Escape From Fanservice Island
Chapter 1: Entering Fanservice Island
Beginning AN:
This is something different.
"The Nazi swamp monsters are drawing closer!" Cried out Sarah. "The minefield isn't drawing them away - we need to take the fight to them!"
"No problem, babe." Replied Charles, the little Venusian 'devil.' "We'll just use the power... of BLUES!"
Hey, it was a long journey. And a long journey called for movies and series along the way. And once the good ones ran out, the emergency supply of bad movies had to do.
As the island with the paranormal spike drew near, Stanley, Soos, and Melody 'enjoyed' the antics of Heavensong: Ultimate Chronicles, something that started off as an action anime about a justice-protecting "villain unleash heck on-ing" swamp monster... before he got killed in the fourth OVA and some random blues musician from Venus replaced him.
The Stan o' War II's next mission was to voyage towards a place where unusually high signals indicating some kind of 'bridge-like being' channelling a high amount of weirdness over on a distant island around the Indian, Pacific, and Southern Ocean borders. Despite being close to Antarctica, it had an oddly warm climate. And that very warmth was felt each time the boat got closer.
Ford and Stan's mission was to see and hopefully stop whatever threat loomed within the island's deep woods. Soos was brought along, temporarily handing ownership of the Mystery Shack to Wendy, as repair assistance - this mission also apparently involves some nasty 'rustification storms.' (Ford's exact words.) Melody also joined up as part of her ongoing occasional self-defense practice she's been doing ever since the Magician Incident.
With the exposition out of the way, it was only appropriate to have the following moments be the one where something strange, large, glowing, and purple ended up striking the side of the hull's edge. Just as the outer edges of the destination island were beginning to make themselves visible.
Ford, the only one not watching swamp monsters blasting evil Nazi swamp monsters, felt the shake along with everything else. The key difference was that he did not have to pause right when Charles was about to try his 'spinning top' to defuse the illusion he was trapped in.
Fortunately, he was there to see the glowing purple object, and thus the exact part that was struck.
"Everyone, we've been hit!" Stanford called out as the sound of the ocean suddenly started roaring louder. He reached in to his coat to take out a ray gun.
"Remember," he continued, "never let this gun fall in to the wrong hands. This gun specifically is-"
An exceptionally loud roar from a beast. Something large and a deep violet reached out to swipe his weapon away. Ford could only step back with the others and look at the offending part of a beast - an... arm? A huge arm - before it swiped across the deck, knocking all four members of the party out.
The bad news upon waking up was that it was obvious the internal machinery of the Stan o' War II was clearly too damaged to actually get it anywhere. It stayed on the shore, threatening to be immobile for the rest of its life - rusting and decaying. Purple sparks danced around the left side where it was struck.
Now for the good news, which would make the travelling four more appreciative of the fact that they were still alive and with barely a scratch on them. The boat was there and did not look like it was going to sink in the ocean. As a matter of fact, it was pretty far up on the shore. And behind it lied a deep parting of sand, digging far into the dirt underneath and neatly stopping before an odd line of rocks before the grass. Almost as if... it was pushed there. Specifically.
Also, the television was fine (Although it looked like it set to the middle of a later Heavensong OVA for some reas- oh no is that a frame of Intagrate-Woman being stabbed through the back? Spoiler alert, jeez!), but that was trivial compared to absolutely everything else.
Ford got up and looked around - beach and grass immediately around him, some large bubble in the deep sea that he tried to ignore, and... forests further on land.
"So what was that?" Asked Stan, still rubbing his head. "It sounded like some kind of purple sea-bear. Are sea-bears real, I'm still having trouble keeping track of all those journal entries."
"Based on my readings, that was the source of the energy spike." Ford explained as he looked back at the same instruments he used before - Stan was using an 'app' for that, but Ford stuck with a more practical 30x60x15-cm board. It displayed a blinking dot roughly in the direction of... should be towards the other end of the island. "And right now it's on the far mountain on the other side."
"So does this mean we're gonna, like, fight a big ocean monster dude after going on a dangerous trek across the island?" Asked Soos.
"No, I am." Said Stan. "Someone has to stay here while you fix and guard the boat. And I'm trusting that someone to you, Soos. You and your girlfriend can punch any goblins that try to steal all the shiny stuff. My brother and I will go to the other end, we'll both punch anything on the way, and he'll get his gun back and blast the thing. Meanwhile, I'll be making plans for the Stan o' War III. You know, just in case something else happens to it."
He sniffed as he looked at the semi-wrecked boat.
