Matt looked around nervously. "Jeez, someone ransacked this place."
"Let's get out of here before someone sees us. We aren't any help to anybody in a jail cell." Mike reminded. The pair quickly slipped out the door, climbed down the stairs, and broke into a cautious run once they'd cleared the building. Mike hailed a cab and they booked it to their studio.
Matt checked his watch. "Come on, come on…" He muttered.
"How long has it been?" Mike asked.
"We've been here 40 minutes." Matt replied.
"We still have time. We're okay." Mike assured his brother.
"Hey Mike… did you actually think the day would start off this way when you woke up?"
"I've learned not to expect anything out of the day when I wake up. Ever since you walked into that office building with Homestar…" Mike drifted into thought and the cab was quiet.
"We can re-animate him though, right?" Matt asked, breaking the wake of silence that had followed Mike's response. "I mean, they're our characters… no one can really get rid of them but us."
"I think it's more complicated than that… they aren't just ours anymore, Matt. They're everyone's. Everyone who has ever watched our cartoons." Mike replied thoughtfully. "I really don't understand how it works myself. If it was just us, where would Homestar have come up with all that stuff that we'd never used in our cartoons? And Homeschool… we never even did anything with him. Where'd he come from?"
Matt nodded. "Like their personalities are on autopilot, fueled by the imaginations of our fans…"
"Countless fanfictions, art, and animations…" Mike glanced out the cab window as the vehicle slowed to a stop. "Well, we're here."
The brothers pooled together some cash for the driver and walked up to the garage. Matt opened the door.
"That's funny… I thought we locked it when we left for Cancun." Mike remarked nervously.
They entered the dim garage. Mike ran his hand along the wall in search of the light switch. In the darkness, something moved and sent boxes sliding off of a counter. They heard a groan. Matt slowly picked up a baseball bat that was leaning against the wall, and he glanced at Mike. Mike motioned and put his hand over the switch, preparing to turn on the light.
Matt gripped the baseball bat tightly, his arms tensed. He slowly approached the table, preparing to take out the intruder that awaited him in the darkness beyond the cluttered work surface. The light flicked on and Matt leapt over the table. Someone yelled, and the baseball bat clattered to the floor.
"Oww… what the crap is goin' on?" Two figures got to their feet and brushed themselves off. One was Matt, the other-
"Homestar?" Mike gaped.
The thin, pale guy in the colorful albeit somewhat oil-stained clothing adjusted his propeller cap and glanced at both of them, his eyes brightening as he recognized his assailants.
"Oh thank goodness! I thought you were Scott again." Homestar sighed with relief.
"Where is Scott? What's going on- why is the garage unlocked? How did you get in here?" Matt flooded him with questions.
"We thought you were gone!" Mike exclaimed.
"Nah, I wasn't gone. I popped back here right before you guys turned on the machine. 'Course, that was in the Hotel, and I sorta ended up crashing into Alex and Scott." Homestar recalled.
"Where's Scott, Homestar?" Mike asked again.
"Me and Alex chased him, and ended up here but he locked us out. Alex went around back to try to pick the lock on another door." Homestar said, pointing over his shoulder. "She told me to wait here."
"She told you to wait on the floor." Matt raised an eyebrow.
"Yeah, I was beat up. I was the only one fast enough to catch up with Scott and fight him." Homestar said smugly. "Well, I really just kinda jumped on him."
Matt
turned to Mike. "We gotta get in before Scott gets to the
computers"
Mike whipped out his keys and hurriedly unlocked the
door. "Go get Alex!" Mike commanded Homestar. Homestar ran off
to find her.
The lock clicked free, and Mike threw the door open. The place was eerily silent. Matt readied the baseball bat again.
"Either stop following me so close or go ahead of me, you're making me nervous with that thing." Mike hissed. Matt went around him and walked in first. Mike followed him through the rooms, searching for any sign of Scott. The computers were untouched, but someone had turned them on. A program window with a status bar showed on one of the screens.
"What is that?" Matt wondered. He walked closer and read the dialogue box.
REFORMAT… 100 PERCENT COMPLETE
"What the-" Matt suddenly felt an arm wrap around his neck, bringing him into a headlock. He flailed the baseball bat over his shoulder, but Scott grabbed a hold of it and wrestled it out of his grasp.
"You don't put up much more of a fight than your own idiot cartoon character." Scott remarked coldly. He raised the bat and brought the pommel down on Matt's head with a thud. Matt slumped to the floor.
