#turquoisephoenix tells a story

[turquoisephoenix]

Master Eon Versus the Town-Devouring Ghoul

A Skylanders one shot

Ghost Roaster becoming a Skylander Origin Story.

Several decades before the destruction of the Core of Light and the banishment of the Skylanders, Master Eon and Hex are called upon by one of the rulers of the Underworld to journey to the Land of the Undead and fight one of the most dangerous undead creatures - a ghost-devouring ghoul. Can he and his witch companion conquer this dastardly foe, or is Skylands’ most powerful Portal Master about to meet his match?

This story takes place several decades before the events of the first game, so Master Eon is still alive. Count Moneybone also isn't considered an evil villain yet. He's on his best behavior, don't worry.

Characters: Master Eon, Hex, Ghost Roaster, Count Moneybone

Content Warning: Minor body horror.

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Out of all the wonderful locations in the infinite realm of Skylands, one of Master Eon's most treasured places was his garden. He was picturing his idyllic retreat right now, remembering its many abundances of colorful fruits and vegetables. The ripe strawberries, juicy tomatoes, and fragrant herbs, the rows of vibrant sunflowers swaying gently in the warm breeze, and the butterflies flitting from blossom to blossom all entered his mind and he smiled. Yes, he could even hear the bees buzzing, their gentle hum harmonizing with the gentle stream trickling through the field. His garden was a symphony of Skyland's endless bounty and a peaceful retreat whenever his Portal Master duties got a little too stressful.

A femur bone struck the wall inches from his head and Eon's smile instantly vanished. He certainly wished he was in his garden right now.

Instead of spending this lovely spring morning knee-deep in loam and tending to baby trees, Master Eon had been summoned on Portal Master duty by his old friend Count Moneybone to deal with, in Moneybone's words, "a horrible creature the likes of which have been unseen in hundreds of years." So now both he and Hex, his chosen partner for his journey through the Land of the Undead, were standing in the hallowed halls of Count Moneybone's Villa, waiting for an audience.

The problem was, so was every elected official that answered to Count Moneybone's district, and some of the Undead had the tendency to be rowdy.

Both Master Eon and Hex stood unmoving and unwavering in the doorway of Count Moneybone's mansion study as they waited for the right time to make an entrance. They watched, brows furrowed and lips pursed in unison, as a crowd of undead mayors, barons, and councilmen yelled at each other in a horrid cacophony of noise. Master Eon was the only creature within the vicinity with a pulse, and yet he was far less animated than the legions of rotted corpses in front of him as decayed limbs gestured at a map on a large dining table, at the air, or at the unlucky owner of the manor.

Despite the writhing mass of gleaming bones and putrid flesh all fighting for attention, and despite his less-than-remarkable stature (Moneybone would object to the word "short"), Count Moneybone was still easy to pick out in the crowd. Unlike the ragged robes or the ghastly cloaks befitting most Undead - even the ones that held a position of office - Moneybone liked elaborate purple cloaks, fancy purple gloves, and flashy golden armor. Under the highly expensive chandelier dangling above his head, Moneybone practically gleamed like a spotlight. 

Which, unfortunately for him, made him an incredibly easy target in this high stress situation. Even from the other side of the room, Master Eon could tell that his old friend was highly stressed out from the constant complaints. With a drooping mustache and a rapidly moving golden eye, Moneybone was fidgeting in place and was alternating between a customer service smile/grimace and quick flashes of temper depending on what was being said in his direction, and he was finding success with neither approach. 

He was in the middle of yelling at a smartly-dressed skeleton of a lizardman when his eyes spotted Master Eon and he immediately grabbed for that lifeline. Moneybone straightened up, put on his most charming smile, and assumed an extremely regal, composed tone of voice that he often practiced in front of the mirror.

"Ah, Master Eon and Mistress Hex, I do hope your trip to the Land of the Undead went w-"

Count Moneybone immediately realized that he had made a mistake. His efforts were dashed as the crowd of terrified undead noticed that he was talking to fresh blood and turned its attention to Master Eon and Hex. Moneybone gave an indignant yelp as the crowd unceremoniously shoved him aside. Skeletons, ghosts, and zombies began to plead pitieously.

"DO SOMETHING ABOUT THE GHOUL!" screamed a floating skull wearing a top hat.

"Yes, we're getting to that-" Moneybone tried to interject, but he was outnumbered.

"A GHOUL! A GHOOOOOUL!"

"WHO WILL FALL NEXT TO ITS INSATIABLE HUNGER? HOW MANY MORE TOWNS MUST FALL!?"

"SAVE US, MASTER EON!"

"TURN THE GHOUL TO STONE, HEX!"

"ENOUGH!"

A ball of crackling green magic formed in Count Moneybone's right palm, and with a swift, fluid motion, he thrust his hand into the air. There was a crackle of lightning, a powerful hum of necromantic energy that smothered all sound in its wake, the harsh smell of ozone, and then the crowd instantly fell silent. 

The rest of the undead stood frozen in place, eyes wide in terror, as they stared at Count Moneybone. Arcs of green magic still raced up and down his arm as he glared at the crowd, reminding them that the last hour or so of him tolerating their complaints was actually an act of mercy and patience from their benevolent leader.

"Let Master Eon speak!" Count Moneybone ordered. Everyone in the room was more than happy to oblige.

Master Eon, now feeling every eye on him, quickly moved through the room. The atmosphere was so quiet that the rustle of his blue robes sounded deafening as he shuffled across the carpet until he was face-to-face with Count Moneybone, who was now casually rolling a spark of necromantic energy between two fingers. Eon frowned as he looked at the giant, hand-drawn map on the table. Included with the map was a drawing of the ghoul. Eon picked it up and studied it.

"From what I can gather, we've been called upon to deal with...a ghoul? I must admit, I'm not familiar with ghouls. Are they rare?"

"They're exceptionally rare monsters, yes. And damned powerful too." Count Moneybone said, the other members of the undead in the room hanging on his every word. "Ghouls are not natural creatures. Usually, as the stories go, an evil necromancer living in a castle made out of bone will capture some unlucky villagers, horrifically transform them into ghouls and thus cursing them with an eternal hunger, and send them rampaging through the countryside as they devour everything in their path. Awful creatures, really."

Master Eon nodded. He was not at all surprised that Count Moneybone of all people would know about a rare creature created by awful necromancy gone bad. Although he wasn't doing the best job at hiding it - Eon was eyeing the magic still crackling off of Moneybone's hand - it was a well-kept secret that Count Moneybone used to be a necromancer back when he was alive. As far as Eon knew, Moneybone never created any ghouls. Moneybone was more of "reanimate the bones and sinew from his wife's pig farm in wacky experiments or resurrect the corpses of his pets" kind of necromancer before his untimely death. 

"And what makes them different from, say, an army of trolls or an army of dragons?" Master Eon asked carefully, his gaze still on the ghoul drawing. He could instantly recognize Count Moneybone's art style. The creature was very serpentine, with a snake-like tail in place of legs and a skull-like head lined with razor sharp teeth, piercing yellow eyes, and four pointy head spikes. The ghoul was depicted in the drawing wearing a black suit with a striking red collar that rose behind its head like the hood of a cobra. The drawing made sure to draw the ghoul's bony arms held outward like it was roaring in anger. 

Eon made note of the clothes. Non-sentient creatures didn't wear clothes. Creatures that wore clothes could be reasoned with...

Count Moneybone continued, tugging at one end of his mustache. "You know how, when a dragon eats someone, they don't eat the ghost part of the person, and you usually get a very crispy spirit asking for residence in the Land of the Undead? Ghouls can eat ghosts. They're eternally hungry apex predators that can send anyone alive or dead to the afterlife, and a lot of my constituents want to remain uneaten and in this current life as they work through their unfinished business, thank you very much!" 

The crowd of undead upperclassmen started to murmur words of agreement before being silenced by a glare from Count Moneybone. 

The gears were turning in Master Eon's head. So a ghoul's power was its hunger. He could work with that.

"Give me a timeline of this ghoul. When did they first appear, and where can I find them." Master Eon pressed on. If he felt any strong emotions about being asked to face a creature that could instantly send him to the next plane of existence by eating him, his voice did not reveal it. Hex was even calmer than him as she stood next to him, her face completely serene and unreadable.

Count Moneybone sighed and pinched his forehead. He was desperately fighting off the beginnings of a stress headache, despite not having any of the flesh to get a headache. 

"About a month ago, this ghoul randomly materialized near the ghost town of Ribcage, where it immediately and swiftly devoured the entire population of ghosts. I of course acted quickly and had sent the mayor of Ribcage and a scouting party to kill the ghoul, but instead of doing what they were told, they trapped it, attached a ball and chain to it for reasons unknown, and let it roam free-"

The fashionable lizardman skeleton from earlier cut in, and it was immediately obvious from the way he grinded his teeth and gestured with his hands that they had suffered this conversation multiple times before.

"For the last time, I put the ball and chain on the ghoul because the best way to kill a ghoul is to root it in place and starve it to death!" The Mayor of Ribcage said this in an irritated snarl.

"Oh? And how heavy was the ball and chain?" sneered Count Moneybone.

"About fifteen pounds, give or take."

"Fifteen?! Did you want to starve the ghoul or did you want it to work on its triceps?! My mother could lift fifteen pounds! Fifteen pounds is nothing!" Count Moneybone snapped.

"Gentlemen! I believe we're getting off-topic!" Master Eon decided to cut in before things got violent. The lizardman, finger still raised in protest, then gave a quick bow and scurried away as Count Moneybone cleared his nonexistent throat.

"As I was saying, this ghoul has spent the last month haunting the surrounding area of Ribcage, eating anything it can get its horrible claws on. We still don't know how many citizens have lost their unlives and its territory has been gradually expanding as it's hunting for more food. I want you to take care of it before this problem gets out of hand! The entire Land of the Undead is at stake here!"

Sensing that the crowd of undead was still watching both his and Eon's every move, Count Moneybone then grabbed one edge of his cape with one hand and raised his other hand in the air as if reaching for heaven's light. He raised his voice in volume, going from "conversational" to "operatic". 

"So what do you say? Will you help us in our time of need, Master Eon?"

Master Eon paused, weighed his options, and, feeding into the theatrics for a bit, smiled and performed a bow and scrape before Count Moneybone, flourishing his hand as he did so.

"Consider it done!"

And with those words, Master Eon and Hex left the room to the sound of rapturous cheers and applause.  -----------------------

After quickly and reluctantly discussing the matter of Master Eon's payment with his new employer away from the crowd ("I have no need for gold coins." "Eon, you are not doing this job for free. If you won't take money, will you at least take a rare book from my collection?" "If you insist."), Master Eon and Hex left Count Moneybone's Villa and set off towards the town of Ribcage. Master Eon, with his long grey beard and sky blue robes making a stark contrast to Hex's midnight black, merrily trudged through the desolate land of the undead with his silent witch companion by his side. 

The air was thick with the stench of decay, and eerie moans echoed through the twisted trees that seemed to reach out with skeletal fingers, but Eon's mood remained cheery. Despite missing his garden earlier in the hustle and bustle of Count Moneybone's crowded study, he had to admit, it has been quite a while since he was asked to do a more traditional "Slay Thy Monster" quest. It felt nostalgic in a way. The Portal Master and his companion pressed on, their determination unwavering, for they had a quest to fulfill!

Hex did not share his enthusiasm. She quietly floated beside him, her face still passive and unreadable, as she exuded an aura of immense power. Her eyes glowed with a faint white light that pierced through the fog that permeated the land of the undead. She was always on high alert and she refused to waste more than a single word on such frivolities as "nice day we're having, Hex" and "it's been a while since you've last traveled to the Land of the Undead, Hex."

Master Eon had, of course, brought his trusty magic staff with him on his adventure. It crackled with energy as he used it as a walking aide. In addition, he also shouldered his enchanted satchel. Made of dark brown leather and decorated with a single red jewel, it looked like a regular, unassuming traveler's satchel, but it was enchanted to hold so much more than it seemed. Why, if it fell into a lake, it would easily swallow the entire body of water without changing size or weight. No self-respecting Portal Master went unprepared, after all! 

Today, however, his satchel contained no pilfered sea. Instead, he had packed his magical antique ladle (for making magical antique soup), a thermos that was currently holding a frightening amount of ectoplasm soup, more ingredients for soup in case Eon ran out of soup, various notes on the monster that they would soon face, and a map that would lead them to their destination (that now smelled faintly of soup).

It didn't take much travel time to enter Ribcage. Like most villages in the Land of the Undead, Ribcage lay in ruins, its buildings crumbling and decaying from years of neglect. But the unnatural stillness - the lack of unlife in the vicinity, the complete absence of friendly ghosts or zombies happily forming a community through broken boards and windows - was what made Ribcage feel particularly unwelcoming. The streets were littered with debris and overturned carts, evidence of the chaos that had ensued when the entire population was devoured. Clawmarks were gouged deep into the walls of several structures. Broken panes of glass and shattered doors lay on the ground.

Neither Eon nor Hex said a word as they searched the abandoned village for their monster. They could see that Moneybone's hunch was right. There were the telltale signs of a chain dragged through the dirt, and they looked fresh. The air was thick with an oppressive stillness. Not even the usual sounds of nocturnal creatures filled the air. Even the lowliest undead cricket was terrified of a hungry ghoul.

Their search did not last that long. The ghoul's tracks led to Ribcage's largest restaurant. It was once a quaint little hangout called The Spirits' Tavern ("Where the menu is to die for and the atmosphere is positively ethereal! Four point five stars on Yelp!") and it was in the same pathetic state of existence as the rest of the town. The windows were shattered, and a crowd of overturned chairs and tables sadly lay splintered and abandoned. Despite the constant decay that surrounded them, there was also the smell of something fresh wafting through the air. Master Eon gripped his walking staff with determination. He knew that they were close. Steeling his resolve, the Portal Master pushed open the restaurant's creaking doors and held them open long enough for Hex to float in first. Master Eon always held the door open for his companions as a common courtesy, even during death-defying monster quests. Inside, the remnants of several meals lay scattered across the tables and floor. No phantom pho, spectral souffl��, or midnight macabre martini was spared. The ghoul had been feeding here; its hunger so insatiable that no scrap of food was left untouched. Hex scanned the room for any sign of movement as Eon's staff began to glow with energy, ready to strike at a moment's notice. The Portal Master and his companion moved cautiously through the restaurant and made their way from the dining room to the kitchen and food stores. Once in the kitchen, they were greeted with an odd sight. There was a large smear of food mixture sitting on the floor, still wet and freshly made, with handfuls clearly ripped out of it rather than cooked. Master Eon bent down to examine it.   The Portal Master knew enough about cooking from his centuries of living in Skylands that he could tell that he was staring at one and a half cups of all-purpose flour, one cup of unsweetened natural cocoa powder, two cups of sugar, two teaspoons of baking soda, one teaspoon of baking powder, one teaspoon of salt, two teaspoons of espresso powder, half a cup of melted coconut oil, two large eggs cracked at room temperature, two teaspoons of pure vanilla extract, one cup of room temperature buttermilk, and one cup of coffee. But instead of baking this concoction into a fluffy, moist chocolate coffee cake, the creature skipped all of those other steps and gobbled up the raw cake mix with its bare hands. 

"I see our ghoul knows a thing or two about cooking. They even used measuring cups." Eon said in mild amusement. 

Hex didn't reply. She remained still, her entire body tense. Her head kept scanning the room, her hands raised and magic beginning to dance on her fingertips.

She could sense it. They were being watched. Inside the kitchen, next to the ruins of an uncooked cake, there were three occupants.

"Eon!" Hex cried. 

The air shimmered, and a hungry, malevolent ghoul suddenly materialized in the room. The long, sinewy creature with sharp teeth and glowing yellow eyes floated in front of them, sniffed the air hungrily, and then lunged towards Hex with a loud, wordless scream, its greedy claws extended. Hex swiftly dodged the attack, her black cloak billowing behind her, as she countered with a blast of magical energy. The ghoul howled in pain as the undead magic struck it in the chest, but instead of slowing it down, it seemed to enrage the creature further. 

"SKREEAAAA!!!"

The ghoul swung its spiked ball and chain attached to the end of its body wildly through the air in a giant arc, forcing both Hex and Eon to dance out of the way to avoid being struck. Ceramic bowls exploded into shards. Flour and sugar filled the air. An egg timer ricocheted off the wall.

'Fifteen pounds is enough to do a decent amount of damage...' Hex mused to herself as the creature swung around and pounced on her, teeth snapping at the air and the ball and chain clattering on the floor. She caught both of its hands in her's as fangs closed shut inches away from her face. The ghoul's breath smelled of rot, ectoplasm, and cake batter.

"Hex!" Master Eon yelled as magic burst forth from his outstretched hand. The ghoul was knocked aside and away from its prey but it immediately rose to its full height. It howled in hunger and attacked again, saliva foaming at its mouth.

