PLDN Chapter 27

"Chapter 27: The Videoland Arc"

Sub-Entry 261: "The Videoland Arc, Part 1 - Mega Land":
"Crap!  Crap!  Crap!  Crap!  Crap!  Crap!"

You idiot, Volt. You let him get inside your head and now Asriel has a huge head start into...into...wait...where did that maniac send us?!

For that matter...why was it taking so long for us to get--

"...this is bad."

...there.

The constant rush of searing bright light particles around my down-pouring in an endless river. The faint semblance of something...transparent and crystaline next to me in an endless wall...no...it wasn't a wall...it was a cylinder. The inside of what seemed like an infintessimally giant crystal pipe.

"The Axis of Realities..." I gasped as my eyes widened. We were outside of time, space, and dimension, being hurtled toward Infinity itself or so it seemed like it.

Whatever technology Adonis used to make that Cyber Portal, he flung Asriel and myself into the very heart of existence as the InfinityVerse knew it. By now we were well beyond the boundaries of our own UltraVerse AU and passing by branches upon branches upon branches of AU's within the centeral. It would only be a matter of time before we impacted a node leading to a Prime Universe.

Not being authorized to access a Prime Universe, much less one I didnt' know if we had recorded or not was the least of my worries. There was a good chance neither of us were still linked to A.E.O.N. We were lost in a river of dimensions without a G.P.S.

But that didn't matter to me. Only one thing mattered now.

I grit my teeth, started pulling in the energy from the tachyons all around me until Lady Destiny's contract felt like it was straining with how much it was expending to keep me alive. This was incredibly desperate, incredibly reckless, and by all means would likely kill me several hundred times over...but I didn't care about the risk. As outlandish as the ring total was going to be...it was a spit in the bucket compared to infinity itself

Then I focused all of my power to manefest as many electromagnetic induction rings as I could as far away from me as I could. I was going to use them as a magnetic rail driver, the same way I had done in the throne room to close the distance between my fist and Evil-Chara's jaw.

"Hold on, Azzy...I'm coming!"

By the time I entered the first ring, all of them were fully charged. And using the tachyon flow all around me to greatly mega-enhance my powers...I estimated I had made a tunnel consisting of 186,000 EMF rings...well, well, WELL beyond my electromagnetic limits. Impossibly so. One ring per mile of distance, and I intended to cross every last one of them within the span of one second--literally the speed of light.

"In hindsight...I think I immediately regret this--"

I'm...not sure...what happened next...

...but...I do remember suddenly seeing--

"ASRIEL!"

I saw him plummeting down the tunnel, arms by his side...and unconscious. Like a bomb being dropped.

The feeling of deja vu was more intense than ever as I drew my arms in and strained every last electromagnetic fluxuation in me to close the distance. And sure enough I was able to catch up, wrap my arms around him protectively and cling to him with every fibre of my being.

Yeah...it was just like that time, seven years ago...when I saved you and brought you to Miranda.

"I gotcha...I gotcha..."

Our combined mass did however affect our equilibrium as it became harder to steer two people toward a safe landing. And Hell...the odds of a water fountain being below us might as well be zero.

I unleashed all the pent up energy and the effect was akin to deploying a parachute. The sudden unstable flux of energies didn't dispurse evenly and I was slammed into the wall of the Axis of Realities. There was a ripple and a dilation...before we were both sucked up into a smaller branch and pinballed around until I could make out the path to a stable universe.

With that we were cast back into existence and spit out into another world.

Blue sky. Oxygen-rich atmosphere. Immense levels of civilization below...in fact it looked downright futuristic, if not robotic. Cybertron, maybe? No. It didn't look right to be Autobot and Decepticon territory.

That was of little consequence...the bigger consequence was...landing was going to be imminant...and Asriel wouldn't survive it.

"C'mon, buddy.  Don't give up the ship on me, now." I wrapped an electromagnetic, Gaussian mass of magnetic flux around him, adjusting its density to be like a rubber ball surrounding foam and layers of springs..and held it in my arms with a steel grip.

I hadn't realized by this point I must've appeared as a gold streak of light as I impacted the ground, landing on both feet.

"URGH...!" The tacyhon mass I had pulled free with me cushioned well over 95 percent or more of the impact...but seriously...ow...I'm pretty sure that's going to leave a mark. That and the crater gave me a pretty good hint how bad it was. For now...I think I was going to take a little nap...

* EXTERNAL LOGGING OFFLINE. SUBJECT UNCONSCIOUS... *

* EXTERNAL LOGGING RESUMED. SUBJECT'S INJURIES HEALED. *

"Volt!  Volt!  Wake up, Volt!"

My eyes fluttered open...oww....legs were still sore...but I'm guessing they were no longer liquified. My Bracer's systems were still operative so I'm guessing my clothes reintegrated with no trouble.

"Azzy?"

"I'm okay.  When I woke up...well...you...weren't so much...better off not imagining what I saw."

"Wouldn't be the first time I've see myself look like I went through a meat grinder then a blender."

"Eww."

"That said...I don't think we're anywhere near home."

Asriel helped me out of the crater. "Anyway...I guess... I never thanked you for saving me way back then...so...I guess I can thank you for saving me now AND then."

"It's...*sniffle*...what friends do." Was I about to cry? Ahem...anyway...

"Ahem.  Well.  It's obvious we are nowhere near home.  With the obvious stated......where...are we?"

We looked around. Eveyrthing was a mix of industrial--dull gun-metal, blue-ish grey, and traces of purplish platinum sheet metal...and hundreds of ladders stretched up across the walls. It looked like an apartment complex designed by a block-building enthusiast that didn't know when to quit. Some of the building structures looked like games of Jenga gone out of control...and yet there wasn't a gap or a hole of any kind.

The sky was a magnetic pink or mauve. Hints of sunrise or sunset, maybe?

Purple disks akin to flat-head screws jutted out from some of the structures.

As I looked closer...some of structures almost didn't seem physically attached to one another. Like one builiding hover over another, linked only by the ladders.

I could make out plenty of industrial grade vents and mechanical doorways, catwalks, and everything seemed to be edged with perfectly straight seams.

"Eesh...this place just screams 1980's cyber-punk." Asriel noted. Then he got a strange look on his face.

"Azzy?"

"...and somehow...the layout is...familiar." He stopped in front of one of the ladders. Then he started to climb.

"Asriel, wait!  We don't know where we're going on this alien world!"

"Don't we?  C'mon." He motioned me to follow. So I did.

I got to the top after a bit and joined him as he was alread looking at the next building in sequence. Then I knew exactly what he was talking about.

"...what the...!"

"Yeah.  You feel it too.  We've trained in this layout...but the look is all wrong."

"I'm beginning to follow."

"Yeah...this really does seem like what I think it is...uncanny...but..." Asriel paused. "The sky...it should be almost an aqua blue.  And the platforms should all be pea green with rivets...like steel girders...the walls are definitly grey but the patterns aren't right.  The seams and square depressions are there...so are the bars and vents...but there should be rocky boulders stacked up over there."

"Asriel...are you going with this where I think you are?"

"It seems incredible but...yeah...I am.  I mean...the only thing that would hammer it home is--"

"AZZY, LOOK OUT!"

Asriel whirled in time and hit the deck as something buzz-bombed him.

I got a good look at it as it was turning around to make another pass. It was skull-shaped with ugly white teeth; sinister, sunken-in yellow eyes, a metal nose bolted onto with riviets lining the seams on the front and back half that composed its body...and a spinning propellor rotor on top.

"Is that a...?" Asriel gasped.

"Bunbi Heli." I gritted my teeth and uncollapsed the first weapon I could dig out of my E.N.G.I.N.E. dots--which turned out to be the Corona Buster arc cannon. With a charge-up and a quick-fire, I discharged a ball of electric plasma, nailing it right between the eyes.

I expected it to explode and scatter parts everwhere but instead...it collapsed upon itself into a two-dimensional sprite glitch that dissolved out of existence in a nanosecond. There wasn't even debris left.

"Okay...never seen one do THAT before." Asriel got back up.

"That confirms it.  We're definitely in the Cut Man stage of Mega Man's world."

"Wasn't Cut Man's stage a mix of a apartment complexes and a timber-felling operation?"

"If you're going by the Powered Up edition...yeah."

"But everything looks so...wrong...like it was--"

"Animated by an 80's animation studio that probably outsourced most of the animation cells and forgot to renew their artistic license and their company name probably sounds offensive when you pronounce it, and probably even animated an action scene and forgot to put the background in?  Totally, Asriel.  The kinda look where I expect to see a plumber in green, blatently colored red."

"And you lecture me for talking to Aunt Vi too much." Asriel crossed his arms with a smug look. "Well, we might as well get out of hostile territory and see if we can find our way to civilization where we can ask for help.  If this IS an AU of Mega Man's world, then there's probably a Dr. Light."

"Let's get out of Cut Man's stage, first before we do that.  And y'know...watch for any more of those ugly looking--"

"Bladers?"

"Yeah...that sounds like a easier name to toss around than Bunbi Heli."

And so we were off through the familiar...yet de-mastered maze.

"...Those look like Blasters.  But with a surprisingly lack of red paint."

"I'm gonna call them Beaks.  Because they snap open and shut like--"

"Nice,  Azzy.  Don't get distracted or--"

"Yeah.  We'll get knocked off the ladders...which brings about another point..." Asriel pushed up his sleeve. "I just now noticed this."

"Wha...?" I checked my own wrist. Six magenta bands...or segments like a...life meter. Oh crud."

"On the plus side we get double the life energy we do in Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle.  The bad news is I think if we get trashed three times, we'll end up in the biiiiiig trash dump in the sky."

"And who doesn't want to be trash..." I smoldered, feeling like Dr. Alphys stuffed in the garbage can.

While we were gaming up in what seemed to be a game made real...

Bunnie was meditating at that moment in Rabbotou Dojo, when...

* gasp*  "Commander."

Her sixth sense hit her full blast and as if on instinct, Bunnie decided to use some rare Mojikara jutsus to make a direct line transmission to Kommand.

"Yo!  You got clearance for this transmission--"

"Do not play coy with me, "KOMMAND".  I know who you are.  And I know you serve Volt Arcade."

"Eheh..."

"I know about Daimyou, too."

"There was never any hiding anything from you, Buns."

"I have had a premonition.  The Commander...he has been taken.  And Asriel with him."

"Whoah, whoa, whoah.  Slow the boat down, Buns.   The likelyhood of him being attacked at STC Headquarters is--"  KOMMAND broke off. "...uh...surprisingly and disturbingly good.  Yeah...I'm picking up traces of a transtemporal/transpacial bubble that only recently collapsed in front of their HQ.  Plus particles indictive of Chaopolis.  Oh yeah...he opened a Cyber Portal to........this...could...be...a problem."

"How big a problem?"

"Banished somewhere into the Axis of Reality and into coordinates unknown.  It's going to take a long while before I can track them down, let alone bring them home."

"This presents another issue.  I sense Dr. Adonis has infiltrated STC.  I saw it in my vision.  He will cause chaos and disorder."

"Wouldn't be the first, won't be the last.  It's gotten pretty old, honestly, Bun-Bun."

"You must warn any of his allies."

"I'll do what I can, but someone will probably contact me first, before long.  In the mean time...this cripples our side, leaving Chaopolis to terrorize everywhere Volt was assigned to watch over.  Every project is now compromised.  More than that...STC is shorthanded to deal with what's already broken out."

"I'm afraid this calls for...that." Bunnie looked to the side.

"Ohhhh..."that".  Well.  What's breaking a few more STC protocols for the greater good.  Blah-blah-blah, I deputize all y'allz.  Don't try to actually present I.D. or the Council will arrest you for interferring, yadda-yadda-yadda.  I'm uploading his master dossier files to your T.A.O.  Okay.  Happy hunting."

"Indeed." Bunnie dissolved the Tentei Kura and pulled out the T.A.O. link, pulled its access doors open and pressed down on the big red emergency button.

"Attention all available UCIAT.  This is second in comand, Bunnie Rabbotou assuming authority for the entire operation under pro-ordinance 1-0-3.  Our Commander and Asriel have been exiled to parts unknown by Chaopolis.  As of now, we are operating under Octopus Protocol.  We will be his arms and legs for what follows next until his return.  Prepare to receive data and be assigned accordingly.  We mobilize ASAP.  Briefing will commense during transit.  Move out!"

Back at what we presumed was the Cut Man maze...

"Well.  Only thing left to do is get past Big Eye and then we take Cut Man down."

"We've destroyed hundreds of these in the simulator.  It's no big deal.  Just a trash masher attached to a googly-eye--"

Madam Fate really likes to make us eat our words. We were then knocked to the ground by the most earth-shattering of quakes. Then we made the mistake of looking up.

"Uh...they're...not that big in the game...are they?"

"Nope."

This had to be Unicron of Big Eyes. Even bigger than Proto Eye from Powered Up. This was...IMPOSSIBLE!

Now...what was it that happened in the archived logs of the N-Division whent they tackled this, originally? Oh yeah...I remember. The big difference between us and them was that there was one SERIOUSLY big drop to our doom that Big Eye was coaxing us toward. Squashed flat and likely get the boot all the way back to the beginning...or fall to our deaths and land all the way back to the beginning?

How about option three?

Asriel already had his NX Board out. "Let's see how high we can fly against this thing..."

"You're seriously going to jump over a Big Eye?!"

"You bet I am!" Asriel's eyes turned  orange.

I shrugged and hopped on with him, hoping it was powerful enough to hold two people.

"We might have a slight speed reduction..." Asriel said shuffling through foot-controlled options on the "screen" of the board. Suddenly the whole thing lurched upward as I heard the intense roar of rocket jet thrusters underneath it.

"Whoah!"

"Alright!  Try to squash us!  I DARE YOU!" Asriel taunted.

"This sounds famliar..." I grunted as I regained my balance.

The machine's eye tracked us as we went up and up and soared overhead.

"Mind if we cut in?" Asriel handed me an NX Sabre. Both expanded to easily Rekka Daizantou's horse-and-rider killing size.

"Aim for the hoses feeding into its three eye units then fire into that main box that links them all together!"

Now why hadn't I thought of that? As an electronics engineer I should know better.

As we jumped off the board, we ignited the sabres at the same time and each of us slashed a hose, knocking out its lateral sensory systems.

Once we landed, Asriel reforged his NX Zappers as I dug out the XBTOCLC's and rained Hell on the main processor. And before it could turn itself around and stomp toward us, it collapsed into the same 8-bit manner.

"For a banishment that almost certainly was intended to be certain death, this sure is a lot of fun." Asriel winked as his board returned and magnetically linked to his back harness.

"After you?" I offered Prince Dreemurr-Arcade.

"Nah.  We're in no hurry." He grinned as his eyes turned cyan.

Before long we opened the gates to Cut Man's lair and stepped through.

* SNAP SNAP*  I heard the distinct sound of scissors int he darkness.

We braced as our enemy stepped out of the shadows.

"Wait...who is that--"

"Cuts Man's the name!  Cutting's my game!  And I don't mean haaaaaair!"

"Cuts Man?  It's supposed to be Cut Man!" Asriel started before he found himself ducking a pair of golden scissors.

"That's not the Rolling Cutter, either." I frowned. "And this guy...it's like someone stuffed Gaston from Beauty and the Beast into green and orange spandex!  But that face...it reeks of asphyxiation and suffocation!  And he has ACTUAL sewing scissors on his head instead of the Pac-Man-like Rolling Cutter."

"I know, right!"

"You're not the N-Team!  I was expecting Mega Man, not...whatever you are!  Wait a minute!  You were just insulting me!"

"So...what?  You gonna make paper dolls out of us?"

"Wha...no!  That's stupid!  I'm gonna--"

"Take your cuts?" Asriel grinned.

"Grrr...stop with the puns!"

Good idea, Asriel...just keep him niiiice and distracted...

"It's a "shear" delight "dividing" this conversation into a nice back-and-forth.  There's no need to get "snippy" over it."

Cuts Man was rapidly losing his temper. He didn't see me sneak behind him and...

"Look out everyone!  IT'S KUNG FU CUTS MAN HEEEYAAAAAAAH!"

Violet, we're going to have a talk about training Asriel to troll enemies with memes.

"One more word and you're gonna--"  Suddenly his eyes went wide as I the electric surge played merry Hell with his inner circuits.

"S-S-S-Stooooooooop! Wh-what are you doing!  Get out of th-there!  Those are MY circuits--!  NOOOOOO!"

And with a final Thunder Punch I shattered the motherboards and wrecked his main power cell.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

"Guess you gotta...cut out!" Asriel mused as Cuts Man collapsed into the same 8-bit sprite glitch implosion...leaving behind his cutters.

"Weapon get?"

"Weapon get.  Then let's explain things once we make it back to Dr. Light's lab."

Asriel soon figured out that by taking Cuts Man's weapon, he had unlocked the Snipper-Clips data on his NX SwitchBoard, allowing him to use the NX joycons as disjointed scissor blades. I on the other hand used a more direct method of the figure-8 pathed textile intruments.

We entered the war back to the lab of said scientist.

But we were in for another surprise. "Uh...Dr...Light?"

"It's Dr. Wright.  And who are you?  How did you end up in my laboratory?"

"Long story.  We're...not from around here.  Got time for a tale?

One LOOOOONG explanation later.

"...I'm sorry I can be of no more help but--"

"Hey, we're the ones helping you by taking down those reprogrammed robot masters.  Don't worry. We'll zap Dr. Wily into Warp Factor Ten."

"...huh...I had the strangest feeling of deja vu..." Dr. Wright tried to sell us on borrowing the giant behemoth behind us named Garbage Man...but I convinced him NOT to activate it. He would probably thank me later...just a feeling.

We picked the next robot master warp and got there fast.

"Hey, Volt.  Did he seem more like the Sim City guy than Dr. Light?"

"Just as short, but yeah...a distinct lack of glasses and green hair.  And a teal lab coat from the 18th century?  Weird.  The beard was accurate."

While we were carving a path to Dr. Wily, Dr. Persephone was having an encounter with not-me-but-rather-Adonis. It didn't take her long to catch on. Though she had to be shrewd about it.

"...you seem to be in a hurry, Doctor.  Anything...wrong?"

"No, I...just have to wrap up my report."

"Oh...which report would that be?"

Persephone clicked the device in her lab coat pocket.

"You know...the one about SeeTech Astronomy."

"Ahhh...yeah.  Of course, that one."

"Well...I better be going before the Council--"

"Not.  So.  Fast."

Oh no. He figured it out.

"How you underestimate my proficiency with anagrams, my dear....now...let's take a little walk...shall we?"

It seemed I was down an ally and our side took a hit..........or did it?

At the workstation of my other ally, Dr. Archimedes...

"Password recognized: SeeTech Astronomy.  Red Emergency.  Re: Too Many Secrets."

"Oh no!  Dr. Persephone!" He gasped, his glasses slipping down his nose. "No, no, no no.  Dr. Adonis is HERE!  Okay...stay calm.  Play it cool.  Don't.  Let on.  Oh man...where are you, Dr. Arcade?!?"

Some time passed before we reached Dr. Wily's gates. All those robot masters. All those defenses.

"Dr. Wily I presume?" I cracked my knuckles as I looked at the back of the high-tech chair in front of the mainframe.

"I was expecting *wheeze* intruders...but I was not expecting, you kinder."

This Dr. Wily was German?

"Congratulations on NEARLY destroying my robot family."

"Uh...check yourself, Doc.  Your bots went bye-bye."

"I'm afraid not, herr bovine creature.  *gasp* You see...I am a genius.  Und a genius always plans ahead."

"...backup clones!" Asriel gasped as the domed hatch opened and all six robot masters were standing there, looking pretty itching for revenge.

Cuts Man in all his green and orange disappointment. What I assumed was Bomb Man. Green. Turtle-like. It was like a metal version of a Koopa Troopa, wearing metal high tops. Ice Man. Looking more like the fusion of the Snow Miser and Captain Cold...and even WIELDING one of Captain Cold's freeze guns. Elec Man. Purple sweat suit, with an ugly metal aviator's cap and immense tinted glasses that were easily as big as our Elec Man's mask. Fire Man...pudgey, red, orange and silver with that narrow green visor and vents on his cheeks...just...not looking quite right. And yes...Guts Man...similar to ours but navy blue, magenta, and orange.

"These guys again."

"You cannot beat us!"

"What is this?  The Australian Nintendo commercial?" I dodged an ice beam as Asriel fell back to back with me, just out of reach of the scissors.

"Actually..." Asriel smugly looked in my direction. "That's exactly what we're going to do." I finished.

We got in the center as the formed a ring around us. Then all it took was just the right move to slip past as Bomb Man's weapon missed and hit Guts Man with an explosion as his fist smashed into Cuts Man, while his scissors clipped into Elec Man, whose bolts quickly fried Ice Man as his ice beam went off and froze Fire Man as his torches ignited Bomb Man.

Asriel hoisted me up on the NX Board as we watched the delightful train wreck play out.

A simultaneous scream from all six cut out as they exploded in that very familiar fireworks disintegration we knew from back home.

"Now...you were saying?" I dusted my hands off, feeling a little cocky.

"YOU'RE FINISHED NOW!!!" Wily roared as his chair slide back, flipped over and transformed around him, becoming a hovership.

"Really?  Really?!" I gritted my teeth as we landed.

"Let's wrap this up, quick, Volt."

"Let's do." I threw down my last Chronoton Detonator into Wily's path as the vehicle screeched to a halt, frozen in time.

"Let's see what happens when you install third-party software into this thing." Asriel helped me open the cockpit and plug his board into the computer.

"And this is why no one uses file-sharing programs anymore, goat son." I yanked the plug out and let science take its course.

We got out of the way and let time resume.

"WHAT HAVE YOU DOOOOOOOOOONE--!" Was the last thing Wily said before his ship went crazy and crashed out of the top of the ceiling to parts unknown.

"Not even a goodbye?  How rude." I mused.

"Well.  He's blasting off agaaaaain!" Goat Son chuckled.

