The Animaniac cast is coming back together for a new season but an unsettled mess from the past puts the show on hold before it even started production. It's time for the cast to set things straight with Wakko. On the top of that, the threat of the world disappearing is looming because of aliens and working solo is not an option. Rated M for violence and cursing in future chapters. Might turn it to explicit later.
The Beginning
Its's a great summer day in the suburb of Burbank. The birds are chirping around and a gentle breeze ruffles the trees' leaves. It is the perfect day to go lay down outside on a recliner with a book in hand and read your time away; which is exactly what a now grown up Yakko is doing. Set in the middle of his garden near his swimming pool, the toon peacefully reads his book, occasionally looking away towards the pool, debating to take a dive in but would decides otherwise, not wanting to stop reading at a crucial part of his book. The Warner sighs as his mind reminds him that he will have to work again the next day. Don't get him wrong though, he likes his new upcoming job but the prospect of waking up early after the week end has always been a 'source' of nightmare to him. Checking the time on his phone, he stands up, tuck his book under his right arm and heads inside his which is a classic house you would find in any suburbs. Of course, he knew he could afford a place way better then this thanks to his job but he never saw the need to get a better, bigger place as he is still single. Yakko places his book down and tap the screen on his phone, he wants to socialize with someone but who?
'Most of my ex coworkers are probably busy with their own families. Maybe Otto Scratchansniff? It's been a while since I've seen him again.' Yakko smiles as he browses through his contact list. Back in the days, he loved to turn his psychiatrist's life into a living hell but with the years passing, he kind of regretted it…to this day. Yakko finally finds Scratchy's number and taps it. After a few seconds, the familiar voice is heard.
"Hallo, Scratchy here."
"Hello Scratchy, how are you? It's Yakko." The toon grins as he hears a gasp of surprise from the other side of the phone.
"Yakko, what a pleasant surprise. I'm doing great, how are you doing on your side?"
"Doing good scratchy, I really want to talk to you in person, you know…get some stuffs out of my chest."
"Is it about tomorrow? If you are nervous about it, don't worry, I'm a bit of the same way even though, I've never left the Warner Bros studio." Scratchy lightly chuckles "It will be a blast to see all The Animaniacs cast back again."
"I'm quite stocked, the prospect of a reboot with Steven Spielberg is great and I'll get to see Skippy, Slappy, Buttons, Mindy, Dot…" Yakko trails off and sighs heavily as he knew full well that Wakko would be there.
"As far as I'm concerned, Wakko won't be there." Scratchy quickly interrupts Yakko's thoughts. "I looked at the list of attendees this morning and Wakko's name wasn't on it."
Yakko's heart nearly skips a beat. 'Did he really mean it when he said he wouldn't come back?' He thought.
"You haven't spoken to him recently Yakko?" Scratchy asks with concern in his voice.
"Not…since those events Scratchy. He just left and disappeared. He blocked me everywhere on the social medias. He really didn't want to do anything with me back then."
"Yakko, it wasn't only your fault, it was ours as well. We all vent our frustration on him after the show was canceled. He wasn't having any of it and left…but, I cannot remember what really made us pick him as our punching bag." Scratchy nearly mumbles his last sentence.
"I do, it's when he suggested to keep asking for a new season. It's the true that the show was working very well back then and if we had all added more pressure for a new season, it would have probably worked. We thought his idea was quite literally stupid aaaannndddd that's when we started giving him hell…I guess." Yakko runs his hand on his head, trying to remain composed. "I would do anything to go back and prevent this going further. What a brother I am right?"
"And what friends were we to him…" Otto begins but is cut short.
"Scratchy!" Yakko nearly screams, a realization hitting him like a truck. "What will happen if the fans learn about a reboot without Wakko? It would be a disaster. The number of fans that he has would be extremely disappointed. We would have to explain what happened after the show's cancellation."
"It could be really disastrous indeed; the reunion is tomorrow and I think they are already set on filming you guys for a promotion video." Otto announces "Maybe change the name of the show would be of a proper order? I'll have to talk to Plotz about that. Tell you what, how about you head to the studio right now and let's have a meeting with Plotz?"
"I'm on my way in a bout a few minutes then. I'll be there in about thirty minutes or so." Yakko nods and heads to his room.
"Good, I'll let Plotz know. See you later." And with that, Scratchy hangs up his phone. Yakko quickly changes into a fitting pair of beige pants and a plain white shirt. He heads back into his garden, covers the swimming pool and hops in his car.