In its frenzied, feral state, the ghoul didn't realize just how hopelessly overpowered its opponents were. The Soul-Devouring Terror of Ribcage was used to inexperienced members of the undead and the occasional poorly trained lackey under Count Moneybone's employment. As the ghoul lunged, Hex and Master Eon both focused their powers, casting a series of spells that sent bolts of lightning and a cascade of conjured skulls hurtling towards their monstrous opponent. Their magic blended seamlessly as the two of the most powerful sorcerers in all of Skylands worked together in perfect harmony. The creature roared in frustration as it tried to defend itself against the onslaught, but Hex and Eon were relentless.

"Immobilize them!" Master Eon commanded.

Hex nodded. With a final incantation, the sorcerer summoned a powerful wave of dark energy that summoned a prison of bone that burst forth from the ground. The creature was instantly pinned in place, its body wracked with pain as it let out a piercing wail. Its energy drained, the ghoul was rendered helpless, and it could do nothing but thrash weakly and helplessly like a dying fish on a line. 

"State your business," Hex commanded the growling, pinned creature as she held a ball of crackling energy near their face. 

"HISSSSSSSS!!!" answered the ghoul.

"Now now, Hex. It's hard to state your business when you're hungry." Master Eon said. Already, he was pouring some ectoplasm soup from his thermos into one of the few bowls in the kitchen that remained unbroken from the onslaught. He then kneeled next to the ghoul and gently placed the bowl in front of its face.

The monster was so hungry, so ravenous and starving, that it temporarily forgot its imprisonment once it smelled the hearty stew of ectoplasm and spirits. Greedily, it ate, its face shoved into the warm liquid like a starving dog, sending droplets of green glowing ooze flying through the air as it inhaled the food. Horrendous lip smacking noises filled the room. The contents of the bowl were gone in seconds, and the ghoul rested its head on the ground, panting from the exertion.

A second bowl slid to a gentle stop near the ghoul's face.

"Take your time; I brought plenty. I'll ask you some questions when you're feeling better." Eon said.

"Hnn..hn..wa...?"

The ghoul's expression softened a bit as the ravenous hunger subsided and higher intelligence started to flood back into the creature's brain. They coughed, ectoplasm rising from their throat, as they slowly remembered how to talk. No one has asked them to say anything in a while now.

But instead of speaking, the ghoul instead devoured the contents of a second bowl of soup. Not as greedily as the first bowl - the ghoul actually grabbed onto the bowl and tilted the liquid into its mouth this time - but still just as hungry. A third bowl of ectoplasm soup was already waiting for them before the second one was finished. 

Eon and Hex patiently watched the ghoul in silence as it ate the third bowl, then the fourth bowl, and then the fifth. With each finished meal, the ghoul changed. This creature, still pinned to the ground by a fortress of bone, became less like a slobbering, feral beast in a fugue state and more like a person. When the wooden bowl clattered to the floor for the fifth time, the creature was holding their head in their hands, like the sudden onset of lucidity was causing them physical pain.

"Do you want Hex to free you so you can get more comfortable?"

"Nnn...hhh...no, I'm fff...fine...I'm fine. I'm fine. Fine." 

The words were hesitant at first, like the ghoul was remembering how to talk as they went along. The ghoul also seemed unsure about their own voice. Their brow was furrowed, and they tentatively sounded out some vowels to themselves. The ghoul held out a hand in front of its face and tentatively wiggled its clawed fingers as if seeing its own body for the first time.

They didn't want to ask for freedom yet. As the ghoul regained their humanity, they remembered that they weren't supposed to be a ghoul.

Despite the ghoul's pleas, Hex, her eyes still watching the creature with her stern, emotionless look on her face, made a gentle motion with her hand and the bone prison shimmered and melted away like a fading summer's memory. The ghoul didn't move from his spot. Those piercing yellow eyes that once glared at both Eon and Hex with malevolence and hatred were now wet with unshed tears.

Master Eon leaned down and placed a hand on the ghoul's shoulder.

"Do you have a name?"

Master Eon's voice was calm, patient. Understanding. 

"I should have a name..." the ghoul replied, a sob escaping from the back of their throat. They...He - he remembered that part - HE dragged a hand across his face as he lay there pitifully on his stomach. Everything felt wrong.  "But I can't remember it. Can't remember much of anything..."

Eon took out his thermos and poured out another bowl of soup.

"What would you like us to call you?"

The ghoul accepted more food and pulled himself into a sitting position. Chains rattled behind him and then around him as his unnatural tail - his punishment for his monstrous acts - formed a small, tight, protective circle around his body.

"What were they calling me...?"

As Master Eon stirred the soup with his antique soup ladle, he unfolded the piece of parchment from his satchel and squinted at the various titles written on the ghoul's rap sheet. "The Soul-Devouring Terror. The Fall of Ribcage. The Ghost Gobbler. The Ghost Eater. The Ghost Roaster. The Ghost Ender. The Nightmare Beast. The Spirit Shredder-"

"I like Ghost Roaster." The ghoul said glumly, choosing the least monstrous out of the list. It was starting to dawn on him that he just tried to kill and eat Master Eon, the most famous Portal Master in all of Skylands, a couple of minutes ago. He grabbed the bowl that was handed to him and stared down at the tasty, nourishing broth.

"I remember...roasting things? Before all of this..."

Master Eon remembered the cake mixture on the ground. There was a natural talent there, he recalled. Perhaps this ghoul had a hobby in cooking?

"Ghost Roaster it is."

"This could use a little basil and maybe half a clove of garlic..." Ghost Roaster said to himself without thinking as he examined his bowl of soup, confirming Master Eon's suspicions. This was the first serving where Ghost Roaster was using a spoon, stolen from The Spirits Tavern's storage.

"What do you remember?"

Ghost Roaster gnawed lightly on the spoon and racked his brain.

"I remember..."

Then the memory struck him and the spoon fell from numbed fingers.

Hot fire. Burning. Back arching. Muscles twitching. Cry of pain. Guts rearranging. Sinew ripping, tearing, reforming into new shapes. Cry for help. Mouth forced open as teeth kept growing. Growing. Skin melting. Reshaping. Hair falling. Legs growing. Fusing. Needles of lava piercing head. Writhing. Screaming. Howling. Hunger. Starving. Famished. Hunger hunger hungry hunger hunger-

"...pain." was the only word that fell out of his mouth. He looked down at his hands again, at his claw-tipped hands made out of yellowed bone, and then looked up at Master Eon. A raw and powerful disgust enveloped his body as his chest tightened. When he asked the question now burning in his mind, his voice sounded weak. Fragile. 

"Is...is there a way to change me back?"

For the first time this entire trip, Hex's face showed emotion. She - as well as Master Eon - winced as if struck as Ghost Roaster looked up at both of them with pleading eyes. When neither of them answered Ghost Roaster's question fast enough - how could they answer such a loaded question? - he tossed the bowl away from him as his emotions got the better of him. 

"Answer me! There has to be, right?" Ghost Roaster yelled, his voice shaking. His trembling hands grasped at Master Eon's cloak.

"I-I'm not supposed to be like this! I was something else and-and-and but then I tripped! -and I fell a long way and now...now I'm a monster! I don't want to be stuck like this! What if I hurt anyone else!? What if-" 

"I know how you feel."

Ghost Roaster's complaints died on his lips. "What...?"

Hex repeated herself. 

"I know how you feel." 

Hex turned her head and looked off to the distance as her voice became pained.

"Years ago, I too became a monster. I too was hunted." 

Ghost Roaster gazed at her in shock. He let go of Master Eon's cloak. Master Eon gently placed a hand on Ghost Roaster's shoulder but the ghoul didn't feel it.

"I was also cursed to join the Undead against my will, long ago. I hated myself too, at first. My skin was cold, my heart was still. I was a living corpse, forever tainted by undeath. I was abandoned by the people I once protected. Hunted by the people I once protected."

Hex turned her head to look at Ghost Roaster. Their eyes met. 

"I have wasted years trying to find a cure for my transformation. What I learned...is that the most common solution for an undead curse is destruction. You have been changed permanently and the sooner you make peace with that, the better."

But then, in a rare moment, Hex smiled.

"But you don't have to suffer your curse alone."

Hex held out her hand towards Ghost Roaster. Ghost Roaster, misreading her gesture and forgetting that handshakes exist, rushed over to her and instead swept her up in a hug. 

Hex awkwardly floated there, arm still outstretched, constricted in a rib-bruising embrace, as the ghoul that once tried to eat her was now loudly sobbing into her shoulder. She could feel her shoulder become wet with tears. 

Master Eon walked up to both of them, a warm smile playing on his lips. Hex shot Master Eon a look that screamed "do something!"

So Master Eon did the thing he was most known for.

"Have you considered joining the Skylanders, Ghost Roaster?"

---------------------

Count Moneybone sat at his mahogany desk in his office, organizing paperwork. The soft glow of the chandelier above him (for Moneybone had a chandelier in almost every room of his manor) cast a warm light on various office plants and stacks of paper from the various undead towns and provinces that surrounded him. Politics was rapidly becoming a fun pastime for him but bureaucracy also took up lots of room in his office. 

'Mental note - hire a secretary,' Count Moneybone thought to himself as he sipped on a cup of tea, and that was when the door loudly burst open, sending some of his paperwork flying. Count Moneybone, his floral printed teacup still hovering near his mouth, narrowed his eyes as Master Eon triumphantly entered the room in a flurry of blue robes and greying facial hair. 

"Well!?" Count Moneybone asked, mildly annoyed. "Did you take care of the ghoul?"

Someone behind Master Eon cleared his throat. A spiked ball and chain dragged itself and dug grooves across Count Moneybone's plush purple carpets as Ghost Roaster, still signing official paperwork marked with Master Eon's signature with Master Eon's favorite fountain pen, floated into the room.

"He did, yes."

Count Moneybone said nothing as his teacup fell from his hands to the floor.

--------------------------

End

[turquoisephoenix]

A Breach of Galactic Protocol - Chapter 1 and 2

A Ratchet and Clank Fanfic - Currently Unfinished After his defeat in A Crack in Time, Dr. Nefarious is on the brink of death and is in need of a skilled mechanic to nurse him back to health and Lawrence, in a fit of desperation, hires the one person that is willing the break intergalactic law in order to fix the most hated robot in the universe. Unfortunately for him, Lawrence might've accidentally rekindled an old flame in the process. Gameverse.

Dr. Nefarious/Elaris Shipping. Nefaris. Characters: Elaris, Dr. Nefarious, Lawrence ---------------------------- I’m doing something a little different with this fanfic because this fanfic is a collab! This was co-written by @pastelpopsicles on Twitter. She wrote the first draft, I tightened it up and wrote over it. And, even though this fanfic is only halfway there, it’s the beefiest thing I’ve helped write in several years, so instead of posting it here on Tumblr, I’m just going to link both Fanfiction.net and AO3, where it’ll be easier to read there.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13668380/1/A-Breach-of-Galactic-Protocol

https://archiveofourown.org/works/25832725

[turquoisephoenix]

A Breach of Galactic Protocol - Chapter 3

A Ratchet and Clank Fanfic - Currently Unfinished

Dr. Nefarious/Elaris Shipping. Nefaris. Characters: Elaris, Dr. Nefarious, Lawrence ----------------------------

Chapter 3 - In which Dr. Nefarious gets to talk about how much of a mess his body is and he's really excited about it too because someone finally asked about it. or, the alternative title: Chapter 3 - Two dorks slowly wear down the patience of the British butler sharing the same room as them.

------------- I’m doing something a little different with this fanfic because this fanfic is a collab! This was co-written by @pastelpopsicles on Twitter. She wrote the first draft, I tightened it up and wrote over it.

Like last time, I’m just going to link both Fanfiction.net and AO3, where it’ll be easier to read there.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13668380/3/A-Breach-of-Galactic-Protocol

https://archiveofourown.org/works/25832725/chapters/63125800#workskin

[turquoisephoenix]

A Breach of Galactic Protocol - Chapter 4

A Ratchet and Clank Fanfic - Currently Unfinished

Dr. Nefarious/Elaris Shipping. Nefaris.   Characters: Elaris, Dr. Nefarious, Lawrence   ----------------------------

Chapter 4 - In which they finally confessed but got shy and only said "like-like" and now they're playing Yu-Gi-Oh because they’re nerds with emotional baggage. or, the alternative title: Chapter 4 - Lance and Janice almost ruins everything. Again.

------------- I’m doing something a little different with this fanfic because this fanfic is a collab!  This was co-written by @pastelpopsicles on Twitter. She wrote the first draft, I tightened it up and wrote over it.

Like last time, I’m just going to link both Fanfiction.net and AO3, where it’ll  be easier to read there.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13668380/4/A-Breach-of-Galactic-Protocol

https://archiveofourown.org/works/25832725/chapters/64652260

[turquoisephoenix]

What’s A Little Galaxy-Wide Destruction Between Friends? - Chapter 2

Chapter 1

Five days after saving the galaxy from the Deplanetizer, Elaris is greeted by an old friend, who wishes to talk to her, vent a little, and give her life advice. Unfortunately for her, her old friend also happens to be a freshly transformed robot version of a dangerous criminal madman that everyone believed was dead. Elaris & Dr. Nefarious friendship Characters: Elaris, Dr. Nefarious, Lawrence, Qwark (mentioned) ————————————————

Author's Notes: I also mainly wrote this to write down a headcanon I had for why Dr. Nefarious wanted to blow up Umbris as his main plan in the movie, when a galaxy-wide explosion leading up to "just" city-wide takeovers and roboticization kinda seems like a downgrade on the evil scale. Plus at the end of the day, Nefarious kinda is a goofy idiot in addition to being an evil mastermind.  

Also because Elaris is a gamer and we stan a gaming legend.

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Three weeks had passed since the incident on Umbris and Elaris couldn't be happier.

The weapons technician was grinning from ear to ear as she entered her workplace, practically bouncing on her heels as the events of today's meeting still making her giddy. She set down a bunch of cardboard boxes she was holding down on an empty table and pumped her fists in the air. A scream of joy filled the air.

At last! She was moving out of the broom closet and getting a proper laboratory! They finally listened to her! No more bottles of cleanser and pails of dirty water! No more having to say "excuse me" and awkwardly shove past the janitor to get to her office! No more terrible smells!

At first the process was as slow as it always was - everyone kept pushing back her appeals because they kept saying they had more pressing matters to attend to, where would we find the space, surely this could wait when we just saved the galaxy, Qwark has another book signing today - but then she did something that they didn't expect from a passive nerd like her. Elaris dug in her heels and let herself get a little angry about this issue. She'd raise her voice a little bit, she demanded a little more respect, until finally the group listened.

In other words, she channeled a bit of her inner Dr. Nefarious.

But just a little bit. The part of him that didn't want to murder anybody.

Elaris looked at the corkboard in her office with Dr. Nefarious's photo still pinned to it, where the perfectly happy and organic Nefarious smiled with the blissful unawareness of what would happen to him after that picture was taken. She couldn't help but smile back, even though the person in the photograph tried to blow up the galaxy - with her in it - last month.

She really did have that weird dream meeting with Dr. Nefarious to thank. As the days went by, she started to see that one incident with the robot version of Dr. Nefarious sneaking on her spaceship and coaching her on her job as less of a thing that happened and more like a vision. A spiritual calling if you will.

Sure, it felt real. And for a while, she earnestly believed that it was real. But as the days went by and as her brain thought about it for a little while longer, Elaris began to rationalize to herself that no, it didn't happen and her patrol shift near Umbris was so boring that she fell asleep and had a strange nightmare of a screaming zombie robot telling her to quit her job.

Which is why she wasn't worried about the notification from a "DrN42" popping up on her account after she started an online session of Resistance: Fall of Blarg after her shift.

Apparently they were already friends and their last online activity was years ago, but it was an older game so she thought nothing of it. She accepted and settled into her chair, also thinking nothing of it when the voice chat booted on. She cracked open a can of Nanotech Gamer Fuel Cola ("the drink of true 133ts!" as it said on the side) and adjusted her headset.

"What's up, DrN42." she said into the microphone, in the tone of voice she used for livestreams.

"Testing...testing..."

Elaris made a tiny yell and jumped, her can of Cola flying out of her hand and crashing onto the floor.

Yes, there was no denying it. The voice on the other end of voice chat was Dr. Nefarious. The Dr. Nefarious that was supposed to be dead. The Dr. Nefarious that was supposed to be a figment of her imagination.

Immediately she remembered why the username was still on her friend's list - before he quit the Galactic Rangers, Elaris would try to get him to blow off a little steam by playing a couple online matches, usually after he got into another shouting match with Captain Qwark. She remembered days where both of them were standing side by side in the crowded broom closet, their shoulders touching as they were both in The Zone...

She shook that memory away before she dwelled too hard on it, her face flushing. She hated how much she missed the company of a criminal mad scientist.

That also meant she didn't just imagine that one meeting back on her spaceship. The weird robot in her dream that was yelling to a Lawrence over a cellphone and breathing like he still had a pair of lungs was real and now he was playing an online game with his old work username. Her mind reeled at the revelation.

