The icy chill of piano music stirred Ken from his sleep, and once again he found himself in the Velvet Room, sat opposite Igor and Penelope in his pyjamas.
"A good evening to you, Ken." Igor tapped his fingers together. "Just a quick check. How are you holding up? Getting a better grasp of this world and its machinations?"
"Er, sure." Ken just looked around. Nothing had changed about the insides of his Ferris wheel carriage thing, yet it somehow felt so different. "Everything but how and when you appear."
A grin stretched across Igor's lips. "Ah, worry not Ken. A magician never reveals his secrets, after all. So you have no questions?"
"Well…" Ken's hand reached for his pockets but stopped when he realised that he was about to tear a hole in his pyjama pants. "I uh, found this blank card, but I can't show it to you because I'm not wearing my normal clothes…"
"A blank card you say?" Igor's eyebrow arched. "How interesting. Let's just say a blank card is not unlike a joker. Boundless potential awaits you, my boy."
Igor snapped his fingers and Ken's vision faded into white noise, followed immediately by the screeching of his alarm clock.
He awoke with a start into early morning sunshine. Yet again he couldn't tell whether the meeting with Igor was really a dream or not. Had valuable sleeping time been taken up by that man literally occupying a space in his mind? It was a concerning situation either way, really. Either he was having repeating dreams about a creepy, all powerful being in a Ferris wheel carriage, or the very same being was actively visiting him in his dreams.
Ken swung his feet over the end of the bed and groaned. This was far too much to think about on a Monday. After pulling some clothes on, he wandered downstairs and fed Frank a healthy bowl of pellets before tucking into a breakfast of his own; today's 'special' seemed to be eggs on toast?
A bizarre combination, but he wasn't going to begrudge it. Muttering the usual niceties to Calvin he headed off towards school. The first red flag popped up when only two Belchers met him outside the restaurant; Gene and Louise.
"W-where's Tina?" He tried to keep his voice calm. Maybe it was just a coincidence and he didn't need to start panicking, after all.
"She's not feeling well," Louise deadpanned. "Butt rot or something, probably."
"A serious case!" Gene said. "Mom said it's super contagious and that we should stay away, otherwise our butts will fall off!"
"…huh." Ken frowned. That didn't sound believable in the slightest. But Gene would surely know if Tina had disappeared, right? Both of them could venture into that 'other' world, along with Courtney.
He was going to have to think up a better name than 'other world'. A dystopian horror full of dangerous nightmares shouldn't be restricted to a name as boring as 'other world'.
With a shrug, Ken followed after the depleted Belchers and headed to school. Even if worst came to worst, the three of them could visit later on or something and have a look around, make sure she actually wasn't there. It would be an excuse for training, if nothing else.
School dripped by, as per usual, with the only real highlight being Coach Blevins accidentally setting his tie on fire in Science class. Despite Tina usually being the quietest of their little group, even more so than Ken himself, her lack of a presence was definitely felt. For starters it meant there was a gap at the lunch desk; one that Courtney seemed all too happy to fill.
Angry mutterings from Louise did little to fill in the space, however. Ken finished the afternoon without much of a fuss, following Gene and Louise back to theirs for a couple of hours after school to catch up with the rest of the Belchers.
Both Bob and Linda seemed equally oblivious to Tina's state, insisting she was in her bedroom feeling sorry for herself. Ken managed a sneaky knock on her door when no one was looking, but didn't get an answer.
She could've just been sleeping. That was very possible. Her parents wouldn't willingly lie to him would they? Lie about her being sick at home when a kidnapper was very much on the loose?
Something here didn't quite add up, but there wasn't any need to get worried just yet.
Ken bid his goodbyes to most of the Belchers at about six o'clock and found his way back home, where Calvin happily greeted and fed him. He couldn't really focus on the colourless mush Calvin was calling dinner due to Tina's situation, however. If she was still 'sick' the next day, he was thinking that maybe he'd have to do something about it.
