Simpsons Meet Brandy and Mr. Whiskers

Chapter 4: Open Freedom

Beginning AN: Well, let's get this story over with and move on to new and exciting horizons! (Starting with... more conclusions of things I've already published.) See the Final Thoughts at the end for what I plan to get back to after this.


With one fierce battle cry, Brandy brought down the trusty Tooth against her former stranded-buddy. Comforting her, it cut through Whiskers's flesh like a hot knife through melting butter - something unexpected for a beast of that size.

Whiskers hissed through his teeth at the pain. Spawning an arm just to bring it down, Brandy feared the boat flipping over completely from the resulting shake. Water tossed around them, threatening to dip the Florida pooch in, a fate she saved herself from by grabbing on to a rail.

"You know, I'm only fighting you in the first place because you were my friend. Giving you this extra time. Giving you one extra chance to join me. If you want to refuse, I can just dunk you in the ocean right now and fly over to the nearest rocket launch base." He taunted.

"All you're doing is letting your guard down!" Brandy yelled back. "Actually, I appreciate it! Keep letting me win!"

This same newly-crafted arm delt another swipe, knocking the blade clear from her hands. It was mercifully sent sliding along the longer end of the ship until it was blocked by the entrance to its lower decks. With one tendril, Whiskers attempted to pick it back up, but hissed at the pain it radiated.

Brandy, meanwhile, was already on the run to get her biggest form of self-defense back. It was not until after she rose her shield again that she realized something: Why didn't I dip the Nail in that light pool thingy too? I wish I thought of that...

Within seconds flat, the enormous abomination was already right up to Brandy. And no response to a physical attack could match the sheer terror she felt when she heard him inhaling all that was below him. Both flesh and... spirit.

Despite being inexperienced with having her soul's feelings and body's feelings seperate, Brandy somehow knew that what she was dealing with was her soul slipping out from her body. A second her, one more mental in nature, that was running alongside her corporeal counterpart. Brandy shuttered as these two personas separated, her control over the more physical of the two starting to weaken. Barely, just barely, she reached a hand out at the trusty Tooth, instantly feeling herself snap back in place as she got a hold of it. She could practically hear Whiskers whimper something about "Being so close..." before she flipped around, weapon fully in hand.

Wasting no time, Brandy dashed on forth just to raise her shield at the sight of Whiskers's new form breathing out some kind of purple flames on the ship. There was a tone of bitter hissing as the Nail successfully deflected whatever kind of flame-derivative he tried to throw, leading to another series of arms being generated from his centipede-like, slightly serpantine form.

Experimenting, Brandy decided to use the Tooth to try slashing out at the flames. And sure enough, large chunks of them well wider in range than the sword's length were being extinguished as she slashed. Whiskers stopped this barrage of fire-breath in favor of a simple sigh once he understood what was going on, bracing himself for Brandy's next attack.

His arms reached at and clawed the deck of the ship, forcing Brandy to start thinking about timing her dodges. He already knew that being as dynamic as possible would reduce any chance of getting sliced, so he wildly clawed around ahead of himself. He even threw in extra arms, moreso than his already massive limb count. Brandy stopped to take a breath in, raising an eyebrow in curiosity as he appeared strained and tired after stopping at about twelve arms. Limits... even a behemoth like him had limits.

Instead of trying to risk the timing, Brandy chose the... riskier option of diving off the side of the boat, aiming for part of Whiskers's tail. The centipede demon flinched in surprise as she flew parallel to the left edge of the boat, then let out a cry in pain as she stabbed one of his segments wrapped around the side. A not-entirely-unpredictable action followed next, which was the stabbed part beginning to sizzle and turn to steam as part of it dissolved.

He shifted his weight around - just to regret it as he rocked along the boat itself. With a series of stabs, Brandy was able to sink herself partly into the mid-body of Whiskers, with his only method of fighting back being to generate hand-like objects that prformed strikes which didn't appear to do anything. He silently counted out, "Two strike, four strike, eight strike, sixteen strike, thirty-two strike, sixty-four strike, one hundred twenty-eight strike, two hundred fifty-six strike..." before stopping. Brandy continued digging her way inside, giving herself a small smile once she plunged into the darkness that was the belly of the beast and finally being shielded from all the rain.

Then she remembered. Back upon encountering Pigman City for the first time...

"Two hundred fifty-seven: Tail Hit!"

From the faint glow of her sword, she could tell that he spawned a cotton tail from outside which traveled into the inner, oily blackness of his self. She soon no longer needed the sword, as the tail itself glowed a bright purple, smacking her in the face.

"I know I said I wouldn't call out my attacks anymore." The dark rabbit-centipede hybrid stated, "But I just wanted to test your memory."