"I heard a yelp so speakers seem to be working..." he said calmly, snapping her back into reality.

"How...." she stopped herself. "Okay, seriously, what are you even doing?" Her brain was still trying to play catch-up with what was going on. She fought to calm herself down - it's not like he could physically threaten her over an online game or anything after all - as a harsh metallic voice filtered through her speakers.

"I ran into a bit of inventor's block. Managed to get the wi-fi working from the crash site and worked my way there." he explained evenly. She couldn't see, but back on Umbris, he was currently sitting in a chair made out of stolen spaceship parts and twiddling a small wrench in-between two claws as he gently tweaked the sensitivity of his game controller, which was a Frankensteinian chimera of scrap metal and loose wires sitting in his lap.

Behind him, Lawrence was silently dusting. Lawrence didn't want to play, which was fine for Nefarious, because he didn't want to construct a second controller.

"You..." Elaris was still having a hard time making sentences work.

"If you must know, if you take about five repair droids and rip the wiring and chips out of their miserable carcasses, you can cobble together a working game controller out of them." his voice remained calm and at a normal speaking volume, but running underneath it was a seething undercurrent of hatred. "All you really need is some soldering materials and a small screwdriver."

"This is insane." she said, stating the obvious.

"I get that a lot, yes." he continued. Lawrence made a quiet amused noise under his breath but Nefarious wasn't paying attention. "It takes an additional two repair droids for the headset-"

"What if I tell the Galactic Rangers that you're still alive?" she blurted out suddenly, the words falling out of her mouth. She immediately clapped her hands over her mouth in an act of instant regret, but Nefarious didn't seem phased.

"Then you'd have to explain to them how you'd know this information, Elaris." he answered. Even though she could only hear his voice, she could just feel the smug smile crossing his metallic face. "And wouldn't that be an awkward conversation to your fellow galactic heroes?"

Crud, Elaris thought to herself. No wonder he was so calm.

"I'm also using a frequency jammer so don't try tracing my connection back to me. One of the first things I learned during my untimely stay in a prison cell was how to leech wi-fi and go completely undetected..!" he said with a sinister voice, his words taking on such an evil tone that didn't betray the fact that the main reason he learned how to leech wi-fi was because he didn't want to miss any seasonal events in League of Legendaries and wanted to keep his place in the top PVP DPS lists.

"Are you going to use this as blackmail?" she said in a tinier voice than she meant to.

"N-No?" he said incredulously, taken aback. The way he said it instantly defused most of the tension hanging in the air. He sounded almost hurt, of all things. "Calm down, Elaris. I just want to play Resistance and I just happened to see you online. What kind of person do you take me for?"

'Someone who's backstabbed everyone he's ever worked for?' flashed through her mind and while she didn't say it out loud, Nefarious could practically read her mind from the long silence that followed, which caused him to clear his cybernetic throat in embarrassment. There he goes doing the non-robot things again. At least he was consistent.

"I just want to play one online match. You know...for old time's sake. After that, I'll disappear. What do you say?"

She wasn't sure what made her say yes. Was it something in the tone of his voice? Was it curiosity? Or did she believe this was another weird dream, similar to the previous weird dream back when she was patrolling Umbris?

'Stupidity, probably' she thought to herself as DrN42's character loaded into the waiting room. She did the wave emote. In response, DrN42 shuddered a bit and then started walking into a wall. She heard grumbles of annoyance and the angry hammering of buttons as DrN42's attempt at emoting proved disastrous. He managed to get the dance emote working before he sank into the decorative pool that was in the training area map and drowned.

"Are you having any problems there, buddy?" she asked as he respawned and then proceeded to get his character wedged between two bushes. The hammering of buttons continued echoing into her ears.

"Ever had all of your fingers surgically removed and replaced with sharp, clumsy metal claws meant for rending organic flesh and not much beyond that?"

"No?"

"Well....that makes one of us...." he said glumly as his character lurched forward right into another wall. He controlled like someone who never played a video game in his life. He found the fire button and his character started shooting wildly into the air.

"Did you even practice beforehand?" she said in amusement, watching him figure out the controls.

"N-no...." he admitted sheepishly. His character fell into the pool again. "I'll say I have bad lag!"

"Well, too late for any regrets because our match is starting." She warned him, her eyes locked on the countdown clicking down on the HUD. A smile of amusement crossed her lips. This was going to be a virtual trainwreck and she was ready for it.

"Wh-what-"

Before Dr. Nefarious could finish his weak protest, they were both immediately loaded into bleak post apocalyptic ruins. Shades of brown and toppled skyscrapers surrounded them from all directions. Elaris adjusted her headset like a grizzled war veteran as the heavy metal soundtrack of Fall of Blarg flooded the broom closet.

To say that Nefarious "sucked" at this game was an understatement, and possibly an insult to creatures that sucked things for nutrients. Nefarious was so bad at this game that Elaris wondered if there was a correlation between his sudden drop in gaming skill and his unwanted transformation, and made sure to make a mental note to never turn into a robot. He played worse than someone who intentionally played bad for cheap clicks on YouTube, and that was saying something. Elaris was positive was one of his deaths was because he accidentally shot himself in the face with his own weapon, and she didn't even think that was possible in Fall of Blarg.

"Wow buddy, you're kinda bad at this game!" Elaris said as she killed the soldier that was camping on Dr. Nefarious's body and keeping him from respawning.

"SHUT UP, I'M REALLY RUSTY!" was his response.

Elaris couldn't help herself. She was on the battlefield of Resistance: Fall of Blarg - a game where she livestreamed with the Galaxy's greatest champions, a game where she ruled with an iron fist as Queen. He was in her domain now and not even his new robot form could protect him from her fury.

"Oh no, are you already getting rust?" she mocked playfully.

"NOT HELPING!"

"I could suggest some derusting agents, I know you're new to the whole robot thi-"

"WHAT WAS THAT? I CAN'T HEAR YOU, MY HEADSET'S ACTING UP!"

Elaris broke out into a fit of laughter, which caused Nefarious to nervously chuckle on his end. She couldn't help it - as absurd as this situation was, she was having a lot of fun. Not even with the wild difference in skill level between her and her partner did her foes stand a chance. She was in Gamer Mode and nothing can stop her now.

One online match became three. Then five. Then nine. Every match, Elaris carried them to victory. While she did enjoy playing babysitter to a wildly flailing partner that drew enemy fire, Dr. Nefarious was a fast learner and actually figured out how to not suck and die on the battlefield. By the fifth match, some of his old Galactic Ranger skill began to come back and soon he was able to pick off one or two kills himself. Still not as good as Elaris, the Iron Queen of Resistance, but at least he wasn't so much of a dead weight anymore.

And honestly, she was having the best gaming session in months. She missed having a gaming partner. In this brief happy moment of leeching company wi-fi to keep her own Internet bill down, Elaris forgot she was playing video games with a scary robot monster that once pointed a giant space station sized weapon at Umbris and tried to blow up the entire galaxy.

'Umbris...'

The exhilarating rush of video games soon gave way to curiosity. Elaris checked the clock. She had been gaming with a bloodthirsty madman for a solid hour now. Normally she was out of Galactic Ranger Headquarters much earlier than this, even during days where she hung back to fix a few bugs on overtime. Now, she wanted to use the voice chat to its full advantage rather than blast enemy soldiers.

"Hey Nef." she said, setting their group to private and cancelling their next match.

"Hrm?"

Elaris looked around. She checked behind her to make sure there was no one walking down the hallway of HQ and then, after a brief hesitation, she lowered her voice and asked the question that was burning on the back of her head, even though she was dreading the actual answer.

"Why did you want to blow up Umbris and kill everyone?"

There was a quick cackle of disbelief - a sudden, pointed "HAH!" - over the other end.

"Where did everyone in the Solana Galaxy get this idea? How is blowing up Umbris going to kill everyone? Umbris is an uninhibited wasteland where Qwark has his stupid training base for squishy meatheads! I thought my motive would be crystal clear in me targeting that worthless mudball of a planet! No one would miss it!"

"W-what..." Elaris uttered in disbelief as her team partner suddenly broke into a rant befitting of a true gamer.

"Don't think I don't read the news! I've been seeing the propaganda from both Qwark's autobiography and that holovid that I was planning to "wipe out everything". Why would I wipe out everything? There's no one to gloat to when you wipe out everything! What did everyone think I was going to do - go to the Bogon Galaxy and march up to the doors of Megacorp like "guess who has six fingers and blew up billions of people"?"

He drew in a breath to calm himself; yelling at Elaris didn't feel nearly as good as yelling at Qwark or at some weird Lombax kid. "I swear you try to atomize one city in a fit of rage and everyone thinks you're a genocidal maniac." he added at last.

She thought back about the Deplanetizer and the holovid made in honor of the heroics of Ratchet and Captain Qwark. They added a couple scenes for Dr. Nefarious about how he was going to reduce the Solana Galaxy into space dust. The planets were perfectly aligning and Umbris has an unstable core - it just made sense that he would've planned this all out.

"Whoa whoa whoa, you mean to tell me that you set up the Deplanetizer to blow up a planet with an unstable core - a move that would've set off a chain reaction and wiped out everything in the galaxy including yourself - entirely by accident?"

"Yes!" he said instantly. There was then an awkward pause as his brain caught up to him. "...wait that would've actually destroyed the galaxy...?"

"Yes! Yes that would've destroyed all the other planets!" she barked back, a little louder than her normal speaking tone.

He went silent for a long period of time, a disconcerting period of time that made Elaris wonder if he lost connection.

Finally he spoke, and his voice was suddenly really quiet.

"I didn't know that..." he admitted.

"WHAAAAAT?!" she screamed.

She couldn't help herself. Anger was flooding her senses and clouding her thoughts. Maybe it was the heat of the online battlefield but she did not like the idea that Nefarious almost killed her - not because he wanted to! She accepted the idea that he had devolved into a bloodthirsty killer at this point! - but because he didn't know a goddamn thing about geology.

"Wait but that means you would've died too..." he added as his brain put the pieces together.

"YES! YES I WOULD'VE DIED, YOU IDIOT!"

He didn't answer, but his embarrassed silence really said it all.

"I swear do you actually spend longer than fifteen minutes thinking your plans through!?" Elaris said, her voice raising in volume until it became a harsh, almost Nefarious-like yell.

"Wow Elaris, you're getting really mad at that game! Is your teammate a total noob or something?" Ratchet called from the hallway. He had caught the last thing that Elaris had said as he was walking by, a doughnut still hovering near his mouth. Ratchet was usually one of the last people to leave Galactic Headquarters on account of all the extra-curricular training he liked doing.

"Yes! Yes, he's very much a total noob! He's normally much smarter than this but he nearly went and got everyone killed!" Elaris yelled back, gesturing vaguely at the screen where both her and DrN42's characters were staring at a poorly-textured wall.

There was a mild chuckle from the Lombax. "Okay Elaris, talk to you later!" and with a quick wave of a hand and a Lombax tail, he was gone.

Another awkward silence descended between them as Elaris fought to get her emotions back under control. It felt weird being the angry one. She was so used to being the calm, collected nerd next to the angry, raging nerd back when the two of them worked together as the Nerd Herd. She was used to being the one that would calm Nefarious down, not the other way around, and her gaming partner on the other end knew it from the way he hesitantly tried to help.

"Are you okay there, Ellie?"

Ellie. Like a needle puncturing a balloon, all of her fury drained out of her body when she heard that nickname. It had been years since she last heard anyone call her that pet name, the name she said her grandma used to call her one day while she and Nefarious were trying to fix the ammo capacity of the Bomb Glove, and just the tiniest act of him remembering it calmed her down. Her shoulders sagged.

"I swear you can be so stupid sometimes!" she said, but there was no fire behind her words anymore.

"Okay okay...so I made a rookie mistake!" he said with a chuckle. Was he humoring her? Was the killer robot actually trying to make her feel better? Why? "Next time I'll plan better! The best part about being a supervillain is that you can always try, try again until the heroes lose!"

"How did you make it all the way through med school and then build the blueprints for a giant space station armed with a planet-destroying laser without knowing a single thing about astrogeology?" Elaris said, her face resting in one of her palms.

"How was I to know planets had different cores?"

"That's something you learn in the fifth grade!"

"I never did really pay attention to geology in school..."

Despite that, Elaris felt better. Even though it still kinda stung that she almost died because Mr. Loose Cannon didn't think too hard on the consequences of his own actions, thinking about the previous game sessions brought her happy mood back. She found herself smiling again. He may have allied himself with Chairman Drek and nearly killed them all, but deep down he was the intelligent yet idiotic nerd that she shared a broom closet with, and that brightened her mood in a strange, confusing way.

"Sorry for yelling at you, Nef. I did have a great time!"

"I did too!" he shouted back, his mood immediately bouncing back now that Elaris was happy again. The Galactic Ranger decided not to think too hard on the fact that Nefarious seemed genuinely concerned for her. This situation was already weird enough as is.

"Well, I gotta go now, but thank you for talking to me back on Umbris. I wouldn't be moving out of the broom closet and into an actual laboratory if it wasn't for you!" When he didn't immediately reply back, only giving her a stunned silence in return, she didn't even wait for an answer when she turned off the game. Satisfied, Elaris finally removed the headset and ran a hand across her head. It really was time she got back to her apartment. Leftover ravioli didn't eat itself.

She got up from her chair, took one step, and immediately heard the sad, fizzy squish of her foot colliding with a cola puddle that had been laying there for a solid hour.

Elaris sighed in mild disappointment. She couldn't leave yet.

"I spent two bolts on that soda too..."

------------

"Did you have fun, sir?"

Dr. Nefarious looked up at Lawrence as he fiddled with his eldritch abomination of a gamer rig, his claws entangled in some loose hanging wires and a wide, childish grin on his skeletal face. His handcrafted gamer PC made from Deplanetizer guts and some repair bots was like a new pet to him, and he cherished it as such.

"Did you see us, Lawrence!? We won every match! We annihilated everyone that stood in our way! No one could get past our defenses!" he shouted with all the giddy excitement of a grade schooler. He was gesturing wildly, communicating as much with his arms and hand movements as his face, and from the way he was wrapped up in his PC wires, it was a miracle he didn't strangle himself or trip over.

"Masterful work. I can see why you're so popular with the ladies." Lawrence quipped, sounding about as excited as someone filing paperwork at the DMV.

"And then she told me she actually took my advice and then thanked me for it! She listened to me! You remember, back when I first became a robot! She listened!"

"I think she likes you, sir."

"I think she does! Isn't that wonderful, Lawrence!?" he practically screamed.

This would've been a happy moment, and indeed the mad scientist could feel a warm, fuzzy feeling spread through the circuits in his chest as his mechanical heart fluttered, thinking about his old science partner, if Lawrence didn't immediately chime in with a curt "So why didn't you ask for any of Captain Qwark's patrol schedules or passwords from her again?", ruining the moment instantly.

The warm happy feeling went cold. The excitement bled out of him.

Oh right. The real reason why he logged onto Resistance: Fall of Blarg around the exact same time as Elaris. The reason that Elaris had almost guessed before they ended up just fooling around in an online video game. His diabolical revenge scheme that he had cooked up after he realized that he and Elaris still had each other friended. His fullproof plan that would lead to Qwark's demise.

Dr. Nefarious sucked in a breath and dragged a hand slowly across his face, suddenly feeling very tired.

"Oh..."

[turquoisephoenix]

What's A Little Galaxy-Wide Destruction Between Friends?

 A Ratchet and Clank One-Shot

Five days after saving the galaxy from the Deplanetizer, Elaris is greeted by an old friend, who wishes to talk to her, vent a little, and give her life advice. Unfortunately for her, her old friend also happens to be a freshly transformed robot version of a dangerous criminal madman that everyone believed was dead. Elaris & Dr. Nefarious friendship Characters: Elaris, Dr. Nefarious, Lawrence, Qwark (mentioned) ————————————————-

Author's Notes: I saw the movie and immediately made the connection between Elaris and Nefarious, and by god, I was going to get this down. I realize this isn't the first "Nefarious talks to Elaris about her job" fic out there, but I kinda wanted to write a version where Nefarious and Elaris were friends before the whole evil thing kinda split them apart and, despite everything, they still have positive feelings about each other. It was a challenge writing Nefarious as a mixture of absolutely terrifying and also completely vulnerable and a bit in a fragile state. It's been a bad last couple of days for Nefarious. Also I was going to explain where Lawrence came from but it also came off as more "fitting" that he just *has* Lawrence.

-----------------------------------

"Yep, this sure is Umbris alright."

Elaris, technical support of the Galactic Rangers and one of the saviors of the galaxy a mere five days ago, was doing a menial patrol shift above the atmosphere of Umbris with no one to keep her company.

