Rescue the Princess, Rescue the World. [Active, Closed]

[notthatharry]

WHO: Harry and Kairi
LOCATION: The Unicorn's sinister lair
WEEK: 58
TIME: After Kairi gets kidnapped by unicorns
WHAT: The fair Princess Kairi has been taken by sparkly terrors. Now it's up to one man to risk it all to Get. HER. BACK!!! *cue explosions and montage of action scenes that don't make it into the film*
RATING: S for Sparkles and B

Comments

2/2

[notthatharry]

There was a brief sensation of falling, and Harry had enough time to reflect on what a stupid way to die this was and come up with several absurd epitaphs before he felt his spell wrap around him like a bubble just a second before he hit the ground, sending him bouncing down through an avalanche of gumdrops and Nerds before his ride finally ended with him going right into a pit of toffee, which was never coming out of his robes by the way, relatively unharmed, even if his bag was digging into his side and his wand was uncomfortable close to a rather tender area.

Up above there was a a gooey smack as his broom slammed home into the mountain, which was followed a beat later by a ominous creek of hundreds of tons of candy trying to resettle after a huge amount of energy had been transferred into them. Fortunately the broom didn't exactly have a lot of mass, and so all that happened was the very tip of the mountain was knocked off balance, sending a avalanche of sugary goodness rolling down the sides and scattering the gathered unicorns. Surging to his feet, Harry vaulted over a jellybean the size of a European car and landed on the edge of the mountain with enough force to cause his robes to billow dramatically in the breeze.

Acting as if he hadn't nearly killed himself dive bombing a confectionery geological formation, Harry reached back and yanked out the fang Frisbee, giving the startled unicorns a sinister smirk.

"Sorry to break up the party, but I'm afraid your little mountain violates about a thousand BDA standards for proper maintenance of children's teeth. Oh, and you kidnapped my friend, so really you've got two choices here. Either you get lost, or I get you lost."

The world seemed to hold it's breath as a cotton candy tumble weed rolled between the young wizard and the enchanted steeds, and then whinnying as if one, the herd lowered their horns and charged Harry.

"Unicorns," Harry sighed in disgust, "Always gotta do everything the hard way."

[driftingtides]

The sound and the crazed yell caught her attention, but Kairi only thought she had finally lost her gumdrops and that the sound was all in her head. Looking around, she saw nothing, and it wasn't until she noticed the unicorns were looking up that she thought to follow their gazes. A blur of motion that was startlingly familiar flashed above her head, there and gone in an instant.

Harry?

What in the--

CRASH.

For a moment, she was entirely sure the mountain had swallowed him. It shook and briefly threatened to collapse after the impact, then calmly resettled into its normal mound of sugary goodness. The glittering mass of candy looked completely innocent despite having just swallowed a student whole.

She was trying to figure out how to tell the entire school that their Gryffindor Prefect had found his demise at the hand of gummy bears and lollipops, and why oh why had she written that stupid journal entry if it was only going to get her friend eaten by giant candy, when suddenly-- there he was. Appearing out of nowhere, throwing himself between her and the mutant unicorns, clothes billowing out in a toffee-colored burst of intimidation.

The herd of pure sparkling white, morally misguided quadrapeds neighed and whiney'd threateningly at Harry as they moved into a formation. They acted as if this boy was the very thing they felt it was their duty to kidnap Kairi away from.

As a few more gumdrops tumbled belatedly down the mountain, like the dust after an avalanche, the surreality of the situation was almost too much. For a moment, Kairi could only stare in bemusement as the unicorns seemed to move as one, facing off against a toffee-dipped wizard with a fang Frisbee and a wild look in his eye that was definitely not due to a sugar rush.

Then the herd made way as if to charge, and Kairi panicked.

