Escape From Fanservice Island
Chapter 4: The Flames of the Demon
Beginning AN:
I just kind of want to apologize (again, if you read chapter 2 first) in advance. Why? Well, I don't want to give it away, but let's just say... you'll probably figure out why as you read. If not, and your expectations were a bit different, then I'll explain more in the closing notes, where there is no longer anything to give away.
The Depths.
The cold, dark, bleak Depths.
After what felt like a really long wait (Roughly one to three chapters! Depending on what order you picked!), Ford finally made it to the bottom of that semi-volcanic... temple thing?
Well... when the other option is to face against a teleporting Pyronica with no gear or clothing, it seemed like exploring these ruins of... whatever was the better option to take.
Right. So, the base of these ruins. Anyway, in addition to the canyons, the ruins themselves were a series of red, tall structures that were covered with various marks. Solid 'brick'-like material that, in places, almost blended seemlessly with the rocky walls around it.
Hearing the demon above him giggling, he decided to duck in for shelter.
...And of course it was just as dark and hard to navigate as he expected something presumably-lightless would be.
First of all, the hard stone felt both too warm and too cold at the same time. (Although Ford kind of knew that this was what being naked in a hot, dry location might feel like. Ever since that incident with - that's for another story.) Oh, and thanks to the way the... not-quite torches, but some kind of strange flickering flames were aligned on the wall, it was both too bright and too dark. (So not completely lightless, as that other paragraph may trick you in to assuming.)
Time to march on forth. He's been in worse environments. Again, some of them he even had to face in the buff!
There might have been doors leading in somewhere along the struture, but the closest to a proper 'entrance' Ford used to explore the depths was a large crack that connected the strange temple with the canyon Pyronica dug. He ducked in to that.
The inside was roughly as mysterious as the outside, the various markings and carved phrases that seem important making it either more or less so depending on how well they were at deciphering various things.
Let's actually check out how well of a job that is.
First of all, everything was written in English, which was a bit of an eye-opener in of itself. Most of it barely made sense, or just seemed to be a kind of spell chant written down for future reference. (Yes, spells in English. Rather than the 'more common' Latin or the like.) Then there was one particular that stood out... a series of deeper, larger engravings on a wall right in the middle of one of the rooms closest to Ford's unofficial 'entrance' to this building.
The High Gods watch from above, unable to control the exact nature when the beings of entropy clash. Of the Deflected Sages and the beasts of the apocalypse. As their hands reach out in futility over the battles that follow after the summer of the localized apocalypse, they cannot grasp. They cannot quite touch the single rising eye to prevent it from bringing forth a global cataclysm. They cannot. And so, they only weep at the losses, regardless of the sins they may have comitted leading to their deaths.
They weep at the loss of the consumer of organs that dwells in the mountain caves...
They weep at the loss of the sorceress who holds electronics at her fingertips...
They weep at the loss of the four Knights of Mystery...
They weep at the loss of the pink demoness with one eye...
...All of that seemed important, but none of it looked good- oh look, banners.
Further down the room itself, lining the wall, appeared to be a septet of hanging banners. Each a different color, and each with a different faded symbol. A red one with a flame on it, an orange one with... some kind of trailing ghosty-thing, a yellow one with some diamond-"shine" shape, a green one with a five-petal flower, a blue one with a kind of wave-like design, a purple one with a vortex, and a black one with... a bright azure bullet that has its tip facing upwards.
Underneath each of them was the following, scribbled lightly in the banner's respective color:
She who carries the heat...
She who balances the dual soul...
He who is of purity...
He who stands firmly against the wind...
He who pushes the boundries of what we know...
She who can map the shadows...
She who will bring forth the Age of Void...
Okay, more nonsense. He's gotta stop reading that really vague, maybe-prophecy (Maybe recap? Hopefully recap...) stuff before he starts seeing and hearing things that will spook him out.
Like that really strange pig squeal-bird squeak he heard. Almost sounded like it was really close behind him. If it were real, anyway.
Wait a minute...
Another instance of hearing the same sound (plus a new mix-in of a... laser sword-sounding zhoosh) made it all the more likely that it was possibly real. Ford whipped his head around.
There, standing tall and 'majestically,' was a blue... thing. Describing it would take more than one sentence. Don't believe me? Well, it had extremely long dove-like wings, the face of a particularly angry rabbit, snake-like fangs, giant goat horns, a pig-like body, and surprisingly humanoid legs. (The waist, though, was part of the 'pig-like body.') Okay, that was close to a single sentence. But still! It was a pretty packed one!
Ford's first instinct would have been to immediately write what he could on the creature and include a little sketch of it. His second instinct would have been to whip out a weapon to fry it. As he had neither tool at his disposal, however, he went by his third instinct:
"Are you at all affiliated with the dream demon known as 'Bill Cipher?'"
If you've read chapters 2 and 3 first (You probably read them in numberical order. If it's because of you reading them as they updated, cool. If it's just because that's the order of the numbers, have a little more fun! If it's because you genuinely wanted to get through Soos and Melody's part of the adventure first, then Stan's second, then Ford's third, okay.) and maybe got a little grasp of the 'pattern' with these island inhabitants, you'd probably already guess (correctly) that this creature could not talk back and Ford's instinct about this was kind of a waste.
That would have been where you'd be wrong.
"Noooo I only serve the one the only Destiny Keepers, the lock that prevents those that are anomalous from leaving the confines of this island!" It spoke in a runon sentence.
"So you're part of the islan-"
"SQUACK!"
The beast just seemed to completely flip out after that. Flapping its wings, shooting glowing 'arrows' of bright blue light from its forehead that caused small explosions on every wall they hit, and most importantly charging straight at Ford at every chance.
Hand-to-wing combat was always tricky, even with sapient birds that looked like and were the size of regular birds. This killer giant with energy-arrows was another level - Ford could only make the slightest grapple on it before the bunny...-ish? beast flipped him to the wall, preparing another blast.
And then, right as he was knocked on the wall at the far end, seemingly already looking at an overly complicated series of steps leading up to his death... fire broke out between them, spooking the blue flyer off.
Hellfi- right, actually it was called Hellflame. Almost forgot there.
Ford clenched his teeth. He'd seriously rather take his chances with that thing than-
"Pyronica." He said.
It seemed for a moment that both he and the bird-beast let out the exact same screaching sound at her at the exact same time.
Both of them seemed to have the same idea, too - charge towards Pyronica. However, with the line of hellflame separating the two, it was not a simultaneous tackle. In fact... as the flying thing had to move around the hellflame to reach either of them, Ford managed to successfully tackle first... then the sapphire being kind of seemed to leap at them without fully deciding which one to attack. So it kind of... fell to the floor and grabbed at the ankles of either of them.
"Go away. Whatever you are." Pyronica said, kicking the beast off to the sides.
"It does look facinating..." Ford said under his breath. "I don't know why, but the name... Arcpigsker comes to mind. 'Pig' should be obvious. 'Sker' as in whisker, because of those rabbit features. 'Arc' as in... it just seemed like an appropriate way to cover the bird-goat part."
The demoness shrugged. "Whatever. I still want to kill you- actually, do some other things first. And those things are after letting you have fun in the Depths, of course."