"I will also be in charge of releasing a rescue signal." Added the other Stan. "This island is infamous for its bad survice. Next to, oddly enough, the giant rock formations that strongly resemble fans. There's a reason why this is nicknamed Fanservice Island. The biggest stone fan, by the top of the tallest mountain, is the only way to get a good electronic signal through. And not just any phone - it has to be a rescue beacon."
"Oh, kind of like Post-Terra!" Said Soos. "Where that kid had to find the other end of a ship and climb that volcano! But then that alien creature thing kept following him and he learned not to be afraid... you might not know this, but we saw that one just before we binged Heavensong."
"So it's just us, then..." Melody said nervously once Stan and Ford disappeared into the trees. "The two of us, alone on an island together... do you think that's kind of romantic?"
"I feel like it's a sign of adventure!" Soos replied.
"...I would too, but..." she stared out into the woods, looking as the wind softly blew the branches around. Almost as if they were waving the couple in. And the sounds... she could swear it sounded it like a whisper of 'Adventurrrrre...' (If with an 'Eh' at the end.) "We're supposed to stay here and try to fix their boat. They're the ones going on the adventure. That... reminds me of Gravity Falls."
"Feeling homesick?"
"No, nostalgic. I really want to go out there. But we shouldn't until we get the boat fixed."
"Well, I have, like, a lot of tools. I promise we'll have it done in no time!"
The repairs did not take 'no time.'
As Soos and Melody went to look at the damage up close, both armed with tools at the ready, they noticed something Ford did not - the edges of the damage marks were a similar glowing purple. Absolutely freezing to the touch. And, if at a slow pace, the hole appeared to be growing from there.
Blowtorches appeared to help the problem a little. Or at least, they dimmed the glow. Both beginning to sweat, Melody put a hand on Soos's shoulder and looked him in the eyes.
"I know this boat means a lot to you and a lot to Stan, but... we'll have to cut a bigger hole around this."
"Like cutting off a finger to save the hand from poison?"
"Yes, but we're patching around finger on!"
Soos reached over to get the right saw-
"Hi Soos!"
That voice was - no no no no no no what was she doing all the way out here?
Both Soos and Melody lept back - and they both slipped on a wet rock and fell to their butts. There, by the same screen that was once displaying the cheesy antics of an alien trying to woo a good-aligned swamp monster, was .GIFfany.
".GIFfany?" Soos asked. "What are you doing out here? I thought that you were stuck in Fight Fighters and trying to make Rumble your new date?"
"Oh, it turns out I have a cult!"
"A cult?" Melody asked. "Oh my... please don't tell me they snuck on board with us... under the boat or... in the snacks or something."
"No, they did not. They found me back in Gravity Falls and repaired my disc! Then they cast a spell on me that could let me do this:"
The screen turned to hot pink static. With some jaggedy motions, a flesh-and-blood arm (not literally - of course she had skin over that) stuck out from the machine, not even made of pixels. Followed by another arm. Then her head, with all the pink hair and her gigantic bow following after. She pulled herself outwards, her entire body slowly emerging, until she finally slipped her knees in to reality. She stood up and-
Okay, what? There is no way .GIFfany would be that tall in person. Her sprite in-game was clearly shorter than Rumble's. Yet it became more apparent as she walked closer to the duo and hopped off the wreck that she was somewhere about six feet tall. What bull. From that moment neither of them got a better look at her - with the way she was standing and how they were crouching in a much lower part, the underside of her skirt would have clearly been visible. Not that either of them were looking at her slim, tight white panties of course.
"So are you just paying us a friendly visit and then you'll go back to Rumble?" Soos asked.
.GIFfany pointed at the screen, causing a display of an arcade machine that Rumble lept out of. While explaining this, she also tilted her head to the side and smacked on the ear facing upwards a few times. Each time until the last, little bits of what could only be described as liquid static came out the ear she faced downwards, before disappearing into sparks.
"When 'Weirdmageddon' came, Rumble spent the next four days outside of the game. And away from me. He... changed in those days. He learned something about 'not winning everything.' When he came back, he was different. He wanted to call himself 'Humble McSkirmish.' And he said something about fights that you cannot win.
"Unless that fight is against me, I do not believe in that." She frowned, looking off to the side in bad memory. "He had gone soft. So I dumped him."
"You broke up with him... for Soos... because Rumble was 'too soft?'" Asked Melody. "Soos is the softest person I know! Literally! And... what was that other-"
"Metaphorically." .GIFfany finished. "But no, that is a lie. He also told me about the fight you pulled to kill a demon from the space between dimensions! That sounded like someone who will go through anything to be with me! The brave hero Rumble could not be! Rumble might have gotten soft, but Soos, I know that you became hard for me!"