Grabbing her wand, she sprinted off the grassy knoll, making it across the small distance in two unthinking leaps. Her wand already at the ready, she shouted a defense spell before she even reached Harry's side. It was just supposed to bring up a barrier of air, a quick stalling tactic to keep the unicorn's sharp horns away from Harry's stomach. But somehow-- perhaps casting spells while running and in panic-mode was not the best of tactics-- the spell misfired, and the aforementioned car-sized jellybean took the brunt of the blow.

It exploded.

Great globs of pressurized jelly flew everywhere, splattering all the involved participants of the rising battle. The unicorns jerked back and broke formation, neighing in concern as their shiny glossy coats were bombarded with sticky goo. That was definitely going to need more than one washing of magical unicorn shampoo to come out.

Kairi was no more lucky than the unicorns-- she reached Harry's side a moment later, half covered in colorful, sticky jelly, which she sheepishly and futilely tried to scrape off her neck and shoulder. Ew.

"...So," She commented lightly, watching the recovering unicorns warily, "...your entrance was way better."

[notthatharry]

Harry had approximately five to seven seconds to enjoy a relative amount of badassness before he was forced to accept exactly how screwed he was in the face of a mass of several hundred pound animals charging him with murder in their big adorable eyes. Given this was effectively a stampede of wild horses with the helpful addition of lengthy razor sharp horns, and he was a single rather battered magical teenager, saying the odds were not in his favor was a rather optimistic way of putting things. Still, since the alternative was trying to fly back out of here and abandon Kairi Harry figured he'd just have to deal with almost certain death. Hell, at least if he died he'd have the satisfaction of knowing Bitchface would be spending her tenure in hell knowing a bunch of unicorns pulled off what she couldn't. That was something right?

Gripping his makeshift weapons, and wishing he'd thought to just bring a box of carrots, Harry's mind raced, trying to find a way to break the horse's charge and distract them long enough to find an opening in their lines. Right now the best bet seemed the Frisbee, he would just have to get the angle right and hope the thing was feeling cooperative. Running the angles in his head, Harry took a breath to force back down the blind panic that was ever so insistently trying to gain control of his higher functions and drew back his arm for the most important throw of his life.

Unfortunately, before he could make said most important throw of his life Harry caught the tail end of Kairi's shouted spell, and had exactly enough time to think, 'Wait, she should have conjugated that last part,' before he once again found himself bathed in gooey sugary confectioneries. Blinking with a rather deadpanned expression on his face, part of Harry noted passively that the sudden explosion of candy mountain had at least managed to disorient the unicorns trying to kill him, while the rest of him wondered if with the way his day was going he'd manage to be assaulted by gigantic bees next. Given how much sugar had been dumped over him in the past few minutes, the possibility was not as remote as he usually like it to be.

"Bees. My god," he muttered under the sound of jelly bean chunks showering down.

There was a momentary pause while the unicorns withdrew in panic and Harry waited while his erstwhile savior, who he himself was supposed to be saving, managed to scramble to his side looking like she had just gone a few rounds in a jello pit. Given his own appearance, he made a note they had to make sure to get cleaned up before anyone saw them, or it was likely to raise questions.

"True," he replied, turning his attention back to the unicorns, "but yours might have been more effective." Mind going through several possibilities for what to do now, Harry promptly settled on the one that he deemed the least suicidal. Not the one that wasn't suicidal, though if he'd had one of those he'd probably have used it, but beggars couldn't be choosers.

"Kairi, do you happen to know how to fly a broom?"

[driftingtides]

Despite being covered in purple goo, Kairi thought she was holding up rather well under the strain. The unicorns were in disarray, Harry was safe, and there was even an chancy, thin possibility that they would both escape this without any new large piercings. That was a ray of sunshine, right?

Watching the unicorns neigh and collect themselves again, looking extremely grumpy and fruit-flavored, Kairi reconsidered. They looked pretty angry. She supposed if one was used to being a beautiful, sparkling pure white legendary creature, one would not much appreciate being covered in a sticky unwashable mess of jelly.

