Chapter Three: The Third Degree
One portal and several totally confused airport security officials later, Rashida finally pocketed her Neuralyzer as the two agents took their seats in the plane to DK Island; conveniently, there were seats available just behind the canons in second-class. The plane trip went pretty smoothly as the chapter started.
The Incredibles: Rise of the Galeforces - Chapter 12: DK Island
En route to Donkey Kong island, 6:00 PM, Saturday, March 15, 1980
[Vi:] I woke with a jolt of fright. Another nightmare, this one involving a storm, and a broken fence... and a Tyrannosaurus rex.
I was on the plane the government had chartered us, sitting next to my boyfriend Adam. on the opposite end of the aisle was his sister Sarah, my brother Dash, and our new friend Diddy Kong.
"T-teeth..." I gasped. "S-so... m-many... t-teeth..."
And then Diddy Kong started tickling Sarah's feet. Rashida sighed bitterly and covered her face with her hands, while Falchion watched a period floating by due to another poorly edited sentence a few lines later.
"There's only going to be more of those types of scenes, isn't there?" she growled.
"The authors certainly like to stick 'em in whenever they feel like it," Falchion mused as Sarah chided Diddy for tickling her. "Oh, that reminds me. One thing I should've noted earlier is that these guys apparently got some help from a third author for the Kongs' dialogue. It's another part of the script-first-person cross-breeding we're experiencing here; I'm beginning to think that this fic was the result of a role-play between multiple people."
"People can role-play to write fanfic?"
"It's a bit tough, but not impossible. You need all the writers involved to be available at the same time so they can cooperate and prevent anyone from taking over their characters. Or you can simply do it in a forum thread and let other people jump in with their own ideas. I remember someone tried that on the /co/ board of 4chan once."
"Out of morbid curiosity, which continuua were involved?"
"Kim Possible, American Dragon: Jake Long, Ben 10, My Life as a Teenage Robot, Danny Phantom, El Tigre, and Randy Cunningham: 9th Grade Ninja. And maybe a few others but I may have missed 'em. It was an… interesting experience reading it, to say the least. Though this being 4chan, the grammar could've used some work."
Rashida paused for a moment to process this, and then scoffed. "They really should stop giving people Internet access at FicPsych."
"Technically, I read the version, but still. How did you guess?"
"Oh, I don't know. I just guessed. And I had no idea you could read either."
"FicPsych can do amazing stuff, my friend. You just need to get them when they're in a good mood. Then, all you have to do is ask."
Then Donkey Kong referred to going to the moon, twice in fact.
"He's not referring to the ending of Donkey Kong Country Returns, isn't he?" Rashida asked, watching a "(DK)" as it floated past them.
"If he said he visited the moon twice, he could also be referring to that one episode of the Donkey Kong Country TV series. I haven't seen it myself, though, so I can't pin down any specifics — most of my knowledge revolves around DKCR and DKC: Tropical Freeze. One of my false memories concerns playing the Wii version of DKCR."
"Oh yeah, I forgot about the memory thing. Didn't the Stu comment about being okay with the new color scheme of his pterosaur form?"
"I'm okay with it, really," Falchion quoted. "I mean, we pterosaurs can escape danger in a jiffy and we rely on vision to communicate, so it's only logical that we were real-life examples of Amazing Technicolor Wildlife."
"Charge for directly referencing TV Tropes?"
"Maybe. But like he said, I wouldn't sweat myself over the suit too much, personally. If anything, the 'internal suit' mentioned earlier actually gives him a reason to have that color scheme, so props to that. Of course, had he sported those colors naturally..."
"Point taken."
The group landed without too much fuss, since Helen being able to fly the plane was a skill she had in canon. Falchion stifled a chuckle when he read Adam's narrative.
[Adam:] I stumbled out of the plane, airsick and a bit disoriented, with the other kids following behind. "We're there yet," I said. "Who would've thought a pterosaur could get airsick?"
[Vi:] "Adam, stop complaining," I said. "We've got business to attend to."
"Why, in the sacred name of Bastet, would a pterosaur get airsick?" Rashida scowled as the agents disembarked themselves and took cover in some jungle ferns.
"Comedy," Falchion said simply, wiping the sweat from his brow as he watched Sarah take off to scout the place. "Whew, it's pretty warm. Might as well take back what I said about wanting my armor. If I weren't disguised, I'd be cooking in my own skin."
"Don't press your luck, kiddo. We've got a long way to go just yet. Oh, look, another Random Tickle Scene. Argh. And it looks like the authors aren't going to leave the boys out of the 'fun'."
