AN: So, I saw the Scooby crossover and it was just okay-ish. Had some nice callbacks, loved the music (with one exception), it was nice to get to hear Muriel's VA one last time, they got Eustace's voice down surprisingly well too, Courage's friendship with Scooby was really adorable, and there was a joke with Eustace's truck that just absolutely murdered me. It's the exact kind of dumb humor that I love to fill this story with. The 'Courage Snacks' joke was amazing too. On the other hand, there's a goddamn Eustace musical number and it is so goddamn awful. Not even in a cheesy narm charm sort of way, and it just goes on and on and on. Sapped a lot of goodwill I had toward the movie. It's THAT bad. Maybe it'll end up just being me who hated it and other people will think its funny, but I despise that musical number with every fiber of my being LOL. The villain twist was pretty eh and the Dreamworks style dance party ending was equally eeehhhh. You can really feel the lack of Dilworth's involvement too. The movie tries hard to emulate his style and never quite gets there. The surreal horror aspect is heavily toned down and sanitized, which is especially disappointing. I did not like Computer's scene in it either for uuhhhh obvious reasons when you watch it lmao. Overall, I'm pretty 'meh' about the movie. There's a lot of good to be found in it, but the bad stuff, like Eustace's awful musical number, really drag it down. The highs are just okay while the lows are really low and that hurts it in the long run. I may warm up to it more with time and more viewings, but for now I'm pretty lukewarm about it. I'll at least be glad if it does well enough to spark some kind of Courage revival, hopefully with John Dilworth back at the helm.

Welp, addressing the elephant in the room for the readers who have made it this far in this absolute clusterfuck of a story and who have seen the Computer scene in the movie, I gotta say, having my already improbable ship fucking nuked out of the water and the remains incinerated was, uh certainly something to witness. I never, ever expected the CourageXComputer ship to become an actual thing, but I sure as hell wasn't expecting the movie to fire a tactical orbital laser at it lmao. Feels like I got monkey paw'd hard in that regard. 'Oh sure, we'll give you some new Computer content after like twenty years, but we'll confirm him to be straight and having a fling with Robo Velma.' RIP to there being any sort of ambiguity that allowed for interpreting Computer as gay and/or ace lmmaaooo. 'Computer Fucks' is not a thing that I thought I could say In The Year Of Our Lord 2021 and have that be completely legit and canonical, but here we are. It seems canon Computer is living his best life getting all the best 'upgrades' from the chicks while poor ATEputer is stuck serving out a life sentence in the Gay Super Hell that is this fic lol. Just add it to the ever growing pile of reasons why his life sucks. Even canon is fucking him over now, or to be more exact, isn't LOL.

His new voice is...interesting. I've gone back and forth on if I like it or not several times now. The new VA definitely tries to emulate Computer's old VA to varying results. The interesting part is that despite the fact that he lays the smugness on super thick with his delivery, this version of Computer is ultimately nicer and doesn't hurl insults around. When I experimented with replacing the 'voice' I try to portray him with in my writing with an attempt that reads more like the new one, there is definitely a change in how I characterize him, to a certain extent. I'm not actually going to switch up the written voice I have for him this far in the game, but comparing the two has been a fun thought experiment. I've always thought (hoped) that after some experimentation all throughout the long years of this story that I eventually got his voice down decently enough. Courage has always been the trouble spot for me where I do take a lot of liberties with how I write his voice, just by virtue of having to make him talk more for a written medium compared to how little he speaks in the show. Oh, also, there is something unfathomably surreal about Eustace and Computer now being voiced by the same person.

Still...oof. In spite of how absolutely hilarious and ironic it is, having my favorite ship and my gay/ace interpretation of Computer so thoroughly obliterated in the span of like five seconds stings just a teeny tiny bit LOL. It also kills all my efforts to have the fanon of this fic line up with the admittedly loose canon of the show because the movie implies on more than one occasion that sentient AI are just a regular, common thing, which is very much not the case within the ATE fanon. Oh well! The fanon is dead, long live the fanon! I'm just going to go with the Mythbusters line of 'I reject your reality and substitute my own.' and keep on keeping on with this fic LOL. I've been in 'fine, I'll do it myself' mode for the last 11 years when it comes to creating new Courage and Computer content and canon ain't gonna stop me now.