Hundreds of pink dots appeared on Brandy's person. No doubt the number was exactly 256, and no doubt that these were the points she was struck. And these dots exploded into bursts of pink energy, each one going off in short succession of one after another. And each and every one of those sent her back, first out of Whisker's lower body, then flying in front of the ship, then out to the open ocean. By the time the waves of attacks finally, finally finished, the ship was but an approaching blur as Brandy splashed into the sea. She barely had enough energy left in her to flip the Nail so that its handle faced upwards, realizing that now may be too late of a time to test whether or not it could hold her weight and be used as a floatation device.

It could. Thankfully. Brandy also breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that the boat was still coming towards her. Great. Another chance. Just need to get it just right...

Large purple flames fired from the beast, heading right in her direction. Just in time for her to grab the Nail once more, ducking completely under the water this time when they hit the surface. Thanks to their sheer luminosity, Brandy could see the fires even though the murky, storm-hit ocean waters around her. Looking up to see an outline of the boat becides her, she decided to make her re-emergence by sticking the sword straight up. Through a portion of Whiskers that was wrapped around its front end. Above, though inaudible to the dog, Mr. Whiskers shrieked at the sheer shock of this move.

This managed to be a surprisingly strong grip. Using her other hand to hold on another underwater segment, she began climbing in spite of the large number of aimless hands that spawned from him, attempting to pin-point his attacker from below. Even with a grip on the sword, slowly stabbing higher and higher points, and another grip on her shield, Brandy was still able to dig herself to the ocean's surface while keeping a hold on the beast.

"You still want to leave. After all of this..." Whiskers said to himself, at a low enough whisper to be unheard by even Brandy's dog ears, even if the storm was not present.

One of his already-present arms attempted to dive down, turning into a complete knife just as it was about to plunge straight into Brandy's heart. The only thing preventing this attack from completing was when Brandy took a plunge into Whiskers himself - digging into the opening that the sword helped slice.

It was here, looking through the monster, that she thought to herself. He has to have a weak point, right?

And Brandy got her indirect answer through the sight of something glowing among the blackness. A... purple... large... vein thing?

She had to brush her way through Whiskers's inky body to get a closer look. It was pretty large, and if she had to guess, she'd say it was something similar to a spine in that it ran down his back. Inside, glowing brightly, were faces. Various faces. Faces in pain. Faces that appeared to be trapped. An occasional other hand or foot, slamming against this tunnel they were compressed in.

It didn't take a genius to guess that this was where he kept the souls he consumed. Still, outside, Whiskers felt like the safest way to get rid of his particular 'parasite' was to cook it. Brandy felt the temperature within him rising. She had a strict time limit to cutting that thing.

And thus she did. One slice, thankfully tearing through it just like the sword had with everything else shadow-related that stood in its path. The heat still rose, boiling. But Brandy knew that it had the desired effect.

Just like that, only a second seconds later, the souls were able to escape. Light burst in nearly all directions from the attack, while the spirits split rips across his exterior. Just as the internal heat became unbearable, Brandy lept her way out of the beast through one such rip, embracing the cold air of the rainstorm as she landed back on the deck then looked up to see the downfall of a villain, and the true beginning to a new life.

Whiskers roared in his monsterous form as souls, turning from green to blue, flew out and scattered among the world. The shadow mass that was his form died down, turning into more of a purple, as he regained the familiar bunny shape. Once three exceptionally bright, slightly yellow-er souls flew out, he took a significant decrease in mass, fully being brough down resembling a simple, if purple-tinted Rabbit. He was hunched over at first, clutching his chest as the last souls escaped, either returning to their owners or flying off to freedom.

When he looked up, Brandy could tell that her final attack left a nasty gash in his mis-section. Not-too surprisingly, he seemed hollow inside. No blood, no organs, just empty blackness. He leered at his opponent.

The Simpson family burst out from the doors, all four of them with clenched fists fuming at their captor. The captor who said the following:

"I didn't think you could do it. I didn't want you to do it. But you kept pushing yourself. You did it. Congratulations. You're free now, Brandy."

He fell over, and as with Pigman and Arcshade before him, exploded into purple smoke.

Brandy took a deep breath in through the rain. Speaking of which, it took time, but eventually his blast towards the sky that caused such weather began to clear itself up. First with sun rays poking through the storming gray clouds, then with the showers themselves beginning to lighten. Marge put her hand on the dog's shoulder.

"So it's over?" Aformentioned Simpson asked.

"Oh yeah. It's over." Brandy replied.


It still took a few hours, even after the storm cleared, before the outlines of Florida were visible. The sparkling beaches, familiar bird cries, chatter of other fellow humans (a lot of them, it sounded like), it all seemed so... alien to finally be back. Not to mention (temporarly?) casting aside those new friends... even if one of them was mandatory, on account of being a mass soul-sucker.

