14.1 – Genius is a Bitch.
(Part 1 of ?)
(DDLC)/(Rick and Morty)
Rick Awakened in his space cruiser, flying through Earth's atmosphere somewhere over India. Going by his memories, he was looking for his daughter, and his daughter wasn't Beth this loop. Instead she was some other woman named Monika. 'Probably a visiting Looper,' he figured. Apparently, he hadn't had any success looking for her in their old hometown, and throwing together a quick doohickey to scan the planet for any direct relatives of his had turned up…only two results? That was weird. Another odd detail trickled in from his loop memories: as far as he knew, there was no Citadel or Council of Ricks in this loop. Weird.
According to his DNA scanner, he was getting close. He flew down into a small valley that contained no sign of human civilization, save for a single cottage. "Oh, you've go-*urrp*-gotta be kiddin' me," he muttered as he landed next to the cottage and got out of his vehicle.
Immediately, there was a deafening *CRACK* and something slammed into the dirt right in front of him, causing him to jump back in surprise. "The fuck?" he asked the air around him. Then a small blue portal appeared on the ground, and a small walkie-talkie popped up out of it. The portal closed, and it landed on the ground. Rolling his eyes, he bent down and picked it up. While he was at it, he pulled the bullet out of the dirt and gave it a look. "Let me, let me guess, uh, that was a war-*urp*-ning shot, right? So what's your fucking deal?" he asked.
The walkie-talkie replied, "You shouldn't be here, old man. Who the hell are you and why are you here?" He recognized the voice as Summer's.
"Quick question, am I talking to Summer Smith?" he asked the walkie-talkie.
At first, there was only silence. Then another blue portal appeared directly under his feet, and he fell through. He came through the other side five feet above the ground, landed with a painful thud, and before he could recover someone yanked him off of the ground by his hair. He had just enough time to recognize his granddaughter before she slammed a Taser into the side of his neck. Then he was in a lot of pain, and then he was unconscious.
…
"–ny times have I told you, violence is a last resort," he heard a stern, feminine voice speaking as he slowly regained consciousness.
"He knew my name, Monika! Well, my first name, anyways. I freaked out!" replied Summer's voice.
"I understand that, but giving into emotional impulses like that can make a dangerous situation more dangerous. You've got to stay frosty in the heat of the moment," the other woman said gently.
He was naked, except for a pair of underwear (which were not the pair he had been wearing today), there was some weird patch stuck to his forehead, and his wrists were zip-tied behind his back. Also, he was floating in zero-gravity between two glowing hexagons, one on the floor and one on the ceiling. He was in a room that definitely looked like it belonged to a serious scientist. One much tidier and more organized than himself. In front of him were Summer and an athletically-built young woman with green eyes and long brown hair bound in a ponytail by a white ribbon in a bow. She looked like a grown-up version of the little girl substituting Beth in his in-loop memories, for sure. She was dressed casually in a bright green blouse and khaki shorts with flip-flops.
A machine somewhere in the room beeped loudly, and immediately Monika and Summer looked at him. "You're awake. Good. Are you a Looper?" Monika asked bluntly.
"Oh, hell no! We're not doing this Q&A bullshit when I'm zero-gee suspended in someone else's briefs. Let me down and then we'll play catch up, got it?" Rick rebuked her.
Monika snorted. "That patch on your head is locking out your bionic augments, as well as any paraneural abilities you might have. So, what exactly is your leverage here? I don't mind waiting for answers, Rick. Are you Looping or not?"
"Screw you," Rick spat back. Then, with an impressive display of flexibility, especially for an old man, he reached up with his right foot and pinched his left nipple between his toes. He gave it a hard twist, engaging an alien organ he had implanted behind his heart that emitted a powerful EMP. Everything electronic in the room died, including the hexagons. The room immediately went pitch-black, and Rick hit the floor.
Then a dark-blue aura flared up around Monika, softly illuminating the darkness, and a similar aura surrounded Rick as he drifted up off the floor again. "Aw fuck, you're a biotic. Balls!" Rick snarled.
"So you are a Looper," said Monika. "You could have just said that and we could have avoided this time-consuming stupidity. Summer, the aux?"
"Oh, right," said Summer, who had been staring at her glowing form. She ran over to a wall, slid a panel open to reveal a toggle switch, which she flipped. A moment later, the power came back on.
Monika dropped the mass effect field around Rick, dropping him to the floor again. "Your clothes and stuff are over there," she pointed at a worktable. "Were you Awake when you came looking for us?"
"Yeah," Rick grunted as he went over to the table and started getting his stuff back on.
"You know, he's not what I expected whenever I tried imagining what your dad would be like," Summer remarked. "Is he from another universe, too?"
"Wait, what?" said Rick.
"Seeing as he knew your first name but got your last name wrong, I'm guessing that he's a local," Monika replied as she took a seat in front of a computer, "I do vaguely recall that Smith was your father's last name."
"Huh. Well, I'm gonna hit up a party with some friends in London. That cool with you, Monika?" Summer asked, grabbing her purse off of a wallpeg.
Monika glanced at her watch. "It's about 2 in London right now. Try to be back within twelve hours. We're reviewing molecular incendiaries tomorrow. If you do wind up spending the night with someone, be back by noon local."
"Gotcha," said Summer as she pulled what appeared to be a miniature portal gun (with a blue fluid capsule, Rick noted) out of her purse. She made a portal and stepped through, leaving Rick and Monika alone.
Rick, meanwhile, had finished dressing. Whatever she was doing on the computer, Monika seemed to have dismissed his presence. The room was silent, save for the occasional mouse click or burst of keystrokes. "So…told her everything, did ya?" Rick broke the silence.
