Chapter Nine: Bounce

 

Chapter Nine: Bounce

            “Hi, you’ve reached Clary. Sorry I can’t come to the phone right now, but please leave your name and number, and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”

            It was the sixth call in a row that sent Jace to voicemail. He grew more and more frustrated with every attempt that went unfulfilled. “C’mon, Clary!” he groaned. “Where are you?”

            “Who’s Clary?” Scrooge asked him. “And why’re you callin’ her when I specifically asked for Natalie Venkman?!”

            Jace hated to displease Scrooge McDuck, especially over something as trivial (and mundane) as a Ghostbuster. “My apologies, sir. But I figured that since Clary is with the Ghostbusters right now, I could have her reach Natalie Venkman for you.”

            “A lot of good that did,” Scrooge belittled. “Not even she’s answerin’ her phone!”

            Meanwhile, Lisa hung up her phone after finishing a call. “I was only able to get Christina,” she informed. “She says Venkman accidentally left her phone back at the firehouse.”

            “What’s the point of havin’ those blasted things around if you kids don’t bother taking them with you?!” Scrooge griped.

            “Lemme see if I can reach J.G., Sean, or Jacqueline,” Lisa offered.

            “Don’t bother,” Jace told her. “This is a Shadowhunter problem, not a Ghostbuster one.”

            “Dios mio!” Leidy exclaimed. “What is your problem with us, man?”

            Jace scoffed at her question. “Where do I even begin?”

            Just when it seemed as if a full-blown debate was about to emerge between the two factions, Scrooge stepped in and diffused it: “Look! This isn’t just a Shadowhunter or a Ghostbuster problem! This is a world problem, meanin’ the entire world is gonna suffer, unless we work together!”

            Jace couldn’t argue with that logic, not even from a respected legend like McDuck. He hated the idea of working with the Ghostbusters with every fiber of his being, but he had a duty as a Shadowhunter to protect the Shadow World and even the mundane one.

            The tension was cut just as Alec’s phone vibrated in his pocket. Taking it out, his face tensed up a little when he saw who the caller was on the I.D. “It’s Magnus,” he told everyone.

            “Magnus Bane?” Scrooge contemptuously uttered the name. “What’s that frivolous freeloader up to these days?”

            “I guess we’re about to find out,” Alec said before he answered the call, putting it on speaker for everyone in the Bob’s Burgers joint to hear. “Hello, Magnus. What can I do for you?”

            “Alec, my dear boy,” Magnus remarked. “I believe there’s something I can do for you. Meet me at my loft here in Brooklyn. There’s been an unexpected development that even Jace might want to look into…as it involves one Clary Fray.”

            Jace’s body stiffened when he heard this. “We’re on our way.”

--------------------

            Ash woke up feeling like her head had been caught in a vice. The last thing she remembered was talking to that Native American chick in the cosmonaut suit with the weird superhero name. And then everything went dark. Upon regaining consciousness, she noticed that she was handcuffed to a radiator in the kitchen of the mansion – by her one good hand, of course. “What the…?” she muttered over her predicament.

            “Hey-hey, you’re awake!” a friendly voice greeted her.

            She looked away from the handcuffs and over to the kitchen table, where there stood a pudgy yellow-skinned, middle-aged man in a red trucker hat and a forest green short-sleeved shirt. At the time Ash noticed him, he was preparing a sandwich. “Sorry about…that,” he awkwardly pointed to her handcuffs with the butter knife. “It was the talking cat’s idea.”

            “Naturally,” Ash scoffed. “Where is that lil’ freak of nature?”

            “Oh, he’s out with Dr. Stantz, Dr. Spengler, that nice girl Clary, and the Simpsons,” the trucker-hat man told her.

            “Am I supposed to know who any of those people are?” Ash asked in jest.

            Trucker-Hat giggled. “No, I suppose you wouldn’t, since we only just met you. Let me start off on the right foot: Hi, there. My name’s Bill Green.”

            “Yeah, I really don’t care,” Ash coldly remarked.

            Despite it being a harsh response, Bill understood why Ash was so cold towards him. As far as she was concerned, he was in league with the same people who put her in the position she was in at the moment. He was only watching her because he agreed to share rotations with his family, the Ghostbusters, and the others.

            He made use of his rotation by making a peace-offering for the Chainsaw Warrior: a fresh sandwich. It was a good thing that there was plenty of food stocked in the old mansion – all still in good condition, too. Once the sandwich was finished, he presented it to Ash on a clean white porcelain plate.