And just as predicted, there was no Tina there the next morning either.
Neither of the siblings were saying much about it either. Were they honestly believing that she was ill in bed with butt rot? Was that even a thing?
But of course, there was nothing he could do about it with school being in the way. Math problem or no Math problem, he was going to have to be a student first, and then see what the issue was with Tina later.
At the end of lunch, he dragged Gene and Courtney to one side;
"Wanna go training after school today?"
"Huh? That's sudden." Courtney said.
"Yeah, aren't we super strong already?" Gene was in rare agreement with her.
"And what if the bad guys have gotten stronger?" Ken searched for a logical argument. "I think we wanna try and commit to training once, maybe twice a week or something?"
"Uhh… as long as it doesn't run into my snack time I'm good." Gene said.
"Wherever you go I'll follow, Ken." Courtney made her creepy addition.
So the evening's plans were made. He, Courtney and two Belchers made their way back to the restaurant after school, where Ken ordered another Burger of the Day. 'My Neighbor Potato' was a pretty obvious hint as to what the special ingredient was. It came as a fried slab of mashed potato on top of the patty.
An odd choice, but Ken had seen weirder. Bob wasn't as obliging this time however, offering only the one rather than a freebie. That meant Gene got a half and they both got a quarter, because he was screwed if he was going to try and figure out how to evenly cut a burger into thirds. Maybe it was time to adopt Louise's mantra of 'no Math out of school'.
Crossing over made them feel a little less nauseous each time they did so, but his head was still swimming for a good ten minutes of wandering in the misty nothingness. The shadow monsters seemed more on edge today than usual. Sure, maybe they just didn't like Tuesdays either, but there may have been an actual reason for the behaviour.
"Can you see anything interesting on your map Courtney?" Ken asked, splitting a shadow monster down the middle with his spear.
"Uhh…" she stared at nothing while the two monster halves surged into new shapes. "There's a couple of things out there but they're far away. Wanna go get them?"
"Yeah, sounds good to me." Ken nodded, blocking a slash attack from what looked like a greenish voodoo dull with a boomerang. He countered with a parry of his own, which knocked the creature back and let Gene pummel it with a Bufu. Courtney followed up with a couple of pill bombs, which vanquished the first of the two shadows. The second, some sort of ghostly looking dog, struck Courtney down with a darkness spell and then whipped Ken with its tail. Ken countered with a Garu spell, knocking it back. He and Gene then piled on it and vanquished it before helping Courtney up.
Every step he took throughout the other world felt different today. Until he thought up a better name it was going to stay as the other world, anyway. Like there was an unwelcoming presence here. Not that the place was exactly inviting in the first place, with its decaying walls, obscuring fog and murderous monsters but hey, the normal hostile environment was a picnic compared to today.
Courtney grabbed onto his shoulders and pulled him back, just as a shadow rounded a corner. Eyes wide he plunged his spear into the creature's depths and split it into three, offering Courtney a thank you thumbs up.
Among these three were two 'Jack O'Lanterns' and a 'Jack Frost', according to Courtney. It was easy to tell which was which, with the obvious pumpkin and snowman aesthetics. Gene was quick to bring the Jack O'Lanterns down with a pair of Bufu spells and then whack the Jack Frost with his harp. Ken followed up by sinking his spear into Jack Frost's middle, which seemed to do little other than simply sink through its icy body. Jack Frost grabbed at his spear and instantly froze it, so Courtney took the initiative and blasted it with a pill bomb, which disintegrated much of its body.