That was when a swirling blue portal opened.

"That could be our way out of here.  Let's go." I beckoned.

"Huh?  What's that?" Asriel ran over to something buried in the crater where the robot masters had blown up.

"Azzy, let's not waste time.  The sooner we get back home the sooner we can defend against Adonis' forces."

"No, I'm serious.  This thing buried in here...it looks like it doesn't belong here." Asriel grabbed with both hands and yanked it out.

It was green and crystalline...like a shard of a giant gemstone or a rune or something.

"Bring it along.  We'll analyze it later." I said as Asriel quickly stowed it in his ITEM box.

"Next stop...home?  Maybe?"

"Here's hoping." We dove in and the portal closed.

At that moment, the doors to Wily's lab were suddenly punched in and in ran.

"Okay, Wily!  Give up or I mega-blast you back to--"

The dark aqua and turguoise clad midget cut off sudden, cutting off in mid sentence. With a voice that could be described as Popeye as a chain-smoker or someone doing a Dr. Girlfriend impression an octave or two higher than it should be, this was definitely not our Mega Man.

"Huh?  What the mega-heck is going on?"

"Come in, Mega Man!"

"Dr. Wright!  I read you!  Something mega-weird is going on around here."

"Return to the lab...I might have some answers for you...as well as more questions, in general..."

"Roger." He quickly entered a newly-opened blue, swirling vortex and disappeared...

All I can say is...wow, what a long log entry. But it was just the beginning.

Sub-Entry 262: "The Videoland Arc, Part 2 - Mount Icarus":
"...I think we can scratch "home" off of probable destinations."

"Where are we now, Volt?"

"Don't know. Looks like something out of Athens, Greece...possibly the Roman Empire back in the days of the gods of Olympus...or...wherever.  I need to brush up on history."

"There's an ironic thing for a time-traveller to say."

"Heh." I shook my head.

"Well, we got the sandals, but we're missing the swords and the togas."

"Aunt Vi would be too amused."

"C'mon...let's find our way around this...well...place."

"Uh...Volt?  Umm...you might not want to look over the edge here."

"Why, is there a--"  I cut off. "...problem...?" I gulped as I looked straight down.

"Ohhhhhh boyyyyy." I felt my fear of heights culminate.

"This world is like some kind of floating island.  Like Angel Island.  Only...waaaaay bigger."

"More like a giant floating mountain top with some flatland and such." I got back from the edge. "Something like Skyloft." I recalled the Hyrule archives.

"No...I don't think so...if anything it feels more like..."

We both looked at each other.

"Angel Land." We guessed in unison.

Yeah...the abundance of stone arches and aquaducts, temples, pantheons, colloseums and whatnot. The overworld was mixes of green, grassy areas with said temples, quickly segueing into icy blizzard tundra, seguein again into magma-pooled island in volcanic territory. The further we tried to look up the mountain range, the more the clouds obscured it. I couldn't even see the peak.

"Though to be fair...neither of us have been to Pit's home realm.  Who can say what it really looks like."

"Of all games for Violet to NOT include in your curriculum....she had to leave out Kid Icarus: Angel Land Story, Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters, and Kid Icarus: Uprising." I crossed my arms. By now Pit had total recall of his third war back home, which coincided with the game finally being available to us.

It was fairly normal for us to see the reflection of fact with fiction in our universe. And this sort-of meta mechanic that allowed Asriel to become familiar with the past of our own VideoLand and the N-Division only seemed to be fully realized with situations like this.

"Well.  We'll just have to...wing it."

"Pun point for the goat." I shrugged as we tried to pick our way around. It didn't take us long to figure something ELSE was off about this place.

"I know I'm just asking a question neither of us knows the answer to...but...why does everyone say "-icus" after every other sentence or phrase?  I mean...back home, Pit never said something like "danger-us maximus"."

"Just roll with it.  It's fairly obvious by this point we're in VideoLand.  But not OUR VideoLand.  This must be some weird AU of it somewhere else in space and time."

"Yeah...the same weird...appearance carried over from the last world we were on."

"That last guy sure had an epic beard.  I've never seen a beard that looked like it was done up in curlers before."

"And yet it definitely goes with the tunics, headbands, and sandals.  Yup.  Fusion of Greek and Roman, I'd say."

"The funny thing is...no one freaked out about our appearances."

"Yeah...but there sure are a lot of people with wings.  Other angels?"

"Well.  Angel Land is the world where man and gods live in peace according to Pit."

"But the people back there called this place "Mount Icarus".

"Yeah...strange."

Probably shouldn't have been so caught up in the moment, because it didn't take us long to accidently stumble into the underground labyrinths.

"Probably should have looked for a shop to buy a torch."

"Who needs a torch when you've got..." I raised a palm and generated a ball of bright yellow-white plasma.

"Nice."

"You'll have to walk me through this place, Volt.  You've played the Kid Icarus games, right?"

"Yeah.  Pit says that there's a lot about them that's incredibly familiar about his home realm so...it's as good a map as we're going to get unless we actually find a map."

A little less fumbling around in the darkness still didn't guard against pots full of Snakeys or spider webs with some creepy crawlies that made me suddenly hope I squared away my tab with Muffet.

What seemed like hours to goat son passed before we took down a nasty fire-breathing boss. I think Pit had said something like this existed on his world...didn't he call it...Twinbellow? Sure didn't match the description. For our troubles we got a treasure chest.

"One of those Three Sacred Treasures Pit described?"

"Yeah, but I thought they were still out of commission.  The God of the Forge doesn't even know if he can repair them."

"I don't think they'll do us any good.  We should find a responsible party and make sure they don't fall in the hands of evil."

"Bet you there's two more of these, elsewhere."

I began to realize what this adventured needed now was a good segue that I could conviniently use for Goat Son and I to make progress through this weird world without filling this log entry up with just our antics. That said......

Back at STC Headquarters, I had an ally struggling to really sell how gullible and naive he was not to throw my nemesis off the trail.

"...hey, Volt!  Hey, Volt!"

Adonis' knuckles cracked as he tightened his grip before putting on the schlock-iest of impressions of me.

"Look, I know I said I wouldn't bother you for another autograph, but this is the last one!  Promise."

"OF course." Adonis gritted through clenched teeth. Well. Might as well suffer for your mischief, Allouicious.

While Adonis was busy with that, Dr. Archimedes had already forwarded the alert to Dr. Nicodimus. And sure enough the Old Geezer would pull through, in order to get the message to KOMMAND, underneath both Adonis' and the Council's noses.

"Slow and steady, m'boy.  Slow and steady.  Don't tip your hand too early, or we'll all end up in his grasp."

While Persephone wasn't so lucky, Nicodimus had far more experience than even me which made it all the more believable when he had to sell his apparent senility.

"Doddering old fool..." Adonis grumbled under his breath as he had run into Nicodimus once the old man had destroyed the evidence that Archimedes had sent him.

Nicodimums slid his gaze to the left as Adonis left the room.

"Arrogant upstart." He muttered.

By this time Kommand was already coordinating with Bunnie to lighten the load I'd have to come back to if...no...when we returned home.

Two iterations of the Phoenix Foundation would find the best possible help...

"Mr. Angus Macgyver?  And...Mr. Angus Macgyver?  I've been sent by a friend to help straighten this mess out.  Call me Gadget."

My little sister was off world using UCIAT's latest in human disguise techniques to solve problems. I think she won the two Macgyvers over with her shirt that read "Improvise or Die". I just know that was Violet's contribution.

In another cross-rift where two iterations of the Knight Foundation were at odds with each other, Sally had doned human form to take on the world of the Knight Rider.

And so on. And so on. And so on.

But before I get off topic...

We scoured more of the overworld and path toward the sky of Mount Icarus. I began to notice the unnatural orange sky. Was it sunset already?

We'd gotten to a section of what appeared to be temples among the clouds...temples that seemed like they had been frozen in time after self-deconstructing. THe broken pillars and the archers completely torn away but floating in midair was unnerving.

And that salmon pink sky around us. Shouldn't it be well...blue?

Off in the distance a set of mini mountains also floated on its own set of clouds.

Toward the other direction, a tmple building that looked honestly...like a bank more than anything.

"Well.  Which way, Azzy?"

"I know you don't judge a book by its cover...but...call it a good feeling but, we should probably take the temple that isn't falling apart before we take the one that is."

"Yeah...I have the same weird feeling, too.  Let's find out what's inside..."

And inside was.

"...there's nothing here but...a hot spring?"

Asriel dipped his hand in.

"Oooh.  More than a bit tepid, I'll give you that."

"Azzy...I know that look.  We shouldn't be wasting time here when the mission goes on."

"Yeah, but...y'know."

Okay. He convinced me without really convincing me.

"...you know, Pit is right.  This is relaxing." I laid back in the water with Azzy across from me.

"And hey...maybe they restore health or something.  I mean...if we're going into another labyrinth, we might as well be at full HP.  Right?"

"You don't need to sell it anymore.  Besides...no one's around to yell at us for enjoying ourselves in some downtime.  After all..."

"Angel Land wasn't built in a day?" Asriel winked, eyes turning cyan.

"Oh, you."

A bit of a soak later, we got dressed and headed toward the other temple.

"You know, you're right, Asriel.  I do feel better."

"Like you could take on the world?"

"Depends which world." I shrugged, non-challantly.

And once inside...

"...oh yeah.  Not forboding at all."

"Glad you picked the nicer temple first?"

"I'd say it got me prepared for this..." I poked at the ugly statues. "Soo...?"

"Yeah.  Either someone's an obsessive artist or we got a nasty gorgon in here."

"Let's just get a move on."

Our journey stopped suddenly at an alter. An on it were...

"A mirror, an arrow, and a bow?"

"Volt...doesn't that sound..."

"Famliar.  Yeah.  Pit spoke of something like this.  Fire Arrows, Sacred Bow, and Protective Crystal...though...this looks less like a crystal and more like a mirror."

"Palutena's Mirror?" Asriel grinned.

"Oh, you." I shook my head. Who know Violet's obssessive need to make a nostalgia nerd out of Asriel woudl actually come in handy?

"Let's be careful how much stuff we raid.  We already got clones of master weapons and a sacred treasure."

"And limited E.N.G.I.N.E. dots and ITEM spaces."

By the time the shrill, high-pitched witch cackle sounded out accompanied by "Who dares enter my lair?!"...we were long gone. Or so we appeared.

"Gravity control. What DIDN'T Nikita put into that board of yours?" I whispered as we stuck close to the ceiling, upside-down.

We stealthfully got out of there before Medusa could figure out what happened. Though...her rage over being robbed of the three power items that were out in the open could be heard as far away as the Colluseum we had reached.

"Sometimes...we're too good for our own good.  Y'know?"

A high-five from Goat Son.

In a couple of hours we had two more treasure chests and were almost at the top of Mount Icarus.

"You know...I do believe we're being followed, Volt."

"She doesn't give up easily, does she?"

"Plan?"

"It's a doozy." I said before whispering in Asriel's ear.

"Oh-ho-ho..."

Moments, later, Asriel stood before the blue swirling warp zone.

"You thought you could escape!  Why so shy?  Come and take a look at beautiful MEDUSAAAA!" The snake-haired ex-goddess grabbed Asriel by the shoulder and spun him around and pierced into his eyes--

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!"

Clever boy. Wearing the "protective crystal" as a mask. Kudos to Gadget for giving me the idea to makeshift a way to strap it around his head on the fly.

"I'M...TURNING...TO...STOOOOOONE...!"

And with that, Medusa was--

"I'd say her plans to rock us just bricked.  Never assume the bowl-der is half empty or you'll get rocked.  And that's the stone-cold truth.  Don't take us for granite, eh?" Asriel beckoned for bro-fist.

"You are getting carried away with those puns, yet I'm loving it." I returned the bro-fist.

"C'mon, let's bounce." And we were through the warp zone and gone. As one warp closed, another opened.

Along the way, Asriel noticed another of those green fragment things, now resting on the previously empty alter in this temple chamber. They almost looked like they fit to......ah, we'll figure it out later.

"Your time is up-icus, Medusa!  I--"

The red-haired, green-eyed, short stack with wings lowered his bow.

He was wearing a yellow toga and tan sandals. And white gloves? And weirdly enough..he had the same cartoonishly rosey cheeks as Chara...both of them.

And even still...his ears were slightly pointed.

A quiver of arrows was strapped to his left side and he held a purple bow just his small size.

"What's going on-icus?!  I got here at maximus speed-icus and Medusa's already defeated?" He almost threw the weapon to the ground. He definitely sounded hot-tempered and impatient. Like a real...kid...huh.

"Kid Icarus!  Are you there?  What happened?  Did you defeat Medusa?" Came a young woman's voice from the other side of the portal. She had to be about 15 to 17.

"Someone beat me to the punch-icus!    Kid Icarus called back through the portal.  "This makes me upset-icus to the maximus! It would have been so epic and now I don't get to do anything-icus!"

"Come home!  We'll talk about it at the Palace of Power."

"Yeah!  Mega Man's back from Megaland and he went through the same thing!  Someone totally wiped out Dr. Wily and his wicked robots!" Another voice came through. This one male and also 15 or so."

"Coming, Princess-icus!  Coming, Captan N-icus!" The winged boy flew back through the portal, grumbling about the lack of action. Along the way he almost tripped over the three treasure chests we left for him.

"Huh?" Pit shrugged and pushed them to the portal and dropped them in before entering himself. Oh well. At least these would be in a safe location.

Sub-Entry 263: "The Videoland Arc, Part 3 - CastleVania":
Asriel and I looked off into the distance...then at each other.

"CastleVania." We said in unison.

"What else could it be?" I shrugged.

"It looks different than the village town of Wallachia.  But I'd recognize that castle anywhere." Asriel point of into the darkness at the creepy European castle, swarmed by thunderstorm clouds, lightning, and...bats.

"So.  Think it's more CastleVania or more Simon's Quest?" I pondered.

"Playing the probability game...probably both combined."

"There's a concept.  A CastleVania game that plays as both..." I shrugged. "I guess we head to the castle.

"But we'll have to go through the town to get there.  Won't that cause...problems?"

"What do you mean?"

I really wish I had taken my "obvious" pills at that moment.

Screams followed by people running in their houses and locking their doors.

"Oh.  Right.  Sometimes I forget I'm a werewolf."

"Uh-huh." Asriel crossed his arms and looked as smug as Chara.

"What?  You've never once woken up and forgot you were a goat man?"

"Nope."

I rolled my eyes. "Right." I demorphed as he hit the Unitrix.

"Stock up on supplies?"

"You're turning into a pack rat, Asriel." I shook my head as he was already entering "Honest Dave's Vampire Hunting Shop.

"Why does this seem...famliar?" I eyed the sign warily. The smell of garlic was incredibly enticing...

But it would be just our luck.

"What does he mean "pay in hearts"?" Asriel shrugged.

"Well..."

"Oh.  Right.  Another game mechanic.  Shouldn't...hearts restore life and not be currency?  I mean...whatever happened to gold pieces?"

"Welcome to 80's gaming logic, Asriel.  Pity.  I was hoping to get a light snack."

"Yeah, I saw you oggling the garlic barrels.  The owner almost suspected you were a vampire until he saw you drooling.  Then he asked you to leave for a different reason."

"Is it that easy to tell who might be a werewolf on this world?" I scoffed.

After getting out of town, we soon found ourself in the castle's hedge maze.

More spiders. Somehow...they just didn't have the appeal of Muffet's friends. Also...there was a significant lack of synchronized dance and...er...hand-clapping? How did spiders clap their hands to the music, now that I think about it?

By the way...speaking of werewolves...

One such grey and white furred lycanthrope dropped down in front of us, snarling.

"Excuse me?" I lowered an eyebrow.

It responded by growling and snarling louder, threatening to claw at us.

"Okay...are you supposed to be a werewolf or the unused animation cells of Wile E. Coyote?" I crossed my arms.

It responded by snapping at me.

"I normally say this to my son-in-law but..."

I drew back and whapped him one on the nose with a loud smack. "Show some dignity and put on some pants!"

It yelped and reciprocated before attempting to gather its courage and roar at me. But I responded in kind by  wrapping myself in lightning and letting out a roar that EASILY outclassed him, actually causing him to shed an amount of fur in cloudy poof.

Quickly, it dropped to all fours and ran away, yipping.

"I think for the first time I actually feel insulted." I crossed my arms and smoldered, folding my ears back.

"Do you find something amusing, Azzy?"

Goat Son was covering his mouth with both hands and struggling to keep the laughter in. "N-No.  N-Not a th-thing...snicker..."

Ugh. I'm totally cutting this log entry away to the others, now. Hey, don't judge me! It's my account of what's happening!

Anyway......

"...hi, I'm the archangel, Pit.  Are you the Silverhawks?"

And exchange of stares. And that wasn't the only awkward reaction to my team spreading itself thin...

The explosions were well coordinated and just surgical enough to change the landscape in order to divert the runaway tanker full of explosive nuclear waste from its head-on collision to the safely cordoned-off area where it could be stopped and contained.

"Who set off those demolitions?"

And thus came the confident salute and greeting of...

"Drew White, UCIAT's demolitions expert and naval officer.  Heard you guys needed a helping hand."

"Kid...you just temporarily joined Blast Corps."

Even on the outskirts of VideoLand, the "N-64" era worlds were hit. Thankfully our demo-man, boxer, sailor was there to offer his services to contain the otherwise disasterous toxic blunders that only a crack team of ex military specialists would be crazy enough to tackle.

And...

"My name is Miyamoto Usagi.  I have been sent by friends of Dr. Volt Alessandro Arcade.  Would you be...?" Usagi paused as he glanced at the green-furred rabbit in the bright military...space...uniform before him.

"Captain Bucky O'Hare.  Um...nice to meet you,  Usagi." The space captain looked back with the same unease for a moment.

A momentary silence lasted a bit before the four-armed, eye-patched duck stifled a cough.

Even still...

Bunnie had shown Mitzi the ropes of the ninja art of disguise. But even we were amazed by how well Mitzi had mastered it. To the point it was easy for her to walk around other worlds as human and not give herself away...even around those like Frisk with extra sensory perception or Splinter with his own level of psychic ability.

But who would have thought she'd end up on a world where one of Bunnie's sensei's was still alive.

"What do you think, Mr. Miyagi?"

"What Miyagi think no matter.  What matter...we have powerful ally.  We may recover the shrine."

"It's weird...something about her reminds me of Ali."

For Daniel LaRusso to bring up Ali Mills so casually......but then again...yeah, I could definitely see it in Mitzi...minus the whole rich girl thing.

"She has befriended Taki-chan rather easily.  Gives Miyagi hope."

Taki Tamurai. Okinawan. The third member of the karatekas. The three of them had been traveling together to recover a miniature shrine from where it was stolen, putting them on a world quest. It seemed this time, Chaopolis had intervened to complicate matters.

It seemed wherever there was trouble in our nostalgia dimension, Bunnie had coordinated the team-up efforts to perfection.

It was almost like the N-Division lived again, the way my team was all across our universe, containing the chaos.

But all the while...

"Splt up?"

"To cover more ground.  We can make it to Dracula's tower faster that way."

"I don't know...you've seen horror movies.  You KNOW how bad splitting up works."

"I just feel like conquering the odds."

Asriel's eyes flickered between orange and purple. Wait...did he feel...?

"Asriel...bravery and perserverence?  I've never seen that combination out of you before."

"Well...to be fair, this place looks a lot creepier than it does on a TV screen.  It's making me wish I could press the Reset Button."

"Please don't say Reset, Asriel."

"What is it about that word that bothers you?"

"Just...things."

"You mean...like the code Violet locked up?"

"Yeah...I'm afraid of what it does....what it MIGHT do..."

"Hey.  Don't worry, Volt.  You worry enough for both of us.  Let me have enough confidence for both of us, okay?"

"Sure.  We'll take the fork in the road and go from there."

While we were discussing our strategy, we didn't notice the pale, blond-haired kid in black bat-shaped sunglasses. He was wearing high tops, jeans, a shirt, and...a vampire cape and riding a skateboard.

But that was short-lived as he quickly wiped out into the swamp and got knocked out when his skateboard came down and cracked him on the head.

Please don't let that be this world's version of Alucard...ahem......with that distraction needlessly explained...

While Asriel headed down the Mad Forest--hedgemazes of thorny overgrowths, sinister lookong flowers, and creepy trees; I ended up in what I equated to Aquarius. Giant roots over poisonous moats and platforms over underwater aquaducts.

As Asriel continued toward the path, he didn't notice that he was being stalked by--

* ZARK!*

Asriel spun the NX Zapper as the werewolf blipped out of existence.

At the same time I took down the angry ghoulies and mer-men that threatened to acid-fireball me into the drink. Yes. Acid. Fireball. Don't think too deep into it for your own sanity.

I managed to arrive at the castle foyer before him and the giant animated suit of knight's armor immediately tried spearing me with lances.

"I take it you're not Alphonse Elrich?"

A spear landed inches from my toes.

"You could have just said "no"." I sidestepped.

"After dealing with Undyne's variety, yours are just too big, too bulky and too slow!" I mused before making an impressive jump over him.

"Metal, dude." I gave twin devil horn gestures and ran off. Asriel soon followed behind.

"So...not Alphonse--"  He started before a spear crashed down in front of him.

"Guessing you've already heard that one." He said as he pressed close to the walls and used the barrage of spears that stuck into them as steps to lead him to the floors above.

With a pleasant smile and a wave, Asriel turned and ran before the next spear would have taken off his head. Cocky little goat...that's why I respected him. He learned so much from Sally.

It wasn't long before we both reached the top of the final staircase leading to the Count's quarters. We'd stopped before the coffin to glare at it, dubiously, not noticing the bat fly in behind us and transform into said vampire count. He came up behind us and quickly moved to shove us over the balcony to our deaths.

Had he seen our faces he would have noticed that we slid our glances to each other a moment before we side-stepped in opposite directions and gave him a hard shove to the back, causing him to trip over the balcony. "Whooaaaaaaaaaaaah!"