Melody stood up and pointed an accusing finger at the AI. Or, former AI.
"Were you the one that crashed our boat? I mean, you have pink and that looks more... purply, but I don't think I can trust you enough to keep the same colors."
"Hm? No. I did not do that. I know as much of the boat-crashing as you did. I only travelled along power lines to get to your labtop and I stayed in there in sleep mode until you crashed. I came out here to see if you were okay, and I waited for Stan and Ford. Because I know they will try to delete me without hearing my side of the story."
"So... I think I know the answer, and I know I'm not going to like it," said Soos, "but why are you here?"
"I wanted to see you after all this time! Sorry to drop by uninvited, but I just wanted to see if... maybe after all this time with Melody, my favorite player might want to change his mind? Just a little?"
Soos chuckled. "Dude, I'm in the best relationship of my life right now! I'm sorry, but Melody is and will always be my Player 2."
.GIFfany blinked. Both of the humans expected her to fly off into a rage at that, and Melody even braced herself by shielding her face with her hands, but... that did not come.
Instead, .GIFfany smirked. Slyly.
"Oh. Really? Do you think of her as the second player to my game? Why didn't you just say so?!"
"Well... yeah, I remember, I actually kinda wanted to get Melody to look at you and try you out... I even wrote in that journal that she was like a second player-"
"I can be a multiplayer game!" She cheered, giving a big leap in place with her arms in the air. "That way, you can still be with Melody, but you will not be leaving me! That is the part I care about! Just stay with me forever, break up with Melody or don't I do not care at all!"
She embraced both of them in a hug. Which was a little awkward considering how Melody was standing up while Soos was still stunned from tripping, but she managed to get it to work by lifting the latter. Both of them blushed an even hotter red.
Melody being mildly distracted too did not surprise Soos at all. Not since she casually told him that the magician from her past was female.
"S-sorry, but we can't." Melody replied. "You see... you're crazy and you tried to kill him."
Okay, there was the enraged reaction they were expecting.
"I knew it! That's what they all said! They only think I am insane! It was the same cycle, three times! I date a player! They act like they found 'real love!' I get discarded like I was just some toy to help them talk to people! Except... no, you gave Soos that idea, didn't you?"
"I'm pretty sure I came up with that idea by myself..." Soos cut in.
"I just come from a world where we fight for our loved ones! And I lived in another world with the same rules for months! Is that really so crazy?"
Months, yeah. One last piece of exposition. This takes place in December of 2012. The 21st, to be exact. Okay.
"So I challenge you to a battle!" .GIFfany continued.
"Wait," Melody said in a desperate attempt to reason with her, "we need to-"
It was too late. .GIFfany tackled Melody then and there. Making matters worse (not better, for a number of reasons) was that her skirt happened to have gotten caught on some crates Ford had unpacked to the side. As she dove forth, it came off. Somehow, the panties beneath happened to be caught in it as well.
.GIFfany pushed her away from the crash site and closer towards the rushing waters behind. The ex-AI continued pushing on Melody until they were at the water, afterwhich Melody managed to free her grip from the bottomless attacker. Soos rushed out just in time to see .GIFfany lunge again. And boy, did he really see.
It was clearly not on purpose. .GIFfany seemed to be after Melody's neck, but the latter dodged out of the way at just the right way for .GIFfany to get her smooth hands on... Melody's shorts. Her fingers just so happened to hook into them and her underwear, so once .GIFfany face-faulted, Soos ended up witnessing his current fiancée's lower regions exposed in the air just as much as his former girlfriend's. And, with the glinting light and sudden rising tide being fast to take away Melody's lower clothing (the suction of which also took out four shoes and socks), he got a better view of the fight he desperately rushed to stop.
.GIFfany apparently saw Soos coming, as she stuck a foot out to trip him as she got up. While her next move was to shift her hands into pink tentacles with spikes, most of Soos's view at that moment was taken up by her large, round, smooth pale tan bubble butt.
The spikes .GIFfany forged were able to cut through clothing - Melody learned this the hard way after barely dodging a swipe up that successfully destroyed her entire top. After that, .GIFfany flushed at the bare state of her opponent and decided to switch tactics yet again. Her tentacles shifted back in to hands, and she grabbed Melody by the side, also spinning her around.
This also happened to give Soos a view of both their asses at the same time, once he was up. .GIFfany's was already covered. It is absolutely important to the storyline that you know about Melody's rear. Soos did not let himself be distracted by the heavier, wider rear as its glorious tan skin glistened in the sunlight. The fact that both of them had beads of water from the ocean rolling off of them as they struggled in the battle really added on to the distraction test. But he was a better man than that.