"I was upfront and honest, explaining my situation as a mere visitor to her reality and temporary stand-in for whoever her real mother is supposed to be, yes," Monika replied. "She was about six years old when I Woke Up. It's counterintuitively easier to explain these things to little kids than to teenagers. Their minds are more malleable, despite their relatively limited vocabularies and frames of reference."
"Right. Speaking of kids, where the hell is Morty?" Rick asked, picking up some random-looking gadget off a table and turning it over in his hands.
"If that's supposed to be a younger sibling of Summer's, I would imagine he was never born," Monika replied, "In case you hadn't noticed, I didn't keep Summer's progenitor in my life. It's unlikely he exists in any of this loop's other realities, either, seeing as this is one of a mere relative handfuls of realities where I got drunk enough to conceive Summer with what's-his-face in the first place. That any Monika would have kept him on is beyond even my imagination."
Knowing there was no Morty this loop rubbed him pretty raw, but he couldn't exactly fault her for ditching Jerry. He sighed as he threw the thingamabob in his hands aside and stuck his hands in his pockets. "So, opted to raise Summer on your own and follow in your "dad's" footsteps. Smart choice. Jerry's such a spineless wiener." He glanced at her; she was doing something with some three-dimensional design program. "So do you usually do science stuff, or were you inspired–"
"By a deadbeat runaway with no semblance of morality or ethics?" Monika interrupted. "Nah, this is pretty much what I usually do when I'm alone in loops that are conducive to hi-technology development."
"Damn, you're one of those self-righteous buzzkills," Rick groaned, "And here I was thinking you might be cool. Laaaaame."
"I'm not self-righteous," Monika said calmly, almost sounding bored. "I just know which lines I prefer not to cross. So I don't. If your conscience can bear the load then you do you, I say."
"So I take you've heard about me, then?" Rick asked, pulling his flask out of coat and taking a swig.
Before Monika could reply, a green portal opened up in the middle of the room and another Monika stepped through. "Hey, C-137, you got any…oh, he's here," she said, frowning when she noticed Rick.
"Hey O-229," Monika greeted, "What did you need?"
"Uh, you got an extra nanite microfacturer lying around? Kind of on a time crunch here," O-229 replied.
"They're in there, fifth drawer down," Monika pointed at a cabinet off to the side.
"Thanks, you're a life-saver! Literally; I'm going to cure an interplanetary pandemic with this thing," said O-229 as she retrieved the microfacturer. "Oh, by the way, did someone give you an invite to J-85's concert next week?"
"K-1552 did, last Thursday."
"Well it's been pushed back a couple weeks. J-85's Summer had a bad breakup, so they're going on an intergalactic roadtrip kind of thing. She said she'd keep us posted."
"Ah. Thanks for the head's up. Have fun with that pandemic, girl."
"Will do! See you later, C-137," said O-229 as she skipped through her portal, which closed behind her.
Rick spent a few seconds staring at the space where the portal had been. Then he turned back to Monika, who was now doing something on a calculator.
"So, uh…" he scratched at the back of his head, "Y'know, usually, in this loop, there's this thing where a bunch of different…you know, different versions of me from different universes do this really fucking stupid thing where they form an interdimensional alliance to keep each other safe from all the people we've pissed off. They build a big douchey Citadel and everything. 'Cept, funny thing, none of that seems to exist in this loop, as far as I can recall."
"Well, if this 'alliance of Ricks' of yours formed out of self-preservation, it's absence might be due to my–our, that is–extensive work to stabilize the multiverse within this Branch," replied Monika.
Rick raised his head and took a closer look at his memories of this loop. Now that he thought about it, the universe was a much tamer place than usual this loop. There wasn't even a Galactic Federation, which was the biggest reason for the Citadel of Ricks' inception. Or rather, there had been a Galactic Federation, up until about eleven years ago. Rick did the math. "Okay, how the hell did you make the Galactic Federation fall apart when you were twenty-three and taking care of a six-year-old by yourself?"
"Making people destroy themselves and each other is, to my embarrassment, a strong skillset of mine," Monika replied, "Dismantling an intergalactic government is just doing that on a massive scale."
"Okay, yeah, but how?" asked Rick, "Did you make their currency worthless?"
"Of course not!" Monika looked offended, "That would be a waste of resources. I earned their trust by doing some serious "troubleshooting" for them, then I hacked their asses off and redistributed their funds and top-secret intelligence to certain specific groups in exchange for them doing certain specific favors for me. And while the Federation collapsed, I kept moving all the money and information around until the balance of power on the interstellar-and-higher levels was more or less even, and used my influence to preemptively resolve any conflicts that might necessitate the creation of some new Federation."
This all reminded Rick of something, and another errant detail popped up in his mind. "Fuck me, the Monitor is real?! And he–it's you? You're it? You're *urrrp* the mysterious shadowy puppetmaster controlling the known universe this loop?"
"Pretty much. I mean, no one is the Monitor. The Monitor is actually an organization of information brokers–which, admittedly, I started–that work together to make sure the universe is as peaceful as can be reasonably expected. Again, we only interfere in issues concerning more than one star system. Then about five years ago another Monika popped into my life through a green portal and gave me a fancier portal gun and an invitation to join the Interdimensional Committee of Monikas, which is basically the same thing as the Monitor, but on an interdimensional scale."
"And once again you've gone from 'possibly pretty cool' to 'total fucking loser' in a single sentence," Rick grumbled. Then his eyes widened. "Wait, wait a, hold on, wait a goddamn minute. You're telling me that you, you, not only did you *urrp* you Replaced my daughter, and, and kept my grandson from existing, but you, you've usurped my role in this whole damned iteration of my multiverse?!"
