The elevator came to a gentle stop, its doors sliding open with a pleasant chime. The room it opened to wasn't so much an office as a control center. Banks of bronze, mechatronic computers lined each wall, with several Funtime Facilitators manning the controls. At the end of the room, in front of the gothic bay window, was a regal looking desk, and at that desk sat a regal looking man.
He was pale, in late middle-age, and had slicked back red hair under a crimson top hat that matched his eyes. He was dressed in an ornate, Victorian-era suit as timeless as The Factory itself. He sat back in his leather chair expectantly, a smugly satisfied smile creeping across his face.
“Squirmin' Herman,” he chuckled as Fuller stepped into the office.
“Vicious Aloysius,” he replied as stoically as he could manage, idly looking around the room as one might at any other business meeting. “I was expecting one of The Factory's Foremen to be in charge. Did they roll out some kind of human affirmative action programme to go with this whole Disneyfication process?”
“Still as irreverent as ever, I see,” Aloysius smiled. He reached for a decanter on the far side of his desk and began unscrewing the lid. “Care for some concentrated miasma? Darke sent it as a gift to one of the Foremen, which got him a bit out of sorts since his kind consider gifts a form of socialism. Fortunately, me buying it off him set everything right.”
“That sounds like Percy alright; you never know for sure if he likes you or if he's just messing with you,” Fuller said as picked up and examined the crystal glass. “Kind of you to offer, but I can't stomach that stuff.”
“Oh, of course not. No mere mortal can. What was I thinking?” Aloysius sneered as he sipped and sniffed the nebulous fluid. Fuller's eye twitched a bit at the insult, but he maintained his composure. “Oh, I'm being too hard on you again, aren't I? You are still alive after all this time. How did a bastard, half-breed like yourself manage that?”
“Oh, this and that,” Herman said, dusting some lint off his shoulder. “I'd ask the same of you, but that's hardly a wonder. You being a proper Sarkic and all.”
Aloysius slammed his glass onto his desk, shattering it.
“You dare, you dare utter that filthy clockwork slur? You're a Black Blood Fuller!”
“No, I'm not. You always made that very clear to me.”
Aloysius sighed and swept the shattered glass onto the floor with a swift swipe of his arm.
“Regardless of your impure pedigree, Adytite blood does flow in your veins. Had you not been so easily distracted by the petty sorcery of heathens and dedicated yourself to our faith, you could have been a decent Flesh Carver.”
“You were going to turn me into a Kiraak. Even if I never did truly master the Flesh Carving, I've always understood the core tenants of Nälkä: the individual is to acquire power until they are a god, and must not allow any mortal notions of morality hold them back. I tossed my own kin into a wood chipper to save my own skin, and you would have done the same.”
“I would have betrayed my family, yes, but not by allying myself with clockwork fanatics. You see, the reason I'm not mad at you is that you didn't actually kill us. You're a weakling who found someone stronger that happened to have a reason to do your own dirty work. You got lucky."
Aloysius winced suddenly, as if an old wound had spontaneously acted up.
“You know, it takes a lot to kill a Black Blood. The Broken bastards used some kind of Greek fire that we just could not put out. It's the same stuff they used to cull the Red Death, I think. The more we healed, the more fuel we gave it and the more it burned. I was burning to death for so long I thought I might actually be in Hell. When my strength was finally drained and my body reduced to a blackened corpse, the tickers sliced the White Worm out of me with those accursed blades of theirs, and let the fire finish the job.”
“Yet here you are.”
“Yet here I am. Like I said, hard to kill. Or at least kill and stay dead.”
“And Ma? Lucretia? Did they ‘stay dead'?”
“And why do you care? You wouldn't be feeling guilty for what you did, now would you?”
“Of course not. I just need to know who else I need to add to my enemies list.”
“Don't be ridiculous. We're family, and family stays together,” Aloysius said, smiling widely to reveal the pair of wriggling syphons he had grown on the inside of his mouth. “I even tried to find you, after I recovered, but you had already left our native Plane through the Library, and I wasn't about to track you down across all the worlds. I just assumed you were dead, long since devoured by one of the many horrors that abide across the cosmos. I can't tell you how delighted I was when I first heard the words ‘Herman Fuller's Circus of the Disquieting'. If you were a full Black Blood such a vulgar enterprise would be a disgrace, but considering your disadvantages I dare say you've done quite well for yourself.”
“And working as a facility manager isn't a disgrace for a Black Blood? You're a salaryman Aloysius, working the nine-to-five grind for a pension and dental. I'm just kidding, we both know The Factory doesn't do benefits.”
“Don't play dumb Squirmin', no matter how well the part suits you. You know I'm not doing this for a paycheck.”
“What then?”
“Have you ever heard of an anomalous ailment called Iron Lung? It's especially prevalent among mortals who work in The Factory. The iron in their blood is transmuted into alchemical rust, as all metal The Factory touches must corrode. In addition to causing anemia, the rust tends to accumulate in places and obstruct organ function, most prominently in the lungs. The infected then coughs up the rust, and if enough of that is inhaled by someone else then it can work as a seed metal for transmutation in their blood, infecting them and spreading the disease even further until the lungs are so heavily rusted the victim can't breathe at all. It's a truly pernicious disease too. Since it's not a traditional pathogen, normal immune responses and medical treatments have little effect.
“I found all this quite fascinating when I was contracted by The Factory to find a way to mitigate the effects of the disease and improve the productivity of the workforce. But as a practitioner of Nälkä, I could not condone the idea of mitigating any disease. Disease is sacred, culling the weak from the herd and ensuring only the strongest survive. But the Iron Lung was even more remarkable, and that it spread the very essence of The Factory as plague, and the worlds had only been spared its miraculous powers due to The Factory's incidental quarantine of its own workforce.
“It was then that I proposed to them the idea of an attraction, where people would come from all over the worlds and unknowingly become infected with the Iron Lung from the smog-filled air. It would incubate for months, years even as thousands or even millions of Wanderers unknowingly spread the Iron Lung across all reality, growing exponentially until not a single Plane is untainted by the rust, with The Factory's profits growing right along with it. They're paying me handsomely, sure, but the real reason I'm doing this is for the chance to shepherd such an extraordinary disease and disseminate it across such a vast distance. To have such an iconoclastic impact over so many worlds, it's truly godlike. I may be the most godlike Adytite since Ion himself.”
“I'm afraid there's a small flaw in your evil scheme there Al; your park stinks.”
“Yes, well, The Factory refused to give me as much creative control over the project as I would have liked. They insisted on their own rather peculiar ideas of entertainment. Still, it's a minor setback, and one I may now have the chance to mend. Herman, how would you like to come on board as a Funtime Consultant?”
“Surely you jest.”
“I'm completely serious. You've kept that Circus of yours afloat for a hundred years now. That's the kind of experience The Factory will listen too. With your help, we can turn this park into a place that will consistently draw in the crowds and churn out the Typhoid Marys. Imagine what you can do with the resources of The Factory at your disposal.”
Fuller only laughed, shaking his head in disdain.
“Aloysius, neither The Factory - nor its resources - are at anyone's disposal. The Factory exploits everyone and everything it comes into contact with. Did you bother to read the contract they made you sign when you joined this little enterprise?”
“Why would I? The laws of men have no -”
“We're not talking about the laws of men, we're talking about The Factory! When you signed your contract you gave them your name! Your name Aloysius! Do you know what The Factory can do to someone once they have their name! You're a slave no matter how much they pay you because you can never leave. No one ever lives to the end of their contract, and you're a damnable fool if you think your Sarkic blood magic is going to protect you.”
Aloysius sighed, and pressed a button on his desk.
“I gave you the chance to join willingly. You should have taken it. It would have been a lot easier on everyone. The Factory wants a Funtime Consultant, and they don't take no for an answer.” The side door to the office opened, and half a dozen faceless Eidolons dressed in tactical garb filed into the room. “Take him to processing, put him through Executive Reorientation. Tell the rest of your team that The Man With The Upside-Down Face is likely on the premises, mind he doesn't get inside your heads. Oh, and I've heard that there's a girl who's been tagging along with them lately as well. If you find her, bring her directly to me.”
The six Eidolons circled around Fuller, one of them holding a pair of rusted manacles while the others held their cattle prods at the ready. Fuller twirled his cane indifferently at their approach.
“Isn't it just like The Factory to hire an Eidolonic Collective?” he mused. “They seem like every industrialist's dream workforce; they never talk, they never sleep, they never eat or go to the bathroom and are utterly devoid of any hint of individuality. They do, however, have one less than obvious flaw: they're under an industrial amount of pressure!”
Fuller hurled his cane so quickly they were helpless to react, the sharpened end piercing through the nearest one's cheap armour and puncturing its body. Immediately, the pressurized content of its moulded form exploded violently, showering the office with malodorous, bubbling, yellow pus.
“Oh god, it's warm too. I, I didn't know it would be warm. God, that's almost the worst of it, I mean -”
“Grab him!” Aloysius ordered. The remaining Eidolons attempted to close in on Fuller but ended up slipping on the splattered viscera of their slain fellow.
“No non-slip shoes I see? The Factory's lack of commitment to worker safety shall be their downfall!” Fuller shouted as he snatched up his cane and then stabbed it into another one of the humanoid abominations. It too rapidly exploded, covering the room in a second coating of the living, pulsing goo. A third charged at Fuller, electricity arcing between the prongs of its cattle prod, but it slipped and went crashing into the others, knocking them down like a trio of bowling pins. Fuller seized this opportunity immediately, picking up the cattle prod of one of the exploded Eidolons and thrusting it into the pile of flailing, pus-covered limbs. They convulsed in unison, and one after the other they exploded until the immediate area was ankle deep in their remains.
Aloysius sat behind his desk still, and shook his head shamefully.
“Look at the mess you've made,” he lamented. “Not to mention their poor Overmind losing six of its nodes like that.”
Fuller wiped the jaundice-coloured filth from his eyes and spat it out upon the floor.
“How am I supposed to explain this to my dry cleaner?” he mused aloud. He made a few playful parries with his cane and held it out defensively. “Well, any more goons for me to paint your office with?”
“No sense in wasting them, now is there? I'll bring you in myself.”
Aloysius rose from his desk at last, and Fuller could see that he had no legs. Instead, he was supported by a skirt of thousands of segmented tendrils hanging out from his abdomen. They stretched so that he towered over the desk, and his lower jaw unhinged to allow the full extension of his feeding syphons. A second pair of seven-fingered, seven-jointed and seven-foot-long arms unfolded themselves from beneath his coat. His pupils shifted to an inverted Y shape, his corneas went black, and he removed his top hat to unveil a decorative set of antlers made from red coral.
“Wow. Talk about overkill. Honestly, who do you think you're impressing with such conspicuous body modification?”
“Ah, Herman. I do hope you manage to retain your sass through your Reorientation,” Aloysius said as he reached for him, his voice enunciating perfectly from his larynx despite the fact that his lower jaw was immobilized. Fuller reached into his coat and pulled out a bulky, shiny ray-gun covered in pointless blinking lights and a spinning ‘W' on the top. “What is that?”
“Doctor Wondertainment's Hyper Fun Sun Gun, Tee Emm!” Fuller boasted. “One of only seven prototypes handmade by Reginald Philbert Lionel Archibald Westinghouse Wondertainment the third himself! Never entered production due do -”
“Playtime's over, little brother!” Aloysius said as he grabbed for the gun. He knocked it out of his hand, but not before Fuller pulled the trigger. A pulsating beam of intense white light scorched Aloysius across the stomach. Aloysius recoiled in pain, but initially seemed to be unscathed. “You haven't changed one bit, have you Squirmin'? Still turning to heathen magic to save your own skin. But you can't cheat the natural order. Sooner or later, the Strong will cull the Weak and -”
He stopped abruptly when he saw that his shirt was still being soaked with blood.
“I… I can't stop bleeding. This isn't possible. Why can't I heal a simple gunshot wound? I'm a Karcist!”
“No, you're not,” Fuller said as he picked up the ray-gun. “You've been here too long. You're as much as part of The Factory as anyone else here. That's why I brought this with me. You see, the reason The Factory has never been able to destroy Wondertainment is that their very essences are mutually antagonistic. Think of it this way: The Factory is capitalism as defined by communists, whereas Wondertainment is capitalism as defined by capitalists. The Factory is all smog and rust and work, and Wondertainment is all sunshine and chrome and fun. Even when he was working here, you couldn't stop him. He took your rusted metal and made a rustproof robot! If you were still a regular Sarkic abomination and this some common sci-fi laser weapon, you'd be perfectly fine right now. But you're just a Factory tool, which is no match for a Wondertainment toy.”
Aloysius collapsed to the ground, coughing up blood.
“You, you really do love the sound of your own voice, don't you?” he laughed.
“Yes, and you're interrupting. It didn't have to be this way, you know? If you weren't so dogmatically committed to your ridiculous old religion, you might have realized that a lot of heathen magic is pretty useful, especially the Wonder-Maker's. Easier to manage than a White Worm, at least. Hey, while I have you here, is it true you can't swallow an Akuloth? Because a few years ago this hick from Sloth's Pit -”
“Just kill me already!”
Fuller smirked softly and pointed the gun at his head.
“Only if you promise to stay dead this time, brother.”
He pulled the trigger, and that was that.
He turned to face the Funtime Facilitators at the control center, all of whom were watching with rapt interest. Fuller pointed the gun straight at them.
“Any of you want to make this fun time even better?”
They immediately abandoned their posts and ran for the elevator, slamming the door shut behind them.
“Taking the elevator, in a life and death situation? The Factory really doesn't bother with basic safety procedures, does it?”
Herman holstered his gun and pranced over to the controls, rubbing his hands together in delight.
“All right then. Time for a few Industrial Accidents.”

