The Rufus Horror Picture Show, Chapter Three

[lonewolfprincess]

The ghost continued to smirk at the glaring teens.

“Doctor Victor Baxter, Chief of Medicine at Schwarzherz State Hospital,” he said blithely, a soft thunderclap punctuating his title as he waved a hand to produce a small ghostly rectangle to hold out to the group. “My card.”

Raimundo backhanded the offering, causing the card to disappear and Baxter’s hand to warble before regaining form.

“Yeah yeah, whatever, you quack.” Raimundo pointed a finger at the doctor, glare fierce even as his hand ached from the cold. “Let the other ghosts go and maybe we won’t exorcise your sorry butt.”

The ghost merely threw back his head and laughed.

“What, and stop my grand experiment on the effects of psionic feedback on the postmortem human consciousness?” He gestured to the cowering crowd of ghosts surrounding them. “I’ll admit that I never believed in an afterlife before my death, but now? A contained environment with a statistically significant population of test subjects, no time crunches or budgets or ethics boards? It’s perfect!” He threw them a disdainful look, like finding a bug on a countertop. “Or it would be, if I didn’t have tourists barging in to gawk and mess with my parameters. And you lot are surprisingly persistent. Either that, or I need to give my guard dog more training…”

Rufus curled into himself more at the threat, and Mia stepped forward on her good leg to growl at the ghost, even as she leaned against him and Tori for support.

“Oh, shut up!” Kimiko snapped. “We saw your journal! You’re not doing this for science, you just get your kicks from torturing people and stealing their stuff!”

Baxter merely chuckled. “Well, you’re half right. The material possessions were just collateral, really. Do you have any idea how expensive some of those venoms are?”

Jack, still flopped onto the dusty carpet in a cocoon of magic hair, couldn’t help a nod and muffled noise of sympathy. Being an evil genius was not kind to one’s wallet.

“Why are we letting this coward talk…?” Mia snarled. “Let’s pulverize him already!”

“She’s right,” Clay ground out, fists clenching at his side. “This fella’s more twisted than a sidewinder tangled up in a tumbleweed.”

Omi nodded, gaze steely as he pointed at the ghost. “You have tortured these souls for too long, evil spirit! Now prepare for a most humiliating—”

“Ah ah ah,” Baxter wagged his finger at the meddling teens. “Didn’t you hear me, little boy?” A wicked grin spread across his face. “I have you surrounded.”

The doctor raised his hand in the air… and clenched it into a crushing fist. A shockwave aura of red burst from his hand, slamming into the masses of ghosts hard enough to push them into the walls. Their bodies writhed and convulsed as their limbs lengthened and faces hollowed, a mass wail rising to rattle the halls around them.

Jack screamed, audible halfway through as his single-minded focus on getting the heck away from the ghosts was good enough for the Comb to release him.

“Okay, no Shen Gong Wu is worth this! Wuya, let’s get out—” he stopped as he took in Wuya’s form, no longer dancing and clutching her head as if fending off the world’s worst migraine. “Wuya…?”

“Nnnngh let go of me… you hack…!” But even as Wuya kept control of her mind, her spectral form was too wracked with pain to move.

Baxter just smiled with satisfaction. “Then again, I will say I appreciate you giving me a new test subject to play with. It’s been a long time since I’ve truly been able to test the limits of my abilities.”

“Nnngh… stop it… leave us alone …!” Rufus blurted out in whines and keening barks. His body was hunched over in pain, but he forced himself to stand, to resist as long as he could.

Baxter scowled at the struggling Grim. “You know better than that, mutt. Heel.”

Another shockwave of pain, and Rufus doubled over further, his form wavering like static as if it threatened to break apart.

“Rufus, no!” Mia called out. Her gaze whipped to the smirking ghost of the doctor, snarling as she prepared to lunge for him. “Let him go, you scumbag, or I’ll—!”

Her bad ankle gave out and she crumpled to the floor, mortal pain paralyzing her as tears flooded her eyes and she pounded a fist against the carpet. No no no, she couldn’t be this weak, Rufus needed her…

Tori’s panicked eyes darted around the chaos of the hall… the tortured ghosts preparing to attack the Dragons, Jack watching in horror as Wuya struggled against the curse, Rufus wavering in pain, her sister in despair…

Her fists clenched at her side, and she took in a deep breath.

“STOOOOOP!”