            “Not…hungry,” she stiffly refused.

            “Oh, c’mon. Take it. You look like you hadn’t eaten in days.”

            “I don’t want a sandwich! What I want to know is which of you knocked me out earlier?”

            “Oh…yeah, that weird elf lady pinched your neck and then you were out like a light,” Bill sheepishly answered. “But that’s all in the past now. C’mon, eat. You’re gonna need your strength.”

            Ash still refused, her mind focused on other matters. “Binx,” she grumbled. “He couldn’t even face me like a man.”

            “Well, technically, he’s not a man…he’s a cat,” Bill clarified.

            Ash smirked at his clarification; though it wasn’t necessary, it was still the truth.

            Suddenly, her stomach growled. It was loud enough for Bill to hear, bringing a knowing smile to his face as he edged the sandwich closer to her face. Ash could smell the mayonnaise, which only made her stomach growl even louder.

            “Dang it,” she groaned submissively. She opened her mouth, allowing Bill to put the sandwich in and let her take a bite. Ash’s aquamarine eyes lit as her taste buds tingled from the flavor, picking up on bacon, lettuce, and tomato. “Is this a B.L.T.?” she asked with her mouthful. “This is my favorite sandwich!”

            “No kiddin’!” an astounded Bill remarked. “Guess I got it right on the first try.”

            Ash was about to take another bite until she realized that the hand Bill used to hold the sandwich had a stubby index finger. “Please don’t tell me I just ate part of your finger!” she gulped in shock.

            “Huh?” It took Bill for a second to see what she was talking about. When he looked at his stubby finger, she gave a hearty laugh. “Oh, no, no! This is just from an old accident I had back on my old farm with a hay baler.”

            Ash smiled as she looked on Bill’s stubby finger that he playfully wiggled. “Welp…better than the whole hand, eh?” She lifted the bandaged stump at the end of her right arm and held it beside Bill’s finger. It was a definite stark contrast.

            Just as uneasy as she was about his finger, Bill was towards her missing hand. “If ya don’t mind me askin’, how did you lose the hand?”

            “Got it possessed by some sort of demon before Binx sent me back,” Ash recalled. “It happened so suddenly. One minute, I was mindin’ my own business, driving down the road one late night. And then I’m forced to hack off my own hand with that chainsaw right there.” She nodded to the tool that was placed along one corner of the kitchen floor, still stained with blood – though Bill couldn’t discern if it was Ash’s or that of someone else.

            Needless to say, her account of it all mortified him to the point of expressing sympathy for Ash. “Wow, I’m so sorry you had to go through that,” he said. Ash appreciated his compassion – the only bit that was shown to her since she came back to this crazy mansion.

            Some knocks on the frame of the door leading into the kitchen drew Ash and Bill’s attention to it. They noticed Jacqueline Zeddemore standing there, out of her Ghostbusters uniform and in the gym attire she had been wearing underneath it, along with a baseball cap.

            “Your rotation’s up, Bill,” she relieved him.

            As Bill started to leave, Ash whispered to him, “Thanks for the sandwich.”

            He smiled to her and whispered back, “Just holler when you want another.”

            Chuckling at his little unintentional rhyme, Bill headed out of the kitchen. Jacqueline gave him a supportive pat on the back to send him off and took a seat at the kitchen table.

            “So you’re the next watch guard, eh?” Ash asked her.

            “I am,” Jacqueline acknowledged. “But I’m gonna do more reading than watching.” She indicated the old book that she brought in with her.

            “What’s the title?” Ash inquired.

            “It’s the diary of Edward Gracie, the owner of this mansion,” Jacqueline said. “I found out recently that my great-great grandfather has ties to this place, and Gracie’s diary holds all the clues to my family history.”

            “No foolin’?” Ash commented with genuine interest. “Read me some of it.”

            Jacqueline followed through with Ash’s request and read aloud the next entry:

            Last week, I decided to treat my dear friend Mr. Winston to a night on the town in Baton Rouge. It was the night of Mardi Gras, and I could not wait to share the experience with him. Our festivities were induced by plenty of alcohol and the finest meals served in the most respected of venues. But it was the enchantment of a young mulatto woman who caught Mr. Winston’s eye. Her name was Jacquelyn.