Jack Frost stayed standing though, so there was to be no close combat this round. Logic told him that a fire attack would weaken it, but no one had any access to that. He supposed they'd just have to do it the slow way and knock it around for a few turns. The Jack O'Lanterns had recovered from their Bufu assault and retaliated with fire spells of their own, hitting Courtney and Ken respectively. Ken thanked the gods above that Gene was spared, meanwhile Jack Frost limped towards Gene and hit him with an icy fist. Gene seemed mostly unperturbed by it however, knocking both Jack O'Lanterns down with another barrage of Bufu spells. The first one vanished into nothing while the second needed a trio of notes from the harp to get the job done. Maybe it was a higher level than its cohort, Ken wondered.
That left just the Jack Frost remaining. Ken slashed at it with his spear while Courtney launched another pill bomb at it, blasting more of its body away. Yet again it just reformed and attacked however, this time striking Ken on the side of the head. Ken blinked away stars and countered with his spear, which sliced clean through the Jack Frost's middle. The creature made a confused face and disappeared into the mist, leaving the three of them with a light show of playing cards.
"This again, huh?" Gene frowned. "Want me to pick, Ken?"
"I wanna do it!" Courtney thrust herself in. "…what do I do?"
"Pick a card." Ken deadpanned. "Super easy."
"Hmm…" Courtney drew out the simple action of 'pick a card' as long as she possibly could. Looking around the other side, inspecting each of the eight or so from various angles – to which they rotated away from her in accordance – she ummed and ahhed over the simple decision for a pointlessly long time.
"Just pick already!" Gene groaned. "We'll be here all day otherwise!"
"Fine…" Courtney said darkly. "This one."
She grabbed a card at seemingly random and glared at it. "It's another one of those dumb snowmen. What does that mean?"
The card shot out of her hand and into Ken's, where it disappeared in a flash of gold. Did that mean what he thought it meant?
"J-Jack Frost." He muttered to no one. The surrounding mist clumped together in front of him, condensing to the shape of another one of those snowmen. It gave a little giggle and waved at Ken before disappearing again.
"…what does all of this mean?" Courtney sounded as confused as ever.
"It means I can now use one of those snowmen things." Ken said.
"B-but I picked the card!"
"I know you picked the card. Don't ask me why, but only I can use them it seems."
"Ugh, no fair."
"…thanks for picking it."
"Really? Ohh, it's no biggie!"
Fire and Ice seemed to be the day's theme, with plenty more of those Jack Frosts floating about and several other monsters that were obviously Fire based, from the Pumpkin Jacks to literal wisps of fire, and Ken just made the assumption that anything bright red was fire aligned. That was probably going to come back and bite him in the butt later but it was definitely working for just now so that was fine.
Courtney made a show of informing them that the first of the 'interesting' things on her map was getting near, which turned out to be another treasure chest guarded by a shadow. It wasn't as much of a pushover as the first few battles, but the weird prancing horse – Orobas according to Courtney – couldn't stand up to Gene and Ken's dual ice assaults for long, with repeated pummelling reducing it to mist in no time at all. Inside the treasure chest they found one of those dumb hats that looked like it was made out of a net curtain. Gene immediately decided he was wearing without any clue what it even did. Ken wasn't going to begrudge him that; Courtney got the last one after all.
It looked like their trailblazing was going to have to end there for the day however, as Ken could feel the usual gurgle emanating from his depths. Was there another way to control where they could enter and leave from? The current system was really working against them, forcing them to find their way in the mist world – that was already so much better than 'other world' – and then find their way back from wherever they'd gotten to. All that did was eat into their time.
If only this place had save points, he thought with a little snicker. It wasn't out of the question, but short of taking their burger to go they were going to have to just put up with the current system.
Colours bled back into the world, and three young kids found themselves in some apartment block with mouldy walls and equally grotty floors. Clearly one of the nicer parts of town.
"…meet back here on Thursday?" Ken suggested.
"Why here?" Courtney frowned. "It's so icky…"
"So we can pick up where we left off." Ken explained. "It'll be a pain in the butt travelling from the restaurant every time and we'll only be able to get so far before we have to leave again. At least if we pick up from here we can explore a bit more. Find more stuff?"
