What's Happening to Castle Bleck? Part 3

It was now dinner time at Castle Bleck. O’Chunks and Dimentio were already seated at the table, patiently waiting while Nastasia cooked. All of the misplaced items had been returned to their proper places earlier, although someone still occasionally found a piece of silverware hidden away.

Everyone turned their heads to look at the doorway as the sound of screaming came down the hallway. Much to their shock, Mario burst into the room. They scrambled into battle stances while Mario babbled about something and flailed his arms around in a panic.

Dimentio took note of the unusual behavior and relaxed. “Calm down, would you?” he said, annoyed.

Mario stopped, blue eyes wide, and shouted, “I’m stuck!” The voice was not that of an Italian plumber, but of a certain scared shapeshifter.

“Mimi?” O’Chunks asked tentatively. “What happen’ teh yeh?”

“I’m stuck!” she shouted again, then promptly broke down into hysterics. Dimentio laughed raucously at her misfortune.

Nastasia shot him a look and looped an arm around Mimi’s shoulders, obviously feeling a little awkward to be comforting ‘Mario.’ “Calm down, k?” she murmured. “Just tell us how this happened.”

Mimi sniffed and stuttered out,” W-Well I was pr-practicing my shapeshifting, j-just in case I needed t-to f-fool the heroes, and then all of a s-sudden I couldn’t turn back!” She started wailing at the top of her lungs.

“Mimi! Mimi! It’ll be ok!” Nastasia said. “Just go sit down and we’ll figure something out after dinner, k?”

“O-Ok,” Mimi replied, taking a deep breath and shakily sitting down. She glared at Dimentio, who was holding his sides and wiping tears away, still chuckling a bit.

Just as things were calming down again, there was another disturbance at the doorway. There was a flowerpot slightly to the right of the door. It used to be navy blue, but was now flashing all the colors of the rainbow cascading downwards like a bright and colorful waterfall.

As it was, the door opened by itself and something or someone bumped into it, causing it to fall over and break. That someone remained invisible while the shards of the pot individually turned a motley of different colors.

Nastasia sighed at yet another broken thing while Mimi tentatively got up and moved to the door. She paused and blinked in confusion when she spotted a well-groomed mustache floating by itself in the air.

She reached out and poked an area well below it a few times, discovering that something was indeed there and eliciting a response from it. “Ouch! Knock it off!” a snarky voice said, belonging to a certain mechanic.

“Mr. L?” Mimi asked.

“Yeah, who else?” L said, then paused. “Mimi? Is that you? Why are you Mr. Jumpsallovereverything?”

Mimi huffed, her previous worries returning. “I’m stuck. Oh no, I’m stuck! Oh golly! I’m gonna be stuck forever! I don’t wanna be some hairy old guy for the rest of my life!”

Mr. L felt offended by that for some reason, but laid a hand on her shoulder, trying to get her to stop crying. “Well, you do a pretty good impression. I froze up thinking we were being attacked already.” The self-blow to his pride didn’t do much to calm her, so he just steered her to the table and sat her down in her chair.

“Eh, L?” O’Chunks asked, unnerved by watching L’s chair move by itself as he sat down.

“Yeeeess?” Mr. L replied.

“Why kent we see yeh?”

“What do you  mean?” Mr. L queried, then looked down at himself and gasped. “Holy smokes! I’m invisible!” he exclaimed.

“Well, not entirely. We can still see your mustache,” Mimi added with a bit of a giggle.

“Yes,” Dimentio said, giving said ‘stache a twiddle. “Yet another hilarious conundrum, as hairy as your lip.”

The mustache turned towards him and somehow gave off the sense that it wanted to slap him.

“Anyways,” L said, making an effort to ignore the annoying jester. “When can we eat? You’re usually done by now Nastasia.”

“Yeah Nassy,” Mimi chirped. “You seem off today. Golly, is something wrong?”

Nastasia heaved a deep, worried sigh and turned to face them all. “Um, well, there’s just so much going on today. Strange things have happened to  everyone except me, and, um, things keep breaking.” She glanced pointedly at L. “I haven’t seen Count Bleck all day, either. I’m, um, really worried about him,” she sighed.

“Come teh think o’ it,” continued O’Chunks. “I ain’t see ‘em eider. Hev any o’ you?”

“Nope,” said Mimi.

“Nu-uh,” said Mr. L.

Dimentio shook his head. “Not even a glimpse.”

Nastasia slumped into her seat, looking very worried indeed. “I dropped off some lunch in front of his door, but I don’t think he ate it. I, um, didn’t want to bother him while he was working, but maybe I should have taken it inside.”

“Don’t worry, Nassy,” Mimi comforted. “We’ll check up on him after dinner if he doesn’t come down to eat.”

Suddenly, and with a loud pop, Mimi returned to her natural form. Simultaneously, the salt shaker on the table turned into a rather ugly garden gnome and O’Chunks gained a black tuxedo, a fancy bowtie, and an entirely different accent. “My, my. Looks like you problem is gone, my dear Mimi.”

Mimi blushed and Dimentio took the opportunity to add in an insult. “At last, we might understand you without that barbaric accent of yours.”