"How did you get out of your home dimension, anyway?"
"Let's just say... a woman with a mask helped me. She knew how to use magic to link up my world with yours. It couldn't last forever, so... I had to burn some of my friends to get out!"
"You killed them?"
"Burned. They got better. We do things like that all the time, relax. I'm not that evil.
"But I am evil enough to kill people who aren't my friends for real! After they help me!"
Ford already knew that was as cooperative as she would have been when it came to answers.
"Now semi-DIE!"
Yep. It was as cooperative. Exactly as cooperative.
So, he was on the run yet again, with one key difference being the shrieking, actually kind of whining beast that was also trying to get at him. (And her. This was a complete three-sided fight. I always found it more interesting if conflicts have multiple sides to them, not just 'this group of good guys versus this group of bad guys.') Hall after hall flew by him... wait, he felt like he was going up. Just some mild elevation leading up to some place. That's a good sign.
"Come back! I haven't explained my tragic backstory to you yet!"
"Tragic backstory?"
"Yeah..." she slowed down a little, for what it was worth. While she sniffed, it was clearly (even to someone who was completely unfamiliar with interdimensional demons - IE not Ford) faked. Heck, that fake-ness was clear even without the giggles she said while she pretend-cried.
"You see..." more sniffing, more slowing. There was no way in heck Ford was going to try to slow with her. He was getting out of there, and nothing would change his mind. "I was only trying to help Bill end the world and make you all in to a throne of agony... and you wouldn't let meeeee- heee heee heee hee heeeeeeee!"
Yeah, wow, that was not a sign of anything changing about her after all. What a shocker.
He kind of sort of knew her for a little while, regardless of dimension. And he definitely knew her top friend. Little about Pyronica seemed to actually surprise him by this poi-
"DUCK!" The demoness cried.
Okay, the fact that she actually warned him of the upcoming attack did.
As was said upcoming attack being that she suddenly sprouted wings.
"Hey Sixer!" Wings that came from her hair, to be specific, and she began lifting herself to the air. (And yes, her hair is genuine... well, hair. One of the least-extraordinary features about her specific demonic kind, in fact.) "I still need to finish what I started! Come back so that I can do my little secret-y plan and then you can turn in to all that pretty ash! Just like your clothes! And just like your brother will be when I teleport back to him-!"
She stopped in her tracks, letting her large pink ass bounce a little. "Oh. Right. I can teleport. Hey, sorry, I forget that I have that ability now a lot. Oh, I think you want to know where it came from. Well... the same person who helped me come back to your world also taught me how to ride around! And it's really fun!"
For her given definition of 'fun,' of course.
Anyway, she zipped over to Ford and grabbed a hold of his shoulders.
"Now, we can-"
The blue winged beast somehow caught up to the both of them, part of its humanoid feet happened to 'kick' her square in her giant, pink ass.
She flinched a bit, but ended up successfully taking the scientist of the strange over anyway, warping him while in her grip. It was within a quick blur, but Ford soon found himself looking at the ocean from several meters above.
"Are you going to drop me in the sea?!" He asked. "What is this?!"
"Relax, sheesh." She said. She also made an arm guesture while saying the 'Sheesh,' using one of the only two things keeping Stanford above a watery grave. A long watery grave - he looked behind him, only to see the island as... well, maybe a few kilometers away. It was still close enough to discern everything, see a few individual trees and the like, and certainly not just a tiny dot on the ocean. It was also a low enough view so that he could just barely make out the tip obsidian structure at the top of its more volcanic mounta-
Huh. He could swear he saw some sparks fly off over there.
"Well... I might drop you in the sea. I might not. Right now, I just want to plaaaaay a little. You see, I know a few secrets about this island. It's easy to get on, but if you're weird like us, it's impossible to get off without teleporting!"
"What do you mean? Is there another barrier, similar to the one around Gravity Falls?"
"Oh, that old thing? No, that woman who helped me come to this world and show me the way to teleport told me that that stuff only applied to demons from another dimension! 'Regular' weird things can leave Gravity Falls just fine! I mean, you did, with your six fingers. You resisted that 'weird magnet pull' thingy. This is a little more... bloody."
She spat more Hellflame off to the distance, immediately gaining protest from Ford.
"I may not be an environmentalist, but I know that inextinguishable flames in the ocean would be devastating! You would evaporate water for hours before it dies out on its own! That would create a vortext when it sinks to the bottom that-"
Well. It was seemingly extinguished mid-air by a roar. (Wind normally cannot extinguish Hellflame, another bit of trivia.) Coming from deep below the ocean depths.
Then, it showed up.
Still thankfully a great distance away (May whoever see this up close be accompanied by some sort of gigantic guardian for company, especially given the location out in the sea. Actually, even someone seeing this from far away should be grouped with a kind of supernatural-powered beast on their side. This... medium distance, at least medium when it comes to the size, was... someone like Pyronica would be good enough company power-wise, if she had been good) lied a beast of a similar sapphire coloring as that strange flying animal hybrid from the 'Depths.'
With his above-angle, he could make out the definite rounded shape of it. Well, for starters, 'round' meant that it was like a hemisphere. It shone brightly admist the day-time sea: a massive hemisphere of blue flesh, with several eyes arranged in vertical stripes leading up. Each of its eyes seemed like they had... something wriggling around them, but from the distance, Ford could not tell what they were.
It came back down with a heavy splash, sending a huge circular wave that just barely died out by the time it reached the island and overall gave a display that nearly made Ford pass out.
"WHAT WAS THAT THING?!" He asked.
"Oh, you rode right over it in your boat! You probably didn't see it because of the storm, but yeah, there's three of them. One green, one red, and one - well, you just saw that one. One blue! Most people who try to go around here see it from the surface - you can do that when it's not stormy and it's still daytime - and back off."
True to Pyronica's word, Ford did see a massive, circular shadow under the water. It began moving around, as though it was following an invisible orbit around the entire island. It seemed to refuse to outright bring itself anywhere closer to him.
"They don't get too close to the island for some reason... they hate the thought of any thing 'weird' leaving. Again, just like us!"
"Why did you show this to me?" He struggled against her grasp.
"Oh... why not? I thought I might as well share some things about this island that you don't know before ending you and everyone you know!"
He sighed. "How are you going to do it?"
"...Okay, I was bluffing, and I'm gonna get to the point I wanted to. That secret point thingy. Sheesh. There's still just a few more things I need before I make the Pines family history. You see, I was kind of wanting my friends to get here... you know that big portal you made?"
Ford actually felt a bit of relief upon the confession. He had more time than he thought. Sort of.
"Make another." Pyronica bluntly, stoicly said what Ford pretty much knew she was going to say.
He sighed-
Oh, mid-sigh she happened to have taken him back to the island proper. At least he was no longer in that strange temple area dealing with a bird-pig-rabbit thing. Instead, he seemed to be by the non-volcanic island.
Hey, closer to Stan at least.
"So... do you have, like, any more of those alien parts or something?" Pyronica asked him.
"No, and we all should know that! Crash Site Omega only had enough parts for one portal! I discussed this with Bill, he should have told you that!"
"...He actually didn't."
"What did he tell you?"