The boat pulled into a dock - and not one made of ink - and Eddy happily escorted Brandy on to dry, normal land. Unexpected to her, however, was the large crowd awaiting her.

"I knew it! Those souls were right!" One member of this large mass of people cheered, "She's the one that saved us from that... weird... centibunny thing! Tom, you were right when you recognized her and ya' know told us she was coming in from here!"

The crowd errupted in roars, and while half of them were confused, Brandy couldn't help but absorb that little bit of pride and lift a smile after all the events that just occured. She rose her hands up as the Simpson family worked their way to the front of the crowd.

"Um, excuse me..." Said Marge, "We are looking for a way back home. To Ohio. I think I recognized some of you while we were all absorbed in that big purple monster."

One "Sure thing" later, and the family disappeared into the crowd. Which Brandy waved a dismissive hand at.

"Look, I'm glad I'm a world hero now, but I've been stranded for over a year. All I want to do is get back to my home and enjoy my life."

She looked off as the group started to thin a little, staring out into the open sea behind her.

"Well... maybe I'll rest first, but there is one more thing I really want to do. Eddy, do you think you can take us back to that oil-city?"

"I know it's called Darktown. Bart told me." Her, uh, 'owner' explained, "While we were in that... soul-y thing."

Brandy drew in a deep breath of her homeland, taking up the crowd of (mostly confused) praisers for recognizing her while she was setting them free. The pooch looked looked up and felt like things were finally almost settled.


"Figures Tiffany wouldn't want to join us, thanks for finding another talking dog Sandy." Brandy said.

"No problem!" Replied her sort-of counterpart.

Gathered around behind the Nail was a quartet of talking dogs: Brandy herself, Sandy, the one from the boat, and yet another one who looked like she had no idea what she was doing. Obviously, the one who saved the world and held a sword in her hand was acting as the lead of this group. The group that was, at the moment, holding hands in a chain. Brandy wave the sword itself around, causing the chain to glow a bright green while the shield began glowing purple.

"Now... barrier! Extendus, or something! I don't know, those Shadows told me this would work!"

The nail disappeared into purple smoke (leaving the paint behind, which splatted the ground below), being waved around through and going into some air above the town. A large, dimming dome appeared over Darktown, seemingly being a visual cue to its perimeter. And with a few rather ominous sounds of rushing wind, the dome expanded. Harmlessly passing over the quartet of talking dogs, stretching along both the desert and beach boundries, and even filling in the sky. Once the entire horizon was darkened by its area, the dark effects itself faded completely. With that, a number of shady forces in heavy clothing peeked their eyes from the streets. Hundreds, possibly thousands. All gathered by the city grounds. Curiously, one of them dropped a foot on the sand connecting them with the dogs.

She smiled after seeing her foot not sizzle or burn away. This caused the other Shadows to follow in suit, Darktown being on its way of slowly expanding as its residents walked out in the open desert or splashed in the ocean that the fateful battle took place in, all of which enjoying how the sunlight was no longer an issue.

Thankfully, the one that actually talked to Brandy was the only one whose name she actually got. Rialdantz. From her finger, she traced a path of shadow material to Brandy's location, then melted into the ground in order to use it to zip closer, emerging really close to the canine ally.

"Hey, thanks, but you did not have to do that." She said.

Brandy dismissed this with a wave and a laugh. "Don't be so humble. I know what it's like to be stranded. So, if I get this right, you're still not protected from the Sun..."

"Oh, we know. You only expanded the boundry over Earth."

Brandy giggled. "But we can wait until humans and us can really travel through space before we have to worry about finding a cure for that. Since what's the point of giving you guys sunscreen if you can't really go over in the Sun in the first place?"

"I guess. That makes sense. So, erm, until then, we have the whole planet now?"

"...Ew, we and the whole planet? Sorry, go where you want, but I think I'm gonna keep myself at home, here, or the Amazon most of the time. I explored enough in one day."


Closing AN:

Yes, I know, the actual post-final battle sequence was kind of rushed. I don't know. Even though it was hardly focused on, I still felt like giving those Shadow people a bone at the end and having a happy ending, even if it feels a bit rushed and artificial. Well, as I'll cover below, this is just like a kind of "send out an old idea I had years ago and try to re-do it," even if I changed a few things around (this will also be covered, and yes, making the Shadows friendly was one of them).

The title of this chapter had a bit of a history. For a while, it was going to the "The Final Battle," but then I thought it would be too cliche. Then "Showdown," but that would be way too similar to the joke ending of 496 Reasons, another fan fic I did, and I'd rather try to have as many unique names as I could even for chapters from different stories. So I decided, near the end of this chapter's writing I might add, to just sort of name this after the location like the rest of the story. "The Open Ocean" sounded kind of... overused maybe, both here and maybe in some other things I did, so I had a little compromise and gave it a name I liked a little more: Open Freedom. Hey, it made sense in my head at the time.

