A/N: Hello everyone! Super sorry for the long wait! I've got no excuse for this one, really, I've just been very lazy and procrastinated a lot. But anyways, thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoy! Criticism is appreciated :)


Inside a café a young man sipped his cup of coffee as he read one of his favorite books. He was taking a well-deserved rest after a whole busy week in college. He had just entered, being 18. Maybe the career he opted for was just too heavy-handed compared to others, but he liked it nonetheless.

Charles scratched his head and looked around the café. He always sat in a booth that was next to the window, as he loved to see the cars drive past. There wasn't anyone to talk with now, given how everyone was either busy or just not in the mood for coffee. Yet he always noticed how there was a young woman who sat in the same table next to him every now and then. They never talked, just sort of waved at each other whenever their gazes met.

This time she was not in the café. Maybe she was busy, too.

Taking his last sip of coffee, Charles stood up, threw the empty cup in the trash, and left the café. Reading a book and looking at cars could only entertain you so far before you felt bored.

The young man walked down the street towards his house, which was some blocks away. On his way he heard a loud, bizarre noise coming from an alleyway. The sound caught his attention and Charles peeked back into the alley. A large, strange hole lay amidst a bunch of gray goo. It caught his attention, so he inched towards it slowly and took a peek. It was pitch-black, which made him a bit anxious.

Just then, the phone in his pocket ringed, and Charles stepped back, snatching up his phone. "Hello?" he asked.

"Hello dear! This is your mom," His mother's sound laughed through the speaker, "I just wanted to see how your first week at college was!"

"Oh- It was fine, really!" Charles assured, "It's been smooth so far…"

"Has my baby boy made some friends there?" His mom asked, causing Charles to blush in embarrassment; good thing no one was looking.

"Mom for goodness sake-" Charles stuttered, "I'm 18 now, I'm not a boy anymore…"

"To me you'll always be one," His mom giggled, "Seeing you in college gives me so much nostalgia. It's almost as if just yesterday you headed for your first day of school…" she sighed.

"Mom seriously- I'm busy," Charles lied, wanting to cut the uncomfortable chit-chat for later at home, "I'll talk to you later."

"Oh, sorry! I didn't know you were occupied," His mom gasped, "Alright Charlie, I'll catch up with you later when you get home," she agreed, "I love you my dear, never forget that."

"Yeah I love you to mom," Charles eeked, "See you later," he stated and hung up.

When he was about to put his phone away, it slipped out of his hands and fell out. "OH HECK H-ECK-" he choked as he flailed his arms and stumbled on his feet, but this caused his phone to fall in the black hole instead of the ground.

With a gasp Charles covered his mouth with his hands and looked down at the hole in front of him. Did his eyes deceive him, or was his phone engulfed by the hole? Incredulous about the whole thing, Charles carefully reached into the hole with his foot and dipped it in. It was also threatened to be engulfed by the hole.

The young man stood there for a few moments, deciding whether or not to dive into the hole to see what lied on the other side. Charles clenched his fists and breathed in deeply. He'd probably regret it, but he chose to jump in.

Fearful there was going to be lots of water on the other side, Charles squeezed his nostrils shut and closed his eyes, cannonballing into the hole.

==MEANWHILE==

Lowden inspected the phone that had just exited from the hole. Not really paying attention to the hole, which had the tip of a shoe poke in for a second or two.

Hearing a thud and a groan snapped him out of his trance and made him whip his head to the noise. A white-haired human had just entered, rubbing his lower back.

Flippy stepped forward and kneeled down a bit too close to Charles, waiting for him to open his eyes, "Hey there!" he greeted.

Charles shook his head and opened his eyes, only to be greeted by the snout of a toon dog almost all over his face. He jumped back with a yelp and landed on his butt again.

"What the heck?" Charles eeked, looking left and right, "W-Where am I? What is this?! Where's my phone?!" he rambled, standing up immediately.

"Oh, you mean this?" Lowden asked, pointing to Charles' phone in the palm of his hand, "We had no idea it was a phone, here," he explained, and handed the device to Charles.

Charles reluctantly grabbed it and stuffed it in his pockets, "Uhh, thank you?" he shrugged, "Where am I? And why are all you animals?"

"We're not animals, we're toons!" Flippy chimed, "And you're currently at Toontown, our Dimensionator brought you here…" he pointed at the large contraption behind Charles.

"We needed to find some help," Lowden stated, "You see, our town has been stricken with a crisis. We've used the Dimensionator to get other humans to help us out, but recently we've decided that if anyone else decided to get in, they'd have to have a small prior training… Bla bla bla…" he rambled, explaining a lot of details.

During all of this Charles stared at the red dog with a confused expression. Something about this just felt unreal, it was all just very weird. Had he begun hallucinating from too much coffee or something? Had he hit his head and this was all a dream?

"…And that's why we were wondering if you wanted to help our cause, young man!" Lowden gasped.