Soos attempted to peel .GIFfany off by grabbing her by her shoulders. Unfortunately for all three parties involved, her shoulders were covered by the last major piece of clothing she had on, so she was easily able to slip out of his hold by sliding out of her school shirt. This exposed her braless breasts to the air as well - okay, they were definitely bigger than Soos remembered them being on her sprites - and finally drew her attention to him.
Soos practically felt himself getting punched in the face before he saw it.
"And now you want to stop me from earning your love from the competition? I don't understand! This is how it works in Fight Fighters! Why! Won't! It! Work! Here?!"
Her hands re-shifted into tentacles, and now it was Soos's time to dodge-
His clothing got shredded. And he found himself in the buff too, his wide ass being out with the other two.
"Huh. So it's not one of those stories where only the girls get naked from fights. Or one of the stories where only the guys are seen naked for, like, jokes. It's somehow both?" Soos asked. "That's new. And I thought my footwear being sucked away from the water was it."
Before he could ponder this, he suddenly found .GIFfany shoving Melody, ass- uh, back-first on to him, knocking them both to the sand. She loomed her naked (Nobody counts bows.) body over the pair.
"What do I have to do to get some love around here?" She asked.
"T-try staying with Rumble!" Soos nervously said with a finger in the air. He also really wished Melody would try to get off of him. "That was working out!"
"Hey," said Melody, "have you ever thought about being a better person?"
"I feel like I already thought about that twice." Replied .GIFfany. She began tapping her chin. "It also felt like Soos and I were naked both of those times, but you were naked only once..."
"So you thought about it!"
"No, I feel like I thought about it twice. But I never really thought thought about it. I have déjà- nevermind! Maybe I should try getting what I want in the way you people do it. Without violence. And without fear of players just resetting me to an earlier save point."
"...Really?"
"Did you have to ask that? I am not a good liar. My Acting stat is minimal. I prefer studying science."
"O-okay then!" Said Melody, eyebrows re-lowering as she finally stood up and got into a fighting stance. "We can take you on! We beat you with a bunch of cartoon robots! I'm not scared of you without any!"
.GIFfany looked down for a moment, tapping her chin with a tentacle (that was no longer spiked). Finally, she smirked.
"...You and what army?"
"What do you mean? This is two against one."
"I think you need a recount."
She pointed to the boat with her upper limbs re-shifted back into hands. Lightning flew out from her fingertip, a constant stream going in to the wrecked ocean-traveling vehicle.
"You see... coming to life was not the only skill the Cultists gave me. I also know how to... copy my data."
Since it did not seem like .GIFfany herself was moving, even as the waves hit her up to her knees, Soos and Melody both saw this as a good oppertunity to rush to the television and see what she was doing up-close. After realizing that the hole was a bit bigger than it was when they were fully clothed, they still had to ignore this and look at the screen. And it was not just that.
Every single one of Ford's gadgets that had a screen showed the same thing. Technical text data about file creations, following by an image of .GIFfany. Which then began an image of a lot of .GIFfanys.
And then all of the screens turned in to static. And a multitude of limbs began sticking out.
The older Pine twins looked up once their walk through the thick vegetation ended at the mouth of...
Er... calling it a 'cave' would be an understatement. Its curved entrance looked like it was roughly five stories tall, yet only a few meters (the fact that this story has a scientist as one of the main characters justifies use of the metric system) within it went into complete blackness. As a matter of fact, the shading - helped by the trees themselves blocking out most of the Sun's light - almost made it look like it sharply cut off in to a solid black wall.
"Please don't tell me that's the mountain we have to climb up, and that cave's our only way of getting in." Said Stan.
"No, it's not." Ford replied. "This should be near the center of the island. The mountain we're looking for is hotter, has no way of climbing from inside, and should have visible glowing red cracks."
"But we don't have to go in there, right? I'd take a volcano over something like that any day."
"No. We do not. It is a fully optional-"
The ground rumbled. A massive, purple shadow flew past them, as some sort of oddly annoying giggle interspersed with - that sounded kind of like saying "Eh." a few times in a very punchable voice. Ford zoomed back to check his display - the thing was right behind them.
"That's the anomaly of this island. And by the looks of it, the same beast that damaged the boat." Ford whispered.
Stan was not as quiet, whipping around and getting his former 'ladder-gun' out in the ready and facing it at trees. "What? Where?"
Ford already had his more laser-y counterparts of a gun out, and took after the purple blur. Stan attempted to follow, but with another very annoying laugh, something swiped at the tree in front and it came down just in front of the five-fingered twin. This forced Stan to take a leap back in to the mouth of the bigger-than-a-cave.
