- Location
- In the depts of despair.
Knowing him he is simply a health freak doing exercise every time he can.
Hebert Family Values (Addams Family Crossover)
- Thread starter Ellf
- Start date
- Crossover
Bailey Matutine
(Verified Pooka)
- Location
- Pelican Town
- Pronouns
- They/Them
You've got to hand it to Thing; he knows how to stay in shape!
Chojomeka
Behold! QUEEN MONKE!
It's pretty handy for him after all.
What is this... I don't even...
How is this working so well together?
Watched and followed.
How is this working so well together?
Watched and followed.
Rajvik_wolfboy
Wolf amongst the stars.
- Location
- Florida
Because its Worm and the Addams family where the latter is an amalgamation of every Addams family ideal. I'm picking up more of the original TV series out of this than anything else other than maybe the cartoon
- Location
- Cyberspace
That definitely flowed a lot better to me.
- Location
- Earth Prime
You did well. It feels more like an actual story, rather than a first draft or an outline of one, now. The reactions flow more realistically, and it...well, it reads like it's polished and clear. It's well done, and improves clarity greatly this way.
Credo 1.4
Ellf
Apprentice Wizard
- Location
- Virginia
I adjusted my clothing one more time as I walked down the street to where I felt my cousins. My costume would probably protect me from the bulk of whatever they could throw at me, and despite having my face uncovered and not wearing my gloves, I knew that a costume made of spider silk, that my costume would be safer than wearing nothing. Who knew what my cousins had in that house? Still, it had to be better than watching either set of parents and how… I killed that line of thought as I approached the wire gate in front of the house.
I'd seen the house earlier, when I was on my run with Lurch, but I couldn't quite wrap my head around the fact that it had appeared overnight. Cape bullshit, it had to be. It just couldn't make sense any other way, and the fact that I could accept that at face value was only the slightest bit worrying to me. Add the storm clouds swirling around the dilapidated-looking manor, and I got the eerie feeling that I was walking toward a haunted house. Only unlike the ones that Emma and I had laughed at when we were younger, this one might have actually been haunted. (Okay, I'd been the one to laugh, now that I think about it. Emma could barely handle them.)
It really didn't help that the moment I got within a few feet of the gate, it slowly swung inward with a loud creaking noise. Of course, automatic gates were things that were easy enough to get, but I didn't see a single motor attached to it. As I passed through the gates, the air chilled some, and the wind stilled. The smell of fresh cut grass tickled my nose combined with freshly dug grave dirt. My eyes flicked around the side of the house. There was no way this lot should have fit anywhere near where we lived. I knew that there wasn't a forest there before, and the cemetery, complete with mausoleums, really shouldn't have been able to be there. Whatever this so-called "Grandmama" did, however she did it, it had to be Cape-related. Only the fact that I could still feel my black widows at home let me know I was still in Brockton Bay.
I'm not sure if that made this more or less disturbing.
I made my way to the front door of the house. Just going inside would be rude, and despite their strangeness, my family had yet to actually be rude to me in return. Plus, they'd brought Mom back home. They didn't need to do that. I was just glad they did.
The knockers on the door were held by snarling gargoyle heads, and there were two of them, one on each door. It seemed that the house had one of those old pull-style bells for the door as well, except the rope was tied into a noose, much like the ropes that Mom had pulled at our place… that had no business being there.
Well, I wasn't even going to give the worst case scenario much thought. I pulled the noose, and I heard a scream echo through the house beyond the doors, followed by a crashing of metal, glass and smashing of wood before a pack of maggots literally appeared within my range. Literally on the other side of the door, the maggots appeared. I had no explanation when the door opened.
"You rang?" asked Lurch, standing perfectly coiffed in his suit. I knew that he hadn't passed me on my way here, yet here he stood. It made no sense if he wasn't teleporting. It had to be that.
"Just give me a second, Lurch," I said, closing my eyes. Yes, the black widows were still working. The spiders in Aunt Morticia's hair were just sitting there as she—nope, can't see out the eyes of spiders. Can't hear out of spiders, so whatever it was I thought I saw, I didn't. The flies that I had on Pugsley and Wednesday still sat in the places I'd planted them, inside the house, and the maggots in Lurch's elbow remained with him, in his elbow. It really should have disturbed me more than it did that Lurch had maggots nesting in his elbow, but that just seemed par for the course for the cape butler. "I'm here to visit."
"Oh, just let her in already, Lurch, she's family!" Fester's voice rang out from inside as he practically shoved Lurch out of the way. Fester was comically small when compared to the butler, yet Lurch just let himself be pushed with nothing more than a mild groan. Fester wore the same thing he had on the previous night as he gestured for me to come inside. "I'm sure Wednesday and Pugsley will love to have you, but maybe you can help me with something first."
