{Betty}
“Hopefully they’ll be out soon,” Norman said.
Norman and I were sitting at the entrance to the passageway that we had led Jasper and Robert into.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Jasper wanted to kill Robert. Hopefully, he won’t bring out a dead body with him.”
I don’t know how Norman figured it out, but he found a spot on my back that when pressed on can make my wing come out involuntarily. I thought only Dae knew how to do this. A lot of times, Dae will only do this to my right wing, and that's what Norman did.
“Hey!” I said. “What did you do that for?”
Norman smiled. “I can’t help it, it’s just way too much fun messing with you.”
“Well, knock it off!” I said.
Norman acted as if he didn’t hear me because he did the same thing again.
“I thought I told you to knock it off!” I growled.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you,” Norman teased, “too bad you can’t sit on your wings like you can with your tail.”
The next time Norman made my wing come out I was very annoyed. So I pushed him to the ground and sat on him. I knew Norman was having way too much fun messing with me because he was too busy laughing about it. Then I stood up and flicked my tail to show my annoyance.
“Okay, okay,” Norman, “I’ll try to stop doing it, but I’m not making any promises.”
Norman sat up and finally stopped laughing, and instead of making my wing come out again, he reached over and scratched me behind my ear.
“I still have no idea why that feels good,” I said, “but it only works when someone I care about does it.”
“Yeah, I know,” Norman said.
We jumped about a foot in the air when we heard Jasper’s voice. “See, Robert? That’s a perfect example of romance! Maybe Norman and Betty can give you some pointers on how to do that?”
Me, Norman, and Jasper couldn’t stop laughing because Robert’s face turned red.
“So, that’s what your problem was?” I asked after I stopped laughing.
“Strangely enough,” said Jasper, “yes.”
“Yeah, it’s cool now,” said Robert, “but I really must be going, so see you later.”
We chuckled as we watched Robert walk away as fast as he could.
* * *
It was another family dinner night. EJ was invited too because his and Ruby’s wedding was in a couple of months. Dae, Norman, and I were walking around the castle when we heard Norman Jr yet again trying to get together with Ruby.
“I think the lady said no,” EJ snarled.
“But I-“ Norman Jr said.
“No, Junior!” Ruby snapped. “I’m not interested!”
Norman Jr tried to kiss Ruby and she pushed him away before he could. EJ got in between them and blocked Ruby from Norman Jr’s view.
“What do you think you’re doing?” EJ asked.
“Nothing!” Norman Jr lied.
Norman saw what was happening and he wasn’t happy about it. “Norman Jr! What did I tell you about this? When someone says no, you take a hike!”
Norman was showing so much rage at Norman Jr that Ruby and EJ backed off in fear of him. It was kind of funny to me because Norman can’t make the building shake like Ruby and EJ can when they're angry. It’s a demon trait that doesn’t just happen when the King and Queen of Hell are angry.
Norman was getting ready to drag Norman Jr away when we heard an evil giggle. There was no mistaking it--Mr. Giggles was about to make an appearance. My eye twitched in anger as I turned around to see the fountain in the garden, black ink streaming from it instead of water.
“Mom?” Ruby asked. “That’s Mr. Giggles, isn’t it?”
“Oh yeah, that’s him alright,” I replied.
All of us watched as the black ink pooled together and took on the form of Mr. Giggles. He blew a kiss and waved. “Ah, a family get-together? Why wasn’t I invited?”
“Because you’re not family, you stupid clown!” I snarled.
Mr. Giggles gave me his stupid, toothy grin. He sneered at me, “Oh well, I guess my invitation was lost in the mail.”
“Why you little-“ I didn’t finish my sentence because I didn’t feel like giving Mr. Giggles a chance to say he felt like playing with his food.
I flew at Mr. Giggles and kneed him in the chest, sending him crashing to the ground, flat on his back. He got to his feet and gave me an evil grin. “Hey! You didn’t let me do any of my tricks first. But I guess you don’t feel like tricks today, huh, Death Walker?”
“I have a name,” I snapped, “it’s Betty!”
Mr. Giggles raised an eyebrow and gave a sinister smile. “Did I offend you? My bad!”
“You offended me by being alive, you stupid clown!” I growled.
“I would say that’s not nice, but I don’t care,” Mr. Giggles said. “This is what, our third or fourth battle?”
“Does it matter?” I snarled. “Why don’t you just die already?”
“Hmm,” taunted Mr. Giggles, “nope, not happening.”
Just like the other times we fought, Mr. Giggles copied all of my moves. Only this time, I didn’t play fair because Mr. Giggles never fought a fair fight in the first place. I pulled out my staff and blocked most of Mr. Giggles’ moves with it and somehow he was able to start copying the moves I made with my staff. We paused our fight. I thought it was so Mr. Giggles could catch his breath, but he smiled at me.