If there was one thing I could count on, it was cardboard cutout villains taking their stupidity pills. You'd THINK he'd remember that as a vampire, he could float or at least turn into a bat half-way down.

In the brief moment I could see him, I noticed his ugly yellow tuxedo and how he vaguely looked like Count Dracula. It looked more like Count Dracula according to Leslie Nielson's "Dead and Loving It". And when THAT version was more faithful to the Bram Stoker's novel? Good grief.

He took one of Asriel's solar Taiyodamas to the back and turned completely gray before poofing back into a bat and sickly taking cover before the sun came up.

"That could have ended differently."

"Yeah it could have."

I spied another green shard thing inside the Count's open coffin.

"This is becoming a thing." I snatched it and followed Asriel into the warp zone.

And wouldn't you know a warp zone opened and out stepped what I probably would have called "Gaston the Second" if he wore a blue overcoat, tan backpack and had a jaw that even Bruce Campbell's Ash Williams would be jealous off and blond hair that.....oh, goddammit, Violet.....this is what you meant by "pimpy"...jeeze. Also he had on welder's goggles and had a sun-tan that went just one step away from overuse of a tanning salon bed. Really...shouldn't the natives of a world that got barely any sunlight...y'know...be pale?

"NEVER FEAR!!! SIMON BELMONT IS HERE!" And that faux...english(?) accent...no...I'd describe it as a "stuck-up braggart" accent. I'm pretty sure if we stuck around, we'd be introduced to Antoine on steroids.

"Hmm?  Count?  Yoo-hoo!  Cooooount?  I'm here to settle things?  I know you're not going to snub a glorious hero like myself..." Simon reached into his backpack and pulled out the gaudiest of all hand mirrors before combing his hair and giving his reflection the biggest of wet kisses...before spinning the mirror like a cowboy and replacing it.

Simon peeked in the coffin.

"Welll...if someone already vanquished you...far be it from me to take all the credit..." He mused with a grin.

He turned on his heel and headed toward the warp zone.

"Oh, Princess!  I can't wait to tell you how, I, Simon Belmont, single-handedly saved CastleVania..."

Oh give me a break...

Sub-Entry 264: "The Videoland Arc, Part 4 - Congo Land":
Jump-skipping a bit, we had managed to stumble our way through what we'd soon identify as Excalibur, the world of Wizard and Warriors; Dragon's Den, the world of Dragon Warrior; Punch-Out.....well, DUH. And a handful of other worlds.

"...why does the King of the Elves on Faxandu resemble Elvis Presley if he chewed the gum that turned Violet Beauregard into a blueberry?" Asriel sweatdropped.

"It's times like these I turn to the age-old Nintendo Power wisdom." I took a deep breath and replied. "Some questions just don't have answers."

"You mean like the sneaky thief that sounds a lot like Bobcat Goldthwait?"

"Exactly."

"Or like how the guard at Castle Ironspire knew what a credit card was?"

"Yup.

"And--"

"Yes.  Including Wombat Man's heroic hand saving the day wherever he lands.  Do not press this line of questioning further.  Saving Nicki from the Rat Woman pretty much made me say..."DONE"."

"I must sound like I'm ten again with all these questions."

"Well, at this rate we're going to invent a new drinking game for Violet.  To which I will be disappointed in myself for Violet taking anything away from our misadventures."

"In hind sight you were probably right about my NX Golf Club being the wrong weapon to use against a frog."

"And an NX emulated Super Scope was an improvement?"

Asriel shrugged with a cheesy grin. "I can't help it if I got caught up in the moment."

"Anyway...I've been working on a map of VideoLand based on where we've been.  I've got this worlds listed here, including Mega Land, Mount Icarus, CastleVania, and the others.  There's this big central mass in the center I haven't figured out, yet, a few other worlds I haven't got info on.  This one looks kinda like a jungle of some sorts.  This weird floating satellite thing...that looks brain shaped?"

"Too easy, Asriel.  I know what you're thinking and let's cross that bridge when we come to it."

"Some worlds I've been able to get clues on might be Hyrule, and one based on Paperboy."

"Paperboy?"

"Also there's a world here that might be Tetris."

"What about this beach world you have sketched out." I pointed to the NX board's screen while it was in desktop mode.

"Closest matches I can think of are T&C Surfing and California Games World."

"Yeah..." I rubbed my chin. "So where did we end up now?"

"We're in between worlds, I think." Asriel looked at the mess of pipe-like openings all around us. "It's like a coral reef or a giant underwater sponge."

"I think...this might be...that place."

"You mean like the center of our VideoLand?  The place we now call the Warp Zone to Oblivion?"

"Yes.  Where one warp could lead to thousands of devastates."

"So...if this is anything like that, should I get out some rope or fishing line?"

"Nah.  A Save Marker works better." Behold the wonder of save states. You WISH games of the 80's had this feature......well...thanks to emulators and virtual consoles...they do now. But retroactively speaking...

"Wait.  What if we go through one of these things and it works like a time warp?  We could end up a week...or even years into the future...or past."

"Be cool, Asriel.  We're still S.T.C.  We make time our pet puppy dog." I felt a little cocky.

"Careful about that overconfidence, partner."

"Right, right." But yeah...if anything does happen, hopefully this can circumvent it. Let's go."

As it turned out...we landed in...

"Well.  Obviously it isn't SR-388...or Zebes...or whatever world that satellite is supposed to represent."

"I think it's just "Metroid".  But you're right.  It's not.  It's Kongo Land." Asriel pointed up to the giant neon sign, lit up with big, colorful, flashing Las Vegas lights...........wait a minute. A neon sign...in the jungle. What the sense-not-make?!?

"Well.  At least it's hot and humid." I wagged my tail.

"Speak for yourself." Goat son tugged at his collar before taking off his jacket and replacing his NX board harness. He pushed up his sleeves. "These aren't exactly good reminders that it's probably still winter back home."

"I estimate some time in March.  Swell.  We probably missed Gadget's birthday."

"Hey.  Time-travel.  Remember?"

"Oh yeah...well...one of these days I'm going to take my own advice about time travel not being a solve-everything McGuffix."

"I prefer the sound of Deus Ex Machina.  It sounds cooler because it's in Latin." Asriel grinned.

You are your mother and father's son, Asriel. And yes, I did mean Toriel and Asgore.

We got going and combed through the jungle overgrowth. It was the perfect time for Asriel to haul out the Snipper-Clips shears. Better than a machette, I'd say.

"Didn't you say something about this being the home of Donkey Kong?" I asked.

"Yeah...but I get the feeling on this world, he does't wear neckties and doesn't guard a crystal coconut." Asriel warily looked at the size of the giant banana peel that was three sizes too big to be a teepee.

"Well.  If we feel the ground shake and hear a beastly roar that threatens to deafen us, I'd say we're screwed--"

* RUMBLE*

* ROAAAAAAAAAAAR*

"We are SO screwed..." My ears drooped.

"Run." Asriel unfolded the NX Kart and I hopped on as he tore out of there as the thundering footsteps got bigger and the roars got louder and angrier.

"HOLY FRIGGIN' SCHNIKEES!" I screamed as something immense landed behind us and caused the whole freakin' ground to tremor and buckle and fissure.

I looked up...and up...and up...and still up and only then did I see the head of the giant, brown furry beast headed in our way.

Was he really P.O.-ed at us? Couldn't be! We didn't do anything to him.

"WHOAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

"I WANT MY MAMMA!" A giant purple, one-eyed eggplant with a cape and a staff waddled at breakneck speed, trying to pass us.

"I WANT YOUR MAMMA, TOO!" A bloated, sky blue...hippo-looking oaf in boxing trunks and boxing gloves, wearing a tiny gold crown lumbered after him.

I looked at Asriel who looked back. "That sounded sooooo wrong." I shook my head.

It suddenly occured to me.

"Wait a minute...aren't they...?"

"I saw his poster back on Punch-Out!  I think that's King Hippo!"

"And that can only be the Eggplant Wizard from Mount Icarus.  What are THEY doing here?!"

"Definitely off world."

Bunnie would be able to tell us more about the VideoLand War back in our dimension. If only she were here, she could give us some insight on what the connection between two unrelated characters fooling around in Kongo Land was.

"Should we...uh...rescue them or something?"

That was when of all things a pair of barrels hurtled at the two goons and steamrolled them flat.

They drifted back down like cartoon...sticker peel-outs.

"Uh...delay that order.  Indefinitely." I winced.

"Ummm...I think you better speed up, Asriel."

"That could be a problem!" Asriel noted the panicking widlife and obstacles in our way.

"Oh boy...I'm gonna hate myself in the morning..." I reached over and cycled through Asriel's weapons on the steering wheel.

"Hey! No back-seat driving!"

"Think of it like Double-Dash!" I found the power item I was lookiing for and MASHED the button.

"Invincible Star?  What good is--"  Asriel's voice was swallowed up by the overblasting music jingle of "Invincible Mario" as the entire kart, with us included, started flickering through the colors of the rainbow while getting a speed boost. We barreled through anything in our way, knocking everything out of our path and to the sides. Fortunately for us, the animals sensed our presence and were able to part the crowd to make a path.

Video game logic. Go figure.

I mashed it a few more times as Donkey Kong continued to charge after us.

"Oh boy...someone get us out of--!"

And wouldn't you know it we hit a ramp and Asriel deployed the glider. Donkey Kong's hand just barely missed snapping around us and crushing us.

"WOO-HOOOOOOO!" We sailed for a good long while until we could see a jungle village...kingdom?...surrounded by a giant bamboo fence.

Tree-top housing, straw huts and yurts, artificial watefalls for irrigation.

The front sign read "Plentiful". Huh. That's actually a nice name for a village. Whoever their leader is, they could name better than Fluffybuns.

"Uh...Asriel?  I hope you're as good at landing as you are at racing!"

And that was right about the time we dropped unceremoniously into the mother of all stacks of tropic fruit.

"You know...I was in the mood for a smoothie." Asriel picked himself up from the debris, reassembling his NX Switchboard.

"PTOOIE!  Hardy-har-har..." I smoldered. Wait a minute. Why was I the one taking the brunt of the abuse? I know Asriel's a cinnamon roll and all...but what am I? Chopped liver? Gah.

"I hope the natives are friendly..." I noticed the crowd of...very blue-skinned people around us.

"Did I miss something?  When did we land in James Cameron's Avatar?"

Strange looks all around.

Yeah. I'm totally going to cut away from this to report on the others.

"...back already, Sally-chan.  You do indeed work fast."

"Yeah.  Wasn't much of a challenge.  Working with a talking Pontiac Trans-Am with a charming English accent was shway.  Not so much a morphing ATV with an A.I. that sounds like an awful download of Val Kilmer.  Had a run-in with an armored 18-wheeler called Goliath, went head to head with Michael Knight's evil twin--the long-lost Garth Knight as well as K.I.T.T.'s own evil double, K.A.R.R.  Things blew up, lasers got fired from both cars, there was some Turbo Boosting and a surprising thing to discover that driving up into an 18-wheel semi trailer is harder than it looks.  Point me to the next conflict?"

"Rotor and Gadget are on their way back, now. The former from dealing with Chaopolis instigating a riot between four turtle ninjas and three mad, bad and crazy toads.  The latter brokering a peaceful alliance between two iterations of the Phoenix Foundation that bumped into each other through a Chaopolis-opened Cyber Gate."

"Eh.  Nothing new." Sally shrugged.

All over the UltraVerse, the UCIAT were going back and forth between worlds, quelling unrest, defusing volatile situations, and sometimes outright stopping a war in progress between opposing heroes, villains, and sometimes both.

"We're stretching thin, old friend.  But we can take it.  Any luck with the Commander?"

"Our underground source has unfortunately found nothing.  But they are stretching their resources as well."

"Dang.  What about the Commander's bosses and such?"

"The implication is...it is not good and they do not know it."

"Everone's going to be blindsided and not see it coming except for everyone who saw it coming?"

"Well put."

"Well, I can't stick around.  I have to pick up Honey from her adventure involving a helicopter code-named AIRWOLF.  Hopefully her human disguise is still operative."

"Go then, Sally.  And Goddess' speed."

"Speed is the word, old friend.  Speed is the word."

Sally raced off to the next open gateway.

That taken care of...

"...you know, Volt...I know this world is home to Donkey Kong and all...but..."

"You're seeing a surprising lack of red steel girders, oil drums, and a Brooklyn damsel in distress?"

"All check-marked, best friend.  I'm having an easier time believing this video world is predicting the future with that Donkey Kong Country show Violet had on a previous movie night."

"Yeah...is this Kongo Land or Congo Bongo Land?" I muttered, while we waited for an audience with Prince Plenty.

"So.  We gonna address the elephant in the room?"

"Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if there were an ACTUAL elephant in the room, Asriel."

"Volt..." He protested.

"Imagine that?  You telling me to get serious."

A moment of silence.

"Right.  I know you're going to say."

"Where's...well...you know?"

"Hmm.  Let me see if I got the check list.  Overalls.  Moustache.  Italian accent.  And somehow no-longer-a-plumber?"

"That'd be him."

I crossed my arms. "Not just that, Asriel.  In time we've been in the please...we haven't run into a single hero, much less a counterpart to our own fabled N-Division."

"Yeah...you're right." Asriel pondered. "Four worlds now and all we've run into are villains and lackeys."

"Are we counting the morbidly obeise boxing gene-splice and the waddling, one-eyed produce?"

"Hey.  Even lackeys have feelings." Asriel was scolding, but his tone was very lite-hearted.

"Explain Al Dente." I countered.

"...changing the subject." Asriel tugged at his shirt collar.

It was at that moment...

"Prince Plenty will see you now."

And so...

"...that is...quite a story, strange friends."

Strange? No offense...but their prince kinda looks like a human-sized cross between a smurf and a chimpanzee...or Captain Planet with an overgrown haircut in the shape of a cobra's hood with a really 80's mullet. Blue finger and toenails and red lipstick, to boot. We are sure this is a prince, right?

Asriel elbowed me as if he was anticipating what I thinking.

"It's the truth, from one prince to another." I could tell Asriel was begrudgingly accepting his royal heratage.

"We're just trying to get home."

Wasn't...someone else trying to get home? I should remember this huge, crucial detail but...why wasn't I?

"I am afraid I lack any answers that could help you.  However...the royal scribe has discovered something in our ancient texts which seems to relate to your dilema.  It may be coincidence but these events seem to line up with another prophecy.  We had...just recently put to rest the prophetic return of the Lost City of Konga...an unpleasant recent addition to our kingdom's history."

"And...I take it not a good day for uh..." I pointed in the direction of a distant but powerful simian roar."

Nods all around by the prince and the subjects still in the room.

"Plants vs. Animals...what a concept!" Asriel rubbed his chin as one of the assistants unrolled the scroll showing a runic if not hierloglyphic-inspired depition of Donkey Kong against a giant plant monster...wait a minute.

Giant...plant...monster. Oh gods... Don't think about Photoshop Flowey! Don't think about Photoshop Flowey!!

But I was snapped out of it as the servants looked at each other and even the Prince seemed confused.

"This seems familiar."

"Yes...he does sound like--"

"About that prophecy?"

"Oh yes.  Of course.  Our ancestors spoke of a green fragment of a star that fell from the sky."

That got Asriel's and my attention.

"Many medicine men and witch doctors tried unsuccessfully to make use of it and determine its origins within Videoland but failed.  It is our belief that it is an artifact not of this world."

"You don't say..." I rubbed my chin. "It sounds like something we've been finding scattered all over other Video Worlds.  Where is this fragment now?"

"It was cast into the depths of the volcano when our ancestors deemed dangerous witchcraft."

That really got my attention. A journey into a nice hot place? Count me in.

Asriel on the other hand looked...pensive. Like it reminded him of--

Oh crap. It's Hotland, isn't it? Asriel's remembering Hotland. And mind you, he was remembering Hotland before Alphys became the Royal Scientist. But Azzy had clearly told us before he remebered it and he remembered the previous Royal Scientist.

"So I guess we know where we're headed."

"Volt, wait.  I know you like heat at all, but...it's still a deadly location.  Maybe the answer to this isn't as obvious as remaking Joe vs. the Volcano."

More exchanged stares.

"What is he talking about?" I heard one murmur.

I sighed. "Well...right again, Goat Son.  If I didn't know better I'd swear you'd--"

"Yeah.  We'll discuss it later.  Mission now."

Credit where credit is do...Goat Son may have become a pun machine. But he could focus on the task at hand at the drop of a hat.

"Let's start with at least getting to the volcano." I conceeded.

"That's the spirit."

"I wish you luck on your journey.  Good luck, brave warriors."

And we were off, making it a priority not to tick off the 100 foot ape.

However, once we got there...

"What are THEY still doing here?" I growled.

"Eggplant Wizard and King Hippo.  This definitely confirmed they're teamed up.  But...why?"

"Let's see if we can find out, Asriel."

We strained our ears to hear--

"...GET THE LEAD OUT, SQUASH-FOR-BRAINS!"

...redacted. I think my eardrums are throbbing.

"B-B-But if I rush any faster, I'm going to be more bruised than a bag of potatoes used as a punching bag--"

"IF YOU DON'T HURRY UP AND GET THOSE GIRDERS AND SCAFFOLDING UP, I'M GONNA GIVE YOU AN EXTRA POUNDING BEFORE MOTHER BRAIN POUNDS US!"

"Did he just name-drop Mother Brain?  Like from Metroid?" Asriel asked.

"He sure did.  I know this should be...common knowledge to both of us after all the stories Pit told us and what Bunnie's famliar with...but...it's almost like I'm learning this for the first time.  We both KNOW about the League of Chaos...or...Darkness...something...y'know, the villains of Videoland teaming up."

"So why don't we?  Why is this such a surprise to us, now?" Asriel shrugged.

"Maybe being knocked out of our own universe or being disconnected from our Cryptosmasher hub on Neo Arcadia and being completely de-linked from A.E.O.N. itself has something to do wtih it.  Maybe just being in this universe is corrupting our memories."

"Like an unintended handicap."

"One we can't really prove is unintended.  This speculation asside...we can agree on one thing." I narrowed my eyes.

"Yeah.  They're up to no good.  So.  We deal with them before we climb up the Volcano?"

"Maybe we can do both at once..." I mused. "Think you can sneak his staff away from him?"

"Yeah...but there's no guarantee either of us can use it."

"Yes...but have we seen any sign that HE can use it?"

Just as I said that King Hippo bashed Eggplant Wizard over the head.

"Ooooh.  You'll be sorry you did that!" Eggplant waddled back a bit before attempting to cast a spell with the magic eggplant-topped staff...and suddenly sabotaged himself as a giant potato appeared...and dropped on the wrong target. Namely...him.

"Point." Asriel smirked just as Eggplant Wizard's staff went flying out of his grasp and embedded right next to Goat Son.

"Umm...I don't know..seems like...suuuuuch a challenge." He said smugly before wrapping his hand around the staff, faked struggling to yank it out a few times before--"

"Done." Asriel spun the staff. "What's the plan?"

I lifted up his floppy ear and whispered.

"Ooooh.  That could be fun.  Irony strikes twice.  With a strange big of role reversal.  I'll set up the NX Kart."

Suffice to say...I think anyone can tell where this is going, so let's jump-cut to the payoff.

"Comin' your way, Volt!  Package is inbound and hungry!" Asriel keep slamming his palm on the Mushroom powerup on kart, getting speed boost after speed boost.

And low and behold, being dragged behind him was the mother of all oversized bananas tied to the kart's axle.

Cue...an annoyed and hungry Donkey Kong. Well. That escalated predicably.

"Uh...King Hippo?"

"Uhh...yeah, Eggy?"

"Does that sound like D-D-D-Donkey Kong?"

"Uhhhhhhhh...."

And turn to the giant ape ad freak-out.

"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!" Both mutants grabbed onto each other in a scared embrace.

Asriel sliced through the rope with an NX Sabre. "Here's a little snack for ya, D.K.  But I hope you're ready for the main course..." He grinned before unlatching the Eggplant Staff from the kart frame and pointing it toward the two bumbling villains. "You won't be in pajamas...buuuuuuuut..." He grinned ear to ear.

And before they knew it...

"WHAT DID YOU DO, YOU STUPID VEGETABLE?!"

"I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING YOU BLOATED PRIZEFIGHTER!"

"AUGGGH!  WHY DID HAVE TO BE BANANAS?!"

The two of them were transformed into walking, talking giant bananas. But you know who else noticed? Donkey Kong. He sure finished the first banana pretty quick. And well...comedy ensued as an Eggplant-banana and Hippo-banana scrambled to get away from the monkey's giant paws.

"That should keep them distracted long enough for..."

"An actual Donkey Kong inspired challenge!" I wagged my tail as I noted the giganted stilted construction that stretched up the volcano.

"Shall we?"

"Let's."

While Eggplant and Hippo were scrambling up the long way around the mountain, up the perilious path, completely rejecting common sense to use the scaffolding they had just constructed to reach the top of the volcano...

"NX Kart's folded up.  Let's move!" Asriel took the lead across the makeshift construction site.

As Donkey Kong kept trying to climb up and around the mountain, his increasing frustration leading to a familiar obstacle upping the challenge...barrels. It always comes down to barrels. Not sure I want to mean that as a complaint anyore than I want it to be praise. It was just...expected. That was it.

"Volt, could you turn your gears at a less pressing time and try not getting tripped up by rolling obstacles?"

Right. Back to action. DK's barrels were raining down, landing on the top of the scaffolding and rolling down the  whole thing. It was what it was...a giant game of Donkey Kong...with a twist or two.

"AH!" I pulled Asriel back as one of the barrels came down in a fireball and smashed through the girder AND the ladder.

"Okay a game of Donkey Kong usually doesn't become suddenly impossible for complete." Asriel frowned.

"Well.  When the game cheats..."

"Don't say it."

"Okay, I won't.  But we're still gonna do it." I grabbed one of Asriel's JoyCons and cycled through items. "Go-Go Gravity Falls iconic Mabel gear!" I pointed the grappling hook, grabbed Asriel and yanked us up to the next level.