"I'm not… sure…" I trailed off as I stepped inside the house. The foyer immediately behind the front door was a bit bigger than the one we had at home. Two lit candelabras stood on either side of a long desk with two busts of a man and a woman I didn't quite recognize, but they had features that I recognized in my mother and my uncle. The man's mouth was a little on the wide side, and the woman had long curly hair. I got the feeling that glasses wouldn't be out of place on her face. "Are those—"
"Mom and Dad? Yeah, they are," Fester said with a grin. The man's smile simultaneously unsettled me and brought some warmth. I didn't know how to react to that. "Netty dug up their skulls to make the base for them and then she added on with plaster and quick-set concrete. She won't say how she got them to look so true to life, but it doesn't matter. Gomez thought they'd look good sitting here in the foyer."
Mom… what? The busts had actual human skulls in them? That couldn't be right. Could it? I looked Fester over, trying to see if the man was joking, but the grin on his face seemed to be one of pride not mirth. He was proud of Mom for what she'd done. I mean, the busts were excellently done, but actual human skulls. Of my grandparents. In theory.
"You're not kidding," I said.
"Of course not!" Fester exclaimed, his voice indignant. He leaned conspiratorially closer to me and said, "I helped her dig them up."
He laughed, and I just gaped at my would-be uncle. I reached out toward the bugs I felt within my range and I just shook my head. It wasn't like grave robbing was the worst thing my mother had done. Dad had mentioned her running with Lustrum, after all. I didn't even want to think about what would happen if Lustrum were still around and Mom came back like this.
I took a deep breath and turned to my uncle. "You said you needed my help with something?"
"Oh, right! Yes, come on this way!" Fester dragged me out of the foyer and into what must have been either the living room or some room that I couldn't remember the name of. Maybe it was a ballroom of some sort. The room, like the house from outside, looked highly dilapidated. In a way, it wasn't unlike my own home in that fashion, though our house was in disrepair more due to lack of desire than through intention. This room, however, spoke of intention. It was obvious the room was lived in from the way the cracks ran through the wood, the lack of dust in certain areas of the couches. The candelabras by the two staircases held partially-melted candles, but the chandelier that hung between them was covered in cobwebs. Whatever had made those webs, they'd long-since died or disappeared. Two ovular tables sat on either side of one of the staircases, both with a layer of dust settled upon them. I got the feeling that if I hadn't been controlling all the bugs in the house, a roach or two would be crawling through the area.
Within the house alone, I controlled a swarm of four hundred twenty-three thousand, five hundred ninety-five bugs. A good half of that was the termite colony that was located under the house and within its walls. As for useful bugs, there were four hives of wasps, forty-five spiders of varying species including twelve black widows, two tarantulas and four wolf spiders. There was also something that felt a lot like a spider, but it was far too large. It had a simple brain the way the rest of what I could control did, but it was approximately the size of a small dog. I still had full control over it, but it couldn't have been natural.
"Just wait right there, Taylor," Fester said, and he gestured toward a couch. "Your cousins are upstairs, but you'll get a real kick out of this, I think! It's a blast!"
I just gave the bald man an incredulous look. If I'd learned anything about this family today, I learned that there was just nothing that I could expect from them that would be correct. Maybe if I had time to go to the library and look them up along with the capes I ran into the previous night, I'd be able to prepare myself a bit better.
Fester grinned wider, and he ran to a room concealed under one of the staircases and opened the door. "Oh, there you are, Pubert. Why don't you go out and meet your cousin, Taylor? She's Netty's daughter. Just hand me that ring there, and head out."
"Kay!" a young child's voice rang out from within the closet coupled with a giggle that I swear sounded like it came right out of one of the villains on Mouse Protector: Justice is Cheese. Pubert. Fester had called the boy Pubert, which made him the younger brother of the cousins I'd already met. Wonderful. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but to see a young boy, maybe no more than three years old dressed in a perfectly arranged three-piece suit and a pencil-thin mustache confused the hell out of me. That looked like actual hair on his upper lip. He had dark hair to match the mustache and dark eyes. He took one look at me and grinned. "Taylah? Look like Aunt Netty!"
"Taylor," I corrected idly as he walked closer to me. I really wasn't sure what to do with a kid his age at all. Shouldn't he have been watched by someone? His parents were still… doing that at my place while my parents were in another room. His siblings were upstairs, and the only somewhat responsible adult around was Fester, and he was digging through whatever junk drawer he'd found back there. "So, why were you in that closet, Pubert?"
"Hide and seek with Wednesday and Pugsley!" Pubert laughed. "I'm a very good hider. They never found me. Uncle Fester did though!"
"How long were you hiding?" I had a sinking feeling in my stomach.
"Umm… I don't know," Pubert said with a shrug. "Aunt Annette was here. I gave her her coat. Grandmama came down and the house went woosh."
"Woosh." I supposed that was as good a description as any to how the mansion ended up on our block without me seeing it there before.
"Ah-ha! I've found it!" Fester's breathy laugh was almost contagious as he moved something within the room. The sound of a bowling ball rolling down the lane to strike pins firmly echoed from back there at that point. It says something about me that the sounds disturbed me less and less. I was more worried about what my uncle had found. "It's right here!"