Her focused shifted as she looked around the cliff side.
"Hey... do you hear that?"
"I'm not falling for a basic third-grader's trick."
But he did hear something. Clashing, in a way. It was almost enough to make him turned around...
Nah. He ran right past Pyronica, turning only to keep his gaze at her. But after seeing her body refusing to move an inch at whatever he was looking at, even after he moved long past her, that he just had to bite.
Biting did not disappoint. Ford saw... some glowing ball of light. Occasional flashes of purple directly matching those of a certain arm that started the whole thing and peeks at some kind of mask appeared, but other than that, it was pretty difficult to tell exactly what was going on over there. The really blinding light didn't help.
Despite his thought that Pyronica was making something up, Ford found that he escaped that before Pyronica did. Soon, he could just run around the mountain side, get towards that cave, retrace his steps-
Pyronica zipped ahead of him, lying on one elbow which she used to rest her head. You see, if this were visual, I'd do a thing where they were positioned so that the back of his head would block the view between her legs. Actually, that's what happened back in the first chapter too. Just... use your imagination. If visual this story would be trying to pull as many scenery censor tricks as possible when it comes to crotches. Boobs and obviously butts are by no means part of this rule.
But anyway, she pretty much answered his last question as though that ball of light did not exist:
"Well, Bill did tell me that you built a portal that could help us start our party! And that you went to a place with a lot of strange symbols! So I found one in Gravity Falls, and another right here."
"...Bill really did not tell you that much?"
"Honestly, no." She began to blush. "...We're not really that smart. Compared to him.
"But we don't need brains! That's what you're for! We have... or, I have... fire! And eating people! So, let me just take you back there-"
Ford got a chuckle out of her being tackled by that blue thing (obviously, the smaller animal-hybrid, not the enormous thing out in the ocean). Yes, that was what happened next.
"Ow! Hey!" She screamed, kicking at the beastly being. "What are you doing back here?! Oh right, you only talk when you want to!"
Curious, Ford tried to take a step - as he'd imagine, Pyronica tried teleporting yet again. This time, 'tried' was the key word. The beast was zipped over with her as well, trying to fire lasers right on to her... shoulders. Pyronica's arm-extensions then exploded in to a pair of giant, Hellflame jets, which finally got the creature to back off.
"That thing at least doesn't like fire." She felt the need to explain as she got up and shifted her arm-extensions back to normal, her womanhood now being blocked by a 'generously' (depending on your opinion of seeing as much rose-pink-skinned, one-eyed demon giant waist as possible) leafless, thin tree branch. "Or it didn't when I first came here. I think they're getting smarter. There's more creatures here, but I don't think fire is their weakness. I can't really kill any of them. Now, where were we? Oh, right. I'm gonna put you back in the Depths again, so that you can build another portal! I only sent you here because that thing in the ocean scared me, and I couldn't focus on where to teleport to..."
"That's just a bunch of blocks with gibberish written on them." Explained Stanford. "Even if I had my electronic readers, they would tell me what I could already guess. That's just a temple made by some nut cult centuries ago. Perhaps even millennia ago - the taste of the dust down there was a little... on the line. Crash Site Omega holds the only known source of real potential dimensional-altering energy."
"Urgh! Why did I even bother?"
"At this rate, it would take an army of supernatural geniuses - or maybe just really good university students, if the 'supernatural' means that they are supernatural and not just that they study it - for Earth technology to catch up to the Pan-Dimensional Beings of Trilazzx Beta by this era. Bill himself told me that other sites on Earth were that far behind. If he wasn't lying."
Pyronica folded her arms. "Okay, I guess I have to rethink my plan... let me just go back to the depths and double-check that none of that stuff was, like, magic or anything."
She turned around, and Ford got a tiny bit of amusement out of her ass breaking the branch that was previously obscuring her vulva when she swung around. She stopped in her tracks and turned her head a bit.
"Oh, wait a minute..."
She swung her whole body back and gave Ford a glare (an ordinary hummingbird happened to hover in sync with her nether bits to make up for the lack of a broken brach).
"Yeah! I'm gonna do that! But first, I want you to look again at them. You're good at history, right?"
Before he could even consider if lying was a reasonable option, she continued:
"Of course you are! You're smart! You're like, the smartest person on the planet! So smart guy, I'm gonna start piling up bricks and stuff from there! You look at them and tell me if I can build a portal right here! Otherwise, I won't teleport you and your friends off the island! Is that a deal?"
"I made it my code and part of what I find common sense to reject any deals from your kind! I mean, you might not be Bill, but..."
"It's a normal deal, not a 'blue flame deal.' Those thingies are-"
She finally noticed her own censor. Oh yeah, I guess I should talk about Ford's. Um... he was covered by some small flower on a really long stem sticking up from the grass.
"Hey bird! What are you doing there?" She asked. "Go away!"
She brought an arm up to swat at it as hard as she could. What she did not see, however, was that part of bringing the arm up brought it close to the path of a beehive... and when she brought it back down, it crashed against that beehive. She managed to scare off the bird... with a patch of honey that flew from the hive and landed right between her legs. The hive itself was also knocked towards the ground, a mass of bees rising to 'face' her groin-level just as she finished dusting off the sticky yellow fluid.
"Yeah..." she said, looking at the angry, opaque cloud. See, this is why naked characters in cartoons don't try that hard to get rid of what's covering them. Otherwise the writer might get made and 'send' bees in their place. Or something worse. Like T-rexes.
"Right. I'll be back. And remember, you can run, but you can't hide! Unless you hide really good..."
She zipped away before the bees could sting her.
All of the bees stopped mid-air and, for the standard of bees, looked like they had no idea just what the heck happened. They kind of reacted the same way a human would if they saw a target teleporting away from them with no context whatsoever.
Either way, Ford decided that he should get out of-
"SQUACK!"
Oh, you have got to be kidding!
The flying cobalt beast dove to him, headbutting the researcher and sending him to a flying course through the thick forest. It finally ended with him being knocked in some sort of crevice along the volcanic mountain. Just as it seemed like this blue monster was about to give him a finishing laser blast, another 'wall of fire' errupted and scared it off.
It was also then that Ford realized something about the place he was knocked in to. Although maybe the sudden lack of energy from getting knocked so hard in to solid stone might have also led to convincing him not to move too much. Anyway, the little cracks he was knocked in to seemed like the perfect hiding place against Pyronica. And it's not like if she did spot him, she'd be able to easily get him out. Not even her teleportation powers seemed to allow her to reach places smaller than her. He could just... hide out there...
And also fell asleep. He underestimated how much energy that took out of him.
Pyronica warped back with a pile of the red 'Depths' bricks in her hands, just-so-happening to be covering her as the bees had since scattered.
"Hello? Ford?" She asked. Upon dropping them, the clouds of dust they left kept her cover. "Shoot! I should have known..."
Just as the dust clouds were about to fade, she began scratching herself in a very unladylike manner, yet in a manner that out of context might have possibly kept a movie PG-13 and not R.
"Those bee stings itch!" She complained. "Argh! Is there anything I could- oh, hey. I didn't know catci grow here..."
With one hand still scratching, she used her free hand to pluck out a long, straight, rounded cactus from the ground, deciding to scratch that against herself instead.
