Here it is! Last... well... official chapter!

But I think I'm gonna post another story sometimes called "Subwoods", which is literally just Backwoods except from everyone's perspectives, cuz I didn't get to write about Sapphire and Sasuke being in the same room together, and WOW I WANT TO.

Also, what about Leon and Becky? Leon's pathetic feelings are implied multiple times but there's no way it's happening in the last chapter of Backwoods. So will it? maybe it will if I make short stories xD If I do make another story for backwoods, Leon and Becky will for sure be in it though haha

And I'm sure everyone wants to read about how Sasuke survives after breaking both of his wrists (maybe, hahaha. I'd want to xD)
Spoiler, he's gonna need some help, the only question is who the heck he'll ask for help from
Not even I know xD

But as it stands, this is the last official Backwoods chapter. I still have one character left who has not shown up At All in the story, so if you've been keeping track you might already know who it is haha. But if you don't that's fair. I mean, characters like Lucky and Dr. Digmore literally showed up for a Hot Second before dissipating into the abyss, but I don't count them because Technically they showed up.

Anyways, last chapter! Wheeee

Backwoods

25: Spooky Future Time Boy

Torner is abruptly awoken from his afternoon accidental nap on the couch by a frigid hand. He starts right up, nervously rubbing the sleepy dust from his eyes, only to glimpse a dude he's never before seen in his entire life. Alrighty. It no longer matters if Torner is slouching, so his back auto-slouches.

He's in pajama pants this time, a bit of a departure from his usual boxer shorts. But he is wearing a shirt, something his stinky older cousin sure had no qualms about. Ugh.

Well, back to the stranger. Torner doesn't even turn off his blaring NS speakers, he cares so little about the stranger, and goes, "Whatchu want?"

"H-Hi there!" The man—no, no, boy—flips his hair, long and silvery, flowing into purple at the tips. It's to his butt in length, and—wow, that is some dedication. His jewel-like hazel eyes sort of skirt around the prospect of meeting Torner's sleepy green stare as it wanders toward the television. "I'm, uhm..." He glances a little feverishly toward the edge of the room. "Y-You didn't see any of it?"

Wow, what a high-pitched voice. It's kinda... soft. And his clothes! He's dressed like a spacey boyo from the second dimension, in shnazzy velcro-y garb. He'd make a great video game protagonist.

"I was asleep," is Torner's excuse. And he was. He sleeps kinda heavy.

The boy throws a disgruntled glance at the almost-fourteen-year-old. "You must sleep very heavily, then! I just warped in here from the future, you do realize!"

"Mmm." Torner unpauses his game. "That's cool." He's playing that new Mario game, the cool one.

Evidently confused, the boy glimpses between his host and his host's television. "I-Is that The Mario Party! W-Wowwwwww! What an ancient relic!"

"Don't call The Mario an ancient relic," Torner mutters with his lids half shut.

Once he's determined that Torner's not gonna add any more to the conversation, the boy plops himself onto the couch beside him. "I'm from the future. The Mario is an ancient relic, mi-mind you." He holds out a hand to a distracted Torner, who does not shake it. "I'm, um... Elric." He puts his hand back in his pocket.

"Torner," says Torner, still staring head-on at The Mario.
He gets a bad roll on his dice and it takes every ounce of strength in him not to pummel Elric off of his couch in a fit of frustration.

Now Peach is going to get the stupid star. Freaking... Peach.

Apparently Elric was left stunned by his host's name. "Y-You're Torner! That means I'm in the right place! Or... should be. T-Torner, what's the date?"

"I dunno. I'm almost fourteen." He yawns. "It's like, a week before my birthday, I guess."

Elric learns to be satisfied with this vague answer. "Oh. W-Well, I might've traveled to the right date. W-We shall see!"

"So..." Torner turns to actually look at his guest in favor of making the stranger squirm rather than watch Peach get the star. "What's your deal, exactly? Cuz, I mean... are you gonna stay here for forever?"