Falchion's human toes curled as Dash and the Stu were assaulted by several carnivorous plants, but he grabbed the camera and taped the Stu getting his feet tickle-attacked anyway. His partner muttered about putting a curse on him, but he ignored her.
A whole lot of "HA"s and "HE"s later, Diddy managed to bail out the canon and the Stu, and the canons headed off to Cranky Kong's hut. The agents pushed aside jungle vegetation, along with the occasional "(Cranky)" and "(DK)", as they followed them.
Rashida ran a C-CAD scan on Cranky Kong as he emerged from the hut. It turned up a surprisingly positive reading: [Cranky Kong. Kong male. Donkey Kong Country canon. Out of Character 15.20%.]
"Apparently, Cranky Kong is pretty good at potion making in canon," said Falchion. "He put that skill to use in Donkey Kong 64. I'm not sure about helping out a flock of mutated birds, though."
"His primary concerns are the Kongs, but DK did ask him to help out some friends. He may be old and irritable, but he isn't averse to lending a hand when needed."
The two of them watched as the Stu and Sarah regrouped, with the former trying to scare the latter and then promptly losing a tickle fight with her in return. "The group's splitting up. Who should we follow?"
Falchion checked the RA. "Violet and Sarah have a rather… 'ticklish' run-in with some spider enemies from the DKC continuum after this. I'd tape it but we both know how you are with that. Then Diddy rejoins them with Dixie Kong in tow. The next chapter is actually pretty short — David, Bob, and Dash fight Dynacide in the Ruins, or World 3, of Donkey Kong Island."
Rashida looked at him in surprise. "The hybrid of Dynaguy and Stormicide?"
"They get rid of him pretty quickly. I'll charge ahead of time for wasting an opportunity for an interesting fight, because Dynacide is theoretically supposed to be difficult to get rid of, with gas powers and energy beams and the like."
"How do you — "
"Save the discussion about my 'knowledge' for later. I'd rather not get jumped by a scene shift mid-conversation."
Rashida shot him a nasty look, but let it slide. The kid could have his way. For now. "Right. Where to, then?"
"World 6, Factory, Chapter 14. It'll be relatively safe."
"Relatively?"
She followed him through the portal he opened anyway. Like she had a choice.
A moment later, they stepped into a dark chamber in the middle of the factory. The Stu and his friends were examining a TV playing some footage from the Jurassic Park movies. Rashida looked at the Words and snarled angrily.
[Adam:] The TV was showing security footage from... the facilities at Isla Nublar!
Just as a hurricane was sweeping over the island, a fat man in a rain coat was switching off the electric fences. The cameras then switched to a Tyrannosaurus attacking a jeep, Velociraptors rampaging through the visitor center, and mutant Pteranodons terrorizing the aviary.
"Jurassic Park had been sabotaged," I realized. "And I think I know the folks behind it..."
[Sarah:] I rased an eyebrow... again. "Wait! Are you saying the guy in the raincoat was sent by Aperture?"
[Diddy:] "Guys, we gotta hurry..." I said hearing a familiar buzzing.
[Adam:] "Dennis Nedry," I explained. "He was killed by a spitter mere hours after his rash act. Good riddance, but what's more... Aperture never did intend to form a merger."
[Diddy:] I heard a buzzing right behind me. "Guys?" I asked.
[Adam:] "They set up InGen..." I turned to see the source of the noise. "...so they could steal the DNA they needed for their final procedure."
Rashida shook her head and made a "tsk" noise. "Aperture has nothing to do with genetic engineering in canon. Nothing. If the antagonist company was the Umbrella Corporation from Resident Evil — or better yet, the MTHR from Dino Crisis 3 — it would have made more sense, notwithstanding yet another timeline being utterly fucked over. Or two. The authors must've shoehorned Aperture into the story simply because of popular appeal."
"Um… Rashida?"
"Be quiet! Can't you see I'm busy?!"
"No, I'm serious! You know what's making that buzzing noise, right?"
Rashida turned around to face him, only to see a swarm of Zingers from the original DKC series flying toward the agents and the badfic characters. "Oh, right," she said in a hasty, apologetic manner as everyone took off like a shot.