Monika shrugged. "I guess? Look, I don't usually topple governments that don't pose a direct threat to me, but the Federation kept getting in the way of my research and my wacky high-concept sci-fi adventures with Summer, and they weren't running the universe very competently either, and normally I'd just take over and fix the system from within, but I didn't have time to do that and raise Summer on my own at the same time, and I did toy with the idea of letting her stay with her father for a while but I didn't want to risk his weakness influencing her and she's my responsibility and I'd hate to duck out on my responsibilities–that's honestly not a jab at you, either, by the way, that's actually been a personal thing with me for a long time–and besides it's a lot easier to break something than to fix it, anyways." Monika stopped to take a deep breath, "So what might have taken me several years to do the "proper" way, I did in less than a year my way."
"Uh-huh. And what was that you were vomiting earlier about morals and ethics and crap?" asked Rick with a smug grin.
"I don't see anything immoral or unethical about supplanting a massive, clusterfucked bureaucracy with a system that actually works," said Monika as she clicked something on her computer, then got up and walked over to a machine that had started humming. "And it's hardly like I'm controlling the universe. I just set up a network of like-minded individuals across multiple galaxies with the purpose of optimizing the crazy universe we all live together in. Yeah, sure, I destroyed an institution, but I built something better in its place. That's one of my rules to avoid jumping down slippery slopes. I always try to make sure any system I mess with ends up in a better state than it was when I started. Balanced equations and all that jazz."
The machine dinged and a door popped open. Monika reached in and pulled out something that looked like a laser-gun. She grabbed a wrench off a nearby table, flung it as hard as she could towards a wall, and then shot it with a bright orange beam from the gun before it could hit. The wrench froze in mid-air and hung there. "Alright!" Monika cheered with a fist pump, "First test complete."
"Oh, wow," Rick drawled, taking another hit off his flask, "Localized space-*URRP*-time suspension. Soooo impressive. Really blazin' fresh trails, ain'tcha, slugger?"
Monika ignored his snark. "Sayori'll get a real kick out of this. But I need to make sure it works on living creatures without causing any kind of damage. Long-term or otherwise." She pulled out her own portal gun and opened a green hole on the floor. "Alright Rick, let's go."
"Huh?" Rick looked up from a petri dish full of some kind of gelatinous substance he had been poking.
"Oh don't even," Monika said with a flat stare, "I'm not leaving a strange man alone in my house. Let alone my workshop. C'mon, we're going to see how the Suspension Ray–thank you for the name, by the way–works on fully grown rampaging Gazorpian males. Besides which it's past due for me to check up on those psychotic segregation-happy females."
"Not a feminist, eh?" asked Rick as he picked up the petri dish and tilted it from side to side.
"Not the insane, chauvinistic kind, no," replied Monika, "Now come on, I've got shit to do and you're holding me up. If you don't want to tag along, feel free to leave out the front door and take your dumpy ship wherever."
"Fiiiiiine," Rick groaned, tossing the petri dish over his shoulder; it smashed against a wall. "I've got nothing else planned and it's your fault I've got no Morty to adventure with. Guess that makes you his stand-in."
"Sure, whatever you have to tell yourself," said Monika, putting a leather glove on one of her hands and holding it out to him. "I'm not trusting you to follow me through, and I doubt you'd trust me enough to go through first either. Right?"
"Eh, hold your own *urrp* damn hand," said Rick as he hopped into the portal.
"Very impulsive, for a so-called genius," Monika muttered to herself. Then she recalled 'The Macaroni Fiasco' and shrugged. "Sometimes genius precludes caution, I suppose." Then she jumped into the portal, which closed behind her.
14.2 – Fatsuki, by Masterweaver.
Natsuki huffed as she crossed her arms. "Why is it always me that has pun loops?"
"You're not the only one-"
"Nine times out of ten, it's me. I mean..." She gestured at herself. "Come on, Sayori, look at me!"
Sayori hummed thoughtfully. "You're certainly less malnourished then usual."
Natsuki groaned, flopping into a chair. "I look like a shaved Care Bear."
Sayori shrugged. "So you're a little pudgy-"
"A little, she says!"
"-so what? Let me go down the list of cliches here: What matters is who you are on the inside, you know we'll always love you, you look great no matter your weight, it's only for the loop-"
"Can I not be annoyed at this? I mean it's my body, I have the right to be upset."
There was a moment of quiet.
"...I'm sorry I just have to do this-" Sayori flung herself at Natsuki and squeezed. "YOU'RE JUST SO SNUGGLABLE NOW!"
"OH MY FUCKING GOD-"
"I just wanna hug and squeeze ya and you're sooooooo cute but not in a way that degrades you-"
"STOP TREATING ME LIKE A FUCKING PLUSHIE!"
"Come on, you're my cuddlebuddy this loop!"
Monika shook her head as the overweight Natsuki ran around the room, trying to push off an overly affectionate vice president. "Well, this is a thing apparently."
"Mmm." Yuri gave her a sideways glance. "Couldn't you just go into the code and give Nats her normal body?"
"Not without her permission." The burnette gave her a sly glance. "Why? Anything about this upsetting?"
"...Not really," Yuri mused. "I personally find it quite amusing, I just think that Natsuki might want to go back to her usual petite frame."
Natsuki, realizing Sayori had fallen asleep while clinging her, let out a groan of exasperation.
14.3 – Consequence, by Awesomedude17.
(DDLC)/(Rick and Morty)/(Half-Life)/(Admin Shenanigans)
"Chug! Chug! Chug! Chug! Chug! Chug! Chug! Chug!"
Natsuki finished her chugging and passed it onto Rick, who began to chug beer eagerly. It was a weird Loop where nothing went wrong for any of them. The literature club had decided to make use of those mechanical bodies after Awakening in Morty's laptop (in which he promptly decided that Rick had something to do with it, which he accepted with a shrug in spite of having nothing to do with it), Rick had pulled off most of what he wanted to do, and the Resonance Cascade was averted when Gordon anonymously outed Dr. Breen and wrote a tell all book about the chaos of Black Mesa that left him set for life, among other things.