Harry mumbled something just before she reached him, but before she could ask him to clarify and possibly apologize for dousing him in even more sugar, he was addressing her directly. At least he didn't seem too upset about her mishap, although he probably had more pressing things to worry about at the moment than if jelly would wash out of his hair.

"More effective in making them angry," She noted, watching the army collect itself warily. "But that's all I have." If only exploding jelly-beans was an effective defense spell, since she apparently was pretty good at it.

Harry fell silent, and she clung to a crazy hope that he had a plan and everything was going accordingly. Silence was a good thing, right? It didn't necessarily mean he was scrambling for an idea like she was: any idea at all that might get them out of here before the unicorns regrouped.

The wheels in her mind were turning so fast that she almost didn't hear it when Harry asked her a question.

Did she know how to fly a broom?

Well, she know how not to fly it into a mountain. Possibly. She could also quite possibly manage to maneuver around a hoard of enraged magical beasts, even if said beasts were able to jump quite high. She wasn't sure what that question had to do with anything, though, because the broom Harry had brought had become a part of Candy Mountain, and she was fresh out of spare Firebolts.

Still, she nodded. She trusted he had something in mind. "I practice with Sora," she stated with a determined shake of her wand, and a thick clump of jelly spattered onto the ground. "And I've been practicing a lot this year." After all, falling off your broom and nearly cracking your head open on the pavement below was something she never wanted to repeat. This year had been about a lot of improving for her-- and possibly now some of her hard work would pay off.

Yeah. She could do this. She grinned up at Harry, completely ignoring the impending danger that was about to stampede their way. "Let's go."

1/2

[notthatharry]

In Harry's extensive and in-depth experience of hearing things that utterly scared him out of his mind, he had to say "I practice with Sora," easily made the top ten. Harry was well aware of his friends style of flying, which could be fairly described as 'like Harry's but without a sane and rational sense of fear,' and he was not eager to really find out how much of this attitude he'd passed on to Kairi. Still, since his current choices were a probably death in the air or an assured death on the ground...he'd keep weighing his options.

"Alright, you get the broom, I'll keep these guys busy. Once you've got it, swing by and pick me up, preferably before I'm qualified to put unicorn pin cushion on my resume," Harry quickly said, rattling off the plan. Then, before Democracy could set in, he turned to the horses and charged.

One thing about having long legs, was that they made it very easy to eat up a lot of ground in a hurry, though whether that was a good thing probably depended on if you were running towards or away from a pissed off hoard of deadly magical steeds. It was a testament to Harry's particular brand of stupidity that he was doing the former, but hey what was the worst that could happen? If he got impaled and trampled, he at least wouldn't have to turn in the essay due at the end of the week. Bounding over frosting hills and sliding under a peppermint bridge, Harry gripped his Frisbee tight, and at the last second before he hit the edge of the hill he threw his arm to point at something behind the gathered unicorns and shouted, "Hey! Is that a Red Bull!"

'Well,' he reflected as he threw himself into the air from the last pile of gumdrops that marked the edge of the mountain, 'It was worth a shot.'

Whether the unicorns bought Harry's bluff or not, however, was likely irrelevant as the instant his feet left the bouncy surface of candy mountain he twisted his upper body, and spinning like a particularly gawky Olympic athlete he released his fanged discus, which, as it's kin was wont to, immediately sailed through the air with the whirring roar of a buzz saw, its razor sharp teeth blurring as it angled for the first unicorn. Neighing in distress, the magical beast reared back, kicking the air as the clumsy toy sped under its hooves. Turning in a lazy spin, the joke product tried to bank back towards its target, but was soon distracted by another bucking horse. Just like that the toy (though how the hell a toy like that had been green lit was a mystery of the wizard world to Harry) continued flitting back and forth, too slow to ever hit any of the great beasts, but succeeding in throwing the herd into utter disarray, which was exactly what Harry needed.