As the two agents ducked and dodged the Zingers' attacks (well, tried to — Rashida did a pretty good job for what it was worth, but Falchion wasn't as lucky and ended up receiving quite a few nicks and scratches), they kept an eye on the Stu. King Zing, one of the bosses from the Rare DKC games, showed up and attempted to attack the "heroes", but Terrordactyl proceeded to fend him off. Then they finally found Colonel Pluck again, who helped bail out the Stu with an explosive enemy of his own. King Zing managed to survive the blast with mild injuries, as video game bosses often do in these games, but the point was that everyone got out safely.
"I take back what I said about ditching my armor," said Falchion as he nursed a painful cut where a Zinger had slashed his arm. "Uh-oh. Scene shift!"
Falchion portaled to the next scene with his partner at his heels. They arrived at Colonel Pluck's facilities, where the group was discussing Adam's findings. The disguised Sphinx grumbled to herself as Diddy and Dixie tickled Sarah's feet as a Funny Background Event(™), but Falchion was paying more attention to the rest of the family and their conversation in particular.
[Adam:] "Most of the facilities are located on the neighboring Isla Sorna," I said. "The raptors nest at the center of the island, and not coincidentally, that's where the defunct facilities are. I'll bet my diet soda allowance that Aperture is hiding their Supers there."
"So, it looks like we'll be heading off to Isla Sorna," said Falchion. "How soon will it be before we get there? This mission is already taking long enough as it is."
"Two more chapters and this episode is done. The chapter right after this one takes us back to Tropicopolis for a while. It's mostly lower-deck stuff, though, so I wouldn't bother."
"I still think we should check on the other characters, though. Let's do that real quick and head to Isla Sorna."
"Ugh, fine. Fine!"
The Incredibles: Rise of the Galeforces - Chapter 15: Rescue Mission
Tropicopolis, 7:00 PM, Saturday, March 15, 1980
[Neo:] A few weeks ago, Tropicopolis was a paradise, at least from what I'd heard. But now, it was almost a wasteland.
With Aperture's monstrosities, like Dynacide, on the loose, few people were out on the streets, even in such pleasant weather as this. But while the Parrs were away we had recieved a few tips from Macroburst and Phylange, and we'd agreed to continue scouring this land.
Not that I minded... I'd spent the past 10 years in a holding tank, and the past 20 years before in a virtual world built by machines trying to take over the planet. Which made me wonder... was the Matrix a result of Aperture's tinkering?
I tried not to think about it as Chell and I headed through the streets in search of Aperture's wherabouts. Any manhole could lead down to their facilities, but which one should we try first?
[Chell:] I was a little...well, okay, a LOT more relaxed than Neo was at the moment. It kinda made me feel sorry for the guy, it was a nice day too. I was wearing a sleaveless shirt, some shorts and a pair of sandles on my feet. I looked at neo and shook my head in disbelief. "How can ANYONE stay this grumpy on a nice day like this?" I asked him as we waled.
[Neo:] "Keep your head in the game, Chell," I reminded her. "This isn't a vacation, this is a reconnaisance mission."
The agents were promptly joined by neo the mini-Sentinel, a floating, squid-like robot with a shiny black exterior. Falchion fell in love instantly, glomping and hugging the mini with a rather bird-like squee. His partner purposely ignored him.
"Well, look who it is," Rashida said snidely as she led the Skarmory agent and his new friend after the canons. "Mr. Perfect and Mrs. Silent Snarker, acting a tad OOC."
"And operating as a couple," Falchion added, cuddling the mini-Squiddie and toying with one of its mechanical tentacles like a piece of string. "At least, that's what I'm thinking of based on what the Words are saying."
"Wait, there's a bit of ship-teasing here?" asked Rashida. "I'll consider it a charge because they have little reason to get together if at all, and they didn't get to know each other in detail until this chapter."
"Well, they've both been influenced by rampant technology on a scale far beyond their initial suspicion," I pointed out. "And they both fight against a rebellious AI system at some point. So these two can relate to each other in at least a few ways. And Chell could've reminded Neo of Trinity too."
"Trinity? Why her?"
"Can't say anything without spoiling The Matrix Revolutions, alas. But you get my point."
"You mean you actually support this couple?"
"Admittedly. It's a crack-ship, yes, but I ship it all the same. Still, we should list it as a charge. You have to tread with extreme care if you want a crossover between The Matrix and Portal done right. Not in the least because the former takes place a couple hundred years in the future."
Suddenly, Neo (a.k.a. Thomas Anderson) found himself in the custody of some familiar mechanical equipment. Rashida stiffened, her neck prickling. "Oh, ibn almitneka. She's back."
"Who, the tickle-bot from Episode 1?"
