run:gifocalypse
Chapter 7: Art
Beginning AN:
I hope it's not too obvious that I was sort of working on this and chapter 6 at around the same time... or 7 and 8, after 6 was finished.
By the way, while I tried not to edit the chapters of this that I already published too much, before getting this out I re-read the first six chapters while charting a list of every flaw I could find. And... well, you could say I "patched" this again. There aren't any big changes, but if you notice anything different about the chapters now, that's why. For one thing, every professor now has something in her hair. Think of it as like a faux-bow or something like that. I also finally got rid of a joke I was ashamed of back in the second chapter, by just tweaking it a little. I might elaborate on that soon enough. Sooner if you count my Tumblr.
After the first of presumably many token Waddles check-ups, the team pressed onwards to what Dipper hoped wasn't the Amazon rainforest-
This next Wire dumped them out in a rainforest. With an oddly sturdy, oddly square sign apparently made of wood reading "Welcome to the Amazon Art Club!"
Dipper had to get Searah out of his head. Fast.
Within eyesight from the Wire was a quartet of buildings. Three of them weren't larger than a standard one-story house: One was painted a solid red, one purple, and one orange. The fourth, on the other hand, really stood out - in Soos's case, it was actually the first he noticed, which drew his eyes to the other three. This one was just about as wide as the others, but it reached up high into the airs above and pierced the layers of leaves in the rainforest. A single, diagonal azure stripe decorated this tall structure, but the most noteworthy thing was its primary coloration. It matched that of the Wire.
"There's our next target." Said Dipper.
Everyone was already expecting something to jump out as they crossed the intersection between the four buildings. Yet, oddly enough, that little jump scare or chain reaction that started with an innocent student-AI peeking her head out wondering what's going on never happened. They made it to the door of the blue-and-pink building, finding its front door to be completely unlocked.
Compared to the previous domain - in fact, the previous six domains - the outfits of the students were a bit of a breath of fresh air. About half of them were wearing what seemed like the 'standard' .GIFfany school uniform, but on closer inspection had skirts that went down to their feet. The rest had an array of outfits in various colors, but the general theme appeared to be: Cover everything but the hands (and even then, a select few had gloves) and head, and all of them must have foot-long skirts for the lower halves. Aligning the walls were a number of portraits of the same sweaty-looking, overweight man unknown to any of the group. The only actually naked .GIFfany copy in this current floor seemed to be the silver statue in the center of the room, standing on one leg with the other bent behind her. Both of the statue's arms were behind as though she was in a dive, her mouth perpetually giving off a stream of water into a small fountain below in the shape of a circle. Next to that circle was a larger body of water, linked by a small stream, in the shape of a 'G.' Naturally, they all turned to look at the band as they arrived.
"They're here! They're here! They are all here!" One of them cheered.
"This is the L Building, the eastmost point in the Amazon Art Club! Domain 7!" Explained another.
"Professor Leona wanted to see you! Just take that elevator up there. She is on the top floor." Said yet another. "Enjoy your stay at the Amazon Art Club!"
As they walked over to yet another elevator, the 'fountain' stopped generating water and began tapping Soos on the shoulder.
"Hey." She said. "How was my fountain act? Was it good?"
Dipper in particular jumped back, pointing at the offending naked silver .GIFfany.
"AHH! I knew that was going to happen, but you still startled me!"
Apart from a number of bronze statues of .GIF- no. Apart from a number of 'bronze statues of .GIFfany,' there was only one copy on the top floor, making her the obvious candidate for this domain's professor. Of course, she had amaranth-colored hair. Her skin an odd, unnatural yellow, and she seemed to have her hair tied into three especially long trails or braids. Within the near-front of her hair was a strange, moving blob of paint: red, yellow, and blue moved around with no visible blending, somehow not running all over her head. Her clothing was, at the moment, hidden behind the large desk she was seated behind, though since her feet were placed on top of it the group could make out a pair of black boots splattered with paints of various colors. Arranged on her desk was a large bowl of fruit, the bowl of which matching colors with her hair and Wire. Tucked away at the side were a series of azure-colored musical instruments, a set of purple gas masks, and a stack of cyan soap bars. She also appeared to be toying around with one such soap bar in her hand.
"Ah. I suppose you already know a little about me." She began, keeping eye contact on the soap bar the entire time. "Professor Leona. The highest-ranking of the four overseers of this domain. Let me guess... you just want the card that will direct you towards one of my best friends, no?"
"Sorta." Soos replied. "I mean, in the end we kinda want to make it to where Grunkle Stan and Grunkle Ford are, then maybe beat .GIFfany again, but if there are no shortcuts to get there then yeah, we'll have to see your friend."
"You already 'captured' one of them in that modern garbage that is a container of yours. And while I don't believe it will be a timeless tool and that it will succumb to destruction on its own obsession with being 'inventive' you still have Professor Bubbles in there. However, if you insist on challenging me... well, I still won't fight you directly just yet."
She snapped her fingers. Just like that, three more AIs dropped from the ceiling. Not that anybody was particularly looking up there in the first place. Clad in heavy black ninja costumes, the only things telling them apart were the colors of their masks and the eyes visible from the suits: One had red, one purple, and one orange.
"Raffaela! Donna! Michelle! Hide the keys, just like we practiced yesterday!"
Leona tossed the azure card into some sort of metal, fuchsia safe with four keyholes. All three of her own... what, 'bodyguards' again? Whipped out a key matching their associated color, just to turn one of them in the keyhole of the same color. Leona sighed, took out a blue key, and locked the associated lock with that too. All three of the assisting AIs melted back into the ground, turning into electricity that danced its way past the floors and out through the walls, and Leona set the safe right there on her table.
"Don't even try to get my key before beating the other three overseers." She said, herself melting into the floor. Her own lightning crawled up the wall, then across the ceiling, before she popped out of it standing upside-down. "I'll stay out of reach until then. Also, you're free to take that safe to the Wire if you want to. But... unless you have some kind of high-powered energy thing, that's not getting opened without the keys."
It was also because of this that the gang was able to see Leona in full for the first time. Namely, how the professor was dressed in fairy large, equally paint-splattered black overalls and a small white shirt underneath. Also notable was how her hair defied gravity, appearing to point towards the ceiling as she stood tall at the peak of the room.
"I crafted this just so that I will be out of reach if I went up here. So, come on you modern era-loving fad-eaters, get the keys and come back here. Then we'll talk."
Mabel tried to jump up and claw at her a number of times, without any success. Dipper sighed.
"Come on, let's try to play her game. That's what you would do."
"...I know, but way she just did that is- well, rude. What did she mean by modern era-loving fad-eaters, anyway?"
"Believe me, if we could understand these freaks, this would be a lot easier."
On the way out, all of the 'statues' in the room turned over to the team to give them a "Good luck!" Again, this still made Dipper jump a little.
"Should we take this one split up? It might cover less time." Soos suggested. "I could take the red one, Wendy would go after the purple one, and Dipper and Mabel can team up on the orange?"
"No, splitting up sounds exactly like what .GIFfany- I mean, Leona would want." Said Dipper.
"Ha!" Leona herself was heard even from the top of her headquarters, shouting out the top window. Still on the ceiling. "Really? If I wanted you to split up from the beginning, I would have had four assistants instead of three. But we fit the theme with being named after classical artists."
"I thought you named yourselves after the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles..." Said Mabel.
"What? Of course not! Learn your history! And I thought you were someone who liked color and artsy stuff. Hrmph! No, it makes sense! Of course you wouldn't know about the classics!"
"But... you have the right colors, and they're ninjas... and somewhere around teenagers?"
"We're twenty."