2/3

[notthatharry]

The plan, at this point, was to get to the other side of the herd, then use his secret weapon to buy himself the time he needed and give Kairi a head start on the unicorns. Unfortunately, like any time Harry tried to plan anything, the universe just had to butt in and throw some sort of monkey wrench into the works. Harry suspected it did this to keep the betting pool more interesting, and if that was true, well he was happy to cost the assholes betting against him as much cash as he could. Hey, clearly a few celestial beings could use their homes foreclosed, might teach them a lesson.

In this particular instance, for example, the universe let Harry get about halfway through the herd of murderous mares before one of the unicorns got a lucky shot in and impaled Harry's poor Frisbee on it's horn, where it proceeded to whirl round and with a low pathetic whine and send it's captor charging off in a full panic. The immediate threat removed, as one the entire herd swung their eyes, and horns, at Harry with the exact expression of a very large bully spotting a small child with an expensive heirloom. Now, Harry was not an expert on unicorns, but he was pretty damn sure beings of purity and light were not supposed to be able to sneer like that.

Or maybe it just meant he was so good at pissing people off, he could even teach unicorns to take pleasure in making him suffer. Huh, he almost hoped it was the latter one. Everyone had to be the best at something after all.

There was a stillness, silence so deafening it could drive a man mad, and then in the beat of a heart the silence was drown in a tide of unstoppable rage.

[notthatharry]

Likely almost any other person in that particular instance would have either been doomed, or smart enough not to actually get in this sort of stupidly insane situation, but luckily Harry had a very particular brand of idiocy that lent itself to allowing his insuring survival. He was wily like a cockroach he supposed. For this particular situation he had already taken into account the Cosmo's perchance for screwing him, and had come up with a backup plan. Thus while the mass of enraged unicorn charged him, he reached into his pack and pulled out his secret weapon. Brandishing it before him like a shield of days past, Harry faced down the herd and waited for the his plan to go into action.

And waited...

And waited...

...

"DAMMIT BOB WAKE UP!"

"Huh, whut?" Suddenly light's appeared in the eyes of the skull Harry was holding, and twisting around it said, "Oh, sorry boss, I thought you were dead."

"Bob, if I survive this I am going to force you to watch PBS specials and sexual harassment educational videos for the next century if you don't start telling us about the bloody incident with Vestal Virgins right bloody now!"

"Alright, alright, jeez Harry, no need to get your nickers in a twist," the skull said lazily, probably because a herd of enraged equines weren't about to eviscerate him, and taking a deep breath, in complete defiance of the fact he didn't need air, promptly launched himself into a story so lurid and detailed that it could not be set to print for fear that doing so would summon an army of horrible sex demons, result in said printings immediate censoring and burning, and get the author banned for violating a TOS. Needless to say that by the end Rome was burned, and Achillea of Corduene was never quite the same again.

Harry, trying to shield his fragile psyche from the images Bob was giving him, was mildly relieved to see his calculations had been correct, and even in the face of their anger the unicorns rendered helpless by utter horror at the impurity they were facing, rearing back and racing to the mountain to bury their heads in the toffee waterfall to try and block out the horrible noise before them. Of course, after a few moments of listening to Bob Harry found himself wishing for a quick and merciful death, and began looking for his air support to evac him.

That was when he noticed that the horses who had shoved their heads in the falls, ears now plugged with toffee, were now turning back around and returning, about twenty times as pissed as they had been before, and hungering for wizard blood. Well...that...was a problem.

"Uh, Kairi? I don't meant to rush you, but I kind of need you to get here! Now! Like, right now! Please? If it's not too much to ask?"

Fuck.

[driftingtides]

You go get the broom, he says. Kairi's mouth opened to protest this new ingenious plan, but Harry was already sprinting away.

Probably because he knew that Kairi, as a sane and rational person, would have some objections.

