The lab seemed endless, with the number of rooms and floors. It was like walking through a mirror maze. It never seemed to end. All it helped with was making the dizzy feeling in everyone's stomach much worse. Colinne's utter silence accompanied it to the group was stressing them out, as was the gleaming smile on her face. She didn't tell them where they were going or what they were doing, so it only made everyone more nervous. After a long walk, which was probably only about 3 minutes of walking, Cheshapeek raised his hand in confusion.
"Um, where are we going?" he asked.
Colinne turned back, "Well, I'm helping you learn what is going on here."
Shrugging, they hastily made their way to the other side of the lab, where they were told they would be filled in on practically everything. Their stop was a small lab where a machine was linked up to nearly the whole lab's electric system.
Confused, Felix asked, "What is this thing?"
Colinne replied, "I would think he told you what this was." She paused as referred to the tablet, then continued, "But just in case, it is how we can communicate through the Vortex."
Attention for a second turned to the tablet and then returned to Colinne as she began typing commands into an electronic console. She paid attention to both the group while also setting up the mechanism to work. The machine buzzed to life as Colinne rejoined the group.
"This is how we can communicate through the world," she said.
Prompting confusion, Matpat asked, "Where do you communicate through? The Vortex?"
"Yes, exactly," she paused, "The place is like a wormhole. When you enter it, you leave it in a completely new place, even if it is still in the same world as before."
"This is weird," Joe said, "Too weird for my liking."
"You worry too much, Stampy," Colinne said, "Plus, it is most likely too complicated for any of you to understand."
"Is it really, though?" Steph questioned
"Well, it's not," Colinne corrected, "There are plenty of signs including small bursts of singals from you world, which people have now been calling-"
"World Zero," Mark finished.
She paused for a second and smirked, "So, you guys do listen. Well, you're going to have to explain some more tomorrow. With this thing going, it will take a couple of hours for the power to fully fluctuate through the whole thing."
Just the thought of a couple of hours made Sean and some others pretty tired. He was checking the time. 10:15. It was late. Sean felt his legs weaken as he realized the amount of energy he exerted just to get here. From the port to the stealth, it began to make him and the rest extremely tired. Before he could speak, Colinne interjected.
"I have to close this place up for the night. I can help you find somewhere nearby to sleep," she said, "Best thing is a lounge we have here."
Sean yawned and nodded, "That would be nice."
Everyone was led up to the lounge, where they could stay for the night until they found a new home. Colinne said that there wouldn't be any harm done with them staying here, hopefully. The only problem would be early employees entering at around 7:30, but she would be there at around 6:45, and the machine would finish loading by that time. Colinne was able to stay for another minute before she had to go and close the place up. She remarked, saying if the group was up early and wanted to leave, they could, but they should probably wait for them. She left the room, and the silence slowly crept into the room. The night sky through the tinted glass was gorgeous.
Mark was one of the many that could feel himself longing to sleep, not wanting to waste any time and fall on a soft surface to sleep on. Felix decided to toy with his HUD while everyone got acquainted with their living space for the time being. It seemed to read his thoughts and movements, like in any sci-fi movie he had watched. He also had a database where he stored coordinates and next to numbers. The numbers ranged from the hundreds to the hundred thousand and beyond. What do these mean? Felix thought to himself. He wanted to ask, but he refrained due to no one else knowing what they said, either. But he felt his mind ache for some sleep, and he couldn't think properly. But that didn't mean some weren't sleepy. Both Excavious and Terroriser were claiming they weren't tired or ready to fall asleep. Although Terroriser was mildly swayed, Excavious wasn't. Felix was surprised by how awake he was, how much he has gone through lately, and now he can't sleep?
"How can you not sleep?" Mark questioned, "From the whole getting here to that," he paused, "Thing. And after all that, you can't sleep?"
Excavious looked at him, "No, not really. I know you think I should, but I feel pumped. You get what I'm saying?"
Jacksepticeye, aka Sean, agreed, "He's not tired. Let him sleep when he wants." Mark refrained from arguing more and creating tension. Something told him they would be here for a long time. But, it was futile. Minutes later, Exavious had his head in his arms and was soundly sleeping, waiting for morning to arrive.
