ya_assemble | [LN] Candy Mountain [locked to Molly]

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[LN] Candy Mountain [locked to Molly]

"So let me get this straight, you're gonna spread around on the internet that we're real to get kids to believe in us?"

Right now, Raph and Molly were seated on the floor of Jamie Bennett's room. In a rare show of trust, Nico had actually let Raph take Molly by himself, as her magic was needed on a mission. The caveat had been, of course, that they had to go to Jamie's house - which was warded all to hell and back - and come right back to the Pole after, but Raph still understood the signifance of it - and the unspoken threat of retribution that would happen if he didn't bring Molly back safe and sound.

Jack had arranged for them to talk to Jamie - insisted on it, in fact - since Jamie was the primary believer of all the new otherdimensional myths being pulled in. More than that, Jamie was the one trying to spread belief of them around so that they had more believers than him.

At the moment, he was trying to explain the nature of belief and what he could do for them - and what he couldn't do.

"How many kids that believe in stuff even use the internet?"

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"Intimidating message received but you won't have to worry about it," he promised her. "If someone ever tried to hurt Nico, I'd be right in line with you to hurt them back."

Tenfold.

But now he was curious.

"I'm guessing a lot of that's how you really are - just like Mabel - but why the act when you're being serious?" Raph asked her candidly.

Her grin dropped, really dropped, while she thought about that. It was amazing how much more grown-up she looked without the sugar and the wide eyes. There were a lot of reasons, but...

"Well, mostly 'cause I think Nico and the others back home would all completely freak out," she said, nodding to herself as if agreeing with her own point. "If I was just suddenly not acting like me, they might think something was wrong."

"Yeah, but obviously that's not you."

Like, super obviously, given the sudden change right in that moment. There she was looking just as serious as him and his brothers sometimes were. ~~Minus her eyes going white and narrow.~~

"Or at least the cheerful little kid thing isn't always you. Nico's pretty open about when she's angry or threatening someone so I don't know why you can't b - oh." He just got it. "Oooooh, I get it."

Oh, wow, the implications of that were pretty terrible.

"You're not showing off that side of yourself so they can feel like they were able to protect you from it all, aren't you. That's probably all they wanna see, so they're ignoring how you can't go through all that life or death stuff and still just be a goofy little kid all the time."

A pause.

"Unless you're Mikey, but my brother is a weirdo." A pause. "And we were trained pretty much from when we mutated to be able to handle life or death stuff. Totally different thing when you're trained to handle it."

Molly made a face that was almost back up to her normal levels of adorable - wrinkled her nose and stuck her tongue out at him. "Well, I guess you're not super dumb or anything."

She didn't say anything more for a minute as they walked, kicking a rock candy pebble down the path in front of her. She didn't have to talk to Raph about it. She didn't have to talk to anybody about it. Or, conversely, she could talk to Bunny, or Jack, or maybe Tooth. It didn't have to be now.

Except... honestly it was kind of a relief that he'd called her on it. And the idea of talking about it was enough that the words just started tumbling out almost on their own.

"They all tried so hard, you know? And it was just a little bit at first, so it wasn't a big deal, but..." But life went on. Life got harder. She grew up, fast, but couldn't let anyone know. "I mean, I know I can't do it forever, and it's not all pretend, but it's just... They tried so hard. Even Chase. The only one who really tried to help me deal with stuff was Gert, but I didn't..."

She sighed. "I didn't realize I needed her to, and then she was gone. And Nico and everybody just tried so hard to keep me from knowing about the worst stuff, but I'm not stupid or anything, and I'd listen in on them sometimes, and... and I do like ponies and my cute animal hats and stuff, so it's not totally a lie, and they'd all be so upset if they realized it didn't work." She looked at Raph sidelong, not quite meeting his eye, and then back down. "So much stuff got screwed up and didn't work, and I figured I could be the thing that did"

Raph shook his head.

"You can't be responsible for their happiness, though, kiddo. It's not fair to you that you can't just be yourself. There's a lot that comes with dealing with bad stuff, that comes of being the kind of person that would drop kick someone a couple blocks that you have to learn to deal with and work through, you know? Trust me - out of my brothers, I'm the one that's most okay with caving people's faces in and there's stuff I have to deal with that they don't, that my dad always helped me work through. You know, when he was alive."

A pause.

"Nico and I talk about it now. And I wouldn't be able to work through that stuff or talk to a friend about it if it was always a secret. With it not being a secret, with being myself, I can deal with it by talking about it to someone. Or my brothers can help me with it even if I have trouble talking about it with them. Like Mikey knows how to help me work through it even if we don't really talk about what's going on."

He knew the right times to hug, the right times to play video games, the right times to try to make him laugh. Because he knew Raph. Because Raph was himself and that meant the people he loved knew when and how to help him deal with some of the struggles that came of being himself.

"It'll hurt 'em more if it goes on and someday you have a moment where you just have to be yourself. Where you do have to dropkick someone a couple blocks. How do you think they'll feel if you wind up in that place and have to be true to yourself in that moment and all of a sudden they realize they already lost that fight a long, long time ago?"