Namely being the fact that she had no idea how to get the broom. It had been eaten by candy mountain, remember? How was she supposed to find it and drag it out of that sugary gullet? And Harry taking on an entire army of enraged unicorns by himself was definitely not a very safe or smart idea. She was beginning to wonder if Harry wasn't quite thinking this plan all the way through.

None of her concerns were ever able to be voiced, though, as Harry and those darn long legs of his flew halfway across the valley as he shouting his head off. She stared after him in worried shock for a long moment, especially as the Unicorns started to turn and follow after him. But... she was rather securely stuck, at that point, and every second she wasted was another second for the herd to catch up with her friend. She had to get the broom and save him before he became some unicorn's brand new pincushion.

She turned and sprinted for the high-rise of the mountain that loomed in the center of the room.

Taking the slope at a run, she made it a good way up the side before the angle grew too steep and she had to find licorice handholds to keep herself from sliding down. Sticking her wand between her teeth, she kept climbing, aiming for the spot where she thought Harry had first smacked into the side.

It was high. She was climbing as fast as she could, but the candy beneath her feet was all loose, and she slipped several times. Her hands sank into giant gumdrops and were hard to get free again. Still, she perservered, making her way up the side in record time. It was the third time her arm had sunk into a marshmellow, up to her elbow this time, when a spot of yellow caught the corner of her eye.

That didn't look like candy. That looked like... straw. Like the type used for sweeping. Like the type used for a broom!

[driftingtides]

There was not enough of anything to grab onto, although Kairi tried and succeeded in yanking out a few blades of sticky straw. Her purchase was too precarious to lean any farther over, so instead she pulled back to regroup. Grabbing her wand in one hand and hoping those teeth marks weren't permantent, she pointed it at the straw bristles and tried to accio the thing out.

There was a low rumble in the candy beneath her feet, and Kairi stopped the spell immediately, freezing and trying to breath very, very slowly. After a moment, the rumble stopped, and Kairi released a breath of pure relief.

Okay. Slowly. She used her wand to levitate away the candy surrounding the bristles, piece by peice, letting them tumble down the mountain. If she could just get enough removed to get enough of a hold to pull it out--

Harry's yelling caught her attention again, and she twisted around to see him holding up-- a Skull? Was that the infamous Bob? Whatever he was doing, it seemed to be working-- the Unicorns were starting to back away. She wasn't sure how much time whatever he was doing would buy him, so she turned back, struggling to hurry. Piece by piece. Come on. One at a time... There was a particularly stubborn peice of taffy that would not come free, so Kairi poured more magic into the spell. It struggled against the pull and then-- shlurp-- quite a bit bigger than Kairi had anticipated, the long peice of taffy came free.

And so did about a thousand other cavity-inducing snacks along with it.

Kairi's foothold vanished under a sudden avalanche of gumballs and jelly beans, giving her no time to even shriek as the hungry mountain attempted to swallow her as well. She struggled to stay above it, scrambling for any sort of purchase as the mountain started to fall. The straw bristles of the only thing that might save her vanished from sight, and Kairi yelped as the flow of gumdrops took her right back down the side of the mountain, probably with every intent to dump her at the bottom and then bury her underneath a wad of broken lolipops and chocolate frogs. She foiled this attempt by grabbing at anything that looked sturdy, and eventually managed to catch hold of a giant candy cane that stuck up straight through candy mountain like an ancient tree parting a flood. She held onto her peppermint savior for dear life as the flood of sweets rolled past. Chocolate tootsie rolls, melting truffles, shining sugar sticks, dusty lemon drops--

--And wait, was that a broomstick?

It was definitely a broomstick! Or a giant, wood-flavored candy stick weaving through the avalanche at a sharp 45 degree angle. Clambering out of a mound of broken rock candies and marshmellows that had buried half her legs, Kairi pulled herself up higher onto the candy cane to get a better look. One hand, shockingly, still had a decent grip on her wand. The tan wood was somehow still caught sticking to her palm, possibly because she had it in a white-knuckled grip, and also possibly because exploded purple jellybean dried like glue, but regardless, Candy Mountain had not claimed her last hope just yet. Maybe there was someone looking out for her, after all.

