to go and get him!” Fay exclaimed.
  “That would be a bad idea,” said Charley. “Weren’t you listening to Lily just now?”
  “But I have to get my husband back!” Fay insisted.
  “We’ll get him for you,” offered Lily.
  “No, you heard what Mogdred said!” cried Fay hysterically. “He wants me there – me, not you! I have to go. Will, oh Will!”
Fay rushed across the road towards the Dream Caverns, clearly in hysterics.
  “Oh dear,” sighed Lily. “We did all we could to stop Mogdred getting the five artefacts, and now the last one is rushing right into his clutches.”
  “He hasn’t got her yet!” Dottie determined. “We’ve got to get to Knightmare, rescue William, and stop Fay from being used in Mogdred’s spell.”
  “You make it sound so simple,” Charley sighed.
  “I wish Mona was here,” Lily sniffed.
  “Well, she’s not!” Dottie scowled. “But we’ve still got to get after Fay. Come on!”

Mona dropped silently into the room and stole over to the dressing table, with Timmy following close behind her. As they approached the carnivorous plant, Mona reached out to pick up the small pot it was in. At once an unearthly scream rent the silence of Trixie’s bedroom. The plant grew to three times its original size; hordes of writhing tendrils burst out of its pot. The large spike-rimmed mouths of the plant, exactly like those of a Venus flytrap, began to salivate alarmingly.
  “Oh, right,” Mona remarked dourly. “This can’t be good.”
At once, she and Timmy were whipped off their feet by the writhing tendrils. They were flipped upside down in the space of a few seconds, and found themselves being pulled towards two of the plant’s hungry mouths.
  “Guys!” Timmy yelled. “A little help, huh?”
  “We can’t fight it!” cried Wanda. “It’s completely immune to magic, remember? There’s nothing we can do.”
  “Spin around!” Mona exclaimed. “It might make it loosen its grip!”
Timmy followed this plan, and the tendrils loosened a little. Timmy and Mona threw themselves to the floor, and began to crawl away from the writhing tendrils.
  “I could sort this thing out in no time if…” Mona began, but Timmy interrupted her.
  “Trixie!” he yelled.
Sure enough, one of the plant’s mouths had snaked over to Trixie’s bed and clamped itself over the left side of her chest. As Timmy watched in horror, bright red blood began to soak through her lacy white nightdress.
  “No!” Timmy cried. “Help her, Mona!”
  “I can’t!” Mona yelled. “Not unless you let me!”
At this point, Trixie woke up. She looked down at her chest and screamed hideously at the sight, passing out immediately from the shock. To make matters worse, Timmy and Mona were grabbed once again and hoisted into the air.
  “Timmy!” Mona exclaimed urgently. “Have faith in me!”
  “I… I… I do believe in you!” Timmy cried as he dangled upside down. “I do believe you can really fight real supernatural evil, and I do believe in your fantastic vampire powers! Cosmo, Wanda – I wish Mona had all her powers back!”

All of a sudden, Mona felt the change wash over her. Her hair changed from brown to black. Her senses sharpened to superhuman levels. Her muscles became larger and stronger. Her canine teeth broke through her gums as they grew into sharp fangs. Mona flexed her fingers and blasted lightning at the plant’s bulbous core, which had broken out of the pot. However, it did not release its grip on her or Timmy.
  “The plant’s still invulnerable to magic!” Wanda pointed out.
  “Then I’ll defeat it without magic,” said Mona.
She flipped herself upright and grabbed the tendril that held her. She pulled several yards of this towards her, and then bit into it. The plant screamed piercingly as one of its limbs was ripped off, and bright yellow sap began to ooze from the wound. Mona was forced to spit out some of this foul liquid as she landed deftly on the floor.
  “I’m sorry I didn’t believe in your powers before!” Timmy exclaimed. “Please save Trixie.”
Mona went up to Trixie and yanked the mouthpart off her chest. Wanda flew over and waved her wand over Trixie’s bleeding wound, which healed itself up at once. As she did this, Mona wrenched off the limb she had grabbed, causing the plant to writhe and scream in agony once again. One of the plant’s tendrils tried to grab Mona, but she caught it deftly and yanked it hard. The plant’s bulbous body thumped hard onto the floor, and Mona promptly stamped on it with all her might. There was a tremendous explosion of greenery and yellow ooze, and then the writhing and screaming stopped altogether. Timmy fell to the floor as the dead plant released him.
  “Wow, you were brilliant, Mona!” Timmy enthused.
  “Well, I told you I could deal with it easily if I had my powers,” Mona grinned, flashing her sharp fangs at Timmy in a somewhat alarming manner.
  “Is Trixie okay?” Timmy asked Wanda.
  “Oh, she’s fine, sport,” Wanda assured him. “When she wakes up, she’ll probably think this was all a dream.”
  “Unless she sees all the blood and sap and dead plant parts,” Cosmo pointed out.
  “Well, now that the plant’s dead, we should be able to deal with those,” said Wanda.
  “Right!” Timmy enthused. “I wish Trixie’s bedroom was back to normal. And I wish we were all back in my bedroom!”
Cosmo and Wanda raised their wands, and the wishes were granted.