Despite not being in her expertise and despite this being a rather boring shift, Elaris had asked to be on Galactic Ranger patrol today. She got a few questions from her coworkers - after all, today was double XP weekend and a holiday event in League of Legendaries and they expected her to be holed up in her lab for days - but she won out in the end. She took the same spaceship she normally did, a beaten up little thing that could be best described as "dependable" and "cozy" and nothing more.

She didn't want to admit it out loud, but she was getting cabin fever from being in her in the lab, just a glorified broom closet, all day. She was kinda hoping that, by helping with the Deplanetizer and helping to save the galaxy, she would at least get a bit of a laboratory upgrade as a reward. Instead, with the media breathing down their necks and Qwark doing his big apology tour, her tiny comments of "can I please get a proper laboratory?" were written down as "things to do later" as they asked the new rookie Ratchet question after question of his upbringing and his mysterious past.

And she couldn't help but feel that she was going to be in that broom closet for quite a while now.

Sitting alone in a spaceship - with no sound to greet her but the steady hum of all the ship's computers - while keeping an eye on the airspace of a muddy, near uninhabited planet was at least brightening her mood a bit and allowing her to clear her head.

Anything to get her mind off the fact that the weapons technician before her died in the process.

That was the biggest bummer of the whole Deplanetizer ordeal in her eyes. At the end of the day, Dr. Nefarious was dead. He fell from a space station onto the surface of planet Umbris and that was that. Elaris was hoping that they'd be able to arrest him and that she'd get a chance to talk to him somehow, but instead they found a barely identifiable pile of flesh that had his DNA.

She couldn't help herself. She felt sad that he had to die like that.

Her other coworkers in the Galactic Rangers thought that she was being too idealistic about her old science partner and friend, that Dr. Nefarious was too far gone even before he tried to blow up the entire galaxy with a giant laser. But she wasn't asking for any miracles. She just wanted to ask him why.

And if he was thrown into a maximum security cell for the rest of his life after she asked him what was going on in his giant skull of his, that would be enough for her. They haven't spoken in two years and it'd be nice to hear his voice again, even if his voice could not be described as pleasing to the ear.

But now she couldn't, because he was nothing but a pile of squishy goo on planet Umbris.

Fitting to her mood, as she contemplated her now dead friend, the lights in her spaceship began to flicker ominously. "No, no, no, no-" she pleaded with the ship's computer before the lighting system went dead.

"Oh come on!" she shouted to the spaceship as she was enveloped in darkness. The universe sure knew how to tell sick jokes sometimes. Muttering about budget cuts, she got up from her seat and walked towards the back where she could probably whack the power supply with a wrench until it began working again.

She didn't get that far. She entered the hallway connecting the cockpit to the other small quarters of her spaceship while complaining about how she should've checked the fuses before she left headquarters when a shape with glowing eyes detached itself from the shadows, skittered over to her position, and then suddenly pressed her against the wall in the span of two seconds.

"Don't. Sound. The Alarm."

Elaris stood paralyzed, a cold metallic claw wrapped around her face. The main source of illumination in the dark hallway came from piercing red eyes set in black, empty eye sockets of the most terrifying robot she's ever seen. It was a bony creature with sharp metal claws and fearsome wings, looming over her even in its hunched over position, smelling of the same harsh cleaning chemicals used to remove blood stains off of metallic surfaces. Acid green lighting came from the creature's skull, transparent and revealing the many horrible devices whirring within.

Her immediate thought was that some horrible zombie robot had risen from the grave and came to wreak vengeance for his fallen crew as she stared at the skeletal features. Her mind racing, she wondered just what ancient pirate curse was roaming around this sector as the creature watched her squirm.

"Elaris, it's me." the horrific creature said in a electronic voice that sounded oddly familiar. The voice was high and gravelly and grating to her ears, but it unlocked memories of several years ago when her fellow Galactic Ranger Dr. Nefarious was yelling at Qwark from another room that yes, he was still working on the Combusters, Qwark, and that if he continued rushing him he was going to shove them right up his-

"Nefarious!?" Elaris shouted, which sounded like "Mmmarmemous?" through the hand placed on her mouth.

"I am going to let you go now, and when I do, I want you do not run away or to scream or anything like that! I just want to talk!" Dr. Nefarious continued. "Got it?"

She nodded, her brain immediately noting the cosmic irony in this situation. Gently, he removed his hand from her face and quietly backed up a step, watching her as she shrank against the wall. Immediately he cackled in the kind of laughter that sounded more anxious than joyful.

"Good! Good! You're not calling the Rangers or trying to pull a weapon on me! You're actually going to listen to me that's-" he quickly broke out in a giggle that sounded both nervous and utterly deranged. "You know honestly I didn't expect to get this far!"

As the panic melted away to be replaced with a more cautious fear, Elaris could examine him more closely. She worked with sentient and non-sentient robots on a daily basis - hell, one of her coworkers was one - but he looked...uncanny.

He was breathing for one, something even the most realistic robots never did. His movements were too lifelike, from the way he could set his jaw to the movements of his eyes. He was very twitchy, his parts fidgeting in a way that was normal with organic lifeforms but looked neurotic on robots. This was not a simple consciousness transfer into a robot double as a back-up in case his organic body was destroyed; this robot clearly worked from the same blueprint as his original body.

Or was his original body, just horrifically modified.

Mentally she placed her memory of Nefarious over this creature and could pick out places where things were missing. He was skinnier, his facial features gone as if forcefully removed. If Nefarious had built himself a robot double, he would've remembered his ears and nose. Something about this robot creature seemed...wrong.

'He didn't plan this,' Elaris thought. 'Something else did this to him.'

"What....happened to you with the Deplanetizer?" Elaris asked. 'I thought you were dead' remained unspoken but very much implied. She reached out to touch him and he flinched away from her hand with a tiny yelp, a very fresh and vivid memory of pain flashing through his databanks. She withdrew her hand and he exhaled - there he was doing more things that was really creepy for robots to do - and ran a hand up his glass dome of a head.

"I survived the fall from the space station to the planet's surface. Thankfully my prototype armor suit was able to keep me from not dying, falling from a great height like that, but I was badly injured, and I was swarmed by a bunch of repair droids. They're programmed to help with situations like a rescue but they were confused. They mistook my armor's energy frequencies as a part of me so they..." a tiny sob got caught in his throat from the memory as his shoulders sagged and he looked down at his hands. "-ha...thought I was a robot..."

He paused and looked up at her and a heavy silence fell between them. The very implications of what he said hung in the air. She said nothing but judging by his changed expression, which looked absolutely wounded, her face was betraying just how horrific she found this. Another not-quite-a-robot sigh.

"...I kept telling them to stop. I would black out at times, so I don't even remember how long I was being operated on. Even when my vocal cords weren't online yet, I was pleading for them to stop. They...left a big SQUISHY pile of my removed organs and skin and bone in a corner and still I was screaming at them to reverse it!"

Suddenly he slammed the palms of his hands into the wall and his voice turned into a harsh, metallic yell.

"AT ONE POINT THEY PULLED MY BRAIN OUT OF MY SKULL WHILE I WAS STILL CONSCIOUS!"

"Oh..." She wasn't sure what else to say beyond that. Sorry? Ouch? She wasn't sure if a friendly assuring pat on the back would do it in this situation either since he seemed very adverse to touch right now.

"I needed to talk to someone - besides Lawrence -and well, I knew what your spaceship looked like, figured, oh hey, might as well talk to an old friend!"

And climb into the spaceship uninvited through an airlock and mess with the programming for the lights so that he could surprise her in the cloak of darkness without the risk of her shooting him first (because who can blame her?) but he didn't mention that.

"That's why I'm here. To vent a little and finally tell you stuff I've been meaning to tell you! You know, before my mind snaps and I become a mindless creature of destruction with my new robot body."

Elaris stared at him, trying to decipher if that last part was a joke or an actual worry of his. Nefarious always did have a dry sense of humor. It didn't help like his smile looked absolutely terrifying.

"Like...?"

Another deep robotic breath. Did he have lungs? Did the repair bots keep some of his organ systems intact?

"I want you to quit the Galactic Rangers." he said, pressing the tips of his fingers together.

"Wait, what." was her immediate reply. The gruesome metal skeleton of her former science partner was going to give her career advice?

"Hear me out! I've been meaning to have this conversation with you for a while now after I left but, wouldn't you know it, I was tied up with work." The word "work" was doing a lot of heavy lifting in this conversation. He said it real casually, like the prison escape and the faking of his own death in order to join up with a criminal and start blowing up planets was just another blip on his resume.

"Elaris, I know how they're treating you. They gave you my old office after all. You know, the one that's just a glorified converted broom closet!" She winced, his words cutting deep. "I know exactly how they behave and I know for a fact that they just treat you like a doormat and like an automatic weapon dispenser! They call you a Galactic Ranger but you're not a part of their little friend group! They see you as a nerd, a passive little thing they can push around! You're not one of them!"

"I'm a little confused..." she started, saying the understatement of the century. She didn't get this patrol shift to get a pep talk from an undead robot after all. "You come onto my spaceship, back from the dead, all the flesh torn from your bones, but...instead of asking me to join you, get the recognition you truly deserve and have all your dreams come true by storming the galaxy side by side, yadda yadda, you...just want me to hand them a pink slip and leave?"

"Elaris, despite what it looks like, I'm not trying to sound like a lunatic here." he said, dragging his hand across his face.

"I just want you to get a better job than the one you have now! I don't want you to continue to be abused by those people - by QWARK - until the bitterness inside of you grows and grows until you snap and become just. Like. Me!"

"And I'll be honest - I don't want what happened to me to happen to you! LOOK AT ME!" he said, gesturing at himself.

She was about to respond with a retort that she was positive she wasn't going to land on a planet full of repair droids while wearing highly experimental armor that confuses them and they turn her into a robot in an incredibly gruesome and long surgical procedure, but Nefarious could see she was thinking just that and held up a hand, silencing her.

"Please....just get a desk job or a job working at a computer repair store. Anything where you don't have to work with Captain Qwark. He's using you the way he did me! And trust me, he's never going to stop! He's never going to change! He'll abuse you and think nothing of it because no one cares about people like us!"

"But I won't end up like you!" Elaris shouted back, their faces so close that they were nearly touching.

Nefarious's voice suddenly dropped to a normal speaking volume.

"How can you be so sure?"

Silence fell. She opened her mouth and then closed it again, withering under his gaze as he folded his hands underneath his chin and examined her. The worst part about it was that he didn't look smug or mocking. He just looked tired.

"Why do you even care?" she asked, dodging the question.

"Because I like you, Elaris. All the other losers in the Galactic Rangers can go end up in a black hole for all I care but I don't want you getting hurt!"

Elaris had to admit, she was a little stunned hearing that come out of his mouth. 'Well, chalk that up as one positive trait for Dr. Nefarious, he actually has the capacity to care about other people while he's going about trying to blow up other planets.' she thought to herself as she tried to decipher his concern as genuine or just an insane whim.

"That's all?" Elaris asked.

"That's all." he replied. Elaris couldn't help but make a little snort of disbelief in response, causing the robot to instantly be defensive. "What?"

"Oh nothing. Just a little amused that you look like the specter of death and climb into my spaceship after returning from the dead, emerging like a horrendous butterfly out of a fleshy mound of rotting flesh, one of the most wanted criminals in the entire galaxy, but you came into my spaceship to admit you still have feelings for me."

She immediately regretted saying that for two reasons. The first reason was that she realized that she shouldn't be making fun of the madman who had just been turned into a robot. The second reason was that caused Dr. Nefarious to start ranting very loudly, and that made Elaris realize that one of the side-effects of being turned into a robot was the loss of the ability to have an indoor voice.

"Yes, YES, it sounds crazy!" he screamed. "I sound crazy right now! That's the problem with this new robot body! Instead of being emotionless, like what you'd expect when you're transformed into a robot, it's like the exact opposite happened! All of my emotions have been intensified a thousand degrees! This worry became a paranoia! My hatred is now burning with an intensity of a thousand angry suns! My bitterness is like raging venom in my heart!"

"You have a heart still?"

"I DON'T KNOW!!! See? SEE? I'm SHOUTING! I'm MONOLOGUING! I don't MEAN to shout but then it just comes out ALL LOUD AND INTENSE AND GOES ON FOREVER aaaaaand oh GOD I am losing my mind aren't I?" His last vestiges of sanity - tiny and rapidly going extinct, but still there and doing a valiant effort to keep him from being totally lost to reason - suddenly halted his rant in mid-sentence, causing him to drag his hands across his face. It's been a week for Dr. Nefarious, where being hit in the face with a wrench by a Lombax was the least of his worries.

"-please tell me I don't look like a complete nutcase right now."

Elaris sucked in air through her teeth and looked away from him in embarrassment. "Uh...do you want the truth or a little white lie?" she asked.

"I don't know! Give me whatever makes me feel better!"

"You don't look like complete nutcase."

Nefarious narrowed his eyes at her as she smiled innocently back and he looked ready to say something when suddenly a very crusty, digitized version of the pop song "Your Eyes Are Like Quazars" started playing.

"Hang on." He pulled out a cell phone out of his belt - flip phone model - and held it to the closest thing on his metallic skull that could be called "an ear". He shot her a "I'm sorry I know this looks rude but this could be important" look at her as a very dignified voice rang out from the other line.

"I do hate to bother you, sir, but you might want to wrap up whatever it is you're doing to that Galactic Ranger-"

"We're just TALKING, Lawrence!"

"-right. Anyhoo, there is another patrol ship heading your way and I'd hate for your current plans of lying low for a couple months to plot out your next scheme of horrible vengeance to be ruined because you wanted to talk to your old girlfriend."

"SHE'S NOT-ugh, fine. FINE, I'm GOING!" he said, and hung the phone up with an undignified clack of the flip phone closing in-between two metal claws.

"Just think about what I said, Elaris!" he yelled dramatically while pointing at her as he shoved his phone away in his back pocket. She wasn't going to question why he had pockets as a robot. There were a lot of things about this situation she was just not going to question.

"I wouldn't do this if I didn't have this fear that you're going to walk the same path that I did! Call it weakness or the last remaining thread of my former organic self! ...or craziness. I dunno. I'm kinda playing it by ear at this point." he said, twirling a finger in the air, as he started to move his way towards the airlock.

"Wait, before you go-"

She reached out and grabbed his hand, and when he turned to glare at her, eyes filling the hallway with a harsh red light, Elaris briefly wondered if she made a horrible mistake and that this was going to be the moment where he snaps and uses his cold metal claws to claim his first victim in a gruesome robotic rampage. But then his expression softened and he just looked grumpy, the killer robot expression fading away.

"I know you're planning something! Just promise me that your next mad scientist-"

"-Vengeful-" he corrected.

"-Vengeful scientist scheme doesn't involve the mass murder of millions of innocent people like last time. Do something, I don't know," she gestured in the empty air as she looked for the right word, "-nonlethal this time? I'm asking for the bare minimum from you. Please?"

"Why Elaris, I'm shocked." he said, placing his one free hand on his chest. "I'm surprised you didn't aim for something higher like 'quit being evil' or 'turn yourself in'. You could be saving the whole galaxy right now by stopping me!"

"You asked for something smaller, so I'm asking for something smaller. I'll keep what you said in mind. At the very least, I'm going to ask for an actual office rather than the broom closet the next time I come into work. I'll quit if they-" The 'they' meaning 'Qwark' in this case, "-start pushing me around again, I promise."

"If they push you around, push back. Push back until they bleed." he hissed.

There was something in that statement that reminded her of a day that happened at Galactic Rangers Headquarters two years ago. Dr. Nefarious - the Nefarious that still had flesh and skin - was busy stirring his coffee and talking to his trainee Elaris about the new episode of Annihilation Nation when Captain Qwark 'accidentally' bumped him while walking past, spilling it on his shirt. This caused Nefarious to throw down his coffee mug down on the ground and yell "It's a good thing we're on the same side or else you'd be DEAD, Qwark! DEAD!"

He quit several days later to start plotting an evil scheme that involved atomizing all of Aleero City.

"I will." she said with that comforting memory still hanging about in her brain. "Thanks for still looking out for me." And with those words, she let go of his arm and let the supervillain go.

He stood there, looking like he had something more to say, but then he decided to turn around and skitter into the shadows, disappearing from her sight. There was the sound of an airlock opening in the distance and then he was gone, disappearing like a bad nightmare.

Two minutes later, Elaris was able to get the lights working again in her little spaceship just as Cora radioed in and asked if everything was alright. Elaris cheerfully lied and said "sure, everything's fine, nothing's happened since you last checked in, lighting's a bit funky but otherwise nothing new!" and then she was alone again, still staring at Umbris.

As she sat back in the driver's seat and stared out at the endless sea of stars and planets stretching out in front of her, the rest of her patrol shift weighing down on her shoulders, she had to give voice to a lingering thought in her head.

"If this is just a really weird dream I'm going to be so mad."