“What’s that look for, creature?” I asked.
“I didn’t realize you can do the Dark Aura,” Mr. Giggles said.
“Say-“ I didn’t finish my sentence because I looked down at my hand to see that I had the Dark Aura around it. “I don’t know why this is happening, but works for me!”
I dove at Mr. Giggles, but he dodged me and laughed his signature giggle. My eye twitched in anger as I saw that he had a deck of cards in his hand.
“Since this is a family get-together, how’s about a game of cards?” Mr. Giggles said. “Why not make this more interesting. Remember the first time we fought? You know, inside the House of Mirrors?”
“Yeah, so?” I snarked.
Mr. Giggles pointed a finger in the air and spun it around in a circle. The next thing I knew, I looked around to mirrors surrounding me. But I had my staff ready. Before I could even move, I found that I was gripped in magic. "What is this?"
"Do you know where I am, Death Walker?" Mr. Giggles taunted. "Maybe I'm over here!"
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mr. Giggles to the left of me.
"Maybe I'm over here!" Mr. Giggles said.
I looked and saw Mr. Giggles to the right of me and he nudged me on my shoulder from behind. "Maybe I'm behind you!"
I bared my teeth as I saw Mr. Giggles in front of me and I desperately wanted to get at him but I couldn't move so I glared at him instead.
"Or maybe I'm right in front of you!" Mr. Giggles said.
I sneered as I saw Mr. Giggles shuffling the deck of cards. "Now that I have your undivided attention, how about we play a game of cards? I would let you choose a card, but you can't move now, can't you?"
I looked at the card that Mr. Giggles pulled out from the top of the deck and realized in horror that the character on the card was Grogar
"Recognize this guy?" Mr. Giggles said with a twisted grin.
"That's Grogar, you little-" I said.
"So, you do know him!" Mr. Giggles laughed. "I think I'll use this guy to keep you under my spell so you'll stay put so I can eat you!"
I blinked. "What are you talking about?"
Mr. Giggles laughed, again and flipped the card over, and I was pissed off by what I saw. It was a picture of one of my dead teammates that I had lost when we were tracking down Tirek.
"I say we'll start counting to the number twenty-five." Mr. Giggles said. "Let's start with number one…"
I heard a heartbeat as the picture of my teammate faded from view. Mr. Giggles pull out another card from the deck of cards. "Two…"
The same thing happened with that card too. Another heartbeat sounded as the picture of another one of my teammates faded from view. After the twenty-fifth card was pulled out of the deck with the memory of what happened with Tirek was finally pulled to the front of my mind, and I started to cry. When Mr. Giggle stopped torturing me, he had an evil grin on his face. "Now I have you!"
As Mr. Giggles pulled me towards him with his magic, I was still in tears. The next thing I knew, there was a flash of light that went around me. Mr. Giggle sneered at it. "Drat! Someone's broken all of my mirrors! It seems I can't take you with me. But either way, you'll stay put until I come back for you! Goodbye for now, food!"
I didn't know how Mr. Giggles disappeared this time and I didn't care. I fell out of the air and someone caught me. Who it was, I didn't know, and at the moment, I didn't care.
* * *
{Dae}
As I watched Betty being gripped in Mr. Giggles’ magic and surrounded by mirrors, I felt nothing but horror.
"What's happening to Mom?" Ruby panicked.
"I don't know," I said as I racked my brain, trying to remember everything The Destruction Clan, Mr. Giggles’ family could do. I realized what attack he could be using---he could pull out a traumatic memory to keep someone under his magic. I wasn't sure why Mr. Giggles wanted to do this, but he was doing it.
"What's going on?" Norman asked.
My eyes widened with a mix of terror and anger when I realized what type of attack Mr. Giggles was doing to Betty. "It's called the Memory Attack. He is trying to trigger some sort of traumatic memory that happened in Betty's past."
"What memory would he be trying to trigger?" Norman asked.
I looked up and counted the number of mirrors that Mr. Giggles had that surrounded Betty. Twenty-five. "It can't be…"
"What is it?" Norman said.
"I just want to be sure," I said. "Can you count the number of mirrors surrounding Betty?"
Norman looked up and counted. "I see twenty-five, but that's…"
Norman trailed off at the end of his sentence. It was as if he was thinking the same thing I was.
I growled, "The same number of people that Betty lost on her tracking team!"
Norman and I were furious when we realized what memory Mr. Giggles was trying to trigger. We pulled out our swords and threw them at the mirrors. The strangest thing happened; our swords combined, making the power within them stronger. At the moment, I didn't care as long as we got Betty away from Mr. Giggles. Both swords smashed through the mirrors. Mr. Giggles frowned and then he let go of Betty. Once he let go of Betty, he laughed and disappeared.