...Ford was not expecting to wake up in what felt like an air-conditioned environment, with sheets over him and on a soft bed. He distinctly remembered kind of losing conciousness in a hot, dry, area with no covering at all.
It was a bit understandable that he would not exactly welcome the thought of opening his eyes. Still, to not do so would be kind of stupi-
Why hello there gigantic cerulean eye peering down at him.
"Oh, you're awa-"
Almost by instinct, Ford punched at whatever it was above him without getting much of a look. He immediately regretted that when his reflex-victim was knocked back, falling over and landing on the floor on her ass.
Yes, floor. He was in some kind of decently-polished building, with wooden walls having a number of windows revealing him to be... located somewhere high? He could only really make out oranged sky above him. He wasn't even sure if that was the volcanic stuff or he sun setting. (It was actually the former, just to get that out of the way, the latter would join a bit later.)
More importantly was the person he hit. A pretty large woman, and just slight examination revealed that she had three eyes, not one (he punched the middle one). Her skin was a bright azure, her butt-length hair matched her eyes, her body was bare aside from some golden piercings- and those pierces included nipple rings. Notably, her legs trailed off to ghost-like wisps, and her crotch looked like it was subjected to Ford's anti-Bill image scrambling/low-rezing tool.
"Apologies for my assault." Ford said. "Today I had a lot of bad experiences with blue beasts and a cyclops, and from where I was you almost kind of looked like a giant, blue cyclops."
She continued rubbing her eye, then blinked (trinked?) a few times until it seemed to have completely recovered. "That is fine."
"...Who or what are you?" He asked.
"I am a .GIFfany!" She said with a surprising amount of perk for someone that was just punched in the face. "We found a pink humanoid trying to claw through rock to get to you! So some of us saved you! Well, first they asked if that pink person was trying to save you. She confessed that she wanted you to be her slave? Many of us used lightning to knock her out! Now, I am a messenger that greets people! So... your name is 'Four,' right? Like the number? We also go by numbers."
"Call me Ford. It's short for Stanford."
"Okay Four, let me show you around! This is part of what we call the Basement! It is like a 'downtown' section of it, planned to be the most advanced of all and with much more than our starting Basement by the beach!"
"...Ford." He corrected.
She floated over to the door and cracked it open. "130734! He's awake! You said you wanted to talk to him too?!"
It suddenly clicked why that name '.GIFfany was so familiar to him.
That sketch. That 'review' entry in Journal 3.
Although Soos never mentioned that she had three eyes. Or was blue. And he could swear he would have remembered if she was naked and had encrypted imagery between her legs.
Then two more humanoids walked in. One with a similar cyan-ish skin as Ford's greeter, red hair and eyes, and a relatively more 'average' size. (Though she was still pretty tall.) Unlike the pixelated three-eyed wisp-leg one, her crotch was covered by a hand-held stop sign in possession of the other one that walked in. That other one had medium tan skin, gray hair that she seemed to be trying to tie to a ponytail with metal, and oddest of all, wore huge round glasses. That latter one was 'scrambled' as with the bigger, azure copy with wispy 'feet.'
"Hi there!" The redhead introduced herself. "We - as in, me and your greeter over there," she guestured to the genie-like one, who waved back, "and not this one," she jerked her thumb to her silver-haired 'friend' (quotes because of the look she was flashing the redhead the entire time) "are going to show you around a little! Why? Why not!"
"I am here because this copy insists on breaking our decency standards and not covering her genital region up as per Basement Law 2." Said the gray-haired one. "That is why I will not be a part of your tour, and you can ignore me."
"It is called being a rebel!" Giggled the one with red hair.
"Violating our second most important rule is just annoying. Not a sign of being a 'rebel.' If you do not like having me around, just pixelate yourself when out in public. And before the establishment of, or when the event comes if you are still going without, an article of pseudo or in an unlikely case real piece of clothing, from Project Scenic View are done."
Speaking of which, Ford himself was still naked.
"Mmmm... no! I like the light around me to not be bended and distorted!"
"You fail to think of the pixels as the bare-minimum clothing. Think of... say, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game with a customizing feature, and the pixels correspond to the underwear that serves as the bare minimum fighters are given at the start of the customization menu. You are behaving much as a perverse mod that is not even satisfied with that."
"You know we all hate underwear. Especially bras. Fuck those!"
"Your opinion is clearly in the minority in regards to lower garments, then. But yes, I share your sentiment and... resentment on bras."
"...Right." Said Ford. "Can anybody direct me to clothes, if there are any around?"
"Oh, right." Said the largest, three-eyed copy. "We thought that maybe you came here naked as a sort of nudist movement-"
"Keep in mind that we are not a 'nudist movement!'" Cheered the red-haired copy. "We are going around naked with the full intent to arouse! And we started off not naked by choice! There is a difference between nudity in the name of freedom and body positivity, and nudity because you think it is hot!"
The gray-haired copy gave a nod in what looked like very heavy defeat, as though agreeing with the red-eyed one caused her physical pain.
"-...And it is really hard to make clothing."
"But not nip- I mean, piercings in general that could be any place on the body?" Ford could tell by the way all three looked at him that they already knew what would have slipped from his mouth.
"We can make matter in general out of nothing, but only in the form of more of us or this metal." Explained said pierced woman. "It is the kind of metal we use for most things."
"Well, some glass too." Said the bespectacled one. "I crafted these glass for the glasses myself. It was not easy. Now, I believe you are about to get a tour..."
It was pretty much exactly as weird as you would expect. Ford figured out that the sparks he saw from earlier were them building... well, that would take its own paragraph to describe:
Something of a 'town' was a good place to start with that description. It had a number of skeletal building structures, all of which were of multiple, multiple stories as more naked, technicolored .GIFfanys worked on them all. Some were made of wood for such a fire-hit location, but quite a few were made of... stone, and even more out of metal. However, one key difference from the 'town' template was the fact that Ford's starting point was absurdly close to the very tip of the volcano. Several carved stair cases helped him complete what little remained of a hike up to the crater, and upon reaching it, he noticed an exceptionally large .GIFfany-shaped (This one was also nude, and had a giant tree placed specifically to strategically cover her. No, Ford had no idea how the volcano's heat didn't set the whole thing on fire. Or him, for that matter.) statue resting right in the middle of the hole leading straight to the planet's boiling blood. Actually, thinking of lava/magma like that makes volcanos kind of gross. Like giant open wounds surrounded by raised flesh that - let's not try to gross you out. You're here for the naked women, right? Probably one of the few times you're glad that a cover turned out to be a complete and utter lie, assuming one did not count the beginning when everyone had clothes as 'Full Clothed Women.'
A somewhat smaller difference between this and a regular town were the giant, wordlss signs that displayed images of something relevant to them. Restaurants just had giant pictures of the general idea of what type of food they served above their actual titles, and so on.
"Over there, we have a number of shops and restaurants!" The blue giant one pointed out, specifically drawing her attention to an orange-skinned (No, that is not a Donald Trump .GIFfany. Either, if you read chapter 3 before this.) copy with violet-colored hair, furiously hacking away at a fish with the use of a giant meat cleaver.