"Nice." Asriel raised an eybrow as I handed the JoyCon back.

"We're almost there.  We just need--"

The upper floors suddenly collapsed, sealing off the final leg of the upward maze.

"Yup.  Typical final level scenario."

"I hope this isn't the final level, best friend."

"We gotta blast our way through that." I drew the XBTOCLC' and fired up as Asriel unleashed everything he had.

"The metal's heated up, but it's just not buckling." I ran out of juice as Asriel decided to conserve his ammo.

"Why don't we try climbing out the sides of this thing.  I mean, it's a construction site with no walls.  We could climb or fly up--"  Asriel started.

"Goin' somewhere, fuzzball?!" King Hippo suddenly in my face. How did he get in my face?!

"That belongs to me, LIVESTOCK!" Eggplant grabbed the staff from Asriel.

"So you're the weaklings that have been messin' with us!"

"You're in a pickle now!  You're about to get squashed, beet-en, and put in an arti-choke hold!"

"Okay, those were good puns..." Asriel uncomfortably grinned.

"I don't think we're going out and up." He ended up back to back with me.

"Then let's just go up!" I dodged Hippo's right cross as Asriel sidestepped an eggplant spell.

"Let's try cutting through it!" Asriel's eyes flared up neon green as he gripped the giant neon green pizza cutter and telescoped it into the ceiling wreckage and cut away until he managed to saw enough of it away, the pieces actually causing the Eggplant and the Hippo to stumble and fall off the scaffolding...right into Donkey Kong's grasp.

"Oh no...are they going to be--"  Asriel didn't get a chance to finish as the big ape tossed the pair into the sky where they immediately disappeared into warp zones. Their banana curses had long since worn off.

"They'll be fine." I urged as we each took an NX grappling hook and hosted ourselves up.

"I think he's going to come after us, next." Asriel warned.

"And we still haven't gotten the fragment." I glared down into the Volcano. "You were right.  We can't do anything about that." What a build up to a nice hot journey through a volcano that wasn't going to happen. The lava was only a foot or two away from reaching the top of the volcano and it was bubbling violently....and then suddenly boulders shot out of it, straight up.

"In hind sight...this may have been a mistake."

"Might have been?" Asriel questioned as Donkey Kong was slowly coming up behind us.

"Great.  Boiled alive or the end of Ghostbusters 1 on NES.  Stay-puff'd into pulp."

What a catch 22.

"Okay...hear me out, Volt.  I have a crazy idea...and it just might work."

"Honestly...going out with an option three than either of those.  Okay.  What's the plan?  And we are on the clock."

"Got any more of those Chronoton Grenades left?"

"Well...actually, yeah, I used some of Dr. Wright's gear to make up a couple more while we were explaining our story.  Why?"

"Okay.  Freeze the boulders and don't ask why."

So. I did and didn't, respectively. I froze time as a load of boulders shot up into the sky, forming a staircase.

"Okay.  Let's get vertical." Asriel jumped from boulder to boulder up into the sky.

"This is so implausible, the plausibility engine made it possible." I muttered as I leapfrogged after him, trading off back and forth with who could ascend higher.

"Volt!  Look!" Asriel pointed to the faintest of green glints.

"Only in a video game..." I muttered before we reached the top boulder. "Wish I had a wheel-puller."

"A what?"

"Rotor has one, it looks like a big corkscrew."

"I think I can help with that." Asriel handed me a JoyCon after transforming it into his best guess at a wheel-puller. I quickly dug into the rock and snapped around the target and yanked it out like it was the tracking device from Total Recall.

"Got it." I handed it to Asriel to stow. "Hold on.  The detonator's about to expire!"

"And just in time to set a high score." Asriel high fived me before buckling down.

And WHOOSH, up we went into the sky and through space until we headed into a warp zone...

Sub-Entry 265: "The VideoLand Arc, Part 5 - Hyrule":
"That makes four of these green...emerald pieces.  They look like they fit together, but I'm not sure how."

"Yeah...I'm starting to put more weight behind their importance.  Call me loopy but I don't get a vibe that these things are native to this dimension."

"Actually, I think you might be right.  Something feels...off about them.  The vibe I'm getting is...maybe they were hidden here?"

"And when something is hidden...it's hidden for a reason." I narrowed my eyes.

"So.  Where are we this time?"

We perched on the roof of one of the buildings in the Elfen town. I spied the sign at the entrance.

"Town of Rauru."

"Hyrule.  This is totally Zelda II: Adventure of Link."

"Swell.  The oddball out."

"Well...sidescrolling has its place."

"Just not in a Zelda game."

"Well...let's agree to disagree." Asriel rubbed the back of his head.

"Agreed."

Heh.

"Look. No disrespect, but this is going to be a really hard world to get through.  You've been through it on Vi's emulators at Computer Valhalla, right?  You know how brutal the area leading up to the Great Palace is, right?"

"Oh yes, sir." Asriel wrinkled his snoot.

"But...not that it's all bad.  Remember those sweet magic abilities you get in the game plus those sword moves?  Now that's tight." Asriel wagged his tail.

"We gonna talk about the game or actually find our way around the world?"

"Right.  Let's find our way around."

We parkour-ed our way across the rooftops. Little did we know, someone else was in town, on their own quest.

"Did you hear something?"

"Stop getting distracted by every little thing, "hero"."

"HEY!  Well excuuuuuuuuuse me, PRINCESS!"

It was about that time that of all things, a faerie dropped in on the two of them.

For the love of all that is decent, please don't let the first thing that comes out of her mouth be "HEY!  LISTEN!"

"Zelda!  There's a message for you back at the palace!"

"We don't have time for that.  We have to get moving on this quest to find the Po--"

"It's Princess Lana."

"Lana?  Hold on.  We're on our way."

"But what about Ganon?"

"Oh...it'll have to wait.  Chances are, his forces are no closer to finding it then we are.  That buys us some time."

"Sheesh.  Princesses."

"Get a move on, Link!"

"Alright!  Alright!"

Meanwhile...

"Welcome back, Gadget-chan.  The twin Phoenixes?"

"It wasn't bad.  But I learned the dangers of watching what I say around the 80's Jack Dalton."

"Hmm?"

"Well..."

~

"...I don't know, Mac.  This whole weird adventure thing just seems too easy.  I mean...where's the twist?" The 21st century version of Mr. Dalton was understandibly worried.

"Maybe karma's catching up to us for all the good we've done, the 21st century Macgyver replied.

"Don't you know that's a good way to jinx it?"

Gadget and 80's Macgyver showed up at that moment.

"Nothing ahead but a hall of mirrors and a tape recorder that I took apart to make some new gear." Gadget shrugged. "If it was a trap to turn us all against each other again, I don't know what it was supposed to do."

"Yeah...Murdoch usually tries a lot harder than this."

"I see your Murdoch is just as psychotic as ours."

"Miss Vi says that he's like a James Bond villain."

A chuckle out of both Macgyver's.

That was right about the time 80's Jack Dalton entered.

"I guess I misjudged you, Mr. Dalton.  Miss Violet said you were a bit of a con-artist and a coward, but you seem alright to me.  From the bottom of my heart, I salute you!"

"What the--!"

"GUN!" Modern Jack pushed Gadget out of the way as the shot hit a mirror.

* BANG*

"Did I miss something, hoss?  My other self just pulled a piece on us and just tried to axe us off!"

"He's not hmself!" 80's Mac took cover.

"Did I say something wrong?  All I said was "from the bottom of my heart, I salute you"."

* BANG*

"If I didn't know better, I'd say that was a trigger word for a brainwashed mole..." Modern Jack Dalton tried to get a moment to reload.

"Can we upgrade that to definitely?" Modern Mac said as he fumbled around with the odds and ends he and Gadget pooled together.

"I think one of us should draw his fire while the others come up with a plan."

"No offense, Mullet-liking past Mac, but that plan sounds like suicide to me."

"Maybe...but getting him to use up his ammo might be the only way we have a chance at this."

"So...did you learn anything from it?" Bunnie arched an eyebrow.

"Two things.  Not to say "from the bottom of my heart, I salute you" in front of 20th century Jack Dalton."

"And the other thing?"

"Well...written on the bathroom wall was a message that reads: "whenever [80's] Jack Dalton's left eye twitches, he's lying like a mat."

"But otherwise you got out okay?"

"Yeah.  We managed to get everything back to normal on both worlds.  You know I was kinda surprised when the 80's Macgyver brought up that he was in the Boy Scouts and 21st Century Macgyver said he got kicked out of the scouts."

"Fascinating." Bunnie remained deadpan.

"Anyway...your next mission is waiting for you."

"Big brother?"

"Still searching.  Don't worry.  We'll find him.  Promise."

"That makes me feel better.  You never break promises, so I know it's going to happen!"

"Good girl, Gadget.  Well.  Be off with you.  And good luck."

So, with that cutaway taken care of...

I must confess that I wasn't as proficient at Hylian territory as Asriel was. Where Mega Land, CastleVania, and Mount Icarus were my cup of tea...I wasn't that great at ZII: A.o.L.

Yet, Goat Son managed to blaze us a trail through a number of territories which eventually got us to the Island Palace.

"I don't know what it is, Azzy, but you seem like you were born to go through Hyrule."

"I know right.  I mean this is alright, but honestly, I think I do my best work in Termina."

"Majora's Mask?" I raised an eyebrow as that ignited an old memory of mine. Somehow...seeing Asriel in a green tunic and floppy cap...wasn't that hard to picture.

Didn't...I come across an AU where this was the case? The images that came to mind certainly painted famliar faces in easily fitting roles.

"Volt?  You spaced out for a bit.  You okay?"

"Yeah...I'm fine."

Asriel was quickly gaining ground, outdistancing me.

My anxiety was on the rise as I actually worried about him running off. I mean...he was 117. Shouldn't...I be making an effort to let him spread his wings? I was having the same worries now as I was two years ago with our mission with Providence.

I looked down at the ground for a moment, sighed and gave him his space. If he needs help, he'll--

"Volt?  I think I need a little help please.

I'm gonna say it. That was quick. And I couldn't be more relieved. Huh. Well THAT was a moment to get invested in.

Right now, I'm really hoping these logs stay classified in the Cryptosmasher database. I'm so calling myself out on this and I don't really know why or for whose sake.

There must be a percentage of "meta" flowing through this universe for me to be internalizing this much while asking questions about the dimension Asriel and I are in.

As I caught up, I could see why Asriel needed help.

"You know there are a number of changes in this version of Hyrule, too." I stopped in my tracks and considered backing away.

"I'm guessing it's the somewhat noticeable fact that Horsehead in this universe is a full-blown centaur."

"So it's NOT the blond beehive hairdo that Marge Simpson would be jealous of with a mullet that even the 80's would outlaw?"

"Frankly I'm more perplexed that he of all people has noticeable chin-hair instead of me.  I mean...should I be the one with a--"

I crossed my arms and made a "get on with it" gesture, rollng my eyes.

"Goat-ee?" He grinned.

Unlike Cut Man...I mean CUTSMAN, Horsehead wasn't taking any of our jokes but was all too eager to give us a taste of his spiked mace club.

And as we soon found out, it behaved a little too much like something we both had seen.

"Dude.  Is he using Knight Crusher?"

"That he is.  Apparently using Knight Man's weapon before Knight Man's weapon was cool."

"Wisecraking aside, pretty sure we both know how to handle this."

"Oh yeah." I cracked my knuckles as Asriel formed of all things an NX Homerun Bat which he only had Pit's descriptions of to go on.

We dodged in opposite directions as the mace came our way. I kicked off one wall as Asriel kicked off the other wall.

Each of us used one of the JoyCons to grapple to the ceilings and get some air.

"For the record, Asriel...we are so going to miss out on collecting on one of Violet's bets for saying what we're both thinking."

"Hey Horsehead!  You know what the bad thing about being a centaur is?"

"Maaaaaan!  Horse Bosses can't jump!" We both sailed down, completing one bad reference at the same time before I smashed into Horsehead's skull at the same time Asriel's bat made contact with the other side of it.

Horsehead blipped out of existence instanttly.

"Hey, where's you get the Power Fist?"

"Modified an old birthday present. I had time to build more than a couple Chronoton Detonators in Dr. Wright's lab.  How'd you get the plans for the Homerun Bat?"

"Aunt Violet's good at modding Dr. Lynx's tech.

"Well.  In for a gold key, in for a pound...ing." I picked up the golden key as Asriel had already picked up the parchment that had been released from the glass container that got smashed during Horsehead's rampage.

Asriel shook his head in disdain at my attempt at a joke.

"Not working, huh?"

I sighed. "I'll leave the jokes to you, Goat Son.  Boy are we shaping up to be a duo of opposites trope..."

We left the temple and headed off further into Hyrule. But little did we know.

"...what the?!"

"What happened?  The key and the map are gone!"

"Augh!  Ganon's goons must've gotten to it!  They got a head start on us while we were answering the call to the Palace of Power."

"If they get that Potion, we're all done for.  I knew we should have asked the N-Tea for help."

"Uh.  Yeah.  News flash.  I defeated him before.  I think I know how dangerous he is.  I can handle it."

"Oh really.  This coming from the bumbling oaf that saved himself from ending up in the castle fountain but was inconsiderate enough to let me splash down in it right after."

"You're REAAAAALLY not gonna let that go!"

"YOU never apologized for it, Mr. Hero!"

"HEY!  Well excuuuuuuuuuuuuuuse me, PRINCESS!"

...I'm...kinda glad Asriel and I didn't stick around. Though it was brought up earlier, this was one time I was glad we weren't running into any of Videoland's heroes. If this is the best Hyrule had to offer...it was getting to be painfully obvious why war probably dragged on for seven years in this Videoland, too.

While we were outpacing Link and Zelda to an inevitable clash inside the Great Temple...supposedly with Ganon. But if this game were anything like our world, we'd be facing our own shadows. So...which was it in this alternate Videoland?

But while we were off having Elfen adventure...

"Back again, Mitzi?  You're burning the candle at both ends, my student."

"Yeah.  Sally and I are both doubling down.  Miyagi-sensei wishes you well.  We were able to stop the Chaopolis agents but the shrine artifact slipped through our fingers.  They'll have to go it without me.  Where too next?"

"Word came back from the Watchtower--"

"Young Justice?"

"The operation is code-named Outsiders.  I guess Violet wasn't just blowing smoke when she was trolling the Teen Titans.  Seems they've run into a fracture in between DC Universe AU's.  You have to quell the unrest before the Legion of Doom and the Light join forces."

"I guess I can always pass for a Green Lantern if I need to bluff my way out of a situation.  But I'm pretty sure Oa will take exception if I keep up the act too long."

"Agreed.  Use discretion and hurry back.  I sense trouble is on the horizon and the Commander will need us more than ever."

"Understood.  Loading up and moving out, sensei!"

"Off with you then, Mitzi-chan."

While this interlude was pretty short, our quest in Hyrule was stretching out further and further until we did reach the volcanic caverns and caves just before the Great Temple. With all six idols restored and with us carrying the Potion of Power, we had long come to the conclusion this world might be a melding of two iterations of Hyrule, somehow.

"Well.  Here goes nothing." Asriel stepped forward as the force barrier lowered.

"We sure did tick off Ganon's goons on our way here."

Asriel stepped into the palace and we took the elevator down.

"So.  We going to address the--"

"Yes, I know Link and Zelda are right behind us."

"Shouldn't we ask for their help?  I mean this is their world."

"Yeah, I was considering that earlier but..."

I explained in...rather blunt and descriptive detail.

"Yikes...Pit never mentioned anything about them bickering in the old days."

"Apparently some things are lost in translation." I shrugged and shook my head.

"Well.  Let's get ready for mainframe combat."

"The the best choice of words on a fantasy world like this one."

"We'll only WISH we were in LYOKO after this, won't we?"

And boy, oh boy, did we call it. Boy oh boy did we regret it. Only by the skin of our teeth did we make it to the boss room where Thunderbird awaiting.

"Okay, it's like it is back home...but god does it look NOTHING like it does home!" I took cover as the darn thing buzz bombed us. "If this were a cartoon series back home, I'd REALLY want to strangle the slop artist!"

"Just think happy thoughts like we were back in the dragonwood forest back then."

"That was strangely pleasant.  But did you notice a lot of bark was missing from the some of the nearby trees?  According to Lupe, that's how you kill a tree.  Strip the bark off."

"I guess this world has undergone the...seeds of change." Azzy chuckled.

"Nice, Goat Son.  But seriously.  Are we really going to talk about trees while fighting off a thing that might as well be an immortal phoenix?"

"Volt.  It's a Thunderbird.  Think about that."

I stopped for a moment.

"Oh yeah, right."

I densely packed a large charge of electricity in both hands.

"Stand back." I drew both arms out...and then clapped my hands together, smashing the charges together in the loudest of thunderclaps and static discharges.

The tangles of my electricity forked out before the majority of it wrapped around Thunderbird and fried him up nice and crispy with an angry squawk.

"I'll take it from here." Asriel forged the twin NX Sabres and went to town with jump slashes before the bird boss finally collapsed upon itself in a blip.

"Yeah!" High five time.

And sure enough we did enter the room with the mini wizard imp...thing waiting on top of a pillar before the room went to weirdly blacklight.

"Yup.  Guess it's going there..."

"Yup.  We're getting Peter Pan'd." Asriel tensed up as our shadows jumped out and attacked. And admittedly...it wasn't as easy as it looked to exploit the heck out of that weakness in the A.I.

In fact...it was a lot harder beating ourselves.

"Trade partners?" Asriel suggested.

"Yeah, because that always works--"  I followed up but didn't get the chance to follow through.

Wrong again.

"Okay...ideas?" Asriel asked.

"Out of them." I shrugged.

A moment of hesitation.

"Um...I guess when all else fails..." I prompted.

Asriel smirked as he held a Taiyoudama in each hand...then held them straight  up in what I'd call Bright Man's Flash Stopper pose before the whole room lit up almost pure white as we both squeezed our eyes shut.

And who knew? Light destroy shadow.

When the light returned to normal.

"Who knew that completely ignoring a game's rules...would totally work?" Asriel dusted his hands off.

"C'mon!  Let's get moving just in case Ganon HAS come back."

"Wait!  What about the Triforce of...Courage......huh."

"You know it occurs to me we're being followed by Link AND Zelda.  But...wasn't Zelda under a sleeping spell in Zelda II Adventure of Link?"

"Don't question it, Goat Son.  Don't question it."

THe wizard-imp  watched us head down the hall as Zelda and Link arrived.

"What is going on?!"

"Um...congratulations?  I guess you've found the final Triforce."

And sure enough...

"Ohhhh crap.  He's...a lot bigger and scarier than the original Legend of Zelda game." Asriel looked up at the towering form of the boar-warlock, Ganon.

"AHHHHH!  THE FIRST VICTIMS TO HELP ME CELEBRATE MY CO--"

"I'm gonna stop you theere because I'm pretty sure you're going to say something that will be easily and ambigouously misinterpreted and probably memed to death."

"SILENCE!"

"Okay!  Okay!  Don't get your robes in a bind."

"You know, Volt...he's supposed to be an all-powerful wizard...or warlock.  But...he just doesn't seem that cool to me.  If this is what it means to be a sorceror, I'm kinda glad I lost all my magic--"

"FOOLISH MORTAL!  YOU HAVE INCURRED THE WRATH OF GANON!  AND HE WHO DARES DEFY GANON WILL PAY THE ULTIMATE PRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIICE!"

"Whoah.  Indoor voice?  Please?" I flitted my ears.

"We're too late!  Ganon's already back to full strength!"

"I knew it!  He already got the Potion of Power."

"Potion of Power?  You mean this?" I released the vessel that oddly resembled the lamp from I Dream of Jeannie.

"What the...how did you get that?"

"Nevermind that!  Who are you people?"

"Long story.  We'll explain later.  We should probably be really scared of that over there."

"The potion doesn't do us much good now....but how did Ganon get to full power?"

"Yeah...I wonder that, too..." Asriel rubbed his chin. "But somehow I don't think we'll actually get answers."

"Or live long enough to if we don't get a plan together." Out of desperation, I summoned my Zanpakutou. "Discharge, Kaminariou no Danganken."

Asriel searched his inventory. "After all the items we collected, we didn't find a single.....hmm?" Asriel pulled out a tiny bottle.

"Hey...isn't that a bottle of--"  Link started.

"Whoah!" Asriel got the heck out of the way as we all scattered from Ganon's storm of evil spells.

Asriel eyed the bottle once he got a chance to recover. He frowned then uncollapsed the NX Board...and then shrugged before splashing some of the liquid on the "screen", before turning it around to face Ganon, using it as a makeshift riot shield.

"Hey, Ganon!  Take your best shot!"

"THOSE WORDS SHALL BE YOUR LAST, IMPUDANTE BOVINE!"

Asriel braced as the spell soared straight at the NX Board, impacted...and distorted before reflecting right back at Ganon.

"You know an overgrown farm animal should be careful who they call bovine!  Especially a fellow farm animal!"

"NOOOOO!  NOT AGAAAAAAAAAAAAIN!!!" Ganon's form twisted and spun into a tornado that reached into the sky and went up and up and up before whisping out.

"And that is how you bring home the bacon...and then get it the heck out of the house after you burn it." Point for Goat Son...for roasting Ganon. Both figuratively and literally.

"Asriel...how did you know it was Reflect Magic?"

"I didn't.  I just crossed my fingers and hoped for the best."

"Asriel...that was incredible brave of you.  And DARN RECKLESS!"

"Heh.  Not bad, kid."

"Kid is the word says the goat." Asriel winked with a short bleat.

"Huh?  Something's falling from--"  I reached out and caught of all things... a green shard.

"Maybe this was what revived Ganon?" I shrugged.

"Maybe.  It's certainly not Hylian.  Maybe you should hang onto it.  It's too dangerous to keep around here."

"You trust us with it?" I cocked my head.