« Act II | Hub | Finale »


Armando handed the pure gold arm to the Elder Alchemist, who set it in the middle of the circle inscribed in the sand. The arm glowed, dissolving into pure Aether, and sparkled into the air. A watery portal appeared in the air.
"Will this get us home?" Armando had had enough of this weird desert void.
Ruslav closed his eyes. "It should. Though the shaky Aethers of this location may distort your journey slightly."
Armando shrugged. "Course there's a catch." He picked up the cactus and threw it through the portal like a dodgeball. "See you on the other side, poky."
The younger Armando was the next through, followed by Ruslav himself. Lastly the older Armando walked through the bubbling circle.
A whoosh, the scent of rainfall, and a crinkling feeling later, and Armando emerged. He looked around at the metal and stone all around him, his stomach sinking at the realization that he was here alone. He turned around, and dropped the arm gun he was holding.
Behind him was a window hundreds of feet wide, looking out into the blackness of space. I'm on a goddamn spaceship. Armando pulled off two more arms, made of amethyst and bismuth, and wandered through the ship.
For some reason, every mural and diagram on this ship depicted some kind of dinosaur. He stopped by one particular sapphire mosaic depicting a brilliant blue tyrannosaur, wielding a sword and a glowing axe. Why did it look so familiar to him? Armando continued on.
After passing by miles of empty rock-and-glass pods, he heard voices echoing from around a corner. One was hearty and accented, and the rest were silky smooth yet inhuman.
"- assist in a quest? But of course!"
"Your help would be greatly appreciated. A legendary hero of the future, fighting beside us, is already a boon too great for us to have imagined. But two? The heavens shall remember this day long after the stars die."
The first voice belonged to a tall man dressed in shining silver armor from head to toe. A lance was in his hand, and his mustache spiraled out from his open faceplate, above his smiling face.
He turned and called out to Armando in Spanish. "Don Rivera! Friend, come, you must accompany me and my fine new companions on our quest."
"Who are you?" Armando cocked his head.
"I am Don Quixote de la Mancha, virtuous knight!"
The companions walked out from behind the knight; a zoo of assorted Cretaceous dinosaurs, most standing on two legs. They had articulate hands, and piercing, intelligent eyes.
Guy who thinks he's Don Quixote. Dinosaur spaceship. Just roll with it.
"These strange creatures need our help. Will you lend your aid, fellow knight?"
Armando considered it for a second. If he didn't, he'd probably just get thrown out an airlock. Best to play along until he could figure out how to steer the ship home.
"What sort of noble knight would I be if I didn't? Pray tell, what is this quest?"
Don Quixote led Armando to the main bridge of the ship, where Pachycephalosauruses sat in rows typing at screens. A 3D hologram in the center of the room showed the ship approaching a very large asteroid. A tiny dot flew parallel to the ship, towards the rock.
Don Quixote bowed slightly. "I will let my friends explain." A Parasaurolophus wearing an ornate green robe walked up on two legs, and emitted a shrill hum from its crest.
"We welcome your help, hero. Our sworn enemy's greatest stronghold is located here," the dinosaur motioned to the asteroid, "and is preparing for a full assault on our homeworld. This ship and its crew are all that stand between them and it. Even with the might of this craft, the Khitall, the battle will still be difficult. We reached into the loops and gaps of the Weave to call for aid from nearby worlds and realities, and our summon was answered by this warrior and yourself, as well as another legendary warrior, who will meet us upon the battlefield."
Don Quixote motioned towards the display. "The outer shell of this rock appears to hold many fearsome and terrible creatures. Our friends will engage them while you and I plunge into the heart of the fortress and destroy it from within!"
Armando cocked his head. "If I assist you in this… quest, will you return me to my home afterwards?"
The Parasaurolophus nodded. "Of course. We know you have yet more battles to fight on your own world. You will be returned safely once our enemy has fallen. Jelrikam will lead you to the hangar, for we approach the adversaries."
A stocky, red Triceratops wearing studded metal armor and a cape grunted and led Armando and Don Quixote to the lower deck.
Armando looked around. Hundreds of fighter craft lined the enormous hangar, and dinosaurs of all sorts checked diagnostics, loaded crystals into slots, and climbed into cockpits. Jelrikam motioned towards a small, red, single-seat ship, shaped like a Pterodactyl. Armando opened the cockpit and looked at the interior. "How the hell am I supposed to fly this thing? I can't even drive! And there's no controls!"
Jelrikam did the dinosaurian equivalent of a sigh. "Place your hands within the slots." Armando did so, and immediately felt the sensation of hundreds of fibers tightening around his hands. "What-"
"These allow one to directly influence the Weave immediately around the ship, allowing the ship to move and maneuver as fast as you can think. It will work as well as you believe it will."
Armando detached the arms, leaving them embedded in the sockets and jumped out of the ship. Don Quixote was walking towards him. "Hey, you. Where's your ship?"
"Hahaha! Good knight, I have no need for such contraptions. My noble steed will carry me," he nodded over to where a plain brown horse was tied to a post, "as he has done through all my quests."
"…Right. So, you're actually Don Quixote? Like, from the book?"
The knight threw his head back and laughed. "Who else would I be? My friend, you may be new to the way of chivalrous knights, but surely your life of adventure would prepare you for anything. I knew you would be up for this task; I saw the virtue within you."
Armando lowered his shoulders. "I'm not a knight, sir. Neither am I virtuous."
"The first, perhaps not yet. No one is born a knight, they must become one. But you fail to see the bright, shining light within yourself. A man who fights for those he cares about, and risks everything to do so? A man who would help those in need? Those are the hallmarks of any true knight. You have had setbacks, and losses. Every man does. But only a knight gets back on his feet, saddles his horse, and rides forth again."
Armando nodded. "Thank you."
A loud alarm rang through the hangar. Glowing lines along the ceilings pulsed red. Dinosaurs jumped into their ships, and the hangar doors slowly opened. Jelrikam shouted over the commotion. "We have arrived, warriors."
The voices of the dinosaurs, and Don Quixote, echoed as one. "I call upon the Wisdom of Kelmura, the Might of Armalore, the Hope of Palsinnor, and all the Whiteshroud Power of the Fytew! May the rope of the Children of the Valley not fray today."
The starships poured out of the sides of the dinosaur asteroid and assembled into formation. Armando followed their lead, steering his ship with two hands while working on a complex kinetoglyph with more he had summoned. Don Quixote rode his horse, impossibly galloping on empty space.
Jelrikam's gruff voice came over the speakers. "They will be upon us soon. Do not break formation until the Warrior arrives."
Just as Armando was going to question exactly who this Warrior was, a horrific creaking sound (Armando didn't think to question why he could hear it) came from the gigantic gray asteroud. Chasms opened up along its surface, and a cloud of gray dots diffused out. Each dot glowed, and as they grew closer Armando could see that they were grotesque, twisted stony creatures with wings, like a hybrid between a chewed piece of gum and a gargoyle.
The Khitall's miniature star engine blazed, and it accelerated towards the asteroid, flanked by the fleet of dino ships. Plasma turrets lining the larger ship began to spray into the swarm, turning thousands of asteroid monsters into molten dust and gas.
Armando looked at the ships closest to him. One was piloted by a featherless raptor of some kind, and was covered in glowing streaks. The other was a big, blue, bulky ship resembling a whale with wings, piloted by an ankylosaur.
Jelrikam's voice returned. "All squadrons, report." The captains checked in, one by one. The ankylosaur began, in an oddly feminine voice: "Nulltaria, Wind Legion, confirm- did you feel that?"
One second of heavy silence, then Jelrikam spoke. "He is here."
A streak of white light flashed across the night, weaving past the ships and shooting straight through the swarm. The streak curved to the right, and a shockwave pulverized a cubic mile of scattered asteroid creatures.
Armando twisted a finger to ask the sensors to zoom in on the entity. The bottom corner of his windshield projected a holographic image of a person in an astronaut suit.
