Izzy was feeling really guilty about being the narrator when she's not a Nickelodeon character, so she asked me, SpongeBob SquarePants, to take a crack at it. Speaking of which, I too have something that I feel guilty about doing. I would like to apologize for asking that mailman if he liked his job all those years ago. If I had known it would upset two cute little babies, I would have said literally anything else to the mailman.
"But SpongeBob, that was all a dream. Remember me? You had no control over it, so you have no reason to feel bad about it," Lincoln reminds me. He's got a point. Thanks, Lincoln. "No problem," he responds.
This is the part of the story where he was at the Royal Woods mall with Ronnie Anne and Carlota. Lincoln was in the middle of telling them about what had happened earlier that day. "And to top it all of, she must've seen some horror movies before if she knows she likes them. What kind of idiot wouldn't think to say that to the person who's not letting them see another horror movie?" he ranted.
"Yeah, that girl's pretty dumb," commented Ronnie Anne. "Say, if there's still a GameFreeze here, can we go there?" she asked, surprising Lincoln.
"Yeah, there is. Why though?" he responded.
"Remember when I said I can't be in that Nick fighting game? I thought maybe I could change their minds if I show them how awesome a fighter I am," Ronnie Anne explained.
"What are the odds the game devs will be at this random store?" asked Lincoln. "This isn't even their universe," he added.
The people working on the game weren't there at GameFreeze, but Ronnie Anne still got the chance to show off she would be a good fit for the roster. Try-outs were being held and there was room for her, Carlota, and Lincoln. Lincoln chose not to enter because he knew his life would change too much if they selected him. He didn't want that. Ronnie Anne and Carlota, on the other hand, didn't care. They were entered into a very small tournament, one with only four people in it.
The first match pitted Carlota against Angelica Pickles. It was the All Grown Up! version of her, to be specific. There's something I'd like to tell you about Carlota that Izzy forgot to mention. She's also from the Y Universe, but she's exactly like the real Carlota. Not everything about the Y Universe is different from what you would expect it to be.
"Man, you are not sounding like yourself very much right now, SpongeBob," Lincoln commented.
The Angelica vs. Carlota match ended with Carlota winning. The next battle was between Ronnie Anne and the 2012 Raphael. Ronnie Anne remained confident that she would stand a chance the entire time. She insulted Raphael, talked about how awesome she was, and bragged about how she could win with an arm injury so much that Lincoln had to beg her to stop. However, she was completely wrong. Raphael was so much better in the fight with her that she almost never even got a single hit in. When there wasn't much time left, she got very angry about how she was going to lose. I'd tell you what she said, but I really can't. But she didn't lose. At the last second, she found a Krabby Patty and ate it. It was so delicious that she suddenly felt much more motivated, helping her secure her sweet victory for the tournament's first round!
For the final round, it was cousin vs. cousin! Carlota and Ronnie Anne would have to fight each other! "I can't fight someone in my familia!" they both shouted at the same time. With that, they called it off and left GameFreeze.
"I should've saw that coming," commented Lincoln.
"What do you wanna do now, dude?" asked Ronnie Anne.
As Lincoln tried to think of their next activity, he spotted Melbourne and Victoria riding a merry-go-round. I wish I could say he called the proper authorities to report two unaccompanied babies in a mall, but nope. He knew that since no one in the Chang family except Adelaide is on Ronnie Anne's side, he had to hide her and Carlota again. Without saying a word, he grabbed their hands and rushed them to the nearest gender neutral restroom.
"What the heck is this about?" Carlota asked once they were there.
Lincoln had to think fast again. This was when he realized he didn't need to hide because the babies would either be too slow or not chase after them at all. Now he was in a pickle because the girls he was spending his day with were getting suspicious that he was up to something. He didn't want to have to resort to this, but he needed to make it believable. "I really had to pee and I needed your help," he said, regretting it before the first word even got out.
Carlota chuckled, but Ronnie Anne just got confused. "How can that be? What could you possibly need our help for?" she asked.
Then he got a brilliant idea. "Oh. I just realized how what I said must've sounded. Peeing isn't what I need help with," he said to cover his tracks. He went into one of the stalls and pretended to use it. "I just didn't wanna wait until after I was done. Anyway, I was just thinking the people holding those tournaments are gonna be mad at us for wasting their time since you didn't compete in the final round like you were supposed to," he said. He then got out of the stall and washed his hands. "So, what do you think we should do about that?" he asked after drying his hands.
"We should not care. That's what we should do," Ronnie Anne replied in a snarky way. Lincoln and Carlota both chuckled and agreed with her. "You guys wanna head for the food court and get some pigs in blankets?" she asked, getting agreement from the other two once again.