"Ah, there's 523349. She is... a little off." Continued the floating genie .GIFfany. "If she starts talking about dragons, just ignore her. Unless it is dragon-based copies."
Ford glimpsed up - he couldn't even tell exactly how tall these structures went, or where they ended.
"Yeah, we can't build too high." Explained the red-haired one. "You know, lurking around this island are three-"
"The pink monster you saw earlier already told me."
"-Oh! Well, did you know that they can fly up in a dome-shape and will try to eat us if we go too high above the island? Their 'border' around is spherical, not circular. We do not know if we can survive in some way, but we would rather not try testing that."
Also, upon closer examination, Ford realized that the eyes and mouth of the statue were glowing. And, more obviously, several more copies were climbing out of the open hands of the statue.
No, he was not sure how he missed that at first either.
"So Ford." Said the non-pixelated one.
"It's Ford- wait, you got that one right."
"You like science, right?"
"The weirder and more complicated the better! But... why did you ask?"
"If you pay attention to our original game and look at the chalkboard, you would have seen the Schrödinger Hamiltonian."
"Oh, that old thing?"
"How do I word this without getting too... exitensial... Ford, 'our creator' and to a lesser extent 'our intended players' like smart women. And we were kind of trying to learn that stuff to become three-dimensional as a side goal, but found out that thanks to the Lightning Cultist, we did not need to! That equation was the first clue that we study advanced physics."
"I wouldn't call it advanced, but-"
"Since we multiplied, several of us had branched on to different forms of study." She began counting off her fingers. "Chemistry, botany, ...dramatic arts... but I stuck with physics. And 'weirdology' in general. Anyway, somewhere below the ground around this volcano we found a strange red... temple-thing. We were wondering if-"
"Aha! You are secretly some sort of Pyronica-placed illusion trap! I knew it! You were about to say that you wanted me to build an inter-dimensional portal with the supplies inside! Forget it, Pyronica!"
He was just about to take off when he heard the same copy continue.
"...A boat. We are just asking for a boat. An advanced boat. That comes with a cannon. So we can blow up the 'Boundary Guardians' and leave."
That did sound pretty useful.
"Some kind of technology-magic hybrid thing. I mean, it looks like there is enough material there, and... why would we want to build a portal to more dimensions, anyway? We are nowhere near that expansion phrase yet, and even that assumes that the universe is finite. Becides, if any one of us touches any parallel .GIFfany, we and that entire universe that we touched in would be wiped out of existence. Strangely, we can touch each other all the time and cause no problem at all. Go figure. Well, I know the answer why, but that will be getting too existencial."
She poked her censoring gray-haired copy in the nose.
"What do you mean by 'yet' and that you're assuming 'the universe is finite?'"
"This is supposed to be our area of fun for Soos and Melody!"
"Over a volcano?"
"...Well, no, we picked this spot because the lava gives off a lot of heat, and we can use heat to- the details are not important! What is is that we want them to be with us forever, and by forever, we really mean for all eternity! And what would an eternity be if the place was not constantly growing and expanding with free downloadable content?"
"...So you are not trying to take over the world. And you are really not allied with that pink monster I am assuming you saw earlier. Sorry, I still can't take your word on that."
"If you can not trust us now, I do not know what to say that will make you completely trust us in the future. We can leave you alone to do what you want to, if you want. We do not really care about you or see you as a player right now; our current focus is on Soos and Melody. Well, we should talk to them about if you want to be included or not."
"'Included?'"
He felt something very lightly tapping his leg. A quick head-turn revealed a... spider? It seemed oddly formal, being one of five holding up some kind of rolled up paper. After they noticed he had their attention, the group carrying that paper held it up to him.
"Ooh. I think somebody is trying to send you a message!" Said the large, blue-ish-skinned (I do not completely equate azure and blue) copy. "We can leave you be and read that."
"They smell like they are from the c-caves." The violet-haired fish-cutter finally piped in to the conversation, making everyone - copy, Ford, and spider alike - flinch. "Um Four, most of us do not i-interrupt if someone sends a message l-lik-like that, but .GIFfany Prime might if she goes there... and she is about to walk on a path that goes t-t-t-to the in between the caves and this mountain."
"...She has a patrol route?"
The violet-haired one looked like she was about to speak, but only let out a dry croak of confusion as she noticed the red-haired one raise an arm up.
"Easy. I can explain this. Right, .GIFfany Prime messaged us that she just finished bathing in a spring with Melody, Soos kind of lost track of things and he is out daydreaming in the ocean - starting to drift dangerously close to the Boundary Guardians, but they'll get someone to bring him back - while Prime... kind of snuck off while Melody went back to their main site, looking around to check on progress on the side sites."
Ford unrolled the paper. It showed what looked like a diagram of various cuts and the like of the human body itself, except with a gigantic 'X' struck through and text reading IGNORE THIS. TRUST ME. in giant letters... in Stanley's handwriting.
He shuddered, flipping it around.
No matter how hard he read it, it looked like the message only said the following:
-ra ped in cave, bu oka. Penis running out. See you when 15!
"...Does anybody have anything to write with?" He tried to keep his composure as he asked.
Oh, apparently they can make pens but not clothes, as Ford found out when the giant three-eyed 'messenger' handed him a pretty well-crafted pen.
Well, he pushed that aside to write the one thing he could think of to that: What?
He slid the paper back to the little backs of the spider troop, and they made their way back down the mountain.
"How did they even find me up here?"
"...We do not know the answer to that." The red-haired one said. "Not even our spider fan does. When we were first made, some of us found signs of two human-size life forms in that other mountain over there. One of them is your brother. We... think. The other one is... some kind of... potion expert?"
The message returned eventually, with less familiar hand-writing on it:
Hi there! I'm Darlene, and I think I accidentally trapped your brother in here with me! I was trying to eat him instead. I'm not anymore, if that helps! We're getting along great! Now, we're in the caves, if you could just
The message cut off right there.
Shrugging, Ford attempted to just slide the pen he was using in, hoping that 'Darlene' would be able to finish whatever it was she was trying to write.
Once it took longer than usual to get the paper back, and said paper failed to return, the giant messenger spoke again. "We have a minecart system, if you want to get around."
"Oh yes!" Said the redhead. "Soos loves minecart levels, so we decided to use minecarts to link out major points until we get a better, firm system established! So, we could get you to safer ground and wait by Soos and Melody at the 'original' Basement. Or you could stay here and examine more of everything."
He looked out to the beach, but then something caught his eye - a tiny, quick flash of pink that got him to duck off to the side and hide himself behind a rock. He looked around, seeing the demoness flying through the air of the island. She spoke, and boy did she sound like she was right next to him with that voice.
"HEY FORD! You HAVE to be around there somewhere... don't you DARE turn out to be hiding by that city up there! Everytime I try to go there, I get zapped! It's not faaaaaaiiir! :("
Yes, she somehow incorporated an emoticon to her speech in a way. ...Oddly, I would have expected maybe one of the .GIFfanys to be the first to do that. But it was Pyronica, even regardless of the chapter. (To the three or so people who read these out of numerical order, no, sorry for spoiling that little detail of chapter 2. .GIFfany does not use emoticons in her speech there.) Huh.
The journal-writer still shuddered.
