Chapter 4
Oswald watched, worry knotting into a pit in his stomach, as Mickey painted back in the police department. Blue paint turned to white as the walls filled in, the magic matching the color the building should be. He repositioned the grip he held on his remote, the button feeling solid under his thumb, as Mickey finished the last corner of the police department.
Mickey stopped the stream of paint, leaving those prepared on the street to wait.
"Kinda figured there'd be more monsters," Oswald admitted, looking towards Mickey.
The mouse kept his eyes on the building as he said, "Come on."
Oswald followed Mickey up the steps, police with Tasers ready following behind him. Oswald stepped up beside Mickey as the mouse put a hand on one of the double doors. Oswald grabbed the handle of the second door and gave a look to Mickey, his own hardened look mirrored in his brother. Mickey gave him a nod, the silent signal for the two to pull the doors open.
Oswald looked inside, ready for a new wave of monsters only to find the lobby devoid of life. His eyes fell on a projector screen standing behind the receptionist's desk, the cloth showing a title he wasn't familiar with reading Out Back Ozzie. As he was about to point out the portal to Mickey, a Mike Wazowski-like seer was spat out of the portal. It landed on the desk and instantly laid its eye on them, sounding off an alarm.
"Mick!" Oswald called out, shooting a blast of electricity at it to at least shut it up.
"Got it," Mickey said, painting the seer before it could recover. It quickly changed to blue, falling off the table in a daze.
"Get those blot-things in here," O'Hara ordered from behind them.
Mickey quickly jumped forward, up on the desk the seer left a mix of paint and thinner on, not giving Oswald a moment to think as he followed his brother. Mickey dived head first into the projector screen, reminding Oswald of the many times he had followed the mouse's tail through these devices. Except in Wasteland he knew what to expect. He took a breath and dived into the portal, instantly rolling to land on his feet. Once upright he took a look around to find them surrounded by more of the knock-off blotlings. Oswald quickly raised his remote and sent out a quick burst to daze the enemies closest to them. Mickey acted right behind him, sending out a wave of paint at those closest.
"Where are we?" Mickey asked as he kept painting the dark purple creatures blue. "I thought the slobbers said they came from Wasteland."
Oswald sent out a blast of electricity, knocking back a sweeper, before he dared take in where they had landed. At first glance it looked like the portal put them right outside the train station on Mean Street, but instead of the bright colors of the busy street, the buildings were colored in a muted pallet. Oswald took a second glance only to realize the world around him didn't have much of any paint let to it, inert objects making up most of the buildings. The ground below them looked to be made from real world doors, either wooden or metal.
Movement out of the corner of his eye caught Oswald's attention in time to twirl around and shoot a beam of electricity at a dropwing flying to the portal. "Mick! Thin the projector!" Oswald ordered.
Mickey spun around, using the motion to quickly swap what hand held the brush, and did as Oswald said. "We've gotta find where these are coming from," Mickey said, switching hands once again to go back to painting the monsters.
"First I wanna find the portal to Wasteland," Oswald reminded, shooting a long blast at the monsters closing in around them. He stepped so he was back to back with the mouse as the remote in his hands overheated, the beam ending on its own accord. He let go of the button and plucked his leg off, balancing on one foot as he eyed the splatter-like monsters coming closer.
"I don't know if we're gonna have that as an option right now," Mickey said, stepping back to press against Oswald.
Oswald threw his leg out, knocking back the front line of monsters only for a sweeper from behind to throw a bucket of thinner at him. He closed his eyes, raising up the arm still holding his remote, as his paint burned away. Somehow he managed to grab his leg as it returned to him, plopping it back on as he wiped thinner from his forehead. A growl escaped through his clenched teeth before he grumbled, "Alright, you're right. We need to retreat."
"This way!" a female voice called out. "Duck!"
Oswald looked towards the voice, over his left shoulder, only to be pulled to the ground by Mickey as a large purple electrical beam cut a path through the monsters, disintegrating them on contact.
Oswald carefully lifted an ear, its paint ragged from the thinner, as the cloud of vaporized monsters cleared enough to make out a cat holding onto a machine gun looking device. The cat balanced the device on her hip to free a hand, waving at them to follow her. Oswald pushed himself up, grabbing hold of Mickey's arm to pull him up as around them the monsters still alive had started to turn to them. "Come on," Oswald ordered, letting go once he thought the mouse was on his feet. He checked the remote in his hand, glad it had cooled down, and pointed it to his left to knock back the monsters advancing. He heard Mickey do a quick splash of paint to their right, doing a similar defense move. Oswald looked back at the cat, the girl wearing a scarf that covered most of her face, to see her holding the large gun back in both hands.
"Get behind me!" she ordered as they got closer.
Oswald did as she said, Mickey right behind him, in time to watch her start at their right and drag the large purple beam across the hoard. The air started to get thick with vaporized thinner, forcing Oswald into a coughing fit. He grabbed the front of his polo and brought it up over his nose as the air around them turned purple.
