AN: I based this story off the art in the cover. I actually have a mug with the print on it! :D

Full version can be seen here if you replace the bracketed spaces with periods

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And here they were again, running from some horror or another. Hero had to admit, though, this one seemed more familiar than usual. From her vantage point tucked under RGB's arm like a football, facing back the way they'd come, she could see the color-changing five-headed dragon stomping and snorting after them.

"Looks like a… A Hydra!" she mused, far too calmly for one on the run for their life. Well, perhaps it was because she wasn't exactly doing the running.

"It's an emotion!" huffed RGB, panic in his voice as he ran. "One of the most dangerous creatures here!" He was grateful that, even though he was short, his legs were long and he didn't run out of breath very easily.

"Doesn't seem as scary as the fears," Hero said, squinting at the dragon. It flickered with every color of the rainbow, kind of like how RGB had when he'd… Malfunctioned on the plains. Each of the five heads looked a little different. One looked angry, another sad, the third annoyed, the fourth jealous, and the last desperate. She supposed if it was an emotion then each head would reflect a facet of the beast's current mood.

Hero didn't think it was feeling too good at the moment.

"Yes yes it looks more familiar, doesn't it? Something out of one of your dusty old myths. But the point is, Hero… All the creatures you have encountered thus far have been a singular sort of type. This? This is a good deal of them at once. It's a fear and a grief and a doubt and many more all in one!"

He couldn't see her face, but she blinked. "… Oh. Well, run faster we can't let it catch us!"

"I'm trying, don't be insufferable!"

And they lapsed into silence. If it could be considered silence with the pounding of RGB's feet and the roars of the emotion behind them. But of course, as per usual, something just had to go wrong. In this case, it was an inconvenient rock.

"OH DAMN IT ALL!" RGB yelped as he went sprawling and somersaulting and ended up flat on his back with Hero on his belly.

"Get up get up it's coming!" She stared down into his face, yanking on his suspenders with her small hands as if she could pull him up. "Come on come on slowpoke."

"Erm," he gulped, yellow leaking from the corner of his screen as his mouth flattened. "Too late for that."

Hero had, right as she'd watched the bead of yellow wind down to RGB's collar and plop onto the ground, noticed the shadow that had eclipsed them. Looking up, she saw an upside down dragon head, joined by two more. She turned to face the creature, blinking up at it as the heads became right-side-up in her vision. She was still sitting on RGB and she heard him mumble something about moving her rear.

Perhaps the hydra heard him, because it turned around and up swung its hefty tail. Something like a prism or a crystal glittered at the end. Somehow, Hero thought, it looked liquidy, gelatinous almost. Not solid, for sure, though the young girl was sure that if you looked hard enough it could seem solid.

From the region of RGB near her behind came a strangled "oh bother." And the next small sequence of events happened quite fast.

RGB tossed her to one side, his right, sending her tumbling. She saw him raise his hands and forearms to cover his screen as if to protect himself, saw his legs instinctively flinch, curling up halfway. And she saw that tail gem come crashing down and smash into her friend.

A wordless cry caught in her throat as she reached out a useless hand and squeezed her eyes shut. But instead of the crack and shatter she has expected, there was a massive splat. Something splashed her from head to toe.

Hero opened her eyes. Paint. Ink. Whatever you would want to call it, RGB's colors, they were splayed out over a thirty foot radius like the carnage of some terrible, clownish massacre. Red and cyan and green and magenta and yellow… They were all here. And RGB wasn't. (She was covered in the stuff oh please get it off…) And the emotion, that draconic devil, was nowhere to be seen.

But before she could let out the screaming sob that caught in her throat, Hero caught sight of a lump in the sea of all that yellow ink. A lump with a very familiar outline. At once, Hero darted over, slipping a little on the paint-soaked grass.

Heedless of the paint that she was covered in anyways, Hero fell to her knees beside the figure, hands twitching like they didn't know what to do, like a pair of dying birds, before settling on his arm. And really, she didn't know what to do, RGB hated being touched. This was reaffirmed when the prone form sprung to its feet like a video of a falling man on rewind, cringing away from her.

Well, that was an extreme reaction.

"Argh a rainbow monster!"

Hero squinted carefully. This… Wasn't her RGB. He was pure yellow in every form, one singular shade of yellow, and kind of dribbly at the edges. He almost looked like a flat drawing. A crinkled line ran across the center of his screen like a faulty heart monitor, and there was yellow above and below it. No normal technicolor grin. Just yellow. And he was staring at her in what seemed to be absolute terror.