            Jacqueline paused for a moment to reflect on the mulatto woman’s name, which sounded a lot like hers, albeit spelled differently. There was a photograph bookmarked in-between the pages of this entry. She had noticed it before she started reading and saw how the woman in it slightly resembled her. There was no question this “Jacquelyn” was her great-great grandmother.

            She continued reading the entry with rising fascination:

            I left Mr. Winston and Miss Jacquelyn alone to be more acquainted with each other. It was a choice I left in good conscience, not realizing the trouble that it would follow. When I returned to where I had left my friend and his new lady friend, I discovered they had mysteriously vanished. I spent the entire evening into the following morning searching for my dear friend and his acquaintance, but no one in town could tell me where they had seen a strapping negro man and a beautiful mulatto woman – nor did anyone care.

            Just when all hope seemed lost, I was approached a few days later by a peculiar doctor named “Facilier” who claimed he had the “just the tools” to locate Winston and Jacquelyn.

            “Facilier…” Jacqueline stopped reading when she recognized the name.

            “ASH! ASH! ASH, ARE YOU IN THERE?!”

            The timely interruption came no less than a minute after Jacqueline stopped reading. She, Ash, and everyone else in the mansion heard the voice of a young man outside, calling out to Ash herself.

            “Cavin?” Ash uttered his name. Thankfully, she said it so close to a whisper that Jacqueline didn’t hear. In fact, Jacqueline was so curious by Cavin’s shouting that she abandoned her post, leaving Ash sitting handcuffed in the kitchen alone.

---------------------

            Natalie had just changed out of her Ghostbuster suit when she heard a boy shouting outside the mansion. She congregated in the foyer with her fellow Ghostbusters (the ones still present in the mansion), the Descendants, the Greens, Star, Marco, Anne, and the Plantars.

            “Who is doin’ all that shoutin’?” she asked.

            “There’s some kid outside,” Evie told Venkman, looking out through one of the windows adjacent to the front door.

            Natalie looked out through another, seeing a shaggy-haired boy dressed like squire standing just a few feet from the mansion entrance and calling out Ash’s name. “Why is Bran Stark outside yelling for Ash?” Venkman asked in her snarky way.

            “I dunno,” Jacqueline shrugged. “To warn us winter is coming?”

            “Ya’ll better be jokin’ about that,” Alice sternly told them. “‘Cause I didn’t bring my sword.”

            CRASH!

            The glass-shattering noise resonated from the kitchen. It was a harsh reminder for Jacqueline that she left Ash alone in there. “Aw, man!” she grumbled while dashing towards the swinging kitchen door.

            However, just as she neared it…

            BAM!

            The door swung right into Jacqueline’s face, sending her flying back onto a pedestal with an antique vase sitting on it – at least it was sitting on it before Jacqueline’s tumble caused it to fall and smash to the hardwood floor.

            Before anyone could have a moment to process how the kitchen door swung into Jacqueline, a small magenta-colored ball of fur bounced out of the kitchen and into the face of Bill, knocking him down. The ball then landed on its feet, revealed to have been a bear cub – one of the bears in Ash’s photograph – welding a wooden sword and declaring, “You have our friend! And we’re taking her back!”

            “We?” Alice scoffed. “All I see is you, teddy!”

            “Look again,” the cub challenged, right before the windows near the front door shattered and more fur balls of varying sizes and colors bounced throughout the foyer, knocking into the Ghostbusters, the Descendants, the Greens, Star, Marco, Anne, and the Plantars.

            They were suddenly caught in a game of dodgeball, doing their best to avoid getting whacked in the face, stomach, or any other sensitive areas.

-------------------

            Ash was relieved when Cubbi and Zummi arrived, crashing through the window by the kitchen sink. Their entrance wasn’t stealthy like they wanted, and they knew Ash’s captors would come to investigate the commotion as soon as they heard the crash. So, Cubbi decided to take matters into his own hands, using his bounce power to ricochet his small body out of the kitchen before anyone walked in. When he hit the door, he briefly heard it strike someone on the other side – an added bonus to his surprise attack.

            While Cubbi took care of the captors with the rest of the Gummis, Zummi produced a small bottle of Gummiberry Juice in front of Ash. “Here, here, trink dhis…I-I mean, drink this,” he instructed her.