Nulltaria gasped softly. "I had heard of his legends. But to see the Champion of the Moon, in the flesh… breathtaking." She ignited her engines and led her legion into the cloud. "Onward! The Champion has cleared a path, we must breach the surface!"
The rock monsters regrouped, and began closing the gap Moon Champion had punched open. Nulltaria and her legion sped through, lighting up monsters with plasma cannons, while Don Quixote somehow kept up, shattering the creatures with his lance.
The Khitall's molded tyrannosaurus mouth opened, and concentric waves of plasma rippled through the cloud, clearing more pathways. Legions of dino ships descended upon the surface of the asteroid, firing gravity missiles into the chasms to try and collapse them.
This proved futile, as every closed chasm resulted in a new one immediately opening. Nulltaria deployed a Planck mine and rendered a half-mile-wide sphere a soup of quarks and light. "We are not making progress in halting the advance. Commander Rabbakor, orders?"
The Parasaurolophus was cut short by a resonating yell, as the Moon Champion circled in a wide arc, then fired its jetpack and flew straight for the asteroid.
"DEATH TO THE IMPOSTOR MOON!"
Moon Champion's fist connected with the rocky surface, sending spider webs of cracks throughout the asteroid. Several huge fissures appeared, and for an instant it looked like the asteroid would split in half.
Unfortunately for everyone, it did something much less preferable, and hatched.
Space itself shuddered, as cracks continued to fracture the asteroid's surface. Chunks of it drifted outward, and the rock unfolded to reveal a colossal, four-winged dragon a thousand miles wide. As the dragon's wings extended, a gray wave of rock creatures burst forth from where the interior of the asteroid had been.
Commander Rabbakor blew a shrill trumpet from his crest. "ONWARDS!"
The fleet of dino ships engaged, and the front edges of their wings glowed with purple, crackling light. Nulltaria led her legion towards the neck of the dragon, the purple edges slicing through rock creatures like a fire hose through paper.
Armando followed along, not knowing how he was able to keep up. Whether this was a dream, or reality, it was the most excitement he'd had in his life. He looked to the left and saw Don Quixote still riding his horse. The knight turned to Armando.
"Don Rivera! I know how to defeat the dragon!"
As if it heard that, the dragon beat its lunar wings and sent a shockwave rippling towards the fleet. Several dozen dino ships exploded, the emergency systems encasing the occupants safely in amber until they could be retrieved. Don Quixote was struck, and sent flying.
Moon Champion rushed to the fray, uppercutting the dragon with a titanic punch. Showers of space rock erupted from the new crater as the dragon recovered.
"I will not let you harm them, foul monster! An attack on Earth and its creatures is an attack on its Moon, and I WILL DEFEAT YOU!"
The dragon swung its head and batted the spaceman away towards the Khitall. Moon Champion called out to the ship. "Reptile men! We must destroy the monster's wings! To me!" He flew off towards the dragon again, the Khitall at full speed behind him. Laser cannons fired continuously to keep the swarm at bay. Commander Rabbakor called to the ships. "Harvest maneuver!"
The remaining ships flew close to the deadly wings, letting loose a storm of black, metallic needles that embedded themselves into the crumbly rock. The pilots quickly flew out of the area as the molded tyrannosaur mouth of the Khitall began to glow.
Trinity Weave: LATTICE BREAKER!
A red, white, and green spiral beam shot out of the mouth of the ship, disintegrating stray rock beasts in its path. The dragon shielded itself with its wings, and the brilliant beam impacted the wing with an eruption of light. Bursts of electricity spread throughout the wings, carried by the black needles, which all exploded.
The beam broke the rock down at a microscopic level, and traveled through the entire wing, carried by the detonations of the specially made spikes. The dragon roared in pain as its wings dissolved into dust. Angry, it opened its mouth, charging a burst of glowing blue fire.
Commander Rabbakor hit the console. The energy surge from firing the Lattice Breaker had knocked out the engines temporarily. "Put everything we have into the forward shields!" He wasn't confident the diminished shields would be enough to protect them, but he had faith in the heroes.
Right as the dragon was releasing the fireball, it jerked its neck to the right, as Don Quixote shattered its eye with his lance. The fireball was still released, and grew in size as it flew. There was no way it wouldn't hit the ship.
The booming voice returned.
"The Knights' efforts are not in vain, for they fight beside me. These beings are from Earth, and live and breathe and shed under the same Moon. I am the Moon's Champion. I am all Moons' Champion, and they are my companions. No Moon Monster is safe, while I soar the skies! Now DIE, FALSE MOON!"
Moon Champion swooped into the path of the fireball and blocked it with his hands, pushing against it with all his might. The fireball dwarfed the shiny speck, but was still pushed back, faster and faster, until at last Moon Champion let go and let the miniature blue star fly back at the dragon. Unfortunately, Don Quixote's lance was still embedded in the fractured eye, as the fireball flew back at the dragon's face.
Armando peeled off from the legion and swooped towards the dragon's face in his own ship, going as fast as he willed the ship to go, and frantically completing the kinetoglyph with the cockpit full of arms. He hit the emergency eject, and the arms surrounding him dissolved into a skintight yellow film protecting him from the vacuum of space.
The ship continued to fly, piloted by the two arms Armando had left in the sockets, while Armando anchored himself to the ship with adhesive arms. He pulled off arm after arm, forming a chain about two hundred arms long, then swung the chain at Don Quixote. "Grab on!" Don Quixote broke off the handle of his lance and took hold of the chain, which rolled itself up to bring the knight and his horse aboard. Armando closed the cockpit again, and repurposed the arms to form two rudimentary engines, burning borane and hydrazine arms, to boost the three of them out of the way of the fireball.
At the last second, the dragon roared, and the entire swarm of rock gargoyles flew as one, forming a perfectly circular shield to take the hit. The star exploded, sending ionized pieces of rock monster flying and destroying a good portion of the dino fleet.
Moon Champion breathed heavily under his helmet. His jetpack had damaged itself from overexertion while pushing the star back, but now that the swarm was gone, he could kill the dragon with no distractions, if he could only reach it. Armando steered the ship towards Moon Champion's free floating body and he grabbed onto the rear of the wing.
Commander Rabbakor's voice crackled through the comms. "Whiteshrouds, Champion, it is all left to you. The fleet has taken heavy losses, and the Khitall's engines have not yet restarted. We can lay down suppressing fire at best, but the victory is in your hands now." Armando looked at the spaceman and the knight. "We've got this." Don Quixote grinned. His friend would truly be a knight, yet. Moon Champion bristled. This Moon Monster would fall, that he was sure of.
Don Quixote mounted his steed. Armando ripped off two metallic hydrogen arms, and jammed them into the Champion's jetpack, before sitting behind the knight. Moon Champion ignited the makeshift fuel source, and pushed the horse from behind. The horse galloped impossibly fast, and shot towards the dragon.
Commander Rabbakor ordered every weapon that was still online to distract the dragon, and a hurricane of miniature neutron stars, gravity inverting missiles, plasma bolts, and crystal drills spewed from the dinosaur ship towards the dragon's face.
Through the physics-breaking explosions and lights, the dragon was unaware of the band of misfits charging towards its heart.
The Moon Champion was first to speak. "My friends. Today you have truly proven yourself worthy of the title of Earth Champions. I am honored to fight beside you."
Don Quixote corrected him. "Earth Champions are known as Knights, good friend."
"Of course! How foolish of me. Knight of Arms, you too are a stalwart ally."
Armando closed his eyes. He wasn't even sure he could do what he was thinking, but he had no time to doubt. As if reading his mind, Quixote spoke softly. "You're a hero now, Don Rivera. And the hero always wins."
At the last second before impact, Armando pulled off an arm made of a naked singularity and affixed it to the handle of Quixote's lance, before veering the horse left.
The Moon Champion grabbed the impossible lance and thrust it into the dragon's heart with all his might.
The dragon exploded in a blinding supernova of light, because Armando hadn't taken any quantum physics classes.

This is an entry for the Original Character Tournament. My opponent's entry will be linked here when it is posted.


