Freed from his prison, Rictor implores his teachers to spare Ted the Man-Thing.


From Rictor's perspective, things went from pitch black to blazing red to dull greens and browns in an instant. One moment he was saying goodbye to "Ted" in their shared dream space, and the next he was curled up comfortably in the arms of the floronic creature, like an infant waking from a nap.

But from the point of view of the witches in the greenhouse, several tense minutes had passed in which Rictor had been pulled inside the immobile, impassive Man-Thing. Nothing had freed him from this sylvan prison until he was spontaneously spit back out. He looked no worse for the wear, except for the wet clay caking his skin like he had emerged from a mud bath.

"Clea, grab him. Topaz, fireball as soon as he's clear," Amanda commanded with the ease of someone with long field combat experience, a small flame erupting from her palm as she began to ready her own spell.

Clea was already on the move as she reached and pulled at Rictor. "Rictor? Can you hear me? Does anything hurt?"

"He's clear," Topaz called to Amanda, rearing back to throw her fireball.

Rictor felt so safe and comfortable in the Man-Thing's embrace and now in Clea's arms, but the sizzling of the air as Topaz and Amanda conjured their attacks broke him free from the haze, and he scrambled to his feet. "Wait, no, stop!" he insisted, pushing his way between his mentors and the creature. "It's a man. He is a man!" he corrected himself. "Don't hurt him."

Amanda checked herself mid-movement. "It's a what?" she asked, glancing from the mud-covered Julio to the mass of plant matter. "It ate you, even if it's a person, that's pretty aggressive." But she looked to Topaz anyway. "Can you read it-- him?"

Topaz blinked at Rictor, then at Amanda. She waved a hand to dissipate the fireball she had been forming and concentrated on the thing - man. "Ah... there's something there, yeah." She narrowed her eyes as she dug further. "It's a bit like what I felt from the plant before. Scared. Worried. No malice, though."

"I don't know what he is, but . . ." Rictor glanced between the monster and his mentors. Their chastisements in the dreamspace still stung, even if they were actually his own self-loathing spoken through the mouths of simulacra. But they (he?) were right. The time when he simply followed and leaned on other people was over. Now he had to take charge. "Something triggered him. But he's like us. Just a little scared and alone." He turned to face the stoic creature, who cocked his head to the side like a curious dog. "We should help him."

Clea came up behind them as she looked at the plant creature. "Something triggered him?" Clea put her hand on hip and thought, "I did feel faint magic but I shrugged it off as we are close to the magic greenhouse. He won't attack again, right? If there is no fireball, then we should keep him in the magic greenhouse for now."

Amanda hesitated, thinking over the situation. The mansion was a sanctuary, yes, but the safety of its residents was paramount. Meeting Julio's eyes, she made a decision. "It's your call, Julio. Do you think it will be safe for the people living here for him to stay?"

He did not hesitate to answer. "Yes. I will take responsibility for him, too." It sounded like they were talking about a stray puppy and not an eldritch vegetal horror that tortured its victims with psychic manifestations of their greatest fears. A laughable situation anywhere in the world besides Westchester County, New York. "I don't know if this is a curse or a possession or a mutant gift we've never seen before, but we can find out and help him. Isn't that what we are supposed to do here?"

The older witch nodded slowly. "You're right. That is what we do here. But we'll make sure the place is warded and that folks know not to come and poke at him. And get the science crew involved, in case it is a mutation thing. Is that something he'll agree to?"

"I think so. Something serious happened to him, I think. Something traumatic. He's not whole, if that makes sense? I mean, he is just one bulb from a bigger plant that Harriet still has. Oh." Something dawned on him. "I should get it from her, see if it helps him." Assuming she would talk to him and not throw another platter of caramel in his face. "And one more thing I learned: he has a name. It's Ted." He smirked and playfully patted the creature on the back. "Ted the Man-Thing."

Topaz raised an eyebrow, giving the plant a look. "Well... Ted the Man-Thing seems happy enough with the proposal." Content, at the very least. Relieved to have finally been acknowledged. Hopeful that someone would be able to help. But it wasn't her place to broadcast all that.

"Okay. So if Ted the Man-Thing is going to be staying with us there are going to be some rules and one of those rules is no more eating people." Clea looked at Rictor. "That one is at the top of my head."

"You got that, Ted?" Amanda approached the mound of vegetable matter and poked it with a finger. "You play nice and we'll help sort you out, agreed?" It was a ludicrous sight, the short blonde witch bossing around the large plant-creature, but Ted seemed to accept the deal.

"¡Bueno! Now . . ." Rictor picked at his mud-crusted shirt. "I need another shower."