Charles stared at him with a dumbfounded expression, "Uhh… You want me to fight for you or something?" he asked, it was the only thing he got from Lowden's sermon.

Lowden nodded at him with a straight face, he had gotten carried away yet again, and he was used to the reaction Charles gave him.

Charles got up and looked back at Lowden, "Well uh… I'd love to fight your… whatever, but I'm afraid I don't have the time or option to be here 24/7."

Lowden pouted, "I was actually talking about that; you see, with the Dimensionator you don't need to do such thing, you can just easily go back home whenever you feel like it!"

Charles' mouth curled a little, he was just too curious about all of this, but he didn't want to make more compromises than the ones he already had. It all sounded like a fun way to relieve stress. Although…

'Maybe instead of coffee I can do this?'

"You know what? That sounds interesting, I could do… Whatever you want me to do," Charles chimed.

"Really?" Flippy gasped.

"Yeah, but no sermons, please!" Charles stated.

Lowden hung his head down in shame.

==SOMETIME LATER==

Charles played with the little blue box that a tan dog, Tutorial Tom, had given him. Next to him were Flippy and Lowden, explaining what he had to do with the gags. All that blabber about the Cogs that had been shared with him seemed scary, given how he hadn't seen an actual Cog yet.

"What's the point in pelting those robots with these things?" Charles asked, looking at the three dog Toons in confusion, "Wouldn't something like a gun or a tank be more effective?"

"They're weak to the jokes that gags convey," Tom stated, "They can't take a joke!"

"…O-kay?" Charles asked, "So all I have to do is toss these pastries and then press buttons, right? Will that take them down?"

"That's right, just be sure to aim carefully," Tom nodded, and looked at the window in his office, "Now, before any of those bags of bolts shows up outside my office again, I give to you your first mission!" he chimed, handing Charles a small piece of paper. Tom really didn't want any sort of Cog approaching, the nighttime was close, after all.

Charles read the paper. It was signaling him to go and defeat a Cog anywhere in Toontown Central; much to his dismay, however, the picture printed in it just had the picture of a gear and not of an actual Cog.

"Defeat one Cog- Okay, I can deal with that, right?" Charles asked the dogs next to him, all of which nodded vigorously in return.

"We'll help you out on the first battle!" Flippy added, correcting his past mistake of letting the humans work it out on their own, "Don't worry friend!"

"When you're done, just go to any HQ for your reward! …Assuming you can receive it, that is," Tom shrugged.

Charles nodded, "OK, but are these Cogs… Are they extremely dangerous? You all seem to refer to them as scary things…"

"Well, to us Toons they are dangerous, but so far it seems their attacks don't have an effect on humans," Lowden explained, "We'll get you covered, don't worry."

Charles gulped and walked out of the office, with Lowden and Flippy following after him.

==SOON AFTER==

Punchline Place was awfully deserted today, which didn't help to the anxiety Charles was feeling. This subsided, however, when he saw a bunch of figures on the far end of the roads, walking aimlessly. When he and the two Toons that escorted him got closer, he could see they were obviously the robots everyone was making a fuss about.

They were… Ridiculous, to say the least, but all of them unnerved Charles due to how uncannily human they looked.

'I wonder if my "predecessors" got mistaken as these things once…' was a small thought Charles pushed aside.

"Just get close to one of them," Lowden assured Charles, "They won't attack you straight ahead, don't worry."

Charles carefully edged his way towards a Flunky, and upon being about one meter next to the bot, it started up the battle, rounding up Charles until they both were in the corner of the street.

"G-Guys," Charles eeked as the Flunky forced him to back away, "What's this thing doing?"

Flippy and Lowden didn't say anything and instead joined the battle when the Flunky stopped moving, much to Charles' relief.

The Flunky didn't move, it just stood there, which gave Charles the cue to throw a cupcake at it. The Flunky flinched and its meter turned to orange. All was fine and dandy.

Until a Cog with two faces walked near the battle; Flippy assumed it'd fly away like it always did, but this time it shifted its insignia into green and walked into the battle to the Flunky's aid.

"Guys what the heck is that?!" Charles shirked, "Is it me or does that thing have two faces?!"

"It's a Double Talker!" Flippy eeked, realizing that the cupcake and flower Charles had at hand wouldn't be enough.

The two-faced Cog stood behind the Flunky, patiently waiting as the bug-eyed Cog took out a paper shredder and shoved a document into it, hurling pieces of paper at Charles who was swatting them away ungracefully.

"Are you hurt?" Lowden asked.

"No worries, I'm fine," Charles gasped, "But that was ridiculous!" he groaned. Now the only thing that was scary from these robots was how it seemed that they were ganging up on him.

And on a second take, it seemed like it, as two more Cogs walked over to the battle scene, one of them was a Bloodsucker, the other was wearing a burgundy suit and had a frustrated expression.

"Guuuys," Charles eeked, "Is it normal for all of these deformed humanoid robots to gang up on me? For that matter, why don't you help me?!"