It took them a while to get to the food court because they kept getting distracted. Once they made it there, Lincoln spotted the Chang twins again. But he had realized by this point that it was okay for them to be there. They wouldn't be able to tell anyone they saw Ronnie Anne and Ronnie Anne wouldn't care about making eye contact with them. He just had to hope the twins left them alone and he would have nothing to worry about. He knew that if they saw the girl who broke their big sister's heart having such a good time, they'd get super angry. Making it look like he was getting up to refill his drink, Lincoln walked over to the babies and used his phone to call their parents.
Also, it started snowing outside. Lincoln, Ronnie Anne, and Carlota wanted to go outside now, but they didn't have any snow clothes. Not wanting to go home first to get changed, they bought some at the mall. Conveniently, the store they went to had snow clothes that looked exactly like the ones they already owned. After they exited the mall, Ronnie Anne made a one-armed snow angel, Lincoln started building a snow fort, and Carlota took pictures of their new outfits.
Then they spotted a few visitors from another universe. "Luan! Nat You're never gonna believe this! I'm here with the real Ronnie Anne and Lincoln and they said this snowman they built will come to life if I sing to it!" a young girl who looked very similar to Lola Loud screamed into her phone.
"I can't believe she's actually falling for it," the real Ronnie Anne said to the real Lincoln.
When Carlota caught sight of this, she pointed to the characters her cousin and her friend are based on and said "Who are those people? They look really familiar."
Not wanting her to have an existential crisis, Ronnie Anne and Lincoln took Carlota to the forest as a distraction. The deeper into the forest they got, the closer they were to the thing they wanted to show her. It was an old playhouse Ronnie Anne played in when she was a kid. When she moved to Great Lakes City, she hired some ninja to hide it in the forest, hoping to one day get use out of it again. "BEHOLD!" she shouted once they found the playhouse.
"What am I looking at? Your first Christmas tree or something like that?" Carlota asked. As you can see by her incorrect assumption, the playhouse was in such poor condition after so many years that it was barely even recognizable as a playhouse. It was made out of sticks that were now covered with moss and mostly broken down to twigs. The green paint on the roof was peeled off in several areas. The door was so small that it could barely even be seen.
"It's a playhouse and there's something really cool inside. Follow me," Ronnie Anne said before all three of them went in. She and Lincoln were able to get through the door by ducking, but Carlota had to crawl through because of how little it was. Just like with the mailbox in the first chapter, Carlota got stuck because her hips were just a couple inches wider on each side. She crawled through it just fine at first, but then couldn't make it through any further once her hips touched the doorway. "Something wrong, prima?" Ronnie Anne asked.
"The two of you are not gonna like this one little bit, but I'm stuck," answered Carlota. She tried the same tactic she used for getting into the mailbox again, scraping her feet against the ground. It was no more successful this time. This just wasn't her day. Even though it was clearly a terrible idea and not working at all, she just kept insisting that she shouldn't stop doing it.
Lincoln and Ronnie Anne both rolled their eyes and moaned because they knew they were gonna have to help her get through the doorway now. I gotta say. Narrating this story is quite different from starring in a Nicktoon. Something like this would never happen on SpongeBob. But I digress. Out of frustration, Ronnie Anne screamed "This is so fucking stupid! I can't believe I'm fucking doing this!"
This prompted Lincoln to say "Dude, chill!"
Carlota chimed in with "In my defense, I might've been able to get through if I wasn't wearing such thick clothes."
"She's got a point," commented Lincoln.
"No, she's just making excuses," Ronnie Anne argued. "It's totally because her hips are actually too big," she added.
Carlota confessed by saying "Alright, you got me. You know me so well, prima." Then they started trying to get her through the door. They each grabbed one of her arms and started pulling. It took a while, but they were able to do it. However, the three of them all landed in a pie once she was through.
After they were able to pull her inside, Ronnie Anne was ready to show them her surprise. She opened up a briefcase and showed them what she was keeping in it. It resembled a crayon, but it was much larger, multi-colored, and made of metal. "Those people who look like us we saw earlier? We can put an end to them once and for all with this thing!" she exclaimed.
Objecting to it immediately, Lincoln yelled "Ronnie Anne, that's horrible!"
"How are you gonna do it though?" asked Carlota.
"I'm gonna stab them to death," Ronnie Anne said way to casually.
"That's even worse than what I thought you were gonna do!" Lincoln shouted. "Why have you suddenly decided you want to be a murderer?" he asked.
Ronnie Anne turned around and looked up. "Because I'm tired. I'm tired of us living in their shadow. I'm tired of us not being known while they continue to be world famous. I'm tired of us being mistaken for them. I'm tired of us being compared to them. I'm tired of us being seen as the inferior version of them," she explained.
"None of that justifies their deaths," Lincoln stated. "Instead, how about we challenge them to a battle? Maybe that will make you feel better," he suggested.
After facing her friend and cousin again, she thought it over for a moment and said "Well, I don't wanna get arrested again." After another couple seconds of thinking, she was convinced. "Okay, let's give it a try," she happily said.