Charley, Lily and Dottie skidded into the cave where Mogdred had set up shop. In a circle on the floor, the cricket box, the Cadbury’s Flake dessert, the string vest and the container of Pot Noodles were set out. Mogdred and Fay were also in the room, and seemed to be involved in some sort of verbal standoff.
  “I will release William willingly,” Mogdred was saying. “He is of no consequence whatsoever to me. But first you must surrender to me!”
  “So you can destroy the world, you mean?” Fay countered. “Then we’d all be dead anyway.”
  “Destruction is not my aim,” Mogdred replied coolly. “It is merely to release my ally from his imprisonment.”
  “I know the Gruagach’s purpose,” Fay scowled. “His plan was always to use Knightmare Castle as his headquarters to destroy civilisation as we know it, and that is still his aim. Why would I help the one who is the cause of all the evil here in Knightmare?”
  “Treguard taught you well of your heritage, girl,” Mogdred grated. “Yet I can tell you why you will help – I have William in my power. If he is to live, you will give yourself to me!”
Mogdred snaked his fingers towards Fay, trapping her in a net of evil sorcery. He began to haul her towards him, smiling confidently.
  “We can’t stop him!” Dottie cried. “We’ve failed! Oh, Mona will never trust us to do anything ever again!”
But, as Mogdred hauled Fay towards him, a crash of thunder and flash of lightning occurred between captor and captive. In the blink of an eye, a shining blade cut down and severed Mogdred’s magical net, causing the fiend to fall back.
  “Oh, Uncle Treguard!” Fay celebrated. “You came to save me!”
Treguard lowered his sword, and smiled faintly at Fay.
  “I thought you might be able to use my help,” he explained. “Merlin should follow soon – his spell is almost ready.”
  “So is mine, Dungeon Master,” Mogdred snarled, rising gracefully to his feet. “You cannot stop me from completing the ritual.”
  “Mogdred, you fiend,” Treguard growled. “Will you never cease to work your evil in my realm?”
  “You brought me here,” Mogdred half-smiled. “You brought Merlin here, and so you brought me. Just as evil cannot exist without good, we are one!”
  “You will not call forth the Gruagach,” Treguard stated.
  “You seek to stop me by force?” Mogdred jeered. “Your powers are no match for mine, you foolish knight!”
  “Really?” Treguard questioned casually. “Would you like to test that theory?”
Treguard and Mogdred began a ferocious magical exchange. Although Mogdred should logically have had the advantage, he was weaker and less powerful than once he had been, having been physically extracted from Merlin in his latest incarnation. Treguard, on the other hand, had the power of the magic blade in his hands and the ancient stones of his family’s keep all around him. The two were, to all intents and purposes, evenly matched.
  “Treguard will never be able to defeat Mogdred!” Charley exclaimed.
  “He doesn’t have to!” Lily realised. “He’s just keeping him busy until Merlin turns up with the joining spell!”
  “Fay!” Dottie yelled. “We have to get you out of here!”
  “I’m going nowhere without Will,” Fay determined.
  “But as long as you’re still here, Mogdred still has the raw materials to complete the evil ritual!” Dottie exclaimed. “What if he manages to gain a clear advantage over Treguard, even for a second? We need something to tip the balance in our favour, and we need it now!”