A large rash develops over Elric's face. "Y-Yes, well!" For a time-traveler, he's sure easy to embarrass. Wait, Torner doesn't know any other non-fictional time-travelers. Maybe they're all this easy to embarrass. "Well you see, I was waiting because supposedly on this day I was to—" and abruptly cuts himself off.

"I-I've never done this before."

"Oh." Torner blinks, returning reluctantly to his game. "Well, I've never done this before either, so that makes two of us."

Elric, from his spot next to Torner, slumps a little. "I suppose that's true. U-Unless I've visited your past. Th-That's the thing! They taught us about the physics and technicalities and fun math formulas of time-travel, but it's never been done before! S-So what if me telling you the future still changes it? I-I don't know!"

"Hmm." Surprisingly, the almost-fourteen-year-old raises his brow as if he knows something. "The way I see it, either you telling me the future splits us off into another alternate dimension, like every other choice we make as human beings in the first place... or nothing changes, because the reason the future is the way the future is is because you visited."

Shocked, the time-traveler boy stares up at Torner, as if Torner is much smarter than him. He probably came up with his explanation out of video game story-lines as is. "Wow! Are you se-secretly a time-traveler too?"

"Nah." Torner pretends he is not soaking up all of the compliments. "I'm just a guy who tries to think before his actions. Common sense, y'know?" He can hear his laughing lythro somewhere in the corner of the room. He pretends that's not a thing either.

H-He's getting better about it, okay.

"I wish I had common sense," Elric whispers like a complete idiot.

"Everyone has some, if you look inside your heart."

Ugh... now Torner feels like a mascot in a kid's show. But for some reason it makes Elric smile, so at least the kid's not babbling more.

"W-Well, okay, I'll tell you then. I come from th-thousands of years in the future seeking my soulmate!"

Torner stares, dumbfounded, as Peach approaches another star. He of course is playing as The Mario, the one and only, so at this point he's like, Mario should divorce this demon-woman. Wait, are they even married? "Why can't you just have a soulmate in your timeline? You don't have to go and steal one from ours."

"Oh, I'm fully aware!" Is Elric blushing again? Wait, of course he is. For a second there Torner forgot he wasn't one of his bros. Is this how Nate and Leon see him? "It's just, if you do the simple calculations, you can figure out if a potential soulmate of yours lives in the past or future! And if that soulmate's unregistered in, like, having a marriage or a charted relationship with anyone else, then it potentially could mean that someone from our time came and snagged them!"

Torner thinks about ignoring this weirdo. "That's... Alright." Okay he admits it'd be cool to know who one of his potential soulmates is, but that's still wei—"Wait I'm not your soulmate. I-I-I don't like boys not even long-haired boys I just I just boys're—"

"Pffff, nonono, I'm not here for you!"

"Well let's hope you're not here for Lysandre, then."

"Lys—"

The lythro snorts. He's not here for me, Torner. He's here for Trixia.

WHAT. Torner stares down at his vivosaur. No he's not. She's not here. She hasn't been here in like weeks. She just sporadically shows up whenever she wants, which is almost never, and—

Lysandre is so done with him right now, her eyes fleck to the ceiling. Then you tell me why the time-traveler boy would specifically travel to today, of all days, to your room, of all rooms, if not to see your younger cousin. Plus, please remember I can read minds.

W-Well he's gonna have a fun surprise when he meets her, because she's a total scrub. Well, so is Torner, but if he's made Elric uncomfortable, Trixia's gonna scare him all the way across the world. Sasuke is the worst, so at least Sasuke hasn't stopped by.

Oh.

"Hey Elric. Does Sasuke ever finish his castle in the future? Cuz his wrists just healed up finally, so he's working on paying that off right now."