------------

Back in the current makeshift lair of Dr. Nefarious (a repurposed garage situated on the surface of planet Umbris littered with the broken corpses of several dozen repair droids), the vengeful scientist-turned-robot was brooding dramatically in a chair as his butler Lawrence polished him. He sat there, hand propping up his skeletal chin, and sighed. Giving an old friend some helpful life advice never turned out the way you wanted it to.

"So how did it go, Sir?" Lawrence asked in a tone of voice that implied that he really couldn't care less.

"I asked her to quit the Galactic Rangers, and in return, she asked me to not kill anyone in my next evil scheme." he said nonchalantly as his butler sprayed him with cleanser and started wiping his glass dome of a head. "I think she's worried about me, Lawrence!"

He didn't say it out loud, but he was worried for Elaris too. Maybe he should've asked her to join him after all. He saw the news articles coming out involving the Deplanetizer incident. All the praise was aimed at Ratchet and Qwark with nothing mentioning Elaris. He was certain that she had a hand in moving the entire space station. At least if she was working by his side, two vengeful scientists, both outcasts from the Galactic Rangers, she'd get the recognition she'd truly deserve!

The irony of him plotting out her delightfully evil future after warning her not to become evil like him didn't even cross his mind.

"Did you tell her 'why don't fret, my dear, my next evil scheme merely involves turning all organic lifeforms into robots with a giant non-planet destroying laser'?"

Dr. Nefarious laughed maniacally.

"Of course not!" he yelled, springing from his chair and knocking Lawrence aside. He was practically strutting like a peacock, his feet crunching as he stepped on discarded robot parts, as he marched his way towards a wall, where a giant red button just waited for him to slam his fist into.

He cackled in glee as the room was suddenly illuminated with the hologram of a massive, planet-sized device, the latest of evil concoctions pulled from his brain, now converted into wires and chips by the cruel hand of fate.

He called it the Biobliterator.

"I want that part to be a surprise!"

---

END

[turquoisephoenix]

Perfect Chemistry

A Skylanders one shot

Dr. Krankcase/Mags. All it takes is a slip of a tongue and before you know it you're accidentally admitting that you have romantic feelings for your best friend from Inventor's School.

The sun was already setting in the cloud-filled horizon of Skylands, distant clouds on the western horizon glowing like fresh coals in a burning furnace.

Just this morning, Skylanders Academy - beacon of hope, symbol of virtue and peace in a turbulent magical world littered with monsters and villains - held a giant celebration to welcome four new Skylanders into the fold. While it was common for someone courageous enough to be made a Skylander (Master Eon was never considered very picky about who he granted the title, provided the recipient had proven themselves worthy of the title) was what made this day special was that it heralded the end of an evil chapter. The end of a nightmarish era.

Four of The Doom Raiders have given up crime.

After several years performing community service and training under the watchful eye of Master Eon and his most loyal followers, Wolfgang, The Golden Queen, the Chompy Mage, and Dr. Krankcase were now all considered fit to rejoin society and were all awarded new jobs as both Skylanders and teachers at the Academy. The Doom Raiders as a villainous organization had now ceased to be.

Some of the members of the Academy wished that it was all of the awful criminals - Chef Pepper Jack, Dreamcatcher, and The Gulper were all considered to be at large and major threats to the peace that the Skylanders upheld - but this was still considered a major victory to celebrate. It proved that evil could change, even if it took several years of sorting through books at a library to do so.

And with their newly awarded freedom - and their declaration that they would never use their powers for evil ever again unless they want a life sentence in Cloudcracker Prison - the Academy threw a party in their honor.

And boy, what a party it was. Even as the sun was setting and the hours were winding on, the party showed no signs of slowing down and looked to be rising to a fever pitch, with everybody in the Academy taking advantage of the excuse to eat as much food as they could, dance until their feet felt ready to fall off, and talk to the new members of the Academy staff while under the influence of caffeine and various snack products. The enchilada sauce flowed freely, as did the music from several local bands. The kitchen fires burned around the clock just to supply enough refreshments to everyone who showed up.

One ex-Doom Raider, however, wanted a break from the celebrations. Dr. Krankcase, tray of party favors still in one hand, kept glancing out the window and at the setting sun as if searching for an exit. That isn't to say he had fun today, of course not, but while his former partners in crime were still taking the center stage, either through queenly proclamations that they declare their powers to be a rightful force that will make all the bad guys tremble or through unprompted guitar solos that shook the dust off of the Academy's foundations, Dr. Krankcase was now just hanging back near the back of the party with Mags and her friends. Mags was the only non-Doom Raider he knew at the party, after all.

Mags had noticed that Dr. Krankcase was giving subtle hints that he no longer wanted to be there anymore, even if he refused to say so out loud. She had known him for so long that she was able to pick up on the tiny cues that he gave when it was obvious that he was no longer having fun at a social gathering, especially one that was filled with questions from future coworkers. His jokes became just a little more forced, his body language became tight and more hesitant, his eyes kept searching for possible escape routes, and his smile had turned from something bright and cheerful to something that had the grimace of a caged animal.

He seemed too afraid to leave on his own, possibly in fear that someone would somehow find it suspicious and immediately take away his recent accolades and throw him back in Cloudcracker Prison (anxiety was funny like that) so when Mags suggested they head over to her workshop, he practically jumped at the opportunity.

That's what friends were for, right?

"Man, thanks for saving me back there, Mags. I'm not used to so much festivity and merriment thrown in my direction." Dr. Krankcase said as he entered Mags' workshop, breathing a sigh of relief as his legs clicked noisily across the floor.

When the ex-Doom Raider had last visited her workplace, there was so much stuff on the floor - wrenches, half-finished blueprints, cans of oil, that sort of thing - that he had such a hard time getting around and instead stood awkwardly in a corner. Now, there was a clear path cutting through the place, the organized chaos instead being pushed off to the sides where they couldn't get caught on his spider legs. He appreciated the gesture. With how well his cybernetic wooden legs worked, a lot of people forgot that they were still considered mobility aids and that he couldn't stand in places that people with two legs could.

"Aww, it's no big deal!" she said, hanging her silly stovepipe hat on a stand near the door. "Although personally I think ya were doing a great job with all them questions and-" Mags stopped herself the moment she saw her partner follow her lead and also remove his hat. "...Cranberry, are you wearing a toupee?"

The mad scientist looked up, radiating a similar aura of a dog caught with a stolen bagel in its mouth, and smiled sheepishly. There was an unfortunate blue hairpiece perched on her froggy companion, several shades darker than the actual hair sticking out on the sides of his head. His face began to turn pink as he looked away from her.

"Well...you know, I wanted to be prepared in case some accident knocked my hat off during the party! You know how it goes. I didn't want my new coworkers to see my massive bald spot, and...well..."

He trailed off, realized how lame he sounded, and ripped the hair piece from his head as he immediately gave up. His massive bald spot, normally hidden by one of his many tall hats of choice, now glistened in the workshop's lighting.

"So yes, yes, I'm wearing a very bad toupee," he held it away from him between two pinched fingers in disgust. "A very damp one at that!"

Mags put a hand against her mouth to stifle a giggle as he unceremoniously chucked the hell toupee in a wastebin. "Ya wanna relax while I get yer gift ready? It'll take a couple minutes to get it set up and ya look like death there, buddy."

Thankful for the invitation, Krankcase flopped on a dusty old couch that Mags kept in her workplace, his legs curled up like a dead spider as some of the legs pierced the worn out arm rest. His modified body shape was good for standing but not so much for more leisurely poses; couches were now the preferred method of relaxation over a chair. He stretched, his back and neck audibly cracking, as a lazy smile spread on his face. "Don't need to tell me twice, Mags."

He listened to her leave into the next room and allowed himself to gaze around the area. He loved that Mags' workshop was like an extension of herself. Most of the space in her workshop was dedicated to her profession, with wrenches and blowtorches and screwdrivers hanging on the walls, but on occasion he'd spot something like a kitten poster or a little ceramic puppy hanging out alongside cans of oil or belt sanders.

There were almost no hints that Mags had originated from the Underlands - a place where vampires, werewolves, and zombies lurked in dusty ol' crypts and mansions - except for one aging photograph that showed her standing next to her parents and five other siblings. Even in the photograph, her parents looked like they were glaring in disapproval at the legless amphibian laying on their daughter's sofa.

But then, as he was left to his thoughts and as he studied Mags' knickknacks and workshop decorations, the butterflies in his stomach returned anew, this time bringing forth the bubbling feelings he kept suppressed. His smile slowly morphed into an uneasy frown as he began to fiddle with one of his bottom tusks. Ah yes, that was a problem. He wasn't sure what caused it - what made his brain flip the switch and change his thoughts into something more potent - but lately he's been having feelings for his best friend. Somehow it almost felt criminal.

'No, don't make it awkward...' he told himself, dragging a hand across his face. He couldn't say it out loud, but he loved Mags. He loved everything about her, her bubbly, positive personality, her immense knowledge in everything science. He loved her accent, the way she would crack a silly joke even in the face of danger. He loved how excited and loud she would get when she was getting close to a breakthrough in an experiment. He loved the way she smiled, the way she still was friends with him even after all the awful, evil things he's done in the past. He even loved her stupid hat, even if he thought his taste in headwear was far superior.

And he was absolutely afraid of ruining all that by saying the wrong thing. What if his tongue betrayed him in the worst possible moment and he said what he was really thinking? Would she hate him? Would he lose his best friend over some stupid emotions?

"Here it is!" Mags cried suddenly, jolting him from his thoughts. Almost guiltily, Dr. Krankcase scrambled to his feet.

Nothing could prepare him for what he saw.

"Mags..."

Standing before him, next to a very excited Mags, was an exact double of the wooden legs that were holding him upright. He slowly walked over to it, his arm outstretched like a sleepwalker, until his fingers grazed the top of it. It was made from the same wood and everything, and all the bolts and joints were at the exact same size. She got the measurements down exactly, when he didn't even build a working blueprint for his wooden spider legs.

"You...you built a replica of my legs?" he asked, leaning forward to examine it even more closely. He lifted a leg up and started testing the joints, then he moved one of his own legs next to Mags' gift and eyeballed the two inventions together, admiring Mags' handicraft. There was absolutely no difference, beyond the fact that only one pair of legs had a Dr. Krankcase sitting in them. It was unbelievable.

"They're not functional, before ya ask. You're still the only one who can bring this type of wood to life. But this has been a little pet project o' mine that I've been fiddling with over the months. I'm slowly learning how yer legs work so that, if something...you know...were to happen while you're out on a mission doing heroic, dangerous things, I could help repair them. It just seems like something to ease your mind just in case something terrible happened."

Krankcase was speechless. After spending an entire day keeping up appearances and trying to play it cool, he lost his composure.

"Mags..." he paused to take a deep breath. Words were suddenly catching in his chest. He ran a hand down his face as tears caught in his eyes. "No one's ever offered to help me like this before."

Mags elbowed him playfully, grinning from ear to ear.

"Aww, it's such a small gesture for the man I love."

Time seemed to stop for both of them. It was the tiniest slip of the tongue - something that Dr. Krankcase thought he misheard - but, like the wrong ingredient thrown into an alchemist's pot, there was an immediate explosive response and suddenly everything in the recipe changed.

"I MEAN-" Mags began, her face instantly turning beet red. She began to gesture wildly with her hands, emotions suddenly flaring up. "Aw shoot, I meant that in a platonic way! I didn't mean it like as in LOVE love, that would be real awkward ta just spring that on ya just now, aw diddly-di-darn, I mean, some things just slip out, boy howdy, I've been working so late and I'm tired andand-"

"Mags! It's okay!" he shouted. Inwardly, as he watched her fidget nervously, he noticed that Mags' accent got even thicker when she was flustered. It was adorable to him, one of the many quirks that made her beautiful in his eyes, and something about it made the ex-Doom Raider feel bold.

He was a Skylander now, after all. Skylanders were supposed to be flexible and adapt to any situation.

"To be quite honest, I love you too."

It was a shot in the dark, one that made his mind scream out in anguish for letting such an important secret out, but it had the perfect effect. Mags didn't tell him that their friendship was now over, she didn't react in disgust at such a display of utter pigheadedness from some frog with a doctorate degree. Instead she froze in place and stared at him blankly like a newborn fawn.

"Wait, you...you do?"

He nodded.

"...Really?"

Her voice sounded so small, so fragile, so unlike the Mags he's known for so long. That's when it hit him. Gears spinning in his head, his eyes fell back on the replica of his own mechanical legs, the result of months of studying his own handiwork just so he would never have to worry about an injury making him unable to repair his legs himself. He wasn't the only one hiding secret affections for a best friend, too afraid to speak up in fear that it'd just alienate the other person and their long-term friendship would be ruined forever.

Dr. Krankcase and Mags were the two smartest scientists in all of Skylands, capable of bending the very fabric of reality with their inventions, and yet both of them were unable to see what was developing between them.

Without thinking, he wrapped her in his arms and pressed her close, burying his face in her bright purple hair. He felt her flinch, but then her hesitation vanished and she relaxed in his embrace and put her arms around his waist.

"Really." He replied back, trying to imitate the dashing hero in a romance novel. His attempt at being suave failed instantly however as his bottled-up emotions overwhelmed him. His voice ended up trembling and the tears he was holding back began to fall on her head. A weak sob escaped his lips and his body shook. He wasn't sure if this was real or not.

"I just didn't think..." he paused as words were getting harder to use. "-you'd want someone like me."

Mags didn't respond as she rested her head against his chest and listened to his heartbeat flutter anxiously. She didn't have to ask what he meant. She had frequently checked up on him while he was doing community service and on occasion he'd tell her that he was afraid that them continuing to be friends would tarnish her reputation. After all, she was a hero of Skylands while he was a disgraced criminal. She helped people, he hurt people. She saved the world from destruction, and he once built a doomsday device. Their friendship persisted, but lately, he was voicing his doubts more and more.

'Because he was falling in love with me,' she realized as she remained pressed up against him, breathing in the wood chip and hint of acid smell that lingered on his clothes. Dr. Krankcase's hug lingered; he was so touch-starved that he was almost afraid of letting go, in fear that this golden opportunity would slip through his fingers.

He was always like that, she mused to herself. Doubting himself and his ability to live up to her achievements despite looking outwardly prideful. Even when they were alumni at the most prestigious inventor's school, Krankcase was afraid that becoming friends with her would reflect badly on Magdalena Sibylla-Bronwen Soulstealer the II, daughter of one of the most famous vampires in the Underlands.

"Of course I want to be with you. I'd be fine living the rest of my life with you if I had to." she said softly, arms still around his waist.

She loved Dr. Krankcase, she could finally admit that to herself. She loved everything he was, every little piece of his maniacal personality, his talents and strengths as well as his flaws. She didn't mind at all that he had creepy spider legs. He was a cunning scientist just like her, a man of alchemy and engineering, and also a fearsome warrior. She almost felt a little guilty for admitting this, but she even loved his time as a villain, if only because it made his current achievements that much richer. He was once evil, but he also had the strength to realize what he did was wrong and pull himself out of his wicked mindset.

At those words, Krankcase's mind started to ponder the possibility of spending the rest of his life with her - would they get married? would they have kids? - and something about it activated his deep-seeded anxiety and his body went into fight-or-flight mode. He instantly pulled away from her, an action so swift that Mags nearly fell over, as he tried to slowly walk backwards out the front door. Everything was happening too fast.

"You know, Mags. I should...I should get going." he said, panic flooding his voice. "T-Thank you for the present, it was...I'll be real, it was the best thing I've ever received in my life-BUT I think I've stayed too long, I'm kinda making things awkward right now, I don't want anyone in the Academy to get any ideas and start talking-"

Mags approached him swiftly, her hands gently resting on his shoulders, stopping him from running away. They made eye contact and for a brief moment, neither of them spoke as they both gazed into each other eyes. Without realizing what he was doing, Krankcase leaned forward until both of them felt each other's breath on their face. Two of his spider legs adjusted themselves so that they were on opposite sides of her own, gently framing her with his own cybernetics.

Mags drew herself to her full height. Now it was her turn to be bold.

"Let them talk."

And with those words, she pulled his face towards her's, fingers caught in his fluffy blue hair, and gave him a kiss. It was clumsy, a sloppy first attempt from a scientist so inexperienced in romance that most of her experience - save for the time when she dated Cali for a brief couple of months - came from TV shows and crinkled paperbacks.

But like most of her science experiments, it had the desired result. He leaned into her kiss and they both melted into each other, savoring the moment. Dr. Krankcase put a hand behind her head, running his fingers in her purple hair. When they finally pulled away, both of them needed some time to catch their breath.

"Wow..." was his only reply. It snapped him back to his senses; the panic was gone and he was back to his charming self.

Then, his mouth curled into a wide grin, his bottom tusks framing his lovely set of fangs.

"Well? Did it work? Did I turn into a prince?"

It was a dumb joke, but it also broke all of the tension that was hanging in the room. Mags immediately started cackling like a hyena like it was the funniest joke she's heard in her life, leaning her head against Krankcase's chest as he too started laughing.