"Don't worry, we're on it," Lowden stated, and patted himself to reach for his gag bag, but his eyes widened like plates when he realized he hadn't brought it with him. Flippy had more or less the same experience. "Oops…" Lowden whined.

"Wh-What's wrong…?" Charles asked, looking at all the Cogs facing them. To him, they looked positively ugly, since they were the most "human" thing about Toontown he had seen so far.

"Well uh… We didn't bring gags," Lowden murmured.

"Oops…" Flippy added.

"Oops?" Charles snapped, "OOPS?! We're about to get attacked by these business robots because we're all out of gags, and all you can say is OOPS?!" he squealed, but before he got the chance to complain some more, all of the Cogs collectively threw papers, cards, and other business objects at him. Charles overdramatically fell and landed on his back, flailing his arms wildly trying to shake off the papers.

"Next time we've got to bring gags," Lowden whispered to Flippy, who nodded in agreement.

"Retreat!" Lowden shouted, and before Charles had the opportunity to complain, the two dog toons dragged him by the shoulders and ran away into the street, back to the safety of the playground. Charles was cursing under his breath as he was dragged along the pavement.

The cogs left behind didn't try and chase them, they just stared at the trio that had run off, focusing on the human.

"Was that a… What did the Skelecogs call it?" the Flunky asked his fellow robots.

"I don't know," one of the Double Talker's faces replied, "But if it was, you know the orders, we must let the Chairman know…"

The other Cogs nodded and all of them popped out their propellers, rising into the air and far away from Toontown Central.

==BACK IN THE SAFETY OF THE TOON HALL==

Charles was lying on the ground, Lowden and Flippy didn't stop dragging him until they were inside the building.

"You know, you could have told me Cogs ganged up on you whenever you fought them," Charles hummed, "Or at least given me more cupcakes."

"Sorry about that!" Flippy apologized, "I'm definitely going to keep that in mind next battles," he assured, then pondered, "I guess it'll have to be a norm, Cogs act very strange when you humans are around…"

"Wait," Charles interrupted, sitting up, "You mentioned other people came in to help, too, right?" he asked, to which Flippy and Lowden nodded, "How about next battle you bring other humans apart from me?"

"Well, we could do that!" Flippy assured, then pouted, "Do… Do you want it to be right now?"

Charles stood up, dusted himself, and checked his phone for the hour, he quickly looked back at Flippy and shook his head in denial, "No can't do, bud, I've got to go back home," he said, "Unless those other humans had some sort of schedule that I could catch tomorrow."

"Actually they do!" Flippy chimed.

As Flippy and Lowden led Charles back to the Dimensionator, they told him of the set time that the others had proposed, but Charles quickly deduced that the humans were from another time zone.

"Wait, hold on, at that time it's around like- God, 5am where I live," Charles whined, "I can't do that."

Flippy sagged, he'd have to think of another thing, "Well we..." he trailed off, and got an idea, "We could get people from your same time zone! Would that be OK with you?"

Charles smiled and nodded, "Yeah, it's fine, don't worry!"

After goodbyes being bid Flippy opened the Dimensionator and Charles hopped inside. The toon wrote down all the set times for each of the humans after the portal closed.

==SOMETIME LATER IN SOME OTHER PLACE FAR AWAY FROM THE SAFETY OF THE TOON HALL==

025-SC walked up to the Chairman's office once more, ready to inform his boss of the acquired information.

"Come in, 025-SC," the Chairman's booming voice echoed from behind the large doors that led to his office, and the Skelecog promptly walked in.

"I've got more information for you, sir," the Skelecog assured, motioning at the Chairman's computer, "Apparently, these new creatures are immune to our attacks, and they don't seem affected by gags, either, but that is yet to be confirmed."

The Chairman looked at the new video records and gave off a harsh, quick noise when he saw Charles fall over all the papers the Cogs were hurling at him. Despite the exaggerated reaction, he could see where 025-SC had made his claim; there was nothing on Charles' body or face that showed signs of him getting weaker.

025-SC shifted his feet in fear of what his boss was going to say.

The Chairman leaned back and looked at his worker, "Well, this is not useful to us," he sighed, "But with these things popping in and out of Toontown, this research is going to end in failure."

"Failure?" 025-SC asked, "How exactly, sir? The research is going perfectly fine…"

"It is going too slow," the Chairman interrupted, "The moment we discover what the toons are doing with those things it's going to be too late," he explained, "We've got to learn where they're coming from and how to trap them here."

The Skelecog reluctantly nodded, "Do- Do you want me to up the numbers of my scout team?"

"Yes, indeed," the Chairman replied, "For now, don't care about whether or not those things destroy a sole, pathetic Cog, just focus on where they're coming from…"

'And on the meantime, I'll think about ways to exploit their resistance to everything on this annoyingly bright land,' the Chairman thought as his worker exited his office.