  “I feel I am needed back home,” Mona said. “I sense that things are coming to a head, and I might be able to tip the balance in our favour.”
  “I know I haven’t done Show and Tell yet, but I’ve realised tonight that there are much more important things,” said Timmy soberly. “If you can get yourself home, you should.”
  “Can your magic override ours, and transport you home?” asked Wanda.
  “I don’t see why not,” Cosmo reasoned. “It’s only our magic that’s affected by the conditions of the wishes Timmy makes, after all.”
  “Any sort of transportation spell uses up a lot of magic energy,” Mona considered. “And when you don’t know exactly where you’re going from and to, it becomes even more draining.”
  “But if you’re needed urgently back in your own dimension, you can’t really hang around here until Crocker takes it into his mind to have Show and Tell,” said Wanda.
  “You’re right,” Mona agreed. “I’ve got to try it. But I don’t want to leave you completely in the lurch, Timmy, and I hate leaving things unfinished anyway. If I could help you prepare a brilliant Show and Tell presentation with me in it right now, perhaps Cosmo and Wanda could bend the rules a little and try to help me with my transportation spell a bit – give me a magical boost, perhaps.”
  “But we can’t do anything unless you’re around for the presentation,” Cosmo pointed out.
  “Well, I will be,” Mona grinned. “Just not in person.”
  “I suppose we could try it,” Wanda agreed. “But we’re your fairy godparents, Timmy, so it’s up to you.”
  “Let’s do it,” Timmy sighed. “It’s been fun having you around, Mona. Thanks for saving Trixie for me.”
  “No sweat,” Mona assured him. “Now, all we need as a video camera and a microphone.”
  “No problem,” Timmy obliged. “Cosmo, Wanda – you know what to do!”

Just as it seemed to Charley, Lily, Dottie and Fay that they were going to stand watching Treguard and Mogdred exchange magical blasts for all eternity, Dottie’s prayers were answered. A flash of lightning occurred once again, this time bringing Mona the Vampire back into their midst.
  “Yes, it worked!” Mona cried triumphantly. “Oh, hey guys. What’s going on?”
Mona’s three friends threw themselves gratefully at her at began to gabble unintelligibly about what was going on. At length, Mona managed to glean the fundamentals of the situation.
  “So those are the four non-human artefacts there, are they, left completely unguarded?” Mona asked, almost casually.
  “Well, yes,” Dottie confirmed. “I should think we’d know them well enough by now. Do you have a plan, Mona?”
  “You bet I do,” Mona nodded eagerly. “Mogdred can’t complete the ritual without the objects, can he? What’s more, he’s much too busy to be guarding them at the moment. What a shame it would be for Mogdred if someone accidentally, say… destroyed the four artefacts while he was busy.”
  “Oh yeah,” Lily agreed. “Why didn’t we think of that?”
  “Well, I knew you guys couldn’t cope without me,” Mona grinned.
Mona flexed her fingers at the cricket box and disintegrated it into a pile of ashes. Charley shot the string vest with a laser, causing it to go up in flames. Lily opened up the Pot Noodles, spread them all over the floor and began to stamp on them. Dottie, balking inwardly, seized the Cadbury’s Flake Dessert and hurled it at the wall, where it exploded in a brown mess. The effect on Mogdred was immediate. He broke away from the combat, roaring angrily at Mona and her friends.
  “My artefacts!” he bellowed. “What have you done to my artefacts?”
  “What’s it look like?” Mona shot back scathingly.
  “You will pay for this with your lives!” Mogdred fumed.
  “Come on, then!” Mona taunted him. “Try it, Mogdred!”
Fire burned brightly in Mogdred’s eyes for a few minutes and then, quite suddenly, it disappeared. His whole expression went blank, and his body went limp. As the six spectators looked on, Mogdred’s outline began to shimmer and blur. His robes changed colour from black to green, and long white hair began to fall from all over his head. The figure now held a silver wand in his hand, and a twinkling smile was on his face.
  “There, it is done,” Merlin beamed happily. “Mogdred’s evil is rescinded.”
  “Excellent, Merlin!” Treguard boomed. “You completed the spell just in time.”
  “And the artefacts are destroyed,” Mona added. “No one will be using them to open any portals now.”
  “That means that we are finally out of danger from the Gruagach’s evil,” smiled Treguard. “At long last, there is no other way for him to reach us.”
  “And Mona’s back with us!” Lily celebrated. “Everything’s turned out all right!”
  “Well, not quite everything,” said Merlin. “Mogdred has left me one further matter to deal with.”
He held out his wand before him, a flash of lightning leapt from it, and William appeared in the cave, looking confused and harassed.
  “Will!” cried Fay joyfully, rushing up to hug him. “Thank God you’re safe!”
  “What the hell is going on here?” William asked bemusedly. “One minute I’m planting bulbs, the next… well, I don’t even know!”
  “I think we’re all in need of a debriefing,” said Treguard. “Come, let us all return to the Great Hall.”