She shrugged a little, drooping. He was right, of course. It's not like they wouldn't figure it out eventually, but...

"I could just wait a year or two and then get really angsty! Teenagers do that a lot because of hormones. And then they wouldn't have to know, either!" It was a very bad plan.

She knew it was a bad plan.

"I'll figure something out," she amended, only slightly more realistically. "I always have so far."

"You should tell them sooner but if you don't want to, it's your choice. Just don't keep doing it if it's ever at your own expense, okay? It doesn't seem like it's really hurting anything that much right now, but the more you have to deal with and the more you have to fight, the more it gets harder to deal with it all, and figure out how to work through it, and who you wanna be. And you can't figure out how to help yourself work through it if you're worried more about other people than figuring yourself out."

He went on, "As much as they might freak over finding out what you're hiding, they'd also feel really bad if you hiding it wound up hurting you. Think about it - if what they want is for you to be a happy, healthy kid, how bad would they feel if you pretending to be that for them makes it harder for you to grow up into a healthy, happy grown up? It'd kinda defeat the purpose, wouldn't it?"

"I guess." Molly pursed her lips a little. "To be honest, I don't think any of them expected we'd actually live through the thing with our parents. Or most of the stuff after. So I dunno if they ever really thought much about me becoming a happy grown-up."

She... was the optimistic one, who thought they'd totally beat the bad guys (and they did!), but being a grown-up herself hadn't really crossed her mind, happy or no.

"Hey, do you know what people learn in school when they're thirteen?" she asked abruptly.

"No clue. Never went to one," he admitted. "Sensei home-schooled us."

He had no idea what really went on in school other than pep rallies, and, judging from the rare after school special he'd caught on TV, bullying.

"Most of what I know about normal people school is from watching TV and listening to April rant about it. It wasn't like we could go to school when most people scream when they see us."

'Normal people.' The implication being that he wasn't normal. It wasn't that he and his brothers felt bad about themselves, but their...otherness was just something Raph accepted without questioning.

Edited 2015-01-22 10:09 (UTC)

"Oh." Molly sighed. "I haven't been to school since I was 11. Well, there was a little while when I had to stay at the mutant embassy place, but it was a lot of stuff I already knew, 'cause they wanted to make sure I hadn't forgot anything."

"I'd be going into 8th grade soon, I think."

Molly wasn't normal anymore (technically she never had been, but she thought she was) and she was mostly okay with that, but even though she hadn't really liked school when she had it, she kind of missed it now. Moreso, thinking about how old she was now and how she was growing up.

"Anyway, Nico thinks you're really cute and probably wants to smooch you or something, but if you're a jerk to her, I'll punch you so hard you'll never ever land." And that was that. With that declaration, she turned to give him one of her bubbly grins, and then skipped ahead a couple of yards before getting distracted by what looked like a marshmallow bumblebee.

Conversation over, she was done talking about serious stuff, also don't hurt Nico or you will regret it.

It was clear she wanted to move on from the serious talk and Raph, not being the type to push people over the same things he needed space on, wasn't going to keep prying.

He also wasn't planning on interfering by telling Nico. All of that needed to be worked out by Molly and Nico and Molly and the rest of their friends and meddling in it would probably just make things go down worse than they would have normally.

He trotted after her, holding up his hand and checking the brand. It was actually turning, like a compass, pointing the right direction to go in. So far, they seemed to be on the right track.

He wanted to ask how Molly knew. He really wanted to. But asking would give it away, that he liked Nico, and the last thing he needed was that getting aired out somewhere.

The last thing he needed was thinking about it.

"She doesn't think I'm cute and that's fine because we're just friends." He added, stubbornly, "Which is a good thing. Last thing she needs is another weirdo crushing on her like being friends isn't enough, like that lousy, good-for-nothing liar that pretended to be friends with you guys and hurt her."

Edited 2015-01-22 10:28 (UTC)

Molly rolled her eyes with the long-suffering exasperation only an insightful (slightly psychic) kid living with a bunch of teenagers could understand.

"Puh-LEEZE. She gets all grinny and dopey when she's got a crush on somebody, and it's not like she's spending time with anybody else the way she does with you."

Molly suddenly pointed off just down the path, at some plumes of what looked like cotton candy rose above the treetops. "Look! I think it's fireplaces, come on, maybe people know where the thingy is!"

Wait, that was unusual? The smiling?

Unfortunately, asking more about it would give himself away. He had no idea how to respond to that, because he wanted so badly to know more, but at the same time, he wanted so badly to avoid the subject.

Fortunately, he didn't have to worry about his answer.

"Oh hey look, a distraction," he said sassily, not even pretending it was anything else. "Let's go check it out."

"You totally were wishing for one. I am a magical distraction-granting fairy!" Molly laughed and grabbed his hand again to lead the way down the path and into the little village below.

It was a quaint place, full of gingerbread cottages on the edges, and fancy marzipan and spun-sugar houses further in, and it would've been a totally happy sight if there weren't a bunch of sugar people running around like they were trying desperately to leave.

"Uh... this doesn't look good."