Elric glances up at him, his luminous hazel eyes twinkling like cheery little stars. "Y-You'd like to know! I'm happy to tell you!" He gets all excited, sitting with his legs crisscrossed on Torner's couch. "Sasuke does pay it off! And after he tells the warden chief successor about the guy who wouldn't pay him, he ends up joining the wardens sort of out of guilt-tripping! And then he runs a ninja school in his palace, and Sapphire does end up dating him, and they do fall in love, but then—"

"Oh my goodness how much do you know about him."

This strange little smile quirks Elric's pale face. "I studied a lot from Trixia's timeline, so that I could better understand her when I was finally old enough to time-travel here! Plus, I-I mean, Sasuke's her older brother, so it's only fitting I..."

Then another part of Elric's story suddenly becomes clear. "Who the heck's the warden chief successor?"

"Only the person Stryker chooses to take the warden chief role after he, the, well, current warden chief in this timeline, either gets arrested, retires, or dies! After the whole BN incident—that thing becomes famous, by the way, they've made so many movies about it—unfortunately, though, they seem to forget that you were also there and just cut your role altogether—"

"That's turd I had a very important role! I was the accomplice! Th-The only reason I'm still a warden is cuz Stryker was tired and didn't feel like filling out the paperwork that came with dropping me!" Also because Hanzo did some casual sabotage in his favor, because Hanzo is actually the coolest brother in the universe, but, well, yeah.

Elric, flipping his hair, smiles softly. "I know! You're in some of the older textbooks about the event, before they decided your role was unimportant, adding an unneeded drama and bias to the situation, and cut your name out."

"Well that sucks," Torner mumbles. "Wait they still have textbooks in the future? Gross."

The time-traveler gently shakes his head. "No, no, the textbooks are only for people trying to pursue a specific profession that requires lots of learning. Some professions are more hands-on, like the wardens! After Stryker's successor takes the warden throne, things get great! He abolishes textbooks and requires everyone to have set meal times so people forget to eat less often and actually get to know the other wardens. I mean, it's all in his plan to get closer to Becky, but he helps the wardens out so much due to his own bottled up sense of humanity deep inside him!"

"Becky..." Immediately, it's obvious. "Leon's the—"

"Yep! And he does a great job, so stop looking at me like it's such a bad thing. I mean, yeah, they used to vote on the next wardens, but Stryker was worried someone like Hanzo—who he no longer trusted after the whole BN incident—or even Karl, who passes the warden exam, by the way, would take the throne. Leon seemed pretty unsuspecting, so Leon it was."

Torner tries to divulge this information. He's forfeited his mario party game. "Wow. That's... really cool! Wow... D-D'you know if you're related to any of them? Like, the wardens? Cuz you seem kinda smart 'n—"

"Well, we can't follow our timelines that easily—it's someone else's job to try and track genetics that sour like when the princess of Midell went missing"—wait what—"but I do know I'm a white-haired prodigy, just like my many-greats ancestor! You probably don't know him, since you sounded like a bit of an idiot when I read your archived data, but his name was Rupert Oyasum and he was pretty cool. He's part of your ancestry, too, actually."

Rupert who? Wait—did he just say Torner's a—

Wait... "What are you..."

"See, Rupert's kid got together with one of Raptin and Jkonna's kids, and then—"

Torner decides he is done listening to Elric and forcibly returns to his game. Unfortunately for him, he's in last place, solid last place. And it's the last five turns, so things can only get worse.

Knowingly interrupting Elric's newest tangent, he asks, "When the heck does Trixia get here?"

"Oh, ah... I was nervous, so I traveled an hour or so earlier than when she's supposed to come. A-At least I think it was only an hour... ma-maybe it wasn't, I, ah, I may have accidentally gone even earlier..."

Torner sighs. Closes his eyes. He was having a great time losing to Peach, and now this weirdo is messing with his life.

Well, while he's here, might as well make the most of it. This is like learning end-game spoilers to a video game excepts somehow even funner.