"And you're kind of mutant-ish..."
"I'll have you know that I'll never model any good group of mine after disgusting sewer monsters! Now go over there and get those keys!"
She slammed the window down (up?), then disappeared from sight. This was when Dipper finally got to say something that was at his mind. "Wait. If she wanted us to stay together... and we split up... no, no. Nevermind. Or... Soos, you might be on to something."
Picking randomly, Dipper cracked the door to the orange-yellow room to the south. He immediately scowled from what he saw inside, then slammed it shut again. "Nope. Forget it. I'm not going in there alone. We're sharing the pain of this domain."
"Yeah," Wendy agreed with a shrug. "I'm more of a 'share the pain with everybody equally' type of girl. And based on what we saw so far, I have to see you guys handle this. This invasion has been a downright riot so far!"
What gave Dipper such a negative reaction in the first place was the large disco ball hovering in the center of this opening room, with a number of giant silver tiles lining the bottom that looked like they were ready to light up at any moment. Just by the door was a flat ground of a more traditional, floor-like tiles. The kind you would see in a waiting room. There was currently no AI in sight, save for the ninja-one with the mask matching the exterior.
"Hello." Said the orange-black clad ninja .GIFfany. "I am Michelle, and you just stepped into my tile maze. I'm glad you picked me first, I guess. That or you dealed with the other two really really fast and now you're about to insta-beat me too."
Soos attempted to press forward, just to be stopped right before crossing over the larger tile variety. He pressed his hands around - some kind of invisible barrier, keeping him out.
"I have this cool invisible wall thing placed over there? Uh... I don't want you walking on it before it's even turned on. Now, the rules are really simple: You're kind of in our weapons area. Because every good dating sim character protective of their loved ones needs to have weapons. Um, that is what .GIFfany said. It is sort of what I believe in, but I would not use those exact words unless I was getting paid. And .GIFfany automatically pays anybody who says that three hundred gold coins. Now, there are four different types of tiles, and this will test if you can clear the puzzle in five minutes. If you can't... I'll try to capture you right now. There's four types of tiles."
She cleared her throat before going on. "Tiles that are blue are completely safe. Tiles that are ablue will be counted as an instant capture, so avoid them. Tiles that are tablue will turn you to the right, then one space forward, so look out for tablue tiles next to ablue tiles. And finally, there's the tone-darkened blue tiles. They will shoot you forward three tiles automatically, but passing over any effect of the other tiles in between. So, you should really plan yourself, and look at the tiles ahead so that you will not land on any ablue tiles."
"...What?" Asked Wendy, "Two of those aren't even real words!"
"To an untrained eye, no, but to a trained eye, ablue is a shade of blue that just barely has green in it. Tablue is a shade that just barely has red in it. And a tone darker... is just slightly darker."
As this implied, Michelle flipping the switch led to all the tiles turning into what, at first glance, looked like the exact same shade of blue. And on second glance. And on third. Dipper, Soos, and Wendy all looked back up at the ninja-clad copy in disbelief.
"Oh yeah. And there will be lasers in addition to the time limit, to keep you going."
Out of the door from the other side, some more .GIFfany copies began trickling in. These were, as Michelle implied, armed with especially large cannons that even they seemed to struggle holding. All of them appeared to be in the same, uniform complete gray set of armor that anyone could tell wasn't really accurate to the Renaissance.
"So... girls, if you want you can start firing."
Seemingly unaffected by the glowing tiles, they all navigated to the far left and right walls and appeared to be toying around with their guns. Starting to sweat, Dipper raised his voice. "Can we... is this the time we start?"
"Yeah sure, I don't really care. I personally don't like this puzzle but Leona insisted on having some kind of color-tile-based puzzle in some way. And I ended up being the one somehow stuck with having to do it."
One of the armor-clad .GIFfany copies fired a ray gun just barely over the gang, causing all four of the humans to drop down with their hands over their heads. Based on how Michelle and the other armored copies had to jump out of the way once the yellow laser soared around the air, this somehow didn't follow the plan despite the ninja-dressed copy's command. This was a little detail confirmed when Michelle stood back up, waving her hands around.
"Woah, woah, woah!" She said, "Not so close!"
Meanwhile, Mabel analyzed the board and began tapping one of the tiles in front of her - though not the one immediately in front, the one to the right of it. No reaction. Edging herself on the platform while the AIs got on the ground to fire your typical spy-movie lasers at the floor's level, she began hopping across them, appearing to only pick selective platforms.
"Yeah!" She cheered, "Guys, I don't know what you're talking about! I can see what color is what just fine!"
After stepping on one tile in particular, she let out a cheerful "Woah!" as some kind of force slid her forward over two others. When one student moved her laser to try to sweep it past Mabel's feet, she hopped in place.
"You'll have to try better than that!" She cheered, stepping on a few remaining tiles and getting dragged around in ways that matched the description of at least one of the two drag-type tiles. A few seconds later, and Mabel danced her way to the goal point, causing one of the followers to drop her weapon for brief applause. After looking around and only getting stares in response, especially from fellow copies, she put a hold to that.
"Yeah." Said Michelle. "The other three have to make it across."
Mabel turned around, placing a hand on her chin. "You guys can't tell the difference? Okay... go forward, forward, right, foeward, left, back, back, left, right, forward, left, left, forward, right, and from there the tone-darkened blue tiles will just pull you to a harmless blue tile and you just take one more step forward!"
The trio attempted to step forward, just to end up in a large pile with a yellow laser slowly falling down on them. The AI manning this accomplished this effect by slowly lowering her knees to a kneel, blatantly re-adjusting her feet to avoid slipping and falling.
"We have to do this one at a time." Said Dipper.
Slipping himself out of the pileup easily, Dipper was the first to go. Forward, followed by another forward was an easy enough set of directions to follow. After that and leaping in place to avoid a laser that was coming up from behind, however, he looked over to his sister.
"Do you mean my right or your right? Or, the right from the start or the right from where we are now?"
"The right from where you are now! Just go over to that panel on the right- oh, watch out!"
Dipper was barely able to jump in time to dodge a laser that had just backed around and tried swinging at him from the front. Meanwhile, to avoid the AI lowering herself by the starting point, Soos and Wendy had tried balancing themselves on the first available platform. The first of the two following after the latter. With a bit of hopping and the other two people having to ignore Mabel's directions, Dipper managed to make his way to the end, breathing heavily.
"That was confusing..."
Wendy was able to make the various steps and dodge the lasers much easier, following Mabel's eye-glances to remind herself of which colors were the right ones instead of the directions that would probably take too long to follow. When the lasers started going after her as she was being pulled three tiles ahead, she even flipped in mid-air to pass over them. Wendy performed a final hop, landing right by the twins and looking over to Soos.
"Don't worry guys! I remember the directions perfectly! All those hidden forests and cave dungeons were leading up to this-"
"Aaaaand here's where I remind you that we .GIFfanys hate playing by the rules. Why are you?"
Michelle said that with a bit of a giggle. One finger-snap later, and all lasers were immediately directed at him. After Soos noticed that they were only shining yellow light on him, he stood tall in front of the group and puffed out his chest.
"You call that a laser? I'm immune to these!"
"Noooo..." While trying to contain it, she went out in a larger fit of laughter. Somehow, this made her want to remove the head portion of her outfit, shaking her yellow-orange hair to let it flow around. "The lasers are just a metaphor. I'm not playing nice anymore. You are captured now. I'll let Leona decide whether to send you up to the Construction Site or give the other three a chance to get their Soos back. I mean, if we start with Soos, I don't think .GIFfany would care about anything else we do as much... it won't really be as fun for us, since we consider these fine arts as a way to impress."