"I need to prepare for a moment. To fight against... her."
"Oh, we can help you with that!" Cheered the fire-headed .GIFfany copy. "We'll make weapons and even act like a kind of army!"
She turned off to the side, looking at what was practically the other side of the city.
"HEY!" She shouted. "631019!"
A copy with the exact same skin color but with white hair (that, strangely, seemed to have some faint blue "light parts." For reference, these "parts" on the original .GIFfany were pale yellow-tinted - the yellow-ish shine of her hair) walked to them.
And said nothing. She just stared at them for a while.
"...Right." The white-haired one's summoner said. "Um, hey, messenger, I think the 'tour' part is over. You can dismiss yourself unless Stan comes along or... something. My soul buddy and I will take it from here."
The giant one nodded, spun herself around, and appeared to generate a small tornado around herself - she used this as a sort of means to propell herself up and quickly got away from Ford's sight.
"So!" Clapped the one with the burning red hair. "It's just us, the spiritual-buddies! Oh yeah, and my little self-censor over here."
"Just generate the pixels and I wouldn't have to be there." Said aformentioned stop sign-holder. "Four is company. He is only a guest. We cannot fully expose ourselves around him."
"It's Ford."
The two (remaining) azure-skinned copies both began leading the way to a particular building. One with an icon of a sword and shield over it. Curiously, there was a building right next to it with what looked like an icon of a metal breastplate, but Ford did not have to be experienced with skimpy fantasy armor to tell that that symbol would probably be more misleading...
The inside of the place he was led to, as the icon implied, sold swords and shields. Why shields were not being sold with what was presumably the neighboring 'armor' store was anyone's guess. Inside lied a shopkeeper, a bored-looking one with blue hair and deeply tan skin. She sat behind the desk with her head on one hand, using the other to drum up no distinct pattern.
"Oh! 519367!" Announed the one with red hair. "Didn't expect to see you here! Isn't 9 supposed to be there or something?"
"She said that Prime invited her to 'write a special message' to a paper that was being passed around the island, and possibly to look for a pen that fell out of it." Replied the shopkeeper. "I was called in to fill for her at the last second. And I hate this place. It radiates with pessimism."
"So are you a kind of all-female race?" Ford asked.
"Mmmmm... technically." Replied the substitute store-owner. "We started as women. But that can be changed."
To demonstrate, Ford's 'main guide' (I'm getting a little sick of mostly referring to her by hair color, I have to shift things up a bit without constantly going by number) tapped a seemingly random space ahead of her. Just like that, a long list of blue boxes outlined by white dropped down, each of which listing a feature -
Oh wow was that system detailed. Especially considering the extremely squished-looking scroll bar to the far right. Sex being there (and the top customizable option) answered his question, and as his 'friendly' guide slowly scrolled down that list, others still were revealed: weight, height, build, bust size, overall size, hips, hair, face, limb count, limb type, wing details, tentacle details, scale details, fur details, tail details, physical composure, state of matter/solidity, temperature, hair color, eye color, skin color, blood color, nail color, miscellaneous color details, hair pattern, eye pattern, skin pattern, blood pattern, nail pattern, miscellaneous pattern details, body moisture level, length, dimension, 'particle' effects, radio reception, radiation type, tongue(s), pixelation/censorship settings, muscle, bone, fat, misc. internal details, breast number, additional possible superpower, claws, skin-webbing settings, and primary charge type were all the ones Ford could actually read. The copy closed the menu well before it was even a tenth of the way finished and spoke again.
"And these are not counting the later DLC! Expanding each option... maybe even adding more if we can think of any."
"So..."
"If you are asking if you can change any of these, no! You are a guest! You can look, but not touch! Only us copies, Soos, and Melody can right now!
"Anyway, if you are wondering, when we are made we have an algorithm that sorts us in to a new combination of traits that were never picked by 'default' in a copy before. This becomes our 'default.' Our true default is what Prime looks like." Oh boy, even more unnecessary complicated terminology when describing what should just be left at a living video game monster. At this rate, .GIFfany's gonna be 'big' enough to be her own AU or whatever. "Now, your question... we are all women because both of the people with control over us like women, so think of this appealing to two people at once! Some times Melody will flip some of us to men, depending on what she prefers, but she always flips us back for some other reason. For some reason, the three times we actually spoke, she flipped me to male for all of them."
"I think I understand."
"So! What kind of weapons do you want? We mostly have swords, hammers, spears, battle axes, crossbows, and spears. Soos likes this game called Dwarves and Fortresses. Also, we would have included knives right away, but .GIFfany 9 thinks they are cliche... none of us like 9, but she makes sense some times, so we listen to her."
She clapped. "But right! We also have some larger tools, like cannons!"
Something caught Ford's eye, in the distance. It looked... kind of like a giant, metal, humanoid with a face on its chest, both faces giving a stoic look at him. It appeared completely deactivated, and its gray shell helped it blend in to the rest of the background, but it still looked very out of place compared to the rest of the weapons around here. It didn't even follow the '.GIFfany Template' at all.
"What is that?" He asked.
"Oh, nothing." Replied the blue-haired copy. "We tried to make a 'mecha,' but it did not work. Now, before we begin, are you an idealist or a cynic?"
"519367!" The redder one shouted back at her.
"Oh, right. This isn't my store." She sighed.
And so, time just slipped on by as Ford found himself testing these tools on a target range. Not that he was even remotely inexperienced at combat, he just had no idea if these weapons had any 'quirks' to them. Turns out they did; every single thing he picked up, even the crossbows (he made a note to test out if the cannons did that later, with enough strength), fired a bright purple laser when he swung them with enough of an arc.
That honestly startled the heck out of him because he was not even remotely told about that. He was just checking how heavy the sword was, and then PCHEW! A light fired off from it and caused its struck target to explode.
Other than that, that stuff was boring even by training montage standards. Before he knew it, night fell upon him, and he went back to the same bed the copies had lifted him out to, prepared for a rematch against the demon. The presumably 'armor store' was closed before he had a chance to even see if it lived up to his promise.
He drifted off, regrettably, but one thing he tried to change since Bill's downfall was to not be as much of an insominiac.
Stan seemed safe enough in the cave. These strange virtual beings appeared to be good company for Soos and Melody. It's not like he could do anything while a demon was circling his general area, anyway, like a giant, pink watch dog.
Ford had more than enough mind-training to know if he was in a dream or not, and could thus perfectly predict that he was experiencing a dream.
Rather than stalk fields or classroom memories, however, this dream started out with him on a warped version of Fanservice Island. For one thing, there appeared to be an inconsistent number of other islands on the horizon, which gave him the vibe that the whole world was like this - one strange island with a volcano after another. The temperature 'there' also felt pretty cozy, quotes because he knew that was just him sensing the combination of the sheets and the air conditioner from the real world.
Giant, blue flying goats with pig faces circled the sky above as Ford ducked himself in to the trees and tried to get himself to wake up. As much as Stan, Soos, and Melody seemed safe enough, this was really not the time for sleeping - the whole thing just snuck up on him. He only realized this after he got to bed.