When Timmy Turner went to school the following day, he had with him a videotape for Show and Tell. Seeing that Timmy no longer had Mona with him, Mr. Crocker decided, in his usual irksome way, to have Show and Tell right at the beginning of the day. He insisted that Timmy went first.
  “So, where’s your special guest?” Crocker mocked. “Or are we to be treated to another fascinating analysis of different types of mould from your fridge, eh? Hah-hah!”
  “No, my presentation’s still about Mona the Vampire,” Timmy replied calmly.
  “Ah, I knew it!” Crocker exclaimed. “She’s still here because she can’t get back to her own dimension without the help of your… fairy godparents!”
  “No, she’s not here,” Timmy continued in his cool tone of voice. “I’m afraid that the actress who plays Mona couldn’t be here today because she had to go back and record some more cartoon dialogue, but she did leave me this for my presentation.”
Timmy held up his videotape triumphantly. Crocker said nothing, but eyed Timmy suspiciously as he loaded the tape into a pink projector with a green loudspeaker, and pointed the image at the whiteboard.
  “Fellow students,” Timmy announced. “This is my interview with famous cartoon star Mona the Vampire. I had hoped to do it with her here in person, but, as we were unable to perform yesterday, Mona and I have taped the whole thing for you. Enjoy!”
A picture appeared of Mona, in her human form, sitting on Timmy’s bed. From off-screen, Timmy’s nasal voice spoke to her.
  “So, Mona, you just got into town,” it said. “What do you think of Dimmsdale?”
  “My God, do I really sound like that?” Timmy gawped.
  “Well, I can see that it’s quite an unusual place,” Mona replied on the tape. “I think my monster-busting team and I could really do some good work here.”
  “Yeah, I’m sure you could,” Timmy agreed. “When did you first become a vampire?”
  “On Halloween, when I was five years old,” Mona replied. “I wanted to dress up as a ballerina, but my dad couldn’t find any ballerina costumes, so he helped me cobble together a vampire costume instead. You can see a flashback about it in an episode of my cartoon show called Witch Watch.”
  “Why can’t the adults see the monsters you and your friends fight each week?” came the next question.
  “Because they’re too old to understand what’s really going on in our town,” Mona explained. “Their perspective is blighted by logic and reason and the so-called wisdom that comes with age. But I know the dark secrets that the town hides.”
  “What’s the toughest monster you’ve ever had to fight?”
  “Erm, Candyman I think. Yeah, he was a toughie.”
  “Who or what is Candyman?” asked Timmy.
  “He’s the vengeful spirit of a nineteenth century black slave who was persecuted and murdered by an angry mob,” Mona said with relish. “He comes back to wreak revenge for this unjust killing. Say his name five times in the mirror and… well, just don’t do it is my advice.”
  “Good advice,” Timmy agreed. “What’s the best thing about being a vampire?”
  “Well, there’s lots of cool stuff, but I think best thing is invulnerability,” Mona considered. “It’s very useful when I’m fighting something to know that if it wounds me, I’ll heal up almost instantaneously!”
  “Answer me this final question, then. If you’re a vampire, how come you look like a normal girl?”
  “Oh, I’m not in my vampire form now. I thought it’d be better to stay as I am for this interview because…”
Here Mona closed her eyes and her image disappeared from the picture, leaving a shot of an empty bed. However, Mona’s voice could still be heard:
  “Vampires can’t be photographed… or filmed!”
Here the film ended. Timmy’s classmates cheered boisterously at what they considered to be an excellent piece of cinematography, while Mr. Crocker was forced to enter an A grade next to Timmy’s name in his mark book.
  “And there we have it,” Timmy grinned happily. “An interview with Mona the Vampire, whose answers were kindly provided by my new friend Emma, the real voice-over actress from the cartoon.”
  “You can’t fool me, Turner,” Crocker whispered to Timmy, as he was going to sit back down. “I know that was the real Mona the Vampire, I know that she was trapped here, and I know that you have… fairy godparents! And one of these days, I’m going to prove it!”