"Sorry! Sorry! It was the perfect moment-" he tried to explain, but he was cut off when Mags jokingly punched him in the arm.

"You're such a dork!" Mags shot back.

Krankcase quietly embraced her again, leaning his chin on her shoulder. Even without his face visible, Mags could feel the grin that was spreading across his face. She smiled back. To both scientists, everything outside of the workshop was now forgotten. The party was forgotten. All fears of gossip were forgotten. All that existed now was their beautiful romance blossoming between the two of them like the most wonderful result of an experiment.

"Yes but I'm your dork."

[turquoisephoenix]

Eye for an Eye

A Skylanders one shot Every evil villain has to start somewhere. For Dr. Krankcase, his villainous career unfolded in the most classic of fashions - with a petty act of revenge. Saw a post somewhere saying that no one writes the villains being the villains so I decided to fill that void and write a little something involving Dr. Krankcase doing what a villain would do and ruin a bunch of people’s lives. Minor content warning for violence. Rating: T for violence. Characters: Dr. Krankcase, the Evilikin ————————————————-

It had been a crisp, uneventful summer night when Hawkthorn Keep fell to ruin.

Like most structures built by the Drow, the elves of Skylands that had turned to The Darkness and considered themselves the true leaders of the skies, Hawkthorn Keep was built purely with function in mind with none of the frills expected from the elf race. It was a small fortress - unremarkable by evil fortress standards really - made entirely of black stone and shaped by Earth magicks. Not a single tree was harmed in its creation; the drow may be evil, but they were still elves through and through.

The Keep had one purpose - protection. Like a panther made out of brick and mortar, it sat hunched next to the enchanted forest that shared both its floating island and its name, guarding it from harm and wordlessly marking the island and Hawkthorn Forest as Drow Territory.

The only other building on the island was a tiny structure that sat on the opposite end of a forest, far newer and far less imposing than the stronghold. Several months ago, an invader had landed on the island and had built a small makeshift factory there in order to experiment on the raw timber from the forest. He had made a bold attempt to keep it all a secret - he had even tried to argue that he wasn't going to be there long - but the drow saw to it that his operation was stopped before he could turn any more of the forest's trees into wooden monstrosities. Already the forest was reclaiming the sad burnt out husk of a building, with vines and tree roots snaking through the cracked stones and shattered timber. New growth was already forming in the tiny place near the factory that was clear cut for raw materials.

"Commander, you've received this message via carrier bird."

Commander Florin didn't even look up from his desk as he worked on the Keep's accounts, his fingers stained black with ink. Like any dark elf worth his mettle, he dared not to trust anyone else with the calculations of his keep's treasury. Instead, he tallied all the gold that went into his coffers by hand, mumbling to himself and scratching his chin. His war armor hung on the wall behind a display case, its well-polished steel catching the light from the candles that illuminated his room.

Like Hawkthorn Keep, he was rather unremarkable by drow standards. He was lean and well-toned, a middle-aged drow that had seen the sting of combat many times. His hair was already fading to grey in places, the light in his white glowing eyes was already starting to fade, and retirement was now something that floated in the back of his mind. He knew that he was stationed here not because of anything extraordinary done in his life but because no one else was; Hawkthorn was so far away from any major base of drow operations that the other Commanders often cracked jokes on how long it'd be before the trolls, the other species of elves, or even the Skylanders claimed it.

And, in his mind, that made his job even more important. He alone made sure that Hawkthorn Forest was in the hands of the superior race of Skylands.

After standing there in silence for a good minute, the young elf cadet realized he wasn't going to get a verbal answer, cleared his throat, and began to read from the scroll out loud. "To whom it may concern, the suspect responsible for cutting down part of your forest has escaped. We don't believe he's dangerous, but he sees you responsible for his accident and might try to retaliate. If he attacks your fortress, please capture him alive and send him safely to us. Fond regards, The Mabu Defense Force."

Florin still didn't answer, leaving the younger elf to fidget in place.

"The subject they're speaking of is the inventor we apprehended more than a month ago." the cadet added with a hesitant smile.

Ah yes, Florin remembered that day well. A scout had alerted him of a troll-like beast that had set up shop in his forest and was chopping down his trees, so he sent a squad of twenty elves to bring them to justice. The intruder, a miserable-looking creature with blue hair, green skin, and yellow eyes, took one look at the spears pointed at him and fled as fast as his webbed feet could carry him.

They didn't carry him far.

In their haste of ridding their land of the terrible blight that the intruder had brought them, the elves had accidentally made the roof collapse. They found the trespasser pinned to the ground, sobbing in pain and weakly clawing at the several tons of metal and timber trapping his legs. Had it been up to Florin, that would've been the end - a swift spear to the throat would've been an act of mercy at that point - but then Master Eon and the Skylanders, who had picked up a distress signal from the intruder, intervened. The green creature escaped with his life, but now missing two of his limbs. An appropriate punishment for harming a drow forest.

"Hmph. Only Mabu would lose a prisoner with no legs." The Commander answered with a dry chuckle. Florin, like most elves, had nothing fond to say about Mabu. But then again, he had nothing nice to say about anyone who wasn't a drow.

"Toss the scroll in the garbage and return to your post. Dismissed." he barked. The cadet quickly saluted and hurried out the door, his armor rustling in his wake.

With a snort, Florin's head bent over the many papers littering his desk and he began tallying the accounts once more. As he sipped idly on some mint tea (previously stolen from a Mabu airship that had sailed too close to the keep a couple weeks prior), the dark elf was confident that there'd be no more interruptions.

He was wrong.

Fifteen minutes later, the door to his office suddenly exploded inward in a lime green flash and crashed in an awful heap of metal and glowing green goo on top of his desk, ruining an entire day's hard work in mere seconds. Suddenly, tallying up the keep's books wasn't on Florin's mind as he leapt to his feet and watched as a sinister wooden and flesh monstrosity with a gun in each hand and clothes the color of dried blood slowly scuttled into his office on five wooden spider legs.

"Knock knock." hissed a very familiar intruder as a Cheshire cat grin split his face in half.

It was the same intruder as before - the creator of the tiny factory that Florin ordered to be destroyed - but there was something...different about him. Something had changed in the frog-like creature, something that unsettled the drow. He wasn't thinking about how the bottom half of his body was now a madman's facsimile of a spider's legs made out of wood and hydraulics. Nor was he thinking about how the intruder got a costume change in the short time that had passed, switching from a simple workshop ensemble with an apron to a classy red top hat and coat.

No, what really made Florin's flesh crawl was the utter madness glittering in the creature's eyes. He was grinning wildly like a wolf, lips drawn fiercely back away from his bottom tusks, as he locked eyes with the dark elf. A darkness had claimed this creature's soul where there had just been quiet meekness before, and inwardly Florin wondered just what kind of monster he accidentally unleashed onto Skylands that fateful day.

"Hello there! I don't believe we've been properly introduced." The intruder said in a cheerful voice that didn't match the bloodlust that glinted off his eyes. "My name is Dr. Krankcase and you are Commander Florin, Head of Hawkthorn Keep. I do believe the two of us have unfinished business, don't we?"

Florin, despite his many years of training, could feel fear creep into his bloodstream, freezing him in place. 'So much for the Mabu believing he wasn't dangerous,' he thought grimly. "How did you get past my guards?" he said, keeping his voice even. Oh how he wished his armor wasn't hanging uselessly behind glass...

Dr. Krankcase looked casual, conversing as if he had met his best friend at the local farmer's market.

"Oh you know, I'm a pretty versatile doctor. A kick to the face here, an explosive there, and everyone got their own helping of sleep medication." Florin's eyes quickly darted to the creature's legs again, and he noticed with horror that there were droplets of blood on some of them. "Speaking of which-"

Dr. Krankcase shot Florin's hand with a bullet of green acid as it reached for a spear that was hanging on the wall. The elf screamed in raw agony.

"No weapons while I'm making a house call." he said in a cheeky tone as if scolding a child.

"Why are you here!?" Florin pleaded desperately as he crouched behind his desk, one hand grasping the other as he clawed vainly at his knuckles in order to tear the sticky goo from his flesh. An acrid smell was filling the air as the awful scientist's concoction sizzled and popped on his hand.

"I'm operating with the three R's. Retaliation. Reimbursement. Revenge!" he said eagerly as he moved closer, his legs clanking noisily against the stone floor. He leaned in closer to the dark elf, savoring every moment of Florin's agony.

"The destruction of my factory - among other things - put me behind schedule and also put a dent in my savings so I figured that you'd make a humble donation of-" he quickly mimed counting on his gloved fingers. "All of the gold and valuables in your keep."

Anger replaced pain and fear, so shocking was the audacity of the intruder. Did he really think he could march into his keep, fancy new legs or no, and steal from him? Florin's back went rigid as he shouted in the monster's face as he still clutched his burnt hand. "Vile dog! And how do you plan on doing that!? My soldiers outnumber you 100 to 1!"

The damned wolf's grin never left Dr. Krankcase's face.

"Ohohoho, I was waiting for you to ask that question..." he chuckled, happily rubbing his hands together.

It was then that Florin noticed that there telltale background noise of war outside his keep. Dr. Krankcase had kept him so distracted that he didn't even notice until now. The clash of steel rang through the air like church bells on a wedding day and Florin could feel the bottom of his stomach plummet to his knees as the intruder laughed.

"You...might want to turn around." Dr. Krankcase said.

Numbly, the elf did what he was commanded, turning his back to the mad inventor and slowly walking to the window behind his desk in a sleepwalker's daze. His injured fingers lightly grazed stone as he gripped onto the windowsill to keep himself from falling over in shock. What Commander Florin saw outside defied explanation.

Hundreds of monsters (for what other word could he use for these things?) made out of wood, hideous constructs of a mad scientist, shrugged off every spear attack and arrow with ease, their eyes glowing yellow in the darkness of night. They were swarming the keep in a pincer formation, engulfing his small battalion of trained soldiers. Most of his soldiers were already either laying in a senseless heap on the ground, bound by the wrists in rope, or had surrendered. Weapons were effortlessly seized and carried away to one of the many small ships moored at the floating island's edge.

"Did you really think that I would attack your keep first?" came a mocking voice, inches away from his right ear, as he watched a giant made out of wood smash open the door to the treasury and lead smaller clockwork constructs in. Their wooden talons were greedily snatching away any treasure chest they could find. Fistfuls of gold coins gleamed in a creature's claws. "When all of Skylands is just full of poorly maintained troll factories and lumber yards? You will find that this new model of Evilikin is not so easily destroyed."

Even without looking behind him, he could feel Dr. Krankcase shrug. "But look at me, I'm forgetting the real reason why I'm in your office!"

Without missing a beat, Krankcase punched the middle-aged elf in the face, sending him crashing backwards and laid him flat to the floor. The Commander of Hawkthorn Keep didn't even try to get up.

"Do you know how good it feels to be able to finally do that, Commander!? After waiting so long for my chance while I recovered in a hospital bed, hearing from doctors that I would never walk again!?" Dr. Krankcase yelled, his everlasting smile finally dissolving and revealing the bubbling fountain of rage that the scientist had kept bottled in all this time. He slowly advanced, legs clicking against the floor. He was practically shaking in rage as he placed a spider leg on the commander's chest.

"Like 'em? Had to build them myself after you so graciously destroyed my previous pair!" he hissed. The other four legs maneuvered themselves until Dr. Krankcase was standing on top of Florin, pinning him down like a juicy fly in a spider's web. Wisps of smoke were now rising up outside; Dr. Krankcase paid it no mind. He wanted to relish in this moment.

"Do you know how many days I went without sleep, trying to prove those doctors wrong? At first I tried to rebuild my two legs with wood and metal, but then I realized that I could do something far more creative." A spider leg crept to his neck and began applying pressure there. Florin lightly sobbed in terror. "Why create duplicates of my older legs when I can create something more powerful? That's when I had an epiphany and went with nice, dependable spider legs. They leave a lasting impression, don't they? Certainly proved everyone wrong!"

The drow didn't answer and Dr. Krankcase kept standing there, perched on his prey, sizing him up. The scientist opened his mouth to say something - whether it was more gloating or a threat on his life Florin would never know - when the sound of heavy footfalls made out of gears and timber came crashing towards them, causing the mad scientist to turn his head towards the hallway.  

"Yo Boss, we've found every shiny thing and valuable we could find!" called a heavy voice behind them, emerging from a jaw with loud metal joints and rotating clockwork parts. From his position on the floor, Florin couldn't see the owner of the voice, and honestly, he was grateful for that. All he knew was that the creature dwarfed both of them.

"Great job, Scrap Shooter!" Dr. Krankcase said, answering him fondly like a long-time friend. He crawled off the elf commander and casually brushed the dirt off of his coat. "Load up the ships, we'll be leaving very soon!"

He turned his head to look down at his captive, fingers idly playing with the two guns strapped to his waist. "Now I'm a pretty friendly guy so today, I'm going to let you off with just a stern warning and a slap on the wrist. Everyone in your keep gets to stay alive, and all you get to lose is a couple buildings and-" he paused as a series of explosions rocked the island, sending dust cascading down from the ceiling. "-and all of your valuables. Lucky you!"

Dr. Krankcase's arm, quick as chain lightning, suddenly shot out and he grabbed the drow by the throat. He lifted him off the floor until their eyes met and he smiled, bottom tusks glimmering under the candlelight, as his gloved hand started crushing Florin's windpipe, cutting off airflow. Rigor mortis set in the scientist's grin as choking sounds filled the air, turning it into a grimace laced with venom.

"However...if you so much as send a scout after me, I will chop off their legs and mail them back to you gift-wrapped. You try to take revenge yourself, and I'll see just how many bones I can break in your body before you start begging me for the sweet release of death."

He brought the elf closer, his voice dropping in volume until it was barely louder than a whisper.

"Do I make myself clear, Commander?"

The Commander of Hawkthorn Keep's only response was a faint wheeze. The world was starting to turn black. Stars began to burst in his vision but still he managed to nod.

"Gooooooood..."

He dropped the elf to the floor like a piece of trash, leaving him to gasp helplessly for air.

"Farewell, Hawkthorn Keep! May we never meet again!" Dr. Krankcase called, and with those words, he crawled out of the window like a giant insect and jumped, landing effortlessly on his feet and rushing to meet his creations.

Numbly, after laying on the floor gathering up his final reserves of strength, the disgraced and beaten commander shakily rose to his feet. Using his ruined desk as balance, he could only look out the window and watch as the small fleet of ships flew away from the floating island, leaving behind only chaos in their wake. It was this small action that allowed Florin to see that Dr. Krankcase left him one final parting gift - one final twist to the knife in his gut - to complete his act of revenge.

Hawkthorn Forest was on fire.

------------

Dr. Krankcase crouched next to several open treasure chests full of gold as his airship cut through the night sky with several smaller vessels filled with Evilikin trailing behind him. Hawkthorn Keep was now nothing more than a glowing red dot on the horizon, already fading into the clouds, its purpose in his life fulfilled.

His fingers rubbed a gold coin idly as he stared off into the endless skies that unfolded in front of him, lost in thought and the gravity of just what he did sinking into his bones as the roaring sound of the ship's engine filled his senses. He was still getting used to his diminished sense of touch in his fingers, which were now scarred at the fingertips from when he tried to claw himself free from several tons of wood and metal.

In his mind's eye, he could see a future that would never come to pass - a future where he had made exactly one hundred Woodikin, submitted them for peer review to his fellow scientists, and then received a giant grant to begin mass-producing them so that they could benefit every race in Skylands. In this future, he'd be a well-respected scientist, an inventor of a household brand of robotic assistant. He would've brightened the lives of many.

A couple months ago, Dr. Krankcase, a young inventor fresh out of school with a brand new doctorate and a bright idea shining in his clever little brain, would've been horrified at what he did tonight. Now, he was surprised at how good he felt. He flexed the hand that once held the elf's throat. That level of cruelty came so naturally to him and a mixture of emotions overwhelmed him. Was he revolted? Yes. But he wasn't ruling out the possibility of doing it all over again either.

His hunger for vengeance was satisfied - he had no desire to keep holding onto a grudge against an entire race or even against that specific commander - and he had built more than enough wooden creations to prove that his newly invented goo concoction could bring things to life. By all accounts, the Skylanders should see him as a hero for bringing down a drow keep like that. He was a smart man - he could come up with a very convincing excuse to sway the Skylanders to his side.

"Boss, what's your next command?" said the wooden robot at the ship's wheel.

But then again, he thought to himself as darkness wove its tendrils around his soul, why should he play by the rules? He was through with playing nice - after all, playing nice was what cost him his legs. Perhaps this was a more fruitful job opportunity. He closed a fist around the gold coin as he thought about the many more gold coins he could see in this bright, new future - more alien and darker than the one now closed to him - unfolding in front of him.

He turned to face his wooden subjects, smile on his face. They all gazed up to him, their master, in raw adoration. Perfect.

"Fly to the nearest settlement! Town, keep, castle. Troll, Drow, or Mabu. It doesn't matter who or what we attack so long as they have gold and lumber!" he yelled to his Evilikin with his fists clenched in triumph.