With that, Soos was lifted into the air and surrounded by a series of glowing orange bars arranged to a sphere. With a large keyhole on it. He was barely able to toss the Illegal Prime Neutralizer towards Wendy before being completely sealed in. Michelle laughed as she was about to float through the walls into the next room. Halfway through emerging, however, the tile puzzle clicked off, and .GIFfany's image appeared out of the tiles themselves. Since, even with the supernatural magic goodness of the .GIFfany army, the tiles could apparently only each display one color at a time, the resulting image of her was exceptionally blocky even by her standards.
"Leona, this 'puzzle' goes against- wait. You are not Leona. Nevermind."
The puzzle clicked off completely, and Michelle resumed phasing herself into the next room.
Leona still remained stuck to the ceiling as her cell phone rang. Since the group left, she had made herself comfortable on an inverted seat while reading a newspaper from ParĂcutin Hotties Daily with the headline "TODAY'S NEWS: DOMAINS 5 AND 6 HIT BY 'THE SILENCE!' PRAYERS SENT FOR PROFESSOR LEONA." She laughed as she read the speculation on why the domains stopped exporting and whether or not Leona was 'good enough' to stop whatever 'Silence' was out there.
Of course she was.
She sighed while answering her phone. Knowing the answers that the publishers of various articles didn't was always fun. This included looking at speculation from the past.
"Hello?" She asked upon finally answering. Knowing .GIFfany's persistance, she would keep trying to call to get that 'urgent message' in.
"I saw one of your students- wait. Ugh! Are you upside-down?"
"Yes. Gravity inversion."
"Why?"
"Each of us professors has different 'themes' if you will. I wanted to pick a bit more 'theme' to this on purpose. So I decided, why not have this also be an area with a bit of an inversion theme?"
"That is an awful idea, but not the reason why I called. I saw one of your students crafting a 'tile puzzle?' What sort of garbage is that? Why toy around with them with these 'puzzles!' You're supposed to attack them directly! Throw the entire force of your students after them!"
"If all fourteen of us did that, then they wouldn't survive." Leona outright dropped the newspaper. It rose to the ceiling. "You were one copy, with no extra powers and no real physical form. The Pines barely survived against your greatness."
"Of course they did!"
"So... by that logic, what would throwing over two million of us at them give them a chance?"
"Obviously they wouldn't! Nobody is better than us .GIFfanys, and I'm the best of them all!"
"Rose wouldn't want to, so it wouldn't be fun for her. And nobody else would get a chance to, so that wouldn't be fun for them. If we all followed your orders from the start, Rose would have won the contest, and your final project would have been a huge stupid space forest garden for the hungry. If I followed your orders, then it would become a giant art center. Do either of those sound pleasant to you?"
"I- you- my orders- ...no. No, it does not."
"Good. We're just having fun with our powers. That was the entire reason why you gave us this chance, after all."
"It is, but... well... making a huge tile puzzle... it's kind of like what Burnda would do! You know, there's a reason I assigned her near the end of the chain! She'll have almost no chance of winning!"
"The chain is already set. I don't see how you can change it. If you don't like what I'm doing, don't watch and wait until I lose or something. Then say you told me so."
"But... it's..."
"I'm just doing exactly what you wanted us to do. Why don't you like that?"
"Fine!"
"Good. Now, don't you have some shopping malls to create or something?"
Leona heard .GIFfany sigh on the other line. "As a matter of fact... Kathody's students are putting in a little too much horror-related stuff on our rip offs of Edgy on Purpose... I should go talk to them..."
"What's wrong?" She smirked, knowing that .GIFfany could see that. "Based on what you say about Professor Sandy, I thought you wanted the professors to 'act smarter.'"
"Only if they agree with me..."
"But I do! You just do not like how I do it!"
"Ugh, shut up!"
Click.
Welp, back to reading about how the AI news unknowingly twisted a pair of twelve year-olds, a laid-back cool fifteen year old, and a kind-hearted tourist shop employee into some kind of formless abomination that has it out for sapient video game characters for some reason.
Isn't the news funny?
As Michelle had promised, the following room did in fact contain a large number of weapons in it. Knives, cannons, more lasers, guns... the selection was mostly dominated by knives, many of which had black handles with red stripes on them. Michelle herself looked into her inventory and armed herself with nunchaku.
Wendy pushed one of the cannons in to block the door from the army of armor-clad copies, and once they started floating through the walls themselves, flat-out switched the pack on and vacuumed all of them up. Michelle looked back at the remaining AIs, the crowd in the room - a pretty huge number of them - and waved a hand.
"Er, try possessing those things and firing them at the humans. Maybe that will work-"
Right after saying that, she too was sucked into the pack, letting an orange-colored key slip out of her outfit's sleeve.
A room away, the bars holding Soos began to turn purple. His cage began drifting as well, just ever-so slightly to the door.
Back in the other room, the AIs that remained simply stared at the group as Wendy tried to remove her own barricade.
"Hey... we should still follow her orders. I think." Said one of them.
This started a pretty nasty cluster-combo all at once. The mass pile of knives were tossed all around, flinging themselves across the room with great energy. Cannons fired rainbows of paint everywhere, which only served to make the room messier. At one point, Mabel narrowly avoided what seemed to be a massive axe that dropped from the ceiling, completely unnoticed by the group prior. (They have to check the ceilings of these domains more often from now on.)
Thankfully, it all collapsed on itself in less than a minute. Something about the paint getting on everything resulted in the sharp weapons being stuck to either one-another or the ground, being so coated in a thick membrane of paint that they were virtually harmless, cannons were jammed, and it all ended up falling under in a large pileup. Some of the AIs were stuck inside their electronic forms of combat. Rolling her eyes, Wendy picked up as many of them as she could before they regained their senses, phased out of the pile, and escaped through the walls.
Rushing back to the prior room, they saw the purple ninja copy knocking a large, square opening in the wall leading outside, staring at the recolored sphere of bars Soos was kept in.
"Oh. Greetings." She said. "I am Donna. I see you conquered the southern M Building, I reside in the northern D Building."
"Easy." Said Wendy, now taking control of the Illegal Prime Neutralizer. "Just give us Soos, your key, and nobody gets hurt."
"I would prefer moving this confrontation to my sector of the domain. Where I'm in charge of fruit growing."
"Wasn't Rose in charge in fruit?" Asked Dipper.
"Yes, but above that she prioritized vegetables. And what fruit she did produce was rather bland and ordinary. Also, since she was gone we had to improvise and make our on selection of various vegetation now that we spent a day knowing that the domain doing so will be out of comission. Please, meet me in the gardens."
Using lightning, she blasted a large hole in the wall, flew out while telekinetically dragging Soos's jail-bubble through said hole, and blasted another hole in her own building just so that she could fit the guy inside.
Donna sighed as she placed a hand on her hip. "There was a door. I can not compute why you did not simply take that path."
Mabel, who had just finished leaping from the pile of rubble by this wall hole, cheered with her hands out. "For fun!"
Dipper, still working his way down without getting caught on the rocky metal chunks, blinked. "Wait. I never thought of that. I just assumed since this was the bigger entrance-"
"I didn't either," Said Wendy, "But I also think this right here does a good job at making fun of you girls."
"Well. Fine. We mostly make fruit here just to draw it, anyway. Raffaela's art studio is where we end up making the actual paintings, which we use to impress our dates. Dates that are into the fine arts of the past."