"What is?" I asked.
"This! Check it out, Taylor, Pubert! It's really neat." Uncle Fester lumbered out from the room behind the stairs holding what appeared to be a silver ring above his head between his right forefinger and thumb. Now, this probably wasn't a Ring of Power, but given this family, I wouldn't negate the possibility right off the bat. Fiction or no. "I found this back near Cornell about a month ago, and I just knew that I needed to check it out at the right time."
"Cornell?" Pubert asked. It made sense that a kid his age wouldn't know about Universities, but I suppose that without Mom, I wouldn't have known about it either. She'd worked for the Bay University before her… apparent death. My mom was always a good English professor.
"So, what were you doing near the University?" I asked.
"Research," Fester said, and he laughed again. "And I found this new prize posession!"
"A ring," I said.
"Nytra's ring," Pubert said with a nod. "Says so, right on the inside."
"No, no, my dear niece and nephew, it's something more!" Fester laughed again and brought the ring down to his eye level. "See, if I place my hand lik so, and I twist it like this..."
An almost undetectable high-pitched beeping noise started to emit from the ring. The beep sounded for one second, then the beep repeated after a second. Then it repeated again after a half a second. "Uh… Uncle Fester? It's beeping."
"Good ears, Taylor!" Fester said, plastering a wide grin on his face. "I can barely hear it myself, but as the beeping gets closer together, the best part is what's about to happen!"
"The best part?"
"The explosion, of course!" Fester grinned and held out the ring again, and I took a closer look. It was a two-piece ring that was weirdly lit up. "It's a bomb!"
"A bomb," I said, looking nervously at it and backing away slightly. "And you just activated it?"
"Of course! It's a small bomb, maybe small-yield, but it was made by that girl who tried to hold up Cornell! As Dean of Demolitions, it's my job to evaluate these things." Fester laughed again as the ring continued to beep, faster and faster, louder and louder. "I think she was a Tinker of some sort, which explains the small packaged bomb, no?"
"Couldn't that mean the explosion will be larger than you expected?" I asked, stepping further away while pulling at Pubert.
"Oh, don't worry," Fester said. He then tossed the ring in his mouth and swallowed. "I do this all the time..."
The beeping suddenly stopped, and there was a faint echo from within Uncle Fester's body. He opened his mouth, and a gout of flame shot three feet out, lighting four of the candles on an unlit five-piece candelabra. He then let out a burp, and a smoke ring came with it. My uncle ate a bomb, and the worst thing to happen to him was something that appeared to be some form of indigestion. It didn't make sense. Still, he was family, but I didn't think being Pa—oh, wait, New Wave was a thing. Maybe being a cape did run in families.
"How are you not hurt?" I asked.
"Oh, that was tasty, just a hint too much nitroglycerin. I need to find her and help her refine her formula a bit," Uncle Fester said. "It's really close to what Gomez uses on his trains. She needs to adjust a couple things if she wants to increase the yield."
"That… didn't answer my question."
"Oh, I said I do this all the time," Uncle Fester said with a grin. "I'm not the Dean of Demolitions for nothing. I know bombs, and that was a good bomb."
It still didn't answer the primary question I had, but it did both answer and create others. Dean of Demolitions? What kind of school even had that? Clearly, my uncle had some sort of experience and Brute capabilities, but really? A Dean of Demolitions? And then there was something about the trains. Uncle Gomez and his trains.
"Uncle Fester," I said, looking at the man as I moved some of my swarm underneath the floor. If he had any more surprises, I was going to have to at least keep track of him. The problem was the swarm just refused to go near him. Something about where he stood, no matter what I tried, the bugs would go around, even beneath the flooring. "Where are you Dean of Demolitions at?"
"Addams Hall," Fester said. "I believe we're looking to open a new branch here in Brockton Bay. Gomez was out earlier with your father looking for the perfect spot. I don't know if he's found it yet, but we were looking to get a high school established. I'd be teaching the explosives course."
"I want to blow up too!" Pubert exclaimed and then let out a giggle. He then turned to me and whispered conspiratorially, "Uncle Fester makes the best booms. He does a light bulb trick too."
"Light bulb trick?" I asked, looking back to my Uncle.
"Oh, it's nothing special," he said, but he reached into his pocket to pull out a normal light bulb. Clearly, Mom's family had more than their fair share of quirks, and if they were all capes, maybe it made sense why I became one. I just wish it had kicked in before it did. "I just stick this in my mouth. Like so."
Uncle Fester placed the bulb in his mouth, metal end first, and he bit down. The bulb started to illuminate, approximately the intensity that it would be coming from a normal lamp, and suddenly some things made more sense. If Uncle Fester emitted some sort of electric field, that could be why my swarm avoided it, even with my control. I wasn't entirely sure how my powers worked, but brains worked on electricity. If the electricity tweaked my control somehow, maybe they just instinctively avoided it, even through my overrides.
Pubert started clapping, and I shook my head with a small smile. "That's actually pretty neat, Uncle Fester."