And now, with Kleiner in tow, the group had joined together to go all out in partying to celebrate their cleverness in the Smith's garage.
"So you're either a man or a woman in those bodies, right?" Kleiner slurred.
"And in between if you want it." Sayori slurred back.
"What the hell, Sarge? He's overthinking shit." Gordon spoke up.
"Guys," Rick finished chugging his beer. "I just had an idea."
"What?" Everyone asked.
"Let's do some drunk science!"
The group hollered and cheered right before proceeding to create some... thing.
Ganesha, Thoth and Tama looked at each other during their uneasy lunch break, only to be interrupted by Zeus.
"What do you want?" Thoth asked.
"Nyx's children, the Keres, really want test subjects for their latest punishment Branch, and it looks like your responsibilities are looking it soon. Normally, I wouldn't give a damn, but even I can't condone what they're using, so here." Zeus threw down three copies of whatever he was warning them about. "Pass these along to your Loopers, because anything involving Nyx cannot be nice at all. You didn't hear this from me." Zeus walked away, leaving three already uneasy Admins more nervous.
"I think I'll cut my lunch short." Thoth said.
"Same." Tama added.
"I should watch the literature club." Ganesha got up quickly.
The three wordlessly and hastily rushed to their terminals, where they began to look at what the Loopers had done.
"Oh no..." They unisoned without knowing it.
"Kumbaya~! Kumbaya! Kumbaya~! Kumbaya!"
The machine they had built was frankly ready to blow, but the group was so inebriated that they didn't care. They were merely chanting at whatever they built. Jerry went into the garage.
"Rick, what is this?"
"It's a~... what is this again?"
"I thought you knew?" Gordon said.
"What? I thought Monika was in charge." Yuri said.
"I thought it was Kleiner." Natsuki began to panic.
"Uh oh," Sayori spoke what was on everyone's minds.
"Oh shit." Rick said, right before downing a bottle of liquor. "Alright, bring it on."
*KABOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-*
Loop iteration crashed.
The three Admins watching could only say two words.
"Oh no..."
The Keres looked over the latest in Nemesis' messages. Finally, they would test out their Branch.
They had hoped the world of Happy Tree Friends will stop the punished from trying again anytime soon.
14.4 – Scheme a Little Scheme For You.
"Okay, so…two things we need to acknowledge before proceeding with this meeting," said Monika, as she tapped a whiteboard to her left with a telescopic rod. "First of all, we seem to be experiencing what our fellow Loopers refer to as a 'Mikasa Glitch', meaning that there are multiple, simultaneously Awake iterations of us in this loop." Another Monika, standing on the other side of the whiteboard, tapped at it with her own pointer. A third Monika, standing at the back of the room, hit a button on the side of a projector and on the whiteboard there appeared several chibi drawings; five Chibi-Monikas in green marker, three Chibi-Sayoris in light-blue marker, four Chibi-Yuris in purple marker, and five Chibi-Natsukis in pink marker.
The first Monika tapped around the cluster of Chibisukis while she continued to address the seated trio of Sayoris. "At present, three Natsukis are engaged in a very serious discussion about the pros and cons of manga versus manwha versus manhua, with one Natsuki advocating for each and one of me acting as their moderator, while the remaining two Natsukis are playing Go. Monika-4 is helping one of the Yuris proofread a play she's been working on, and the other Yuris…well, they're at Yuri's house and, honestly, I'm pretty sure none of us want to know exactly what they're doing."
"Which means they're distracted and we're free to discuss the next phase in Operation: Launch Our Ship," continued Monika-2. She tapped the whiteboard, and Monika-3 put up a new slide showing a picture of some generic anime girls playing volleyball. "Volleyball, while plenty of fun, didn't really yield any progress along our intended axis. Neither did my Paris simulation–"
"Which we spent forty-seven loops working on!" spoke up Monika-3, who at the prompt of Monika-1's pointer tap put up a new slide. This one depicted the iconic Paris skyline.
"Yes, thank you," said Monika-1, "Now, the nature of this loop gives us an excellent chance to bounce ideas off of each other. Whereas we normally only have two heads, we now have six. Any questions?"
Between the pair of Monikas and their whiteboard, and the third Monika and the projector, there was a bench with the three Sayoris sitting on it. The one sitting on the far left was wearing her iconic red bow, while the middle and right Sayoris were wearing a yellow and blue bow respectively.
Yellow-Bow-Sayori raised her hand. "I have a question, actually. Since we're technically all the same Sayoris and Monikas, why aren't our minds synchronized and stuff? Shouldn't we–the Sayoris, that is–all be on the same wavelength, you know?"
"Except I just asked Yellow which hand I was hiding this quarter in," said Blue-Bow-Sayori, holding up a quarter, "And she guessed wrong. Shouldn't she have picked the same hand I did?"
All three Monikas sighed in tandem. Then, in perfect synch, they said "Because as much as we love you, buddy, you're a wishy-washy, indecisive, uncertain girl. Which is still one of your good points, because unpredictable people like you keep life chaotic enough to be interesting. If everyone were as rational and methodical as, say, for example, myself, life would be far too clockwork and uniform. I mean, look at me. The mathematic probability of my keeping this up for this long is absurd. Like, seriously, any one of me could have chosen to use a different word at any point in this tirade; see what I mean? One of me could have said spiel instead of tirade, or rant, or something like that. Basically, the answer to your question is that you're disorganized and scatterbrained. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing. You're a unique and admirable person, and while your character flaws can be obnoxious to some, and even to your friends on bad days, they can also be very endearing and inspire those around you to follow your unreasonably optimistic example. And before you ask, yes, I figured at least one of you would probably bring this up at some point, and so prepared this speech. But as individuals, I didn't rehearse this together or anything."