Getting a closer look inside of the purple building, the group of .GIFfany copies somehow managed to make Rose's general gardening moves actually look menacing. First of all, the room lacked an actual roof, so the sunlight shone directly on the garden and illuminated this room with natural lights (though the large lights that lined the walls made it pretty clear that they could turn on artificial lights at night if they wanted to). This time, however, the AIs shot cold, unchanging, knife-sharp stares at the whole group while watering or tending to the various plants around. As implied by Donna herself, there was definitely a few things off about what it was being grown. An upscale in size was one thing, another was that few of these seemed like any regular fruit the group was used to. Deep blues that look like they should be a fruit color, but actually aren't, fit the description of some of them. Very unusual shapes, including alarming yellow pyrimadal forms, were the norm rather than the exception. Mabel was certain one of them hissed at an AI.
"But those are monster super-fruits!" Dipper said, unsure whether that detail really mattered.
"I bend the regulations a lot. Leona cannot criticise me, for she does the same with the instance of .GIFfany leading this- well, it would be insulting to projects to call the 'Gifocalypse' a 'project.'"
"Yeah, I agree." Said Soos. "This is clearly more of a big artsy-experimental thing. And not something with hard rules that's supposed to be taken too seriously."
Donna snapped her fingers. "Exactly! And this is why I feel we would be execellent friends if not for my attempt at capturing your friends."
"Um, yeah, about that. Why don't you just make capturing me your guide for when you 'win' the 'game' you guys are playing? Dipper and Mabel didn't really do anything to .GIFfany, except like running for their lives from her. And Wendy wasn't involved at all. If you could just not have to capture any of them, or Mr. Pines and his brother, that would be-"
"But then we would have already won." Donna shrugged. "Are you saying you want to forfeit the game? Your forfeit overrides all others."
"Well, no, but-"
"Come on Soos!" Mabel pleaded, "Just roll with it! We can try to rescue you and it will be fun!"
"Oh! Well in that case, let's go!"
"Excellent!" Donna clapped, "Now, I have a craving for sending out our experimental fruits after you..."
"Oh." Dipper remarked, his hand quickly falling on his forehead. "Right. They're alive. Of course they're alive. I should have known, after everything I've seen all summer."
This was confirmed when every not-tomato, not-berry, and Strange Cubic Thing™ opened its mouth to reveal row after row of sharp teeth.
"In our planned Romance Academy 8 spinoff, you don't just eat food! Food can also eat you!"
More than enough proof of this happened when an overgrown, blue-and-yellow-striped tomato lept at Dipper's face.
Thankfully, Wendy finally got her chance to directly kill something in this little adventure. With a swing of her axe, this not-tomato got a quick slash to the side, which was seemingly enough damage so that it harmlessly tackled on Dipper, motionless with its rows of choppers closed.
"At least they're easier to take care of than the AIs." He said, between desperate, deep breaths.
"Heh. Quite so. Quite so indeed." Donna snorted. "But they have less manners! Fruits, after them! And don't hold back!"
And that started the pile-up. Genetic fruit after genetic fruit tacking the trio, forcing them on the ground. A swirl of colors and gargled hisses later, and the various food items were all shoving at one-another to try to get at their potential victims.
"Hey! Food! Remember! Don't eat them!" Donna directed. "Bring them to me, so I can honorably bring them to Professor Leona, so she can honorably bring them to .GIFfany, so I can have one third of one half of .GIFfany's ultimate project to myself!"
That statement somehow made a few of them grow pseudo-arms. With one foot to kick at the ground, Wendy slid herself out from under her particular fruit-pileup. They didn't notice, even after Donna sighed and started pointing at the escapee.
"Come on! Go after her! It's not very hard- I mean difficult! I mean, pursuit this threatening- you know what I mean, since I am not at Dove's level of speech yet."
All this did was effectively stun the fruits. They 'looked' on in confusion (though none of them had eyes), and Wendy stared at the pileup. The latter smirked when she saw the twins's hands punch their way through the killer food. They're doing great, she thought.
"Augh!" Donna yelled in disgust. "Fine! Students - I mean, other students becides me, well I oversee things but - go after them! This whole fruit plan was terrible! I can see why Rose only wanted to grow 'ordinary' things!"
"What does fruit even have to do with art, anyway?" Asked Wendy.
"Ever heard of painting fruit bowls?"
"Oh. Right. That. I... guess that makes sense? Whatever, if you think you're relevant, you're relevant. I don't want to question your 'video game logic.'"
Immediately after saying that, Wendy was caught by the crowd and lifted up towards the cage Soos was inside. She braced for impact as they appeared to toss her right into it - bars any everything - only for her to end up phasing right through the spherical shape. Soos gave her a friendly wave as she looked through her new prison to see Dipper and Mabel sneaking their way out of the fruit pile.
Helping manners was Donna holding her head on a palm and waving with the other hand, saying "Go away fruit. You are all a bunch of sweet, sweet failures. Or sour ones in some cases. In fact - some of you girls, let's say five of you... just prepare to eat them. Cut them up or something."
Dipper surfaced from the large, messy 'fruit bowl' first, taking a huge breath into the fresh (if extremely humid, but he couldn't really choose otherwise) air.
"Oh look! The twins are still, well, alive I guess. Horray. Girls just tackle them or something I don't really know I don't care."
Time was bought for them when the two students that dove after them ended up knocking into one-another, a failed tackle that earned them a facepalm from Donna's side.
"Quick!" Dipper said in a small panic, rushing over to catch as Wendy tossed him the IPN. "Mabel, we have to-"
They were surrounded from all directions by copies before he could even finish that sentence. Well, not all directions. One particular direction housed a number of very confused fruits. Some of the latter group appeared to start nursing the sliced member of their kind... but after determining that it was not moving, they went in to start feasting on the remains.
"Hey fruit things!" Mabel shouted to the apparent cannibals, "Do you think you could work with us?"
"They were engineered by Donna and her army," Dipper replied, "I don't really think they-"
All of them were 'facing' Mabel at the moment.
"You heard me! You there! Tomato-looking thing! Why not throw yourself at Donna's face?"
"Ugh, don't just stand there!" Aformentioned ninja suit-clad leader said, "I know I said 'just stand there' when we were preparing this, but by then our fruit was actually doing something!"
"Maybe because the training bags we used were filled with freshly-grilled hot dogs?" Said one of the background students.
"Just perform the combat maneuvers!"
"Even if it will endanger the fruit specimen?"
Mabel, at least, already ducked herself back into the crowd of killer food. Apparently she decided that, if they had no plans on hurling themselves towards Donna's group, Mabel was going to have to do that for them. And thus, she rose out with one of them in her hand.
"Let my friends go!" Mabel demmanded.
"Or what?" Asked Donna. "You are clearly outnumbered, and as soon as my personal group of followers re-enter crazy ex-girlfriend attack mode, you will end up paying."
"Ex-girlfriend? We were never even girlfriends in the first place..." One of them spoke up. "Neither are you. The only one with a good date here is Leona, and she has a good date now. So she is not an ex-girlfriend."
Before she could think of a counter-attack, Donna found herself having a large, blue and yellow-stripped eggplant-shaped fruit splatter her from behind. One shake later, and it was all off.
"If any of you take one step closer," Shouted Mabel, "I'll ruin your whole garden! I can turn this into one giant fruit salad, you know!"
Donna seemed to be torn with whether she should gasp or shrug. So she did a combination: Air was clearly sucked between her teeth, yet her shoulders slowly rose and fell. "Well, on one hand, we kind of made those to be expendable. On the other hand, it is valuable research... I guess if you get rid of all of our discovered and farmed super-fruits then we will have trouble starting anew again."
"Then I'll do that!"
Now she gasped.
"My work! No! How would you feel if-"
"Bubbles melted the journals written by my uncle!"
"Really?" Donna turned to the side. "In that case, I will have to talk with Leona about her choices in making friends..."