He spat the bulb into his hand, and he laughed a breathy laugh. "You're just like your cousins, Taylor. The bulb thing gets them every time."
"Well, then maybe it's something special, after all," I said. "Speaking of Wednesday and Pugsley, I did come here to see them."
"Oh, of course, of course," Uncle Fester said. "Just up the staircase and the fourth door on the right."
"I'm coming too!" Pubert tugged at my hand. The little tyke clearly was more aware than someone his age should have been. It was kind of adorable, even with his mustache that he shouldn't have had at his age. Still, he was a kid of capes; maybe there were some sort of mutations. "Let's go, Taylor!"
"Okay, okay, I'm coming," I said as he pulled me along toward the stairs. Pubert's grip actually put more pressure on my fingers than I expected. Maybe his cape abilities triggered much younger than usual. I'd have to do some research, but that could have made him the youngest on record.
We climbed the staircase and went down the hall. The hallway wasn't in any better repair than the living area downstairs, but it turned out my mother's family had several suits of armor that stood along the hall. What weirded me out a bit was the fact that I swore the suits were all facing outward when we initially passed, but when I looked back, all the helmets had been turned to face us. Suits of armor didn't do that on their own, right?
Pubert and I made it to the fourth doorway on the right and opened it. Inside the room, I could see a variety of torture instruments, like a rack and an iron maiden. There also seemed to be a fully functional guillotine at the center of the room. I say fully functional because my cousins stood next to it, Pugsley holding the rope. Wednesday held a rolled piece of paper between her hands. A doll laid under the blade, head lolling backwards.
"For the crimes of adultery, betrayal of the crown, lewd acts, and sodomy, you have been sentenced to death," said Wednesday in a complete monotone.
"But I didn't do it!" Pugsley said in a falsetto. "I demand an appeal!"
"Denied," Wednesday said, and then she looked at me. "Cousin Taylor, would you care to do the honors?"
I glanced from Wednesday to Pugsley and then to the guillotine itself. On the one hand, I'd never seen a guillotine in action before, but on the other hand, they were playing a game with a guillotine. That it was even here was strange enough, but to play a game with it? The doll looked female, and the head had a luxurious mane of red hair.
I pursed my lips. This might have been a little mean, but it wasn't like it was actually her. "Perform your duties, executioner."
Pugsley let go of the rope and the blade fell, cleanly slicing the doll's head off such that it fell in the basket below.
"And the accused has fallen; Marie Antoinette is gone and there is now justice in all of France. There will be much rejoicing. Yay." Wednesday's voice could have shown a bit more emotion, I felt, but it wasn't entirely flat. She smirked at me after a second, and said, "Cousin Taylor, now that you're here, we can play a new game."
"Oh? What's the game called?" I asked as Pubert pulled me over to a chair. Pugsley gestured to it, so I sat down.
"It's called, 'Is There a God?' It's one of Pugsley's favorites," Wednesday said as the older of her brothers came over by me and started messing with something near my arms. Wait, those were straps. I tried to move my legs, but my ankles were strapped to the chair too. I squirmed, trying to get my arm free.
"It's fun, Taylor! You'll see!" Pugsley said. I reached out to my swarm. If they were going to try and kill me, I wasn't going to make it easy. Spider. Flies, mosquitoes, termites, and ants. I needed all of them up near me as quickly as I could. The problem was that several of them were blocks away. "You'll have loads of fun."
Wednesday walked over to a switch as a helmet was lowered onto me. Oh, God. Was this an electric chair? Was this another form of execution that Mom's family just happened to collect? Why did they even have this stuff?
"Perhaps she will, Pugsley," Wednesday said as she reached for the switch. "If, she's truly family, it's almost a certainty. If not, we'll find out real soon."
No, I couldn't just let them do this. I couldn't just let myself get electrocuted to death. I was not going to let my so-called cousins kill me. I ordered my swarm to attack as Wednesday flipped the switch.
Then my vision went white.
I'd seen the house earlier, when I was on my run with Lurch, but I couldn't quite wrap my head around the fact that it had appeared overnight. Cape bullshit, it had to be. It just couldn't make sense any other way, and the fact that I could accept that at face value was only the slightest bit worrying to me. Add the storm clouds swirling around the dilapidated-looking manor, and I got the eerie feeling that I was walking toward a haunted house. Only unlike the ones that Emma and I had laughed at when we were younger, this one might have actually been haunted. (Okay, I'd been the one to laugh, now that I think about it. Emma could barely handle them.)
It really didn't help that the moment I got within a few feet of the gate, it slowly swung inward with a loud creaking noise. Of course, automatic gates were things that were easy enough to get, but I didn't see a single motor attached to it. As I passed through the gates, the air chilled some, and the wind stilled. The smell of fresh cut grass tickled my nose combined with freshly dug grave dirt. My eyes flicked around the side of the house. There was no way this lot should have fit anywhere near where we lived. I knew that there wasn't a forest there before, and the cemetery, complete with mausoleums, really shouldn't have been able to be there. Whatever this so-called "Grandmama" did, however she did it, it had to be Cape-related. Only the fact that I could still feel my black widows at home let me know I was still in Brockton Bay.