"Oh, you mean like the in-Gene-ious idea I had last week?" Gene stood proud.
It was a solid plan, and Ken still didn't know how Gene came up with it. The only real downside was finding their way there and back, regardless of which world they were in. It was a poor system at best, but what could he do? Weird portals into alternate worlds don't usually accommodate for you.
The apartment block was just a few blocks down from Courtney's house, so she peeled away from the pair of them quickly, while Gene and Ken took the longer route back to the restaurant. Ken was tempted to ask about Tina, but even Gene seemed fairly oblivious to the potential danger she was in. Surely someone must have known whether or not she was actually there…
One more day, he told himself. If they were still none the wiser after one more day, then she must've been in the mist world. There was no other way, aside from sheer ignorance.
Ken bid Gene goodbye outside the restaurant and gave Bob a wave before heading past. It looked like the store next door had changed hands again – he could almost bring himself to feel sorry for the used hats guy. This one had a sign with bold yellow letters, 'Batter Off Dead'.
Batter as in… battered food?
Hopefully not battered people, he chuckled. What was with these stores and their ambiguous names?
Either way, it killed time, and he didn't want to go back to Calvin's just yet. Through the doors he went, and the gentle tinkle of a bell was quickly swallowed by the rambunctious swell of bagpipes. Behind the counter sat the biggest creature Ken had ever met. This man must've stood at least six foot six or so, with scraggly red hair so bright that it was practically luminous.
"Y'a'righ', wee man?" He spoke in the thickest accent. "Glad te see we're gettin' noticed. What can I dae ye fer?"
Ken just stared up at him with his lips pursed. This man was sat down yet still taller than him. Almost as broad as he was tall, he seemed in every way the stereotypical Scotsman, right down to the kilt and weird pompom hat thing.
"I uh…" he hesitated. "I was just looking around, sorry."
"Och, it's nae bother pal. There's nothin' wrong wae just having a wee look. Ye wantin' somethin' battered?!"
The beast of a man pounded one fist into the other, and Ken was no closer to a conclusion as to exactly what was getting battered. The entire building smelled strongly of cooking oil and vinegar, so he was hoping that meant food, but there was no certainty in anything anymore.
"Er… what's available?" He asked. If he could narrow things down a bit that might've helped.
"Hah-hah! Surprise me, wee man. We'll batter anything!" The man grinned massively. "We've got ye a fish supper, tattie scones, yer wee chocolate bar, sausagees, pizza, you name it. You bring it, we'll batter it!"
"So… food?"
"Aye, if ye like. Just as long as it's deid pal."
Ken groaned internally. That only made things sound more suspicious.
"So you do… takeout?" He tried again.
"Aye, mostly." The huge man nodded. "But like I said, you bring it an' we'll – och, where're m'manners?! Pleasure te meet ye wee man. Name's Davie MacPherson! Come fae a place named Glesga in Scotland. Ye heardae'it?"
Ken could only manage a shake of the head. He'd heard of Scotland. That was where the Loch Ness monster was from. An actual place in Scotland was a different beast altogether. "Och, nae bother wee man. Cannae say am surprised. Aye, moved o'er wi m'wife an' weans. Figured I'd bring what I ken wi me, ye ken?"
Ken? That was his name. What did it even mean when used in that way?
He was sure this Davie person was speaking English, but he'd be damned if he understood more than a couple of words. Like a tin of syrup with the label missing, his accent was just too thick and heavy, and he couldn't be sure.
Ken just nodded politely and looked around. If he was about to go back home and have a dinner with Calvin – as good as this place smelled – then it probably wasn't wise to fill up on a greasy something or other. The vending machine to his right did catch his eye however. He didn't recognise any of the brands within it, but soda was soda, right. He couldn't just waste the man's time, otherwise they'd end up going under like every other store that seemed to rent this place out.
"Er, just this please?" He placed a can of what looked like orange soda on the counter. Davie looked at it, then him, then it again, and smirked.