O’Chunks politely ignored the comment and raised up his cup to drink, his gigantic pinkie finger extended outwards, the glitter in his beard sparkling magnificently. Everyone stared at him for a moment longer, then consciously looked anywhere else.

Nastasia passed out the food, setting a place for Count Bleck, and looked very weary, and tired, and just plain wishing that the day’s randomness was over.

They ate in silence, trying to puzzle out the strange things to affect them and the castle. All of them perked up and looked towards the door when they heard the creak of it closing. Count Bleck was standing in the doorway, looking shabby and worse for wear. His glowing red eyes were dull, his monocle was askew, and he had a slight blush from fever.

He first noticed the garden gnome, then Dimentio’s girly outfit, then Mr. L’s floating mustache. “Oh, my…” he said quietly, and sniffed loudly.

“Count Bleck!” Nastasia said, standing up. “You look terrible!”

“Yes, Count Bleck knows,” he said as he shakily floated over and sat down in front of the dinner Nastasia had laid out for him. “Count Bleck is afraid he has contracted a magical cold.”

“Magical… cold?” Mr. L asked.

“Yes. It means –“ Before Count Bleck could continue his explanation, he started to huff and puff, and then let out a great big sneeze. Nastasia’s bubblegum pink hair burst out of its bun and started to writhe around like so many snakes. She screamed and started to run around the room, desperately trying to hold it down.

O’Chunks caught her and directed her back to her chair, comfortingly murmuring, “There, there, Nassy. It won’t hurt you.”

“As you can see,” Count Bleck said. “Magical colds cause things such as that to happen. Count Bleck has basically lost control over his magical powers.”

He lifted his top hat, revealing long rabbit ears going a full foot up into the air and curling over cutely. Mr. L, Dimentio, and Mimi tried not to giggle as he replaced the hat back on his head. Then he opened his cloak with a half-hearted flourish, revealing orange, pink, and sky blue polka dots in place of the usual mystical stars.

Mimi smothered her giggles with her hand, L snorted and took advantage of his invisibility to grin widely, and Dimentio outright laughed. Count Bleck shot him a glare before starting to pick at his food, trying to ignore Nastasia’s hypnotically wiggling hair.

“Well that explains some things,” commented Mr. L.

“Is the magic permanent, my wonderful count?” O’Chunks questioned, taking up the garden gnome and shaking some salt out of it.

“No. All the side effects will go away once Count Bleck recovers,” Count Bleck responded with a dull blink.

“Good,” Mimi said. “I don’t want to get stuck again.”

Count Bleck then went on to explain how he’d gotten sick over night and had been bed-ridden all day, too ill to eat. Even now he was only eating a little.

Everyone else was done eating by this time, and were standing around idly. Nastasia was off by the door cleaning up the shards of the rainbow flowerpot. Mimi filled up a glass of orange juice from the sink and gave it to Count Bleck. O’Chunks was contemplating the stack of dirty dishes piled on the countertop, while Dimentio was whispering something to Mr. L’s mustache, a mischievous grin lighting up his mismatched eyes.

Count Bleck stood up, his food half uneaten, and brought his plate to the stack, wondering why the dishes hadn’t been cleaned. He turned and headed for the door, pausing when his nose started to wrinkle. He sneezed powerfully and everyone froze, waiting for something to happen.

Dimentio stepped away from Mr. L as the air shimmered around the Green Thunder. Mr. L rapidly became visible again, only he was naked! “Gah!” he exclaimed, then quickly covered himself with his still invisible clothes, which had been piled at his feet.

Count Bleck hastily covered Mimi’s eyes with his hands before she could turn and see. “What?” she asked. “What happened?”

“You don’t need to know,” Count Bleck told her while Dimentio rolled around on the floor, convulsing with laughter.

“Why in the worlds would you take your clothes off?!” Nastasia screamed at him.

“I-I thought maybe only my clothes were invisible,” Mr. L responded, blushing fiercely. “Dimentio said-“

“L, you should know better than to listen to Dimentio,” Count Bleck interjected.

“Yes,” O’Chunks said, his fingers laced together behind his back. “You know how tricky our silly jester is.”

Dimentio was lying on the floor in the fetal position, holding his stomach tightly and trying to stop laughing, tears running down from his eyes. “ I didn’t…think…he’d be stupid… enough to do it!” Dimentio breathed out.

Nastasia gave Mr. L a thwap to the back of the head, eliciting more laughter from the wheezing magician. “Now,” she said, recovering from the shock. “Go get dressed and report to me immediately in the morning for your punishment, k?”

“Oh man…” Mr. L sighed, then glared at Dimentio, his blue eyes narrowed. “I’ll get you for this.”

Dimentio paused and looked at him for a moment, then resumed laughing even harder as Mr. L awkwardly shuffled out the door.

Count Bleck removed his hands from Mimi’s face, who looked around confusedly. He looked at O’Chunks, who just shrugged, before sneezing again. They heard a crash, followed by Mr. L’s shout. Nastasia sighed in exasperation, her hair writhing faster in fury. Count Bleck shook his head slowly before wearily returning back to bed.