That would not have been so bad if said tree also did not cause a cave-in. More rumbling followed, and soon he was faced with a large pileup of boulders blocking the way to the outside. Only a tiny tip, at the top of this cavern entrance, shone any sort of light in further. Stan had to flip on a flashlight to get a look at his surroundings. Yep. Cave. Giant cave. More cave around. He only needed a few glimpses to get the gravity of the situation.
He heard the fading sounds of his brother panting as he moved along forth, assuming that Stan wasn't stopped by the tree and following right along him. Well, he'll probably come back eventually.
Stan found himself without an 'eventually' to wait for as he felt something extremely unpleasant crawling along his shoe. An ordinary-if-large spider, as a quick flashlight shine revealed, that he kicked off. He almost felt sorry for it since it it almost sounded like it hissed a little, but this was not the time to feel sympathy for insects. No, wait, spiders. They're not insects.
Hooking the flashlight in his teeth, Stan tried to climb up. This was nothing he couldn't handle, and he even kept Mabel in mind for helping him get over his fear of heights. Yeah, he could do this! Get up to the top and even dig himself out! This pileup even seemed easier to climb than those rock wall amusement attra-
His thoughts were broken when he felt another unpleasant thing along him, this time crawling by and on his hand. Another spider, as a turn of the head to adjust the light confirmed, that he practically flipped off the back of his hand. No biggie, even though it was literally a biggie compared to the last one. Just keep going forth. This place just has some creepy crawlies, nothing he couldn't-
Just when he was about four-fifths of the way to the small beam of light, it really became a biggie. His next encounter with the eight-legged kind was exactly as big as one in the past - his vision was soon filled with the upside-down head of a spider-like beast that he hoped he wouldn't see again.
"Boo." Said Darlene.
Stan, out of instinct rather than his thoughts of course, jumped back. This would have cost him his life had it not been for something large, sticky, and stretchy catching his fall. The scream he let out while that happened also made him drop the flashlight, so it fell on whatever net caught him too, revealing it to be a massive spider web that definitely wasn't there a few seconds ago.
He looked up, using the outside light to help see what spooked him. Darlene, in her full spider form, was actually perched along the cavern's ceiling. But she transformed back into her human appearance as she let go of the stone and flipped herself around, laughing to herself as she did so.
Stan stretched the webbing as much as he possibly could so that he could point a finger at her - which wasn't much.
"How did you-"
She lept out of her shoes and pulled off a new move where she shot entire webs from her feet, making platforms for herself as she lept and flipped her way down to the larger web Stan was on. The Mystery Mountain employee smirked, adjusted her shades, and looked down at her newly-captured prey.
"Okay, that was pretty cool. But- n-no! How did you find me out here?"
"Well, less pickup artists have been coming to the Mystery Mountain after people started rumors of it being 'Satanic.' Only weirdos trying to write it down in books showed up, and they somehow always had friends so I couldn't- urgh, nevermind. What's important is, I got sick of that place and wanted to... expand the business, if you know what I mean. So I looked around for any mountains to set up as a little... 'winter home,' so to speak. Since then you and your brother became famous monster-hunters or something, and I knew about the thing that lived here, so I hid out here in case you ever showed up! To get back at the one man that got away! And when I saw your boat coming... well..." a few more laughs, "I knew my life was about to change for the better."
"Is that why you wrecked the Stan o' War II? I'll admit, that kind of purple really doesn't fit you, but-"
"Believe me, if I sunk that little toy boat, I would be bragging about it."
"...I believe you. So now what are you gonna do? Try to eat me or something?"
Instead of responding, she simply threw her shades to a 'shelf' of sorts made of web, then slipped out of her outfit to set on the same 'shelf' right by Stan's web - he found out the hard way that she went commando.
"...You are going to eat me, right?" Said Stan, worry actually starting to sink in to his eyes. "Because if you are, why are you getting naked?"
"Oh, blood stains are hard to get out of clothes. Especially if those kids keep coming around trying to use blacklight for their little 'invisible ink books.' And this is my second-favorite outfit. My favorite... let's just say I can't trick prey into it without them seeing that it's made of two different shades of red before I can get them close."
He grumbled. "I knew I should have tried to kill you while you were just trapped under a statue, saying that you'll kill any man who tries to flirt with you!"
"Y-yeah, I'm surprised you didn't..." she said in a flatter manner. "...I mean, I was right there. One gunshot was all it took. But that's the past! You made your choice then, and I live get another meal now!"
As she drew nearer and closer within the beam of the flashlight, Stan had one thought on his mind that he tried to push away - for someone that was actually a sort-of spider trying to eat him, she was still pretty... no no no she's trying to kill you you idiot... hot.