The cat turned off the device and looked over her shoulder at the brothers, saying, "Let's go, before he sends another wave here."
"Who?" Mickey asked, Oswald noticing his blue shirt now covered his muzzle.
The cat eyed Oswald a moment, getting him to look side long at Mickey, before she said, "I'll tell you once we're safe, come on." She looked at the two once more before turning around to lead them down the crumbling steps and to what looked like it should be Mean Street.
Oswald kept the shirt over his nose, unsure about the air quality, as he looked around. He could make out what had at one point been the police and fire department, the buildings in disrepair after years of neglect. What in his Wasteland was the museum now stood a pile of real world rubble, the sizes mix-matched as they tended to be when falling into a world designed for cartoons.
The cat led them by a brick building with graffiti on the side, words Oswald never expected to come from a Disney toon painted there in the only bright colors the world had to offer. Passing what, in Oswald's Wasteland, was Horace's Detective Agency they were brought into the shop next to it. They followed her inside, the cat watching Mickey as he closed the door behind them, before she stepped over to the sofa and placed down the gun.
Oswald took in the room, dropping the shirt from his nose, as she pulled a strap off over her head to free herself from the weapon. What he last remembered being a clothing shop had been turned into a living room.
"Daddy? What are you doing here?" a young voice asked in fear.
Oswald swung his head around to find a blue bunny child poking his head out around a doorway that led deeper into the shop turned home. "52, what are you doing here?!" Oswald exclaimed.
"My name's Larry," the bunny said, his features hardening.
"Larry, go back upstairs," the cat ordered as she pulled off her pink scarf. She looked at Oswald, stunning the rabbit into realizing he was saved by Ortensia. "Anyway, I don't think this is your father," she said. She turned back to Larry and added, "Jeanne should be starting dinner about now, go and help her."
"Yes ma'am," Larry said. The boy stayed in the doorway a moment longer before following his mother's orders.
The cat wrapped the scarf around her shoulders, flicking the end over to run down her back. She stepped over to a little fridge beside a large dining table and knelt down as she asked, "You wanna drink?"
"Please," Mickey said with a nod.
The cat looked over her shoulder and asked, "Rabbit?"
"Uh, sure," Oswald said with a nod.
The cat looked back into the fridge and pulled out three glass bottles, standing up and kicking the door closed. She took them to the table and quickly smacked all three open against the table's edge, it obviously overused for this purpose at that seat. She sat two in front of seats to her right and picked up the three metal caps to sit them together at her left as she sat at the head of the table. Looking up at the two still standing by the doorway she said, "Come on, sit down."
Oswald stepped over to his wife's look-a-like and sat down in the seat beside her, sitting the remote still in his hand on the table. He picked up the drink as he noticed the beer label was of a company he had never seen before. He took a sip, unsure how to ask the questions going through his mind.
"Thank you, for saving us out there," Mickey said from the seat he had taken beside Oswald. Oswald took a glance at Mickey, seeing him wrap his hands around the beer without drinking it. The magic paint brush sat on the table beside Oswald's remote.
"So who are you two?" the cat asked, getting Oswald's attention back to her. "There's no way you're really…" her voice fell off, as if unsure what to call them.
"I'm Oswald, he's Mickey," he said, throwing his thumb at the mouse. "What…" he quickly thought of how to word the question he had and asked, "What are you called here?"
"You can call me Sadie, I guess." Sadie looked down at the beer she had opened for herself as she said, "I've gotta be having a nightmare."
"So the hoard out there's not normal?" Mickey asked.
Sadie looked up at them and laughed with sad eyes. "No. No, they're normal. My, uh, my husband created them."
"Your husband's the Oswald that belongs here, isn't he?" Oswald asked, putting the pieces together. Sadie gave him a nod, looking back at her beer. "What happened here?"
"Can I ask you where you're from first?" Sadie asked, taking a sip before looking up at the brothers.
"The cartoon world," Oswald said simply.
"So you've never seen this place?" Sadie asked.
"I've seen a version of this place," Oswald tried. He shook his head as he added, "It looked different though. Lived there for about seventy years, I was leader even if for a part of it I was a shut-away."
"But you don't anymore," Sadie said, taking in the information. She looked at Mickey as she asked, "But how are you still alive than?"
"Huh?" Oswald asked. He thought back to the time where he held Mickey's heart in his hands, ready to put it in his own chest. Thinking something like that had happened here he said, "Oh no, I earned my heart. Both me and my wife did. We earned our way back into the cartoon world."
"And your kids?"
"All of them came with us," Oswald informed.
"But you still can't remember their names," Sadie said to herself.
"Well, we named them all Oswald Junior and a number," Oswald pointed out. "They try out different names all the time and I can't remember when Martha wants to be Mary."
"She's going by Mabel now," Mickey interjected.
"See, perfect example," Oswald said, pointing the top of his beer to Mickey. He took a sip and asked, "Is that everything?"