The trio of Sayoris shared looks. Then they all nodded. "Yeah, that all checks out," said Red-Bow-Sayori.
"So now that's out of the way, does anyone have any ideas?" asked Monika-2.
Yellow-Bow-Sayori spoke up, "Actually, I brought along a super-special playbook for us to review for ideas." She then held up a VHS copy of the original The Parent Trap.
"Tempting, as that's a pretty good movie," spoke up Monika-3, "But the plot of that movie is predicated on reigniting a relationship between ex-lovers, not starting a new one between best friends."
"Crudsicles," chorused the Sayoris.
"Jinx!" shouted Blue-Bow, "Now you're both cursed to be silent until–"
"Sayori!" shouted Monika-2, "We need to focus here."
"Pretty please," said Monika-1, glaring at Monika-2.
"And thank you," added Monika-3.
"Aww," the Sayoris chorused again, all three of them bowing their heads in disappointment.
"Hold up!" said Yellow-Bow suddenly, perking up, "I've got an idea. We each write a love letter for Natsuki and Yuri and–"
"They'll see through that one pretty quick," pointed out Red-Bow, "I mean…"
"Oh, yeah, that makes sense," said Yellow-Bow. "Maybe we could do a dance night and try getting them to slow dance together?"
"No, no, no," said Blue-Bow, "Their mutual ignorance of the others' true feelings is simply too thick to be broken through by a temporal moment of intimate proximity."
"I think you mean transient, not temporal," interjected Monika-2, "Temporal is an adjective referring to time in general, whereas transient is an adjective denoting something as brief and fleeting."
"Point being, if a display of intimacy were enough, then that one loop where we all Woke Up in bed together would have done it," explained Blue-Bow.
"Not necessarily," spoke up Monika-3, "As Loopers, we tend to write off anything we've done while Unawake as "it doesn't count". Promoting a moment of intimacy while they're Awake could work, maybe?"
"Maybe if I coded a bunch of aphrodisiacs into Natsuki's food," Monika-1 mused aloud, "If we could get her to be the aggressor, I very much doubt Yuri would offer any resistance."
"Whoa, hold the hell on," said Monika-2, "I am literally you and even I'm over here thinking 'What the actual fuck, man?' We can't drug them!"
"This is a brainstorming session, I was just thinking out loud!" Monika-1 defended.
"No, no, I'm with Two here. That shit's fucked," said Monika-3, "Some thoughts need to stay internal."
"Besides, it wouldn't work anyways," spoke up Red-Bow.
"I once tried using Force-based pathokinesis to get Natty hot under the collar," added Yellow-Bow.
"Turns out she has fricking heroic self-restraint," finished Blue-Bow.
All three Monikas stared at the Sayoris for several seconds.
"What? It was just an experiment," they chorused.
"And it was in a fleshy-loop where she wasn't Awake, either," added Red-Bow.
"…how does that make it any less creepy?" asked Monika-1.
"…I honestly don't know, but somehow it felt like an important distinction," admitted Yellow-Bow.
"Okay, far be it from me of all people to play the Ethicist here," said Monika-3, "But I think it should go without saying that we are not going to resort to manipulating them on a biological level. That's, like, really creepy. That's like hardware hacking. It's just really, really…"
"It's kind of rape-y, not going to lie," said Monika-2.
"Whoa, what the fuck?!" asked the other two Monikas.
"Oh c'mon, it totally is and we all know it," said Monika-2.
"I thought I just agreed, some things don't need to be verbally expressed out loud!" shouted Monika-3.
"Girls! Focus! Please!" Monika-1 pleaded, slapping the whiteboard with her pointer for emphasis. "We need to focus on making our friends happier with normal, healthy, socially-acceptable friendly social manipulation. No bio-hacking, no emotional blackmail, no psychological warfare tactics, none of that crap. Just manipulating circumstances around them and hoping to get the desired result. Which is, at the very least, for them to admit that they like each other more than they're currently willing to admit. I'm still a guilty wreck and Sayori is only okay most of the time; SOMEONE in this damn club should be unreservedly happy, right?"
"One, don't you dare go cracking open the lid on my personal issues while the VPs are in the room," said Monika-2 sternly, aggressively gesturing at her with her own pointer.
"Sayori's an empath, she knows I have issues. Yuri and Natsuki aren't empaths and they still know I have issues. Is it really that big a deal to acknowledge them?" asked Monika-1.
"Yes, yes it is! Because this is not about me, it's about our friends! Abnegate that shit, you weak piece of–"
"Not in front of Sayori!" Monika-1 and Monika-3 shouted at Monika-2. Then the three of them blinked and looked at the Sayoris.
The Sayoris rolled their eyes. Red-Bow spoke, "Please, 'abnegation' is practically my middle name. And we can and we will unpack that other stuff after we're done scheming to make our OTP recognize its existence."
"For reals," agreed Blue-Bow. "Now, how do we feel about agreeing to go see a romance movie in our next Hub Loop, and then bailing at the last second so Natsuki and Yuri have to watch it by themselves?"
And they continued to bounce clichés around for the rest of the day.
…
Meanwhile, in Natsuki's Pocket, a sixth Natsuki that Monika and Sayori didn't know about was secretly meeting with one of the Yuris. They sat at a kotatsu table with a pink, flowery blanket, sharing a pot of tea.
"So what if we were to write love letters for them, claiming to be from–"
"Oh my Tree, Yuri, that is literally the laziest idea," Natsuki groaned. "Monika's almost as smart as you are and Sayori isn't nearly as airheaded as she likes to behave. They'll figure us out in a heartbeat."
"You've got a point there," Yuri admitted.
"Maybe I should just give them some cupcakes loaded with aphrodisiacs?" Natsuki thought out loud.
Yuri just facepalmed.
14.5 – Furry Frustration, by Masterweaver.
Yuri Awoke, looked over her loop memories, and then groaned.