The whole hall stilled as Tori marched up to Mia, stern face only softening slightly as she pulled her sister off the floor and handed her off to a confused and flustered Clay, one awkward hand finally settling on the small of the Moon Dragon’s back as her arm was slung over his shoulders.

Tori only paused to pull the Shroud of Shadows from Mia’s backpack before striding to Raimundo, plucking the Bubble Brain from his grasp, and marching out to the center of the hall.

“Hey, Jerk Spice.” She held out the Shen Gong Wu. “Still want the Bubble Brain?”

Wait, free Shen Gong Wu? Jack was too eager for the chance at an easy win and getting the heck out of here to think, and he ran over with the glee of a child being offered a sack full of candy.

“Yes please!” Wait… he grabbed the Wu but why wasn’t she letting go—oh no…

Tori flashed him a serious grin as the Bubble Brain began to glow in their hands.

“Then Spicer, Baxter, I challenge you both to a Xiaolin Showdown Trio!” Her other hand draped the Shroud of Shadows over her forearm like a towel so she could pull the Silk Spitter from off her person. “My Silk Spitter against Spicer’s Changing Chopsticks,” she flashed the doctor an antifreeze-sweet smile, “and I’ll be nice and lend you the Shroud of Shadows, Doc!”

While most of the audience blinked in shock, Mia… she knew that look and voice in her sister. She knew that sun-warmed steel of a sword brought out to champion the helpless against the cruel. Mia’s smile would’ve been a smirk if it wasn’t dazed and awed and full of tears.

Baxter just tilted his head. “What’s this? Some sort of contest over the trinket?” He waved a hand dismissively. “You can take it; it was an ugly paperweight anyway.”

“You sure?” Tori grinned. “Because whoever wins this match not only gets the Wu, but also becomes the new Chief of Medicine at Schwarzherz State Hospital!”

Baxter blinked as another boom of thunder rang outside… and then scoffed with a bemused smile. “You can’t just declare yourself a Chief of Medicine. Do you have any idea how many years of board meetings and company events I had to—”

The spectral card he’d produced earlier suddenly appeared in the air between Jack and Tori. The blue paper glowed with a pulse of gold as Doctor Baxter’s name was blown away like dust to leave a blank field above “Chief of Medicine.”

“Mhm, looks like the Shen Gong Wu disagree, Doc,” Tori said with a singsong dripping with venom.

Jack gasped with delight! “Oh, yes, I’m in! I’ve always wanted my very own ghost army!”

Baxter scowled, spectral hands clenching at his side.

“Very well then…” he ground out. “What exactly does a ‘Xiaolin Showdown Trio’ entail?”

A second or two more to think… and Tori flashed her opponents another grin.

“The game is… Operation!”

Everyone stared at her with dropped jaws, especially the evil geniuses.

“Operation? Like the board game Operation?” Jack Spicer asked, wondering just how many left-field Showdowns were in his future.

“Yup!” Tori’s sharp grin only grew stronger at their confusion. “Each player gets five buzzes before you’re out; whoever collects the most pieces at the end of ten minutes wins!”

Baxter scoffed again. “You’re bartering my title over a children’s game?”

“What’s wrong, afraid we’ll smoke you at the children’s game, Doc?” Tori just kept smirking at him, praying that the pokes to his ego would work.

Baxter sneered as he roughly snatched the Shroud of Shadows from Tori’s hand.

“I accept.”

Tori grinned back at the two villains. “Then what are we waiting for?”

“Let’s Go, Xiaolin Showdown!”



The wood around them warped and cracked and stretched until the hallway was sculpted into an operating theater the size of a basketball stadium. Wooden risers packed with the spectating Dragons and hundreds of ghosts towered above the floor, ceiling open to black clouds roiling with lightning and magic. And the operating table, and the patient?

Massive.

An Armor-clad Tori found herself cradling a pair of forceps the size of a sword as she stood on one corner of the steel table. Next to her, a green foot whose big toe ended a few inches over her head. Jack stood at the enormous elbow, while Baxter floated at the head. Aside from a cloth covering the patient’s hips, the only adornments on the patient’s skin were random lines and criss-crosses of sutures across mottled green skin like Frankenstein’s monster. Not that the sutures did any good for the scores of gaping incisions across the cadaver’s body, each one holding some sort of object deep within for the competitors to extract.

A few seconds to take it in… and Tori and Jack shouted into the air.

“Gong Yi Tanpai!”