The morning sun shone in like beams of energy radiating off the glass. Exavious looked up drowsily and watched as the sun woke him as well as a hand shook his shoulder. He turned and saw Felix shaking him, trying to wake him from his sleep.
"You certainly slept in. We've gotta hurry, Colinne said she is contacting any world that will listen, and workers will be here soon," Felix said. Excavious nodded. He stood up and ran by the table as he grabbed everything he needed and rushed to the workspaces. Before he left, though, he looked back and saw what he knew would be one of the last normal things he'd see that day.
In the lab, everyone was waiting on the rest to finish up and get to the communicator. Finally, the final group entered, and they were ready. Colinne hurried to the control pad and punched in the message to any world that sought help. Overnight, the thing had charged up and had been able to send multiple signals. Colinne stared intently at the screen, waiting for something to happen. To her, it felt like minutes. To the rest, it felt like a couple of seconds. Then, Colinne suddenly pulled away and jumped for joy. It was apparent what she was going to say.
"We got something!" she exclaimed. She looked back and saw multiple word bubbles appear, each with a specific number for a world and a small description. Each world explained in short terms.
"Well, what are we waiting for?" Vanoss asked. As if on cue, a loud knock on the lab doors signified someone was here. But it wasn't anyone from here.
"What? No one should even be here right now." Colinne said. Her voice was hiding bits and pieces of panic. The knocking continued. This time, voices shouted through, commanding Colinne to open up.
The room went from happy accomplishes to fearing for their lives. Immediately, Colinne stood next to MatPat as she said the numbers of each world.
"Okay, each group needs to go to one different world. There are only three, one doesn't seem inhabitable, so we'll be fine," she quickly said. Everyone nodded and continued, "Worlds 1298, World 347, and World 2260."
Excavious volunteered, "My group will take World 347," he said as he stood with CrystalFlame, Cheshapeek, Crainer, and Vanoss.
"Then we'll take 1298," Ian replied, standing with Delirious, Gaijin, Dan, Stampy, and Squaishy.
The final group of Terroriser, MatPat, Colinne, Stephanie, Squid, Jacksepticeye, Markiplier, and Felix with World 2260. They each looked at their watches and typed in the world numbers. Finally, Felix had his numbers in, and his watch produced the question he had asked himself ever since he had arrived: Are you ready? Yes. No. Felix hesitated for a moment, just enough time to hear the door to the lab burst open. He turned to the door and quickly to his watch, and with mild hesitation, tapped yes. Footsteps approached as he felt himself change in some way. He looked down to see himself engulfed in white light and, finally, darkness. He couldn't see anything for a moment. Then, lights flashed past his eyes as he felt his body propelled forward at such high speeds. He closed his eyes as air wooshed around him, creating sound clumps. He then felt his body slow down to a near halt. He opened his eyes and found himself on what looked like an endless desert. What he didn't realize was that he was falling until he hit the groud with a thud. A few more thuds around him were heard as he stood, his legs shaking from the impact.
"Where are we?" Jacksepticeye asked, sounding a little dazed from the landing and flashing lights. Looking around, all they saw was sand for miles on end. Nothing but that as the sun beat down on them harshly. It hardly mattered what they were going to do if they died of heatstroke. So they set off to find the closest town so they could get some answers.
After less than an hour of walking, they did stumble upon a village of sand houses and traders. They walked around mysterious creatures as they followed where Colinne said the signal came from. They walked and walked until finally, they found where the signal was the strongest. It was a small building in the near center of the town, the top having a large signal tower. As they entered the building, they were expecting to be stopped but found that the workers there seemed to be asleep. Felix moved over to one and pushed on his shoulder.
"Um, excuse me," he said, as he moved his body, only then to realize that he was dead. Its chest was burned out with a hole the side of a baseball taking its place. Felix jumped back in horror and could feel himself want to throw up. He held off that feeling as he looked at the desk to see what this group was missing. Nothing seemed to be missing except for a page out of a logbook. Looking over a board above the communication device, it showed times of ships arriving and departing. The problem was that nothing was specific, meaning there is no sign of where they were supposed to go.