"Nope," said Raph calmly, looking around at the chaos. He made sure to keep a good grip on Molly's hand.

He didn't want to risk losing her in the chaos.

"Let's find the least terrified person we can and see what we can get out of 'em."

There was a gingerbread man standing on a rock candy boulder, shouting through a candy corn megaphone.

"Everyone, please remain calm!" he shouted. "We need to evacuate in an orderly fashion!"

"Hey!" Raph called out. "Cookie guy! What's going on? Why's everyone in a panic?"

"Mount Fudgesuvius is going to--" The gingerbread man initially turned, still shouting through the megaphone, before he realized how close they were and lowered it. "Sorry. This isn't a safe place to be, friends, we have an impending eruption on our hands."

He pointed up to the top of the mountain looming over the town, which was sending up dark billowing clouds of what looked like burnt sugar.

Molly looked dismayed. "Is that a volcano?"

Raph held out his hand with the brand, looked at where it registered the reality shard, and rolled his eyes skyward, as if beseeching the higher powers that'd tossed them head first into this to give him strength.

"The shard's in the same direction as the volcano," Raph said bitterly. "Of course."

He turned back to the cookie man. "Does anyone have an idea on how much time is left?"

"Our fudgemologists think we only have five hours," said the gingerbread man. "All we can do is hope they're wrong - it'll take at leave six or seven to evacuate all the surrounding towns. You need to get as much distance between yourself and the volcano as you can, strangers. Especially since you're both made of taffy. You'll be at far greater risk of melting from the advancing fudge than some of us."

With that, the little man ran off to help with the evacuation.

"If we don't get that thing back soon, it's probably gonna wind up in buried in hot fudge. We'll never be able to find it - we probably won't even be able to touch because of the heat." Raph turned to Molly, letting go of her hand to put both his hands on her shoulders. "Listen, you need to head back to the door and wait for me there, okay? If the volcano starts erupting and it looks like the eruption's heading that way, leave without me."

There was no way he was taking Molly in the direction of an erupting volcano.

"NUH UH!" Molly protested immediately, stamping her foot. "I'm way hard to hurt when my powers are up, even by hot stuff! What if the shard's super big and stuck in the ground and you need someone with super-strength to pull it out? Or what if the fudge lava is just about to go over it and you need somebody who won't get their fingers totally burnt off to grab it?"

She shook her head and planted her feet, her eyes flaring up pink. "And anyway, if something happens to you, I can carry you back easy, but not if you're buried in fudge lava!"

Raph stared at her and sighed.

"You're not gonna stay at the door no matter what I do, are you."

"Nope," Molly said, with no little amount of smugness, "and you couldn't make me even if you tried, so let's go already!"

Raph sighed again.

"Nico's gonna kill me."

But Molly was right. Chances were he might need her help, what with her having the much more useful powers. And they had to get that shard to save the Guardians' reality - and who knew what would happen to the universe if they failed.

Surely, Kuk would have a much easier way of getting in if that reality was broken.

"Come, we need to move. Lemme carry you on my shoulders. You've got tiny little legs."

He could run faster.

He knelt down so he could lift her up.

"Yaaaay, ninja ride!" Molly didn't bother letting him lift her - with him down low it wasn't more than a quick scrabble up the back of his shell to get herself on his shoulders (and it felt less like she was a toddler).

Once she was seated, she puffed her chest out. "I am Princess Powerful, ruler of ALL Candyland!"

Raph chuckled.

"Sure thing, kiddo. Ruler of all you can see - and once we get to the top of that volcano, you'll probably be able to see everything."

Then he started to move, running at a solid pace, one that he'd be able to maintain over a long distance.

They covered ground pretty quickly.

They did. Molly caught sight of some giant marshmallow boulders off in the distance at one point, wondering if they were for giant smores. Riding on Raph's shoulders was fast and fun, definitely - they'd make their way to the shard in NO time!

Except--

"Raph! Raph, hang on, stop!" Molly didn't bother waiting for him to slow down before scrambling off his shoulders and hitting the ground, running a few yards off the trail they were going down to where some sort of horse seemed to be trapped in a thorny candy corn bush.

"We gotta help him!" she called over her shoulder.

"Molly, we don't have time for any detours."

It was just a horse. They had all of reality to worry about and Raph really, really didn't want to have to worry about running away from a fast-moving fudge eruption.

And yet he stopped to take a look. It definitely looked stuck and if it didn't escape the stupid thing was going to die a horrible death when that volcano went off.

Raph sighed and jogged after her.

"Alright, we'll help it, but we need to keep this quick, okay?"

He pulled out his sais, planning to use them to whack at all the thorny branches.

"Easy," he said gently to the horse as they moved in closer. "Easy now."

And that was a horn. It had a horn. It was a unicorn. A unicorn with wings even.

"A flying unicorn. Why am I not the tiniest bit surprised? Oh, that's right: basic pattern recognition," he said, trying to break through the branches and thorny vines. (Some kind of pointy hard candy?) "My day starts weird, of course it's gonna stay weird."

Edited 2015-02-02 05:26 (UTC)

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[LN] Candy Mountain [locked to Molly]

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