"Ah, warms m'heart? Grand. That'll be $2.50."
Ken flinched a bit at the price. All that for a can of soda?
Maybe it was imported or something. He didn't recognise it, so it made sense. Either that or it was unexpectedly fancier than he'd first expected. Did soda even come in fancy?
Regardless, he thanked Davie, got his arm wrung by Davie's shovel of a hand, and exited the store.
Door clinking shut behind him it was time to see what he'd just wasted $2.50 on. That was like three American sodas. The tab clinked back with a pleasant hiss, and Ken gave it a tester sip. The harsh tang of citrus something or other was balanced with a chaotic amount of sugar and some other tang he couldn't identify. It was nothing special, but it was ice cold, and he quickly found himself taking longer and longer draughts of it. Whatever it was, the can was empty by the time he'd made it to the end of the street, and he made the trip slowly back to Calvin's, where his temporary guardian was happy to treat him to a dinner of… pizza?
Ken frowned. Finally, something normal for dinner. He still didn't like pizza much, but at least he knew what this was rather than the colourless something or other from yesterday.
After indulging Calvin with a couple more games of Salad Samurai, he made his excuses and went to bed, only to meet with the icy cold presence of Igor.
It took everything Ken had not to scream at the man.
"…we have got to stop meeting like this."
"Do not be alarmed, Ken." Igor raised a hand to disarm the situation. "Dear Penelope just wants a quick word with you."
Igor gestured to his right, where Penelope herself was sat.
"Hello there," she smiled. "I'm glad to see that you've accomplished my first task. A congratulations are in order!"
She waved her hand and a playing card appeared out of nowhere, which she then floated over to him. Ken studied it for a moment and saw a lot of blue sparkly stuff on one side of it. Whatever that meant.
"You've been progressing at quite the clip," she smiled again. "I wouldn't have expected you to tame a Jack Frost so quickly."
Jack Frost? Ken muttered internally. The weird snowman thing? How these two both knew he'd even encountered one was questionable enough, but exactly when was he told to do so? The only 'request' he remembered getting from her was that one about creatures who bite noses? Something told him a snowman couldn't do that.
"Yes, a fortuitous encounter indeed," Igor placed his fingertips together. "Speaking of which, do you have any requests of us Ken? A Fusion perhaps?"
"Err…" Ken stammered. The whole concept of Fusion was still beyond him, if he was completely honest with himself. Igor definitely knew more than he was letting on, and had far more power than Ken could even comprehend – that much was obvious. Maybe it was better to not tempt fate and ask about Tina?
"N-not that I can think of," he forced a smile.
"A wise decision." Igor grinned. "Sometimes we find that there is safety in strength, and other times safety comes in numbers. You seem to possess the brass to know which is best, Ken. Choose wisely and you may yet overcome even greater foes…"
Ken just groaned. So, he was definitely going to fight much stronger opponents in the future. How encouraging.
"Remember Ken," Igor's body began to fade into the nothing, "A flame burns brightest just before it dies."
Igor and Penelope faded from the room, however it got no warmer. Prickly goosebumps flared across Ken's skin. What in the hell did he even mean by that?
He couldn't even bear to change into pyjamas, it was that cold. His breath misting before him, he just bundled up beneath the bedcovers and stared, wide eyed, at the ceiling.
It looked like he wasn't going to sleep much tonight either.
Author's note:
Another chapter down.
We're another day closer to finding Tina, however no one's really sure that she's even gone yet. A mechanic I'm introducing is that people who aren't 'awake' to the Mist World remain blissfully unaware to the state of anyone trapped in it, at least initially. The become increasingly aware as time goes on, eventually waking up to the truth unless the person is saved in time. So yeah, time pressure etc.
Anyway, another update for everyone. Some more foreshadowing and Igor being creepy etc, plus a new part time store. Enjoy! :)