searchingfordistraction

Good, she's going to be sensible about this. Jim brightens.

Then he pauses, cocking his head to listen.

Fireballs make a lot of noise.

"The back way, I think," he decides.

From the sound of things, the lobby is occupied.

"Was that—an explosion...?"

Jenny shakes her head again and sets the lamp down carefully on the floor. (It takes more effort than it should to let go of it. Her fingers are uncooperative.)

She can't help Matilda right now, and if Jim could she has to think he wouldn't be here. The important thing is getting out of Miss Trunchbull's reach (if that is even possible anymore). Then they can decide whether Matilda needs help, and if so, how on Earth to provide it.

(She rolls out of the way of the second fireball. The wave of hot air in its wake presses her down against the floor.

"You little witch," the Trunchbull spits.

The click of sudden understanding is almost a physical sensation. Witch. Magic. The common element. All powers are the same powers, expressed differently. How?

Another fireball roars toward her. She throws up her hands and it halts in midair. Behind her, she can hear the fire spread, smell the carpet burning. She risks a glance back and stops that too, holding the flames in suspended animation.)

He pauses at the doorway, standing next to her, long enough to say,

"If it gets bad enough, Milliways will throw a Door at us and we'll find someone who is qualified."

He makes his tone reassuring, though not patronizingly so. Just because it's not going to be a difficult escape doesn't mean they have the luxury of her being distracted. He wants her focused, and the best way to get that is to minimize her anxiety.

"There is that."

At which point Jenny has to take a moment to deal with how bizarre her life has become, but it's a very short moment. She has practice.

(Miss Trunchbull, when Matilda looks up at her again, seems surprised.

That doesn't last long.

But apparently she is not a great strategist, because her response to the obvious ineffectiveness of fireballs is to throw a much bigger fireball.

Matilda looks at it in brief, intense panic and thinks: freeze—

And a rough sphere of ice wreathed in frosted flames crashes against the floor. She jumps out of the way, observes that she is now flying, and zips higher to hover near the ceiling. Miss Trunchbull roars with frustration.)

Jenny flinches.

He's familiar with that kind of flinch.

He ignores it.

(He's familiar with the best response to that kind of flinch.)

He nods his head toward the side of the building that doesn't sound like chaos is erupting, then steps out into the hall to lead the way.

Jenny follows. She can't help glancing over her shoulder a lot, but there is something oddly comforting about Jim—not so much for his own sake as for the certain knowledge that Matilda has to have brought him.

(The hallway is a war of fire and ice. Matilda dodges some fireballs, freezes the rest, and tries to think—whenever she has time to think—of how to hit back.

Fighting fire with ice doesn't actually make sense. It was a move of pure impulse. It just felt right, and then it happened, and now it works perfectly every time. And Lavender can fly, and Miss Trunchbull can throw fireballs and walk through walls. There's something there, some underlying principle, she's sure of it—

Miss Trunchbull swings her arm back over her head, fist curled around empty air. It looks like she's going to throw a javelin, but there's no javelin. And then there is a flash of purple-white light, and that's impossible, and Matilda dodges just in time and there's a long jagged scorch mark on the ceiling where the thunderbolt hit it. Miss Trunchbull laughs and reaches back for another one.

This is not a sustainable situation.

When the next spear of lightning crackles toward her, she holds out her hand and stops it like she did with the fire that is still splashed motionless across the floor. This time, though, she lets it hang there for a moment and then spins it around and looses it in the other direction.

Miss Trunchbull throws herself flat on the floor, and Matilda grins.)

There is, for the sake of fire regulations, a stairwell at either end of the building with a door going outside. It simplifies things a bit.

"We're going to get you out to the car," he says, "then I'm going back for the security tapes."

There are too many images being captured right now that can't be explained and need to be kept out of the wrong hands.

(And it will be tidier, in the long run, if no one can decisively prove Jenny's presence here.)

"Thought of everything, haven't you," she murmurs.

(It's a much more equal contest now. The Trunchbull can throw all the destructive magic she wants; Matilda just throws it back. She isn't even dodging anymore. Miss Trunchbull is, and she's not that good at it.)

He tosses an amused glance back over his shoulder.

"Of course I have."

He always does. Taken objectively, this job is the most routine of routines. Retrieve stolen property, clear up mess, eliminate threat. He could do it in his sleep.

Jenny manages an actual smile.

"Well, you are Matilda's friend."

(But say what you like about Miss Trunchbull's grasp of strategy, she does have some idea of what she's doing.

Her next attack is a blast of wind that knocks Matilda out of the air. Coughing, Matilda barely manages to wave off another fireball.)