"And Neo's about to get the feather. Falchion, I — "
But before she could say anything else, he had grabbed the camera and dashed off to find them.
[Neo:] Yeah, I guess I could have been a bit nicer. But whatever the case I wasn't going to let this... thing... have it so easy.
"Hehehehehehehehe whahahahahahahat ahahahahahare you dohohohohohoing?!"
"Speak, Neo. Where has our escaped experiment gone?"
"Hahahahahahaha I dohohohohohohohon't knohohohohohow! Stohohohohohohohop! Pleheheheheahahahahase!"
[Chell:] I looked at my watch a few more seconds while I listened to his cute laugh and THEN i'd save him.
[Neo:] In all honesty, I was glad to have at least SOME way of lightening up. All that artificial BS was becoming pretty old, and I'd had to maintain a straight face for too many years or something.
Still, GlaDos WAS being pushy. I tried wiggling my toes, but those cables got in between them as well, making the torment worse (or better, if you think about it).
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHELP MEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHE!"
Rashida found Falchion just in front of the window into the room, taping Neo's torment with the camera from earlier.
"Falchion!" she snarled, keeping her voice low enough so that the canons wouldn't hear them. "What in Hathor's udders are you doing?!"
Falchion looked at her, his face flushing pink, but his expression quickly turned territorial. "Oh, I'm so sorry, Rose," he snapped back. "I just can't help but record these kinds of scenes!"
Rashida blinked, not breaking her glare at the disguised Armor Bird. "Rose?"
"It's short for Rosetta. You know, like the Stone? Your name reminds me of it. As does your eye color…"
"I already have a boyfriend in my own home continuum, you perverse tin turkey. Now for Nut's sake, put that away! You know why we're in this fic, don't you?"
"Oh, all right, if you insist. Rosie." Falchion dodged her swipe at his face, shutting the camera and stuffing it and the mini-Sentinel into his bag as Chell broke Neo free.
[Chell:] I didn't answer. I just gave him my "smug look of doom." "oh this is rich." I teased. "the great Neo, the Chosen One... ticklish on his feet. ^^"
[Neo:] "And proud of it," I said, adding tickling to the relatively short list of things I was taking a liking to.
The agents followed the two canons as they met up with Macroburst and Phylange, who had apparently called them in for backup. Rashida tried running a C-CAD scan on the four of them, just to see what would happen.
[Wendell Zuckerman, a.k.a. Wendell Zucks a.k.a. Macroburst. Human male. Original Replacement Original ReplacementOriginal ReplacementOriginalReplacementwhyareyoustaringatmelikeI'vegotananswer?]
[Dean Cartman, a.k.a. Phylange. Human male. Replacement Original Character Do Not Steal Or I Will Beat Yo Ass To Next Week.]
[Chell. Human female. Portal canon. Out of Character 71.20%. WARNING! CHARACTER RUPTURE IMMINENT!]
[Neo, a.k.a. Thomas Anderson. Human male. Matrix canon. Out of Character 75.20%. WARNING! CHARACTER RUPTURE IMMINENT!]
"Wendell and Dean turn up fine, relatively speaking, but I don't understand Chell and Neo," Falchion noted. "I mean, they're already shipped as a pair, but…"
"Chell doesn't speak in the games," Rashida explained. "She chooses not to because she prefers to use actions instead. Having her talk at all is one thing, but in such a playful, almost flirtatious manner? That's an automatic red flag. And then there's Neo liking the thought of being captured and tickle-interrogated by machinery. If you know how he fought against Agent Smith in the movies, you know he would've attacked GLaDOS on sight."
"Wow, this author is really having issues trying to keep his characters together," Falchion muttered. "At least the OCs/Replacements/what-have-yous aren't too bad."
Rashida glared at him. "With one exception. Or two. Or a dozen."
"Okay, fine," he cringed. "They tend to vary from 'annoying but otherwise passable' to 'utterly infuriating'. Happy?"
Rashida rolled her eyes at the disguised bird. "Let's just get to the next chapter already. The gang fights King Krok and bust out Metaman. Yawn, I'm so bored, yadda yadda."
"I'll just end off this chapter by saying this author must've been suffering a case of idol worship for the Matrix trilogy if he wanted to include Neo that badly," Falchion noted. "To be fair, I remember seeing all three movies, but that's a false memory. I'll probably marathon the trilogy again sometime so I can say that I've seen them for real."
They portaled back to Donkey Kong Island and Chapter 16.