"What? I'm not the monster, you're the monster!" she wiped some pain off of her face, splattering it on the ground around her to pool and mix with the brilliant yellow. "And what happened to your colors?"

RGB looked down at himself. "What do you mean? And sorry, you just scared me."

"You're yellow! And it's okay, I should've known better." She shook her hair out like a dog, and then emptied her boots one by one. As usual, the ink ran away clean, leaving no drips or drabbles behind. It was slightly warm, like a seat another kid had been sitting in before you took it, Hero decided. The consistency was unsettlingly close to blood, which she remembered from a badly scraped knee. But the bright colors definitely didn't let that thought stick around for long.

When she was mostly ink-free, she looked back up at the yellow RGB. He also was wiping the viscous fluid from himself. They ended up finishing at the exact same time, and RGB was still completely yellow. Hero bent towards him, fingers stroking her chin like she was an avant-garde artist with a goatee examining modern art. "Hmmm…"

He backed away, holding up his hands. "What, why are you looking at me like–– AHHH!" He whipped around, having bumped into another someone. A very red someone.

"Do you mind? Watch where you're stepping you bloody imbecile!"

Hero had never heard RGB scream that badly. It had made her jump too, but her startlement was instantly replaced with pure confusion as she took in the scene in front of her, head tilted to the side, nose half scrunched up in the sort of expression that denotes a frozen brain.

Before her stood two RGBs in two different colors. The yellow one was cowering before a red one who had his hands on his hips and a very grumpy expression. His scowl was apparent even though he didn't have eyes; Hero had been proud a few days earlier when she'd realized she was getting better about reading the television-man's body language. He did talk with his hands a lot.

"I'm sorry I'm sorry I didn't mean it!" Yellow yelped. Red hmphed and turned away, shaking his blocky head and splattering yet more vermilion ink from his hands.

"I say, what's going on here?" A green RGB had suddenly appeared on the scene, leaning on Red's shoulder amicably

"NOT ANOTHER ONE!" shouted both Hero and Red at the same time (though the former more with confusion than anger). Red slapped at Green's elbow.

"Get off me!" He took a few long strides away and folded his arms, glaring back at the others.

"Well this is quite the predicament." A fourth clad in a pinkish-purple had walked up silently, tapping the bottom of his screen like a chin. "Wonder how it happened…"

"Hey!" waved Green cheerfully. "Come on over! Just don't mind Red, someone spit in his tea."

"I can hear you and I can't drink tea!"

"See what I mean?" Green chortled and threw his arm around Magenta's shoulders. "You seem like a decent fellow, though."

"Seems suspicious to me," muttered Yellow.

Hero was feeling a little dizzied by this whole predicament. She was struck dumb, and her confusion led her to sit heavily on a rock covered in blue paint, chin in her hands as she watched all the RGBs interact. She could barely handle one of the monster at times. Now that she was his keeper, how in the world was a little girl such as herself supposed to manage four?

"Do you mind?"

Wait, make that five. The rock she'd sat so suddenly on had quaked and shrugged and gotten to its knees to reveal a fifth (and hopefully final) RGB. If Hero thought about it, she should have expected it. Five colors on the television monster's face; five colored copies.

"I mean, I don't mind serving as a seat. Perhaps it's one thing I won't muck up." Blue sat heavily on the ground, legs splayed out, head hanging. "I'm a blasted failure otherwise."

"Oh don't be so down in the screen," said Green, who had walked over. He grabbed Blue under the armpits and hoisted him up, plopping him on his feet and then brushing green splatters off the cerulean suit. "There you go."

"Thanks," said Blue sullenly. "Suppose that's a bit better."

"Can you all just shut up for five bloody minutes!" Red said, shouting back over his shoulder.

"Someone's seeing red," Green said with a snicker. "Although I think the thing that looks the bloodiest here is you, my friend." The aforementioned copy whirled to face him, fists clenched. "Ah, red in the face, are we? Oh my, I'm on red alert, grumpy." Green looked back over his shoulder at Magenta and Yellow.

"Better roll out the red carpet, friends, I think he's coming over." And indeed he was. Red wasn't just coming over, he was marching back over to the group, arms stiff at his sides and gloves wrinkled from the force of his fisted grip.

"Ah don't antagonize him even more!" cried Yellow as he dropped to the ground and wrapped his arms around the back of his head like Hero had done for bomb drills at school, antennas crinkling.