"So, wait, why are we coming here again?" Mark asked, confused.
Colinne replied, "Well, we came here for research, but I think there is much more going on."
Sean nodded but disagreed, "Is there anything going on? 'Cause if not, we should head back to the lab before..."
Matpat cut him off, "Well, the lab is overrun by a group of people who were looking for you, Colinne. So that may not be the best option."
"I agree, maybe we should find another world and contact someone to..." Colinne's talk was cut off as a laser shot flew right past her. She screamed in fear and everyone followed suit for a moment before Sean grabbed Dave and dove behind a desk. But it was being shot out, and each laser seemed to grow closer and closer to their heads. Dave looked over to his left and saw on one of the dead bodies' hips was a pistol. He looked at Sean and motioned towards it, and he nodded. The lasers suddenly stopped, and that gave him the confidence to grab the gun and shoot wherever the figure was. When he pulled the trigger, a light emerged from the barrel and traveled through the air to the target. It hit, and the figure fell back into the doorway. He looked at the figure, which he had caught in the shoulder as it groaned in pain.
Looking at it, he realized that it was the same figure they had met at the docks the previous night. He now had a good look at what he witnessed the night before. He could tell since it still had the scar of the bullet Vanoss had shot at it in its left shoulder and the now the singed metal left by Dave on its right shoulder. But it was also different. It was a little less crystal-like and now more humanoid. Its face was the same, with sharp teeth and such, but it was different since it had the figure of a man.
"How is this possible?" he asked himself. Suddenly, a hand grabbed him by the arm and flung him across the room.
"A magician never tells his secrets," it replied. The blaster pistol slid past the table and up to Colinne's feet, and she picked it up. She hesitated and then shot the thing until the gun was near the surface of the sun's temperature. She dropped it as the figure fell back into the door frame. It passed out as it landed on its back. At the same time, an object fell out of its hooded robe and fell at its feet. Mark went to pick it up. It was a piece of rolled-up paper and rolled up inside was a small USB, definitely holding some information. Squid picked it up and put it into his pocket.
"I don't think we should wait around here much longer," he stated. Colinne nodded.
"If I can reverse engineer this, we could gain some information about who makes these things, at least a name we should look for," she said.
"Well then, let's get started," Sean said.
Felix asked, "Hey, voice thingy, where are we exactly?"
"It appears that you are on a planet called Tatooine."
Meanwhile, in World 1298, the group had made a mistake in their calculations and had landed a little higher than they thought. The group had landed on a shallow beach, meaning they could look for where they needed to go, but it wasn't the most comfortable landing. Looking up, Delirious felt a slight pain as he sat up and groaned. He looked around and saw his mask, realizing it must've fallen off. He quickly grabbed it and put it back on. Ian sat up too and questioned his actions.
"So, why do you wear that mask?" he asked. Delirious looked at him for a second and then answered.
"I just like to keep my face hidden. Is that a problem?" he asked. Ian shook his head, not meaning to sound like a bad person. As they talked, everyone else began to stand up, their clothes soaked in saltwater. Crainer stood up last and felt a small thing poking into his back. He rubbed at the spot, thinking it to be sand. But then it began to move in response to Crainer moving. He jumped up and down, trying to get off.
"Help! Get it off!" he yelled with the thing traveling up and down his shirt. Quickly, the group surrounded him and tried to hit the thing off of him but to no avail. The feeling of it moving just made Crainer even more stressed. Finally, the creature dropped from his shirt and back into the water. Before the thing swam off, however, Ian reached down to grab whatever it was. Picking it up, he realized it was some sort of clam or clamshell that must have gotten stuck as he landed.
"Well, you must have gotten really scared if you jumped over a little…" he didn't finish as two eyes opened in the clamshell, and it yelled something. Ian dropped the thing and jumped back as it fell into the water. It burrowed into the shallow sand and was gone. Ian's heartbeat was faster now, pumping adrenaline into every part of his body, expecting the thing came back.