A rousing cheer - inhuman and terrible but still music to his ears - filled the air as his wooden creatures screamed towards the sky in exhilaration.

Dr. Krankcase beamed in pride and then let the gold coin fall from his hands. He made his choice now.

"It's time for me to make a name for myself."

[turquoisephoenix]

Distractions

A Banjo-Kazooie one shot

While an ogre-ish scientist works on the machines that will drain her beauty and youth away, Tooty has an idea that might stall the project and buy her brother a little more time... While drawing this picture, I started writing a companion story to it just for fun and writing practice. I ended up getting carried away, and attached to it is a bunch of personal ideas I have for Klungo’s backstory. Plus Tooty is a character that I kinda wish saw more use in the fandom (I mean her being discarded after the first game doesn’t help her case but still) and I always liked the notion that somehow, after the events of Tooie, the two of them became friends, with Tooty even becoming more science-orientated than her brother, who’s more down-to-earth. Characters: Klungo, Tooty, Gruntilda (mentioned), Clanker (mentioned), the bear and bird (very lightly mentioned) ------------------------------------------------------------------

In this nondescript summer's day - a boring sort of day where the bees buzzed and the leaves rustled in the warm, sunny breeze - a talented scientist was fine-tuning the greatest experiment of his life, one that would cure the persistent magical corruption in his boss and make her youthful again.

That was the nice way of putting it, if one didn't mention that the scientist was a mutated hunchbacked goblin-like creature named Klungo, the experiment wasn't an unstable contraption with a high body rate in small rodent test subjects, and his boss wasn't Gruntilda, a gross, belching witch who used her own cauldron as a toilet and had just committed a kidnapping out of pure spite.

"Always gotta keep a positive outlook on these things," Klungo thought to himself with a tiny smile as he flicked a globule of blue, glowing ooze from his workstation as he reconfigured the wiring in one of his Beauty Suckers. Name, patent, and copyright pending. Klungo never was very good with names.

This beautiful summer day started sour for him. The first ten minutes or so of the experiment today had to be wasted in order to explain to Mistress Gruntilda just why he couldn't immediately throw the switch and be done with it in a matter of minutes, but instead needed quite a few hours. Days even.

Gruntilda...did not take that bit of news very well, he thought to himself as he gently nursed part of his monstrous jaw where one of the objects she threw at him connected. Gruntilda was not a patient employer; after Klungo finally explained with paper work and concrete evidence of past experiments that if he flipped the switch now, the chances of her turning inside out were alarmingly high, she stomped off in a huff and decided to amuse herself by shouting out threats to Tooty's brother, now marching ever upward in her lair.  

That was a problem too, Klungo noted to himself miserably, his smile turning into a grimace. All of his experiments before didn't have a time limit attached to them. And now he had to get this machine to work before some revenge-seeking bear mauled him.

Klungo as a scientist was a very meticulous worker; his experiments took years, with the Clanker project spanning almost a decade in fine-tuning and still wasn't, in his head, considered finished. He wasn't expecting to wake up today and suddenly be ordered to use one of his machines, a machine he hadn't even properly tested yet without blowing up or mutating the unfortunate animals inside, on both his boss and a girl he's never seen before.

If only Mistress had given him the proper measurements of the child he was running through the machine ahead of time instead of expecting him to make a slipshod job of the whole matter, if only she wasn't so rash in presuming that he'd conform to her random changes in thought...he tried his best to keep his temper in check. No use ruining his whole day by being angry at things beyond his control.

Plus he had to admit, the henchman was practically thrumming with excitement to see this machine, this concept that had been lying around unused for years, finally see use. A twisted mockery of a smile lit his face. If this worked, the Mistress promised in a sing-song voice as she gently grasped his chin, then the second user would be him. Yes, him. We can use that idiot brother of her's. Only she used a lot more rhyming.

Maybe he can actually call his wife after all these years...

Thoughts of his wife and the panicked stream of consciousness wondering just how many months have passed since last contact that followed immediately started to cloud his mind, so he turned to look at the key ingredient in the experiment. "Tooty" (the locals always did have weird names, Klungo noted) was right where he left her, still inside her chamber. Not that she had anywhere to run with that laser grid in place - Klungo spent a good forty minutes setting that up too - but with all the wild, untamed magicks on the island, Klungo would also not be surprised if the local bear life in Spiral Mountain knew any teleportation spells.

The young child had ceased calling him names or yelling about how much her brother was going to beat him up and now sat curled in a fetal position, her head resting on the crook of her knees as she stared out in mute terror at her green captor.

The first hour or so, she was kicking and screaming and spitting at Klungo as he was writing down appropriate data for his tests. Years of living with Gruntilda - who could do far, far worse than anything Tooty could throw at him - had tempered his patience and he merely held the bear down with a firm but gentle hand as he did things like weight and height measurements. She did draw blood with her tiny bear claws a couple of times, but Klungo was used to tiny furry animals attacking him before he ran them through the Beauty Sucker. If they knew what their sacrifices were for, they'd be much more grateful.

This quiet change in behavior in the bear was fine with Klungo. The way he saw it, a silent, motionless test subject made his work easier and will make the experiment run more smoothly. With a snort, he turned back to the control panel. Let the little girl mope.

He continued to input code into his machine - hopefully his data on Gruntilda's mass and bone density hasn't changed since her last questionnaire - but with his attention off of Tooty, he didn't notice the subtle change in expression on the bear's face.

Tooty had an idea.

"Err...Mr. Mungo?"

"Klungo." he said automatically. It was the first thing Tooty had said to him that wasn't a personal insult or a threat, but the scientist was too focused on his work to have any sort of opinion on the matter.

"Mr. Klungo. Um..." Tooty hesitated a bit, desperately searching for a topic of conversation. She was unsure if he was smart enough to see this as an obvious distraction tactic. "Why do you have that lisp?"

"Klungo'sss tongue too long for Klungo mouth. Klungo mouth alssso hasss teeth that make talking chore." he said in a bored tone without looking up, fingers still tapping away at buttons and knobs. If the little girl was going to insult him, she was going to have to do better than that, he thought sourly to himself. If she asked him why his eyes were two different sizes, his next answer wasn't going to be so polite.

Tooty grumbled to herself and then looked up towards the ceiling, tapping her foot. This was harder than she thought. She never was one for idle chatter. That was more Bottles' thing.

Minutes passed in relative silence but the faint buzz of machinery, and then a tiny voice ran out in the laboratory.

"Where are you from, Klungo?" Tooty asked.

Klungo's hand stopped. He looked up, his brow furrowed. It was a small question, a light conversational topic, but it was also the first time in years that anyone showed interest in Klungo's life and not so much whatever machine he was working on or how ugly he was. It was the tiniest of tiny acts of kindness, not completely earnest, but it was enough. Tooty had found the chink in his armor.

"Ssst. Petersssburg and later London?" Klungo answered, confused. This was a question he had answered many, many times in his life, especially in medical school.

Tooty remained silent. Klungo nibbled on his lip.

"Klungo from Motherland."

The tiny bear child began to tilt her head to one side. With a grunt, Klungo got up from the control panel and stumbled closer to the little bear, fists scraping against the stone floor as his hunched back ruined his natural stride. Walking was always a bit of a chore for him nowadays, with the curvature of his spine warped from his own ongoing mutations. Still, maybe the tiny bear can't hear him properly when he was so far away.

"Sssoviet. Union." Klungo accentuated in a tone used for pets or very small children. "U. Sss. Sss. R."

Still nothing. The mutated scientist exhaled through his teeth and began tapping the side of his face.

"....Russsia?"

Tooty laughed nervously, a kind of halting, awkward titter as Klungo watched her. Tooty like most small children believed herself to be a child genius, much smarter than her dopey brother, so her revealed ignorance on Klungo's home struck a minor blow to her ego.

"I...don't think I've heard of any of those places, Mr. Klungo..." Tooty admitted.

Klungo broke into a grin regardless, and Tooty cringed at bit at the unnatural, twisted canines that parted his lips like broken shards of porcelain. He rather liked the sound of "Mr. Klungo". He'd prefer "Dr. Klungo" (or Dr. Klaus O, but he wasn't sure where his brain pulled that name from) but it was better than nothing.

"Far off country. Far from Isle of Hagsss. Klungo come here to do experimentsss. Sssomething happened with experimentsss, ssso ended up working for Missstresss. That ssstory of Klungo'sss life." the scientist said with a flourish of his arm. It was around this time it dawned on Tooty that Klungo wasn't talking the way he was because of a lack of intelligence. It was because he had some sort of accent as well as his aforementioned mouth deformities. A "Russsia" accent. Klungo was picking his words carefully because he was trying to find the smallest words lest his speech dissolve into incoherent hissing.

"You know..." Tooty continued, her distraction working. He was away from the controls now and he seemed to be in a good enough mood to keep talking about himself. Her dumb brother needed all the help he could get. Knowing Banjo, he had his head stuck in a grate somewhere in that old hag's lair. His bird friend didn't seem too smart either, even if she was really loud and obnoxious.

"I'm unsure what you are. You look like the Gruntlings that I've seen walking around, but you also look like a Grublin. Are you an ogre? A troll? Do they have trolls in Russssia?"

Klungo gave a small snort. They did have trolls in Russia but he wasn't one of them.

"Human, actually." he said with a grin.

Tooty's reaction - a blank stare that slowly sank into a deep horror the moment her brain realized just what Klungo was saying and just how mutated he actually was - made Klungo's smile falter a bit. That was usually the reaction he got, but it didn't hurt any less the fifth time he received it.

"Oh no, don't worry, Young Bear! Masshine didn't caussse thisss!" he said, tapping the right side of his face with a broken claw, his finger just under his swollen eye. Tooty grimaced - she was beginning to notice things like how one of his hands had a vestigial pinky finger and how he had scraggly hairs still clinging for dear life on his chin and head - but any minute spent talking was a minute spent away from the controls, away from figuring out the coordinates in order to steal her youth and beauty away.

"Did...did Grunty do that to you?" Tooty asked. She was trying to pick her words out carefully; Klungo seemed good-natured but she was afraid of him having as bad of a temper as his master. No need to insult the creature holding her captive. Especially when he was big enough to eat her.

"No, Klungo did. Experimentsss. Magic. Life forssse. All of thessse can corrupt if not careful." he said in far too cheerful of a tone considering the circumstances. Honestly, he just felt happy he could discuss this with someone who wasn't Misstress, his creation/son Clanker, the workers in the Rusty Bucket loading bay, or some judgemental mutant crabs that lived in Clanker's home.

"Klungo...wasssn't. That why Klungo built massshine. To fix problem. Missstresss very interested in project too. Would not make much progresss otherwissse." He patted the machine a couple times for accentuation. Thank goodness for small miracles, Klungo thought to himself. If Gruntilda didn’t find him half-mutated, cut off from the outside world in his lab working on his talking robot whale, who knows what would’ve happened! Clanker even has his own home now, chained up and free to eat as much garbage as he pleases. Clanker seemed fine now. He still needed work though.

"Aaaah...so it sounds like both you and the witch have the same goal. Both of you want to be beautiful." The child concluded, nodding her head.

The ogre guffawed at the notion. His harsh, barking laughter sounded like a hippo with stomach problems. "Klungo will sssettle for humanity. Not like Missstresss! Missstresss doing thisss all for Missstresss. Klungo doing thisss for sssomeone elssse."

"Really? Who?" Tooty asked. By now, Tooty had gone from just using the scientist as a means to help her brother to being genuinely curious in Klungo’s life. Klungo didn't seem like a social butterfly, with or without his mutations. Did he have any scientist friends?

It was then that Klungo walked closer over to Tooty so that there was barely any space between them save for the laser grid, looked around to make sure that Gruntilda wasn't going to come into the lab, and dug inside his labcoat pocket and pulled out a tiny piece of gold. It was a small golden circle kept safe in a little plastic bag to keep it free from contaminants. No, a ring, Tooty corrected herself, too small to fit on any of his fingers. Tiny diamonds sparkled in the green and yellow glow of the lab. Klungo cradled the ring gently in his hands, a precious, lovely treasure he kept hidden even from his Mistress. It was probably the only thing of value the scientist had in his possessions.

"Little bear can keep sssecret, yess? Not sssure if Misstress know or even care, but Klungo have a Mrssss. Klungo back home. Might not want ugly troll or goblin or whatever husssband, ssso once masshine work, Klungo will be better. Klungo can ssseee Mrs. Klungo! Klungo...I..." his voice began to falter a bit. His smile began to break up. He gritted his teeth in pain and hugged the ring close to him.

"...I missss her very much." he said in a voice that didn't belong to Klungo, the abused bumbling minion of a witch that lived in a tower, but to Dr. Nikolas Oserov, the missing researcher - presumed dead by most of his peers - who was inches away from the breakthrough of the century regarding the properties and biologies of lifeforces and souls in places like the Isle o' Hags, Crocodile Island, and Timber Island before everything started to go wrong.  

He took a deep breath and shifted his weight a bit, and Tooty wasn’t sure how, but suddenly he had the appearance of an incredibly broken, tired man who chased a dream, ignored several key warning signs, and now was working for a monster while looking like one himself.

"I haven't talked to her in yearsss." he said, dragging a hand across his face. His voice now sounded tiny. Exhausted. His accent was still there, but somehow he sounded less “minion-y” to Tooty’s ears. "Cut off contact. Firssst I didn't call her because I thought it wasss contagiousss, now I won't call her because I don't want her to sssee me like thisss. No, better off thinking I wasss dead in that case. Ssshe’sss probably given up by now..."

The little girl had nothing to say as the creature in front of her struggled with his own emotions and memories, physically restraining himself to keep himself from breaking down and crying. He knew - he just knew - that if he lost control now, he’d be inconsolable and drained for too long of a period of time. Not when Gruntilda was already angry at him earlier today. Yes....Mistress Gruntilda would be mad if Klungo suddenly stopped working...

With that in mind, that tiny little magical suggestion in his mind that kept all of Grunty’s minions in check, he quickly caught himself, suddenly embarrassed at that brief glimpse of vulnerability, and the person he once was became buried again inside of Klungo, mutated bootlicking lackey of Mistress Grunty. Fangs set in a snarl, expression unreadable but strangely frightening, he shoved the ring back in his pocket, turned away from Tooty, and started stomping back to his work station.

"Wait, Klungo!" Tooty pleaded. She couldn't help but feel she did something incredibly wrong. "Do you have a favorite color, a favorite band! A favorite fruit? Hobbies? Video games? Please, don't go back to work!"

"Do sssvidaniya, little bear. Talk over. Wassste enough time." Klungo responded in the deadpan tone usually used by customer service representatives, his hunched back turned to her.

Tooty continued to call out, but whatever she said - from pleas to shouted apologies - was aggressively ignored. She'll tire herself out eventually, he thought sorely to himself. Klungo had learned to tune people out over the years, even before this whole mess had happened and people were calling him and his research on soul manipulation "crazy". You could never create a soul out of thin air, that’s insane. He heard it all. He’s heard so many things...

Inside of his lab coat, the weight of the tiny gold ring burned against his chest, a tiny burst of cold fire that kept bringing back those unlocked memories. They always hurt, memories. But in time, they disappeared back into the foggy recesses of his mutated brain and he could focus on the present. That was the blessing of having the DNA properties of a Gruntling; they weren't too developed on long-term memory or general intelligence.

A stray wind from the other room blew in the smells of summer into his lab. It was a beautiful summer day outside, full of buzzing bees and blooming flowers. If this experiment worked, he'd have enough pride to go outside on a day like this.

He had to get back to work.

[turquoisephoenix]

The Side-Effects of Wumpa Whip

A Crash Bandicoot one-shot Gather around the campfire everyone as I tell you the origin of Motorworld's mascot, Willie Wumpa Cheeks. It is a harrowing tale, one full of tragedy, horror, and artificially flavored fruit juice.

In other words, I felt I needed to explain the ideas I had for Willie in more elaborate detail. Some of this has been in my head since I first played the game - just because something always did seem off about the angry fruit - but some of these details come from some cut dialogue that's still on the disc.

Characters: Willie Wumpa Cheeks, Von Clutch.

——————————————————————

It was a crisp, summer night when Willie's life was ruined forever.

His day had started off so boring too. "Boy, look at all those thirsty customers," Willie sarcastically said to thin air as he gazed out at the empty expanse of Happily Ever Faster, the fantasy-themed land at Von Clutch's Motorworld. Behind him, a speaker droned insipid happy-sounding medieval music that was just annoying enough to be impossible to tune out. Appearance-wise, Willie had the looks of someone who never quite exited the gangly, awkward, greasy stage of puberty, even though he was nearing 30, and he had the whiny, high-pitched voice to match. He was a pale beanstalk of a man with a freckly face that was prone to breakouts, clogged pores, and sunburns. Willie's hair was a natural shade of orange, and he usually made some attempt to grow it out and style it. Those attempts at hair care usually just amplified how obnoxious he always looked.