Baxter rolled his eyes in silence before turning his attention to the “patient.” There were a few potential targets at the head already… a block of ice embedded in the forehead, a leaking faucet in the nose, a dismembered foot inside the mouth…

Tori quickly scanned the leg in front of her, eyes landing on an incision close to the cleft between the big toe and the second, a jar of jam the size of a crock pot stuck inside.

“Silk Spitter!” Tori used the Shen Gong Wu like a grappling hook to zip up onto the cadaver’s shin. Very slowly, she hoisted the forceps up and into the wound, carefully clasping the jar around the center and pulling it out. Thankfully the jaws remained steady and avoided the sides of the cavity, and Tori cheered as the jar came out cleanly!

The Dragons cheered from the stands, Mia’s calls ringing the loudest.

“That’s my sis—ow!” She winced as her ankle, propped up on the stretch of bench next to her, twinged at the sudden movement.

Rufus, who’d been cowering in utter bafflement since the shift, whined and stepped into the well between the seats, offering his back as a footrest so Mia could ice her ankle.

“What the heck is going on…?”

Mia lowered her armor’s mask to give him a confident smile. “My sister’s fighting the Bad Man for his power over you guys.”

Rufus shifted his gaze to the Showdown in awe. “Really?”

Mia nodded. “Really really. Although… Hey, Dojo,” she called to his seat next to Omi in human, “just curious, any rule that says a dog can’t fight in a Showdown?”

Dojo pulled out his glasses and the massive rulebook from somewhere on his person to flip through it, tiny claw landing on a page to skim down it.

“Let’s see… apes, bears, chinchillas… ah, right! I forgot we added the rule against dogs participating after the Great Pug Stampede of 1285.” The little dragon shuddered at the memories… It’d taken the better part of a year to get the stench out of the temple. “Although… oh, right here! There is a clause saying that guardian spirit dogs are kosher.”

Mia grinned at the Grim. “You hear that, Rufus? Guardian dogs are allowed to fight Bad Men too.”

“Ooh, neat!” His head tilted in thought. “Now where can we find a guard dog…?”

Mia pinched the bridge of her nose.

Jack, meanwhile, was too busy pulling a normal-sized tennis racket out of the patient’s elbow, grinning as he removed it without buzzes, while Baxter effortlessly extracted the red fireman’s axe from between the closed eyes.

Tori, unfortunately, had let her focus drift to them as she extracted a double-headed wrench from the ankle, and the forceps bumped against the side of the incision. A harsh buzz rang through the theater, and one of five lightbulbs above Tori’s name on a scoreboard glowed red.

“Ack!” Tori flinched back, nearly staggering under the weight of the tool in her arms. “Argh, these things are too heavy!” She needed to be faster, all those souls were at stake! But how—

Then Tori eye caught the glint of her Shen Gong Wu, and she grinned, tossing the forceps aside.

“Silk Spitter!”

A long rope of silk shot out from the Shen Gong Wu, latching on tightly to the wrench’s body. With a flick of her wrist, the rope snapped back out of the cavity into her hand, pulling the wrench cleanly out into her waiting grasp.

As her friends above cheered and her scoreboard changed from “01” to “02”, Tori let out a relieved sigh, turning the Shen Gong Wu to the hip to zip up to the cadaver’s main body. There were lots more items to extract there, and the clock was ticking down. Zip over, secure a line, keep the tension steady on the pull-back… Jelly Knee, Slipped Disk, Stomach Butterflies… A nice, easy, tempo, like a dance.

Jack, meanwhile, watched the display in shock as he struggled to pull a massive tortilla chip out of the patient’s shoulder.

“What, no fair!” Jack cried out, ignoring the fact that he wouldn’t care at all if it was his idea. Well, two could play that game… “Changing Chopsticks!”

The Chopsticks glowed as the chip in the shoulder shrank in size. Jack cackled as he went to readjust his grip… but the pinch merely shattered the chip into crumbs, and the massive steel jaws bumped against the side of the incision for a buzz.

“Nooo!”

Baxter gritted his perfect spectral teeth… so many distractions. He was free of buzzes, having collected the Splitting Headache, Brain Freeze, and Ringing Ear so far, but that girl especially was now dangerously close to collecting more foreign bodies than him.

Although… she did foolishly give him one advantage.

“Shroud of Shadows!”

The cloth glowed and disappeared… and so did the hand holding it. Ah. With a wicked grin, Baxter whipped the Shroud around his body, subtly picking up the axe from earlier and sneaking over to the girl. Silly brat, she didn’t even have her eyes open—

Tori’s hand suddenly flew out. A wide, deceptively gentle sweep knocked the axe out of Baxter’s ghastly grip, the backswing pulling the Shroud off the late doctor and tossing it away.