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"Oh my god, this place has cornflakes made from imaginary corn!" Lolly said as she excitedly read the menu for Ambrose. "I've only ever had imaginary corn in Oneiroi! The only place it grows in reality is that crazy nexus in the South West. I'm going to get a bowl of that, preferably frosted but if not just give me a fistful of sugar packets. Do you also have drinks made with high fructose imaginary corn syrup? I'll take a glass of that too. And Nutella on toast!"
Chaz Ambrose nodded in the affirmative to their waiter, who promptly left to fetch their VIP guests their meals.
The Ambrose restaurant had a casual, intimate feel to it. Its walls and carpets were warm reds and golds, its wooden tables draped in linen cloths, and the ambient lighting was provided by spectral flames burning over silver candlestick holders with nary a candlestick to be found. The decor was by no means unreasonably expensive, but it was expensive enough for the restaurant's owner to be more than a little concerned by the presence of a hyperactive and unpredictable reality bender.
"Icky, as delightful as your beloved is, when I invited you and your partner here to discuss business over brunch, I was referring to your business partner," Chaz said awkwardly in his refined though possibly fake British accent. "Was that not understood, or…?"
"No, I got what you meant," Icky smiled, sipping from her glass of luminescent orange juice which Ambrose claimed was actually liquid sunshine. "The Circus is a just a tad chaotic, so Manny and I prefer that there's at least one of us there as much as possible. Manny doesn't care much about this sort of thing anyway, so there was no sense in him coming. You don't mind me taking advantage of your hospitality to pamper my playmate a little, do you?"
Chaz glanced at Lolly, who was slightly bouncing in her seat and looked like she might start bouncing off the walls at any second.
"No, so long as she doesn't interfere with our bargaining, we shouldn't have a problem," he said with a hint of uncertainty. "Anyway, I suppose I should get started. As you can tell by our menu, my restaurant is centered around anomalous cuisine. When I opened the first Ambrose in Three Portlands, my goal was to essentially create a more accessible, more affordable version of MC&D's Pretty Penny's. Have you ever eaten at a Pretty Penny's?"
"A while back. I'm not a member, so I can't get a reservation myself, but Burgess - our old MC&D rep - used to like to have business lunches with us there."
"Oh, it's an amazing experience. I almost got a job as a chef there once. Almost. That's why I'm here now. Unfortunately, there's nothing on my menu that compares to Kaiju Caviar but -"
"Oh! We know a ship of Wanderers that hunts Kaiju," Lolly told him. "If you wanted, we could arrange a meeting between you and they could get you some Kaiju eggs."
Chaz looked to Icky to see if she was telling the truth.
"Glad I brought her now, aren't you?" she asked with a satisfied smile.
"That's, ah - we can circle back to that. The reason I asked you here is that we pride ourselves on offering the best selection of magical foodstuffs the anomalous community has to offer, and I've heard very good things about your black cotton candy."
"Oh my god, literally the first thing I did my first day at the Circus was eat the cotton candy!" Lolly said. "It doesn't just taste better than regular cotton candy, it tickles your insides and the sugar in it sparkles like stars in the night sky, it's so pretty! That's why you should call it midnight cotton candy. Midnight makes it sound all sophisticated and mysterious, so it will sell better."
"So you are interested in franchising it to us?" he asked hopefully.
"We recently started ultra-pasteurizing our Clown Milk, and we still haven't figured out what to do with all the surplus," Icky nodded. "So long as your customers aren't opposed to Bozomorphic byproducts, we're open to selling it to retailers. We can either make the cotton candy ourselves and send it to you, or we can sell you the Clown's Milk and you can make it yourselves. The Milk by itself would take up less shelf space, but it is deadly to vanilla humans in its pure form. You'd have to be very careful with it, and make sure the person operating the cotton candy machine knows what they're doing."
"Hmm. I think I'd rather have overstocked shelves than a lethal liability lying around. I'll take it pre-bagged."
"Good call. We can sell you one-ounce bags for two dollars a piece. If you mark it up over six dollars we'll be upping the wholesale price in kind. How you present it is up to you, but I want the menu listing to mention it's exclusively available from the Circus of the Disquieting, The Greatest Show in all the Worlds." She paused for a moment to sip her liquid sunshine. "While I'm here, are you interested in renting some advertising space at our Circus? For only a few grand a year, you can have a pretermemetically targeted 3-foot by 8-foot ad over our bleachers."
"I'd be very interested in that, but I do have some further questions regarding the cotton candy," Chaz replied. "You see, I've done my due diligence on it, and it seems it does a bit more than just tickle your insides. It has some neuro-modulating properties as well, does it not?"
"Neuro-module-what now?" Lolly asked.
"He means mind control, and where on earth did you hear that?" Icky demanded.
"In its SCP file, which I obtained from a pirated copy of the Foundation's database. They've conducted quite extensive experiments with the stuff."
"Arghhh. I can't believe a cotton candy machine we lost twenty years ago is still causing trouble," Icky groaned. "Alright, yes, it is a programmable psychoactive substance. Why would that interest you though?"
"I assure you, I have no nefarious intentions for it," Chaz swore. "You see, I'm wanting to open a restaurant outside of the free ports. The mundane market is at least a hundred times the size of the anomalous one, but of course, if I open up an anomalous restaurant in a mundane location I'll be shut down by the Foundation or the Coalition."
"Please don't mention the Geo Sea. It messes with my head," Lolly said.
"I understand, and I apologize. My point is that you perform for mundane audiences all the time, and most of them never suspect a thing. You're rarely ever even detected by hostile forces, and on the rare occasion that you are you always manage to pull out before they can intercept you. The effects of the cotton candy is at least partially responsible for that, isn't it?"
Icky gave a reluctant nod.
"And you want to use it to keep your own business under the Humdrum authorities' radar?"
"And nothing else. Swear to God. I just want to do what you do; let ordinary people sneak a peek behind the Veil."
Icky mulled over the proposition, then glanced over at Lolly.
"What do you think darling?"
"I like this place, and I like breaking the dumb Masquerade as much as we can," she replied. "I think we should do it. We can help Humdrums eat magical food, stick it to the Foundation, and make money all at the same time."
Icky nodded in agreement.
"Okay, we can go over programming in some mind-affecting properties and the corresponding music, but that is going to double the price," she told Chaz.
"That's more than acceptable Icky. Thank you."
The waiter returned with their brunches: a plate of french toast made from WonderwheatTM for Icky, a Hobbitish looking plate the menu called 'second breakfast' for Chaz, and of course Lolly's bowl of imaginary cornflakes.
"They are frosted! Awesome!" she said as she shovelled a spoonful into her mouth. She began vibrating with joy, and then shot off into the air at high speed. She bounced off the ceiling and walls like a rubber ball without ever hitting anything or anyone, and then landed back in her seat with a contented sigh.
Icky just smiled at the outburst, but Chaz - after getting back up from taking cover underneath the table - was staring at her in disbelief.
"Is that going to happen after every bite?" he asked. She smirked and scooped up another spoonful of the cereal.
"Only one way to find out!"

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October 14th
Ryan Melbourne sat at his desk, one hand on his keyboard, the other fiddling with a chip which read "Gambler's Anonymous— One Day At A Time". He flipped it around in his hand like he was doing a coin trick, and hummed to himself, typing out a report on the meme he had just created.
Around him, several other memeticists were working on their own projects— but he noticed something. The clicking of their keyboards and mouses seemed too loud, too deliberate, like they were pretending to know what they were doing.
«Attention Site-87 Staff.» Director Weiss's voice came over the intercom. «We regret to inform you that lockdown is extended by another twelve hours. If you have any information pertaining to the whereabouts of Agent Tofflemire, report to your nearest security officer.»
There were loud groans and at least one "Come on!" from the cubicles around him. People missed their daily routine, and were forced to bunker down on-site, in the common areas; there wasn't enough space in the quarters for those who lived off-site.
Ryan turned over the chip in his hand, and read over his report once again.

Project MacReady is an auditory memetic agent that causes sensations of pain in all human organisms. Organisms resembling humans are unaffected, which will aid in the containment and, if necessary, destruction of

"Goddammit." Ryan unplugged his headphones and stood in his cubicle. He turned to the right, addressing his neighbor. "What's the GOC term for shapeshifters?"
"Type… Yellow, I think?" In the next cubicle, Akio Naguri was eating lunch, which amounted to vending machine salad. "Still working on MacReady?"
Ryan nodded, resting his hand on the edge of the cubicle. "We've managed to tone it down enough that it doesn't cause instant death. Just really, really bad headaches."
"I'm just glad I'm working on visual stuff." Akio bit down into the salad and frowned. "Eugh. Forgot how nasty this stuff tastes dry. Got any dressing?"
"…you're asking me if I have salad dressing. In my cubicle. Near sensitive computer equipment."
"Well, do you or don't you?"
Melbourne rolled his eyes and opened a drawer in his desk, which was filled with an assortment of snacks and condiments. He found a packet of deli sauce and chucked it over the wall of the cubicle. "Here. You really shouldn't be eating where you work— maintenance still has a bounty on my head for spilling a Coke on my keyboard."
"And yet you still have Halloween candy in your cube." Akio opened the packet and started drizzling it on the salad.
Ryan sat back down, reaching into the same drawer and finding a Snickers. He moved his mouse onto the audio file that contained Project MacReady and started to unwrap it. The chocolate had other plans, as it bounced out of his hands and landed on the enter button on his keyboard.
The effect was immediate and painful. A two-second burst of sound emanated from his computer's speakers, sending him to the ground, whimpering. He clutched his head, curled in the fetal position. After a few minutes, he realized Akio was standing over him.
"You okay?" Akio chewed on his salad.
"You… didn't hear that?" Ryan stood up, grabbing his candy bar. "Dropped this on the enter button, accidentally set off Project MacReady."
Akio tilted his head, and pointed out the pair of headphones that were around Melbourne's neck. "I think you broadcasted them to yourself, Ry."
Ryan frowned. He had never plugged them back in, but Akio didn't need to know that. "Yeah, that's it. Sorry."
"That reminds me, you got any Butterfingers?"
"Ha, ha, ha." Ryan shook his head and sat back down. 'Akio' went back to his cubicle, and the too-deliberate typing restarted.
Melbourne pulled a pair of earplugs from his drawer, and inserted the foam pellets tightly into his ears. Then, he turned the volume on his computer up to maximum, and played the sound file again.
His head twinged in pain, but around him, there wasn't a peep. Not a single acknowledgement that his computer had just blared out what was once a memetic kill agent, now toned down to give a seconds-long migraine to anything human.
'Anything human' being the operative phrase.
"Something's rotten in the state of Wisconsin," Ryan muttered to himself.

