Matterhorn's face twisted from shock to raw fury.
"What... the fuck... did you do to my girl?" he roared.
I yanked up the grey sweatpants. "I didn't do anything! It's these pants! Princess, back me up!"
"He's right," Princess said. "Although, the power of the Grey Eminence is directly proportional to the Sugar of what it conceals. So, because Teddy's the one wearing it, the draw is overpowering."
Matterhorn was barely listening. His eyes, bloodshot and wild, locked on me. "You think you can just waltz in here, steal my girls with your fancy magic dick-wear?"
This must have been what he had feared from the very beginning. Whatever rapport we had built up was shattered.
He cracked his knuckles and began his charge at me.
Bridgid stepped in front of him. "Back off, big guy. We don't have time for this macho bullshit."
"Move, mermaid bitch," Matterhorn snarled, shoving her aside with one massive arm. She stumbled, catching herself on a rock of robes, her green dress riding up to flash her ass.
Guard flew above and landed between me and Matterhorn. Guard widened his wings with a growl. "Touch her again, and I'll gut you!"
Matterhorn laughed. "A daemon playing hero? Cute. But this is between me and Teddy!"
Lockjaw lowered her tranquilizer gun. "Boss, think! Fighting isn't going to fix the bond, and we still need to find a way to get back to normal time!"
Matterhorn's eyes flashed with anger. "We have a way. The solution's been standing right in front of our faces, and you haven't let me do it because this motherfucker has you all wrapped up in his little finger! I was right! Me! Matterhorn!"
He pointed a finger at me. "You're trouble, Teddy! And you deserve exactlywhat you are going to get!"
I relaxed in resignation. I believed him. I may not have meant to, but I was working with powers deeply outside of my control. And, I mean, the least I could have done was take the pants off.
Mana coalesced around Matterhorn's fist. It darkened, caramelized, before coalescing more Mana around it. At the time, it looked very much like atonement. The blaze around his fist was much larger than I had seen before, like he was building up the ability. Or maybe before he hadn't been explicitly using it, and this was more intentional?
Before the punched landed in my face I could have sworn I saw a tear in his eye.
...
...
...
I woke up on a bed of clouds and a starry night sky.
I had been sleeping for a while. Unconscious, maybe knocked out. Memories of where I was, what I was doing, even who I was were hazy.
"You wore the Pants well, my lad," a voice said.
I tried to find who had spoken, but could not.
"Ah, yes," the voice repeated. "Here."
The air shimmered, and a towering figure in a tailored suit appeared in front of me. He had broad shoulders and a mane of wild, silver hair. His eyes glowed brightly with the bluest blue I had ever seen.
"No, it can't be," I said. "You must be... but if you're here... and I'm here... then that means I..."
"Correct," the man said. "I am the Sugar Patriarch, and here we are, but only I am truly dead. But even then, only in a sense. You are having a near death experience, kept alive by the Pants."
"But... how?"
The late Sugar Patriarch smiled. "The power of the Grey Eminence is in what it conceals behind the outer covering. But this unique ability of concealing itself hid a small piece of your life away when you were hit by Matterhorn."
"Oh," I said. "But why are you here?"
"I dropped by because we need to talk, man to man. Sugar Well to Sugar Well, as they used to call people like us."
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, blue eyes intense.
"You're stepping into my wardrobe, my Hotel, my legacy. And you just broke one of the strongest bonds I've ever seen. That kind of power, even if aided by the Grey Eminence, it's rare."
His voice dropped an octave.
"I built the Mana Care Wings, the Kiss Kiss Hotel. I built the network. And now... well, I need a successor to inherit all of it."
I swallowed hard. "You want me to... take your place? I mean, people talk about the next Sugar Patriarch all the time, and it didn't sound like something the dead one would get to pick."
The Sugar Patriarch laughed. "They know very little in the ways of Sugar compared to me. Compared to what you will know in the future. They think I am dead? Then why have I never felt so alive!?"
He broke out in another hearty round of laughter.
"But right now, you've got a biker the size of a mountain about to finish what he started, a daemon princess who's falling for you, a mermaid who's already in love with you, and a closet full of my toys that could level cities if used wrong."
He placed a heavy hand on my shoulder. The contact sent another surge of Sugar through me.
"Wake up swinging, lad. Show them what the next Sugar Patriarch can do."
The clouds began to dissolve. The starry sky blurred.
"And Teddy?" His voice echoed as everything faded. "You have my permission to tell Elaine about this."
Darkness rushed in. I gasped awake on the closet floor, pain blooming across my jaw. Matterhorn's fist was already coming down for a second blow.
This time, I was ready.
I met his knuckles mid-air. I don't know where I got the strength, or how, but I easily won the encounter. His knuckles cracked and splayed and bled while mine were completely unharmed except for the blemishes of his blood.
He yelled out in pain.
"Fuck, man! Where'd that come from!?"
Something felt off. I looked around me, and there was a curious sense of... motion. Yes, motion. It felt so different after having been gone for so long. Motion, and sound.
The Sugar Rush state was over.