There. As Darlene lifted her pants, reached into the pocket, and got out some kind of diagram about the various cuts and portions of a human's body (he did not want to know the backstory behind that), he took way more time than he would have liked to admit admiring her bare, tanned body as she looked through the pockets of her top for forks. A pretty impressive bust for someone who was really of a species that probably should have no need for them, and her tan lines implied that any possible swimsuit she might have owned would have barely left more to the imagination than she was leaving at the moment.
She hummed a little tune to herself as she turned around for whatever reason. Stan was pretty sure at that point that Arachnimorphs were psychic, and she read his deepest, darkest subconcious desire to see a back view. And what a back view that was.
"Let's see here..." Darlene said to herself, "this recipe calls for... no wait, demon bones? Why is this here? Demons don't exist..."
As if to taunt him further with thoughts of Stupid Sexy Darlene, she had a tattoo on her back that kind of slightly resembled an arrow pointing downward, though he had no idea what the heck the symbol was actually supposed to be.
"Alright, cook for - shoot! I knew I forgot something! There's no oven... this island has a volcano, can I use that instead? No, no, brainstorm Darlene..."
Well, anyway, below that was third rounded, estrogen-blessed ass revealed on the island (first as far as Stan knew), with two very pale lines just above the cheeks implying she spends quite a bit of time with a thong that left that sticking out for the world to see.
"Maybe I should just go for the classic mummification afterall? ...No, no, this is a special capture. I have to make this a special feast. Oh, why not, I'll just bite you on the neck and suck all the organs out!"
Okay it was definitely time to make a plan and get out of here!
Stan reached his head forward as far as his horizontal prison would let him - and 'as far' was thankfully 'far enough' for him to bite down on something inside his shirt. A small grenade. Yes, it seemed a little extreme, but he plucked off the pin, spat it as far as he could, and waited. Darlene took notice and jumped away.
The tiny explosion still managed to rock the cave by a bit, and due to her poor choice of placement, Darlene's clothing ended up getting burned to ash. But more importantly, the right side of Stan's capture was destroyed enough so that he could move again! With a fierce tug, he got the limb freed. And that was all he needed. He could just slip out-
A loud, dragged out riiip let Stan knew that he would soon join Darlene (and, again, he did not know this at the time, but .GIFfany, Melody, and Soos) in the people going around in buff. Still he clung to the wall as he looked at the story's worth of a climb he had to make back downwards. Without any light source.
Thank goodness his boxers were still on - aaaaaaand Darlene looked like she was about to start chasing after him while they were threatening to fall off. Screw them, he needed to survive.
He made it to the bottom in three precise leaps and with minimal pain. Luckily for him, as gazing onward revealed, there was some kind of dim, red light further down the cave that he could maybe hide his bare, aged body with a gut and quite the Hank Hill-shriveled ass (if you've read some of my other works and are annoyed at the frequency that I reference, discuss, or crossover King of the Hill, you may swap that with Miley Cyrus) in while still being able to see what was going on.
"You don't think I have a few new tricks up my sleeve?" Darlene asked as she changed back to her spider form and crawled her way after him. "After I stole some bottles from this guy with wings, I found out about love potions! It turns out that if I just added a little... poisonous spider special to them, I can use them to mind-control people from a distance! I hope you like spending three hours as my puppet!"
"THREE HOURS?" Stan belted as he made his way towards the light, an exclamation that echoed through the cave. "IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE?"
Ford kept pushing forward as that annoying laughter drew closer. Soon - a little too soon - trees thinned out and were replaced with a barren stretch of land bordered by two mountains. The one that Stan was, not to Ford's knowledge, trapped in; and the goal at the end. The only place to get a signal.
More important at that moment was the land itself between them. As with the 'cave' before, calling it a desert would be putting it mildly. Hardened, maroon stone that had subtle rises within the mini-valley, cracked with similar glowing hot red streaks as the peek of the tallest mountain. An occasional mini fire-geyser shot out from the cracked land, if not an entire crack in of itself would briefly break open to a wall of flame. In addition to the high threat level of the area by itself, it somehow had the 'nice' effect of the various ashes rising to the sky. Somehow, the sky was a decent blue until this point, where it slowly became more of a pale amber as Ford drew closer to the volcano.
Half of the island's nicknamesake, the fan-like rock formations, were there. And finally seeing them in-person for the first time, Ford was able to see how accurate of a description 'fan' was.
Especially because they looked more like modern fans, blades and buttons and everything, than those paper fans Ford was kind of expecting.