"What did it say?" Dan asked puzzled, "It sounded familiar,"
Ian shook his head, "I must have blacked out or something, 'cause I didn't hear it."
"No idea, but we need to hurry and find," he paused to think, "Whatever we are looking for."
Nodding in agreement, they headed for the upper beach area while Gaijin fell behind, trying to figure out how this voice thing would work.
"First of all, you need a name," he said to the voice.
"I must agree, all I am right now is an onboard intelligence system," it replied.
"That is pretty obvious," another voice came through the coms.
The voice was familiar, but he couldn't remember, "Who is this?"
"Excavious and co, who else?" he replied, trying to be a little funny.
"Okay, so our coms can communicate through different worlds, good to know," Gaijin sighed.
"Now, back to the name, what are you all thinking?" the voice asked. The three were silent for a moment before speaking again.
"Jarvis?" Gaijin asked, trying to act funny.
"No, imagine the Marvels response to that," Excavious retorted, "Onboard intelligence system… How about OBIS?"
The Gaijin thought for a moment, "That doesn't seem like a bad name. Yeah, OBIS it is."
"Loading…" OBIS said, downloading it into his database, "Done, my program files now label me as OBIS. Thank you for the help,"
"No problem," Excavious and Gaijin came through separately, and then they stopped. The coms became quiet, then Gaijin spoke.
"Alright, over and out then," he said. Excavious gave a small sharp exhale in response.
"And good luck," he said as the coms went to static.
Gaijin stopped transmitting and caught up to the rest of the group as they walked through a trail of some sort. Just then, he realized he looked different than what he was earlier. Looking down at his hands, he saw that they weren't as detailed or realistic as they were back in Colinne's world. They were more two dimensional and fidgety. He then got an idea. He began to move his arms up and down, and they seemed to turn into oval shapes in response, like a simple animation.
"'Derived' might be an understatement, OBIS," he stated.
Delirious spoke first, "Yeah, this place looks like an anime or something,"
"Well, I'm not from that world, though I do understand what you are talking about," OBIS said.
"Really? How?" Stampy asked, taking his mind off of the scenery for a second, though it was beautiful.
"It seems like I've seen this before, some time ago," he said as his thoughts began to trail off.
"Well, we might want to be careful just in case of…" Dan was cut off when he was attacked by something. Dan felt the force of the thing as it tackled him to the ground and loomed above him. He looked up to see the figure, and he couldn't believe what he was looking at. It was like a dog, except standing on its hind-legs and having blue fur with black lines going down its body. Its ears were long and black, along with its paws. It had spikes emerging from the back of its hands as well the top of its feet and on its chest. Its foot rested firmly on Dan's chest, pushing downwards as to stop it from moving.
"Please, I don't want to hurt you," Dan offered to the creature, knowing what it can do.
The thing looked at him and then lifted its foot, "Riolu," is all it whispered before it jumped away.
"Welp, now I know where we are," Dan said as he staggered to his feet. Blood rushed to his head, and he began to see stars. Ian walked over to help.
"Yep, just in which region?" he asked, "OBIS, can you be of service to this?"
A small noise pierced the coms for a second, and then OBIS replied, "Yes, I can, I believe, due to the geography we are in the Sinnoh region. This is due to the number of islands and the number of beaches on each island."
"So, are we in the game or the show?" Squaishy and Stampy asked. This seemed like the show, except it was different in some way.
"Well, their stories are intertwined, so maybe a mixture of both," Gaijin predicted.
"That seems plausible," OBIS replied, "World Zero seems to have these worlds' same events and places them into worlds of the same time. I know that probably didn't make a dime of sense, but I hope you can somewhat understand."
"We do, OBIS," Stampy said.
"Well, we might want to find this region's professor. We do that, and we can find more information," Dan said, "The more we learn, the safer we'll be,"
"Well, shall we?" OBIS asked. The group agreed and began walking down this route.
In World 347, Excavious had fallen and been knocked out as he had landed on his head. As he came to, he laughed at himself.