"I'm curious, Falchion — why do you have those memories in the first place?" Rashida asked. "What makes you say with confidence that you've seen movies or played games that you've never even heard of? And in the case of the latter, how were you able to play games if you never had thumbs?"
"If I did know, I don't think you'd be happy if I told you," Falchion replied sourly. "Curiosity killed the cat, as they say."
"But satisfaction brought it back," Rashida finished. "That's the rarely heard other half of the saying. Basically, the more I know about this problem, the better prepared we'll be for the events to come."
"Including Isla Sorna?"
"Especially Isla Sorna."
"Well, the gang's about to leave by another government-chartered plane. We can sneak on board and wait for the next chapter to start up. I can explain things to you in the meantime."
"Suit yourself."
The agents snuck onto the plane just before the others made it in, and after witnessing the canons share a sappy goodbye scene with the Kongs, they buckled their seat-belts as said plane took off, not unlike a commercial jet. Even during a second time, flying in a plane still felt odd to Falchion, more like a long relaxing trip in a vehicle than an exhilarating thrill.
After some end-of-chapter narrative by Violet, it took them half an hour to reach cruising altitude, and during that time, the Skarmory agent noticed that the canons were not doing anything at all. The only two figures who seemed to be even remotely active were Sarah, who was trying to rouse the rest of her family from their odd stupor, and the Stu, who was talking to himself, repeating lines from the previous chapters.
As they flew off into the sunset, the Author's Note boomed in the sky around them, declaring that the author was "going to revert to posting artwork soon."
Falchion spent a good hour or two playing with the mini-Omnidroids, rolling them around in his hands and studying all the minute details of their various paint jobs. It wasn't until night began to fall around the plane, with not a scene shift in sight, that he noticed something was off. And he wasn't the only one.
"You know, I've noticed that Episode 3 hasn't started yet," said Rashida, making the disguised Armor Bird turn around to look at her. "It's like time is proceeding without any scene changes between the chapter cuts. I wonder why that's the case."
"I'm not too sure myself," said Falchion. "But I think I heard the author imply that he was going into a hiatus after the previous chapter."
"So that means the fic was left hanging indefinitely until the author decided to return to it?"
"Most likely."
"So we have enough time to think about how you got those memories, then."
"Yeah, I guess so," he warbled out a dry laugh.
"Then explain yourself. What do you remember about your history? And what specific false memories can you recall?"
Falchion took a moment to draw in a deep breath. "I already mentioned that most of my history as a Pokémon involves being a non-canonical evolutionary relative of Skarmory — Skarmy, if you will. I was born to a mated pair of a female Skarmory and a Braviary, the latter of whom I inherited my Brave Bird move from. Again, however, Skarmy's existence contradicted with canon, and Skarmory aren't native to Unova, either, so I logically couldn't exist as a result. Cue the Puff of Logic that led me to the PPC via a Plot Hole."
"So your bravado is clearly hereditary, then," she chuckled harshly. "That explains so much. Except, of course, for the false memories."
"Oh, those? They never came up when I was growing up in my home continuum. It wasn't until my therapy in FicPsych and my exposure to the various continuua you guys deal with that I started remembering them. It was as though… someone was… implanting them into my head."
"Someone was implanting them? So, it's like an author was inserting a non-canonical backstory into your own?"
"Yeah. I remember being a winged Pokémon trainer once, complete with a romantic relationship with Violet. And don't get me started on the SparkleDactyl(™) in front of us."
"So there are more of them? More of these 'personas' of yours?"
That turned a few gears in his head. Personas were created by authors. And if this Stu was also a persona he remembered existing as at some point…
"Hey, do you mind if I duck out for, oh, a couple of hours?" he asked as he unbuckled his seatbelt and stood up. "I need to do some reading."
"Excuse me, I'm asking you a question."
"I might have an answer to that, but I need to look it up, just to be sure."
She looked at him, a bit puzzled, and then shrugged. "Whatever you like. At least you have something to do."
"Tell me about it," he laughed. And with that, he opened a portal and slipped out of sight.
It was a full hour before the disguised Skarmory returned, during which Rashida decided to catch some much-needed shut-eye. Needless to say, she was understandably annoyed when the blue glow of the portal stirred her to consciousness, but she let it slide. The two had more important things to worry about, after all.
She rubbed her eyes blearily as she looked up to see her partner, back in his human disguise, settle down next to her again. The look on his face was midway between fascinated and, for some reason, disturbed.
"Did you find out anything?" she asked him.