Well, at least this movie has given us the one and only instance of Computer using Courage's name instead of 'twit', and he was uncharacteristically kind to him toward the end of the scene too. I'll take what pathetic scraps I can get lmao. Although, I just...goddamn do I need a Courage version of that one meme. 'Friendship ended with Computer, now Scooby Doo is my best friend' because goddamn if there weren't enough cute moments between them to turn me into a freaking CourageXScooby shipper. What is life. As if I wasn't already into a really goddamn weird Courage ship to begin with. The ride never ends, I guess. Just, like, Give Courage All The Boyfriends, because he deserves them. Watch me take a hard turn left with this fic and suddenly turn it into a Scooby shipping fic and ruin ATEputer's one and only chance at some small amount of happiness. That's...actually way more fitting than it has any right to be, because this is ATE and Computer is not allowed to be happy. You guys better hope that I miss April Fools next year because a new April Fools ATE chapter would be downright apocalyptic if I'm allowed to have my way with these new developments LOL.

If this long, rambly author's note didn't make it obvious, The Scooby Crossover Movie fucking broke me and I won't be recovering for a long time. Between it confirming Computer to be an Absolute Chad and it somehow turning me into CourageXScooby shipper...I'm not okay, man. I'm not okay. LOL

Chapter 11: Eve Of The Final Confrontation

Atticus, and by extension, Edgar, had been awake for at least an hour now, if not longer. They were sitting in a chair within Elizabeth's tent of operations. The woman herself was nowhere to be found, but Edgar had sent a guard off to find her. In one paw, he held a pistol that he had 'liberated' from the same guard. In the other, he held the soul jar. It had been put back under lock and key after releasing Edgar, but Edgar knew all of the override codes and had retrieved it easily enough.

Atticus had learned very quickly upon waking up that Edgar had taken all of his spiteful prodding to heart. He could sense the man's growing paranoia and desperation. Edgar wanted the one person who had betrayed him so openly to be eliminated before she could get the chance to sabotage him yet again, or inspire others to do the same. It did not matter that she was in support of him taking control of the amalgamation, and her relation to him meant absolutely nothing. He wanted her gone, plain and simple.

And now Atticus had a choice to make. Elizabeth more than deserved what was coming, but Atticus loathed the thought of letting Edgar use him to kill. Oh, sure. He despised Elizabeth and would be happy to see her go, but having seen firsthand the extent of Edgar's heavily exaggerated greatness, he couldn't help but pity her to some extent. There was nobody who had bought into the lie of Edgar's greatness more than she had, it seemed, and Atticus could so easily imagine all of the cruel ways Edgar might have forced such an image into his own daughter's head.

Oh how Atticus hated when he could see shades of himself in Edgar. Well, shades of his older self, at least. They both had a knack for relying upon verbally accosting everyone around them to project an air of strength and invincibility. For Atticus, it had been out of the need for some small measure of control in his life. He had, of course, remained without any actual control, and his attitude had often drawn the wrath of others when he had desired the opposite effect. Edgar was so much worse in this regard. He projected an image of invincibility and strength for the sake of power and power alone. He did not fear the retaliation of others. After all of the verbal abuse Elizabeth would have no doubt received, there was something to be said in her having found the courage to defy him. In a way, Atticus owed her for that, because he would not be here now if she had not done so.

Speaking of Elizabeth, her voice could now be heard outside of the tent, rattling off a line of commands to someone. Edgar made Atticus shift around in the chair and take aim. He already had that smug smirk plastered across their shared face. If Atticus found one thing in particular disgusting about all of this it was that he could sense how downright glad Edgar was to finally be ridding himself of his worthless embarrassment of a daughter. She was nothing but a stain on his legacy as far as he was concerned.

A hand reached into the tent and pushed the flap out of the way. Elizabeth stepped inside. She saw the gun and came to a sudden stop. Her face betrayed not a hint of emotion as she stared down the smirking dog.

"Oh, come now." Edgar chuckled. "You must have known that this was coming."

He broke eye contact just long enough to consider the soul jar held in his paw.

"I must admit, I am rather ashamed of myself. I went and wasted so much of my morning considering all of the painful, punishing ways I could rid myself of you, but then I realized something. You are not worth the effort." The mocking edge to his tone sudden turned vicious as he frowned. "So we're going to keep this simple. I'm going to waste one single bullet on you and then you're going to enjoy the rest of eternity in this soul jar. Unlike myself, you have never been of any value to anyone, so nobody will bother to free you from your prison. A fitting end for such a worthless girl." His smug smirk returned. "You were always my biggest mistake, one that I now intend to correct."

Pressure on the trigger. Atticus struck then, while Edgar was at his most distracted. He summoned all of his strength as a Construct and tried to rip Edgar's consciousness free from his being. If this ghost would not leave him then he'd at least give him enough of a Construct style thrashing to make him regret it. The gun went off and Edgar's will crashed into Atticus's own as they clashed for control. Edgar's ambition, his desire to survive, and his ironclad belief in his ability to crush everyone under his boot made him so very strong, but Atticus's innate nature as a Construct, combined with his desperation to rescue Courage, gave him just enough of an advantage. He fought against Edgar's will in this strange mental tug of war until he managed to push him back far enough to block him from regaining control.