October 16th
Robert Tofflemire awoke in the barracks for the first time in at least five days.
Surrounding him were other members of Sigma-10. Ruby Williams was seated next to his bed, while her brother Blake carried a radio into the room. Alice was adjusting a set of combat armor on her body, while talking to a face he never expected to see here— Ryan Melbourne, memeticist.
Robert sat up. "What the hell is going on?"
Blake put up his hand, and pressed a button on the radio. A burst of static played, sending Robert back onto the bed, clutching his head. "What the hell?"
"He's real." Ruby took out her earplugs. "Managed to get into contact with the Brothers Bailey while you were asleep. We've confirmed that Tristan's alive and well."
"I'm not sure the same can be said of the majority of our colleagues." Ryan Melbourne frowned. "There are eight-hundred and forty-three personnel employed at Site-87, not counting members of Sigma-10."
"And how many are around now?" Robert sat up, cleaning out his ear.
"Two." Katherine Sinclair stepped into the room. "I figured they didn't try impersonating me because they can't fake magic, and as for Melbourne…"
"I'm getting to that." Ryan held up his hand. "As of right now, we have to assume the majority of Site-87's staff is MIA, possibly KIA."
"Why just copy the rest of the task force? Why not snatch any of us?" Ruby scratched her head. "Like, I get why they didn't hit Carol, no point impersonating a coma patient. But they just… locked us in the barracks."
Alice spoke up. "If a majority of a task force's heart rates go dark for more than two hours, then Overseer Command is alerted. If they are… killing people, then they couldn't risk having the Foundation as a whole alerted, and the town…"
"Possibly being wiped from existence with a nuke." Robert scratched the back of his head. "Makes sense."
Melbourne cleared his throat. "We still need to bring you all up to speed. So…"

October 14th
The intercom booth was empty. The operator had gone to the cafeteria for lunch, and had left the door unlocked behind her.
After making sure the cameras were facing away, Ryan slipped into the booth and opened his laptop. He had modified Project MacReady slightly— it now had a geographical pointer meme, directing anyone who could perceive the pain meme to the second surface level.
On the way, Ryan had had his phone playing Project MacReady on a loop, passing by as many people as possible. He had to keep his fingers in his ears most of the time, even with the earplugs. None of the personnel he had encountered so much as flinched.
He connected the USB port of his laptop to the audio system, and pressed play. Even with the Earplugs on, he winced in pain and let out a loud "Jesus FUCK!" as the sound was broadcast throughout the site.
The sound subsided, and he picked up his laptop, shut it, dusted off the controls with a cloth, and made his way out of the intercom booth. Then, he climbed into an elevator.
On his way in, his phone rang. Without looking at the number, he answered. "Melbourne."
"About time someone picked up! Did everyone in the site put me on a blocked caller list?" On the other end of the line, Tristan Bailey sounded distinctly unamused. "Ryan, why is my family getting condolence e-mails en masse from 87?"

October 16th
"Same with me." Robert nodded. "After I realized that Tristan was out of town and couldn't have come back in thanks to the space loop, it… well, it was like a spell broke."
"Less 'spell', more 'perception filter', in this case." Melbourne made his way to the elevator, with all assembled walking behind him. "This thing that was shaped like Tristan convinced us it was Tristan because we knew he couldn't be there? Is that right?"
"Roughly." Robert rolled his shoulders. "This is all making my head hurt, to be honest."
"I hate pataphysics," Alice admitted.
Robert began to quip, "I never metafic—"
"No!" All present snapped at him.
"Okay, okay." Robert rolled his eyes. "Try to inject a bit of levity…"
Alice rubbed her head. "I remember most of what happened, back in July. But… more recently is a fog. And I know there's something important there."
"I got something in my cube that'll help with that." Ryan Melbourne tapped the elevator's call button.

October 14th
The second surface level of S & C Plastics was largely vacant. The director's office was a floor up, reception was a floor down, and the second level was largely used for storage. Occasionally, you'd see people working at the cubes near the windows, to give the illusion that this place was busy as a mundane plastics company.
Melbourne played with his chip. After about half an hour, the elevator's doors opened, and out stepped a disoriented Katherine Sinclair. "Why am I here?" She asked nobody in particular.
Not missing a beat, Ryan opened up Project MacReady and broadcasted it as he started walking to Sinclair. The thaumatologist winced and covered her ears. "What the hell, Ryan?!"
"Had to check." Melbourne frowned. "Nobody else came up with you?"
"No— what the hell is that sound?"
Ryan briefly explained the basics of Project MacReady, and how he discovered that nobody in the site but the two of them seemed to react to it. He demonstrated his own adverse reaction, to stifle Sinclair's worries.
"So… wait." Sinclair frowned as Ryan keyed in another number on his phone. "Nobody in the site is human? Do you think that's why Tofflemire broke in? To… hunt them?"
"I don't know." Ryan handed his phone to Sinclair. "But this call's for you."
Sinclair took the phone. It rang for a few seconds, and she let out a gasp at the voice she heard at the other end. "Tristan?"
Ryan stood back and let the conversation unfold, a soft smirk on his face. Eventually, Sinclair handed him back his phone, looking shaken. "So. That Tristan, at the costume shop. That wasn't real."
"Nor is anyone but us. I'm sorry."
"Monty…" Sinclair clenched her fist. It may have just been the way the sunset coming in through the windows was hitting Sinclair, but Melbourne swore he saw an aura of anger around the woman. "They took everyone. Well…" She broke out into a manic grin. "Good news is I finally get to test out the wards I've made around the site."
"There's the matter of Agent Carol." Ryan frowned. "She's not woken up. Whatever you're planning…"
"Hmm." Sinclair looked around the storage room, and picked up a piece of paper. "Got a spare side-arm?"
"I can probably requisition a 9mm. Why?"
"I've got an idea."

October 16th
"They left you a note?" Robert raised his eyebrows.
"Kind of," Sinclair explained as they stepped off the elevator onto Sublevel 8, which contained the department of memetics. "I implanted it in her mind, and put a ward around her bed. Melbourne hid the gun in her bedsheets."
"Risky," Alice admitted, "but it paid off."
"Don't you think it's a little weird, how bad these things are at imitating people?" Robert turned the corner. "Like, on a scale of my impersonation of Clef to Alice's impersonation of Bill Cipher—"
"I'm not doing that voice, Tofflemire." Alice rolled her eyes.
"My point is: they really suck at pretending to be people."
"Maybe that's by design? Someone notices the poor copy, gets suckered in, gets abducted, gets copied?" Sinclair looked at a screen on the walls, advertising the annual Halloween party, and some new rules and regulations for it. "Now I know how West felt. Halloween sucks."
"Let's forget about that for now." Robert entered the memetics "laboratory", which amounted to a bunch of cubicles stacked together.
Melbourne was leaned over his computer screen, chewing on a Twix. "All right, Agent Carol, if you'll come over here and put on the headphones…"
Alice raised a brow, and plodded forward. While Robert was in civilian clothes, Alice still had her full combat gear. Robert reasoned that it made her feel more comfortable, given what had happened in the last two weeks. Still, it made the seat in Ryan's cubicle creak disconcertingly as she sat.
"Now, just look into the screen…" Ryan clicked the mouse and turned away, walking back towards Sinclair and Tofflemire. "Memory recovery meme. Anti-amnestic, essentially."
"It'll work?"
"Hopefully. We've been using it in experimental civilian trials to treat amnesia patients. Hardly anyone's tried to claw their—"
"Hardly anyone?!" Robert gawped. "That's more than zero!"
"It's perfectly safe—"
At that, Alice let out a loud scream and pulled back form the computer, snapping the contacts for the headphones off in the process. She leaned against the cubicles, shaking, nearly knocking down the cheap walls.
Robert ran up to her. "Al?"
"…I remember."

October 1st
Alison Carol felt the thing crawling on her back, clawing at her flesh. She didn't scream— she was made of sterner stuff than this, dammit. So what if this thing… this thing had taken her? It was just a stupid sloth. A stupid, giant, eldritch, beyond the comprehension of mortal minds, sloth. They ate leaves, not people— it was even in their genus name, Folivora.
"An excellent suggestion!"
Alice turned to face a woman— no, not a woman. It looked feminine, but it wasn't even remotely human. It looked like a Barbie doll, strange proportions and all. It tilted its head at her. "I've been looking for a name that won't rouse suspicion, and that's perfect. Such an obscure word, and I'm sure they'll overlook the meaning."
Alice's mind began to form a picture, based off of something she had seen in a town history book. A photograph of a woman, seated with her mustachioed husband and young son, in sepia. The caption underneath read "Sloth Family, 1889".
"Oh, you've given me a face now!" Indeed, as Alice looked on, the thing started to bear the face of Imogen Sloth. "And a name! Imogen, such a quaint appellation."
"What the hell are you?" Alice swallowed, searching for her sidearm. "The hell, did I get dragged into a John Carpenter film?"
"A film! Wonderful idea!" The woman beamed as her form became more concrete. "You're giving so many good ideas. We can't make up our own, you see— we just have to work with what we're given."
"You're a story" Alice swallowed. "Fictional. Legend. Whatever the hell we call them. I…" She shut her mouth. Best to stop talking.
"What's in your pockets?"
Alice winced, trying to think about everything except what was in her pockets— her wallet, phone, a photo of her with Laura Ashebrooke, owner of the Witch's Hut—
"A-ha!" Imogen grinned. "Now we have an agent. Perfect. We just need an in…"
"Why are you doing this?" Alice asked.
"Because." Imogen stepped closer. "He wants to be real."
Alice felt the breath of something on her neck. She looked behind her, and saw a pair of beady, black eyes towering above her.
She screamed.
And then, nothing.