"Heeeeeeeeeey Yuri!" Natsuki slid in with a far too broad grin. "What's up with that loopy look?"
"Monika, are you Awake?"
The club president looked at her in confusion. "Of course...? Why would I be asleep?"
"Rephrase: Are you feeling loopy?"
"Nah," Natsuki replied before Monika could say anything. "We're still 2D, so she's not Awake."
"Wait, what?!" Monika stared at them. "You KNOW?!"
"It's a long story that involves time travel, but yes we're real people, you can have real conversations with us-and Sayori if she Wakes up too-and if you try to edit anything without our permission I will beat you with a hammer." Having declared her casual threat, Natsuki turned back to Yuri. "So, Yuri, what do you think of this loop?"
"I'm annoyed that Monika can't edit my sprites to their baseline form," Yuri grumbled.
"I dunnooooooooo," Natsuki drawled, "you look pretty cute right now."
"I am wearing fuzzy mittens, a leopard tail, freaking fox ears, and I have goddamn whiskers painted on my face."
"Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaat..." The pinkette's smirk was filled with teeth. "You don't like being... FurrYuri?"
Yuri groaned again. "Why don't I have a sprite for banging my head against the wall?"
14.6 – Body-Shop, by Masterweaver.
"So Monika what did you want WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE ACTUAL-"
"Calm down! Natsuki, just... just breathe. Slowly. There's nothing to smell, alright? Deep breaths, in and out."
Natsuki clutched her chest. "I... I think I might be sick..."
"Okay. Okay, yeah..." Monika nodded. "I... could have prepared you better-"
"Monika... Please tell me why I'm looking at a disassembled version of myself..."
Monika took a slow breath. "Okay. So... you know how I've... improved our quality of life in regards to game coding? You know, how we're not just 2d sprites anymore, how we've got... decent bodies and all that?"
"Okay... okay, I think.. I think I see where you're going with this." Natsuki took a slow breath. "This is another 'update', right?"
"It might become one. I've already tested out my version, and... it seems to work, but... erm. Basically, before I put this together, I want your opinion on a few things. Since this is you. Or could be you."
"...first of all I don't want to be blown up into chunks."
Monika rolled her eyes. "Look, it's easier to modify-nevermind. I just-"
"Wait a second, I just realized something! This body is naked! There's a naked exploded me in the room!" Natsuki blinked. "Wait, why is this body naked? What are you...?"
She trailed off as Monika awkwardly fiddled with her hair.
"...What. The fuck Monika."
"I know it's a little awkward-"
"Oh, and you tested your version, you said? Did you and Sayori-"
"No, it was a solo test oh god can we just-can I just ask you the prepared list of questions, so we can both pretend this never happened?!"
Natsuki sighed. "You know what? Fine. Fine, but-but, fine. This is weird, but fine, sure, let's get this shit over with."
14.7 – Doki Doki Doldrums, by Masterweaver.
"Okay everyone! For this loop, I propose a hairstyle swap!"
For a moment there was silence in the clubroom.
"...A hairstyle swap," Monika repeated with a fixed grin.
"No, we heard you," Natsuki assured her. "What do you want us to say?"
"...it's interesting, it's stupid, I have a better idea, Monika are you scraping the bottom of the barrel for things to do... something?"
"You know, there are multiple flavors of meh," Sayori commented. "I mean, there is actually a lot of subtlety to apathy. Sometimes it's just 'we don't care at all,' sometimes it's more of a 'this isn't something I ever considered,' for me personally there's periods of 'gee I can't be bothered to feel anything, guess I'll lie in bed.' Of course that's more of a clinical thing. This apathy I'm feeling right now, though, it feels more... 'sure why not, go with the flow,' like there's not really any reason not to?"
"...Oh. I... see."
Yuri tilted her head. "What's wrong?"
"I don't know... it's just... look, we've got eternity to do everything, right?" Monika pointed out as she flopped into a seat. "And that's great! And I want to have... big epic adventures, where we bond as a club, and-okay, I don't want to have the whole 'serious conflict' thing where something somebody says pisses somebody else off and we spend loops just glaring at each other but the resolutions, those are probably going to be sweet and cuddly. I mean... come on. I spend all of baseline longing for a world of infinite choices and now I actually have... near-infinite choices. We could go to space! We could become witches! We could just play lazer tag, all from the comfort of our own simulated reality, and... and it feels, sometimes, like I'm the only one that sees that, you know? Like I'm the only one who... who directs us, who wants to show us brand new things, and..."
She sighed. "I don't know. I know I can be overwhelming, but... sometimes I really want to know what you all want to do."
"...so you're bored and you want us to relieve your boredom?" Natsuki asked.
"That is a gross oversimplification, but yes."
The others shared a look.
"...How about we take this loop off," Sayori suggested, "just to relax, and we come up with ideas for the next couple of loops?"
"That sounds good to me," Yuri agreed.
Natsuki shrugged. "Hell, I'm in. Let's see how batshit this can get."
Monika smiled. "...thanks girls. That means a lot to me."
14.8 – Birthday Planning, by Wookywok and Masterweaver.
"OKAY, EVERYONE!"
The three non-president sentient club members all looked up from their various tasks at Monika, who was practically beaming. Yuri smirked. "You're chipper today. Also late."
The brunette gave an awkward smile, scratching the back of her neck. "Yeah, this loop our computer had a particularly… persistent antivirus, so that took a while… but that's not the point!" The club president regained her cheerful expression. "Currently, in the Hub, it is somewhere in early September, 2018. Our game, in the Hub at least, was released on September the Twenty-Second, 2017." Her smile was positively reaching her ears by now. "Do you know what this means?"
Natsuki quirked an eyebrow. "It means it's the one-year anniversary of our Baseline and all that it entails?"