Baxter yelped in dismay. “What?! But—how?!”

Tori opened her eyes to grin at him. “Invisibility magic is still magic, baby~”

The wink Tori gave him only incensed him further.

“You… you brat! I will not lose my title to a little girl with her toys and songs!”

Baxter grasped the air in that crushing fist again, a shockwave of pain roiling through the theater seats to transform the solemn ghosts into writhing wraiths.

All the Dragons gasped as the curse spread eyes flying to Rufus as he curled in on himself in pain as well.

“Rufus, no!” Mia called out as she reached down to shake the ruff of his shoulders. “You have to fight this, please!”

“C-can’t… the Bad Man’s… too strong…!” Rufus struggled to say through whines.

“No, he’s not!” Mia barked back. “You’re not just a helper dog anymore, Rufus! You’re a guardian now, and that means all of these humans need you to protect them from Bad Men like him! If you don’t do something, he’s going to hurt my sister and keep hurting you forever! Stop him!”

Rufus flinched at first at the barks and the pain, but… even as the pain racked his form, something clicked into place.

“They’re all… my humans…?” A flash of silver raced across his indigo eyes. “Y-you’re right, but… what do I do…?”

Another wave of pain nearly bent him over, threatening his growing resolve. Mia gave a firm smile, burying her hand in his fur.

“Let me help you…” Closed eyes, deep breath… “Moon…”

The wave of heartbeat clarity pulsed through the crowd around them, and a single ray of moonlight cut through the storm above the arena to shine on the ghost dog.

The instinct rushed through Rufus like a bolt of lightning, and he threw back his head in that deep booming howl, the whole arena rattling in its wake. The ghost’s sapphire fur billowed like flames, deepening to a midnight pitch, upper and lower canines lengthening into fangs the size of daggers. His eyes flashed red as hot steel as they flew open.

Before Mia could finish being thrown back in her seat, the Grim of Schwarzherz State Hospital leapt and raced through the air like a comet of black smoke to the Showdown below.

Everyone stared at the scene in utter shock before turning to Mia, the Moon Dragon looking back at them just as baffled. What the heck did she just do…?

Just as Baxter prepared to rush at Tori, forceps grasped like giant scissors, the Grim leapt down between them, snarling deeply at the former doctor.

Baxter gasped, taking a floating step back.

“N-nice doggy…?” He gave what he hoped was a friendly grin.

Tori gave a disgusted sneer at the cowardice. The Grim was even less impressed as he roared, pouncing at the Bad Man, jaws clamping down hard on the ghostly lab coat’s arm.

“YARGH!” Baxter howled, shocked and furious as he felt pain for the first time in forty years, yanking his arm in a vain attempt to wrench it free. “Let go of me, you stupid mutt! This is still my hospital, I am still your master!”

Rufus growled through his grip, dragging the arm and the hands that refused to let the forceps go towards the incision holding a beating heart cracked down the middle.

“NO!” He shouted through the bite, only audible to Mia. “This is my home!” A shake of his head, the forcep tips bouncing against one side of the incision wall, the loud buzz ringing out. “These are my humans!” Another shake, another buzz! “You’re no master!” Buzz! “You’re a VERY BAD BOY!” Buzz! “And it’s your turn to HEEEEL!”

The last buzz rang out, and all five lightbulbs over Baxter’s name blinked red.

The patient’s eyes flew open.

Its left hand slowly rose towards its chest.

“Nonono wait, please! Th-the dog is clearly outside interference, these children are cheating, cheating!”

The patient was deaf to the ghost’s protest, and swatted the eliminated contestant into the bleachers with the back of his hand.

“AAAAAAAH!”

Tori took it all in with a grin so bright she didn’t care how much the corners of her mouth hurt, and she finally tore her gaze away to give a thumbs up to the stands.

“Thanks, Sis!”

The other Dragons joined in the praise, the still-stunned Mia blushing at the “good job!” calls and light punches and side hugs. They… they were proud of her, for this.

Eventually, she cleared her throat and flashed Tori a smile.

“Rufus did all the work, I just talked to him! Thank him!”

Tori ran up easily to the big ghostly dog, dropping to a knee and wrapping both arms around his neck.

“Thank you, Rufus! Who’s the best boy ever? Is you, is you!”