After some time, in the Great Hall of Knightmare, everything had become clear.
  “Well, there we have it, then,” Treguard smiled warmly. “Mogdred is defeated, the Gruagach is stuck in his own time sphere, and everyone is back in the dimension where they’re supposed to be.”
  “That should certainly make things more peaceful around here again,” Merlin commented. “Certainly it should mean an end to my needing to give you and your friends endless missions, Mona, if Knightmare has settled down once again.”
  “Well that’s good,” Mona nodded approvingly.
  “Does that mean it’s the end of our adventures?” asked Lily worriedly.
  “Of course not!” exclaimed Mona. “We’ve still got a whole town to protect from supernatural evil.”
  “Besides, I’m sure there are greater things to come for you, Mona, even than saving the life of a vanity queen and helping some kid get an A on his Show and Tell,” Merlin said with a smile. “And, whatever these things are, I’m sure we’ll all have our parts to play in them.”
  “Well, I’m just glad that Mogdred’s gone,” said Fay.
  “I’ll second that,” William remarked dryly.

Once they were left alone, Treguard and Merlin discussed further their thoughts about the current situation in Knightmare.
  “So many times, Merlin, have we thought that Knightmare Castle was free from evil forever,” Treguard sighed. “And this time, out of the blue, the Gruagach managed to find a way to get to us through Mona, which resulted in Mogdred being pulled out of you. I wouldn’t ever have seen that one coming.”
  “I agree with you, Treguard, but I’m sure that this time we’ve really cracked it,” Merlin replied. “The Gruagach has no further way of reaching us from this time period or any other, and it was only thanks to him, as you said, that Mogdred was able to return. Surely Knightmare is free from evil, but that is not to say that our work is over. We must continue to keep an eye on Mona’s adventures and help her all we can, for there are still many great things for her to do before she has to… well, before her adventures are over.”
  “What were you going to say?” Treguard pressed him. “Before she has to what?”
  “Well,” Merlin answered awkwardly. “I foresee a time when Mona will be forced to… choose.”
  “Choose what?” asked Treguard. “Not between her friends again, surely.”
  “No, not between her friends,” Merlin said carefully. “Between… well, between herself, I suppose. That is, between being a human and being a vampire, once and for all.”
  “Ouch!” Treguard grimaced. “I’m not looking forward to that adventure.”

As Mona, Charley, Lily and Dottie walked home, they discussed their adventures further.
  “I’d like to see this cartoon about us,” Lily told Mona. “Am I in it?”
  “Oh yes,” Mona confirmed.
  “And me?” asked Charley.
  “Yes,” said Mona.
  “And me?” asked Dottie.
  “Well, I didn’t see you,” Mona admitted. “But there’s probably an episode about you and your dance hex, because they’re from that sort of time.”
  “One episode!” Dottie frowned. “What a rip.”
  “It must be cool to have fairy godparents,” said Lily. “Imagine being able to wish for anything you want.”
  “Well, there are limitations,” Mona reminded her. “Besides, I think Timmy discovers quite often that the old adage is correct – be careful what you wish for; it just might come true.”
  “Reminds me of an episode of The X Files with a genie in it,” Charley remarked.
  “So, it seems you guys did manage to get on okay without me,” Mona ventured. “Doubtless if I’d been there, of course, Mogdred wouldn’t have got even a sniff of any one of those objects, but you still managed to do the job in the end.”
Mona was only half-joking when she said this, but her friends did not appear to have picked up on that fact.
  “Well, we’re all back together now,” Mona smiled warmly. “And as long as Mona the Vampire, Princess Giant, Zapman and, erm… Ballet Girl are around, no supernatural nasty is gonna stand an ice-cube’s chance in Hell for long in this town!”
Part 3 of 3.

This is the twentieth in a very large collection of fanfics I have written based around the excellent Canadian cartoon show Mona the Vampire.

The "guest star" TV programme is Fairly Oddparents.

Yet again, I seem to have slipped in a few locations where I or members of my family have lived in the past, which will mean absolutely nothing to anyone - sorry about that.

This fic was written in September 2004.
© 2008 - 2024 TheEyeShield
Comments0
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In