"Wait wait wait!" Before the fuming crimson copy could possibly deck his green counterpart in the screen, Hero had waved her arms to catch their attention. Five technicolor screens turned her way, and she stalled. Honestly, she hadn't expected to get this far. "I… I know everyone's a bit confused, or grumpy, or… Something, but… Let's move out of this big ink splatter so we don't get covered in rainbows again."

She hadn't thought herself very convincing, but to her surprise, the group shrugged, walking and shambling and striding and marching to cleaner grass. "You know what let's find some trees to rest under," Hero declared. "It's almost time for sleep anyways!"

They made a strange procession, a little girl leading a brightly colored parade of TV-headed men to the grove of teal trees. But definitely not the strangest thing that could be spotted in these lands, she knew that. When they arrived, her attention was taken up briefly with the trunk of the nearest tree; it was smooth, very smooth, like metal but not as cold. The girl ran her hands over the trunk before leaning back against it and sliding to the ground. It was surprisingly comfortable.

"Curious," murmured a voice, and Hero looked up to see Magenta halfway up one of the trees, inspecting the leaves carefully, displaying that same flair for acrobatics that the real RGB showed.

"You're going to bust open your head," called Red conversationally from a tree a ways away from the others. Yellow was huddled near his own trunk, blazer wrapped around knees drawn up to his chest, everything about him seeming twitchy, and Blue was slouched nearby, hat over his face as he feigned sleep. And Green had sat down, leaning back with his arms crossed behind his head with a content smile gracing his screen.

"Hey guys?" Hero called cautiously, mainly for the benefit of Magenta, because she didn't want him to fall and get hurt. "Do any of you remember what happened?" She was met by a chorus of negative replies and head shakes. "Um, okay then! I'll fill you in!"

And so she did. While she had commended her monster companion for his story telling abilities, she wasn't half bad herself. She told them of the emotion, and how they all were definitely different parts of the same person as far as she could tell.

"You're obviously fear," she said, pointing at Yellow, who flinched. "And you're sadness." Blue hmmed flatly in reply. "And you," she said, pointing to Red, who turned away with arms crossed, "are a hundred percent, absolutely positutely anger."

"What gave it away?" teased Green, laughing a bit.

"You're RGB's funny side. Maybe his happy side. Maybe both!" Hero shrugged. "Now you I don't get…" She was eyeing Magenta carefully, and he looked right back at her, head tilted to the side.

"I'm curious too," he said. "What aspect could I be? I wonder…"

Hero giggled. "Maybe your the brains, or just real curious?"

"Yes that could be it!" He waved a finger in the air ridiculously, a triumphant grin on his features.

"Well then, smarty, you have to help me figure out how to stick the lot of you back together again!" She laughed harder as his face and finger fell.

"Do I have to? I'd much rather inspect these here trees." He rapped on the wood with his knuckles.

"Nope, can't get out of it, you're helping me." She grabbed his hand and tugged him down to sit next to her, wondering why he didn't pull away like the complete RGB would have. Maybe it was Yellow, or perhaps Blue or Red that led him to do that, she supposed. Planning on ignoring the rest of the crew unless they started killing one another, she blinked up at him. "Tell me everything you know about emotions. The creatures, not the feelings."

"Well, okay! They're rare, quite rare, since they can only be made from a fusion of two or more other creatures. A bunch of weird circumstances can cause that, but that's not the point. Once they fuse, they have two heads and go out seeking other creatures until they have five heads. With me so far?" Hero nodded. "Yes, well, once they gain their fifth, they don't get any more heads. But that doesn't mean they don't stop absorbing other things. In fact, they create huge underground lairs, with sort of a portal-whirlpool entrance. Anything that falls through is fused with a creature already inside. So anything that falls in while the emotion is inside will automatically become one with it. Alternatively, while the emotion is away, everything that finds itself in the lair will become one being for the emotion to handily take in in one go when it returns."

"So it has a giant magic funnel cave."

"Er… Yes I suppose you could put it like that." Magenta scratched his head. "But you must never go near one. You'll know it when you see it."

"Do you know anything else about emotions?" continued the small girl, plucking at her red sweater as she turned the information around in her head.

"Well, yes, they get up at sunrise to hunt. They can't rely solely on interlopers in their lair," Magenta said smartly. "And then––"

"That's it!" cried Hero, tossing her hands up. All of the other TV-heads swiveled to face her. "I have an idea!"