"Soooo what happens to Duna and Hanzo?"

Elric gasps. "That's one of my favorite areas of study!" Why does he have a favorite area of study? Studying's dumb, and that's probably why Elric thinks Torner's an idiot. "Dinaurian biology, quite a magical subject actually! Your brother, Torner, actually happens to hold all of the correct biological technicalities for his genes to express themselves! He's dinaurian!"

"Wait no he's not. I'm no—"

"Because you don't hold the right biological chemistry for it." Torner decides he doesn't like people who are this much smarter than him. "He's been hiding it since he was a child, because he felt out of place seeing so many people who didn't look like him—but that's the thing! Duna's a genuine dinaurian, from the past! Crazy, right? I love their story, it's so sweet and touching! Kinda like time-travelers, except of course Duna probably would've been happy enough if she'd stayed with Dino back before the stone sleep and all. Both a shame she wasn't born later, when the technology exists to potentially revive her safely, but wonderful, since she and Hanzo have so many cute little dinaurian babies—"

"Please stop talking about my brother's babies," Torner whispers, curled up in a ball on his couch, a pillow cushioned on top of his head.

That's one of the worst things to think about, his older brother being old and married and a father. Uuugggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

In order to get his mind off of all the happy families that're gonna exist in a few years, Torner asks, "So which couples don't get together? Or divorce, or whatever?"

Elric pouts. "Wh-Why would you ask that? That's sad!"

"Oh no. Don't tell me Penny and Nate—"

"No, no, they are physically unable to separate, even if Penny did get tired of her doof of a betrothed. Hmmmm..." Elric raises his eyes to the ceiling. "G-Geez, you really want to know this? My hands are all shaky now... I don't like thinking about all the... hnnn...

When Torner doesn't respond, the time-traveler boy slouches into his bidding. "You break up with a lot of girls. Well, no, they break up with you. It takes a long time before you can find someone who's willing to stick with you." Oh great. He's imagining giant exes on all the faces of the girls he's met so far. "I don't remember if Karl and Olga stay together. He's really emotionally destroyed after Sylvester Blacknycto finally dies..."

Oh that's... really sad. Uh...

"S-Sapphire and Sasuke really get together?"

"Pfff. They do!" Elric happily switches topics. "Nobody believes it. Ruby gets really mad and tries to disown her sister, only she shows up at their palace every time she gets bankrupt, which is unsurprisingly often."

Torner almost feels bad for Ruby, except she might also deserve it.

"W-Wait, but who do I get together with in the end?" The almost-fourteen-year-old suddenly gets this plan where he ends all of his future suffering with one girl. He feels all scheming, like a bad guy, underneath his pillow, curled up on his couch.

This... realization fills Elric's face. "She's actually both the first and the last girl you date." Oh. Oh no. Does that mean the future really did expect him to try and—

"Wait but who! Who is it?" What if he dates the wrong girl first? What if he never finds the right girl? What if—

"Yes, well, you do know her! J-Just try to be a little understanding that even though you're dumping her now, she's actually the right one for you. It's, ah—"

And then his door opens, and all of Elric's focus goes to the girl behind it. Torner never learns who is potential soulmate is, and you bet he's gonna date her first, dump her when he decides that she's flawed, and then slowly realize as he dates around that she was actually the best person for him all along, and feel terrible and sorry for himself when he thinks about the way he treated her originally.
Torner feels like it's Mei Lan, but he also feels like he wants it to be Daisy. Except he'd never dump Daisy cuz she's the sweetest, cutest girl in the universe.

Wait it could totally be Daisy. If he realized she was flawed and then like an idiot dumped her...

…heck.

It could also be Dahlia, but Torner hates that line of thought, because Dahlia's mean and scary, which is exactly why he'd dump her the first time and then—no no no no no.

When Torner finally resurfaces from his maelstrom, determining that he's just gonna have to see what happens, he notices that his younger cousin is sitting on his curled up figure. And bouncing.