"Hey.  You proved yourself.  That's all the proof I need."

"That's very big of you, Mr. Link."

"See that, Princess?  He called me MISTER Link."

"Ugh...don't let it go to your head, HERO."

"Okay, okay.  Let's not get into an argument."

"You stay out of this!"

I blinked. "Hey.  Well excuse me, Princess." I crossed my arms.

I could see Link grin.

"Come on, Volt.  We gotta get going.  It was nice to meet you!" Asriel pushed me toward the newly opened warp zone.

"...we've got quite a story to tell Kevin and Lana, don't we?"

"Yes we do.  Yes...we...do." Zelda watched as we disappeared.

Sub-Entry 266: "The VideoLand Arc, Part 6 - News World...and Discovering Something Ancient and Forgotten...":
Granted, News World was a change of pace from the last several worlds we had been to. Had things gone a little different, we might have actually crossed paths with Link and Zelda. More than that...we might have been able to cross paths with the real people of interest (not to say that the latter two weren't interesting). Given the circumstances, there were a lot of pieces missing from this puzzle. Without Bunnie or Pit around to tell us the juicy details of the N-Division, we were missing out on a lot of things that would help us a lot.

"Correct me if I'm wrong but Paperboy is that simulation that turns an ordinary task of deliverying newspapers into an errand that threatens to kill you at ever turn?" Asriel said rather non-challantly.

"That's the one.  Whether it's burglars breaking out of houses, breakdancers in the sidewalk, run-away lawn-mowers, lawn gnomes come to life, random tornadoes, cars, or the GRIM REAPER, you can bet that the kid delivering newspapers doesn't get paid nearly enough for seven days worth of this per week."

"Eh-heh-heh-heh.  Kinda makes me wish I grew up in Technopolis where almost no one has even heard of a newspaper, because they've been phased out."

"And where would your culture come from?"

"The...internet?"

I shook my head. "Way to make me feel old, goat son."

"What?" He shrugged. "I'm 117.  What have you got to complain about."

"I'm about several billion times that age after serving in STC."

"Yikes.  Immortality is a curse, huh?"

"More than you'll find out in a mere 100 years."

"Ouch.  Way to make me feel young."

Our banter was something else.

We walked down the street.

"We probably have a few minutes before the day officially begins.  Once that happens, we'll have to get out of dodge or risk being run down by either the bike or tripped up by one of the obstacles threatening to crash the bike."

"Don't we even get to know the name of what kid is even delivering these tihngs?"

"Wait...does the Paperboy even HAVE a name?" I scratched my head.

"Why wouldn't he?"

"Well on this world, it may be true, but I don't think that's a detail they'd include in an arcade game or a console port." I shrugged as we turned the corner. It was then my bracer started beeping.

"Uh-oh.  Seven o'clock."

I heard the distinct sound of a chain-driven pedal-locomotion device coming up behind us.

"Off the sidewalk, Azzy!" I dove toward the side of the house. Asriel, not really watching where I went, ran to the next house over and hid behind the...tombstones?

"Oh boy...this isn't tell-tale or anything..." He said nervously as he crouched down.

"Please don't aim over here..."

And there was our paperboy, that ball cap easy to make out. And before I knew it, a paper went flying out of his grasp and landed right in the mailbox on the house. Just like that the flag on the mailbox went up and...wait, did the flowers just bloom bigger?

"Thank-you kindly, Julio!"

'Julio?'  I thought. Okay. He might be Hispanic.

Asriel held his breath and squeezed tighter behind the headstone.

* CRACK* the one right next to him got knocked over by a paper, moments before a second paper smashed through the window.

"Ooops!"

"Hope that guy's a non-subscriber." Asriel grimmaced.

By the time Julio was on his way, the coast was clear for us to duck out.

"Well that could have gotten ugly for you."

"Yeah, tell me about it."

Asriel cringed at the momentary squeal of tires and the honking of a car horn.

"This world is NUTS." He gasped.

"You're just now realizing that?" I picked up the paper that had smashed the tombstone next to him.

Rather than read it, I shrugged and tossed it into a garbage can. Maybe it was just me but I could have sworn I saw a noxious green cloud of gas spew out from the can, followed by a brief green glow.

"Huh?"

Nothing there.

"News World." I shrugged.

"What?  No joke about fake news?"

"Why bother with that.  The real news is how anyone survives this place." I watched the kid pedal through traffic, almost causing a wreck, before swerving to miss an RC car in the sidewalk. He nearly sideswiped a milk truck, to boot.

"You get the feeling there's more to this place than what we're seeing?  I mean...you'd think it's a world without any villains but...something just feels off."

"Yeah...something feels..."

The word I ended up looking for was "unfinished". But I couldn't tell why that was or how I came to that conclusion. Heck, I didn't even realize that was the thought that I was interpretting from the vibe of this place.

We continued to explore, watching people go about morning routines. By this time Julio had most certainly reached the Obstacle Course I could see way down the next block or two.

What was it about this place that felt like it was...hiding something in plain view?

At the same time I was pondering reality...well...that reality...

"Pucker up, youngin.  The phony's on his way."

"Man...he's going to have questions if he catches us in Volt's lab..."

"You let me handle him.  You just hide out until this blows over.  Also.  Did you find Persephone?"

"No...sorry.  And I can't seem to get a message out to Volt's ally.  Is...she really a terrorist?"

"Back in the 1990's they used to have a saying...why is it called Apple Jacks if it doesn't taste like apples?"

"Huh...?"

"Nevermind.  Metaphors are lost on your generation.  Anyway...keep trying.  We'll have to stall him before the Council calls us all into their chambers."

"Right."

"Anything else?"

"I got some news from the home front.  I think I can keep it from leaking to the Council but I don't know if Chaopolis will discover it, first.  Either way...the Ultra Crew Institute...Volt Arcade's old team from those legendary days before our organzation was even started...appearantly they've been crossing time and space and helping our field agents qwell the unrest on some of the worlds affected by Adonis' people."

"By gum, that's brilliant.  Chaopolis wouldn't see it coming."

"Yeah...but is there any possible that they counted on it?"

"There's always a possibility, young sprout.  But it's a risk we're going to have to take and play the odds if we want to get ahead of them."

"Gambling on a whim seems..."

"Life without risk is playing it safe.  And playing it safe isn't always the way to live.  It may be the smart way, but it's no way to advance.  You're learn that some day."

Cutting back to our predicament.

I sniffed around.

"Something's odd about this place." I stuck to the shadows.

"Volt...?  What's...?" Asriel cocked his head.

I saw it.

"No..." I widened my eyes. A microglitch? Here?

"What is it?"

"I wouldn't touch it.  It looks unstable."

"Yeah.  We should probably keep away--"

That was when my bracer started reacting to it.

"Volt...something's...happening!"

"This can't be good...!" I watched as the tree flickered to binary and wire frame stasis for a moment.

"Vector graphics?" I widened my eyes. Whatever this was, it was contructed of something more...ancient. And buried for some reason.

"Whoah!" I stumbled as the ground flickered by the tree.

"Volt, no!" Asriel grabbed for me as I was pulled into what looked like a crack in reality super-imposed over the tree.

"VOLT!" Asriel didn't hesitate and jumped in after me.

The next few moments could only be described as The Outer Limits and the Twilight Zone meets that wireframe opening of the Real Adventures of Johnny Quest.

Tumbling in and out of phase...tumbling end over end while gravity couldn't make up its mind...just...tumbling. And then...it stopped.

Blackness.

"Volt?  Are you okay?  Can you see anything?"

"Too dark for even my natural night vision...and the temperature around us us is at too much of an equilibrium to see any infrared differences.  It's weird...but...it feels like this space is...incomplete."

Wait. I'd come across this phenominon before...

"I think...we might be in an...Unstable Timeline." I blurted that out...then regretted it. Was this too much of a clue to say in front of Asriel?

"You mean...like a dimension that--"

"Never fully formed."

I felt around and low and behold...I found it. But what was "it"?

"Asriel...does this feel like a....door knob to you?"

"At the risk of making Rod Serling jokes...yes...yes it does."

"Do we find out where it goes?"

"I don't think we have a choice."

We opened the door...and stepped into a room. A bedroom. A kid's bedroom.

"Not...what I was expecting.

"Hey, look!" Asriel pointed to the cap lying nearby.

"It looks like Julio's.  But--"

"That's not the name written on the tag of that shirt over there." I narrowed my eyes at the clothes on the floor.

"Buddy?"

"This is where we wait for Jon to make a joke about going to that one restaurant.  You know.  Big Bo--"

I shook my head.

"Right."

"Well.  We should probably get out of here before the parents call the cops or something." Asriel opened the door into the hallway. "Uh...Volt?  I'm not above making that Rod Serling joke."

There was nothing outside the room but a void.

But across the void I could make out other doors. And floating objects.

"Does that look like a stack of newspapers?"

"Only if that looks like the bike of the kid we left behind in News World."

"But...where are we now?"

I stopped short and my jaw dropped at the floating characters...they were three-dimension but they were empty...like pencil sketches...and not moving.

Above them was floating the words "Game World"

"Asriel......." I took a step back.

"That...that looks like Eggplant Wizard and King Hippo!"

"And Bunbi Heli?"

Asriel suddenly yelped as he bumped nose first into. "Y-y-yikes!" He stumbled back at the presence of--

"That's...!"

"A Reaper from Kid Icarus?" I narrowed my eyes.

"And a Peng from Ice Man's stage."

"Dude.  That's Donkey Kong!  Like...100 foot sized Donkey Kong from Kongo Land."

"Check it out...Donkey Kong Jr. is with him.  Nowhere did we find a Donkey Kong Jr. back there.  Really if anything, the people of Plentiful seem more out of place than this does."

"Look!  Mick from Kid Icarus Angel Land Story.  What is going on here?"

As we drifted through the endless void, we found more complete versions.

"Have you ever come across things like this before?"

"Yeah...yeah I have." I recalled the number of unstable Undertale timelines I found that...weren't fully formed. Others looked like they had crashed. In short...these were the experiments that Madam Fate and Lady Destiny played around with...when they were being dirty little hackers. I dare not tell Asriel about them. Not even when he was ready to know the truth about Undertale. No...this would be something...I'd have to break to him much later...yeah...much.......later.......dammit.

I avoided the issue.

After some effort we managed to open a doorway into...

"Bless our Megahome?" I looked at the pictures on the wall. "Mega Dad?  Mega Mom?  Mega Bird?  Mega Rat?"

"I'm guessing this was conceived long before Rush, Beat and Eddie."

"Mega Man living like a kid in a superhero family?"

"Is it that much of a stretch?" Asriel questioned, scanning over the...vaguely Mega Man shaped hole in the wall.

"Wait...this is Mega Man?" I stopped at the portrait. "But...why is he GREEN?  And short?  Is he even a robot?"

"Volt?  Some questions just don't have answers." Asriel jabbed, referencing an old Nintendo Power moment.

Got me there, Azzy.

"What do you think all this is?"

"I have no idea...but it could be some higher power had an idea for VideoLand...er...Game World and tried to realize it.  But...they stopped production of it and...just created VideoLand over top of it."

"Why try to figure out deities?  Pit sure can't seem to make heads or tails of his own Elder Gods sometimes, and he's the closest we have to one."

"Angels are further from deities than you might think.   But yeah...a lot closer than mortals."

"Volt...look."

I stopped at the image of...no...it can't be.

"Is...that Pit?"

Orange-haired. Yellow toga. He had wristbands. Sandals. Flimsey bird wings. Cartoonishly rosey cheeks. Green eyes.

"I think...it is supposed to be him."

"So...then this pocket dimension really is Videoland's...well...prototype."

The way Asriel used the phrase pocket dimension was surprising...and sent chills down my spine realizing how much he was making sense out of all the stuff I kept from him for years. There was a real danger he'd figure out the secret before our promise was ready to be fullfill and I could tell him myself.

"Well.  We've seen a lot of things we weren't meant to see...except for this...Buddy Boy." Asriel shrugged.

"Buddy Boy...huh..." The name had a weird resonance to it. So how did this become the legend of Captain N the Game Master.

It suddenly hit me what I didn't think of  when we first even arrived in this AU. The one name that tied all these worlds together. The common link. The Prophecized.

"Come on.  Let's find our way back."

I stopped and looked at the red cap...wait...wasn't Julio's yellow? I can't...remember. Was this world affecting us, now?

I picked it up. And low and behold. A sixth green shard. I gave it to Asriel to store away.

I looked back into Buddy's room, noticing that there was...suddenly an elevator inside the closet that wasn't there before. We shrugged and entered as the elevator operator, a short Magoo-looking person dressed completely in dark brown, including his derby. He spoke not a word but pressed the button as we got in...and the next thing we knew, we were outside the tree again. The dialation had closed up.

"That was an experience."

"Do you...think that this could apply to our world...our AU, as well?"

"I don't know, Asriel." I looked off into the distance. "We have six of these shard things.  It looks like we're only missing one more piece.  And I think i know where we'll find it."

We turned toward the warp zone that opened up...

"Somehow...I don't think we're lucky enough to run into whatever version of Samus exists in this AU...

Sub-Entry 267: "The VideoLand Arc, Part 7 - Metroid":
So here we were. We had warped to the outer perimeter of "Metroid". This looked nothing like the game. Asriel and I had been through the game so many times, we could practically run it blindfolded. We both knew about the extremely transparent passwords including the debug.

"You know, Volt...I know we made fun of this place from a distance...but seeing it close up...this is actually really creepy and nightmarish."

"Nightmares are just dreams that go dark, Azzy." I looked on as we hoverboarded over the surface of the metal, spikey folds and wrinkles of the giant brain-shaped metal asteroid.

"You know...if Dr. Wily is part of this alliance--"  Asriel prompted.

"Then chances are, he's already made a pretty detailed account of us when explaining his failure to Mother Brain."

"Which probably won't be helped with King Hippo and Eggplant whining about being beaten up by a wolf and a goat." He followed up.

"I'd love to see how the begging for forgiveness went." I mused, my grin a little more than tell-tale.

"Heroes shouldn't gloat, Volt."

"Admit it.  You enjoy beating the bad guys, too."

"...well...since we're the only ones out here." Asriel shrugged before making a pinching gesture.

"I know this is a weird AU version...but...do you think there's an entrance to Brinstar territory?"

"A lot of those other weird representations of famliar games seem to STILL follow the layout of the games and game worlds we know."

"I'll take that as a yes.  Let's find a warp inside."

"And prepare for the likelyhood we're not only expected, but there's a trap waiting for us."

"Then let's put our knowledge of the game to the test.  First thing to do is find the Maru Mari and the Long Beam."

"I think I have a map to the High Jump Boots on the NX Board from the last time I took notes in one of Aunt Vi's seminars on classic generation 3's--the 8-bit generation."

"If you can chart out all the missiles, we'll be prepared to mop the floor with the final defenses and take out the Zebetite crystal cylinders before dealing with the gray matter, herself."

"Then let's kick it."

A leap down to the surface and a fold up of Azzy's gear and we soon found our way to the elevator down.

"You know I'm surprised they didn't booby-trap our way in if we are expected."

"The lesson about 1980's villains, Asriel, is that they they make painfully obvious bad choices then seem surprised when the heroes suddenly bust in on them even though clearly set a trap for them."

"Yeah.  Did anyone have any common sense back then?"

"We were more distracted by how awesome our style with computers, music, fashion, and TV had gotten since disco died a horrible but deserving death." I joked.

If this were a TV show, then this is the part we cue obvious montage of us getting our start in what we assumed was Brinstar...off screen.

I think I'm actually getting more and more a twisted sense of humor the longer I logged this off universe adventure...

"...okay, I'm made contact with you.  I hope this isn't a mistake."

"WHO DAAAAARES CONTACT THE ALMIGHTY KOMMAND!"

"Gyah!  Please don't bite crash my harddrive or steel my identity or paste offensive comments on the internet under my name, Miss KOMMAND...ma'am--"

"...okay, wow.  You're almost TOO easy to mess with.  At ease, foo'.  You're embarassing yourself.  You contacted me on this highly secure channel so I'm guessing you're one of Arcade's allies."

"Y-y-yes, ma'am.  D-Dr. Archimedes is my handle.  Um...big fan of Dr. Arcade's work.  Umm..."

"Right, right.  So.  You sure are risking your nards contacting a big, bad galactic cyber-terrorist."

"Yeah...well...the reason I called is...I think Dr. Adonis has infiltrated--"

"...yeah, yeah.  He's in your H.Q. messin' up your dudes; and the bad doctor is impresonating the good doctor, on that note.  For a guy that prides himself on being random and chaotic, the dude is sure predicable with him tarnishing ole' Volty's image."

"What do we do?  If he figures out any more of us know......I mean, he's the guy who simultaneously annhilated pentillions!"

"Yeah, yeah.  He made Thanos' snap look like a guy holding a magnifying glass over an ant colony...ironic choice of metaphor, considering who survived and all......but back on topic.  You don't worry your bespectacled little head about it, poindexter.  I got ya' covered and don't worry.  Things are about to make like Phoenix Wright and pull a sudden turn-around."

"...you...are Volt Arcade's ally, right?"

"You ARE his biggest fan...aren't you?"

"...oooookay."

"Look.  I gots this.  Don't worry your head, blond Harry Potter, you just hang loose, 'blood.  I gonna catch your eyeballs on the rebound."

"Wh...what does that even mean?  Hello?  Hello?"

"Better hang up before Adonis steps into the room."

* BZZT*

"...why is she the best lifeline you can get, Volt?"

Proof that even as an immortal underground hacker, Violet STILL rubs everyone the wrong way.

And so...

"...and that's why you shouldn't automatically hate on your 1980's selves and that's why you shouldn't start a flame war with your CGI-ish updates." Willie managed to finally broker a truce between two sets of Seville Brothers. "Now bury the hatch and let's not bring up any suspicious raisins again."

A glare toward 21st century Theodore.

"I said I was sorry."

"I could have gone my entire life without knowing that's what you were doing while we were in a hot air balloon tour around the world..." The 1980's Alvin grumbled.

At that moment Willamina's T.A.O. Link went off.

"Yo.  Willie!  KOMMAND here with an emergency reassignment.  Need ya ta' join up with the others and swing by some worlds for some drive-thru recruitments.  I'm about to drop a nice little care package to some place special before some dudes and dudettes get the double-A treatment.  A as in Allouicious Adonis."

"Uh...right.  I'm on my way.  MIssion accomplished--

"ALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLVIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN!!!"

"........mostly."

And elsewhere...

"This is Jon Talbain.  I read you.  I'm finishing up my business here and I'll be taking the express warp back home."

"Mission status?"

"I met up with Damon Blade and we thoroughly trounced Dr. Farayan.  I let him have all the glory.  No sense in two werewolves being hailed as a hero on this world.  Anyhoo...I slipped away while he was posing while holding up the American Flag......is that really how his adventure ends?"

"Don't question things, J.T.  You know where to go.  Bring the whole gang if you can."

"Tally-ho, then!"

And still elsewhere...

"Chaopolis Agents are in custody, KOMMAND.  I copy.  I'm heading to extend the invitations, now." Scott broke communication. "...what did she mean by "Christmas is Coming"?  It's the middle of March..." Scott rubbed his chin. "...Barney Ross...?" He looked at the downloaded data card.

"One thing's for sure...Callista would kick me out of the house if I came home with a tatoo like that..."

Which led to...

"I had a feeling you'd be calling."

"Where are you, Buns?"

"...let's just say...getting involved in two cities with their own stealthy vigilantes..." Bunnie muttered as she narrowed her eyes at the black bat-shaped boomerang projectile next to a shuriken bearing a familiar martial arts clan family crest."

"...if it's what I think you're talking about, I'm so jealous."

"Not the time, "KOMMAND".  I fear I will have to wrap this up a lot quicker.  I have a feeling I know what you've called to request about.  I might have the backup you need."

"Cool.  I'll open the portal for you when you're ready--"

"Vi."

"Whoah!  Party foul!  No names!  You want the Council to start a rabbit-hunt for me?!"

"I'm serious.  I know you intend on skirting the line.  I do not wish to have to lecture you one what you're about to do.  But fear I'm going to have to, anyway.  Can you at least make an EFFORT to not go overboard.  Can you at least try not to cross an unnecessary lines of taste..."

"C'mon...c'mooooooooooooon...it's me!"

"...."

"I'm...not fooling you, am I?"

"Not.  One.  Bit."

"Eheheheh...I'll...make conscious effort...?"

"Time is short.  I have no choice to accept it."

"I knew you would..." KOMMAND had to be grinning under that Dark Helmet mask she chose for her latest disguise.

"One last thing...if you're going to go through with this...pick something INCONSPICUOUS!"

That's about enough of that.

Meanwhile in the bowels of the bio-mechanical nightmare not known as Zebes, SR-388, Tallon IV, Aether, or one of the other planets part of the Galactic Federation's coalition.

"RUN!"

The two of us hurtled through the corridor, toward the doorway, no time to actually turn the Long Beam pistols on the predators trying to get us.

"You know...dodging Rio is a lot harder than it is in the game."

"Don't think I've seen that many of them traveling in a pack, either."

"We should go for the Ice Beam next.  How are those High Jump boots treating you?"

"Comfy." I mused as I looked down and wiggled my exposed toes. "Say what you will about Violet's weird obsession with Naruto footwear...if it fits, wear it."

"Yeah...convinient how the weapons and power items of this world just seem to custom tailor themselves to both of us."

"Why question the logic shrugging its shoulders now, Azzy.  Onward to Kraid?"

"Wonder how much behind-uglier he can get."

"BEHIND, Goat Son?  Reeeeally pushing the envelope on that G-rating of yours."

I...think something about this world was causing us to banter more than  usual. These were back-and-forth wisecracks that were dated...well...two decades ago. Maybe longer than that.

"Might as well get serious, Volt.  There's no doubt that we've been watched since we entered this place.  We're more expected than a sunrise."