"This is your brilliant plan." Red spoke plainly, parting the rainbow-leafed bush that they were crouched behind. From his vantage point, he could see the swirling wormhole of color that marked the entrance to the lair of the emotion. He paused, pressing his palms together and tapping the bottom of his screen. Then he leveled his gloved hands at her.

"No."

"But it's the best plan we got!" Hero cried. "We just gotta wait for the emotion to leave for the morning! Then the cave will be empty and you guys can smash back together!"

"I hope there's no smashing involved," stammered Yellow, tugging on his antennas in nervousness.

"You know that sounds very… Unfortunate," piped up Magenta, before he stretched and made a noise reminiscent of a crackling yawn. He'd stayed up all night climbing the trees and poking around and exploring. (He'd had quite the adventure, but now wasn't the time to talk about that.)

"But will the plan work?" barked Red, hands on his hips.

Magenta shrugged. "Probably. I, for one, can't wait to find out."

"Oh yes!" said Green.

"Ohhh dear," muttered Yellow.

Blue said nothing, just sighed heavily and stared into the middle distance. Hero went and sat next to him, leaning on her own knees.

"Why're you so sad all the time?"

"Hm?" he said softly, not looking away from his fascinating nothing. Then her words seemed to sink in and his very bright cyan screen turned to her, tilted slightly, blue drool pooling at the corner and spattering onto the grass. "Hero, I'm the manifestation of all of your friend's sadness, and feelings of failure and shame, and low self esteem, and… And… Hm?" His stammering and shaking shoulders were abruptly stopped by a small hand on his arm.

"I didn't know RGB was so sad," she said in a quiet, serious voice.

When Blue spoke again, she could hear the small smile in his voice, even if his mouth was harder to see without as clear a delineation. "Yes, well, he's had some rough times in the past… A lot of them. A lot of sadnesses and reasons to grieve. He's lost quite a few people whom he cared for. Maybe, if he feels you're ready, he'll tell you some day."

"I'd like that," Hero said. "Sad stories are still good stories. And maybe, after he tells me, I'll know just how to cheer him up!"

"I think I can speak for him when I say he'd like that." Blue nodded a little, still smiling in his quiet way.

"It's coming it's coming!" yelped an excited voice, punctuated by a thud as Red tackled Magenta, pinning him down and getting so close to his face that red drips pattered onto the pinkish glass.

"Do you want it to know where we are?!" hissed Red. Magenta was silent, and the only sound filling the gap was Yellow inserting himself into the nearest bush.

"… I suppose not," mumbled Magenta, sounding downcast.

"You suppose right." Red sat back, arms crossed like a mother who had just got done scolding. Which, in a way, was not entirely inaccurate.

Moments later they heard more loud snarling, and, peering through the thick foliage like a set of forest folk, the group saw the emotion lope off in a random direction and disappear over the hills.

"Well, what are we waiting for?" Hero straightened up with a bounce. "Let's go hop in the magic funnel!"

"You won't be hopping anywhere," said Yellow, wagging a finger as he clambered out of the shrubbery. (That rather dulled his stern effect.) "We'll first be finding an access tunnel for you to enter. I would rather us not be combined with you, thanks."

Hero paused to shudder. "Ew no thank you! I want to keep my own head, thanks!"

"What's wrong with mine?" teased Green, scooping her up and placing her on his shoulders. Startled, she didn't know what to say for a moment, but then she giggled.

"Well it's kinda hard." Didn't stop her from clinging to the plastic casing, her fingers curling over the edge to just brush the top of his screen. "And I know you can feel, but what you feel is probably weird." She laughed again as they trekked to a promising pile of rocks beyond the main entrance.

"Excuse you, young lady, I'm not the weird one here!" Green assured her. "It's you who enjoys things like bugs and water!"

"Normal people do too like those!"

"Well I'm a different type of normal!"

"Normal people," she stated with a big grin. "Do not have antennas." She flicked one, and Green jumped and the thin metal rods flinched away from her.

"Ouch! What was that for?!"

"You can't win! Give up!"

"Oh fine I concede!" While she couldn't see his face, she could see the finger he'd reached up to level at her. "Just no more messing with the antennas or I will dump you in a bush!"

"Deal!" she said, resting her forearms against his head once more. Had she been paying more attention, she would have heard that Red had not grumbled about the loud outburst. If she had turned, she would have seen the four others following, Blue actually smiling and Yellow giving them his full attention instead of being jumpy and distracted, and Magenta looking like he'd just discovered a new favorite TV program.