"Torrrnerrrr, Torrrrnerrrr, wakey wakey waaakeeeeyyyyyyyy!"

The almost-fourteen-year-old slowly sits up, causing his white-haired younger cousin to knock to the floor. Poor thing, she's got this giant dress on, and her hair's all done up, and her pale face has been carefully enhanced with stupid amounts of makeup, and now she's rumpled up on the floor like Torner's latest box of pineapple pizza.

Elric, seeing her in real life, positively can't take it and whispers to Torner, "What do I do to gain her favor."

"Well she just turned twelve," Torner mutters back, "and her favorite food is candy."

The time-traveler boy squints. "Candy's not very good for you."

"If that's your attitude toward it, you will never gain her favor."

"Oh." Elric stares sadly down at the capsized Trixia, then slowly gets onto the ground beside her and helps her back up. "H-Hi there. I'm from the future."

Trixia stares at him, her blue eyes piercing—then bowls over in laughter. "As in the two seconds from now future? Cuz I am too! Nice t'meetcha!" She snags his hand and shakes it hard, her face a giant, kiddish smile.

Whatever Elric sees in her, he probably doesn't see it in her today.

Whoa—what if he like, left today, discouraged since Trixia's a little-girl nightmare, then returns a few years from now once she's matured, and like...

That would be cool. Torner wishes he was smart enough to time-travel, but he determines that his current lifestyle is the one that's best for him.

Wait but what if because he leaves now, Trixia turns out like Sasuke and never matures?

Torner recognizes Elric's hooded expression, probably going through the same process as Torner.

He plants a hand, awkwardly, trying to be friendly, on Elric's shoulder—the poor kiddo jolts—and says, "Whatever you decide, you're welcome to stay and play The Mario Party with me. You can even sleep on the couch, when I actually sleep in my bed, or sleep in my bed when Stryker decides he wants me to go on a horrible mission that takes overnight."

An overly grateful Elric barrels him into a hug.

Then they all play The Mario Party, which Trixia wins purely out of luck.

Elric decides to stay, at least for the night. So that's cool.

What's really cool is when Torner invites Nate and Leon over, and Elric sort of loses his mind, seeing all these people he looked to as characters from history's storybooks.

But man... Torner keeps getting hung up on the girl thing. He's gonna date them, hate them, dump them, then eventually date them again, and it'll be a mess. And—And the crazy thing is, Elric could totally be lying. Not even he knows everything—he doesn't even know what to do about Torner's crazy younger cousin. And Torner got his name cut out of the textbooks! That is so sad!

He realizes he forgot to ask Elric if Nate and Leon are gonna be his bros for a long time. But it'd be weird to ask it now, with them there, right? And he's already asked a lot, and maybe Elric enjoys it, but Torner does feel a little weird, asking all these questions...

W-Well, he'll just try to do his best, probably screw up, and if his bros still accept him as his bros, then they were always his bros in the first place. And they weren't if they don't. Yeah.

Torner still keeps himself up all night worrying.

Oops, this chapter's longer than I intended. I feel like Elric's a good closing statement for the story though, since he literally knows the future (or at least the biased textbooky part of it that could be fake for all we know), except even though he knows the future he's still all freaked out, ahaha...

I dunno, I think it was good xD

This is random, but earlier I went to the movie theatre (heheh to see incredibles 2, now I'm dating this story hahahaha summer 2018) and I saw this guy in a Hawaiian shirt—only, get this, it was a flamingo print Hawaiian shirt! I was like, holy turd, I'm not the first one to come up with it. The only difference is that Torner's stupid expensive Hawaiian flamingo shirt probably looked like an artist had designed it? Like, it wasn't a print with the same flamingos on it but a bunch of differently-designed flamingos in a scene or something—I actually drew a picture of Torner in it, hahaha. But still. Cool coincidence.

Well, here's the end, haha.