I'm not sure if that made this more or less disturbing.
I made my way to the front door of the house. Just going inside would be rude, and despite their strangeness, my family had yet to actually be rude to me in return. Plus, they'd brought Mom back home. They didn't need to do that. I was just glad they did.
The knockers on the door were held by snarling gargoyle heads, and there were two of them, one on each door. It seemed that the house had one of those old pull-style bells for the door as well, except the rope was tied into a noose, much like the ropes that Mom had pulled at our place… that had no business being there.
Well, I wasn't even going to give the worst case scenario much thought. I pulled the noose, and I heard a scream echo through the house beyond the doors, followed by a crashing of metal, glass and smashing of wood before a pack of maggots literally appeared within my range. Literally on the other side of the door, the maggots appeared. I had no explanation when the door opened.
"You rang?" asked Lurch, standing perfectly coiffed in his suit. I knew that he hadn't passed me on my way here, yet here he stood. It made no sense if he wasn't teleporting. It had to be that.
"Just give me a second, Lurch," I said, closing my eyes. Yes, the black widows were still working. The spiders in Aunt Morticia's hair were just sitting there as she—nope, can't see out the eyes of spiders. Can't hear out of spiders, so whatever it was I thought I saw, I didn't. The flies that I had on Pugsley and Wednesday still sat in the places I'd planted them, inside the house, and the maggots in Lurch's elbow remained with him, in his elbow. It really should have disturbed me more than it did that Lurch had maggots nesting in his elbow, but that just seemed par for the course for the cape butler. "I'm here to visit."
"Oh, just let her in already, Lurch, she's family!" Fester's voice rang out from inside as he practically shoved Lurch out of the way. Fester was comically small when compared to the butler, yet Lurch just let himself be pushed with nothing more than a mild groan. Fester wore the same thing he had on the previous night as he gestured for me to come inside. "I'm sure Wednesday and Pugsley will love to have you, but maybe you can help me with something first."
"I'm not… sure…" I trailed off as I stepped inside the house. The foyer immediately behind the front door was a bit bigger than the one we had at home. Two lit candelabras stood on either side of a long desk with two busts of a man and a woman I didn't quite recognize, but they had features that I recognized in my mother and my uncle. The man's mouth was a little on the wide side, and the woman had long curly hair. I got the feeling that glasses wouldn't be out of place on her face. "Are those—"
"Mom and Dad? Yeah, they are," Fester said with a grin. The man's smile simultaneously unsettled me and brought some warmth. I didn't know how to react to that. "Netty dug up their skulls to make the base for them and then she added on with plaster and quick-set concrete. She won't say how she got them to look so true to life, but it doesn't matter. Gomez thought they'd look good sitting here in the foyer."
Mom… what? The busts had actual human skulls in them? That couldn't be right. Could it? I looked Fester over, trying to see if the man was joking, but the grin on his face seemed to be one of pride not mirth. He was proud of Mom for what she'd done. I mean, the busts were excellently done, but actual human skulls. Of my grandparents. In theory.
"You're not kidding," I said.
"Of course not!" Fester exclaimed, his voice indignant. He leaned conspiratorially closer to me and said, "I helped her dig them up."
He laughed, and I just gaped at my would-be uncle. I reached out toward the bugs I felt within my range and I just shook my head. It wasn't like grave robbing was the worst thing my mother had done. Dad had mentioned her running with Lustrum, after all. I didn't even want to think about what would happen if Lustrum were still around and Mom came back like this.
I took a deep breath and turned to my uncle. "You said you needed my help with something?"
"Oh, right! Yes, come on this way!" Fester dragged me out of the foyer and into what must have been either the living room or some room that I couldn't remember the name of. Maybe it was a ballroom of some sort. The room, like the house from outside, looked highly dilapidated. In a way, it wasn't unlike my own home in that fashion, though our house was in disrepair more due to lack of desire than through intention. This room, however, spoke of intention. It was obvious the room was lived in from the way the cracks ran through the wood, the lack of dust in certain areas of the couches. The candelabras by the two staircases held partially-melted candles, but the chandelier that hung between them was covered in cobwebs. Whatever had made those webs, they'd long-since died or disappeared. Two ovular tables sat on either side of one of the staircases, both with a layer of dust settled upon them. I got the feeling that if I hadn't been controlling all the bugs in the house, a roach or two would be crawling through the area.
Within the house alone, I controlled a swarm of four hundred twenty-three thousand, five hundred ninety-five bugs. A good half of that was the termite colony that was located under the house and within its walls. As for useful bugs, there were four hives of wasps, forty-five spiders of varying species including twelve black widows, two tarantulas and four wolf spiders. There was also something that felt a lot like a spider, but it was far too large. It had a simple brain the way the rest of what I could control did, but it was approximately the size of a small dog. I still had full control over it, but it couldn't have been natural.