Final Thoughts:

As you could probably tell, towards the second half of the chapter after the defeat of Whiskers, I wasn't as focused on writing this out as a full-quality story so much as getting it done and trying to hash out as fitting of an ending as I could. If some concepts, such as the whole "town of trapped humanoids with weird powers" seem underused... well, that's kind of what the other stories I'm doing are for. I could kind of compare them to run:gifocalypse, but more benevolent than the .GIFfany copies. Again, the Shadows honestly were planned to be evil back when I first came up with the idea so many years ago, but to make things "interesting" I added another beast (Arcshade) and had them work for him instead. Plus, it gives a reason for how Brandy would have an exposition guide through this. Also I would say that sequels can always expand on ideas, except I've kind of recently realized how much I'm adverse towards sequels. To the point where Hecksing Ulumate Crconikals has a spinoff, a prequel, and even an upcoming split-timeline story about that spinoff, but no "true" direct sequel. There was going to be a sort of direct sequel to this called something like Brandy 2: Bound to the Blade, where this story would have ended with a tiny piece of Whiskers going inside Brandy and sticking there, only not taking her over if she kept the Tooth held as its lightness powers reduced Whiskers's place, and then she'd have to go over to the lightness pool and ingest it (this was also before I thought about the joke of Pigman bathing in that) to kill him for good. But... I thought it wouldn't really work out on its own. As for not really focusing that much on the Brandy and Mr. Whiskers cast that much or having the Simpson family quickly become irrelevant... let's just say that was accurate to the original plan.

Speaking of things that were planned for the story... well, this one's really embarassing... again, back when I was eight, in addition to throwing in a random Ed, Edd n Eddy crossover cameo (which obviously remained in the final product, as you can see just by scrolling up), Yu-Gi-Oh! was also gonna get involved. But I removed that because even I, in the present, have standards. Namely that story arc about those dragon cards and the seals that take one's soul if they lost would be worked in. Like, you know how the map in the intro of Brandy and Mr. Whiskers showed this spot marked "Headhunters?" Well, for some reason I thought it wouldn't be a stupid idea (I also didn't know didn't really know about Headhunters at all) if those dragon/warrior characters were classed as "headhunters" and Brandy actually kinda knew them. Whiskers would have been tied to that soul-eating monster thing of that storyline, and... I don't know, it was a dumb idea, I don't know how to hammer that in further. Oh, I think Pigman's deadly ring attack was kind of lifted from one of the monster cards from that arc. That's worth mentioning too, I guess, giving credit where credit is due.

So in general, I tried to give this a kind of tone of "It takes itself pretty seriously, but it still feels like an eight year-old wrote it story-wise." I hope you enjoyed what might be considered a blast from the past, or might not since it kind of deviated from the literally age-old plan. I also tried to avoid referencing anything that came out after around the time I thought this up back when I was a kid, though you can probably spot some very mild Undertale inspiration with the case of the Shadows. Well, it might not have been specifically inspired by that. I don't really know anymore. The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie Video Game also inspired parts of this, such as the whole "sliding down a rocky canyon-like area" and a battle out in the sea. Heck, originally the Eds were supposed to have some kind of size-enlarging thing that would have made Ed into a giant that swam across the ocean (or was forced to do so by Whiskers), like the fight against Dennis on David Hasselhoff. But, again, that was pushing the bar even for this and it would make more sense if they just took a boat.

So now, for the future. Well, with one crack crossover finally out of the way, I kind of used a little RNG system (okay, I set up a MUGEN "tournament" of sorts where I let the AIs of various cheap/difficult characters duke it out, and assign a story to each one) to determine what should be next... well, the result was that I went back to my previous crack crossovers and redo them a little, as I promised. (No, this itself is not planned to have a revisioning. The reason why the other two will is because one of them I sort of rushed and the other as it stands shows a really poor lack of grasping Steven Universe canon) One of which is The Hair Idealization, which I plan to tackle first. The other... well...

THE END.


Coming... sooner than it was before:

"Their organization has fallen apart!"

Another trip back to the first-published odd crossover of his...

"They went from keeping us safe from vampires to this?"

Now actually following Beach City's geography correctly.

"What, kid? Didja really think there would be some kinda huge train station or something taking us out of here? I've only been here a day, and even I know that this is just some tiny, quiet town."

CARL STEVENS UNIVERSE: REMASTERED. Now more accurate to Steven Universe, and using more than just seven episodes (in my defense, they were the only episodes at the time) as a base.

(No, I won't cram in Peridot or Lapis or whatever for the sake of having those characters in. Expect more of the humans to make an appearance instead.)