He arrives at the Warner Bros lot rather quickly, he is quite happy to see Ralph again being his usual self and after a short little conversation, the guard let him go forward. The toon quickly parks his car and heads for Plotz' office. As he walks in to main hall, he looks around to see if anything changed during all those times but nothing was jumping to Yakko's eyes. 'Seems like time never moved on here.' He arrives in front of the office and knocks twice before hearing a gentle female voice telling him to come in. As he steps in the studio, to his surprise, the whole cast who answered to the call for the reboot was here and judging by the look on their faces, it seems that Otto already announced the problem. Plotz surprisingly is not to angry about but clearly troubled. Yakko looks on his right and sees Hello Nurse closing the door 'Hello Nurse, mama mia, what a voice.' He thought.
"So, Otto told me about your conversation and I must admit I didn't really think about this issue. Thankfully, the reunion tomorrow won't cancelled but we will have to change a few things up."
"We all want to do something together Plotz don't you have other movies or series we could work on?" Dot proposes, trying to get the ball rolling. "A brand-new series would still work."
"I do have a few sci-fi series that are being written at the moment but I don't know, I'll have to see what I can do. The promo video is cancelled but the best thing we can do is think about ideas and quickly, the ideal thing is to have something by tomorrow night. The conference will have a few media attentions so we have to play our cards well. No room for errors." Plotz rubs his chin with his right hand.
"Don't sweat it Plotz, we will have something for sure by then." Rita casually says while sitting next to Runt.
"D-d-d-definitely, w-w-we will have s-s-something." Runt agrees.
'Dang, I missed you guys' Yakko smiles and turns his attention to his sister who was deep in her thoughts.
"Well, we don't have much choices anyways." Scratchy raises his shoulders, feeling a bit down from the current mood that is floating around in the room.
"Well…there is one thing that I can do…" Dot stretches her legs and stares at Scratchy first before turning her gaze to Plotz and then Yakko. "I'll look for Wakko and hopefully have a talk with him into coming back."
A heavy silence falls upon the whole room as her words sinks in everyone's brain. Brain who remained quite discret finally speaks up.
"We have no clue where he is, we don't know where to start looking and even if we know where he is… we don't know how to approach him. Look Dot, I know you are siblings and there are more chances that he listens to you then us but…you really are wishing for the moon at this point…in my opinion…" The mouse trails off, feeling quite uneasy.
"I know Brain, it's quite a stretch but…it will also be the occasion to make things right between us as siblings and hopefully between the us all."
"I'll look to…I've been hiding to long." Yakko walks up to Dot "It will be much better if we go together."
"Won't be too difficult to find him, I actually know where he is." Brain smiles and grabs his pad from his toon-pocket. "When I checked the list this morning, I noticed that Wakko wasn't there so I did decide to check where his about are. I must say that he is hiding pretty well but that wasn't much for someone like me. Let's see…"
"You guys do it between yourselves, we will think about tomorrow." Skippy says as he walks toward the door, assuming that the meeting is now over.
"Sounds good…sounds good." Yakko replies a bit absently. "Just a quick change of subject…there has been a few…weird activities going around in town the last few months. Do you guys have anything about it?"
"Oh yeah, there has been a few 'aliens' mumbo jumbos reports going around. I don't really know more about it but I've never heard more about it." Slappy taps her fingers on her side, slightly amused, clearly not believing the news one bit. "If more news comes by, I swear this town will be new Area 51."
"Oh, please Slappy, we've seen stranger things…" Dot starts but is abruptly cut or answered back by the old squirrel.
"Yeah, it was in the show it wasn't real…also, it is a show and it's not real." Squirrel looks at the viewer a split second and winks. "But anyway…as we said earlier, we have work to do, I think it's best we get to it right now. Enough chit chats."
Everybody nods and are on their ways to leave the office as Plotz sigh heavily and holds his head with both of his hands. 'What a nightmare.'. Is he happy for a new season coming up? Absolutely, he would be lying if he ever said that he didn't missed the crew. Hell, it became his second family in a sense.
Wakko walks on a small path in a forest located about an hour drive away from Burbank, enjoying the peace and quietness that it offers. He looks at his watch and notices that it gets a bit late. 'six thirty, I think it's time to go back home…I guess.' He slowly turns around to go back the way it he came from but something gets his attention. Between the trees quite far from the path, a small creature seems to stare at him curiously. The lower part of the creature's body does not have legs and is not solid but smoky/misty, making the creature levitate. Its higher body is more or less the same with a redder smoke for arms and hands. The head is not well defined and only two round yellow eyes can be seen.