«Chapter 8 | Hub | Chapter 10»


October 15th
"How does a man manage to hide in the ventilation system for two days?" Something that looked like Director Nina Weiss observed the sleeping form of Alice Carol. "Wasn't this site designed specifically so that humans can't crawl through the vents?"
"The architecture's shifted to suit the needs of the Narrative." Something that looked like Johnathan West stroked his beard. "He's being protected, for the time being."
"Fantastic." Nina frowned down at the woman. "We need to wake her up. If she can be turned against Tofflemire, he doesn't stand a chance."
"That's going to be easier said than done, ma'am." West looked at her medical chart. "Liao's been giving her enough sedative that she may not wake up until December."
"This is a massive paranormal research organization. Surely we have something that can forcibly expel sedatives from the human body."
"I'll check the database," West nodded. "Phones are going to go back up today."
"Yes, but with all but… what, two people in the site converted, and the bunker sealed off, how are they going to get any message out?"
West chuckled. "You have a point, Director Weiss. Still, I'd watch your tongue— this place loves it when you tempt fate."

Robert Tofflemire chewed on an energy bar, being careful to collect all of the crumbs in the wrapper and eat the rest of them. He'd been living in Site-87's air ducts for the last two days, something that should be impossible— he'd seen these first-hand when they were installing them back in 2014, after mistletoe had pulled them out of the ceiling on two different floors. They weren't wide enough for two rats to crawl next to side-by-side, and yet, here he was.
"Okay," A voice in his headpiece said. Somehow, Pryce— the real one— and the rest of the task force were still alive, and were giving him recon. "You're going to need to climb up again. You should be over the infirmary in about ten minutes."
Robert swallowed as he crawled over a grate, watching Sinclair and Reynolds talking with one another. He saw movement under the back of Reynold's shirt, movement that Sinclair both lacked and didn't seem to notice. Everyone who was a… Contradiction had something on their back. He had noticed it, so he knew who to eliminate when the time came. Not that he was complaining, but he wondered why they hadn't gotten Sinclair yet.
He didn't talk back into his headset, for fear of those below him hearing his crawling. He swore he caught Sinclair looking straight up at him as his foot scraped against the metal, but it was apparently a false alarm.
An upwards turn in the vents was up ahead. He crawled his way there, squatted, and began climbing up some conveniently-placed handrails.

Sinclair frowned at the air vent, before turning back to her tablet. "So, I was thinking that now that we have the internet back we can… move on from the whole business with Tristan." She dabbed at her eyes with a tissue, and palmed it against the wall behind her. "Sorry. Just… I miss him."
"I know, Kat. I was there when it happened. I still don't understand why Tofflemire did it."
"I don't think any of us will." She pulled up an image on her tablet. "We found some more of Pickman's private collection last month— some Sumerian texts pertaining to the Sea Peoples and their rituals." She pulled up an image of a tablet with an Eye of Horus imprinted on it. "Maybe we can do something about that tonight? Alone?"
"Over mead?" Monty smiled.
"Why the hell not? I think the ritual requires wine in any case." She leaned up and kissed Monty on the cheek. "7:00 okay? I know you have a meeting with Weiss for most of the day."
"She and the investigation team are still trying grilling myself and Mattings." Reynolds rolled his shoulders, leaning in to return the kiss, before walking down the hall. "Farewell, Kat!"
"Bye, Monty." Katherine looked down at the Egyptian tablet on her screen and frowned. 'Sumerian text' indeed. The mage flipped through her tablet, landing on her playlist. She had few doubts about what she had to do, but one question. "Oh, Monty?" She called after him.
"Hmm?" He turned around to face Katherine.
"Ink Spots or Talking Heads? My cousin's birthday is coming up, and he's a huge music nerd."
"Never much cared for Ink Spots. I'd go with Talking Heads."
"Thanks, hon." Sinclair waved him off, turning and walking the other way. She saw lines of blue sparks on the walls, briefly. Tablet held close to her, she got out her phone.
"Melbourne, it's me. Meet me in the intercom booth on Sublevel 6."
"We're doing it?"
"Yeah. And I got the perfect soundtrack."

With a clang whose volume made Robert cringe, the vent cover above Alice's room in the infirmary fell onto the floor. If they didn't know where he was going before, they knew now. He drooped from the vents and looked around; there, third bed from the end. The privacy covers were pulled over it, and he could see Alice's sleeping form within.
He pulled an Epipen from his hip pouch. Robert had never been more glad that he had allergies. It was quick and dirty, but the jolt of adrenaline would wake her up, and he needed all the help he could get.
Robert bounded to the farthest bed, and pulled aside the privacy curtain. He nearly dropped the pen once he saw what was there— a mannequin. An actual, clothing store mannequin. "What the hell…"
The lights in the room flashed on, and he founded a dozen firearms trained at him, all from things that looked like his teammates. Something that looked like Ruby Williams stepped forward, putting herself between Robert and a very awake Alice Carol.
"You certainly have a flair for the dramatic," Robert snarked, holding up his hands.
"Bob? Is it true?" Alice sat up higher in her bed. "Did— did you kill Tristan?"
"Of course I didn't!" Robert sighed. "This isn't Sigma-10. Everyone here is some kind of… clone, ganger, something. Contradiction. They're not real."
"He's had some kind of psychotic break," the not-Ruby explained. "Robert, we can help you, but you need to stand down. We'll place you in the brig, and once this is over—"
Robert looked around the room. Faces he'd recognized, people he'd known for years, all stood with their rifles trained on him. He saw the cluster of laser dots aimed at his center of mass.
"Funny. Peace offerings aren't usually made with a dozen barrels pointed at someone's chest."
Ruby sighed, and put up her hand, signalling for the guns to be aimed away from Tofflemire. "We want to help you. We really do."
Robert realized he didn't have any plan. Alice had been comatose for half a month, and anything he could have used to prove that these people were doppelgangers— like the fake Ewell's fully intact set of ten fingers— were useless to him.
Robert Tofflemire was, in a word, screwed. "Can I… talk to my partner? Please?" He stepped forward. "Alice, this— this isn't Sigma-10, these aren't your friends—"
Alice squeezed her sheets with one hand. "Bob. You've killed at least three people. I don't want to believe you did it, but… I've seen the video. Tristan, Hastings, February… They were your friends." She wiped her eyes. "Why'd you do it, Bob?"
He began to speak, voice cracking. "I— it's my fault. I dragged you down that stupid pit. What I saw down there, it… it did this to you, and now it's taken away… everyone here." He rubbed his eyes. "We've failed. And it's my fault."
Alice shook her head. "I didn't know that you could do such… awful things, Bob. I can't believe I went to China with you— it's a miracle you didn't… I don't know."
Robert looked up at her, eyes wet. He caught onto what she was saying— 'going to China' with 'Bob'. She never called him Bob, and there was no way she could have remembered the hole to China, not with all of the amnestics they had given her. There was no movement on her back. In his gut, he knew this was the real Alison Carol.
She knows.
"I never meant to hurt you," he shut his eyes.
"I know." Alice clutched something beneath her bedsheets. "But you've hurt others. The Pit Sloth isn't real— this is all just normal October anomalies, Bob. Nothing more."
God, you're good at bullshitting. Robert suppressed a wink and a grin, keeping his hands up.
"We can help," Blake Williams, Ruby's twin brother, affirmed. "Just… tell us what we need to do, Robert."
He looked at Blake, then at Ruby, then pointed his head at the ground. "All right. I'll… go quietly."
"That's a good sport." Ruby stepped forward.
"One condition: Blake takes off his helmet."
The Williamses blinked at one another. Blake shrugged, and removed his helmet, stepping away from Alice. The agent in the hospital bed saw that at the base of his skull, where a patch of dried Sarkic amber should be, was just hair and skin.
That was all she needed. From beneath the covers, she drew a 9mm pistol, and took aim at Blake's medulla. One shot was all that was needed to make the fake Ruby an only child.
"Bl—" Ruby began to scream, but Robert was already on her, relieving her of her assault rifle, knocking her unconscious with a blow to the temple, and aiming it at the rest of his friends.
"For a bunch of body snatchers, you are really bad at the whole copying people thing." Robert looked down at his chest, and saw the cluster of dots on it again. "Alice… I… really am sorry."
"This ain't your fault." She fanned her pistol, trying to keep her eyes on as many of the task force members as possible. "For what it's worth? I remember. All of it— falling down the pit, Jackson Sloth, the hole to China."
"So I gathered." It wasn't worth much, but Robert nodded. "Are we gonna Butch Cassidy this?"
"Only if you're the Sundance Kid." Alice smirked and took aim at the face of Nicholas Ewell. Large, furred pairs of arms began to burst from the backs of each of the task force members. They cocked their firearms—
Only for the intercoms to blast to life with a loud burst of static. The sound of it made Alice and Bob, the only real creatures in the room, squeeze their triggers and fire wildly. Half a dozen members of the fake task force were knocked down, even if their body armor held.
Then, the static stopped. The voice of memeticist Ryan Melbourne came on the intercoms. "For those of you just tuning in, that was Project MacReady, an original score by myself. If you could hear that, congratulations, you're human. The rest of you…"
Robert could almost hear the manic grin in Katherine Sinclair's voice. "I'd like to thank Montgomery Reynolds for requesting this song. Taking us to the top of the hour, it's Burning Down the House Immolation Remix by the Talking Heads."
Alice pulled Robert closer. "Whatever you do, don't move."
Robert looked confused— and then he felt the heat. As Burning Down the House came over the intercoms, he heard Sinclair's voice chanting in some language he could barely hear over the song. The intent, and the effect, was clear.
Fire engulfed the room, white and blue hot flames. The Contradictions didn't even have time to scream before their flesh melted off of their bones, and their remains were cremated. Several low, loud roars emerged from their remains, only to be silenced by the heat of the flames.
He looked at Alice's bed— there were carvings in its frame. Bright, blue runes glowed in the plastic, everywhere from the handles to the television monitor attached to the bed. That was the only reason they weren't being immolated.
The song ended abruptly in the middle of the second chorus. Every physical structure in the site was fine— but he doubted any of those Contradictions still lived. And what about down in the barracks?
Melbourne's voice echoed over the audio. "Assuming anyone's alive, meet us at the entrance to the barracks. We got work to do."