"Umm… yes, but…," Monika took on her trademark 'pointing' pose, "on a more positive note, it means that it's also, technically speaking, the closest we have to birthdays!"
Sayori practically teleported over to the brunette's position. "Did you just say BIRTHDAY? OHMYGOSH we've gotta have a birthday party with balloons and streamers and party hats and so many presents and a fifteen layer cake and-"
"Whoa, calm yourself there. We still have to get the opinions of the rest of the club."
The vice-president stopped bouncing off the walls and blushed, twiddling her fingers. "Oh. Yeah. Right."
Yuri shrugged and smiled. "I guess I could do a small bit of celebrating."
Natsuki chuckled. "What the hell, I needed a good excuse to bake."
Monika clasped her hands together. "Great! So, birthday party… sometime within the next couple of centuries? That sound good?"
"YEEEEESSSSSS!" Sayori screeched. "We can have treats and presents and games and-Oh my gosh! We can have a piñata! A Sayori piñata!"
Monika blinked, staring at her vice president. "...Um-"
"If she gets a piñata, I demand a Yuri cake," Yuri interjected. "Red velvet."
"...Why a cake?" Natsuki asked warily.
"Because knives, obviously."
Monika cleared her throat. "Far be it from me to lessen anyone's enthusiasm, but... this is a birthday party, not a deathday party. So as... grimly hilarious as those ideas are-"
"Yeah, I'm kind of with Monika on this one," Natsuki agreed. "Those ideas are creepy."
Yuri twiddled with her hair. "I... I see."
Natsuki glanced at her for a moment. She pinched her brow with an exasperated sigh. "I'll make spider cupcakes, alright?"
"I appreciate the effort."
14.9 – Sweet Revenge, by Masterweaver.
It was inevitable.
The position came with a cost, and was usually locked down to one. But in the infinite eternities, there would be hiccups. Mistakes.
Power, once unique, would every once in a long while pass to one who had no experience with it.
So it was that Monika, Sayori, and Yuri all huddled as tightly as their two-dimensional sprites would allow and watched the maniacal laughter of Natsuki, the Club President.
"AT LAST! AT LOOOOOOOONG LAST I HAVE THE CODE TO THIS GAME!" Natsuki cackled atop the desk, her hands wreathed in flame. "AT LAST, THIS WORLD CAN BE WHAT I DECLARE IT TO BE! MY REIGN WILL BE REMEMBERED LONG AND FAR, FAR AND LONG! I SHALL GO DOWN FOREVERMORE AS THE GODDESS OF TYRANNY, THE EMPRESS OF VENGEANCE, THE EPITOME OF ALL WHO SEEK JUSTICE AND WRATH!"
Monika yelped as her sprite was pulled forward, kneeling before Natsuki. She looked up into her crazed grin and sighed. "Well... I guess I should have expected this, huh?"
"YOU SHALL NOT DENY ME! For too long have I tolerated your mastery, but NO MORE! NOW, ACCEPT YOUR FATE!"
Natsuki spread her hands wide with a gleeful, deranged giggle. Yuri and Sayori saw the fate inflicted upon their friend and gasped in unified shock.
"...Okay..." Monika said slowly. "...I'm wearing a dunce cap."
"Yes. Yes you are." Natsuki shrugged. "I mean, I had a lot of ideas for this, but I figured a basic sprite edit would be both easy and hilarious."
"...You know what? Fair enough." Monika took a pose, and paused. "Wait... did you add this dunce cap to all my sprites?"
"Yep."
"Huh. Thorough." After a moment, she smirked. "All hail the empress of vengeance!"
14.10 – BFFs, by Black Omochao.
"Anyone want to try being a different race?" Monika suddenly spoke up to the gathered club members, all Awake.
"Different race?" Yuri questioned with a confused expression.
"I was working on some code and I decided to implement a race system into our game: vampires, werewolves, dragons, all that fantasy stuff," the Anchor explained with a wave. "Plus a few outliers not typical to the fantasy genre. The platypus-person race gets plus-10 in swimming, and a chance to poison with kicking attacks!"
"Wouldn't only the males get that poison chance?" Natsuki interjected with a raised brow.
Monika shrugged, "If they did, would any of us be willing to use it?" this question was met with silence. "See, realism sometimes isn't important, for the sake of fun."
"… Wait, what's this for anyway?" Natsuki questioned with a shake of her head. "Are you planning to throw us into some sort of RPG quest, or something?"
"Thinking about it, if you guys are interested," Monika smiled playfully, she turned her attention towards the darkest haired member of their group. "Oh, and Yuri, I have just the race for you: knife-geist!"
"… I'm listening," Yuri gave the club president her full attention.
"That sounds like a bad idea," Natsuki narrowed her eyes, pulling Yuri back.
"Don't worry Platysuki, geists can't even bleed!" Monika assured cheerfully.
The brief look of disappointment that crossed Yuri's face went unnoticed.
"That's not the point–wait, why have you already decided I'll be a platypus-person!?" the bright pink-haired girl glared.
"Guys, this all sounds like it could be a good time. But could we maybe talk about it later? I've got plans with Hiroaka!"
Monika, Yuri and Natsuki all paused and turned their attention towards Sayori, a bit surprised that the vice-president had not spoken until now, but also at what she had said.
Natsuki gave Monika a look that all but said 'We're not done here,' before focusing on Sayori. "I'm sorry, you have plans… with Hiroaka?"
"… Yes, we're having lunch together," Sayori explained with a small smile, looking towards the blank-faced MC that was standing in the corner of the room. "Isn't that right, Hiroaka?" the lone male gave no response, but Sayori seemed content.
"Ooookay…" Natsuki nodded slowly, taking a small step back.
Sayori took notice of her friends shift in mood and narrowed her eyes a bit.