"Well, I've said it before.  If we're stepping into a trap, we at least KNOW we are.  The most we can do is hope we're putting on an entertaining show for the brain lord of the asteroid."

"After what we've seen up to this point I'm wondering what Mother Brain is even going to be like.  It's not like there was much in the archives to go on back home other than Pit's descriptions and some data scans of a giant, spikey, vaguely elephantish, one-eyed bio-mechanical grey matterish mass in a glass cylinder."

"Oddly descriptive."

"Calling it like I saw it from Aunt Vi's seminars."

"Well...that established, we should prep for Metroids...ironically existing IN an artificial asteroid named Metroid.  We'll have to take out the Zebetite cylinders before we get to the boss itself."

"Simple plan.  But let's worry about the overgrown spike lizard and the fire-breathing dragonoid, first."

I suddenly drew an XBTOCLC and fired backward as a Sidehopper tried to sneak up on us.

"Probably should give consideration to the cannon fodder, while we're at it."

Asriel smirked and give me the cool finger-guns gesture.

"Let's rip off...I mean kinda-pay-tribute-to the Alien movies." I joked.

It suprisingly easy for us to cut a path to Kraid after loading up on power ups and gear. And yeah...he...er...it was definitely something to see.

"...this...is KRAID right?  I mean...it's supposed to be a spikey...lizard thing that flings claws and shoots spikes from its stomach...right?"

"This is...a giant upright, overweight paramecium with semblance of arms and covered in ugly green back moss." I smoldered...leering at the eyes squinted completely shut, the bulbous...chin...and the jack o'lantern mouth that stretched a little too far around the face for my comfort.

We looked at each other for a bit.

"Paper, rock, scissors for who gets to take him?"

"It's debatable which of us will be the loser from the results of this.  But okay."

I played scissors. Azzy played rock. I shrugged and let the big winner take his shot after handing him the Ice Beam.

Asriel pointed the weapon, CLEARLY as invested as I was, squeezed off a few shots and the pellets quickly exploded into quick-freezing ice that  encapsulated Kraid.

"But I'm taking the final shot." I executed my most powerful roundhouse kick, shattering the whole mess and causing it to blip out of existence.

"Hey.  I thought you didn't like competition."

"I don't.  But I just couldn't pass this up."

Not that the battle against Ridley had many more surprises. Just a lot more FIRE.

"...oww.  Okay...not the worst punishment.  At least we weren't FROZEN TODAY!" I wiped my brow as I unpocketd one of the Energy Tanks we had collected. It had drained pretty quick from that last assault.

"Okay.  This guy looks a little more like Ridley..."

"Definitely like a dragon.  A big.  Red.  Fire-breathing.  Dragon." Asriel grimmaced.

"We've been pounding him with attacks for a while now.  Any ideas?" I asked.

"Wish we had the Crash Star from back in the Bayou." Asriel backed up.

"It would almost make up for the fact that Bayou Billy looks nothing like our universe's and the fact he had a monster truck on steroids." I wrinkled my nose.

"Well...to its credit, that game world felt more interesting than the actual game bac home." Asriel shrugged before reconfiguring his NX joycons into the NX Splat Dualies and unloaded an ink storm into Ridley's eyes, blinding him temporarily.

"Volt!  Try venting the entire missile payload!"

So I full-auto-ed while Asriel switched to the NX Longsword while summoning the neon Pizza Cutter and showed me what he learned from Violet's Worlds of Warcraft raids.

After way too many hits to be believable as well as sidestepping crazed fireball going ever which way, Asriel finally tricked him into a warp zone with what we assumed was the last of his life span.

"Wait for it." Asriel prompted as Ridley tried to poke his neck back through the warp...only for the warp zone to close up half-way through, blipping him out of existence.

Off to the core that we presumed was this Metroid's version of Tourian.

"...okay...that was a thing." Asriel wiped himself off with the towel before handing it back to me.

"We never speak of this to Vi.  Especially not while watching anime on Movie Night." I shook the slime out of my fur.

"If those were supposed to be Metroids...I think I'd rather be drained to the point of ending up on the wrong side of Thanos' fingersnap." Asriel shuddered.

"Well.  This is the door to Mother Brain's chamber.  I would have figured we'd have found the Zebetite chamber by this point but...we passed the chamberlock it should have been in.  Mother Brain should have been right behind the last one."

"Well.  Let's get ready for the insanity." I strapped the bomb to the door. We both got some distance and opened fire.

Once the smoke cleared...

"We know you're in there.  Come on out!" Asriel announced as we stepped inside."

"So this is what's dared to enter the corridors of Metroid.  You foos must be out of your skulls steppin' to my turf."

"Mother...Brain?" Asriel blinked. "Volt...why does she sound umm...kinda like..."

"Do we we really want the answer to that?  Somewhere I think Rick Morranis is denying this exists and is staying away from flower shops." I joked.

"Oh!  A reeeeeal comedian, huh!"

"It's as we described...*wheeze*...frauline Mother Brain."

"I know that voice.  Come on out, Wily." Asriel challenged as the mad scientist stepped out of the shadows first.

"Ready for a rematch, wimps?"

"That can only be King Hippo." I glared as the blue mutant pounded a boxing gloved fist into his other boxing-gloved palm.

An obnoxious giggle followed by a string of fruit and vegetable jokes and puns.

"And now you're the ones who are going to be plum out of luck!  It's going to be berry sweet to string-bean you up and lock you in a jail cell-ery!"

"Admittedly, those puns were bad even by my standards." Asriel braced himself as Eggplant Wizard waddled in, waving his staff around.

"Okay...three lackeys.  We're off to a good start being outnumbered 3 to 2."

"Lackeys?" Wily protested.

"Oh.  I'm sorry.  MINIONS." I smugly mused, crossing my arms.

"Laugh it up now, furball.  But your tomatoes are as good as cooked!"

"You know what...it's easy for the help to be brave..." Asriel glared as his eyes turned orange. "But if your boss is so brave, why doesn't she show herself?"

That was when we heard the tank treads roll toward us and then something very big rolled out of the darkness and into our view.

"Whoah.  Just.  Whoah." Asriel's jaw dropped as did mine.

"Holy.  Schnikees.  I don't have words." My eye twitched as I looked upon the giant bulbous bottle housing a massive pink brain with optic and ofactory nerves connecting to ugly stretched flesh containing a pair of bulbous eyes...which strangely had false eyelashes, eyeliner, and eye shadow, a bulbous set of ruby-lipstick-ed lips with nasty teeth behind them.

From out of the parts on top of the jar came electrodes and ports for a pair of tentacles.

"...I really want this to be a hallucination...but I'm pretty sure it's not."

"It's definitely a nightmare, Volt."

"I had mah tentacles full dealing with ONE Game Master!  I sure ain't givin' no quarter to two more!"

"Game...Master...?" That phrase suddenly set off a chain reaction of memories in my head. I can only assume the look on Asriel's face meant the same was true for him. It all came back to me.

"Captain N..." I uttered.

"Now I know what...or rather who we've been trying to remember."

"Awww, enough talkin'!  When do we get to pound them?!" Hippo looked antsy.

"I like your attitude, King Hippo.  Nobody goes 'round disrespecting Mother Brain! AH-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHHA!"

Azzy and I loaded up. He installed the ARMS data, which I hadn't seen since teaming up with Generator Rex. I pulled out the Ice Gatling and the Corona Buster and dual-wielded.

"C'mon, powder puff!  Put up your dukes!"

"You got it!" Asriel telescoped a furry, super-enhanced fist out, the vine coils springing out to give him plenty of distance between him and Hippo.

"What the--!" Hippo's eyes widened before he saw stars. "Whoaaaaah!" The hippo mutant lot his balance before falling flat on his back. It wasn't that he was KO'ed...it was more that he was too obeise and heavy to get back up...just like the game.

"Let's see how good you are against me, mutt man!"

"Oh.  A dog joke.  Clever.  Bet you think you're pretty cool?" I sidestepped the barrages of eggplants.

"Well...how about I make you even COOLER!" I unloaded the Ice Gatling.

"WAAAAAAAAH!  Hey!  S-S-STOP!  THAT'S C-C-C-COLD!" Eggplant was soon completely encased in a block of ice.

"I owe the both of you nudniks for your...*gasp*...tomfoolery.  You may have defeated my first generation robots.  But maybe you prefer my...*wheeze* second string!"

Seven of eight of the Mega Man 2 robot masters made their appearance. And holy cow...they were worse-looking than the first set.

Air Man. White. Instead of a tornado fan, he had what I guessed was the meteorology symbol for high winds or tornado on his face. He had twin swivel cannon. Just...ew.

Crash Man. Yellow. Ugly permanant grimmace of the teeth. Instead of drill-like Crash Bombers, one arm had an ugly gloved hand. The other, what I described as one of those "Flooby-Ball Scoopers" from that episode of Inspector Gadget. And inside that giant scooper was a traditional black ball bomb.

Bubble Man. He was at least green...the flippers were more Toad Man. Overall...he jsut looked awkward.

Metal Man. Dull grey metal with hints of aquamarine and yellow parts...with the flattest forarms I'd ever seen. Also his head resembled a cash register...in fact he looked like Conky's evil giant cousin. I soon realized his arm parts flipped over and the hands retracted to spit out Metal Blades in waves.

Heat Man. Red. Spindly arms and legs. A psychotic head underneath the lid. One arm with a ridiculously huge Mickey Mouse glove. The other with a holy crap sized arm cannon with semblance of a flame in the barrel.

Wood Man. ENTIRELY made of wood but what made me cringe was that instead of arms, he had a wooden shield attached to one shoulder and a weird port with a vine sticking out of it. What? Just...what? A retractable vine whip?

And finally Quick Man. GREEN. GREEN AND BLUE WITH RED PARTS. And holy crap...he looked less like a robot and more like a mutant insect. A wirey mutant bug. Even his boomerangs looked odd.

"Try to best these, mein kinder."

"For the record...we're BOTH a lot older than we look..." I built up a charge in both hands.

Asriel built up the largest of Taiyoudamas and grinned.

"Dumkoff!  You think that will be enough to *wheeze* destroy my latest robot army?"

"Maybe not alone, Doc..." Asriel mused.

"But together...!" I nodded to him before we let fly and merged our attacks. Solar plasma plus electromagnetic plasma in JUST the right volatile combination...

* KRACKOW!!! *  The ball exploded into an EMF super mass...

"What the...!  NO!  YOU FOOLS!  WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!"

"Shut of your equipment, now, Azzy!" I hit the emergency kill switch for all my gear as Asriel shut down the NX board.

"Do you know what a localized Electromagnetic Pulse does?"

"GAAAAAAAAAAH!!" The robot masters all keeled over before blipping out of existence.

"So.  Dr. Wily.  Care to D.I.Y.?"

Wily backed away before running straight into a warp zone.

"Wily you gutless turncoat!  Where's your loyalty?!"

"In another warp zone...!" His voice echoed before the warp closed.

"I'll deal with you...myself!" Mother Brain swiveled the jar toward us.

I was feeling brave at the moment...but I should have checked myself before the tentacle snapped forth and wrapped around me...and then came the massive surge of electricity.

"You were laughing then, foo!  But lets see you laugh when I give you a one volt shock for every time my empty-headed idiots messed up a mission!"

"Th-th-that'd be a m-m-m-million v-v-volts!" Eggplant managed to whimper under the ice.

* ZAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARK*

I spasmed.

"EEHEEHEEHEEHEEHEEHEE!  AH-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!" Mother Brain started to go into fits of laughter before she realized... "What the...?!"

"Hey.  What's with stopping the voltage?  It was just getting good." I grinned.

"Wow.  Using an electric attack on an electric demigod?  Not very smart for a brain." Asriel crossed his arms and leaned up against the wall.

"You think that's funny?" Mother Brain started to fume.

She started to squeeze me a little tighter. It didn't take long for her temper to boil over...and for her to snap. And then that's when she did the one thing neither us expected...but really SHOULD HAVE expected, considering the setup she did earlier.

"Better wait a minute!"

I gasped as she suddenly wrapped a tentacle around Asriel and brought us both in close.

"Better hold the phone!

Better mind your manners.

Better change your tone.

Don't you threaten me, son! You got a lot o' gall.

We're gonna do things my way...

OR WE WON'T DO THINGS AT ALLLLLLL!"

"Oh man, Volt!  She's really going for it!"

"She's really going to do that?  She's really going to...SING...THAT?!"

"You don't know what you're messin' with!  You got no idea!

'You don't know what you're looking at! When you're lookin' here!'

'You don't know what you're up against! No, no way, no how!'

'You don't know what you're lookin' at. But I'm going to tell you NOWWWWWW!'

'GET IT STRAIGHT! I'm just a mean, lean, muthah! From outer space, and I'm BAD!'

(Mean, lean, bad!)

'I'm just a mean, lean, muthah! From outer space, and it looks like you've been had!"'

I'm just a mean, lean muthah from outer space, so get off my back, GET OUTTA MAH FACE!

I'm mean and lean...and I'm BAAAAAAD!"

"This is happeing...this is happening...this is really happening..." I don't think I'd ever heard Asriel this scared...or disturbed before. The fact that his eyes had gone purple hammered it home.

"You wanna save your skin, boys?  You want save your hide?

'You wanna see tomorrow? Ya' better step aside!'

'Better take a tip, boys! Want some good advice?'

'Ya better take it eeeeeasy. BECAUSE YOU'RE WALKIN' ON THIN ICE!'

I sweatdropped. "I hate ice..."

"You don't know what you're lookin' at!  No you never did!

You don't know what you're lookin' at, but that's tough luck, kid!

The lion don't sleep tonight and if you pull his tail, he'll roar!

You say that ain't nice, you say that ain't fair, you know what I say, IT'S WAAAR!"

"So much for solving this with diplomacy..." Asriel hung upside-down, starting to sweat.

"OWWW! WATCH ME NOW!

'I'm  just a mean, lean muthah! From outer space and I'm bad!'

'I'm just a mean, lean muthah! A real disgrace, and you got me fightin' mad!'

I'm just a mean, lean mutha, from outer space!

Gonna TRASH your butts, gonna rock this place!

I'm mean and lean...and I am BAAAAAAAAAD!!!"

She emphasized by slamming us both into the ground and letting us soak in the pain for a bit.

"Oww."

"Ditto."

"Mmmmmmnn...

You know, I don't come from no science room!

I'm from beyond the stars and from beyond the moon!

You can keep the Thing, keep the It, keep the creature, they ain't got my wit!"

Mother Brain thrust a tentacle as we staggered up and managed to find ourselves up against the wall.

"I got killer neurons, a powerful brain stem, nasty tentacles and I'm USIN' them!

'So you better move it out! Tell ya' what,'

You got the point, I'm gonna bust your BUUUUUUUTT!!!"

As she rapped, she pinned each of us to the wall with a tenticle, piercing our clothes, and just missing our flesh by inches.

She spent the next half a minute laughing obscenely and maniacally before deciding to drop us and then try to finish us off, deploying the cannons from her tank-equipped mechanical base.

"HEE-HEE!  BYE-BYE, WHOEVER YOU ARE!" She withdrew her tentacles, dropping us in a heap. We scrambled to get up before her next attack came.

"Volt, quick!" Asriel tossed me the remainder of the magic ampule from Hyrule.

I splashed it over the back of my labcoat and held it up like a cape in front of us, reflecting the powerful laser blasts back and eventually taking out Mother Brain's weapons.

"And now to finish you off!" Asriel reshaped his NX gear into an emulated Ancient Bow from Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild. His target practice with Pit was about to pay off.

He nocked an Ancient Arrow equivalent and fired toward the lever controls on Mother Brain's base.....only for the arrow to be snatched by a tentacle at the last moment.

"Mnn-mnn-mnn!  Did you think I'd fall for the same trick that winged brat pulled on me before?  You're about to find out why I'm called Mother Brain, foo!"

"Oh crap..." I uttered as Mother Brain electrocuted the arrow, overpowereding the energy collective until it dissipated.

"Azzy...not to worry you, but I pretty much used up my gear's power.  You got anything left?"

"No." Asriel backed away as his gear's neon trim and lights went dark.

It seemed we were done for.

At least we would have been, had Asriel not mentioned something earlier that I complete forgot about.

"We got one shot out of this, Azzy."

"What's the plan?"

"Wait for it...3...2...1..."

At that moment a warp zone opened up and out came...!

"OH NOOOO!!!" Mother Brain's eyes widened as she immediately pulled the platform up and deployed its tank treads full reverse backwards into a warp zone.

"I'm not getting blipped out of existance and spending another another period of time in limbo, waiting to respawn!" She said as she fell through the warp. "Mark my words, you'll pay for this!  You're gonna pay!  You've ruined EVERYTHIIIIIIIIING!!!"

The star ricochetted off over everything in the room.

"YAAAAAH!  WAIT FOR US, BIG MAMMA BRAIN!" King Hippo and Eggplant Wizard ran in after her.

The zone closed up right as the star landed in my hand and went dormant.

"A Crash Star?  Seriously?  When did you set this up?"

"Well...I kinda asked  Bayou Billy to do me a solid and launch a Crash Star which I trapped into basically the equivalent of Cowboy Beebop Hyperspace.  I've been keeping it perpetually going in there until I thought to release it just now."

"You are something else."

"Well.  I guess she'll be back.  But she made a mistake messing with us, Azzy."

"That isn't the only mistake she made..." Asriel went over to the computer consoles and checked something.

"You're not going to believe this but...she left the keys in the ignition!" Asriel held up the key ring with the rabbit's foot on it.

"An asteroid...with an ignition.  This is beyond cheese." I wagged my tail.

"Well.  I guess there's one last location on Videoland's map left to explore." Asriel set the coordinates on the machinery before putting the key back in and starting Metroid's engines up.

"In the mean time, I'm going to go look for that seventh fragment and we can ride to that last area in style."

"Good idea.  Then we'll set this thing to head off into deep space, far from Mother Brain."

"Rock on." Asriel headed back down the corridors to search.

At that moment I looked upon Mother Brain's "Metroid Mirror" on the wall. There was a thought in my head that I just couldn't shake. I had to know something that I had pushed to the back of my head since the early days of taking Asriel under my wing, seven years ago.

I remembered something from the archives of something similar in our own Videoland. That the Zebesians had a supercomputer oracle of some kinda to help them predict the future and computer our weaknesses and other things. Maybe this could answer...?

"Metroid Mirror on the wall, I'm not good at rhyming...so...let's just say this is like a collect call.  (Huh.  Guess I can rhyme in a pinch.)  I keep wondering to myself...was I really the best person to be Asriel's best friend and role model all these years ago?  What I want to know is...if I had just dropped him off in Miranda and just went back to S.T.C. without spearheading this...what would Asriel be like without me?"

The mirror suddenly showed me a different reality where Asriel grew up without me. And while I was sure my own crew could handle things. While I was sure that Asgore and Toriel, under normal circumstances could continue to be good parents if Chara had never dropped into his life...what I saw...was Asriel...but not the way I had come to know him.

Focus, Asriel! You have to learn this material! This is for your own good! Stop shying away and defend yourself!"

But instead of him going for the H.U.D....Asriel turned and ran out of the dojo, crying in a panic.

"What...that's not how it happened."

And again, Asriel turned away from Computer Vahalla's doors. "I want to go home..." He clung to Bunnie's arm. She frowned in response.

The more I saw of him...

"I don't like this."

I was in disbelief. No way could I be this much of an influence on him...I couldn't be the kickstarter to his path to virtues...could I?

"I don't think I should go near it...it looks dangerous."

And the more years that passed...the more I realized...

"It finally makes sense now...I can't believe I'm saying this but...without me...he would have become ANTOINE."

Now I knew what it was in Antoine that Asriel saw...why he reached out to him; because Antoine was the same as him way back then.

I turned away from the mirror. "Enough.  I've seen enough.  I guess...I can finally put that doubt to rest.

The mirror went blank and Asriel returned with the sevent shard. "I found it.  But I haven't figured out how to fit them all together yet.  I know HOW they fit together but...they just won't reintegrate into...whatever it is."

"We'll figure it out later.  Now.  Let's get to that last part of Videoland." I stood before the viewing monitor.

"Full speed ahead, Asriel."

"Aye-aye, cap'n."

Sub-Entry 268: "The VideoLand Arc, Part 8 - Adonis's Gambit":
"All active and present field agents of S.T.C. accounted for?  Then this meeting will come to order."

Most of my collegues were resisting the urge to gulp hard. Adonis on the other hand was unusually smug as he continued to lie in wait, using my likeness.

"Dr. Persephone is not present." Dr. Faraday noted, none the wiser.

"Should we not--"

"Then she is truant and will be disciplined accordingly.  This council values its time and will not tolerate maverick behavior."

How hard did you have to struggle not chuckle under your breath, Adonis? The irony was so thick it was intoxicating to you wasn't it?

"Hmmph." Dr. Phoenix scoffed. "Just like us to be waiting on a woman."

Did I mention why most of us didn't like Dr. Phoenix?

"Yes, what an inforgivable crime, forcing us to be patient.  Clearly we should be rushing into affairs."

Point for Dr. Nicodimus for the snipe.

"Silence!" The head Councilman ordered.

"This meeting will come to order AS SCHEDULED."

At this very moment only the elite, highest ranking of STC's field agents were present. Both the likeable, the unlikeable, and the in-between. All things considering, if I had to size it up...my allies in this room were vastly outnumbered and outclassed. Especially in clout.

But ain't no time for that. Exposition city lies ahead with our masters of ceremony about to monologue for us.

"As of now we are at war.  While the cross-rift anomalies of many AU's falling under the jurisdiction of...some parties in this room..." The councilwoman glared at me...or rather Adonis. "...have resulted in only minor misunderstandings, a faux pas or two, or a breakdown of an agreement to disagree.  Many, many other worlds have clashed in all out wars with actualy casualities.  Some have even had incidents involving past and future parts of their own timelines."

"An expressly forbidden transgression against space and time itself."

"This declaration of aggression on the very whole of the Axis of Realities will not be tolerated.  We will stand against this disrespect against all that our organization has immortalized!"