"Good! Because you'll have plenty of time to talk to her inside this!"
Taking in several of the side copies first, Mabel had long whipped out the Illegal Prime Neutralizer, borrowed straight from Dipper's hands. Once that stream of suction hit Donna, she at first appeared to take out a bo staff before placing it back into her inventory. She simply sighed, dropping the purple key and looking over to the cage becides her.
Aformentioned cage started moving again, this one noticeably more violent than the last time. Several AI copies had to jump out of the way to avoid getting smacked by the imprisoning ball, as it crashed out of the garden's wall and into the walls of the red building. Mabel still picked up a few more, before this group, as well, zipped into the giffinium walls, remaining hidden.
Based on Soos's screams and Wendy's "DUDE!" that final unexplored structure must have something interesting.
Eh. Compared to Bubbles's domain, and it was important to note that not every AI there had their bits blocked from view, or Sandy's partial-nudist domain, the naked figure drawing in the west section wasn't that big of a shock. Well, okay, the body painting section where "artist" copies used other nude ones as canvases was definitely weird, but ignorable. Some of them weren't looking at what they were painting or their paintings themselves, instead focused on the mirror held in one hand while the brush was on another. Again, still weird, but ignorable.
At least, until a red-headed giggling AI turned to face the twins in horror.
"Oh. You are at the R Building already? Jeez, based on what .GIFfany told us about you guys catching up to her at the mall, I thought you were slow! Shoot, I have to get into character! Um..."
She lept off the pedestal she was standing on. What followed... at first, all four humans present thought she was doing The Worm for some reason, but she was actually sliding her ninja gear over her unfinished blue-and-orange squid-pattern paint. Despite the outfit including pants and the woman not changing her shape at any point, she somehow slid into this flawlessly and stood up fully dressed, mask included. The only part that was left was her red mask, which she took off an easel behind her to tie around her head.
"Oh, by the way, Bit-ney, could I see your work please?"
The AI aformentioned mask was near nodded, and turned her masterpiece around, showing the last member of the squad and all four humans that she managed to draw a frame-perfect, highly detailed capture of the AI post-dressed yet still flopping on the floor.
"Excellent! Now, to get my game face on."
She turned back to the group and whipped out a pair of sai, immediately leaping to the twins.
"Let's cut to the point! I am Raffaela, and since these two floated over to me, you must have figured out how to beat Michelle and Donna! And because of that I don't like you!"
"To be honest," Said Dipper, "Beating Kathody and Searah was a lot harder."
"Erugh, you're even worse than I thought, ranking us on power like that! Well, I don't want to spend too much time playing around! Let's fight!"
Amusingly, the first thing she did was leap between Dipper and Mabel, forcing both of them to take a step back. Despite not being the armed one, she faced Dipper first.
"Hey, do you know one advantage of making your hair red ahead of time is?" She asked. Even under her mask, he could tell she was trying not to crack a smile. "Especially one with green eyes, even though I myself do not have green eyes? I can use a distraction art on you!"
He already knew where she was going even before she reached at the sides of her shirt. Dipper sighed.
"I already saw a lot of .GIFfanys with red hair. I'm over that now. If you think you can-"
He found himself getting gripped by the jacket with her other hand and tossed into the cage. As with Wendy before him, he simply melted into the bars on his way in, yet they solidified before he could be on the way out. Lifting a foot up on a chair, Raffaela struck one of her sai skywards.
"I can make you think that I will distract you in that way, but use it as a distraction for another way! Now," she began to move her eyes towards the other Pine, "Mabel - woah, having two eyes instead of seeing out a screen is weird - time to settle this brawns versus brawns! Army, go after her-"
She was instantly picked up by the Illegal Prime Neutralizer, dropping her key while crying out "I forgot we shouldn't get too close without possessing something! It may be a short-ish ranged weapon, but it's very powerfulllll! Even .GIFfany had to train for a day before becoming imuneeeee!"
That last sentence made Mabel chasing several of the other copies - artist or model, so long as they seemed to be prepped to follow Raffaela's last order (many of which being confused due to her own capture) - around a bit less of an energy-giver than she had hoped for. Once enough of them merged within the metallic walls and became unreachable, she looked over at the cage just in time to see it turn blue and float back to the 'L building.'
"There?" She said, with less certainty than she would. "The more of these guys in here," she patted the Neutralizer for emphasis, "The less backup .GIFfany should have. But... is she really immune to this?"
"We'll figure out something." Said Dipper, reaching his hand around the prison's interior to find some kind of way to slip out. The bars were just barely close enough to prevent a full-body escape, though he could probably slip half of him outside. This did not sound like a good idea. "For now, get to Leona, and set us free!"
"Oh yeah," Wendy commented, "What was that about you being over seeing naked redheads now?"
Dipper instead turned to his sister, gripping the bars as they shifted to rose. Then back to blue. Then to rose again. Then they hovered on gray for a moment... before settling on rose. "And hurry! B-because of the thing on the fourth day!"
Following the prison sphere did not lead to another wall-break - even on its way out of the R Building, it manuvered through the previous hole in the giffinium. Upon reaching Leona's layer, the triad's cage lifted itself up through the trees and was firmly placed on the ceiling. The bars briefly turned blue again before flipping back to rose-pink.
In the roof, Mabel could barely hear the professor of the place telling herself, "Ugh! Should I use my 'whole .GIFfany army color' or my 'artist elite group color?' Choices, choices..."
It was a bit unnerving to have the copy-populated area suddenly be deserted, apart from some visible electricity trails making their way across the walls and ceiling of the setting. Yet this did not slow Mabel down from dashing to the elevator and pressing that top floor button.
She did have to take a deep breath as the doors opened. And felt a little odd about having to do that when they opened to reveal that Leona was sitting on a chair... that was on the ceiling. The upside-down professor gave a casual wave to Mabel, before directing her attention to some new additions to the room:
The walls, beginning on both sides of the window and breaking at either side of the elevator's doors, now had all part of them except for the top and bottom taken over by a room-spanning painting. The right side depicted a large university. The left, a field of cherry blossom trees with a lake view. Along with these features added, the faux-statues of .GIFfany from the last visit were subtracted.
Leona started floating in the air, still positioned with her head pointing towards the ground, and lightly moved a palm downwards (technically upwards). The entire ceiling lifted itself up. One flick of the same wrist later, and the giffinium roof moved off in the same direction, before a similar glass roof came in to replace it. Leona let her hand go, heard the thunk confirming its placement, and pointed at the cage above.
"So that they can see our battle. If someone crafts something yet no-one else is allowed to see it, is that truly art? No, no it isn't... art like mine deserves the biggest audience imaginable! As a matter of fact-"
She made similar hand motions yet again, only this time, once the glass ceiling was slid off, she dragged the prison-bubble in its entirety to the building. Then snapped the fingers of her 'free' hand. Metallic chunks from the cage broke off and bent themselves to form curves, one the size of each captive. Before any of the humans knew it, the cage as a whole disappeared into bright lightning, while Dipper, Wendy, and Soos were quickly pinned to the wall just above the tree half of the painting with the remaining metal. A lound thunk was heard as the original giffinium ceiling placed itself back on.
"No! I change my mind! They should have front-row seats to my masterpiece! After all, this is but my Main Possession! Mabel, enjoy as you will... my self-portrait of perfection!"
"That's not really a self-portrait, since- ohhhh..."
Indeed, Leona's next action was to open her inventory and take out a large sheet of paper. On it was an image of her, holding a katana with a handle surrounded by a ring of three flames. One a blindingly bright cyan, another a blindingly bright yellow, and the third a blindingly bright magenta. While the main image itself wasn't bad at all and in fact pretty accurate to the source object (if in a very distinct anime-like art style closer to .GIFfany's pixel form than her physical form), the flames definitely stood out as something that... wasn't as much.