"Just wait right there, Taylor," Fester said, and he gestured toward a couch. "Your cousins are upstairs, but you'll get a real kick out of this, I think! It's a blast!"
I just gave the bald man an incredulous look. If I'd learned anything about this family today, I learned that there was just nothing that I could expect from them that would be correct. Maybe if I had time to go to the library and look them up along with the capes I ran into the previous night, I'd be able to prepare myself a bit better.
Fester grinned wider, and he ran to a room concealed under one of the staircases and opened the door. "Oh, there you are, Pubert. Why don't you go out and meet your cousin, Taylor? She's Netty's daughter. Just hand me that ring there, and head out."
"Kay!" a young child's voice rang out from within the closet coupled with a giggle that I swear sounded like it came right out of one of the villains on Mouse Protector: Justice is Cheese. Pubert. Fester had called the boy Pubert, which made him the younger brother of the cousins I'd already met. Wonderful. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but to see a young boy, maybe no more than three years old dressed in a perfectly arranged three-piece suit and a pencil-thin mustache confused the hell out of me. That looked like actual hair on his upper lip. He had dark hair to match the mustache and dark eyes. He took one look at me and grinned. "Taylah? Look like Aunt Netty!"
"Taylor," I corrected idly as he walked closer to me. I really wasn't sure what to do with a kid his age at all. Shouldn't he have been watched by someone? His parents were still… doing that at my place while my parents were in another room. His siblings were upstairs, and the only somewhat responsible adult around was Fester, and he was digging through whatever junk drawer he'd found back there. "So, why were you in that closet, Pubert?"
"Hide and seek with Wednesday and Pugsley!" Pubert laughed. "I'm a very good hider. They never found me. Uncle Fester did though!"
"How long were you hiding?" I had a sinking feeling in my stomach.
"Umm… I don't know," Pubert said with a shrug. "Aunt Annette was here. I gave her her coat. Grandmama came down and the house went woosh."
"Woosh." I supposed that was as good a description as any to how the mansion ended up on our block without me seeing it there before.
"Ah-ha! I've found it!" Fester's breathy laugh was almost contagious as he moved something within the room. The sound of a bowling ball rolling down the lane to strike pins firmly echoed from back there at that point. It says something about me that the sounds disturbed me less and less. I was more worried about what my uncle had found. "It's right here!"
"What is?" I asked.
"This! Check it out, Taylor, Pubert! It's really neat." Uncle Fester lumbered out from the room behind the stairs holding what appeared to be a silver ring above his head between his right forefinger and thumb. Now, this probably wasn't a Ring of Power, but given this family, I wouldn't negate the possibility right off the bat. Fiction or no. "I found this back near Cornell about a month ago, and I just knew that I needed to check it out at the right time."
"Cornell?" Pubert asked. It made sense that a kid his age wouldn't know about Universities, but I suppose that without Mom, I wouldn't have known about it either. She'd worked for the Bay University before her… apparent death. My mom was always a good English professor.
"So, what were you doing near the University?" I asked.
"Research," Fester said, and he laughed again. "And I found this new prize posession!"
"A ring," I said.
"Nytra's ring," Pubert said with a nod. "Says so, right on the inside."
"No, no, my dear niece and nephew, it's something more!" Fester laughed again and brought the ring down to his eye level. "See, if I place my hand lik so, and I twist it like this..."
An almost undetectable high-pitched beeping noise started to emit from the ring. The beep sounded for one second, then the beep repeated after a second. Then it repeated again after a half a second. "Uh… Uncle Fester? It's beeping."
"Good ears, Taylor!" Fester said, plastering a wide grin on his face. "I can barely hear it myself, but as the beeping gets closer together, the best part is what's about to happen!"
"The best part?"
"The explosion, of course!" Fester grinned and held out the ring again, and I took a closer look. It was a two-piece ring that was weirdly lit up. "It's a bomb!"
"A bomb," I said, looking nervously at it and backing away slightly. "And you just activated it?"
"Of course! It's a small bomb, maybe small-yield, but it was made by that girl who tried to hold up Cornell! As Dean of Demolitions, it's my job to evaluate these things." Fester laughed again as the ring continued to beep, faster and faster, louder and louder. "I think she was a Tinker of some sort, which explains the small packaged bomb, no?"
"Couldn't that mean the explosion will be larger than you expected?" I asked, stepping further away while pulling at Pubert.
"Oh, don't worry," Fester said. He then tossed the ring in his mouth and swallowed. "I do this all the time..."
The beeping suddenly stopped, and there was a faint echo from within Uncle Fester's body. He opened his mouth, and a gout of flame shot three feet out, lighting four of the candles on an unlit five-piece candelabra. He then let out a burp, and a smoke ring came with it. My uncle ate a bomb, and the worst thing to happen to him was something that appeared to be some form of indigestion. It didn't make sense. Still, he was family, but I didn't think being Pa—oh, wait, New Wave was a thing. Maybe being a cape did run in families.