The pistol landed in the grass and Atticus looked up at a stunned Elizabeth. A small hole in the tent just beyond her right ear showed how close she had come to being hit. Atticus laughed, not because of her shocked expression, but because he was feeling more free of Edgar than he had since his rude invasion had begun. He could sense the man's fury, but Edgar was pressed back so thoroughly that he could do nothing but fume. Perhaps now he would regret having given his creations the ability to oppress the minds of others so easily.

"What did you do?" Elizabeth demanded in a sharp tone, having regained her composure.

"I've suppressed Edgar. He will not be troubling me much anymore, I think." Atticus replied, looking all the more triumphant.

"We need him." Elizabeth argued, emphasizing every word.

"I don't know if you've noticed, but he just tried to kill you."

Elizabeth closed her eyes. "That is...irrelevant."

Atticus raised an eyebrow. "Look, now is not the time to play martyr. You know it would be just as bad for him to gain control of the amalgamation as it is to let them keep rampaging. Why else did you stop him all of those years ago? This is not the way to go about it, and I didn't ask for you to spring a ghost on me in the first place. I have taken back my autonomy and you are just going to have to deal with it. Besides, I'm starting to think that Edgar can't take control of the amalgamation anyway. If he can't stop me then what hope does he have against the combined will of the amalgamation?"

"So, what then?" Elizabeth demanded throwing her arms out in some grand gesture. "Are we humans supposed to just give up and accept our fate? I will not allow it. Edgar must be-"

"I have a plan." Atticus interjected. "I'm going to deliver Edgar to my siblings and then they can take all of their anger out on him. I suppose we're about to find out if a ghost can die a second time. With any luck, this might just be what they need to calm down. If that doesn't quell their fury, well, I'll try talking with them. I'm certain Courage was on to something in that regard. Despite appearances, my siblings can still be reasoned with, at least to some extent. If talking doesn't work out either, well...I'm getting Courage back one way or another. Nothing else matters but that."

"You sound just as foolish as Edgar thinking that he can march half the SCC into the amalgamation just to look for an access point."

Atticus shrugged. "Well, you're the one who's willing to let your psychopath father put a bullet through your brain just because you think it might save the world. We are running out of options here. I think the only way this is going to stop is if my siblings decide on their own that they want to stop. We need to try and get them to that point."

Elizabeth crossed her arms. "Will you still be talking that way if it turns out that they've hollowed out your mutt of a friend?"

Closing his eyes, Atticus drew in a breath. "I do not believe for a second that I can control the amalgamation any better than Edgar can, but if Courage is...gone then I will remain with my siblings and do anything I can to slow them down and hinder their worst impulses. My unique programming should count for something, right? "

"Oh, yes. You certainly did a bang-up job when you helped to slaughter an entire hospital worth of people. I seem to recall that you then took a nice stroll down the block, destroying everything in your path, and then, of course, you very nearly killed the dog that you claim to care so much about."

"Point taken, but I think I'm better prepared now to fight the chaos of their collective mind. I will not allow myself to get caught up in their fury so easily this time."

"Forgive me if I am having a difficult time believing that." Elizabeth said, pressing several fingers to her forehead. "I should have killed you when I had the chance. It would have taken out the rest of those damnable creations of my father before they could reach this point. I never should have let that dratted dog get in my way."

"On the contrary, I'm certain that the moment Courage stepped in to save us from you was the exact moment when things began to change. He is the only one who ever showed us, erm, them even a shred of kindness or understanding. I...didn't get it until I spent some time walking a mile in their, uh, massive, collective shoes. Even then, I can't say that I have had the easiest time forgiving them for all that they've done to me and Courage, but, well, I used to lash out a lot too. Who is to say that if I had had their kind of power after my system was ruined that I would not have acted in the same way?"

"...All the more reason for why I wish I had exterminated you abominations when I had the chance."

Atticus laughed at her stubbornness. "Can't you be just a little bit grateful that I saved you from that bullet?"

"Okay, fine then. Since I owe you, I will take you back to the amalgamation, as close as I can safely get. After that, no matter how this ends, we are even."

"Hey, don't forget about the industrial sized coffee machine! I'm still expecting you to fulfill all of the terms that I laid out. I'm not putting up with Edgar for my own health, after all."

"Yes, yes, of course." Elizabeth dismissed with a wave of her hand. "Let's get this over with. At least if you fail Edgar will still have a chance to take over."