It came as no surprise that Leona turned herself into electricity as she lept in to this paper. Now drifting to the ground without a holder, the drawing laughed - moving appropriately along its paper, while the flames toned down their brightness and instead began circling their weapon.
With no warning, the paper flew over towards the university-end of the painting, just as the drawing of Leona appeared to simply walk off the paper and on to the enormous, faked school setting.
"And to keep my new fondness of an 'upside-down theme...'"
With the snap of (Drawing-)Leona's fingers, Mabel found herself falling to the ceiling. Nothing else appeared to be affected by this gravitational shift. Even the paper that this Main Possession was once a part of drifted to the proper floor. As she flipped herself around when entering the drawing, Leona herself was now the upright party.
"Now Mabel," Cried the professor, as lightning fired from her blade, the trees began animating in the wind, and gray paint started seeping on to the window. The latter action dimmed the room considerably, to the point where Leona's amaranth electricity was a larger source of light than the sun in the case of the room. "Get ready to see what true perfection of art looks like!"
Her first act was to grind the three fires to a complete halt, turning into denser, thicker spots of paint. Which lept off the canvas entirely, forming blobs that fell on the ceiling.
"One thing you should know about our advancements yesterday... according to Dove, I get to be the first person to tell you about our new breakthrough! Some of the students have also recently gotten into controlling non-electronics just like us professors! Yellow! Cyan! Magenta! They'll all help me pull around the curtains of my masterpiece!"
As similar large red, green, and blue circles started appearing around Leona, rows of grinning teeth appeared in each of the first wave.
Mabel must have jumped about ten feet backwards once they started rising to take on vaguely humanoid forms. Once they almost completely resembled crosses between (possibly nude, it was a bit hard to tell with the asthetic that they looked like they were made of paint) .GIFfany and blobs of their respective paint color, Mabel let her guard down. Even when they started walking towards her while giggling.
"Are these even .GIFfany copies? Or living paint minions that you just created?"
"They are, uh... creative copies." As if they were aware of this, the subtractive primary color trio all stopped walking towards Mabel, donned bored expressions, and turned to painting-Leona with crossed arms. "Actually we all had some. Searah said something about a group that wanted to give themselves mermaid forms? I know a magician must never reveal her secrets, but I am not a magician. I am an artist, and while artists love to make their work open to interpretation, I love dropping my ideas on others like a sledgehammer. Meaning no ambiguity. So yes, behind the scenes, these are copies that used their powers to mix in well with the paint itself, resulting in... that."
"It's a power-up!" Assuming they were named after the same colors they were, this was spoken by Yellow. "And thanks to this power-up, look at what we can do!"
Sticking one arm out, paint started to extend in the rough shape of a ghostly, tortured face. Her own face briefly stretched out to the floor, giving a similar empty gape, before reverting her appearance back to 'normal.' Mabel simply shrugged as the red, green, and blue blobs hopped on the ceiling and began to take shape themselves.
"Now! You are not here to show off! You are here to help me prove which one of you is the best color minion! Otherwise I would have fought Mabel myself!"
"So if you're still AIs," Said Mabel, readying the IPN. "Then I can use this on you too!"
One flip of the switch, and Yellow herself was sucked in just before Red, Green, and Blue could fully emerge. And when that happened, all five of the remaining paint copies started running back away. Leona, still in the form of a painting, hissed.
"Okay! If you do not want to enjoy my artwork as I present it, then I will launch everything I have on you at once! Everyone, get in here! And then I will toss on all of my paint weapons, to add a surprise challenge like I was going to when you thought this would just be another 'sub contest' of mine!"
Charging forward, Mabel successfully added the other five color-copies to the pack with a simple run and take, even when the paint stretched around to form giant hands. She was definitely quick enough to dodge the attacks, which were slow enough to make her suspect that these particular followers were limiting themselves. Mabel punctuated her slide-around by banging a hand on Leona's painted image, causing the professor to shrug the attack off with a laugh.
"Unlike the other Main Possessions, I am nearly invincible while in this form! Ever tried to harm a painting while it's on a wall? I thought so. Anyway, back to what I was going for. COLORS! ATTACK!"
With Leona holding her sword above her proudly, the walls became decorated in several other colored blobs. Images of large swords and knives started appearing as well, easilly bigger than Leona's own height. She seethed as she looked around, more spots still forming.
"Yes, they named themselves after the very colors they bring to life, if you were wondering. Sorry, I need to explain that too. In case you thought that the blue one was actually Red, to name an example. But still! Go forth, my sisters! Orange! Chartreuse! Spring Green! Azure! Violet! Rose The Color! Brown! Maroon! Lime! Navy! Teal! Purple! Black! Indigo! White! Gray! Ruby! Vermilion! Pink! Blue And Yellow Stripes!"
As she continued calling out color (and pattern, actually) names, the top of the building became increasingly flooded with copies of a matching color or pattern ("Seventy Percent Gray! Puce! Fuchsia! Jade! Ruby! Sapphire! Emerald! Black With Pink Squares!"). Taking in a few breaths, Mabel was able to trap a handful of them inside the pack, though she needed to spin around as she did so ("Sea Green! Aqua! Aquamarine! - Yes Mabel, they're different colors... Rainbow Based On The RYB Model! Rainbow Based On The RGB Model! Rainbow Based On The CMYK Model!"). This was, however, until Black managed to rip the device right out of her hands ("Rainbow Based On The GPOC Model! Wait... what did that stand for again? What's that, you say? Green Purple Orange... Canvas? And you think that way because 'CMYK is an inverse of RGB so why can't RYB get an inverse model too?' No, it doesn't work that way. RYB and CMYK are very similar, you see, just done with more recognizable colors and for a simpler palette that can be easier on the human eyes...").
Mabel attempting to jump up and reach it only caused more problems ("...RGB, on the other hand, is a really simple model to begin with. But as hands-on artists we do not use such a thing very often."). The mass mob of paint-like .GIFfany copies started to generate a ring of their oily colored art substances... before stopping around the time the colors mixed ("Thirty Percent Gray! Plaid! Clear! Ablue! Tablue! Tone-Darkened Blue!").
"Hey! Wait! Professor Leona," said Seventy Percent Gray. "You said that this mini contest was a first come, first serve, the winner gets to be immortalized when the Construction Site is final, right? And not called the Construction Site anymore, since it won't be under construction?"
"Yeeeees..."
"And we are trying to each get Mabel, right? Just to be perfectly clear."
"I do not see your point."
"Well, how do we decide who gets her? We already took away her Illegal Prime Neutralizer."
"Well, you should have all decided that while you were still working together to catch her. Because now she's gone."
The color-copies looked around just as Leona's giant, generated swords began spinning around. Yep, Mabel somehow ducked down and slid herself past the group. Literally, if the paint below them having been smeared in a straight line and Mabel's whole front half was covered in various, matching colors. Thankfully for the sake of her not staying a bit of a color-splattered eyesore for the entire adventure, the paint appeared to peel off even as she ran. Most of it - she kept a blob of black paint, smirking as she approached the side displacing the academy. As Mabel raised the hand with said blob up to the artwork, all of the student copies gasped. Leona looked like she was seconds away from lighting the entire rainforest on fire.
"I know what you're thinking! Don't! You! DARE!" She barked.
"Please!" Puce pleaded, "We'll give you the pack back! We'll do anything for you! Just don't ruin any art made here! It's really... we hate seeing masterpieces get tampered with! And this is our well-respected professor's art, too!"