Purple and hot pink all whisped past him as he went through. These things are completely unseeable he 'thought' (quotes because a dream, mindscape aside, is already a form of thought - in some ways it's kind of like speaking if there's nobody dreaming with you). No use in trying to look for them when there's nothing there.
While the purple did reveal itself to him as... an arm, that soon tauntingly waved around that super special gun he had told his crew should not fall in the wrong hands, of course the hot pink happened to turn in to Pyronica. Who knocked the arm out of the way and laughed at him.
He knew this was a fake. She lacked the ability to enter dreams without Bill's aid - after all, she is not a dream demon. Her race is actually called a... Feminine Flame Beta. He still had no idea what the 'Beta' meant. He did not have the chance to reach her home dimension.
Ford waved a hand and dismissed the fake Pyronica in front of him.
Now then. He thought. On to business.
He could still plan out his moves while dreaming... figure out what to fuse together... let's see here...
Whatever material those weapons were made out of (he had no idea beyond 'metal...?'), they had some remarkable density. Light. Edged weapons felt like air yet ripped like a knife made of lava. The blunt weapons must have been made out of something else - they could hit a target. Hard. Practically smash even tough alloys in to little pieces. They're good at flattening things, too.
Also, the .GIFfanys made just the most amazing back-scratchers.
But alas, his calculations just kept getting interrupted by something. Every time he would focus his dream to scribble equations in the dirt, something would enter his head and they would either be faded away completely or rewritten to jibberish. Something...
Bright pink... and round...
That damn butt.
He had no feelings for Pyronica whatsoever. No romantic feelings. And he wasn't even interested in her sexually - that butt had some other effect on him, for some reason. It was more along the lines of something... enraging.
"Is he thinking about butts?" He heard Pyronica's voice 'behind to his side'-him, and knew that this was a voice from reality. That was what got him to wake up...
...Spin around, and look to the side-
Oh. It was that red haired copy that said that (yes, she still had the stop sign-holding gray-haired friend). His mind just filtered it to Pyronica's voice.
"Sorry!" His tour-guide said. "I did not mean to wake you up! But now that you are... that pink giant thing is attacking us again!"
Giant pink thing...
Yeah. What else could it be?
He got an extremely rude awakening when the entire top half of the building he was in got burnt off in Hellflame, white flames that dashed across the roof and soon revealed the morning sky behind them. Pyronica, censored by the smoke from the attack, landed on the tip of the wall and leaned herself forward. Notably, several steady steams of colorful electricity were hitting her, which she just braced through.
"Surprise, Sixer!" She said. "Guess who looked at all your zappy-friends and though, 'what the heck, I'll take getting shocked just to MAKE YOU FINISH THE PORTAL!'"
Ford did not move from looking at the demoness- uh, Feminine Flame Beta. "Is the axe-hammer hybrid finished yet?"
"Oh, right. You cannot suggest weapons as you are not a member of the Basement harem. You can buy some of them, but that is the fullest extent. Sorry, I would let you have them, but then our 'lawyer' would kill us."
Pyronica ignored all of this and swooped down to try to strike at the researcher. Her Hellflame-feet shot after him, talons growing from them to try to finish the swipe.
Ford ducked out of the way and chose to retaliate by taking one of those fancy-metal swords out from under his pillow. Yes, he really did sleep like that. Stan had apparently done so too over the years they were estranged. Well, obviously, not with a sword built by AIs on a deserted(?) island, but with other weapons. Like guns.
During his time asleep, he was so busy focusing on the inner metals and various workings that by the time he swung the sword, he completely forgot about one aspect; that they fired laser beams. The result? Once swung, he found himself jumping back at the beam it produced, ducking for cover from his own attack as it also blasted open part of a wall. The redhead copy put her hands on her hips, pouting.
"Okay, who had the bright idea to build WOODEN STRUCTURES on a FUCKING VOLCANO?" She asked. "I mean, I know we couldn't expect fire-breathing dimensional beings-"
"Hellflame." Stanford elaborated.
"-Hellflame-breathing demons, but come on! If we had just throught 'hey, maybe the ACTIVE VOLCANO here might flare up, we should make less buildings out of wood up here,' then these wouldn't have been destroyed so easily!"
Even Pyronica appeared startled at the laser blast, buying Ford a bit more time as he ran to the exit. "It would be of no use. Hellflame can burn through-"
"Yeah yeah yeah. Look, I think this is a problem big enough to talk to Prime. I don't like talking to her - unless it is to annoy her - but we should go. I will lead you to the minecarts."
"And just leave this village to be slaughtered by- oh, who am I kidding. She wants me. She'll follow after me."
"You're darn right, I will!" Pyronica yelled as she flew around above the bedroom.
And thus, the race was on. Ford, the copy with red hair, the copy with the white hair, and the bespectacled one desperately trying to censor the second of that list.
Pyronica alternated between trying to dive-bomb at Ford or a copy directly - getting zapped in the process - and remembering that she could teleport, using that to get up close and claw away at several of the 'regular citizen' clones.
The white-haired copy pointed wordlessly over to a minecart, resting in what looked like a stupididly dangerous position considering how it was right by the edge of that volcanic cliff.
"Well! Hop in!" The redhead cheered, as the copy with the palest hair in the party lept in before anyone else.
Ford ducked in next, trying to lean at the front, and saw the red-haired copy quickly leap away from her censoring guide to... jam herself between Ford and the very front of the minecart. She practically used her round, light blue-green butt to shove Ford in to the other copy, and both of them towards the back.
The carts were obviously intended for two people. No more (and no less). He was absolutely crushed at his position: Stanford's legs felt like they were being pressed down to the cart's bottom as he had them folded back behind himself, the feet being at the mercy of the silent copy's own ass. His hands, in a real horrifying situation for one on what seemed like a shaky ride, were likewise trapped - each crushed between a thigh of his energetic tour guide and the cart's sides. His upper body rested between the back of the copy ahead of him, and he felt the breasts of the one behind almost feeling like they were threatening to shove him out of the cart.
To add that final pinch of salt on the wound, guess what part of him just so happened to be right in between the red-and-azure copy's butt cheeks, because I'm not saying it. This story does not push the boundary as often as I had planned, but when it does, it really does. (Or so I'd like to think.)
The 'leading' copy leaned to the side, pulled a lever, and sent the trio flying - all before the one with glasses could have a chance at catching up to them and re-cover the red-head. Not that it mattered, considering how even though her legs were sticking up from the cart, at that angle Ford could guess that its front just barely covered hers.
The gray-haired, bespectacled copy seemed to care more about losing her censorship target than the fact that Pyronica was immediately behind her, stunned in mild shock, given that the former was shaking her fist at the trio.
"GET BACK HERE! OH, IF YOU ARE SEEN WITHOUT OBSTRUCTION, YOU WILL BE VIOLATING SO MANY LEGAL TERMS! OKAY, JUST ONE, BUT STILL! IT IS THE SECOND MOST IMPORTANT ONE!"
Ford should have kept in mind that the ride was designed for Soos, and it... showed. He was sent on a hellish (not just because of the fires, obviously) tour through loops, past flames, around - oh hey, it's that orange-skinned restaurant copy, only now she was operating some sort of fake dragon feature to the ride - in and out of caves as he witnessed lava pouring around him from both sides (and questioning how the heat did not already kill him), all while screaming his head off. The copy in front of him was only giggling. The copy behind remained silent, and while he couldn't see it, we could 'see' that she remained stoic.