So, he does not point out, is Lavender. Jim is rather more discriminating in that department than Matilda is.

When they emerge into the carpark, they are not the only people out there. The fight in the lobby has been hard to miss. Some people are fleeing, others trying to hash out what's going on. Jim slows to let Jenny catch up with him, assuming an anxious mien, and puts a protective arm around her.

"Try," he says under his breath, "to look very much like you want to get the hell out of here."

"I don't think that will be a problem," she answers, with a nervous glance back at the building.

It's not like it will require acting of any kind, especially not when Aunt Trunchbull chooses that moment to start roaring again. The sound of her stomping feet is audible all the way out to the parking lot.

The sound abruptly stops.

There is quiet for a brief, brief moment, then an extended loudness.

(She's given up on throwing fireballs and is now just throwing fire. Matilda deflects it as best she can. A thick layer of ice forms on walls, floor, and ceiling. The temperature differential shatters the front panels of both vending machines. Wind shrieks back and forth in the confines of the hallway. Something is burning and Matilda can't see it to make it stop, so she just freezes everything; another gout of fire melts the ice off most of the ceiling, and she ducks under it.

The Trunchbull throws another lightning bolt.

Matilda, too rattled to make the catch, dodges up.

It wouldn't make that much difference, except that the carpet under Miss Trunchbull's boots is soaking in two inches of slush, and the massive electrical discharge has to go somewhere, and Miss Trunchbull is among the places it chooses to go.)

And the sound of something large and heavy hitting the floor (the splash doesn't carry all the way), and then quiet again, this time for good.

He glances back as things quiet down, opening the passenger-side door for Jenny. He'd put her on the driver's side, but unless she can spark the engine back to life herself, there's no point.

"Stay in the car," he instructs softly. "I'll send her out to you."

Jenny presses her face into her hands, takes a deep breath, and then nods.

Matilda drifts slowly back to ground level and takes a look around. A sheet of ice cracks off the warped side panel of a vending machine and falls to the floor, breaking into numerous pieces on impact.

It all turned out a lot... messier than she expected.

The first thing that catches Jim's eye - aside from Matilda herself, of course - is the ex-Trunchbull on the floor.

One less thing he'll have to take care of himself.

"Well done," he says.

Somewhere between rueful and mildly horrified: "But what do we do with her?"

"I'll take care of that," he assures her. "Jenny's waiting for you in the car. You remember how to hotwire it."

It's not a question. She watched him do it, of course she remembers.

She rubs her face with both hands, a gesture strongly reminiscent of the one Jenny used just a short time ago.

"All right," she says, casting one last glance over the surrounding wreckage. "See you in a bit."

Instead of wading through the icy flood, she glides over it, and when she reaches dry carpet she directs a slight frown at her shoes and they obediently become dry.

"It's magic, by the way," she adds as she's walking away. "All of it."

Of course it is.

He doesn't answer. He knows a good exit line when he hears one, and she's certainly earned it.

Briskly, he turns his full attention to the situation at hand. It's been a while since he's had to get rid of a body himself, without a crew to deal with the heavy lifting (so to speak), but he'll manage. Agatha Trunchbull will remain on the books as officially missing, no one will be coming round to ask Jenny any difficult questions, and this particular problem will never bother them again.

Matilda and Jenny take their time getting home. There are hugs first, and hot chocolate at a nearby donut shop, and a modicum of sniffles all round. Jenny calls the school to let them know that she's fine now and would really rather not talk about it, thank you, and yes, she will be coming back on Monday just like normal.

It's probable, however, that they still get there before Jim.

They do.

He makes his way back eventually, though. When he appears in the living room, he's a mess.

It was not a clean process.

More than that, though, he looks tired. He's still running on lingering adrenalin, but that's all he's got. After the extended tour of Gotham and the physically demanding nature of the last few hours, his body is finally prepared to rebel. Once he crashes, he's going to crash hard.

For the moment, though, he looks quite cheerful.

"Evening, ladies."

"Oh my," says Jenny.

"I'm gonna get muffins," says Matilda.

Jim laughs and drops onto the couch without comment.

That was more or less the reception he was expecting.

(He would have looked for a Door to go straight to his room at Milliways, but he doesn't think Matilda would be best pleased if he left without at least checking in first. He'd just as soon not have to deal with that later.)

The muffins (four of them, floating in a neat line) arrive in the living room faster than Matilda does; she had to see them to get them out, but she knows the house well enough to send them exactly where they need to go without bothering to lead the way.

While she's out of the room, Jim closes his eyes.

His muffin is going to have to wait.

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missnicegirl - 2012-04-03 02:49 (UTC) - Expand