Mabel continued to bring her hand closer. "Then give me the key!"
Predictably, the swords flew over to Mabel's location, then struck themselves out of the painting. In the formation of a pair of exceptionally large blades, one several feet away from Mabel to her left and right. They were not solid metal, but instead looked to be more along the lines of solidified paint. This still did not mean that they didn't make a loud crashing loud upon landing. Nor that they did not appear like they could cut right through bone.
"Seriously. Don't even think about it." Leona stated sternly.
"Are you gonna let my friends go and give me the next card?"
"If I answer 'yes,' would you smear my masterpiece out of sheer spite?"
"No!"
"SEMI-LIE! You'll get one of your friends to do it instead! Right?"
"...No?"
"LIE! Girls, after her! This time for real, we'll do the 'contest' after I win mine!"
Before the AIs could even have a chance to react, Mabel swiped the pack out of Merigold's hands (yes, a handful more slipped in without Leona's announcement) and tossed it straight over at Dipper. He had to catch it with his teeth - needing to study it, eventually he managed to flip it around so that one of the pipes was hooking through and prying off the piece of metal around him. The fact that the pack appeared to invert the laws of gravity, as Mabel was at the moment, somehow ended up helping matters instead of making them worse.
Dipper found himself obeying the laws of gravity once he was freed, which made it more of a shock when the Neutralizer began pulling him upwards. Was this by any chance what 'negative mass' feels like in any way?
"Don't forget this! She already knows my plan, you should too!" Mabel said as she tossed him sprinkles of paint. This substance appeared confused when it came to Leona's directional control. Once it reached the mid-section of the room, each speck moved in a wave-like pattern before finally settling on going by Dipper. Based on the way Leona fired thin streams of energy at them, this actually wasn't the professor willingly giving paint to him.
Alas, it failed to pick the substance back up. Only a tiny amount landed by the kid's face. He even had to go by feel to tell that some of it reach him - even with the rose-colored static, the screen still made for an OK-mirror. He rubbed the spot with a finger. Then looked at the painting. Then above. All 3D AI eyes were on him, though the 2D AI was still keeping a sharp glare on Mabel.
"Shoot." Said Leona. "Girls, You should watch Mabel, not him. I'll take care of that guy."
Inverting her image, she slithered across the painted field she created, suddenly meeting Dipper face-to-face(, eye-to-mouth) with crossed arms.
"Students! Do not let Mabel taint my artwork!" She ordered once again.
In unison, they all replied with one word: "ROGER!"
It was too late. Mabel already draw a smiley face on the front gate.
It was over.
Grinning sheepishly, Dipper also smeared a single line across the image of a tree.
"That is it!" Barked Leona, "Students! This game is off! While I deal with these twins personally!"
With that, one more oversized blade formed in her hands, and as she made this one emerge into the three-dimensional world, so too did Leona's arms.
Perfect.
At the sight of her regaining that third dimension, Dipper instantly grabbed her by the arm with one hand while he flipped on the pack with the other, intentionally letting go. Leona was able to knock Dipper away, yet the pack ended up falling back in Mabel's hands, where she turned it on the leading professor of art in question. As with .GIFfany back when the raid began, even her arms being hit affected her a little.
"You know what? We were trained for this! I'll fight back! I'll fight you!"
This was when Leona lept out of the painting completely (Heading downwards, for those that were curious to which side she pulled herself towards at the exact moment. Her painting counterpart also remained on the drawing, with her same enraged expression. Mabel was quick to deface that, specifically, with a smiley face too), right in time to get socked by Dipper. As he lept on her as well, this was about the time she began getting pulled into the Illegal Prime Neutralizer. Dipper made note that this was also the first time he felt what it was like to have that pulling force act directly on him. He still felt... wind in that direction, but nothing so overly powerful as what Leona seeemed to be hit with.
The seventh professor was drawn close to the nozzle before beaming a blast to the ceiling, which also helped knock the paint-made followers off to the side. She was getting pulled away from it, but was still close enough for Mabel to make a surprise leap on the target.
This caused a fairly unusual situation gravity-wise. Leona herself seemingly could not decide which way she should face to deal with which twin, and soon the conflicting surface they were pulled towards began acting on her. All three parties involved began spinning wildly, until they all finally dropped the the floor while staying in their rotational motion.
Leona, who seemed like she could have gotten off the floor quicker than the stunned Dipper or Mabel, just looked back and forth between the three smears on her artwork and sighed. "What's the point?" She told herself. "I could have lept into the art myself, but possessing my perfect self-portrait was my style... and with even that defaced... again, what's the point..."
As Mabel readied the pack, before it was even flipped back into suction mode, Leona grabbed her outfit by the shirt.
"Oh nooooo!" She said with a very blatant lack of actual surprise, "You have defeated me and ruined my artwork! Now I'm going into that pack you have!"
Just as Mabel did manage to flip the switch, Leona tore off her entire modest costume. And what was underneath was a bit of a confusing sight at first: To all four humans, it appeared to be some kind of strange set of cloth patchworked together in a manner more seamless than Kathody's before attention was drawn on the pink heart just above her stomach. After noting that it looked painted on, the costume then appeared to be some kind of suit that had a multitude of colors painted on it-
Oh.
On even closer examination, her 'undergarment' costume was really just a bunch of colorful paint splattered on.
"You bested my maze of cyan, magenta, and yellow. Now here is the key...! Huh? Huh?"
True to her word, she dropped the fourth and final key to that box. After seeing the lack of reaction from any of the four from the Mystery Shack, she began to show emotion again: Frustration.
"Oh come on! You didn't get that joke? It's a funny joke! CMYK! The 'K' doesn't mean 'black,' it means-"
And this was when she could not longer fight against the pull of the pack. Just like that, the remaining paint AIs were about to fall to the floor, before getting zapped to the skies in mid-air. The various paint blocking out the windows began peeling off, letting more sunlight enter the room. Or rather, the light of the sun's setting. The general lack of illumination was a large clue that the second day was nearing its end. From here, the group also had a good view of lightning picking up the various other AIs hiding in the metal walls, across all four buildings.
Dipper was about to flip over the pack, but got a small throat-clearing from Wendy as a reminder of her and Soos's situation. Which seemed moot, as the two pieces of metal holding them dropped to the floor right after.
Now he could flip the pack over. The display showed Kathody, walking with her fingers in her ears, away from Bubbles. The latter was the one speaking.
"...And that was why, for the big reunion, we should set up a course to challenge us too! I can imagine you, not wanting to smash any pumpkins or watermellons because it reminds you too much of the two Halloweens in Gravity Falls! Oh, also, for Mabel, maybe we can give her one path where she has to destroy these harmless cardboard props, but another path where she has to destroy vicious cutesy looking robots, give her extremes that would really-"
"I don't care!" Replied Kathody. "Why do you keep picking on me, anyway?"
Bubbles shrugged. "You haven't learned much! Searah hugged me, Sandy was doubting that the 'Lightning Goddess' is really even a god, Cardia cooled down since her phone call to me at four in the morning, and Rose is a bit more... pro-self defense-y?"
"I think your suggestions are terrible. Really, you seem obsessed with trying to 'teach' those four humans."
"Ahem. Do I have to remind you that 'obsessed' defines us? You made that haunted house because you were obsessed with Victoria and loved joining in on her horror games! I made my bath house because Taro loves his styling and bath scenes, and I was obsessed with him!"
Kathody simply responded by sending electricity in her general direction. It hit the 'ground' a good several feet from her, so it was clear that the attack was only a warning shot.
"Ah! Got it! So you're giving up your plan of tricking the gang into thinking that we lost our powers from getting sucked in and trying to guilt them as a result!"