...I got nothing. Seriously. Our organizaiton is supposed to be a deep-kept secret. I mean, even when I ended up in crossover adventure after crossover adventure, I kept my organization out of it and just describe myself as a traveler of space, time, and dimension. Why glorify it when it was really only my circle of friends and the galactic senates even funding S.T.C. were even aware of it.

"Our Freeze Teams are outnumber 50 to 1 in some cases." Dr. Cyrus chimed in.

"Dimensional barriers are weakening at an exponential rate." Dr. Parabola followed up.

"History is already showing signs of breaking down on a number of key worlds." Dr. Basilisk held up a lab report.

I remind these names are only pseudonyms...no real names. That said...

A trio of the usual world-ending scenarios, all laid out in a perfect pattern. Yup, indeed. Been there done that. Thing was...it was happening to OUR multiverse. Forget the self-awareness seeping into alternate Videoland making our anything-but-horrible exile.

This kicked off the arguing. Oh boy, the arguing. Funny it should be mentioned that incidents of agreeing to disagee breaking down...this was what was happening now.

In all the careful groundwork I laid for this project...the years the soon became centuries thanks to the discovery of the Genie's Lamp and Pandora's Box...all the expansions and restructuring, the overhauling...this is what had become of it. The moment they stopped listening to me and started valueing their own self-interests...began the road to Adonis' self-destruction.

"...furthermore, we have new information coming in that unknowns are intervening in this cascade of wars.  Outsiders unaffiliated with our organization."

"What?!"

"Are you saying that there are people taking the laws of time and space into their own hands?!"

"We had our hands full dealing with traitors and terrorists.  Now we're dealing with an influx of vigilantes?!"

"We haven't identified them yet, but the evidence seems to be that they are all from still-unknown off world orign.  We have beings without proper spacial passport authoriziation to travel to worlds positively identified as war zones under S.T.C. jurisdiction who have interfered with S.T.C. protocol."

Don't forget the part about successfully doing your jobs.

"What do you know of this, Agent Arcade?"

Adonis shook his head. While it was true he didn't know about Bunnie executing Octopus Protocol....he was smart enough to figure out it was something I WOULD order if I were still in this universe. That had to amuse him...greatly.

"I'm afraid I cannot confirm (or deny) the existence of such information.  Honestly...I'm shocked by this revelation.  Shocked, I tell you."

A narrowing of the eyes by the Councilman...but indeed he ws sold on Adonis' performance. His slight tinge of smugness lined up perfectly with how cocky I had gotten around the Council since Daimyou laid down the law.

"Come on...the King of Crossovers doesn't know when people are suddenly crossing over into worlds they don't belong on."

"Again.  I have no information to give." Adonis shrugged.

"This is MADNESS!" One of the other councilmen slammed his palms on the table.

"When did we lose control of this situation?!" One of the councilwomen whined.

"Control..." Adonis mused under his breath. "...it is not control I've taken from you..."

"Did you say something, Doctor?" Faraday asked.

"No.  It must be your imagination."

"I say we take immediate action.  We have to turn this around and declare some form of Martial Law."

"I second that notion."

"What notion?!  What are we supposed to do  in this situation?!  What CAN we do?"

"Listen to me!  This is all very simple!"

"No, you listen!  We are all way in over our heads!"

It's tempting isn't it, Allouicious? Tempting to revell in the genesis of chaos within our own foundation. Our organization was already a volatile powder keg. You were just the guy who entered the barrel, holding a lit sparkler and waiting for inevitability.

The argueing continued as Adonis waited for the perfect moment to send it all sky high--

The room suddenly turned silent with the unsheathing of Daimyou's katana which flared up with monsterous neon pink fire.

This would be an opportune time to segue with a "now that I have your attention", wouldn't it.

The glare circled from everyone around the room. The moment anyone attempted to open their mouth to speak the katana was quickly pointed in their direction with a death stare through the mask to remain silent.

There was a feeling shared by my collegues that now things were finally going to turn around and everything was going to be ok--

* THWAAAAAAAAACK*

A cascade of gasps around the room accompanied by shock, horror, and looks of--

"...that...didn't just happen!"

"What the Hell...?!" Dr. Pythagorus gasped.

"Lady...Daimyou?  Why?" Dr. Archimedes started to choke up and stream tears.

Dr. Phoenix started chuckling darkly.

"Ahh.  Finally our Empress does what should have been done years ago.  Good--"

* WHIZ* *THUNK*

"...choice?" Dr. Phoenix's eyes widened as the shuriken had just barely clipped his nose.

"What is the meaning of this--"  One of the council started before another held them back and warned him not to overstep their bounds.

A dark silence gripped the room until.

"Heheheheheh....hehehehehehehehehehe....HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...my, my...however did you figure it out?  No...when did you figure it out--"  Adonis mused, the blade, goring a white hot hole through his torso...and yet the wound wasn't affecting him in the least.

"You would do well to remain silent, Dr. Adonis."

Gasps went up around the room.

"THE TRAITOR!!!" One of the Council squeaked out, pointing, clearly soiling himself over the reveal.

"Is it really surprising?" Adonis gloated as he began shapeshifting and tearing his clothes apart in the process. "The number of times I've infiltrated this place...is almost boring by this point.  You have wasted hundreds of millions of dollars conducting side investigations to weed out traitors in your organization...when all you've really done in the last seven years is send innocent agents to their death while the real threats continue to live on under your noses.  It's almost sad how predictable it's become."

Honestly in a pinch...I would have expected less standardized monologing from Adonis by this point. Usually he'd say something more cryptic and pretentious, and just the same outright philosophical garbage he bombarded Chara with. But I guess when you're an agent of chaos you don't exactly rehearse lines.

"Finally.  We've got you right where we want you." The head councilman seemed reassured now that Daimyou had him basically pinned to a wall by this point.

Adonis shook his head with a "Tch-tch-tch-tch-tch." And a waggling, scolding figure. "You should know never ever say that right in front of the bad guy.  You just never know..."

* KA-CLICK*

"...when it will quite literally...back...fire."

The councilman looked over his shoulder at who had thunked the barrel of their weapon up against his chair.

"Dr. Leviathan?!  What is the meaning of this?"

Honestly if you have to ask a field agent code-named Dr. Leviathan about what was obviously a betrayal? You were doing things wrong.

That was right about when half of the Freeze Team security force that had filled the room when the silent alarm had gone off, thanks to Dr. Archimedes calling in a favor from Dr. Calculus (Yes, you read that right.  Dr. Calculus.) suddenly pointed their weapons at the trooper next to them and point-blanked them in the head.

"Come now, Councilmen.  Just because others are losing their heads over this, doesn't mean you have to."

"Boooo!" Archimedes expressed his distaste at the bad joke before being shushed by the remaining troops obviously on Adonis' payroll.

"Naysay, Archimedes.  Naysay.  And on that naysay, I must say...what a surprising turn of events that you'd be against me and actually last longer than Persephone......NOT."

"Did you just..."NOT" me?  Like out of the 1990's "NOT" me?" Archimedes looked irate.

"Classics!  Yay!" A moment of awkward silence before he followed up with. "Arcade would have chuckled."

Daimyou twisted the blade to remind she was still here.

"Hey, OW!  OW!  Wow, that REALLY hurts!  C'mon, stop it.  You're killing me...no, not really, but you're killing me!" Adonis gleefully trolled.

"Come one, let's just put the cheese slicer away and think this over.  I mean...a room full of hostages and you really think you're going this route.  You can't be serious about thinking you can persuade me to surrender and still keep every one of them alive?  I mean...obviously, I'm going to kill them anyway whether you stand down or not.  I'm a psychopath.  That's what we do.  That's kind of our little...tick.  Y'know.  It's villainy 101!  So we don't even need to get down to the hostage negotiations.  You value all their lives and I don't.  So let's just get to the point, shall we?"

"I have no intention of negotiating with evil, you monster."

"Y'know the fact that you can't even accept that even if you could, you won't prevent their deaths is testimont.  You, the great and all-knowing Daimyou.  With your clairvoyance and all your powers.  How you brush asside how ruthless you really are when you have this entire council under your thumb through threats and ultimatums.  To what extreme will you go to in order to preserve order?"

"You waste your words."

"You clearly can't see that it's one monster...confronting another.  How deliciously poetic.  A monster of chaos against a monster of order."

"Your bargaining posture is dubious.  I will not give in."

"Bargaining?  Oh no no no.  This is just act one.  You've seen my delightful prelude.  Don't you know when we're already deep into the play?  All the world is a stage, after all."

Daimyou twisted the blade again.

"Oww!  That's really painful but...y'know it's not going to work on a sado-masochist."

"..."

"Well as much as I'm enjoying the drama-lamma, it's starting to lag so...let's spice things up again.  What you need is incentive to change your tune."

Adonis snapped his fingers as multiple Cyber Gates opened, letting in cloaked followers from Chaopolis enter until the room started getting crowded.

"How are those...uh...chances looking." Adonis said with a cheesey shrug right out of Face Off. "How's my Nicholas Cage?  Frankly I think I've nailed all the rubber faced over-the-top expressions?  And just for uh...spits and giggles...um...I'm even adding a nice healthy does of um...y'know that guy.  Um...y'know.  A remake of the Fly, a little bit of Jurassic Park 1 and 2.....ah... Jeff Goldblum.  Yeah, him."

Daimyou's eyes lit up even brighter as her sword's flame grew even hotter.

"Wow, you're...really, heh-heh...kinda persistant aren't you?  You know how the contracts for the White Knight and the Black Knight work, right?  Incinerating me isn't going to work any better than any other standard to cosmil level death sentence is going to work.  Come to think about that...did the Council Chairman even consider that when he was going to sentence Volt Arcade to non-existence?"

Murmurs across the Council.

"Oh my gods...that is hilarious.  You didn't even KNOW if you could get rid of him as far back as ACM-001 over the whole....Sally Acorn incident?  Or again...after how well I set him up to take the fall for your restrictive rules on UTP-3224?"

Grumbles and more whispers.

"So you honestly think you can do the same to me with the same results?  Did you even think before you acted?  If you didn't, kudos to you.  Big fan of reaction to action.  Y'know...the spawn of how chaos is suppose to start!"

Adonis grinned as he grabbed the sword and forced it out of his body, before lighly thumping Daimyou on the forehead of the mask.

"I do believe this is where your reign comes to an end."

Daimyou stepped back as the troops began to surround her.

"You know I had this REALLY badass speech to monologue....well, actually it was more so the other guy before he let me out..." Adonis mmused, chuckling over his Bruce Banner/Incredible Hulk duality. "I guess I'll just have to pull something out of my butt.  Or flat out rip it off.  *ahem*

You all think you had control, but you never had! That control is just like the flea circus allegory from Jurassic Park. But frankly I was a fan of that other movie which gave this grand villain speech. You thought you had control, but you didn't, as control is an illusion. Even now you're thinking I've imprisoned you and taken your control over the situation..."

Adonis walked over and grabbed Dr. Archimedes and held him by the skull, his giant hand threatening to wrap around his whole head and neck and shoulders, too.

"Now...tell me, Doctor...what is it that I took from you?"

"My...illusions?" Archimedes struggled to say, fighting back his feeling of utter terror.

"What do you know?  Give the boy a lollypop!  You got it right." Adonis shoved him backward, causing him to go flying into the wall.

"Dr. Leviathan.  Would you kinda proceed with giving A.E.O.N. it's feel-good juice?"

"With pleasure, Dr. Adonis." Leviathan began working at the consoles of the supercomputer stations of each member of the Council.

"Now...anyone else wish to submit to the awakening of the big lie that has consumed the entire whole of EXISTENCE ITSELF?" Adonis spread his arms as his troops forced everyone they held hostage to kneel down, hands behind their heads.

Things were looking pretty darn dark by this point.

Sub-Entry 269: "The VideoLand Arc, Part 9 - The Ultimate Warp Zone":
We tumbled out of the warp from Metroid onto a smooth and shiny gold floor. Sure enough we had set Metroid to parts unknown in deep space. Mother Brain and the others would have a heck of time finding it again.

"Ugh...last unexplored place on the map.  What a rough ride."

"At least we're safe, now--"

"Don't move-icus."

"Don't try anything or I'll mega-blast you."

"Videoland is no place for amateurs playing hero!  Keeping the peace and vanquishing evil should only be left to the professionals, like yours truly."

This is a change of pace, really. It's the first tme Goat Son ever set us up for unintended irony backfiring in our faces. It's my experience that this happens to everyone in our profession sooner or later.

"Kid Icarus?  Mega Man?" Asriel seemed legitimately surprised to see them, even though we clearly saw both their prototype concepts back inside the pocket dimension lying underneath the surface of News World.

The angel and the robot lookd at each other, a little confused, at first.

"And...uh...?" Asriel pointed at Simon.

"Oh puh-lease.  You MUST know who I am."

Goat son shrugged.

I couldn't resist following up with "Who are you?"

"Surely you recognize the handsome face of Simon Belmont, Vampire Hunter."

It was too tempting not to mess with him by this point.

"No really.  Who are you?"

That made him a little offended.

"I beg your pardon!"

I could swear I heard Kid Icarus snicker and I was convinced I saw Mega Man fold his arms and try not to grin.

"Wait!" I heard a female voice call out as I heard footsteps headed toward the spacious room. My keen ears detected for sets of foot steps--two humanoid, and what seemed like the padded, clawed form of a dog--

"Ruff!  Ruff!  Ruff!"

...accompanied by the tell-tale barking of a dog.

"Huh?" We both turned in the direction of the incoming people which actually totaled four. The fourth member was...hovering...and not even remotely human or animal. In fact it looked like--

"Volt.  You do see the giant, floating handheld portable game with a face on the screen, right?"

"Seeing the same thing you're seeing, Azzy."

"Stand down!"

Mega Man lowered his wrist blasters, Kid Icarus lowered his bow, and Simon shrugged and his whip coiled itself up and situated itself at his hip...wait...does Vampire Killer have a mind of its own on this world? That is so weird.

"We just had a chat with Dr. Wright and Link and Zelda!  This has all just been a misunderstanding, guys!"

"Request immediate disarmamet to commense rational exchange of critical information." The computer-ish thing said, sounding like a download of voice actor, Frank Welker doing the most cliche of monotone robot impressions.

Asriel was the first to stand up and the first to get a good look at the humans that entered the room.

I followed soon after and as soon as I laid eyes on them, it all clicked into place. I remembered everything about the UltraVerse's Videoland including the name that had escaped me this whole time.

"You're...!"

The male was brown-haired, blue-eyed. I think the accent was California-ish. But the attire...what he was wearing...I'd SEEN before. In fact I was overly familiar with it.

It was the same outfit I'd seen my own father-figure, Garfield Arcade still wear. The high-tops. The stone-washed blue jeans. The yellow turtle neck. And the letterman jacklet--a white and red letterman jacket. On the left breast of the jacket was a black N with a white outline around it.

It was obvous that the N didn't stand for that one word Asriel WANTED to believe (Yeah, it's Nintendo.  Pretty obvious, right?) anymore than it stood for N-Team...but really...the signs just made it hard to ignore and honestly, I wanted to believe. We'd of course later learn it was N for Northridge as in Northridge, California. Called it. Our Game Master's hometown was in California.

"I'm Kevin.  Kevin Keene and this is my dog, Duke."

I wasn't sure what species of dog Duke was but he was a good medium size. Small enough that he could be carried in the arms but bigger in size than Kid Icarus or Mega Man over yonder. Kinda beige-colored fur with one brown spot over entire left eye. Also he was wearing a sky blue bandana around his neck in lieu of a dog collar.

"I'm Dr. Volt Alessandro Arcade, a researcher and traveller of space, time, and dimension.  You must be...Captain N, right?"

"That's the nick-name they gave me here.  Welcome go Videoland.  Go on, Duke!  Say hi!"

Duke barked and lept up to Asriel, who had taken a knee to say high. Duke quickly licked his face, causing goat son to giggle up a storm.

"Well, he likes you, Azzy."

That was when my attention was diverted to the girl. And I think she got Asriel's attention.

"I'm Princess Lana."

Aqua-blue eyed, brown-haired. Between 15 and 17, I'd say.

But the girl...definiteliy NOT from Earth. The attire was definitely not standard faire.

The powder blue boots were the same color as Princess Sally's from ACM-001 but the presence of what looked like gold metal leg-warmers that stretched from the ankles to about half way up gave them a much more unique appearance.

The skirt looked like it hailed from the era of ancient Egypt, the way it was hitched up almost completely to upper left hip but drooped completely down almost reaching the right knee. White with blue trim with the upper part being pink and kinda in the shape of Samus' visor the way it wrapped around the waist and then dropped into a long part in front.

Her midrift was exposed as her top just stopped under her rib cage; the same pink color with blue outer trim. It was accented by white shoulder pads extending from the blue trim straps.

The arm bands were the same pink color with the gold metal wrapping around the wrists, and each metal part accentuated by a green oval-shaped gem.

Those same jade colored jewels could be found on her necklace--each one surrounded by gold trim.

The gold tiara held the same jade stone in front and had a backing behind the single triangular point it came to. The "arms" of the tiara coiled up into snail-shell like spirals on each side.

And finally gold earrings I described as enlongated explanation points.

But the thing that stood out...was her hairdo. Unimaginably long and big, reaching down to the small of her back. But it was the small-ish ponytail that wasn't normal...if you could call it a ponytail. I had never seen anything so gravity defying. Instead of hanging down, it curved back into a large plume and hung over toward the front like a second set of bangs...just hovering over behind the crown.

Asriel and I were both caught in a moment of stupid...before Asriel broke the silence.

"Howdy!  I'm Prince Asriel Tobias Dreemurr." He extended a hand for a...handshake...?

Not..exactly the greeting I was expecting, honestly. But then again...Asriel always had that kind of earnest quality about his demeanor.

I think he deliberately left off the rest of his adopted name to avoid questions.

......wait a minute...did he just say "PRINCE"...?

I turned to him briefly, stunned that he actually ACKNOWLEDGED his royal heratage.

"A pleasure to meet you, your majesty."

"Likelwise, your majesty." Both shared in the handshake.

Okay. This was...offbeat but...somehow...normal?

I think I heard Simon scoff.

I cleared my throat. "Anyway...we're kinda of accidental tourists.  It's a long, long story but really.  We're just trying to get home to our dimension...thing is...I'm still not sure where in the Axis of Realities it is from here."

"Axis of Realities?"

"That's the name we've given to the structure of all universes we know about.  Every prime universe extends through the main structure in both directions to infinity while every alternate unverse branches off each of those prime universes in endless spokes which spiderweb into even more alternate universes and alternates of alternate universes, endlessly.  Like your Warp Zone to Oblivion in a way."

"The thing is...Videoland exists in our universe, too.  But...it's very different in a number ways."

"Different?" Lana questioned.

"Yeah.  Like an episode of Sliders." Asriel casually replied.

"What's...Sliders?" Kevin shrugged.

"Oh.  Right.  Probably doesn't exist yet on your Earth." Asriel sweatdropped.

"As for how it's different..." I started. "For one thing this war against Mother Brain?  It took place many years in our past."

That got a round of wide-eyed stares.

"It's been almost 40 years since it happened, in fact."

"So you're from the future-us?" Kid Icarus asked as he hovered closer.

"Well...we're from A future." I clarified.

"Then you can tell us how we can beat Mother Brain!" Kevin exclaimed pounding his fist into his palm in an "of course" gesture,

"It's not that simple." I sighed. "Our future isn't necessarily your future.  Just because something worked in our past doesn't mean it would work for your present.  And for one thing all of our N-Division members have long since retired and the team disbanded.

There's also another danger my mentor warned me about. Just by Asriel and myself even being in your dimension, we've considerably offset your world's history, relative to a certain point. History that...while my organization hasn't logged in this dimension, still likely existed in a timeline relative to a certain point. And by interferring, who can say what effect we've had on events to come.

But furthermore, the danger lies in knowing TOO MUCH about your own future. If Videoland's future DOES coincide with our present, then knowing how you get there could actually undermine your attempt to end the war. In otherwords it may actually be possible to lose the war to Mother Brain because you acted to rashly on what worked in our world."

"You mean, you can't even tell me if I ever get home?" Kevin looked distressed.

That was when Asriel approached and put a hand on his shoulder.

"Sometimes the best assurarance is faith.  To have hope.  You can make your own future, Kevin.

I know right now you're caught up in the excitement of living every gamer's wish come true--I mean you didn't just become the game, you BECAME the game.

Even if you and Duke do have to one day leave Videoland behind, you won't be the only one facing it. This is some advice that always gets me through things:

The hardest thing to do is let go, even when you don't want to. But don't worry. You're going to do a great job as Videoland's Game Master. You won't walk alone, because hope never walks alone.

If it's your dream to go back to the life you had on Earth, then hold onto that dream. Dreams are forever."

"Wow, that's surprisngly deep, Asriel."

"I get that way.  I had great teachers."

"Look...I know it's pretty cookie-cutter advice and it's at tough pill to swallow but...it is for the best.  We have overstayed our welcome and we need to search for a way back.  Our world needs us.  There are some powerful forces that have gotten into a high position that could make a mess of all universes, not just ours.  We have to stop them before it's too late."

"But how?  We don't mega-know where your home even is."

All seemed kinda of lost until the artifact on a pedistal lit up...an artifact which somehow looked like a Nintendo Power Glove.

"Do not dispair, young heroes, for there are legends beyond the Prophecy of Videoland's Game Master.  Secrets which have lain buried to be revealed at the right time."

A booming voice eminated from everywhere but seemed most intensely focused from the Power Glove artifact.

"That's the voice of the Prophecy of Videoland.  But I though it already delivered the message about Captain N.  Why is it coming to life now?"

We all crowded around the Power Glove.

"While some worlds have not come into existence during the dark days of Videoland nor its Halcyon Days, time and space have folded countless times through divine intervention to bring you to his moment where two worlds may be linked to realize the vision of that divine intent.

