All Enemies Down || WC: 1156
"Awwww, Aspen," the jello mage warbled, face taking on a mushy expression as his eyes threatened to spill not tears of sadness, but ones of happiness. "You called me Theo!" he gushed like a parent over a child uttering its first garbled 'da-da', extremely pleased despite his predicament. In Theo's life, it was the small things that mattered. Even in the midst of this very bizarre outing, nothing could keep him from his various distractions. As she reached out to help him out of his own crow-peppered jello mold, he reached to try and take her hand, but it was too late. He hadn't noticed the crows vibrating about and becoming this bigger thing! He only noticed it as he fought its way free, jiggling his own trapped form backward and all other directions from loose. The man wouldn't be trapped too much longer, though. Mercury came to his aid, and soon his feet were back on the ground.
As Aspen did her thing and unloaded her clips into the creature, the ice-blue eyed man watched her like a child at the circus. It was amazing. Before long the scary bird mutant was taken care of. "Wow, Aspen! That was so cool," he grinned, giving her an energetic thumbs-up, as if the thing she killed wasn't made of the crows he'd nearly sobbed over earlier.
Mercury's comment on the scarecrow drew his surprised gaze, which he now squinted. "No, I don't remember it. But maybe I missed it when the ghost scared me.." he commented, though his tone made no mistake of his frayed nerves. The line of his mouth wobbled in growing fear, finding all of this to be a little too spooky. The forest was pretty, but it seemed out to get them, and Theo didn't wanna get got. Pain and death weren't his thing, and honestly, he was pretty jumpy anyway. Ghosts and crows and scarecrows were trying to protect the pumpkins...but Theo was also a man of his word. As much as he wanted to hightail it back to the ship, he'd committed to getting these pumpkins! He just needed to see them as treasures. Hollow, edible treasures.
The suspicious scarecrow was suspicious after all. Despite his redeeming display of magic with the crows, even if that had been semi-accidental, Theo released a terrified screech and stumbled backward, letting his new friend take over the fighting of the possessed garden guardian. His fear was premature, though, as Mercury also used her guns and other metal weapons to show the enemy who was boss, Theo had time to humorously dub it a 'gardian' in his head and snicker at his pun.
Once it was defeated as well, the amazed young man's cold hues darted between the girls. "I wanna use guns, too!" Theo declared, feeling left out but excited to join in in his own way. Two jello pistols formed in each hand, though there was no enemy to use it on. As far as he knew, they were safe now. Maybe that's why he thought it was time to play around, pretending there were ghosts deep in the trees which he shot with jello bullets, jumping around and making quiet "pew pew" sounds. Sure, they weren't real guns, but they were as close as he could come with what Mercury had dubbed as his 'most bizarre' magic.
Of course, Theo once again saw the actual ghost as he was shooting an imaginary one, and it startled him so badly that he tripped once more and went rolling down a small hill, now deeper into the forest. When he stopped, he was miraculously back on his feet, but his back was against something boney and cold. Once the world stopped spinning, he noticed the growing fog, as well as the rotting gourd arm swooping around him, holding him in place as the other tried to slash at him! He screamed and screamed some more. All he'd wanted to do was pick pumpkins!
What happened next was some sort of disturbing dance. Even though the pumpkin king had a firm grip on him, his body acted more like a fluid than flesh and bone. He bent unnaturally and slipped and slid within the grip, impossibly escaping each jab and slash to the point that the ghoulish wraith with the pumpkin head stabbed its own self in the creepy cloak with a claw. It wheezed its rotting fruit breath in frustration, but Theo had only gotten started. Continuing to wriggle around, he now added shooting his guns at the creature. He pointed them behind him, backward, upside down as his body thinned into a straw shape to the left, then he reaches and blasted the thing's shoulder by stretching an arm over his own body to get to an open area of cloak. The sticky guns were shooting every which way at every angle, blowing sweet-scented holes all over the pumpkin king, until one through the orange head proved as the last straw. No longer wanting to keep Theo close to try and poison him and bathe in his blood, it gathered its dark energy and forced it out of its body.
The burst of dark energy came as a surprise, sending a lightly wounded jello man bouncing off to ping ball among the trees. Once he came to a stop he popped back up, frowning. "Now that was uncalled for..." he muttered, frowning. The pain brought out a more serious side in the man, who rose and simply held a hand up. No more games. He summoned his gigantic jello dragon that he called Smaug, and Smaug landed on his foe before doing a happy mariachi dance until the king was nothing more than pumpkin pie filling....if pumpkin pie filling was possessed, rotten, and poisonous.
Hoping that was the last of the attacks for the evening, he returned to his partners. "We're just incredibly lucky, Mercury," Theo answered at last, much delayed, but with all the threats seemingly defeated, it was safe to talk. "I'm luckiest unlucky man....or the unluckiest lucky man....Hm, well, pick either one of those, and it still remains the same. This is probably my fault, I probably should have mentioned it before. Hahaha!" the treasure hunter guffawed gregariously. Despite the bit of blood leaking from his back through his tracksuit jacket, Theo seemed keen to finish up what had once been considered a safe and easy job. He picked up a rather large one, intending to put it on the pile, but instead grew impish. Punching a hole in the bottom, he quickly scooped out the gross innards and poked a couple eyes in, placing it on his head. "WooooOOooOoo..." he moaned, putting his fingers out like claws. "I am the neewww Pumpkin Kiiing!" he howled, bending down to rapidly pick up pumpkins and throw them at his friends to catch, perhaps making the job more interesting in the process.