* * *
Norman caught Betty before she hit the ground. He then called his sword back to him and I did the same thing with mine and we put our swords away. I could tell Ruby was panicked just by the look of horror on her face. "What's wrong with Mom?"
I sighed, "Mr. Giggles put Betty under some sort of magic that triggers a traumatic memory. The end result is called Blackout."
Ruby tilted her head. "Blackout?"
I nodded. "Yup, that type of magic mixes in with a demon's magic and it stuns them to the point where they're in some sort of limbo. Right now that's what's happening to Betty, she's pretty much in a deep sleep. Not the type of sleep where you could have dreams. Demons don't really dream much anyway. So she'll just be in a dreamless sleep until we can find some way to wake her up."
"But Mom's usually strong enough to take down any enemy!" Ruby exclaimed.
I shook my head. "Not this type of enemy. Now, we should get her to bed, and then we can figure out a way to wake her up."
* * *
Norman and I went to the guest room that Betty and I stayed in when we're visiting Equestria. We put Betty in the bed and tried to figure out what to do to wake her up.
"I'm sorry, but I can't control my brother," said Discord. He sighed. "And my magic isn't strong enough to cancel out Mr. Giggles' attack. I wish I could kill him myself, but I can't do that either. Now that Betty's in this situation, I don't think anyone can stop him! I'll do some research and see what I can do to help cure the Blackout Betty's under. It's the least I could do."
Discord snapped his claw and disappeared. After Discord left, one of Norman's servants delivered a meal because we missed family dinner. But we weren't in the mood for eating because of what was happening with Betty.
Norman started to bite his thumb and I could tell he was just as worried about Betty as I was. Even though Betty's ears were twitching like they do when she sleeps, that wasn't really comforting. I took a flashlight and shined it in one of her eyes. Her eye didn't even flicker at it. Even a demon's eye will flicker at the light in their eyes even though they're dead.
I frowned. "This doesn't look good."
"Ow!" Norman said after he bit his thumb hard enough to make it bleed.
I smiled at him. "It's funny because Betty hovers when she's worried about something. You, pretty much eat yourself. I would either be pacing back and forth or pass out. Yes, I know, demons are weird. Now when I'm angry, the whole building would be shaking. The same goes with Betty because she's a demon now. I guess with being worried and a little bit angry they kind of cancel themselves out."
"There's got to be something I can do!" Norman said.
I sighed, "I don't know if there's anything we can do at the moment."
Norman sighed and went back to biting his thumb. Then we heard Jasper's voice, "You know you're going to need stitches if you keep biting your thumb like that, Norman."
"Huh?" Norman looked down to see his thumb was bleeding again. "Oh."
Jasper pulled up a chair and sat down beside Norman. "So, what exactly happened?"
"Mr. Giggles used an attack that can trigger a traumatizing memory," Norman answered.
"What memory did Mr. Giggles trigger?" Jasper asked.
"It was the memory of when she lost twenty-five of her teammates on her tracking team," I said. "Betty had to identify every single member lost so she could send them to the right families. Twilight had to add onto that a lecture and she knocked Betty up against a wall in a fit of anger. She even had the nerve to call the mission a success."
Norman and Jasper's jaws dropped when they heard what Princess Twilight did.
"The history book didn't say anything about that!" Norman said.
I grit my teeth, "Why would they say anything bad about the ruler of Equestria? I mean the Princess was adored and loved by everyone. They pretty much put her up on a pedestal."
"Makes sense to me, I guess," Norman said.
Jasper shook his head. "That still doesn't make it right."
"If you ask me," I said, "I say the Princesses actions came back to bite her in the butt. Now she is bowing to me and Betty. However, before Betty died, I did get some payback on the Princess by knocking her up against a wall myself. I did that out of anger because Princess Twilight decided to broadcast Betty's fight to the death with her mother. The Princess is lucky I didn't break her skull. She's also lucky that I didn't declare war on Equestria because of her actions toward Betty. And Twilight wonders till this day why I won't be with her."
Norman shook his head in disbelief. "And I almost killed myself to save her. I can't help but do my job to the best of my abilities, I guess."
"Anyway," said Jasper, "I know you're not going to be able to think straight right now in order to do your job, Norman."
"I know," said Norman, "I'm not sure about that because I don't want to put more responsibilities on you, Jasper."
Jasper shrugged. "Well, that's up to you. I'm willing to do that because family is supposed to help each other."
"I'll think about it," Norman said. "I'll decide in the morning what to do."
Jasper nodded, gave Norman a peck on the cheek, got up, and left.