Combine that with bad piercings and a lack of good dental care, wrap all of that in a retail uniform, and you got the very physical embodiment of Irritation.

His most notable feature though was his nose. And this wasn't saying this in a pleasant way; his nose was long and bent in several places. It wasn't like that naturally, he was quick to say to anyone willing to listen. His nose was a chronicle of his many part-time "careers" he's had in his life, a beacon to how unlucky of a man he really was. Four times, his nose was broken in his life. And all four of those times, his nose was broken by someone else's fist.

Why would someone want to deck this poor man in the face? you might be asking to yourself. Don’t pity him, gentle listener, because Willie's personality was not very stellar either. He was a bitter, spiteful awful little man that seemed forever annoyed by his place in society - someone who had been picked on so many times in his young life that he had given up even attempting to be nice to other people just out of self-defense.

No one was sure when the starry-eyed optimism of youth was unceremoniously crushed out of poor William by both menial labor and teasing - it could've been the time someone broke his nose (for the third time) over an argument involving some expired coupons while he was working at Best Buy, or maybe it was time someone asked him to pour nacho cheese over a bag of popcorn at the movie theater - but one thing was certain. If Willie ever found the man who coined the phrase "the customer is always right", he was going to kill him with his bare hands.

And now, fifth job on his list, Willie's current job was working at the fun and fabulous Von Clutch's Motorworld, a crappy little theme park out in the middle of nowhere (instead of hotels and civilization that surrounded literally any other theme park in existence, Motorworld was surrounded in miles of farmland filled with annoying chickens and gassy cows) that nevertheless paid a little bit more than minimum wage and needed zero experience. He hated it, but he also wanted to go back to law school in the Fall and his scholarships weren't going to be enough.

On paper, he'd be thrilled that he'd be making money just standing around and doing nothing, but boy, was he bored. He hadn't made a single sale today, even though he was stationed at the machine that had the fancy "Wumpa Pumpa". “What was the Wumpa Pumpa?” was a question he had to answer many a time during his shifts. Why, the Wumpa Pumpa was just a giant silver pipe attached to the dispenser that made a lot of fancy futuristic noises as it served up drinks. It was loud and annoying and it didn't fit the obnoxious princess and castle theming that surrounded him, but the children were somehow fascinated by the migraine-inducing noises it made. Thankfully, since his part of the park was usually a ghost town, it remained silent for most of Willie's shift.

That was the problem, really. No one actually wanted to drink the liquid that came out of the antiquated machine. Wumpa fruits had only recently been discovered off some tropical island somewhere in the South Pacific and they hadn't exactly taken off in the United States or anywhere else on Earth for that matter.

And even if Wumpa fruits were somehow the next big sensation among soccer moms, the drink concoction that was christened "Wumpa Whip" was a sugary nightmare that barely tasted like it. It tasted like disappointment and wasted money. Usually a guest would buy the drink, take two sips of it, demand a refund, and then get irritated when Willie said no.

But, in fairness to the customers, when Willie answered questions, he always sounded like he was one inch away from creating a hostage situation at Von Clutch's Motorworld, one that'd end with military intervention and a SWAT team taking him down.

"At least I'm getting paid," he finally mused, tapping a finger against the counter top.

He was fiddling with the paper cup stacks and the little bendy straws, constructing a little fort to keep himself from dying of boredom when suddenly the machine behind him made a explosive boom that echoed within its core and the metal behind Willie's back suddenly caved outward in a giant dent, knocking him forward and into his creation.

"...the hell?" he said after several seconds of stunned silence. He picked a plastic straw out of his hair as the alarm on the machine started to beep and warning lights began to flash bright red. Happy fantasy music, ever-present, mingled with the cacophony of the alarm.

With an irritated groan, because he knew his shift was almost over and dealing with a broken machine was going to eat a lot of his time, Willie grabbed the phone attached underneath the cash register and punched in the number he was told during job training to call in case something broke. He really hoped he didn't have to stay past his shift dealing with the Wumpa Whip. He had checked out a movie on Redbox and everything.

"Von Clutch?" he called on the phone.

"Ja?" came the reply. One weird quirk about Von Clutch's Motorworld was that, instead of there being supervisors or managers helping to run the park, everyone was expected to call the creator of the park himself in all of his green-skinned, metal-armed, weird-looking glory. Which meant that nothing really got fixed in Motorworld because most of the workers didn't even bother. Willie had the distinct feeling that Von Clutch wasn't the most shrewd businessman in the world.

"This is William Chromsky-" he had to pause as Von Clutch shouted "VILLIE! HI!" on the other end of the phone. Von Clutch, in addition to being a cybernetic German nightmare (Willie wasn't sure how or why Von Clutch looked like that but he wasn't about to ask invasive questions to the person signing his paychecks), was one of those annoying bosses who wanted to be friends with all of his employees. Gross.

"-I'm at the Wumpa Whip drink booth in Happily Ever Faster. I heard an explosion come from inside the machine and..." Willie trailed off when he noticed the smoke. The smell of burning artificial beverage was already filling the air as the yellow-orange liquid inside sizzled and popped. Greeeat. He didn't want to get written up for this. "...I think something's on fire inside of it?"

"Hrm, that doesn't sound good," Von Clutch admitted. Despite that, his voice still carried the cheery tone of someone who was just told he only won one free pizza party instead of two. "Try venting some of the Wumpa Whip and tell me what you see."

Phone pinned between his ear and his shoulder, Willie snapped some plastic gloves on and turned the machine on, more irritated than anything else. He only started to worry when a glowing green ooze that would've made a Nickelodeon game show proud slimed out of the dispenser. He yelped, phone flying out of his grasp, when the Wumpa Whip hit the cup; it was supposed at a frozen beverage temperature; this bright radioactive sludge was coffee hot and it took all of his past Burger King experience to keep him from sending the cup and its scalding contents flying.

"It's...glowing.” he said into the phone after he picked it off the ground. “And it's really hot to the touch." His right hand was now starting to tingle, but he was too amazed at the failed science experiment to really make a note of any first-degree burns. It even had the consistency of slime.  "Is-is it supposed to do that!?"

"Um Himmels Willen...No. No it's not." Even over the phone, Von Clutch's mood sounded like it took a sudden turn. That worried Willie; Von Clutch was one of those people that was always in a good mood, even as his theme park got low attendance and low ratings.

"Ahhh...Willie. Err. Listen, very very carefully.  You're not in any danger - that would be silly, after all hahaha this is just a theme park after all - but you need to turn that machine off right now. Right. Now. Take it off its power supply. Or else...well...youknowwhat, actually I'll meet you there. Bye-"

-Click-

The dial tone greeted Willie as he stared at the phone in disbelief.

After venting his frustrations out on the phone by slamming it back down on the receiver as hard as he could, Willie stomped towards the back of the drink machine, grumbling to himself and kicking pieces of trash in his wake. Lights and alarms were both still blaring and smoke was still billowing out of the top as he examined it closely. There were multiple orange warning signs placed around the power plug - complete with illustrations of bad things happening to nondescript stick figures - warning him that just pulling the plug out of the machine without initiating the proper shutdown procedure as described on page 71 in the instruction manual was a bad idea. But Von Clutch did sound like he needed it done now.... As soon as Willie yanked the plug out of the machine, all the alarms and lights went silent and the smoke dissipated. Pivoting on one foot, he turned his back to the machine, smiling a bit to himself as he swung the plug in the air like a lasso. That was easier than he thought.

"That should do i-"

*KRHK-OOOOOM*

And that's when the top of the machine exploded in a plume of twisted metal and drink mix and sent Willie flying forward, where he landed face-first in the dirt road five feet away from his station.

The force of the explosion and the volcanic eruption of Wumpa Whip could be felt and seen in the Midway area of Von Clutch's Motorworld, the one area where guests actually gathered in a reasonable number on account of it being close to the exit. Families stopped what they were doing and watched the magnificent plume of yellow-orange liquid spray upwards behind the castle. Once it was over, the visitors of the park started to hesitantly clap, unsure if they had witnessed something that was part of a scheduled show.

Meanwhile, in Happily Ever Faster, Willie found himself lying face down in a puddle of mud and Wumpa Whip next to a broken speaker. He groaned in agony as the annoying lead singer of the background music began to skip and repeat the same three notes in his left ear.

"La laaaaaa laa-.....-La laaaaaa laa-.....-La laaaaaa laa-"

Everything hurt. Wumpa Whip painted everything in a colorful slurry in a wide fifty foot radius around the broken scrap heap of the drink machine. Ears ringing and his eyesight blurred, Willie shakily rose from the muddy ground, soaked in juice mixture that scalded him in some areas and gave him frostbite in others. His sodden wet hair slapped him in the face and he screamed in agony. Yep. His nose was broken. Fifth time.

As he gingerly felt his face, wincing whenever one of his fingers found a new bruise, he failed to notice that the fruity concoction that had spewed from the Wumpa Whip dispenser was soaking right into his skin.

"Villie! Hang on, don't move!" Von Clutch yelled as he quickly tromped over at a surprisingly agile pace to where Willie was. He almost made it to where Willie was struggling to get to his feet, but then stopped himself before he entered the radius of Wumpa Whip. He pulled out a remote control-shaped device with a long antennae from his coat and held it out in front of him, frowning when he read the data that crossed the screen, especially when he pointed the device at Willie. "Das ist nicht gut, das ist gar nicht gut," he said to himself.

"...Clutch...?" Willie said through a mouth that tasted of blood, dirt, and fruit juice. He had managed to raise to his feet, but his stance was very wobbly as he held a hand over his bleeding nose. His head was swimming and his skin was starting to go numb.

"Villie," Von Clutch started carefully, his voice not betraying the worry he was now feeling. He was seeing the beginnings of a change in this cashier and it's been far too long since he had to deal with this particular sort of situation. And he was so sure he had left his mad science days behind him too. "You need to sit down." he ordered calmly. Willie quietly obliged, collapsing back into the mud. His head was pounding and he could swear he could taste the disgusting Wumpa Whip on the back of his throat.

"Boss...I think I might call in for my shift tomorrow. I need a day or two to sleep this off...don't call an ambulance by the way, I can't afford it" he said, unaware that his boss was watching him in horror. So many parts of his body hurt that he didn't even feel that his hair was starting to fall out. He coughed wetly and groaned pitifully as a lance of pain suddenly stabbed him in the stomach. Maybe he did need to go to the hospital. Even the inside of his bones felt weird and he was certain it wasn't that bad of a fall...

Wait. Why did his skin feel weird..?

"Okay Villie..." Von Clutch said as he fished out a modified smoke grenade of his design - patent pending - from a pocket in his coat and pulled out the pin. If he didn't do this now, Von Clutch reasoned to himself, the poor boy was going to notice and then he was going to panic, and if he panicked and grew claws or tentacles...well, Von Clutch already knew what it was like to lose an eye. The cyborg placed a handkerchief over his face. "Just breathe in deeply and everything will be fine. I'll fix this, I promise."

"Wha-" And that's when everything disappeared in a thick, grey smoke. Willie was caught off guard and took several deep breaths of the smoke when suddenly the world started to turn fuzzy and his limbs started to get heavy. "N...no.." he whimpered. He reached out an unfeeling hand, pleading, to the shadowy form of his boss, before he collapsed in a senseless heap to the ground.

And then everything went black.

---------

Consciousness didn't come easy for Willie. He didn't so much wake up as his brain slowly pulled itself out of the muddy darkness, one sense at a time. First he became aware of the sterile smell of medicine and sterilizing cleanser. Next came sound, although everything sounded tinnier and he was already fearing permanent hearing loss caused by the explosion, as he became aware of computers droning and florescent lights humming. Then he opened his eyes and was momentarily blinded by the pure whiteness that flooded into his eyeballs and he groaned in pain.

As he moved his head slowly around - and he did it very carefully because his head still felt fuzzy around the edges and like it was much larger than normal - to gather his bearings, he realized that he was laying in a hospital bed with his arms connected to several machines and was in a clean, sterile medical ward.

Oh no. Willie's body slowly turned cold as panic flooded his senses.

I'm in a hospital.

He stared upwards into the florescent lighting in numb terror.

And I'm uninsured.

Instantly resigning himself to his fate - not much he could do but wait for a doctor to give him the bill that he was doomed to be shackled to for the rest of his life - Willie decided to continue stare upwards into the overhead lights hanging above him and be left with his thoughts. He sighed so deeply that it sounded like his soul was escaping from his lungs. Why is it always me.  However, as the minutes stretched on, Willie started to feel that there was something strange about his body. He could feel that he had all of his fingers, all of his toes, the same amount of teeth he had when the accident happened...but there were flaws. It was like someone had rewired all of the spacial reasoning in his head and placed him in a body that had different proportions to the ones he was used to, and the longer he was conscious, the stranger he felt.

He was blinking with eyes that felt too big. He was breathing through a mouth that felt out of place. He tried to focus on his nose, which felt like a numb, heavy weight resting on his face, and beyond the plaster wrapped around it, it seemed too long and too...silver? He frowned. Gently he prodded the base of his nose and even through the plaster, it felt too hard to be his nose. Was his nose made out of metal now?

Man. These are the strongest painkillers I've ever been on, Willie concluded in his head.  I must be coked up to the eyeballs.

He held up his arm in front of his eyes, noting that his skin was now a bright shade of orange, with the tips of his fingers fading into a strange dark green hue. He snickered a bit to himself as he waved his hand in front of his face. Yep. Drugs.

"Hallo, Villie!"

Von Clutch's entrance was so sudden that Willie jolted, hand still suspended in the air. Even in a medical ward, Von Clutch didn't grasp the concept of an indoor voice. He practically stomped across the tile as he made his way towards Willie, his face the very picture of joviality and relief. He was wearing a lab coat several sizes too big for him, the very ends of it almost reaching to the floor, which would've been a foreboding costume change if Willie wasn't so confused.

"V-Von..." Speaking felt weird. Moving his head felt weird. He ran his tongue across teeth that felt almost comical in size and tried again. "Von Clutch?"

"Nice to see you're not dead and with such stable readings on your vitals, yes?" Von Clutch chirped, giant customer-friendly smile plastered on his face.

An awkward, heavy silence followed. Von Clutch's smile slowly melted away.

"Sorry, sorry, I probably phrased that wrong. I assure you, I'm more...reassuring in German. Mein Englisch ist unter aller Sau. You cannot believe the work I had to go through, by the way! Your accident is technically a violation of several agreements I made with Interpol and the European Union; funny story really, I'm kinda not supposed to be doing the things that happened to you because it counts as 'supervillain activity' and I swore I'd be a good little Schmusebärchen after what happened in Paris-"

Von Clutch stopped himself. He wasn't digging out those skeletons and he was getting an irritated glare from his patient. "Well, you don't need my life story, Villie. I'll be quick and to the point. Easier that way. You've been unconscious for five weeks-"

The bottom of Willie's stomach dropped and he stifled a scream that suddenly rose to his throat.

Ohhh god. Five weeks. Five. Weeks. Oh god, my rent is due. I'm going to be evicted-

"-you had a reaction to the Wumpa Whip-"

I don't have health insurance, there's no way I'll be able to afford this, what will my parents say, I'll be paying off these hospital bills for the rest of my life when I needed money for law school-

"-and well...You are no longer human."

All of Willie's panicked trains of thought inside of his head suddenly careened to a stop and caused a pile-up at the thought station.

"W-What...?"

"I assume you're a bit confused. But after some talk with an old friend of mine - she wanted you at her Academy so that she could study you and show to other mad scientists, by the way - I've set it up so that you have a new life ready to go. I have an apartment and your new job so you don't have to worry about living expen-"

"WHAT." Willie interrupted him.

"The Wumpa Whip that exploded all over you was radioactive, Villie. Every machine in Motorworld is nuclear powered. The same tech that used to go into doomsday devices and airships was repurposed to power the rides and the drink dispensers and the animatronics. Your DNA had a bit of a reaction to the drink mix and you sorta kinda...mutated."

"I WHAT." Willie persisted. He looked again at his arm and its bright orange skin. It looked human to him, save for some weird bright discoloration. The hand he was staring at clenched into a fist. "How can I have mutated? A drink machine leaked fruit juice on me! What sort of mutant comes from WUMPA WHIP?!"

Von Clutch opened his mouth and closed it again, realizing in mid-thought that there was no way he could properly explain. Not verbally, anyway. He sighed, shoulders sagging, and for a brief moment, he looked...old. He wasn't ready to be this cruel.

"Ich bin dabei diesem armen Jungen das Leben zu ruinieren," he muttered to himself as he got up from his chair. As he walked to a sink and pulled the mirror from the wall, Willie's frustration did a sudden transformation into bone-chilling dread. Oh. Oh no...

"This sort of mutant comes Wumpa Whip." Von Clutch said, voice surprisingly somber, as his hands flipped the mirror over and faced it towards Willie. And that's when Willie's life finally started to unravel.