«Chapter 7 | Hub | Chapter 9»


The gunshot cracks through the sound of thrumming bass. The nerves of everyone in the apartment turn to ice, every action frozen like a universal pause button was pressed. Chetan's hand stops adjusting the volume dial on the speakers. Megan nearly drops the bowl of miscellaneous junk food, fingers just barely keeping a grip. Isabel holds the disc for the cheesefest that is Jason X inches above the DVD drive tray. Your conversation with me cuts short. John stays upstairs.
When everyone's nerves catch back up, you're the first one to whip your phone out of your pocket. Jumping up from the couch and pacing about the living room, you dial 911 in seconds. Buzz. Buzz. Buzz. The dial tone cuts off. Checking your connection, you see that you have no wifi and zero reception. Restarting the phone changes nothing.
You're about to swear from frustration when I clasp my hand over your mouth.
"Shut up," I whisper to you.
The sound of footsteps echo from the apartment building hallway. They are loud, heavy steps, the type someone would make if they wore boots of lead. It's jerky, irregular. It quickens then falters. Starts and. Stops. Sometimes doubling. Back on itself then repeating.
In thirty seconds the footsteps arrive at the opposite end of the hallway, accompanied by the quiet whine of the elevator doors opening. The doors close.
It's hard to imagine how we could return to normal after those events, but we do. We don't know why but we find ourselves all on that couch, chowing down on candy corn and chips, like the events before just slinked out of our collective thoughts. The bass turns off, the movie plays, you're laughing at how stupid the movie is, John stays upstairs. Everybody laughs even though there is only one frame of the movie, the words
STOP. IT ENTERED.
on an iris black background.
The gunshot cracks through the sound of slasher horror.
"The fuck is happening?" you say.
I try to tell you to be quiet but it's too late. The irregular footsteps slam down the hallway and. WHAM against the front door. Regular footsteps, flowing like rivers, enter from stage left, running near the door to the beat of their radio chatter. More guns fire and the irregular footsteps multiply. Everybody's attention turns from the movie to the front door (the text on the blackness shifts into
LET REGULAR IN.
while nobody watches).
You glance at me with that look. That look of being too curious for our own good. I sigh. You pull your crummy papier-mâché skeleton mask off your face and creep away from the living room, towards the front door. I step in front of you before you get there, dollar store Dracula costume momentarily blocking your view, and I put my eye over the peephole.
The gunshot cracks through the door and the back of my head pops like a water balloon.
"Fuck, we have another civilian casualty!" shouts a regular footstep owner. Assault rifles shriek.
You stand in disbelief at what happened. You can't accept that I was the one struck by the bullet that tore through the door, and you mentally blank out when noticing my blood and skull chunks coating your pants. Chetan's swearing, Megan and Isabel are hiding behind the kitchen counter, John stays upstairs. Instead of focusing on them or the body at your feet you look to the hole in the door. Through it you see liquid colors: armor blacks mixing with gunfire whites, blending with gunmetal grays and bullet grays and bullet hole reds spraying out in all directions.
"MUST LET REGULAR IN. YOU." the television says.
Before you can think about making a decision your hand has already reached the doorknob. You aren't the one to open it. The door bursts from its hinges and you are launched backwards, abruptly swerving in mid-air to avoid hitting the kitchen counter then crashing into the sofa.
A twisted figure steps from the hallway inside.
"WRONG LET IN. BACK."
Its body is like images of a hundred human skeletal structures, turned translucent and placed one on top of the other, each image changing to another before your mind can process the demented collage it witnesses. Its head is a sphere of erratically dancing jack-o'-lantern faces painted in impossible colors, staring into you at all angles. It. Steps jerkily and. Is sprinting at you but. Impossibly slowly.
You smell rotten flesh. I could've warned you about this.
"BACK."
You take a closer look. It isn't running impossibly slowly. The room is impossibly expanding. The living room is adding yards to its length, stretching the TV and couch and sprouting support pillars from the floor as it goes. You scramble down the couch's length and jump into the kitchen, scraping bits of myself off against the floorboards (how disrespectful of you).
Chetan grabs a stool and smashes the kitchen window apart. Glass shards shoot out into a void of darkness where the lights of Toronto should belong, bending into the shapes of pumpkins and cartoon witches. They hit a back "wall" of the dark and send ripples shaped like movie monsters through it. Chetan, Isabel, and Megan are transfixed by it. You scream at them to stop looking, pointing to the twisted figure. They scream at it as well.
It closes the. Gap. And wraps its arms around Chetan's neck multiplying in number to force through his neck vertebrae and CRUNCH his head against the windowsill and launch chunks of cranium out into the void Isabel charges with a kitchen knife her face caves in and in and in Megan runs for her life down the living room but you there is no exit the window wasn't one the apartment has none you John stays upstairs you
"YOU.YOU.YOU.YOU."
The knife isn't in her hands. It's. In. Yours. And you lodge it into its neck—
It dies. You and I feel like burdens have been lifted from our minds, from our world, letting existence flow free of irregularity (it was your fault it became that way in the first place).
The front door opens. Out of the swirling vortex of armor blacks and gunmetal grays steps agents wearing bloodied armor. One pulls off her helmet, taking long, deep breaths, while the other drags the corpse of his friend in, who had been rendered irregular by it. The living room shrinks to its normal size, its support pillars melding into a single impossible shape that's needles to your eyes when you look at it.
There are words the agents say:
SCP.
Number.
Type.
But their voices are flowing too smoothly, spilling from your head every time you try to understand what their radio chatter and blabbering means.
"Who are you?" Megan's disoriented, wavering back and forth in sync with how the walls seem to be drifting like waves. Her voice is slurred.

"Can you hear their voices?" asks the agent who removed her helmet.

"My girlfriend's head caved in. Who are you?"

"Can't," replies the one who inspects the holes on his dead friend. "Can you?"

"Negative."

"Who are you?"

"Shit, it must be bending this place far too much. We'll need to move quick."

And then the living room ceiling caves in. Megan's body crumples beneath the combined weight of dozens of tombstones, corpses, and party store skeleton models. The television cracks before it can get a last word out. Blood trickles.
I point out that this is your fault, too.
Black sludge spills from the holes in the ceiling, forming waterfalls between the tombstones that have a dozen purple and orange limbs claw out of them and thrust for your face. The room twists and flashes with the color of television static and you and the agents step backwards in a stride longer than humanly possible. The male agent fires at the sludge and more of the ceiling breaks off, plaster gnashing like teeth. John stays upstairs. It's annoying that they couldn't have done anything about that ceiling (is this all you care about?).
In a most useless manner, your only reaction is to run away even though the teeth and the room are dragging you in, skeleton models arranging into a red carpet leading to consumption. Bullets graze your ear. Your scream would be funny if it wasn't for the fact this may kill me too.
The agents are shouting at each other, though their voices still ripple like your surroundings do.
"YOYOUOYOUOYOUYYUYUYOU. YOU."
A hand grabs your back and you are
nothing
of
sky
a
into
far
thrown
and you hit the floor with a crunch, every bone breaking then unbreaking. I wish that could've killed you, but instead you are alive enough to look at the teeth while your iris grows into a broomstick-shaped plasma cannon. The arm sludge and ceiling incinerates in a single THWOOM of your gun. The male agent fumbles at a pouch on his armor, pulling out a grenade. He clicks a button on it. He throws. John writhes upstairs. It bounces along the floor and blinds you with an intense red flash.

The world feels fine again.
"Anchor won't last long so I'll say this quickly," the woman says. "Your friend is a—

Type.

"Err, he's a—

Type.

Invisible hands are pushing against the insides of your head, your brain feeling like it will burst at any moment.
"Fuck, this won't last as long as I hoped. Bottom line is that something's gotten ahold of your friend and is fucking things up. Can you tell us where they are?"
"…Who?" you ask.

"The one who had to go upstairs," I whisper into your ear.

"John?"
"If that's his name then yes, where the hell are they?"

I prod your leg, trying to jog your crummy memory.
Don't you remember?
John went upstairs because he had a panic attack.

John didn't go upstairs.
The apartment only has one floor.

"He's upstairs," you say.

Waves of pressure slam against your body and the grenade's light goes out. Cheap decorations of skeletons and ghosts slide along the walls and amass into a second doorframe next to that of the front door, plaster splitting apart while a chunk of wall swings out on hinges of meat. Behind it is a stairwell.
You slowly step towards the door.
"Stop," I whisper to you.
You aren't stopping.
"STOP!" I'm shouting into your ear now. You wince but you keep going.
Don't you get it?
This is where both of us are going to die. If you go up there, my remnants still neatly stuck to you, we will never escape. When I began to exist on the couch next to you I thought you were the smart one. The one who'd get out. But no. You got its attention. You got your friends killed.
You didn't even go to help John when horror festivities got to their nerves.
STOP.
I'm holding onto your leg, I'm pleading, you aren't listening, you aren't listening. Screaming and kicking my corpse off will change nothing. Neither will the bullet the woman shoots through what's left of my head, only spraying more of myself onto you. Kicking my head in is unnecessary and gratuitous.
You are a monster, you know that?
It's all you've ever been. It's going to get everyone in this city killed.
Luckily, I have experience with people like you. Chetan, Megan, and Isabel all had to put with you. We had to put up with you. You and the two agents are running into the stairwell, shouting, while We come together, out from the piles of tombstones and from the viscera on the floor and the kitchen counter, stretching our arms and breathing in the air. The male agent shuts the door but We stretch over and tear it from its hinges, making the frame bleed and scream.
The stairwell twists beneath your feet. Each step jumps between miles apart and distances with negative numbers in them, though you cross it all. At the top of the stairs is a room like the living room but with all the furniture sinking into the floor and the lights releasing the color black. It peels off the wall and approaches. You wish you had a gun then you have a gun, and all three of your fire. Its pumpkin gut brains dash along the wall.
We watch this happen. We scramble up there on legs of meat. The male agent is the first to call the alert, so we tear a chunk of flesh from his chest and bash him through another doorway into a dark closet space. You run for the door straight ahead and trip over a partially submerged lamp. The female agents primes a grenade.
Our bundle of limbs and nervous tissue grabs her, tugs, and she is

torn

from

head
to
toe

across

the

room

only leaving streaks of scarlet along the floor
and you feel like you mind is lunging itself from wall to wall in defiance of what it sees. We push you into that floor and it dyes your costume RED while Our breath corrodes it into sickly orange. I lean down, licking your face and reaching Our hands into your mouth, clawing past barricades of flesh to push into your

