AUTHOR'S NOTE: Heya! Sorry that this took so long to come out. I kinda...forgot it existed, to be honest. I put it on the back burner. And so, here's chapter two, which doesn't have shenanigans at the mansion, but it does have a journey. Now, on with the reading.

The Mad King looked around his lab. He was going to miss the blinking dials and the silver walls. He was going to miss his new security detail, his former foes X-Ray and Vav. He trusted that they could take care of the lab. He unfolded the note and read its directions. He took his suitcase and his bag and walked to the bus stop.

He waited for half an hour before the bus arrived. It was a greyhound with the logo printed into the hubcaps. The door opened and he stepped aboard. Looking at the people on the bus, he saw a black haired woman reading a magazine, Spellcasters' Quarterly, a blond person with spiky hair and a huge sword who was napping, and a buff guy with a torn white ghi holding a dnd character sheet and thepplayer's handbook, looking confused He sat next to the person in the ghi.

"Hello, my muscle bound compatriot." The Mad King said and extended his hand. The man in the ghi looked at him and said "Ryu" in a short way and shook his hand once. "Very nice to meet you, Ryu." Ryu withdrew his hand and went back to his work. The Mad King adjusted his crown and briefly cleared his throat. "May I sit here?" He asked awkwardly, which was a totally new expirence for him. He was waved off by The World Warrior.

He walked toward the napping guy. His blond hair was almost impossibly pointy. The Mad King fought a very hard impulse to just slap around one of the points to see if he used product in his hair. He chose to sit in a vacant seat and look out the window as the bus wound through the streets, past the dumpster, where Rusty was milling through, probably for more garbage and into the tunnel.

Tunnel? There wasn't a tunnel in this side of town. The Mad King looked and saw that at the end of the tunnel, there was what looked like black smoke, or a dark fog. When the bus passed through the end of the tunnel, The Mad King looked for something in the landscape. He was quite confused by what he saw, or rather, what he didn't see.

There felt like there should be a vast expanse before him, but he could see nothing. There was a thick layer of shadows over what should have been buildings, and higher up, the architecture was obscured by what looked like thick smoke. The shadows only covered what was outside of 30 feet from the eye, and all that could be seen was a brick sidewalk, but it looked completely bleached of all color, as if the clay hadn't been baked into the bricks, but rather molded into it. A little bit of curb was seen, and the bus stopped at a rickety bus stop, or what could be considered a bus stop in this desolate place, as it was only a small bench and a sign.

The bench looked like it was a solid wood, like a mahogany or a solid dark oak, but the coloration resembled a coolish slate color. The sign was also devoid of any color, and, in fact, The Mad King wondered if there was any color in this world other than gray. He didn't have to look long, as he found a bright, almost annoyingly so, vermillion that poked out from the shadows, that looked like eyes, if one was looking closely.

"Is this the bus to Smash Mansion?"

A voice that was strong and deep, but sounded like it was coming from a distance, asked the driver. When the driver nodded, the color vanished, and a shadow rose up from the bus stop, and took the form of a humanoid wolf, dark fur with a slate underbelly, eyes that were a striking sky blue color. His clothing was a slate shirt, a dark suit jacket, and dark pants but what was attention grabbing was the amulet hanging on his neck, the same color as the eyes that had just vanished. He had a small bindle with him, and when he was told that this was the bus, he climbed aboard it.

When the driver asked him to show what Master Hand had given him to show that he had earned the right to smash mansion. The wolf blushed and held out his amulet, which was emblazoned with the logo, and showed the driver the official seal on a blank letter that had come in the mail to them. The driver nodded and shook his head back to the bus, where those vibrant cerulean eyes locked with the same colored, but paler eyes of the Lab's Monarch. With a bold stride, he walked down the aisle, passing by all the other fighters, and sat next to the Mad King.

"Hello. You must have been quite strong in order to be Hand-selected like this."

The wolf's voice was deep, like the one from the red-eyed creature, but it didn't have the same distant quality.

"Indeed. In my world, I was once a malevolent force that fought the heroes. They beat my boss, they beat my rival for them, they beat my lackeys, they beat me, and they foiled my schemes. However, I showed true remorse after they did, and so they let me out to my lab again. I have been upgrading their gadgets and helping them protect the city from evildoers, but the combats aren't enough anymore."

The wolf flicked his ear and smoothed the fur on the top of his head that could have been considered hair, if he were a human.

"Pretty cool. What's up with that crown?"

The Mad King took the crown off his head. "Oh, this old thing?" He smiled at the dark wolf. "Just a relic from my villain days, a handy weapon at long ranges." His eyes went up and down the mysterious figure, noting that the amulet had changed, slightly. The stone was originally a solid, red color, but now a hazy veneer like coating was over the stone.

"What about that talisman of yours, you mysterious wolf? And…may I get your name?"

The wolf gently touched the periapt that was on his lapel, and a thousand thoughts rushed through his head. "My name is Romulus, and this amulet is my Smoke-Brother, Remus." Romulus looked down at the amulet, and the haze covering the stone bubbled, like it was angry. The Lab's Monarch looked at Brother Smoke-Wolf with quite a confused gaze as the bus pulled up to the dimensional line, and onto the grounds of the Smash Mansion.

ANOTHER AUTHOR'S NOTE: The next chapter will come out soon-ish, and by that I mean in less time than it took this one to come out. This one will focus more on the presentation of Romulus and Remus, in sort of the presentation style of meeting others in the story of which this is a derivative work.