"How are you not hurt?" I asked.
"Oh, that was tasty, just a hint too much nitroglycerin. I need to find her and help her refine her formula a bit," Uncle Fester said. "It's really close to what Gomez uses on his trains. She needs to adjust a couple things if she wants to increase the yield."
"That… didn't answer my question."
"Oh, I said I do this all the time," Uncle Fester said with a grin. "I'm not the Dean of Demolitions for nothing. I know bombs, and that was a good bomb."
It still didn't answer the primary question I had, but it did both answer and create others. Dean of Demolitions? What kind of school even had that? Clearly, my uncle had some sort of experience and Brute capabilities, but really? A Dean of Demolitions? And then there was something about the trains. Uncle Gomez and his trains.
"Uncle Fester," I said, looking at the man as I moved some of my swarm underneath the floor. If he had any more surprises, I was going to have to at least keep track of him. The problem was the swarm just refused to go near him. Something about where he stood, no matter what I tried, the bugs would go around, even beneath the flooring. "Where are you Dean of Demolitions at?"
"Addams Hall," Fester said. "I believe we're looking to open a new branch here in Brockton Bay. Gomez was out earlier with your father looking for the perfect spot. I don't know if he's found it yet, but we were looking to get a high school established. I'd be teaching the explosives course."
"I want to blow up too!" Pubert exclaimed and then let out a giggle. He then turned to me and whispered conspiratorially, "Uncle Fester makes the best booms. He does a light bulb trick too."
"Light bulb trick?" I asked, looking back to my Uncle.
"Oh, it's nothing special," he said, but he reached into his pocket to pull out a normal light bulb. Clearly, Mom's family had more than their fair share of quirks, and if they were all capes, maybe it made sense why I became one. I just wish it had kicked in before it did. "I just stick this in my mouth. Like so."
Uncle Fester placed the bulb in his mouth, metal end first, and he bit down. The bulb started to illuminate, approximately the intensity that it would be coming from a normal lamp, and suddenly some things made more sense. If Uncle Fester emitted some sort of electric field, that could be why my swarm avoided it, even with my control. I wasn't entirely sure how my powers worked, but brains worked on electricity. If the electricity tweaked my control somehow, maybe they just instinctively avoided it, even through my overrides.
Pubert started clapping, and I shook my head with a small smile. "That's actually pretty neat, Uncle Fester."
He spat the bulb into his hand, and he laughed a breathy laugh. "You're just like your cousins, Taylor. The bulb thing gets them every time."
"Well, then maybe it's something special, after all," I said. "Speaking of Wednesday and Pugsley, I did come here to see them."
"Oh, of course, of course," Uncle Fester said. "Just up the staircase and the fourth door on the right."
"I'm coming too!" Pubert tugged at my hand. The little tyke clearly was more aware than someone his age should have been. It was kind of adorable, even with his mustache that he shouldn't have had at his age. Still, he was a kid of capes; maybe there were some sort of mutations. "Let's go, Taylor!"
"Okay, okay, I'm coming," I said as he pulled me along toward the stairs. Pubert's grip actually put more pressure on my fingers than I expected. Maybe his cape abilities triggered much younger than usual. I'd have to do some research, but that could have made him the youngest on record.
We climbed the staircase and went down the hall. The hallway wasn't in any better repair than the living area downstairs, but it turned out my mother's family had several suits of armor that stood along the hall. What weirded me out a bit was the fact that I swore the suits were all facing outward when we initially passed, but when I looked back, all the helmets had been turned to face us. Suits of armor didn't do that on their own, right?
Pubert and I made it to the fourth doorway on the right and opened it. Inside the room, I could see a variety of torture instruments, like a rack and an iron maiden. There also seemed to be a fully functional guillotine at the center of the room. I say fully functional because my cousins stood next to it, Pugsley holding the rope. Wednesday held a rolled piece of paper between her hands. A doll laid under the blade, head lolling backwards.
"For the crimes of adultery, betrayal of the crown, lewd acts, and sodomy, you have been sentenced to death," said Wednesday in a complete monotone.
"But I didn't do it!" Pugsley said in a falsetto. "I demand an appeal!"
"Denied," Wednesday said, and then she looked at me. "Cousin Taylor, would you care to do the honors?"
I glanced from Wednesday to Pugsley and then to the guillotine itself. On the one hand, I'd never seen a guillotine in action before, but on the other hand, they were playing a game with a guillotine. That it was even here was strange enough, but to play a game with it? The doll looked female, and the head had a luxurious mane of red hair.
I pursed my lips. This might have been a little mean, but it wasn't like it was actually her. "Perform your duties, executioner."
Pugsley let go of the rope and the blade fell, cleanly slicing the doll's head off such that it fell in the basket below.
"And the accused has fallen; Marie Antoinette is gone and there is now justice in all of France. There will be much rejoicing. Yay." Wednesday's voice could have shown a bit more emotion, I felt, but it wasn't entirely flat. She smirked at me after a second, and said, "Cousin Taylor, now that you're here, we can play a new game."