The deceased agent's grenade goes off. You remember the list of people invited to the party:

You
Chetan
Megan
John
Isabel
Not I

I am not here. We They melt into a rotten miasma, the stench creeping while their bodies extricate from each other's spinal tangles and musculature cages into a mud of gore. You scramble out, vomiting the last of your junk food, and you stumble through the room as it stretches into a hallway of vines and blood, towards the black door at its end. You reach the door, twisting its bone-white handle and throwing it open.
John stays at the room's rear.
Vortices of purple swirl at his head.
"TAKENTAKENTAKENTAKENHELP." says the television wired into his mouth.
And death surrounds him.
It is the spirit of the season. It is an amalgam of every costume and jack-o'-lantern face and candy, swirling in a barely human form shaped like a hole in the wall behind John. It is the size of an ocean and is deeper than the darkest well. It doesn't belong to this world. John tries to claw his head off even though every hand of his splinters into nothing. It bites harder into John's brain.
You don't stand a chance. The room drops into an abyss, floorboards becoming spikes that impale you a thousand times over. You bleed out of your body and keep reaching for John, skewering everything onto plastic-wrapped candy bayonets. John dips his hand into but you are ripped away in a burst of iridescent shadow. Existence is migraine-inducing and you are in the midst of a broken kaleidoscope of apartments and the dead. When the walls come into focus they are no longer walls, they are windows to the Toronto skyline. It smashes the glass panes with mindless ferocity but they don't give. John is swung into them, brain tissue dangling on marionette strings, and cracks form.
This is what I warned you about. It's looking through your own eyes at the world beyond the apartment building. You delivered us to It and it'll break out, you failure. You've delivered everyone to it. You complete and utter wretch of a—
Far away a red light flashes.

It was the last anchor he had on him.
Blood in the formation of an eight-fold fractal worms its way around him, expanding in complexity as he pokes the holes on his chest, douses them in scarlet, then draws additions onto the floor with his fingers. He shouldn't know this rite. If the Foundation realized that he did know, he'd have a hypodermic needle in his skin and amnestics in his veins, likely in seconds. He wouldn't blame them.
The last of the blood falls into place. He turns his radio on.
"This is Agent Legrand of MTF Upsilon-20, 'Hogtown Garrison.' Command, if you are reading this, fucking brace yourselves."
He switches off the radio, collapses along the closet wall, and goes limp.
Any second now it'll set off.
Any
second

now.
Unreality creeps back in and the ritual clicks into place. It and everything else freezes, like a universal pause button was hit.
The apartment around us explodes.
We're slammed through hell and back and back again and shot into a hundred glimmering afterlives above and ejected through the razor-thin gaps between worlds into the pitch black OUTSIDE.
 This
 is
 where
 we
 decay
But you don't. John imprints enough of himself into your soul that your body, against all logic, survives the metaphysical maelstrom the OUTSIDE subjects to those who enter it. It vanishes. Everyone else becomes conceptual ash. You become Concept.
And you try to remember how you became the detritus of the cosmos.
And you reach into your head with newly grown limbs of stygian blue.
And you find that first moment
reaching into it
The gunshot cracks through the sound of thrumming—
it decays before you can even see what it looked like


Words
of a man
reaching out
to me; I cannot
deny them, music
to my ears, like the
Piper's song I walked
to with the other children.
It's hard to think of mountains
going upward when you've lived
so long with them sideways. An oar
paddling on the upside-down lake. I am
sorry for my kin, they are but bones now in a church's
garden. They are watered with their own tears so
the single rose a bishop lays there grows. Life
is strange now. I feel lost in the neon signs
and the upwards mountains. I think I've
made my choice. There is no place for
me here, Earth is not my home. Men
are not my brothers. I am going to
live where the tune of his pipe
brought me, and I will kiss
the world that once had
the cottage I lived in
goodbye. I will live
out my days
climbing.
-found on a piece of parchment at the bottom of a small hill in Lower Saxon, Germany by local Agents.


"You will face the camera and smile at the children if you know what is good for you," threatened Bobble to his prisoner. His smile and voice were as calm as could be, like this was therapeutic for him.
Mr. Laugh was not amused. He was reading the newspaper and pointedly ignoring the other clown. No one in the bar seemed to care about the two of them.
"You know what is actually good for me? Vodka. Lots of it."
Bobble laughed with sinister tranquility. "Real clowns drink Milk! You will do as I say or I will turn on the maximum tickle machine!" Sounds of electric arcs could be heard in the background.
"Anything but that, I yield," replied Mr. Laugh without a hint of enthusiasm or dread. "But if I am the last one standing by the end of this, you will let me go."
Bobble had to hold back a hearty chuckle despite himself. This guy was not too shabby at jokes. "Do you really think you can beat me?"
"I don't. I am mostly thinking about how much I hate Milk. Let's get this over with."
"Where's your sense of spectacle, my friend? It's very unprofessional of you."
"You'll see soon enough."
Bobble ordered two glasses of Milk and assumed his most child friendly tone. "Hello, kids! Today we're going to learn about two fun activities called irresponsible drinking and getting into fights!"
"Kids don't really need you to teach them that, you know. No wonder your show is doing so bad."
Bobble gave Mr. Laugh a death glare but resumed his composure. "See, kids, it's really simple. Just get your hands on some fake IDs, go to a bar and drink until your inhibitions go away! Then insult the scariest looking person there and beat the daylights out of them with a concealed weapon! Bonus points for property damage, theft and escaping from the authorities!"
"Bold of you to assume kids are smart enough to fool the police."
"Be quiet! You're my prisoner, not my Straight Man!" said Bobble through an unwilling snicker.
"You better start drinking, then."
Bobble frowned and downed his glass of Milk, with a satisfied sigh. So did Mr. Laugh, with a very loud groan.
People typed on their cellphones and chatted. Waiters walked around and served drinks. The TV showed a man being mauled by an escaped tiger at a zoo in front of his family, all laughing together as he dies.
Bobble sneered at the show being displayed. "Amateurs. It's nothing but shock value with them."
"I wonder where I've seen that before…"
Bobble's face twisted uncomfortably as he fought back a belly laugh. Mr. Laugh sang Dick Van Dyke's "Put On A Happy Face" in his Eeyore voice. Two more glasses.
"Hey, wanna see a magic trick?" asked Bobble.
"You already did one. You made your audience disappear."
"Shut up. Look closely, I'm gonna make this pencil vanish…"
"I'll do you one better." Mr. Laugh pulled out his own pencil, and just shoved it into his nose. The pencil was sharpened to a stub instantly and shavings came pouring out of Mr. Laugh's ears. The poor Little Mister winced in pain as he performed his trick, and Bobble could not stop himself from guffawing.
"You won't make me laugh again!" hissed Bobble.
"I don't know about you, but I have a pretty sharp sense of humor," replied Mr. Laugh as he put down the pointy stub.
Bobble grit his teeth and grumbled. Mr. Laugh played some crossword puzzles. Two more glasses.
"Hey, you have very pretty hair," complimented Bobble, with a doofus smile forming on his face.
"Excuse me?"
"I said you have nice flair!"
"Sure…"
"So, kids, as I was saying you gotta insult the scariest looking person in the bar…"
"How about that one?" said Mr. Laugh, pointing to a huge and massively scarred biker.
"Piece of cake!" Bobble sauntered up to the biker and insulted his mother. No response. He insulted his gang. No response. He insulted his mustache.
A cacophony of violence and panicked screams erupts from off-camera. Bobble returns after a solid minute, with bruises covering his face. He spat out a tooth and sat back down, trembling in agony.
"You know what is the bright side of this?" asked Mr. Laugh.
"WHAT?"
"Your makeup actually looks good now."
"Fuck you!"
"We'll see about that, darling."
Bobble's eyes widened in surprise and his smile made him look like a wolf. This was getting interesting, he liked it when they struggled. Maybe he'd get his way this time. Mr. Laugh played with a yo-yo and gave no signs of being even tipsy. Two more glasses.
"He…hey (burp). Hellooooo handsome! Do you wanna see some balloon animals?" flirted Bobble.
"What are you talking about? I already see an animal with a head full of air right in front of me," replied Mr. Laugh with the exact same deadpan tone.
Bobble cackled wildly. "You're such a (BURP) joker!"
"I don't think I've ever killed anyone, though. Unless it was from laughter. That happens sometimes…"
Bobble unleashed a shriek of unbridled joy. "Damn straight, man!"
"I thought I wasn't your Straight Man."
Bobble just kept on laughing, forgetting entirely about his audience and staring at his prisoner ever more hungrily. Mr. Laugh did origami with the newspaper. Two more glasses.
"So what is this episode about, again?" asked Mr. Laugh in a mocking tone.
"Isss for da kiddies to learn about (BUUUUURRRRP) MIME CRIME TIME!"
"I think you're having an existential crisis. But that is honestly the least of your problems. Should I call a psychologist?" said Mr. Laugh, completely serious and sober.
"No, my sweetheart. The only treatment I need is your cream pie…"
"OK. Come closer, you bad boy…"
Bobble leaned in for a kiss and was immediately hit with a pie in the face. He roared in frustration and hysterical laughter before lunging forward to strangle Mr. Laugh. However, he was far too drunk to actually cause any harm, and just vomited all over the place. Try as he might, he just kept slipping on his own vomit and making the mess worse. The Little Mister reached into his mouth to pull out something as this happened, and eventually helped Bobble get up.
"We're so alike, you and I…but do you know what makes me different?" whispered Mr. Laugh into Bobble's ear.
"Wussat?"
Mr. Laugh strangled Bobble with a length of colored handkerchiefs. The TV played the jolly and distorted ending theme of Laugh Is Fun as Bobble released his last agonizing cackles. Mr. Laugh ordered a lot of vodka, paid for the drinks and turned to the camera.
"I don't fuck around when clowning around."