[driftingtides]

"Accio broomstick!" she shouted, flipping her wand to point at the object sliding quickly by. She was hoping and praying to anyone that might be listening that this was the broom Harry had brought and it would respond to the spell. If she accidentally ended up calling over a giant sugar stick, well, she doubted that would be much help against the army of enraged beasts that very much wanted to redecorate Harry's insides, and possibly her own as well. She certainly hadn't thought they'd get that upset over a little jelly shampoo.

The object in question jiggled and surged up a few inches out of the flow, then seemed to give up with a sigh as it settled back in and flowed right past her, just out of arm's reach.

Kairi watched it pass her by with a sinking feeling in her stomach, and suddenly, she heard the desperate shouting of Harry's voice over the noise of the crunching candy.

"...but I kind of need you to get here! Now! Like, right now! Please? If it's not too much to ask?"

She twisted around in attempt to see him, lost her grip, and slid down into about three feet of soft, freshly fallen marshmellow. Gritting her teeth, she regained her purchase, clinging to the thick cane and pressing her forehead against the red and white stripes. Oh, good golly no, she was not going to be bested by marshmellows. Someone was waiting for her, and there was no way in sugary Hell that she was going to disappoint him. Holding tight to the giant candy cane, Kairi lifted her head, drew in a deep breath and bellowed,

"ACCIO BROOMSTICK!"

The stick jumped, then surged out of the falling candy with a sludgy pop, righting itself in midair and flying straight towards her. In a move that would've impressed the entire quidditch team that no one would ever know about except herself, Kairi snatched the broom out of midair and transferred her focus, releasing the candy cane and letting the broom pull her out of the sparkling mess of sugary treats as she hulled herself up and threw a leg over the object that was definitely, definitely a broomstick. Thank goodness.

She even ended up sitting on it facing the right way. How about that?

The broom was a bit worse for the wear, its wood stained in a variety of rainbow candy dye and melted chocolate, with jelly clumping most the bristles together, but it flew. Airborne and free for a few brief seconds, she watched the sparkling mountain desolve under the pressure of itself from a safe distance. There was no time to admire the view, however, as certain friends were busy being accosted by toffee-covered unicorns--how had he managed to get them all covered in toffee?--and needing to be rescued about five minutes ago.

She turned the broom in his direction and swooped down.

"Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!" She shouted, just for the sake of being able to shout something as she dove at a dangerously high speed towards the ground. She held out her hand, yanked the broom up at the absolute last second, grabbed Harry's hand and used the broom's velocity to help pull him up behind her.

Two unicorns crashed together at the spot where they had just been, but they were already flying, raising higher by the second.

"Hold on!" Then she giggled. It seemed like the thing to do. And then, because it seemed like they might actually survive this entire endeavor, she felt the need to add: "...Piece of cake!"

[notthatharry]

Despite the fact that Harry had suddenly found himself lifted off the ground at such a painful velocity that he was pretty sure he heard his shoulder pop, a conclusion backed up by the aforementioned searing pain, Harry could find nothing in Kairi's sudden and timely rescue about which he wished to complain. She had done a perfect dive, stuck the landing, and even won over the Russian judge. Although, that could just be the adrenaline and near death talking.

Swinging up and onto the broomstick, Harry quickly clamped his legs around the speeding piece of wood and promptly threw his good arm, still desperately clutching Bob, around Kairi's waist. The threat of sudden death did a great deal to dispel any pretense of modesty, and he didn't even bother to blush as he found himself pressed up against a teenage girl who was very much not his girlfriend. "Excellent rescue, and you get bonus points for working in a snappy one liner," he gasped.

He was pretty sure Bob was saying something about Harry angling him up, but thankfully over the air roaring past his ears he couldn't make out quite what. Somethings were better off unheard.