            “I already got some in my flask,” Ash pointed to her satchel that her jailers left on the kitchen table after confiscating it. Zummi went to it and reached inside, retrieving Ash’s flask, full of Gummiberry Juice. He gave a small ounce for Ash to drink and, at an instant, Ash broke free of the handcuffs with immeasurable strength obtained from the Gummiberry Juice – an adverse effect on human consumers.

            “Who are these people that captured you?” Zummi asked her.

            “I have no idea,” she told Zummi. “All I know is that we need to get as far away from them as possible.” She gathered her satchel, shotgun, chainsaw, and the half-eaten B.L.T. sandwich.

            Zummi concurred with her sentiment.

            Together, he and Ash barged out of the kitchen and into the foyer, both nearly taken out by Tummi’s bulbous blue body – the largest of all the Gummis bouncing around the room. He rolled to a stop near them and, seeing the B.L.T. sandwich in Ash’s hand, he asked in his soft-spoken tone, “You gonna finish that?”

            Ash smirked at him. “For saving my butt, here…” She tossed the sandwich over to the Gummi Bear. “Knock yourself out, buddy.”

            “I’d rather eat this sandwich, if that’s okay,” Tummi said, already gulping the whole B.L.T. down in one bite.

            Zummi then turned his attention to Ash’s jailers, who had pretty much been overwhelmed by the other members of Gummi Glen. He recited a spell directly from the Great Book of Gummi that he placed over the jailers, making them float ten feet in the air. Their bodies nearly touched the ceiling of the foyer.

            “How long are they gonna be up there?” Ash asked.

            “Not very long,” Zummi told her. “Once it wears off, they’ll land gracefully back to the floor.”

            Ash was glad to hear this. Out of all her captors, there was only one she preferred not to be hurt: the one with the stubby finger.

            Now liberated, thanks to the Gummi Bears, Ash headed out of the mansion with them. Before she was out the front door, she saluted to her former captors with her one good hand and said to them, “Thanks for the hospitality, folks. Peace out!” She slammed the door shut behind her.

            Simultaneous with the door slam, the Ghostbusters, the Descendants, the Greens, Star, Marco, Anne, and the Plantars fell back to the floor, each of their bodies thudding on top of one another – nowhere near as “graceful” as Zummi claimed.

            “Argh! My butt!” Jacqueline groaned. “I landed right on my butt!”

            “With as much cushion as you got back there, how are you in pain?!” Natalie derided her.

            In the midst of his own pain, Carlos tried to process the bizarre attack he and the others survived from. “What the heck just happened?!”

            “We were attacked by Care Bears – that’s what happened,” Natalie answered.

            In their recovery, they heard footsteps descending from the grand staircase. They looked to see T’Eve, the only one who hadn’t come down to investigate the disturbance, finally showing up after it all had passed.

            “Well, look who finally decided to show,” Star put down the Vulcan. “Where were you this whole time?!”

            T’Eve looked over the pile-up of bodies sitting in the middle of the foyer, raising an inquisitive eyebrow. “As sorry as I am to have missed whatever took place here…” If that was her attempt at sarcasm, none of the others were all that impressed by it. “But I have come across a fascinating development.” She held up someone’s smartphone and said, “Clary Fray left behind her phone…and she’s received sixteen voice messages.”

            “Yeah, I wouldn’t exactly call that development ‘fascinating’,” Jacqueline argued.

            “These messages were sent in the last minutes of our unexpected journey through time and space,” T’Eve elaborated.

--------------------

            As soon as Ash, Cavin, and the clan of Gummi Glen were halfway through the forest, miles away from the mansion, they stopped to catch their breath. “You O.K., Ash?” Cavin asked between huffs.

            “I’ll be okay when I find that darn cat,” the vindictive Ash said.

            “You mean he wasn’t there?” Cubbi reacted with surprise.

            “Not there, but somewhere,” Ash clarified. “And when I find him, I’m gonna…”

            “Your rivalry with Binx will have to wait, Ash,” Zummi insisted. “We have bigger troubles: Duke Igthorn’s setting his sights on conquering Dunwyn.”

            Ash wasn’t all too bothered by that news. “So? We kicked his butt before. We’ll just do it again like always.”

            Zummi shook his head. “You don’t understand, Ash. It’s different this time. Igthorn has already conquered the kingdom of DunBroch with an unbelievable army of witches, gargoyles, and an undead army brought on by the Black Cauldron – which he currently has possession of!”

            Those added details made Ash gulp hard. “Well…poop.”