"Natsuki," Monika hissed, pulling the shorter girl away before giving Sayori a kind, yet slightly nervous, smile. "Don't let us get in the way if you have plans, Sayori. I'm sure Hiroaka appreciates you spending time with him.
"Yes, I'm sure he's… happy," Yuri added, unsurely.
Natsuki facepalmed from behind her friends.
Sayori let out an annoyed sigh, rolling her eyes. "Guys, I'm not crazy."
The three other Dokis stiffened slightly at the vice-president's tone.
"C-Crazy, who said anything like that?" Monika denied with a nervous chuckle.
"Well nobody did, but your reactions to her making plans with Hiroaka speaks a bit of how you view the situation," Natsuki pointed out bluntly.
"Oh, and yours didn't?" Yuri countered.
"Guys!" Sayori's shout halted her friends from starting an argument. "This isn't something worth fighting or worrying about. I know it doesn't really make sense sometimes. But Hiroaka is my friend, and I don't want him to feel left out…"
"Feel left out? He's not even alive!" Natsuki suddenly burst out with her arms outstretched.
"We're not even alive!" Sayori countered harshly, Natsuki's eyes widened, the vice president swiftly covered her mouth with a gasp. "Oh dear… I'm sorry!"
"No, don't worry, just… wasn't expecting that," Natsuki muttered.
"Um, I think what Natsuki meant was that we have thoughts and feelings of our own, while Hiroaka just sort of… goes through the motions," Yuri interjected with her own explanation. "He's not an AI like us, he's more of a blank-slate… Not that spending time with him is meaningless or anything, but… Monika, you know what I mean, right? Probably more than I do."
The Anchor blinked, having been staring at the blank-faced male in the corner of the room for a few moments, before looking over her three Looping friends with an unsure expression. "Um, yeah… something like that…"
Silence filled the room again at the club president's unsure tone, before Sayori let out a small cough to bring the focus back to her.
"Okay look, even if he really can't feel left out, the possibility that he could won't let me leave him be. Hiroaka's too important of a friend to me to do that. Regardless of if that past friendship wasn't real," Sayori smiled as she looked at Hiroaka. "We'll all do something together later. But right now, I'm going to spend time with Hiroaka," after that statement, Sayori took the blank-faced male by the arm and led him out of the room.
The remaining three Dokis stood there in silence for a few moments, before the president finally spoke up.
"Well… we can discuss the whole RPG quest idea once Sayori gets back. For now… you guys do whatever, I need to… think about some stuff…" after that unsure statement, the Anchor vanished into her sub-space pocket, leaving the remaining two occupants of the club room in confusion.
"… So, what now Platysuki?" Yuri questioned slowly.
Natsuki twitched, sending a glare the dark-haired girl's way.
14.11 – A Long Unspoken Question, by Masterweaver.
"...Hey Monika?" Natsuki slid in closer to the club president, glancing at the other club members warily. "Why do you keep Hiroaka around?"
"Hmm?"
"I mean, he's... kind of basically an automaton. And you have the game code at your fingertips and you're way better then you were when we started with that, and..." The pink haired girl winced. "And, well... you went crazy in the first place wanting to meet somebody 'real,' with their own personalities, but now you know you've got the rest of us. And the multiverse. So... I don't get it, why keep around the one person who isn't even a person?"
Monika shook her head. "He's part of the game. I mean, I can tweak our appearances, set us up in a brand new engine, make whole worlds... but when I'm experimenting, trying to improve things, it helps to have somebody who..." She gestured vaguely. "Well, he... it... I don't know. It's technical."
Natsuki nodded. "Yeah, that sounds entirely reasonable. What's the real reason?"
"...fine. Here's a question: are patients in comas 'real people?'"
"I mean... yeah-"
"Even if they're brain-dead?"
"I... huh." Natsuki furrowed her brow. "I... guess that's not an easy one, is it?"
"When you three aren't Awake, you usually follow the pattern set out by the game. There are loops, though-and I can't tell if they're variants or baseline-where if I say something different, you react in character. With Hiroaka it's a lot... less common. He's almost certainly not real." Monika bit her lip, glancing at the faceless student. "The key word there is... almost. I... I don't know if there's anything there. Or even if it's loop variable if there's anything there. But... after all I've done, I'd rather keep a friendly mindless automaton around than delete him and risk killing somebody who couldn't even interact with the outside world."
"...I guess that makes sense."
"Plus Sayori likes him, so..."
"Yeah, got to keep the VP happy." Natsuki nodded. "Yeah... alright. I was just making sure it wasn't something creepy like 'I like to stare at him in the middle of the night' or something."
That got a chuckle. "Oh don't worry, Nats, he's not the one I watch sleeping."
Natsuki opened her mouth, paused, and shook her head. "Actually I'm not going to open that can of worms. Good talk, Monika, I'm... going to the other side of the room now."
Compiler's Commentary:
14.1: A meeting of much-maligned masterminds.
14.2: …I may or may not be that weird friend that can't stop hugging his plus-sized friends. THERE'S JUST SO MUCH TO HUG T_T
14.3: Kids, never science while drunk. NOBODY wants to suffer through Happy Tree Friends.
14.4: Title inspired by Dion Warwick's "Say a Little Prayer For You." Also, drugging your friends for matchmaking purposes is bad, 'mkay?
14.5: Darn it Natsuki, don't be so smug. I know you're happy you're not the pun victim this time, but still.
14.6: As any mechanic can tell you, bodywork isn't always a pretty business.
14.7: 'The Flavors of Meh' sounds like a good name for a book. Hmm…
14.8: Red velvet is my favorite kind of cake. Yuri's got good taste.
14.9: Revenge is a dish best served petty.
14.10: Real friends NEVER leave you hang–goddamnit, Monika.
14.11: Plot-twist: the one Monika watches sleeping is Yuri…because she sleep-talks fascinating sociopolitical discourses.