This legend speaks of two outsiders who shall warp into this universe to intervine during a time the Forces of Chaos have attempted to return Videoland to its darkest days. Their individual adventures will rebalance the eternal struggle while inspiring Videoland's champions to press further and continue the quest for peace!

With their deeds accomplished they will be granted passage to continue the fight on their home soil.

BEHOLD! THE ULTIMATE WARP ZONE!!!"

The glove opened its grasp and unleashed a ball of blue energy that exploded outward on the ceiling, spiralling into a giant blue vortex. I could feel its gravity well pull Asriel and myself toward it.

But that wasn't all that it released...something...an energy of sorts, taking the shape of a wire-framework, that was constantly shifting its shape and size hovered above the glove.

"Hmm?"

Asriel checked his NX's storage and without warning the seven green shards released themselves from storage and started orbiting around the weird energy.

Without warning, the pieces reassembled, as the framework snapped around it. Once completely reintegrated the form of the combined artifact was revealed.

"No way..." I gasped.

"This...answers and opens up many questions." Asriel looked at the hovering green crystal...heart-shaped jewel.

"It looks like...a crystalized soul...from...!"

"From your Undertale." I blurted out.

"But...how can that be?  My...world is gone.  Erased."

"I don't know, Azzy.  I don't know.  Whatever it is..."

Asriel's eyes lit up neon green.

"...this means something.  This is important.  We were meant to find this."

There  were questions upon questions; most noteably how an artifact obviously of Undertale origin ended up in Videoland in a time presumed to be the end of the 1980's...when I hadn't even started researching the unstable Undertale AU's until I met Asriel in what his world had time-stamped as 201X... Or was it technically 211X from based on my observations in the Void? Either way...this had to be the sisters, Destiny and Fate at work.

"We'll lock it in the vault back at the lab until we can figure out what it is, what it does, and maybe we'll figure out why it was scattered all over Videoland.

The others decided not to question it.

"The Ultimate Warp Zone has granted you passage back!  You're going home!" Lana smiled.

"But...the drain of that Warp Zone...won't that mean...there won't be enough left for the defenses let alone Kevin and Duke going home?" I looked worried.

"Naah.  I'll catch the next ride when it opens up again.  Besides.  The game's not over yet.  Just because you zapped our enemies, doesn't mean they won't come back stronger than before.  Duke and I will get home.  But it'll be on our terms, when Videoland has a REAL peace.  A lasting one."

"The defenses won't be a problem!  We had Dr. Wright-icus rewire the palace so that they run off their own independent power supply!  We'll be ready-ius maximus in no time!"

"And we'll be mega-stronger than ever when the bad guys do make the mistake of tangling with us again!"

"Of course we don't really NEED all that fancy mumbo-jumbo when we've got a great hero like me around!" Simon was again mugging for no one but his hand mirror. Good lord, man.

"You guys get going.  We'll be awesome around here."

Asriel and I nodded.

"What can I say?  I'm hooked." Kevin said with a wink and a shrug as Lana hugged him from behind and planted a kiss on his cheek much to an exasperated Simon's gasp.

"I'm a little hooked, myself, Kevin." Lana followed up.

"Okay, okay.  You convinced us." Asriel said as he joined me under the warp zone.

We said our goodbyes.

"Kevin, it was great to meet you. I'm only sorry we just met and now we have to part ways." I shook his hand.

"Hey, right back at you."

"I'll miss you, too, Duke." I bent down and petting him and got a barrage of licks in return. "Yeah, you too."

"You know...I know someone back home a lot like you, Kid Icarus. You remind me a lot of him.  I'll think about you every time we're together."

"That's very big of you Asriel-icus."

"One thing though...have you ever thought about wearing wristbands instead of gloves?"

"Huh?"

"Nevermind."

"Keep it real, Mega Man. You have a counterpart back in our world."

"That's mega-neat! Think we'll ever meet sometime?"

"It could happen."

A moment of hesitation before.

"Uh...best of luck to you, Simon."

"Yeah...keep up the good fight, Mr. Belmont."

"Who needs luck when you've got brains and good looks." Simon stroked his hair while barely taking a moment away from his hand mirror to have a quick glance at us.

We just left it at that.

"Farewell, uh...Game Boy?" I shrugged.

A blip and a bleep followed by Game Boy's screen blanking and then showing the words "good bye".

We turned to Lana. "If this universe is anything like ours, don't give up hope waiting for your father to return."

Yeah. King Charles' disappearance was the same in our universe as it was this one. I just didn't want to reveal how it turned out in the UltraVerse.

"Remember what I said. Hope never walks alone and dreams are forever.  Keep that dream of yours alive and your hope will be rewarded." Asriel smiled before exchanging the most regal of bows with Princess Lana.

We stepped under the warp zone.

"Good bye and good luck, N-Team!" I waved as we began lifting off the floor and into the portal, picking up acceleration before we zoomed into the gate at a pretty quick speed. And as we  did, everything just segued into a long, winding electromechanical tunnel.

"WHOOOOAH!" As we crossed the barrier, for a the briefest of moments, we had turned to green, vector graphics before reforming into our famliar selves. What...even WAS that?

We wouldn't have a chance to find out as we soon slingshotted out of it and back into the flow of the Axis of Reality...but this time it felt like we were being guided by something.

But while our journy was coming to an end...it looked like any hope of S.T.C. getting out of a tight spot had already come to an end. It looked like we would be too late getting back home...

"...do you like what I've done with the places I've been?" Adonis showed various monitors of worlds that were in utter bedlam, and others well on there way, and still others where the skirmishes were just starting.

"You betrayed everything S.T.C. instilled into you.  For what?" Daimyou glowered.

Adonis laughed obscenely.

"You believe that the natural order of existence is to be without law and order  To be under a constant plague of evil and chaos?"

"We called it the Big Bang, didn't we?  The single, greatest moment of chaos an anarchy as everything just exploded from nothingness.  And then things just settled into a chill.  While it was definitely lawless, where was the dynamic?  It all just became a boring waiting game for life to start.  And when it did, the greatest lie ever told was formed.  Order.  The idea that everything had to be guided by reason and routine and from there structure in the universe just went out of control.

Now here we are this megalo-juggernaut of systems, peoples, laws, and schedules, and just everything running at clockwork."

"You're being unusually up front about your motivations..." Daimyou glared. "And yet, even this is a smokescreen.  What is it that you really want?"

"I want my face on the dollar bill."

"Even when you tell a lie, it came from someone else." Daimyou glared, recognizing the line from the 1990 Batman movie.

"Would you believe for the return of those pro-wrestling tie-in ice cream bars?"

That was C.M. Punk's demand. Seriously, Adonis?

"I wanna....talk a little bit about what's going on in this room--"

"ENOUGH." Daimyou cut him off before he could go into the Brain Gremlin's speech from Gremlins 2.

"I can go on like this forever."

"And yet it will get you no closer to establishing an identy, patchworking past villain dialogues and references."

"Now that hurts." Adonis shuffled around a bit, his dirty toe claws clicking against the floor.

"You know, why can't you appreciate it for what it is.  Introduce a little chaos into the status quo...a little rebellion against the man...or really......just plain uprooting a diseased tree that's choking this thing you call existence with its cancerous tentacles."

"Why do you not just spell it out for us?  This is about Volt Arcade more than any of this charade."

"Dr. Romulus.  The Empress seems to have forgotten the stakes of this.  Why not give her a reminder what you did your your brother, a LOYAL member of S.T.C. to the end..."

As yet another traitor in the operation ditched his Freeze Team gear and quickchanged back into his lab coat and work attire, he quickly grabbed a Chrono Sabre, igniting the blade of pure tachyon energy in an instant.

"Does your high treason know no bounds?!" One of the council demanded.

"Knowing boundaries would make it guilty of establishing order and limitations, Councilwoman.  You understand.  By now you should be familiar with my credo...live every day of your life like you're going to be betrayed and you won't be disappointed."

"And yet those words are not your own." Daimyou sniped.

"Originallity is an endangered species in this universe, dear Empress.  One I hope I can make completely extinct one day."

Daimyou narrowed her eyes. "I suppose there is an irony to your choice of words..."

Adonis smirked as the largest of his cloaked followers took his place by his side.

But in an instant, to everyone except Daimyou's surprise, Adonis found himself suddenly grabbed by the throat by said follower.

"...but you should have chosen your words more carefully."

"Heh heh heh heh heh heh..." Adonis managed to squeeze out a laugh from being choked.

"My, my...I guess I just don't pay you enough.  Oh wait.  I DON'T pay you.  Soooo...guessing this is a personal grievance over something?  What?  Girlfriend killed by the mob, brother slashed up by some street hood?"

No answer.

"C'mon...you're really having issues with how I do things now?"

Still no answer.

"You just going to leave me hanging without telling me what this is about?  Bit of a double standard going on, if you know what I mean-- HURK!!!  Not so tight now!  You'll damage my beautiful singing voice the next time I want to belt out a few notes in the shower!"

And again no answer.

"Uh...rude much?  Seriously.  We're here to take pleasure in causing chaos and breaking the law.  You've never had any problems breaking the law before--"

"The Law?" Came a gravely, kinda mumbled voice anyone would SWEAR sounded like Sly Stallone.

"I NEVER BROKE NO LAW!!!!" The cloaked henchman bellowed in Adonis' face as he yanked him close before yanking off the hood...revealing the visor-helmeted form of...

"I AM THE LAW!!!!" He blasted with the full strength of his voice, revealing that he was none other than--

"HAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAAHH!  Well, played, Daimyou...well played.  I never expected you of all people would infiltrate my own organization with none other than the infamous Judge Dredd."

Dredd hurled Adonis to the floor and pointed his weapon. "You're charged with high treason in the third degree.  How do plead?"

"Well...at the moment...on my knees."

A boot to the head immediately followed.

"You are further charged with multiple counts of mass genocide, aggrevated assault and battery, multple counts of travelling time and dimension with intent of altering, sabotaging, or erasing history..."

"Seriously...you sicked him...on me...just to prove a point."

"I didn't." Daimyou said plainly.

"Eheheheheheh...what?" Adonis looked a little taken back by that.

That was when...

"Thaaaaaat'd be me." Came the smug, vox-modulated voice of KOMMAND as she came disguised in her latest cosplay monstrosity that seemed to be channeling a lot of Daft Punk.

Gasps and angry murmers went up among the Council.

"Now we have TWO TERRORISTS TO DEAL WITH?!?"

"Whoah-hoa-hoa-hoa-hoaaaaah.  You got it all wrong.  I'm not here to mess with you guys.  I'm here to mess with him." She pointed at the fallen form of Adonis as Dredd continued to read off his charges...which were still ongoing.

"...at least one hundred thousand counts of terrorism.  THat's 90 years for each count..."

Adonis interrupted him with--

* FRRRRRRRRRT*

...yeah...that. I'm really having trouble admitting THIS is my eternal nemesis, right now. I think the feeling I should be feeling right now is...shame and embarassment.

"...add one count of flatulism.  That's another year."

"What?  You're really going to charge me for making a fart joke?"

"You would be wise not to stir the pot, Doctor." Daimyou glared under the mask.

"Now, I admit...I'm kinda between a rock and a hard place, buuuuuut...I still outnumber you.  A lot of d00dz0rz outside this room with plasma guns and knives and WMD's, y'know.  And that still doesn't include my homies in this room."

"Yeah.  About that..." KOMMAND gave a salute before another of the cloaked followers bashed a corrupt security guard in the face, insta-K.O.-ing him.

"You got a ringside seat to your own smackdown...BRUTHAH!" KOMMAND prompted before several of the cloaked followers to pull off their cloaks to reveal.

"WHACHUU' GONNA DO WHEN HULKAMANIA RUNS WILD ALL OVER YOU?!?"

Daimyou slooooooooooooow-turned to KOMMAND before slooooooooow-turning back to the ensuing beatdown, courtessey of our pro wrestler friends from the 1980's that we met while Gadget was scavenging at the junkyard. Yeah. I think her reaction was woefully understated. When KOMMAND called in favors...she made sure they were as surreal and "whiskey tango foxtrot" as possible. Oh yes. Daimyou and KOMMAND would have a long, long, long talk about this afterward.

"As for your other troops outside...let's say Christmas came early..." KOMMAND wisecracked while on the opposite side of the door guards were getting taken down and out by Barney Ross, Lee Chrismas, Yin Yang, Gunner Jenson, and many more of the Expendables. You read right. KOMMAND enlisted the freakin' EXPENDABLES.

Why did I choose Violet of all people to become an immortal underground hacker as one of my trump cards?

"Wow...all of Dr. Romulus' carefully-laid plans, which I graciously granted myself permission to steal, undone in record time.  Boy oh boy this day could not get any worse--"

That was when the warp zone opened above and in front of him. As he looked up  at a perfect 45 degree angle, he was treated to...

"Give the dog a BONE!!!"

Sub-Entry 270: "The VIdeoLand Arc, Part 10 - Return Home Leads to The Next Clash":
Okay, so I didn't have the best catchphrase to open up with.

"Someone forgot about our game of FETCH!" Asriel followed up behind me. Okay, that one was better.

I drew from the Tachyon flow from the Axis of Reality to make sure my lightning arc didn't just floor Adonis but made sure to plaster him into the ground hard enough to tear a trench all the way to the far wall.

By the time I let up, I had completely incinerated the fur off of his chest and stomach and left the flesh underneath pretty raw. It wouldn't last long, though as his regeneration kicked in.

Once again...collective gasps all around the council.

"Really?  You guys mistook him for me again?" I glared at them not with a serious scowl but more like the face you make when turning away from a plate of rotten eggs. It went over about as well as you'd think with the scoffs and the protests.

"Not now.  Daddy's gotta go to work." I shoved up my labcoat sleeves.

"I can't say I'm not impressed by this attempt, but ultimately it still fell short, Alloicious.  Something's just missing from it."

"THere it is...there's the uncorruptable hero making is triumphant return.  You're really enjoying this..." Adonis staggered to his feet.

"I don't know if he is but, I sure am." Asriel gave a peace sign.

"Nobody asked you, you little--"  Adonis actually got a little miffed at that point.

"I'll meet you on the playground...after school." Asriel mused a little too sweetly.

"Oh you so did not...!" Adonis started to charge as common sense actually managed to spring up from inside his insanity...at least it WOULD have been common sense had he not charged right into--

"TAIYOUDAMA!"

...yeah.

Adonis attempted to extinguish the flames while I assaulted him with alternating blasts of the Ice Gatling and the Corona Buster.

"You think I'm the only one who has a limit to how much I can strain my White Knight Contract before my regeneration starts to slow down?  Granted, it can be slowed down, but just like you, it can't be completely stopped.  We'll always have that lifeline of immortality in the end, no matter WHAT we go through."

"No...please...no more!  Have mercy!" He was lying just to bide time. Even his acting was a pathetic attempt at a ruse.

"You...who are without mercy now BEG for it?  I thought you were made of sterner stuff."

Okay I guess I can admit Adonis and I were the same in that we rarely chose to use our own words. But c'mon. A rare moment to use Optimus Prime? Too good to pass up.

"Okay, okay...you got me."

"Don't trust him, Goat Son."

"Wasn't planning on it."

"You know..." Adonis managed to recover just a little from his assault. "I never expected it would end this way...kinda of a let down in the end."

"All bad things come to an end."

Adonis put up his hands while the rest of KOMMAND's calvary gathered together.

"I'm going to let you all take care of this mess.  I have other places to be.  Hey.  Give this job to my friend." Trench Mauser said, before heading off. You know he sounds an awful lot like Arnold Sh--

"What's with him?" Dredd questioned Ross.

"He wants to be president."

A grin from the giant Austrian before exiting through the portal.

That moment over, Ross and Dredd did the briefest of doubletakes before helping round up the rest of Adonis' men.

"You know that even if you stop me...the chaos will never be over." Adonis grinned.

"Do us a favor and get out of that ugly morph.  And stop impersonating my image...it's gotten old and PREDICTABLE...and I know how much you hate predictable."

Adonis growled before demorphing...and while he did take my image, we noticed his hair had turned white from Asriel and my combined attacks.

"It's a start." I crossed my arms and sneered.

"Well then.  Now that that's over, we can--"

A red Cyber Portal opened up and Evil Chara stepped out, grabbed Adonis and yanked him through, taking only the briefest of moments to shoot Asriel a death glare.

"He's getting away!" Asriel gasped.

"He GOT away..." I smoldered as the portal closed.

And so...

"I suppose you want me to show apreciation for saving me--"  Adonis started before WHAAAM! He was decked RIGHT in the nose, breaking it!

"Get something straight, old man.  I didn't save you.  I just wasn't finished with you!" Chara shoved him against the wall, HARD!

Adonis giggled, despite the blood dripping down his face.

"I wonder what this is about?"

"You dared to strike against Arcade and his fools while my back was turned?!  The right to kick their butts is MINE!  Mine alone!"

"I'm just showing you how it's done.  You see in all of your chances to settle the score with Arcade and Asriel, you've been a bitter failure."

"Yeah?  Well your attempt didn't end so rosey, either!"

"Ahhh!  But it's not the win that matters, it's that in the short amount of time I operated, I still caused more damage and more chaos that won't be cleaned up or solved any time soon.  Granted, yes, the Ultra Crew Institute is slowly bringing it back under control, but they really have no grasp of the situation.  On top of that, they'll discover that A.E.O.N. will be having one nasty nightmare in its gender-neutral A.I. core collective.  It's not going to be much use to the S.T.C. organization.

And so many worlds clashing together, endangering their own timelines and dimensional borders...it's what you set up for the future that counts."

"You were still defeated you hypocrate!"

"You'll understand one day--"

"Not one day...NOW.  My rematch with Asriel and Arcade starts now."

"You really don't have a say in this.  I--"

"I'm not waiting another minute.  And I'm sure as Hell not going to let you stick another curse on me.  No thanks, I don't want what you're selling.  I'm going down there and doing things on my terms, and you can't stop me!"

"It's delightful how you have not only grasped the concept of impatience...the very anti-virtue of haste...rashness...ancticipation.......but you've made it your own.

Alas...it shall only carry you so far. You'll only disappoint yourself in the end."

"Save it.  I'm going."

"You don't even know where it is, you're going.  Not after KOMMAND reshuffled the deck, if you catch my meaning."

"You underestimate me." Chara grabbed the True Knife and opened the red gad.

"Oh-ho-ho-ho...you completely stumbled upon it by chance while I was away?  Bravo..."

"I'm gone and you can keep any additional gifts!" The gate closed.

"Poor, naive Chara.....the gift has ALREADY been given..." Adonis chuckled as he sat back down on his throne, nearly naked by this point.

Back at S.T.C  H.Q...

Dredd went back through the portal to what I can only assume was Megacity-1...or...wherever in the Judge Dredd AU's he was from.

"I like that guy." Barney Ross mused.

Gee...I wonder why?

"Dr. Arcade!  You're back!" Archimedes squeezed me into a bearhug.

"Nice...to see you to, Dr. Archimedes." I said in reply, feeling a little awkward.

"We got bad news, Doctor.  Chaopolis infected A.E.O.N. with a virus.  We're locked out of the system, we can't fix this thing!" Dr. Euclid spoke with me.

Dr. Nicodimus entered the room with Dr. Persephone draped over his shoulder.

"She'll be okay.  She's had an ordeal but as far as I can tell, she's unhurt and shows no sign of brainwashing or mental tampering."

"That's a relief."

The Chairman was about to speak when Daimyou interrupted.

"Dr. Arcade.  You and Asriel have gone above and beyond the call of duty.  This organizastion thanks you from the bottom of its heart."

"Just doin' our jobs, Empress Daimyou." Asriel shrugged it off, nonchalantly.

"Hey...a little something there." KOMMAND started. "I can fix your virus problem."

Shouts of outrage ensued.

"Are you mad?  We do not negotiate with terrorists!"

"Aww come on.  No thanks for helping drive off Demented Donny?"

"One act of redemption does not settle the score for a lifetime of criminal activity!"

"Aww.  I wasn't even going to charge you for my services."

Daimyou stepped forward.

"Can you get A.E.O.N. functional again?"

"Sure.  I only want one thing in return."

"I KNEW IT!  She's going to shake this organization down."

"Just clear my criminal record and we're all good.  I could do without the bounty on my head, y'know."

"UNACCEPTABLE!  I REFUSE TO--"

"Your request is granted.  Make sure you make do on your promise." Daimyou decreed.

"Rock n' roll!"

"BUT...do not overuse your levity.  My patience while vastly extensive..."

"I hear ya, lady.  I'll play nice-nice."

Gasps and murmurs and grumbles ensued. "Of all things...working WITH a terrorist!"

"Listen.  I gotta get back home.  My team probably misses us."

"By your leave, Doctor." Daimyou bid us adieu.

"C'mon, Asriel.   Home has never sounded so good right now."

"Be it ever so humble." He smiled as I opened the gateway. "I hope there's a butterscotch-cinnamon pie waiting for us--"

As soon as we exited.

"...oh no." My jaw dropped as Honey went flying past us and crashed into a wall.

The town was ablaze with destruction and sirens and chaos.

"ARCAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAADE!!!"

Asriel and I turned to face...!

"Oh great..." I murmured.

"You again?"

"Round two begins now..." Evil-Chara gripped the True Knife; now absolutely OVERFLOWING with evil blacklight energy.

Members of the UCIAT were beaten and battered at my feet. Bunnie was nearby in full cybermorph, sparking a little.

I could see Gadget hiding behind a waterbarrel. Antoine was clinging to a traffic light signal, the shattered pieces of his sword directly under him.

Sally was panting hard, her OGPX gear flickering in and out, showing heavy damage and small impact dents all over it...like they'd been damaged by brute force.

Mitzi pushed herself up from where she had fallen face down. "When did he get this strong...?"

"Sparks...you might have a little trouble with this punk, this time..." Chameleon ejected the clips from his guns. "I'm out of ammo."

"Now...I think it's time you two got to see a Continue screen..."

To Be Continued...

Chapter 28

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