"Wait, what?"
It was then that she noticed the screen was cleared once again. Kathody looked somewhere off screen, and went "Ah, Leona's here too now. Hey, Bubbles, why don't you go let her draw you? Isn't that what you two like doing?"
"Yes, but I want to tell the humans about the next professor first! Remember, I still want to give them two more explanations!"
"Fine! Just leave me out of it."
Kathody began walking to the left out of view, just as Bubbles finally turned to the group. An annoyed Leona stuck her head from the side of the screen opposite to where Bubbles walked off.
"Hi there!" Bubbles continued, as she promised, "Just a fare warning: Sonia might try to slice your ear drums by finding that right frequency. I even heard that she was trying to find a frequency that could destroy bone! Well, have fun!"
"T-that's not true!" Said Rose, as she scrambled to the main view. "Sonia is a lot nicer than that! Just give her a chance!"
Bubbles seemed to ignore this. "Oh, Leona, when we meet up with her in-person again, just tell her that her music's great the way it is. It doesn't need to be perfect."
"We both know I always do. Now please, I want this to be over with as soon as possible. My 'palette' of color-girls is not complete. Some of them are here, some of them have been beamed off with .GIFfany. Looking at an incomplete palette like that hurts my eyes. And speaking of which... when it comes to major copies, you are still missing red, chartreuse, spring green, azure, magenta, black, and white. And pink but whatever."
This was when Kathody re-entered the scene, seemingly being led by Searah. Trailing behind her were the last two caught professors, Sandy smiling absently while Cardia kept staring at the 'floor' of the void.
"Think of this as a kind of intervention." Searah said, "Get to really know your copies better."
"They're all me, and all that entails. What more do I have to know?" Replied the professor of soul.
"Give it a shot!" Sandy cheered, "We will help you two patch things up! We even have things like these back at the Grand Canyon, we called them 'buddy gatherings.'"
"What?" Kathody appeared to be taken aback. "No, no, no, I do not like that name."
"Would you rather have Dipper or Mabel help patch things up with you and her? Talking to Mabel helped me out." Said Cardia.
"And Dipper's the only reason why I am within ten feet of any of you girls." Searah added.
Kathody groaned. "Urgh, fine, I will get to liking these 'Four Friends' by talking to them even more. Now Bubbles, do you like cardboard props-"
"Hey, since Leona had the foresight to bring a lot of paper and art tools in her Indexitizer, I'm just going to go off in the corner and pose while she draws more sketches and paintings of me." Bubbles announced with a hand behind her head, "I didn't ask her about her inventory while you were busy talking things out, I just know that because we are so close."
As they both walked off, Kathody let out a sigh of relief.
"Do I still have to talk to her?" She asked.
"You will not disturb my art work while it is in progress!" The five heard Leona call out from what was, to the Shack group's perspective, off screen.
"I'm taking that as a no! So, I'm free to go off and talk with the students I have with me about planning our next ride! See you, maybe when-" She leaned in towards the direction Bubbles and Leona were "-SONIA FAILS!"
"SCREW YOU!" Leona shot back at her, all while the various other artists, paint-like copies, and sauna dwellers followed after her. And all while Bubbles laughed at the exclamations from both sides. "Sonia is amazing!"
Kathody replied with her own laugh, then went off skipping to the opposite direction. As Searah, Sandy, and Cardia followed her, Rose looked back at the screen with a short but heavy exhale. Dipper, Mabel, and Soos gathered around, while Wendy continued struggling with the keys around the box.
"How do you even make something that opens like this? Four keyholes right next to each-other?" Still wriggling that last one, she finally heard a click. The reward for that being that the box popped open, revealing the cobalt-colored card inside.
"As I said before," Rose finally gave her advice, "Do not fall for what Bubbles says about Sonia. She may not be completely gentle, but... well, don't be fooled if she comes off as a monster at first."
"Usually it's the other way around." Dipper remarked, "But it's nice knowing if a monster comes off as a threat right away."
"No! Sonia is not! I mean, if you just... I would say see for yourself, but then you can not hear me!"
"Don't you guys have cell phones?" Asked Mabel. "Can't you somehow give us one and call-"
"The IPN itself blocks out all signals. Trust me. Kathody tried to call Burnda. A lot. Even when the static is lifted, she got no signal."
"I think a better question is why it took you seven domains before finally asking that!" Bubbles laughed in the background.
"Well... you can see Sonia for yourself, this is all I can think of when it comes to immediate information."
"What about not-immediate information?" Dipper began looking around the office of sorts. "Is there any way we can prepare ourselves for that 'Dove?'"
"Everything you will need for Dove can be found back in your workplace at Gravity Falls. For now, there really isn't anything I can tell you that can wait until you are about to face that professor."
"It also took you until Leona's to ask that too?" Bubbles laughed even more, "You guys are killing me!"
Ford had definitely experienced worse landings.
The tear drop-shaped escape pod found just the right deacceleration rate to not harm him once it reached the quiet trees by the Mystery Shack. Getting out was a matter of ease as well, as it was just a test of opening a door on the side. Honestly, for something such as a large fortress in space, the Construction Site's escape methods were not very science fiction-ish.
Well, time to put that behind him and try his best to examine the Gifocalypse from behind the scenes. Namely, the locations of the domains, and where the others were at during this moment. Even back when he had the redhead professor with him, getting into .GIFfany's main information center or any 'important' locations was near-impossible at the time thanks to the sheer number of security guards. (Whom were, again, amassed from various other domains. In theory it should have been easier to reach her main headquarters back at the beginning, without any 'student' copies in the way.)
However, looking towards the forest in the direction of Rose's domain...
There may have been more important projects for him to get to, though.
Or not. The Shack's been barricaded by the addition to the unicorn hair since the beginning of the AI-flooding. It's not like the journals or the Rift were going anywhere any time soon.
And, after the group left off for the next check on Waddles, a figure appeared from behind Michelle's building. Dashing over to the Wire, the person whipped out another one of the .GIFfany-brand pink cell phones.
"Sonia. They're on their way. I need a chopper."
Hanging up, Gideon chose to spend this remaining time examining the jungle setting. He tried to enter the building he was just hidden behind, only to end up disgusted when he found none of the weapons having practical functionality.
Closing AN:
Is it awkward that the most I've really seen of anything Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles related was the Nostalgia Critic and Angry Video Game Nerd's review of the Michael Bay movie, and Death Battle's four-for-all? I'm trying not to cram in references that are, to put it this way, more "aimed at the reader than aimed at myself" (of course it sounds really selfish when put that way), but let's just say I brainstormed this gimmick and ended up thinking it could make a decent guide for how this professor could stand out individually. (Like Kathody and Searah's confrontation with each-other, Sandy being laid-back but literally worshipping .GIFfany, Cardia being a good guy that simply lost her mind over running a fast food business, etc.)
I have mixed feelings about this chapter. About as mixed as the paint used in that domain, in fact. On one hand, it wasn't a complete bore-fest like I thought it was going to be back when this was in its early stages. (I initially didn't have that much excitement for this chapter. Neither for chapter eight, but that's working pretty well too. Nine on the other hand? Hoo boy, let's just say things will go down and get serious from that moment onward.) On the other hand, I once again fell for making a chapter unbearably long. (This somehow even beats chapter 3 for the record longest chapter so far! Seriously, and that one deals with two professors!) Which is especially bad since the whole 'TMNT/artist-named copies' was supposed to be a way to find an average pacing, not have it drag on too long or be rushed too much. I did, however, kind of like the sequence I built for the battle with the professor and her Main Possession. Of those fights so far, this is probably my favorite.