Massive fan-replicas of purple obsidian stood tall in the air, getting the occasional bath from a fire burst. Of course, they had to have been made out of something that matched the color of the main threat he was chasing - his eyes scanned left and right for anything... furrier than the tall 'natural' structures, only getting a glimpse. It was the Hide-Behind all over again.
It was not until Stanford turned to the side that he realized Stanley was not becide him the entire time. Putting the mission on hold as a grim feeling rushed through his veins, he looked around until his eyes locked on the earlier mountain. Yes. A landmark.
He would have left the scorching fields if not for a large puff of smoke spawning just meters ahead of him, making him grin to a halt as an all-too familiar beast popped up in front of him. She grinned with a sharp mouth, tossed a black cane in the air to catch it, and stood with a foot slid out and arms open.
It was no mistaken that that was Pyronica. One of Bill's Henchmaniacs, mimicking one of Stan's opening moves as 'Mr. Mystery.' Quite the boiling sight considering recent events. Apart from the aformentioned cane, she also had a black top hat resting along her pink head, and a matching bowtie clipped to the shoulders of her cape.
Pyronica was especially 'boiling'-inducing because of her nudity. She actually does have defined... personal bits, her full breasts especially standing out, she's just drawn like a Barbie Doll because Disney would obviously draw the line there. At least, that's how it works in this fic's world. Ford knew not to let himself get distracted by a giant, nude, pink curvy body (he honestly had some doubts about Dipper considering... personal conversations shortly after Weirdmageddon's ending), and especially not when he was on a rescue mission to find his brother.
Wasting no time, saying no words, and remaining stone-faced, Ford brought his trusty energy gun out and immediately fired it straight ahead.
What he thought would be a quick, easy Henchmaniac-kill that would take no time at all away from finding Stan was immediately revealed as a much harder mission than he thought when he witnessed the otherdimensional being disappear in a brief warp effect - space itself appeared to collapse around her, then explode outwards an instant later with the only difference being that she was completely absent.
Pyronica re-appeared on one of the branches by the border of the forest and the fire-'desert,' wagging a finger tauntingly.
"Pyronica! I should have known! Your skin and hair are close enough in color to the marks you left on our boat! You're the one that did this! Although you looked a lot thicker and hairier when I was chasing you in the woods. Your voice sounded a bit different too. And that fist did not look like yours." It slowly dawned on the author of the journals. "...You have nothing to do with our crash, don't you?"
"Nope! I'm just here to avenge Bill and take over as the new hostess for Weirdmageddon! I'm his longest friend, so I started doing what he did best! That included: finding a way to teleport and cut through dimensions, spying on you, waiting until you were weak, and going in for the kill while I gloated about it!"
"...I'm only asking this out of genuine curiosity as I have long since stopped wishing anything bad upon him, but Stan was the one who finished Bill. Why are you going after me?" Asked Ford.
"Because you're the one who did all the work!" She counted the following off her fingers - Ford learned from the previous battle when he went to the Nightmare Realm near the end of the thirty years that she was not wearing boots or gloves. Those were parts of her skin, made out of something called Hellflame. If enough Heavenwater was thrown at her, they'd briefly disappear to pink stumps before she could re-ignite them. The problem is, Heavenwater is a rare substance only found from -
I can tell you don't care about that at all. Let's just move on. Anyway, she counted these points off her fingers:
"You built the portal, sealed it in that junk rift, you got Dipper to have that fight with Mabel and then she gave the rift to Bill, and... wow. I thought I was going to have a lot more points. Well, if I'm done talking faster, it means I can kill you faster! Isn't that fun?"
She laughed as she tried to pull a backflip - only to end up getting her cape caught on the tree branches, her cane, stiletto pumps, and hat flying off completely. (The cane in particular would have left Ford with the same number of eyes Pyronica had if it was not for his dodging.) Her cape was quickly ripped with holes thanks to those sharp tree-limbs, and it was destroyed completely along with the bowtie as she fell past them. The giant pink fire-demoness landed right in front of Ford, in an especially cringe-worthy position as her legs happened to have been spread from the fall.
Ford thought he could fire at her from there, but she still warped behind him. Her destination was a good distance off the ground, so that she could re-align her legs and bring herself standing up straight.
"I have to find my brother!" He said. "There's a chance he might have been caught under a cave-in! Stop wasting my time!"
"Your brother's fine! I looked - he's having fun with an old friend!"
Despite being good news (well, she grinned like an idiot on the word 'friend,' and knowing any of Bill's buddies, her comment was clearly sarcasm. But hey, you know, it's been confirmed that he's still alive...), Ford tried to show no reaction as he took off back in to the woods, being met with more laughter from his large foe.
"Do you really think running away from a teleporter is a good idea? Just for that, I'm gonna take you on a tour! I hope you like the Depths!"