"I think it's enough," Sadie said. "Did you have a man named the Mad Doctor in your Wasteland?" Oswald and Mickey both nodded their heads, silently letting the cat continue. "He convinced Oswald to join him after the Blot Disaster happened. The blot did something to him, changed him, and turned all of the blotlings into rabbit-like freaks. The Mad Doctor was killed during all of this.
"A few years ago, after I started up the biggest family feud in existence," she let out another sad laugh at this, "he got tired of this Wasteland. With the Phantom Blot's help, he kidnapped Mickey-" she stopped and looked at the mouse sitting at her table. "I guess the Mickey in this universe or something. This Mickey lost his heart and my husband left for the cartoon world, leaving this world to fend for itself. The toons here look up to me as their leader now, but I have no idea how he's doing out there. Don't really have the time to when I'm trying to keep everyone safe."
"So who set up the projector in front of the train station?" Oswald asked.
"A dog I'd never seen before," Sadie admitted. "He said he had a way to get rid of the blotlings and set up a few of those projector-like portals." She froze looking at the two as she asked without it being a question, "You came from the portal? I never thought to ask where he was sending them to."
"How many portals did he set up?" Mickey asked.
"Four. The one you two came through, one in the residential area, one in Tomorrowland, and one on Bottle Hill." Sadie shook her head. "I should've asked. It was just too good of an offer. He said he had figured a way of helping us fight this battle."
"What did he look like?" Oswald asked. "You said he was a dog?"
"Yeah, cream fur color, a patch over his left eye." She thought for a moment before adding, "Deep voice."
"I know the type, dreamboat, huh?" Oswald asked.
"I'm still married," Sadie defended, her cheeks taking on some color.
"Didn't stop Ortensia," Oswald said, sitting back in the chair and crossing his arms across his chest. "His name's Harry, guess your Oswald didn't work with him back in the day, huh?"
"But why would Harry be doing this?" Mickey asked, turning to Oswald. "Last we saw him, he was working for Putrid Pete but he was still trying to protect Ortensia."
"Maybe he finally cracked," Oswald said, putting his chin against his collar bone as he thought. "Pete used to joke Harry'd be the first out of all of us at Universal to start killing the animators. He wasn't all there sometimes, that's why he only ended up as a main character the one time." He let out a sigh as he looked over at Mickey. "But that leaves two portals unaccounted for."
"You don't think he put them in the human world, do you?" Mickey asked, his brows furled in thought.
"Why bother? There's barely anything made of paint living there anymore," Oswald threw off.
"Is there anything I can do to help?" Sadie asked. She shook her head as she added, "I may want these blotlings gone, but not at the expense of others."
Oswald sat up, unlacing his arms, and turned to look at the gun-like device still resting on the old sofa. Looking back at Sadie he asked, "Did you make that?"
"Yeah, back in the day my husband was good with metal works and early cybernetics," Sadie explained. "I learned a lot from him so I made some type of defense for my people. This is still just a prototype but so far it's been working well."
"How does it work?" Oswald asked.
"Uses a battery to discharge electricity and a little bit of Ozyite." At Oswald's confused look she added, "It's a purple glowing element my husband found here in Wasteland. It's what vaporizes the blotlings, well technically it only vaporizes the thinner." Sadie took a sharp swig of her beer and slammed the glass against the old wooden table before growling out, "And that stupid rabbit had the nerve to try and hide it from me!"
Oswald froze, not used to such outbursts from a woman who was almost his wife.
Sadie looked up at him and let out a sigh. "Sorry. He may be out of my life now, but all the things he did…"
"You need a frustration day," Oswald said, a smile appearing on his lips.
"A what?"
"Frustration day," Oswald repeated. "My wife and I used to need it a lot back working with Universal. We'd find some old back alley and use some bats to start beating up trash." Oswald let out a laugh. "I'd almost forgot about those. After I lost Ortensia, I turned to other ways to let out frustration."
"Ortensia, that's your wife's name?" Sadie asked.
"Yeah, she changed it to that in the forties," Oswald explained.
"But I thought you had said your wife was now in the cartoon world," Sadie said.
"Mom, dinner's ready!" Oswald Junior 11 called out.
"Okay, can you get it down here so we can eat, Jeanne?" Sadie said, turning to face the doorway. "And remind George it's his turn to set the table."
"Yes ma'am," Jeanne said before vanishing back through the doorway.
"Everybody eats at this small table?" Mickey asked in surprise.
"I don't have that many children left, Mr. Mouse," Sadie said coldly as she eyed him. "We fit quite comfortably at this old table now."
"I'm sorry," Mickey said, looking lost for words.
"Maybe we should leave," Oswald said, quickly downing the last of his beer. He sat down the glass and pushed his chair back as he added, "We don't want to impose."
"No, stay," Sadie said as Oswald Junior 99 came into the room with plates in his arms. He started setting the table as Sadie added, "There's enough food. And I'm still waiting for my answer."
Oswald took a deep breath and sat back down. "After Mickey dropped in the Phantom Blot and its jar into my Wasteland, the Mad Doctor joined sides with it," Oswald started, knowing he was going to have to tell the whole story.