"Maybe I had a little too much fun and energy," he groaned with a smile. His eyes still closed due to a bright light shining in his eyes, most likely sun-light. But he felt tired, like all of the energy was sucked out of him just through that one journey. This was going to be more difficult than he thought.
"Oh, wait," he thought, remembering what had happened. His thoughts of excitement were cut off by him, remembering that moment. He felt his smile melt away slowly as a calming song came into focus. The problem with that was it wasn't in his head; it was clear as day in the real world. It was slow, calming piano music. His eyes slowly opened to look into the blue sky as his vision began to sharpen. He noticed the clouds, and it was apparent of what they were: they were square. The music was recognizable as a song by C418. He sat up and couldn't believe his eyes. Trees, plains, and water, all of which were blocks. His mind was in total shock from this, only then to realize that he was alone. He looked around for any sign of Cheshapeek or Crystal but to no avail. Then, there was a small thud right behind him. He turned around to see Vanoss motioning for him to follow. He looked different in some way that was recognizable but not immediately known. He stood up, only then to realize another attribute: he had no fingers. He turned his attention to the rest of his body, realizing that his whole body was square-like. He brought his now fingerless hands to his head and understood the block-like structure of his head. Instead of yelling in fear of this form, he softly laughed in admiration. He then brought his hands up to his head, and as expected, it was a complete cube. Again, he gave a soft laugh.
His mind then realized how stupid it looked for him to be sitting in the middle of a grass plain and just thinking. He stood up, wiped the excess dirt off of his pants, and walked towards where he saw Vanoss. His eyes darted from place to place, making sure he wasn't followed, as well as taking in the scenery. He overlooked his friends ahead until he bumped into Cheshapeek. He jumped and turned towards him, then sighed in relief.
"Jeez, in something like this, don't scare me like that," he said, his voice coarse.
Excavious felt the urge to laugh, "First of all, the look on your face after that scare, and second, the way we look."
Both grinned and held back their small bits of laughter. Neither knew why, but it seemed kind of funny that they were just a bunch of strange-looking cubes, but it wouldn't be that funny to the rest. They turned to see Vanoss standing in the shade, waiting for them. They approached him, and he spoke simply.
"Minecraft?" he asked plainly. Chesheapeek nodded.
"That is what it seems like," he stated.
"Well, where is everyone else?" Excavious asked. They looked around before hearing a shout from above.
"Hey, up here," Crainer shouted from a bunch of tree leaves above. Looking up, they managed to see him just as he jumped down. He landed with a crunch as the grass didn't falter below him.
"Well, let's get a move on before dark," Vanoss lead, "Before those mobs come out,"
Nodding in agreement, they walked through the thick oak forest to the top of a hill, hoping to find something to help them. Before long, they had crossed the hill and were heading down to discover any source of shelter or food. But then, a thought crossed Vanoss. One that seemed pretty obvious since they were in this situation. He pulled away from the group, reeled back, and punched an oak tree as hard as he could.
The tree trunk emitted a knocking sound as a small crack emerged from where he had hit it. He did the same thing again and hit the tree in the exact spot again. The cracks began to grow more prominent, and after one final blow, the trunk shattered and left a little floating block, rotating in an endless loop. Vanoss reached for the block and, as if a magnet, flew into the palm of his hand. He took a moment to examine it.
It was much smaller than it was before. It had shrunk to the size of his palm, and he could see it had no cracks in the side. It had the detail that was about the same as before it shrunk, from the bark to the mild dents in its trunk. It was surreal. Something that was a game previously to him was now a reality. He was holding a block in Minecraft. He was confused about whether to be surprised, more confused, or excited about what is to come. His mind was so focused on that, and he didn't notice the other blocky head moving closer to his.
"Cool," Crainer commented. Vanoss jumped and turned to look at him for only a split second before he turned back to the tree and, without thinking, immediately began to hit the base block of the tree. Once again, it broke, and it appeared again as a small cube. It was practically the same as the other one. He turned to the group as they began to follow suit by punching trees.
"So, what are we going to build anyways?" Excavious asked.
"Something that will keep us from dying tonight," Vanoss responded.