Wakko and the creature stares at each other for a few seconds, scanning each other. The creature slowly turns around and disappear behind the tree; Wakko runs after it, wondering what in the world what did he just saw. As he approaches the tree, he notices that the wisp-like monster or whatever is no longer here but further away, still looking at him and disappearing. 'Maybe he wants me to follow him…' Wakko follows the non-identified living being throughout the forest until they reach an area, barren of trees. At its center, the creature awaits the toon and kneels down in front of something that Wakko couldn't see. A weird light seems to spread from the ground, growing in size and soon covering the whole area. In a flick of a hand, they both disappear…to reappear in the same location…or so the toon thought.
It seems like the same place but as he looks back at the forest, the trees seem to swirl and twist gently back and forth gently. He takes a step forward and the noise reverbs all around him, making him feel like he is in a cave.
"Where am I?" He voices his concern out loud.
"In an alternate universe…if that make sense to you." The creature speaks, nearly making Wakko jumps out of his furres. "Sorry hehehe, you never heard me speak before."
Before Wakko could reply, the alien continues.
"I brought you here so that we can talk…one on one. I have a few things I have to tell you. First of all, my name is Avael and yes… I know who you are, Wakko Warner from the Animaniacs. I never thought I would meet a star in my life." Avael tilt his head to his left side, his expression not changing a bit. "Listen, maybe you have heard of all those 'alien' news reports those few months. Let me tell you right away, they are all…real."
"Woah woah, slow down Avael." Wakko remains distant from Avael, his appearance really freaked him out and everything is going so fast. "First of all, tell me where do you come from? Why are you here and then, what's going on?"
"You are right, I should start from the very beginning. So, as I said, my name is Avael and I'm from a different universe plane from yours. Now, in my plane, we live in a more…advanced world then yours in terms of 'nature'. We have magic. Your world does not if I'm not mistaken…anyway, our kind are used to magic, we use magic daily to do things around and we are usually cool and calm in our own bubble. However, your plane met ours a few months ago and this event is troublesome."
"How so?" Wakko scratches his head.
"We like to live in darkness. Our eyes are made to see in pure darkness so naturally, we hate light. When our planes met each other, yours brought light into ours and it hurts us a lot. Our kind is not pleased with this and they want to get rid of this light so that we fall back into darkness again. For this to happen however, we have to destroy your plane."
"Wouldn't it be easier to wait the two planes to part ways?" Wakko's heart rate increases slightly, everything so far seems crazy enough but he couldn't help believing the whole story.
"Here is the issue. When two planes meets they tend to fuse together and become one plane but they aren't meant to be in the same space and time. They will self-destruct in the end."
"And why talking me bout it? I'm not special and I'm surely no hero." The toon crosses his arms and takes a good look around again.
"I…I think I can prevent this disaster from happening but…I cannot do it alone." Avael stares at Wakko, his yellow eyes glowing slightly. "The thing is if something is not done, our worlds will go to war against each other before disappearing."
"You have a point, also, didn't you mention the few 'aliens' incidents that happened a few months ago? Do you know anything about it?"
"Yes. So, a few of my kind decided to cross over to your world and scout ahead to see if there are major threats. Once they have done their job…they will give the green light for the main force to come and start the wipeout of your world. If you decide to help me, I'll have to train you and give you a weapon. Your weapons won't deal damages to us."
"I'm surprised at how open you are about it…I need time to think, even for a toon like me, it's a lot to take in." Wakko run his right hand through his long tuff of hair. 'I hope I'm hallucinating' he says quietly to himself.
"We don't have a lot of time Wakko…" Avael floats closer to Wakko and lay a hand on his right shoulder.
Wakko notes the warmth emanating from Avael's hand.
"So, what do you want me to do?" Wakko feels quite helpless.
"I want you to learn magic this is the only way you can at least defend your world, your loved ones, yourself." Avael tilts his head slightly to the right. "I won't hide that I'm looking forward to see what kind of magic you will wield but for this, you will have to come in my world."
"Avael, excuse me but what the hell? Isn't this suicide? If I or you get caught…"
"Yes, we will be doomed, the thing is, I can teleport both of us to The Source. The Source is a sort of breach where magic flows in our world. I've been there a few thousand times so I can jump there without problem."
"well…let's do it now…I guess."