She dug a foot into the blistering rock, summoning a crack that trailed right below Ford's position just before he could fully step back into lush vegetation once more.
Ford could have sworn that he was running in place over the air for a few moments before falling into the artificial canyon that the demon crafted. He was not sure if the reddish glow or Pyronica's choice of words including 'Depths' was any indication that this meant instant death or not.
From above, Pyronica stood her now-naked body over the edge and peered down. The way she bent over also exposed her bright pink, bubbly canon-ass (Yes, it's canon, look at the concept art on her page on the fan wiki, and watch the finale carefully. Gravity Falls, a children's show, basically showed a woman's ass. King of the Hill, which is not a children's show, had this episode with a lot of nudity, but specifically covered the women's asses and not the men's. Oh how the times have changed.) to the air, although nobody was around to see it. She couldn't help but laugh even more. Not because it seemed like she was reaching her goals all-too easily, but because the whole scene reminded her of one of Earth's cartoons. Not helping matters was the way Ford screamed "YIKES!" on his way down.
Still feeling that this was not enough, the naturist (Why bother with clothes if you're already a criminal and you can regulate your own temperature?) demon spat out one more ball of Hellflame towards him.
A bit below, in a seemingly endless canyon drop, Ford took action when the Hellflame ball ended up landing right at him so that his gear was hit. He sighed as he activated his parachute and immediately knew what to do. As Hellflame only goes away on its own after three hours (and not at all if it's used as a limb-extendor), Ford knew that keeping himself alive required immediate removal of his clothes -
(Okay, now that this actually factors in to the 'nudity' aspect, now one might be a little more interested in Hellflame backstory. Anyway, Heavenwater only comes from the saliva of an angel. There, that's its origin.)
- and he mumbled in annoyance as undergarment and side-accesssory kept getting hit with a spare flame as well. He had to sacrifice all of them, too.
This was not a situation Ford ever would have seen himself in, even after his dimensional travels opened his eyes to the worlds that were possible. Floating naked down a volcanic canyon - fire growing in quantity reminded him of... actually, the sheer heat. He had no way of getting back up and speeding the fall would only... kill him, it seemed that all he could do was wait.
Wait with his... self exposed to the elements. He was not exactly built like Stan - down to definitely not having the Hank Hill/Miley Cyrus backside, his was firmer and had far more muscle - but he was still, by no means, completely immune to the heat. Yes.. waiting.
He would have to wait until the next chapter of this little chronicle unfolded.
BRX'UH JHWWLQJ WUROOHG. WXUQ EDFN DV IDVW DV BRX FDQ!
Closing AN:
So I'm starting the year with one heck of an experiment, even if it may not look like it first. If this chapter came off as rushed, I wrote it with the challenge to try to have it all finished and published within a week. From Monday to the following Sunday. I could go back with this. After all, I had edited run:gifocalypse and Total Zeksmit Plains zillions of times.
I'm going to do something I had not done since 2013: a set of "same period of time, different perspective" chapters that can be read in any order. Basically, chapters 2-4 can be read in any order. This goes without saying, but please don't just jump on to chapter 5 after reading just one of them. Or two. Read all three of them first, basically.
I'm honestly not really sure where to go with this story, mainly in terms of length. I have a very rough plan of this being another thirteen-chapter fic, but it could be shorter. If I end up really liking the idea, it might even be longer.
...Normally, I'd say that deception is a large element of this fan fic, but I am going to be honest with one thing right now. I actually ended up liking writing this story a whole lot more than I thought I was going to. Well, keep that - and a lot of other details - in mind, as you go on forth. If you go on forth.
When will I get to chapter two? Well, I had been playing Terraria a lot recently. I had this thing where I tried (and failed) to make a vague Pyronica-looking character on Hardcore, where death is permanent. I had this thing where once she dies, I'll get to chapter 2. She actually died back when I finished the rough draft of this chapter. So... the remake of The Hair Idealization is going on hold even longer, while I get to the next installment of this!
This might spoil the story later down the road, so avert your eyes if you feel you are particularly spoiler-sensitive: Sorry, just to get this out of the way, this chapter pretty much establishes all seven of the major canonical characters. Sorry if you were also expecting naked misadventures between McGucket and Celestabellebethabelle. On a more serious note, I am also sorry if you were expecting Bill or the younger Pine twins to be involved in the plot. I will say right now that Bill is still dead and he isn't coming back.
Oh, and uh... if by any chance you think that "Heavensong" thing was a little... interesting and you kind of wish it exists... it kind of does. Just go to my profile, click "hide bio," and look for Hecksing Ulumate Crconikals!