Mike heard the noise and ran through the doorway. "Matt!" He cried. Something flew through the air past his head. Scott had taken a swing at him with the bat and missed by hardly an inch. "Oh shit!" Mike stumbled backwards, startled. He grabbed a garbage basket from next to the doorway and held it up in defense. The bat smashed into it, shattering the plastic. Mike rolled aside as another wild swing smashed into the floor next to him, and he scrambled for the garage on his hands and knees. "You're insane!" He yelled in anguish.
Scott tilted his head. "Thanks." He raised the bat over Mike. Mike threw his arms over his face, bracing for a blow that would surely shatter his bones, but it did not come. He tentatively peered over his arms.
Scott was wrestling for the bat with Homestar. "I beat you up once already, how can you keep coming back like that?" Scott demanded through clenched teeth.
Homestar smirked. "Because I'm Homestar, and you are a big fat jerk." He yanked extra hard and the bat slipped under Scotts fingers a few inches.
"If I'm such a jerk, why are you always getting dumped by your girlfriend?" Scott retorted. "She seemed pretty eager to pursue new interests." He smiled cruelly.
Homestar's face turned red. "You stay away from Marzipan…" He growled. Then he let go of the bat suddenly, and Scott tumbled backwards into a counter. He cracked his head sharply against the corner and slid to the floor in a daze.
Alex walked up behind Homestar. "See? Oldest trick in the book. I told you he'd fall for it. Reverse psychology." Alex tapped her head.
"Reversed psychotics?" Homestar wondered.
"Nevermind." Alex shrugged. She helped Mike up off the floor. "And who might you be? Another poor bystander that got dragged into this insanity?"
Mike groaned and rubbed his shoulder. "I'm Mike. I'm sorry, I need to check on my brother." He squeezed between the two and hurried into the computer room.
Alex turned to Homestar. "The Mike? As in…" She glanced back over her shoulder. "Cool. Bad circumstances to meet under, but still."
Homestar and Alex walked into the computer room. Mike was kneeling next to Matt. "I think he's okay, he's just unconscious." Mike informed them.
"How about the website?" Alex asked.
Mike stood up and turned to the computer. "Oh no… he's reformatted the drives… it would take me at least an hour to reload all the… wait! My laptop!" He ran to a closet and pulled out a briefcase. He pulled a laptop out of it and set it on the table. As soon as it powered up, he frantically started tapping on the keyboard. "I think this might work… keep your fingers crossed."
Homestar looked at his hands and suddenly remembered that he actually had fingers he could cross, so he did so.
Mike stepped back from the laptop. "I think it worked."
"How do we know?" Alex wondered.
"I don't know… but I can get to the site again, and everything is working. Well, Homestar isn't on there…" Mike replied.
Homestar walked over and looked at the computer screen. Currently showing was the main menu, but where his likeness usually stood in the lower right corner, there was nothing. "This is really creeping me out for some reason." Homestar shuddered.
As if on cue, a strange breeze drew their attention to the corner of the room. The air was shimmering, and a split appeared. Out of the newly formed portal stepped a man in a trench coat and a broad hat. He pulled a familiar pair of glasses out of his pocket and slipped them on.
"What are you doing with Homeschool's glasses?" Homestar demanded.
The man, who was in fact Homeschool, looked up in surprise at the memorable voice. He walked forward and grabbed Homestar's shoulders, shaking him excitedly. "You're alive! I can't believe it… somehow the quantum knot untied itself and expelled you into this reality rather than destroying you! Do you know what this means? Do you realize the odds you have just overcome? I'll have to make a model of this, maybe I figured something wrong after all. Tests! I need to run some tests-"
Homestar stared at the overexcited man, stunned into silence by all the sudden attention and fuss that was apparently getting raised over him.
Alex cleared her throat and interrupted Homeschool's ramblings. "Who the heck are you, mister?"
"I've seen you somewhere before…" Mike stared at him.
"I'm Homeschool! Well, in this place I'm better known as Zack Andersen…"
"You're the janitor." Mike realized. "You work at the same building that-"
"Well, that's one of my jobs. One of many." Homeschool replied. He jammed his hands in his pockets and bounced a few times on his heels. "You did it. Everything's back to normal now." He beamed, but then his smile paled. "Look out!" He pointed.
The group turned and saw Scott limp into the room, leaning on the baseball bat. His auburn hair was tussled out of its usual precise spikes, and his green eyes glinted dangerously.
Desperate dude, ain't he...