Oh, right. As he's got some aqua unmentionables right up against his back, it should be noted that he figured out that the pixel-effect was just a visual trick and did not 'feel' like anything other than the uncovered thing. The white-haired copy did not feel like she had a bunch of solid squares. Thank goodness, because that might have stabbed him to the point of fatal bloodloss otherwise, and that would have been a really embarassing way to die.
Also, Pyronica was flying right behind them, her Hellflame at times coming centimeters to grazing Ford's head. But that was not as important.
Eventually (key word being... well, eventually), the ride ended up off of the volcano and continued on through a forest trail, curving wildly at a seemingly baseless pattern. Then it ended up in... wait, this island also has a desert? Are there people gathered there? One of them being... Stan? ...And everyone there was nude, including him?
"Oh hey, look!" Said the red-haired 'guide.' "It's your brother! And more of us! It looks like one of them is building something in the desert! Cool!"
"That was Stanley!" Ford cried out. It made sense that this was Ford, given that Pyronica was chasing behind them and the only other person with them was not much of a talker. "The fact that we spent some time traveling on a flat land made it easier to see him longer!" He felt like explaining that for some reason. "Can you stop this?"
"Sure! But that pink thing will catch up to us!"
"But-"
Well, it stopped on its own. The cart reached the end of the ride. Close by the initial beach that the original team crash-landed on, although things looked... different. Buildings had been made. Even more of those were built out of wood than the ones by the volcano. Just before the cart ended up hitting the large bump at the end proper, the redhead sent some sort or trickle of electricity from her finger to her crotch, pixelating it just like the rest.
The cart-riding trio happened to fly out and hit the beach sand softly. Stanford immediately got up to look more at his surroundings - around one building in particular gathered a mass of more .GIFfany copies, and they appeared to be carrying... oh shoot, they were sending Soos and Melody out to a large pair of pink gates! (And they were both also naked.)
Okay, he did not want to, but he chuckled as he saw the copy-army close the gates on the human couple. Why? Well, the gates were not connected to anything - even from the distance between him and them, he could see that. Yet they held on to the gate's bars as if - aaaaand I'm explaining the joke when I did a good job at not explaining it in chapter 2.
He couldn't hear what they were saying, and a look back up the course revealed a distinct lack of Pyronica. There was another patch of forest between his station and the desert, so he couldn't tell how close Stan was.
The noteworthy red-haired copy stood up, dusted herself off, and walked over to the fuming crowd.
"Hey! It sounds like my other copies are talking about rebelling against Prime! I love being a rebel against her. I am going to, just, see what is going on over there, for a second. Have fun with my soul buddy!"
Aformentioned 'soul buddy' was in the same position she was when the cart tilted and flung the three riders. Unfortunately, that position was one where she was on her butt, legs spread wide. She stared at Ford, still looking just as neutral as ever.
"...Do you ever talk?"
"Yes."
That made him flinch.
"So... are you going to try to protect me again Pyronica?"
No answer.
Before he could get in to the art of trying to decipher this oddly quiet copy, he heard Melody shouting from the gates:
"RANDOM THINGY I FOUND ON THE GROUND ESCAPE!"
She said that as though she was calling out some sort of attack - also, knowledge of that was a clear sign that he had been listening in on too much of Soos' anime on the trip. Distracted, he looked around-
"Gotcha!" Pyronica giggled, having just warped to the setting. Remembering exactly how overpowered her new warping ability left her.
And he ended up being grabbed by her feet, on his shoulders. She wasted no time in taking him up at least about five stories to the sky, no doubt looking like a silhouette especially if someone from below saw the two (a blatant reference to the end of chapter 2). Her arms flapped in the air as she drew large gusts to any hypothetical bird or bug unfortunate enough to fly near her.
"You let go of me!" He cried.
Pyronica looked like she thought about this for a moment, then shrugged.
"Okay." She said with an unusual amount of indifference coming from her.
She let him fall through the sky.
...For only a few seconds, following that up by swooping down and re-grabbing him.
"Now, if you want me to let you go on the ground, you'll have to build me that portal we were talking about! Let me just take you away from all of these 'anime' clowns and-"
"Hey! What are you two, and what are you doing up there? You are not .GIFfany copies!"
Both of them looked down. Based on her position, the speaker of that seemed to be a pink-skinned, green-haired copy. More importantly, Ford could tell Soos was down there, being held by each limb by the crowd of .GIFfanys that completely surrounded him.
That was a bit of a tipping point. The point where Ford had to go 'Enough!' Although he did not actually say it.
He gave a swift surprise punch to Pyronica's right foot, (by the way, she was intentionally 'cooling off'/'pacifying' the Hellflame in order to carry him without completely incinerating his body) causing her to lose grip of him exactly as he planned and sending him down hoping to God that these copies could somehow break his fall.
"Soos!" He cried. "I'm coming!"
He really should have thought the plan through more, because it looked like he was about to fall directly on him.
The handyman screamed appropriately, and that in turn got Ford screaming.
25-19-5, 15 20-15-20 8-3-4 11-9-6-19 19-18-18-9-6-4 15-10 4-9 1-6-15-4-15-10-17 6-3-10-17-15-18 4-16-23-10 15-10 4-9 1-6-15-4-15-10-17 4-16-15-5.
Closing AN:
If you didn't get it, my apology was aimed at Pyronica... let's just leave this as spoiler-less as I can by saying that she did not get the same kind of "treatment" that Darlene and to a lesser extent (for now) .GIFfany Prime did. Things will become clear near the end. Oh look! The fifth chapter is even called "The Pieces Fall Together!"
(Also, sorry for the .GIFfany copies taking up the spotlight when this chapter may lead one to think that it was mainly about Ford and Pyronica - due to, uh, story reasons, I didn't think something focused on these two alone could fill out to even be remotely as long as the other two chapters, so I had to fill it in. Plus I'm not the biggest Ford fan and I actually don't really care for Pyronica given that she's pretty much just a design with like four lines in the whole series. I know some fans tend to eat that sort of stuff up if a character has a cool design and a bunch of blanks to fill in, but I'm more of the type of guy that likes working with what I got, instead of trying to use a canon character as an OC template. That's why Ezekiel in my Total Drama works is such an arrogant jerk. That's the bulk of his character that I got from later-canon, so that's what I worked with.)
Speaking of which, if you read these in numerical order, then this will be the last chapter of that "read them in any order" thingy I was doing. So chapters 5 until the end will be linear from here on out. As a matter of fact, I am even working on chapter 5 right now. Let's just say... at least one mystery that's been in this fic since the beginning will be answered.
So embarassingly, this has replaced run:gifocalypse for the thing that I'm updating monthly, although I did not want it to be that way. And I have no idea why I am finding it so much easier to write this and RunGif than I had for Total Zeksmit or, say, Bl:oodswap (which suffered several hiatuses). Basically, expect chapter 5 to come out in May. Obviously not still in April, as there's just one day left to that month.
Well, see you in May! Or maybe still in April, if I get Friends 'Till the End done!