"Oh? What's the game called?" I asked as Pubert pulled me over to a chair. Pugsley gestured to it, so I sat down.
"It's called, 'Is There a God?' It's one of Pugsley's favorites," Wednesday said as the older of her brothers came over by me and started messing with something near my arms. Wait, those were straps. I tried to move my legs, but my ankles were strapped to the chair too. I squirmed, trying to get my arm free.
"It's fun, Taylor! You'll see!" Pugsley said. I reached out to my swarm. If they were going to try and kill me, I wasn't going to make it easy. Spider. Flies, mosquitoes, termites, and ants. I needed all of them up near me as quickly as I could. The problem was that several of them were blocks away. "You'll have loads of fun."
Wednesday walked over to a switch as a helmet was lowered onto me. Oh, God. Was this an electric chair? Was this another form of execution that Mom's family just happened to collect? Why did they even have this stuff?
"Perhaps she will, Pugsley," Wednesday said as she reached for the switch. "If, she's truly family, it's almost a certainty. If not, we'll find out real soon."
No, I couldn't just let them do this. I couldn't just let myself get electrocuted to death. I was not going to let my so-called cousins kill me. I ordered my swarm to attack as Wednesday flipped the switch.
Then my vision went white.
Mega1987
A TTK somewhere at Kancolle's Iwagawa Airfield
- Location
- somewhere at Kancolle's Iwagawa Airfield
or they'll shrug it off...
remember...
NORMAL common sense does not apply to the Addams....
Frescopino
(Verified Air Freshener)
- Location
- The Pit of Hate
Don't be a downer, Taylor. Now you can light a bulb like uncle does!
- Location
- Maine
- Pronouns
- They/Them/Theirs
I'm so happy to see this updating.
They wondered if there was a God. Now they get to meet Abaddon. Granny will be so impressed!
Oh, the family is going to love her so much, she might even get to help with the cooking!
Assuming the near-death experience doesn't relieve Taylor of her memories for a while. I mean, she's an Addams, after all. Dying just makes you forget what you were doing. Kinda like a video game protagonist that. Postmortem confusion, they call it. Gamers, not Addams. Don't know what the Addams family calls it. But it does seem common enough that they'd have a word for "Well, it should have killed a normal person, but they just forgot what they were doing!"
They wondered if there was a God. Now they get to meet Abaddon. Granny will be so impressed!
Oh, the family is going to love her so much, she might even get to help with the cooking!
Assuming the near-death experience doesn't relieve Taylor of her memories for a while. I mean, she's an Addams, after all. Dying just makes you forget what you were doing. Kinda like a video game protagonist that. Postmortem confusion, they call it. Gamers, not Addams. Don't know what the Addams family calls it. But it does seem common enough that they'd have a word for "Well, it should have killed a normal person, but they just forgot what they were doing!"
Even Better Electricity helps wayward Addams remember/start their Addams nature.
Taylors Addams traits get a jumpstart. Meanwhile QA gets reformatted to Addams Standards.
QA might assume that she died, and leave to find the next unit to interface with....
That's it, everybody out of the universe.
Sir, We cant get out the other Universes are Blockading us...., Sir!
- Location
- Space, the final frontier.
Remember, Taylor is still thinking in cape terms.
So this is just more evidence that more electricity is better for her. Like her theory for Uncle Fester.
She is going to electrocute herself more and do other stuff that are Addams, like trying what Uncle Fester is doing, slowly, while still thinking that she is a normal person. A cape yes, but still a totally normal cape.
While acting and appearing as full blown Addams.
So this is just more evidence that more electricity is better for her. Like her theory for Uncle Fester.
She is going to electrocute herself more and do other stuff that are Addams, like trying what Uncle Fester is doing, slowly, while still thinking that she is a normal person. A cape yes, but still a totally normal cape.
While acting and appearing as full blown Addams.
- Location
- new york
I'm betting that death is waiting to send her back because it's too much work to take an Addams' soul before the right time.
....Okay. She's not dead, because that would end the story, obviously.
But, uh, _Fester_, he who can light up lightbulbs by sticking them in his mouth, being immune to electricity does _not_ mean that all Addams are immune to electricity.
I hope the author has an explanation.
And the incipient answer: there is a god(dess), and she is irked.
Ellf
Apprentice Wizard
- Location
- Virginia
Pugsley, in the first Addams Family movie, is shocked in this very electric chair. That said, do recall what Taylor's wearing.
Prester Fred
The Mad Procrastinator
- Location
- Timonium, MD
Pugsley and Wednesday like to take a TV antenna outdoors in the middle of a thunderstorm and hold it up toward the clouds. They giggle while doing so. Also, "is there a God?" is one of their favorite games, so they probably play it a lot. On the other hand, we don't know that Annette was "killed" by a downed power line during the car crash, only that there was a crash. I'd say that being ridiculously hard to kill is a universal Addams trait.