"Well," he responded slowly, in an unexpectedly dull tone for such a typically cheeky avian Pocket Monster, "let's just say that a lot of my questions have been answered."
"Go on," she replied sleepily.
"The author of the fic we're in, Shadow-Aspect, is actually one of several deviantART accounts," Falchion explained. "The particular account that posted this fic is actually focused on fetish-related artwork, especially tickling. It's why we encountered so many scenes of this nature so far."
"Does that have anything to do with the fact that you taped some of them?"
"Oh I don't know. Maybe, maybe not. Anyway, Shadow-Aspect has two other currently active accounts — well, had, anyway, since he left deviantART sometime last year for personal reasons. My guess is that he's a college student and that his course work became too intense for him to have a personal life as well."
"But why hasn't this fic been deleted?" asked Rashida. "Is he still active on the Internet?"
"Actually, yes. Several people who created art for him noted that he actually has a couple of Tumblr accounts nowadays (hypocrisy notwithstanding, of course). And here's the kicker: the one devoted to safe-for-work interests, and the most active one at the current time, is named… (Pause for dramatic effect…) SkarmorySilver."
Rashida was too groggy to react to Falchion's pronouncing the parentheses, but she sat bolt upright the moment she heard the author's Tumblr username. "You can't be serious."
"I tweet you not, Rose," he responded, earning a momentary Mean Look from his partner. "Not only that, but his defunct deviantART account is also called FawkesTheSkarmory. Looking up some of the old art on that account, I alighted upon a persona he created years ago, a Skarmory named Fawkes..."
"And?" She waited for the metaphorical other shoe to drop.
"I think… Since both FawkesTheSkarmory and SkarmorySilver have used Skarmory personas, and since I share the same memories as the Gary Stu, who may be an author insert…" He gasped in shock as the thought occurred to him, pressing a hand to his forehead. "The memories… FawkestheSkarmory… Oh, Bird Jesus! It all makes sense now!"
It took Rashida a moment to comprehend what he was saying, but as soon as she did, her eyes widened in shock, and then narrowed in anger. Her voice turned as sharp as the claws of her original form, making Falchion cringe with fright.
"Falchion! You never told me you wrote this khara!"
He blinked at her, completely blindsided. "What the flock, Rose?"
"That's your answer to everything, you clueless tin turkey! Don't you get it? You're the persona of this fic's author! It all makes sense — your memories as the Stu, your preferences towards the subject matter, everything! You should know that means you wrote all of this!"
"Whoa whoa whoa, where's the logic in that? This fic was completed in flocking 2012, for Zapdos's sake! Besides, wouldn't the Gary Stu already take care of the 'author persona' part?"
"That doesn't mean anything. FawkestheSkarmory appeared much earlier. He could've been you for all I know!"
"Really, now? Neither Fawkes nor any of his Pokémon personas were ever used in any known literature, and he certainly didn't write anything. What makes you think I write at all, let alone badfic like this?"
"The fact that you channel the author's character, for a start."
He hesitated, trying to comprehend the meaning of this statement. "Huh," he said finally. "You have a point there. If the author has interest in feet and tickling, then logically I also have an interest in feet and tickling. Guess that explains why I taped those scenes earlier."
"And now you're confirming the notion," she muttered bitterly. "I will never understand your logic, Falchion."
"You're telling me," he pouted, turning his head to nuzzle the shoulder of his that was farther from her, not unlike a bird tucking its head under its wing. "Chirp what you will, Rosie, but I still stand by my original statement that I had no involvement in any of this fowl play whatsoever. I didn't write any anachronistic crossovers, I didn't write any stupid personas with the intent of courtship with my favorite character from my favorite Pixar film, and I certainly didn't write anything even remotely close to the epic bloodbath starting from Chapter 29! Now if you'll excuse me…"
He was about to close his eyes and get some sleep himself, when the disguised Sphinx's hand lashed out and seized his shoulder so tightly, he could've sworn he could feel her fingernails scraping against his scapula. He yelped in pain, turning to see that her eyes had gone wide with what he could only assume was an Alexandrian Death Stare.
"Did you say... bloodbath?" she snarled, her voice taking on a quiet but ice-cold, steely tone she would've otherwise reserved for when she was just about to rip someone's throat out with her teeth.
It took a moment for his brain to catch up with what his mouth had said, but when it did, his eyes widened too until they looked like Ping-Pong balls with pupils. Horrified, he slowly turned his head away from her, and summarized the sudden gravity of their situation not with a bird pun, but with two simple words:
"Oh. Shit."