But Hero saw none of this as Green set her down in front of the rocks and began rapping on them with the cane, which there was still only one of. Magenta went in to help using his hands, and was promptly whacked away with a conversational "no we need those" from Green. Soon enough, though, some of the boulders fell away to reveal a chamber. It was really a tunnel, as all the parts of RGB knew.

"This way, I'll lead you in and get you settled and then I'll go topside with the others," said Green, holding out a hand, and not the cane, to Hero. Now this, she thought to herself, was even more startling than the shoulder ride from a few minutes ago. She didn't refuse the offer though, slipping her hand into his, startled by how warm it was.

"Huh," she said, or she thought she said as they walked on.

"Pardon?" Green tilted his screen to look down at her, grinning.

"Nothin'," she said absently, looking at her surroundings. It wasn't particularly dark, what with the white glow at the end of the tunnel (just like the saying said, she thought), and the girl could see random broken objects scattered about. Toys, cooking utensils, tools, and even furniture, all dirty and broken, littered the sides of the passage, discarded remnants from past meals, she supposed. Then she realized she didn't want to think about that and turned her attention to the light. It had moved closer, much closer, signifying their arrival at the lair.

"Woah it's bright in here!" Hero first exclaimed, shielding her eyes as she gazed as the maelstrom above. This was probably what a whirlpool looked like viewed from below, she reasoned, if whirlpools were rainbow.

"Indeed it is," agreed Green, looking up. He didn't even need to cover his screen to stare into the bright light. "But I'll go up with the others and get ready. You kindly stay behind this rock. Can't have you dying on me."

He scooped her up under the armpits and deposited her behind a large stalagmite. Patting her on the head one last time, the green television monster set off down the passage once more, spinning his cane and humming to himself, illuminated by his green screen. Hero would miss him.

Five or so minutes passed, in which Hero had fun speculating who would be the first down the rabbit hole, so to speak. Her money was on Magenta being the first and Green second. Blue would be possibly third, and Yellow next because he would probably be pushed in by Red. She didn't have long to wait.

"Allons-yyyyyyyy!" came the yelping cry as Magenta went free-falling into the empty space. Hero, still technically in the mouth of the tunnel, was shielded from the cave's magical effects. The monster landed on his feet heavily, dropping into a crouch and the straightening to brush himself off. "That was fun!"

"AHHHH!" A yellow blob slammed into Magenta and merged with him in a flash, percussive sound echoing around the chamber, and when the light died, there was one singular man standing there, clutching his TV head with a moan. All of him, every inch, was splattered with magenta and yellow.

"My head," he gasped. Fear and curiosity didn't mix all that well. It was perhaps a good thing that Red followed quickly after, fusing them into a monster of three colors, but also a faded ghost of his usual hues layered over it all. He made a noise like a staticky whine, appearing to be in pain, shivering a little, staggering. Hero would have run to him, but her nervousness at being smashed into one body with him held her back.

"You okay?" came her thready voice, but she received no answer since Blue dropped from the ceiling at that moment, followed closely by Green. With one more bolt of sound that actually knocked Hero onto her rear, the task was over. As she peered out from behind her rock, the girl could see one full and complete RGB lying spread eagled in the stone dust.

Deciding it was safe, Hero ran over to him and stationed herself at his head.

"Ello? You in there?" She rapped against his sleeping screen with her knuckles, getting clear fluid on them for her troubles.

"Unfortunately yes," buzzed a voice that got stronger when the screen flicked on on to show a crumpled test pattern mouth. "Everything hurts and you're standing on my antennas."

"Oh sorry!" she cried, stepping away as RGB winced and pushed himself up. He paused, and in that time Hero walked around to his front and helped tug him to his feet. When he was up, he sighed in relief.

"Thank you. You're going to have to fill me in as we walk, it's all a tad fuzzy and fragmented."

"Don't mention it! And I will don't worry!"

"Whew am I ever glad that worked," said RGB, straightening his clothes and dusting himself off, crushed antennas unfolding back to their normal position.

"Me too," Hero said, sounding just as relieved.

"Yes, I don't know what we would have done otherwise…" RGB set off down an access tunnel leading out of the emotion's cave, Hero gripping the end of his cane.

"… I do," said Hero, a suppressed giggle apparent in her voice. She'd noticed the passage was still littered with random objects, and…

"And, pray tell, what would we have done if your 'giant magic funnel cave' idea hadn't worked?" RGB put his hands on his hips and stared down at his Hero.

With a big grin, she held up a small plastic yellow funnel, the sort one uses for cooking. "Well, there was always Plan B."