Atticus sensed Edgar silently agreeing with her. He'd have to be very careful with that crafty bastard of a ghost. He was subdued for now, but much like how Atticus had ambushed him while he was distracted, he could do the same during a moment of weakness.

…...

How long had it been? An hour? A day? A month? It could not have been a year, at the very least. Courage knew his illness would not allow for that. Still, his sense of time was warped beyond all hope of trying to make sense of any of it.

He was so very confused. The strain within his mind was marching ever closer to its breaking point with every access of his memories. The amalgamation was with him, of course, having long since abandoned their timidness. They clung to him, sometimes ripping away at pieces of him, and then they'd fight among themselves in a whirlwind of chaos and hatred as each tried to claim the piece of him for themselves. It was, perhaps, for the first time in a very long time that they were acting independently of each other, at least by the limited amount that their hapless situation allowed for. Courage was glad to be fostering this behavior in them, because if their collective will was being weakened in favor of more individual actions...

And yet, the price he was paying was so very steep. He could feel himself becoming...less, cracking to pieces, falling apart. Sometimes he wondered if this was what Atticus had felt when He had been pulling him apart to extract pieces of him. The only problem here was that Courage could not be brought back from a backup if...

He bit back a whimper as he felt his memories being called upon again. His head was screaming in agony and the strain only made it worse. The lethargy and confusion kept him from feeling the full extent of the panic and horror he knew he should be feeling from what was being done to him. The mental fog never really cleared up anymore. In fact, as the memory came into focus, it took him a long time for him to recognize what it was, even though it was so obvious.

This was the junk void that the Dreamworld had conjured up to represent the darkest and most hopeless aspects of Atticus's subconscious. There was some irony to be found in how the amalgamation's expansive wasteland of machinery resembled this horrible place to such an extent.

Courage could not imagine why they had conjured up a memory from this place. There was nothing happy about it, and now that he was getting a better idea of what was going on in the memory, he was even more confused as to why this was the memory they had selected.

This is where Atticus had almost...

Courage hated watching it again. Why? Why did the amalgamation consider this memory a happy one? There was no sense to it.

Well, as the memory reached its conclusion, Courage started to understand maybe just a little bit. This was not a happy memory, not for him, but for Atticus? Sad as it may be, it was. And since the amalgamation had retained his memories, from their perspective, this was a happy memory.

And then...it was gone. Courage felt it rip away from him and all of a sudden he could not remember what it was he had been remembering.

No! No! What had it been? What had he forgotten? If it was a happy memory, it had to have been something important! Try as he might though, even as he picked through his own brain trying to find noticeable gaps in his memory, he could not figure out what was gone.

He sensed the amalgamation going through their chaotic dance as they fought over the memory. Now all Courage could wonder was how many times this had happened already and how much he had forgot that he'd forgotten because of it. He could still remember Muriel, but he was struggling to pin down specific memories of her. It seemed that the amalgamation had depleted his memories of her and were going after ones with Atticus now.

This was...fine. Courage just needed to hold it together for as long as possible. He could live without his happy memories of Muriel and Atticus, just as long as they were safe, and he could make new memories with them once...

But he wasn't getting out this. He wasn't just going to die here, he was going to lose his loved ones in memory too. But he had resolved himself to this. He had to do this. It was the only way to keep them safe.

As he felt the amalgamation settle back down, the memory having been absorbed, he sensed their utter contentment. Every missing piece of him they clung to brought them profound peace and comfort. They did sometimes realize what they were doing to him and would fly into a fury with themselves, disgusted that they were destroying him bit by bit for mere scraps, but the greater consensus would win out and they would continue picking away at him for the sake of their own happiness. Such happiness being so unfamiliar to them that they were all but addicted to it.

All Courage could think to do was try and gather up as many memories, ones that were not necessarily happy so that the amalgamation were less likely to target them, and hold on to them for dear life. If he was going to fight the inevitable, he'd need some way to anchor his fading sense of self, and this was the only option he had left if he was going to keep some small part of himself whole.

End Of Chapter

A/N: I'm really glad that I was able to get this chapter out within a reasonable time frame after the last chapter took almost two months to finish. I honestly have no idea what was going on with that chapter. I was hit with writers block really bad even though there wasn't anything going on in it that was challenging enough for me to get stuck as bad as I did. Either way, I'm planning to have the amalgamation storyline wrapped up by the end of the year and with any luck I will maintain some of this momentum with my writing and reach that goal. I'm pretty excited to get to some of the stuff that's coming up over the next couple of chapters, especially considering I've been waiting literal years to write a lot of it. Hopefully that will help keep me from hitting another snag.