And the now happily panting Grim even got a big, loud kiss on the ear for his heroism.

Dojo cleared his tiny throat.

“Hate to break up the feel-good moment, kids, but Spicer is catching up!”

The Dragons’ gaze went to the evil boy genius and the scoreboard, Jack suddenly only one point behind Tori on the scoreboard as he shrank down sturdier items to pluck out of the patient’s now peacefully still body. That would explain why Wuya was so quiet during the whole thing.

“Oh, right!” Tori smiled at Rufus easily, now that her main competition was literally off the table. “What do you say, boy, wanna help me collect more things?”

Rufus thought for a second, then looked at the lanky redhead.

“Heck yes! Soon I’ll be Jack Spicer, Ghost Army Surgeon General and Ruler of the Universe! Mwahahaha—ack!”

In hindsight, he probably should’ve saved the gloating for after the Funny Bone was extracted, costing him a second buzz.

Rufus gave a soft bark, which Tori didn’t need translated as an “I’m in.”

“Awesome!” Tori cupped her hands to call out across the patient’s broad torso. “Hey, Pumpkin Spice, you don’t mind if Rufus joins us, right?”

“What?!” Jack called out, thankfully after he was finally done extracting the disturbingly-laughing Funny Bone. “Obviously I mind, you can’t just—”

Rufus gave a low, deep growl, showing off his steak-knife fangs.

“… You know what, sure, the more the merrier…” Jack squeaked out, and Rufus’s face immediately returned to its happy form.

Tori resumed her Silk-Spitting dance extracting the Broken Heart, the Wish Bone, the Slipped Disk, softly humming to herself in a way that made the spectating ghosts’ faces relax. Rufus, meanwhile, merrily fetched Tori the abandoned Splitting Headache, Brain Freeze, Ringing Ears, as well as phasing in and out of the patient’s body to fetch the Green Thumb, Writer’s Cramp, and Pot Belly.

At this point, Jack sighed… Clearly he had to play nice with the ghost dog in order to win.

“Heeeeere, doggy doggy…” Jack held up the Funny Bone. “Looky, I got a nice, juicy, not-at-all-creepy bone for you in exchange for my ghost army.”

The Xiaolin spectators all began to protest as Rufus blithely trotted over to Spicer and his offering, but Mia held her hand out to shush them.

“He’s got this.”

Jack smirked as he held the bone out of reach- no easy feat, considering the dog could probably dwarf him if he wanted to stand on his hind legs.

“Sit for me, sit!” Rufus indeed sat, like a good boy. “Now… roll over!” Rufus did as he was told, barking happily as he sat up. “Good boy!”

Jack finally tossed Rufus the bone, which he caught in his spectral mouth.

“Now fetch the pieces boy, fetch ’em all!”

Rufus barked around the laughing bone in his mouth… and then trotted over to Tori and plopped it on the “ground” at her feet, the Xiaolin Warriors in the crowd laughing hysterically. Even the ghosts in the crowd very quietly chuckled.

“What, noooo, you traitor!” Jack whimpered. “I can’t believe I got double-crossed by a dog!”

Tori just laughed as the last few seconds counted down on the scoreboard’s clock, Tori now three pieces ahead.

“You didn’t say who to fetch them for, silly!” She gave Rufus more pats on the head. “Good boy, Rufus!”

Three, two, one… zero! The theater filled with lightning and cracking wood as the Showdown subsided, returning every human, dragon, and ghost to the hallway where the Showdown was announced. Tori stood proudly in the center, holding the Silk Spitter, Shroud of Shadows, Changing Chopsticks, and the prize Bubble Brain in her arms as Rufus sat beside her, happily panting back in his normal Newfoundland self.

The Xiaolin Team all ran over to side-hug her.

“That. Was. Amazing!” Mia shouted after the others got their praise in, glomping her sister despite the twinge in her ankle. “You’re the coolest, Tori!”

Tori grinned and returned the hug eagerly. “Well, I did have some pretty amazing people helping me out!”

The tender moment was cut by a trying-to-be-meek throat clearing from Baxter’s ghost, still musted up from the supernatural swatting earlier.

“Yes yes, congratulations and all that. But um… about my Chief of Medicine position.”

Tori broke the hug to glare at him. She rose a free hand in the air to catch the blue calling card, the paper glowing gold as the writing changed again.

Vittoria F.M., Chief of Medicine

“Oh. I know just what to do with you…”