It was the dawn of Evan's birthday and Elizabeth wanted to attend the celebration, though she knew this wasn't the time to truly rejoin her family yet. Luckily Baby did have a prototype illusion disk installed, it just hadn't been connected to her systems yet but that was something Mike was able to easily fix. Now Mike was having Elizabeth practice using it and so far she's only been able to look like a human version of Baby, which would still draw too much attention.
"Why is this so hard!" Elizabeth complained as she dropped the illusion, dramatically flopping back onto the ground. "I'm good at pretending, so why can't I get this right?"
"A convincing illusion requires more mental details you'd expect, hence why I usually keep it as simple as possible," Mike explained, showing off the illusion he normally goes with. "But a simple trick to help is to pick features you're familiar with, like people from your family or have seen a lot on tv. It's easier to work off something you can easily picture from memory rather than make something up from thin air. Like how I've been using your hair color, why don't you try imagining yourself with my hair color instead."
"Alright…" Elizabeth said sitting up, sounding skeptical that it'd work but willing to try anyway. The illusion flickered back into place, though slowly the bright red hair changed to brown.
"You did it, Lizzie!" Mike praised, getting an excited cheer from his sister. "Now try changing your outfit into something a bit more normal."
Elizabeth nodded and concentrated again, transforming Baby's bright red dress into a dark green one that their mom had often worn. While the illusion wouldn't fool William and would probably get a double take from Michael, it was easily something that would let Elizabeth wander the town and pizzeria without drawing too much attention.
"I think this will work," Mike nodded as he looked the illusion over. "Now you need to practice with it. Hold it for five minutes, drop it, and then put it back on for another five minutes. Doing that a few times will help… what the…"
Mike trailed off as he got an alert from the camera monitoring the ball pit, registering a huge spike in energy. He immediately opened up the panel on his arm and began pulling up the camera feed.
"Mikey? What's wrong?" Elizabeth asked, worried about Mike's sudden distraction and change in attitude.
Mike ignored her though, too focused on figuring out what was happening to the ball pit. He knew it wasn't his family as he had only given SWAPP the data he'd been collecting a little over an hour ago and he knew Ford and Dipper would still be analyzing it. Besides, the energy spikes from his family running tests on the dimensional barrier weren't like this. They had been small calculated bursts of various strengths and frequencies as they tried to hone in on the right conditions they needed to create a stable and contained connection between this one and Mike's home dimension. Whatever was happening now was far more chaotic and violent, like someone or something was forcibly trying to tear their way through.
"Mike?" Elizabeth tried again, rising to her feet.
"Lizzie! Stay here!" Mike commanded as he turned and took off towards the pizzeria at top speed, not bothering to check whether or not Elizabeth actually listened to him.
Something had come through the ball pit and while it looked human, Mike doubted it was that simple after they had somehow forced their way into this dimension. And even if they were completely human, Mike knew a woman in a white rabbit costume had anything but good intentions by coming to another dimension, especially one wielding a knife. Whoever this was, it was Mike's responsibility to make sure she didn't kill anyone as he was sure his family's attempts to rescue him that drew her attention to this specific weak point in the barrier. And Mike refused to let anyone but he get hurt because of a mistake he made.
Never Again.
Mike could feel goosebumps rising across his skin as he got closer to the restaurant, something deeply instinctual telling him he was running headfirst into danger. That only spurred him to move faster as he knew he was far more capable of handling and surviving whatever that woman was than the innocent employees trapped in there with her.
Mike burst through the doors, only faltering a few steps as his supernaturally enhanced senses let him see something dark, evil, and hungry, emanating from the woman before zeroing in on how she was about to bring her knife down on the teen employee cowering before her. Mike shot forward, pushing the teen out of the way and using his animatronic arm to deflect the deadly blow. The clang from metal striking metal rang loudly through the restaurant as an eerie calm settled in the vicinity, Mike and the costumed woman assessing each other's threat level and giving Mike a chance to fully take in what he was seeing.
(Hiding over in one of the corners, the night guard that had just been finishing his shift when this whole thing started paled at the sight of Mike's true appearance as he realized that he hadn't just been dreaming.)
There was a dark miasma coming from the woman, a consuming void full of too many glowing eyes and teeth that couldn't be contained within a simple mortal body. The woman's limbs jerked and moved unnaturally and clearly showing the woman was nothing but a puppet for this evil entity. It wasn't the most powerful creature Mike had faced in his years of adventuring with his family, not by a long shot, but he couldn't help the fearful shiver that when through him as all those eyes focused on him.
Mike had been hunted many times before but this was the first time since he originally died that he's truly felt like prey.
"Now you're interesting," The woman spoke, her real voice barely heard underneath the creature's voice. "And I believe you're not supposed to be here Michael."
Mike felt like he should have been surprised that this evil entity was some sort of twisted version of his father, but honestly, it made too much sense.
"And neither are you, William," Mike spat, taking a few steps back and shifting into a defensive stance. Luckily the teen Mike had saved had had enough sense to scramble away and was hiding behind one of the counters. Mike let his hand transform and electricity start to spark between his fingers as he threatened, "So you can crawl back to whatever universe you came from or I can make you."
"Why would I do that after all the effort I went through to get here and to all these defenseless lambs just ready for slaughter?" This not-even remotely human beast laughed, a cruel mocking sound that made all the humans hearing it try and get even more hidden than they already were. "And you really think you can force me back? You lack the natural advantages my own winged nuisance has as your nature is far closer to my own. So you can either step aside or you'll be the first one I feed on."
Mike lunged forward, letting his actions answer for him as he attempted to shock the human host into submission. Unfortunately, William had more precise control over his puppet than the jerky movements would indicate and was able to twist out the way with ease, swinging the knife towards Mike's shoulder. Luckily, William hadn't realized that Mike's cybernetics went that far up so the knife glanced off metal rather than sinking into flesh. Mike let his momentum carry him forward in a roll before coming back up in a crouch facing William. But instead of coming at Mike like he was expecting, William had gone for an employee and was dragging them screaming from behind one of the counters.
Mike instantly ran forward, forcing his way between the employee and William and getting a shallow cut along his cheek from William's knife in the process. Mike managed to deliver a strong kick to the woman's stomach forcing the human body to stagger back a few steps. Mike didn't risk checking on the employee, focused solely on the threat in their midst. This meant he saw how William ran one of the puppet's fingers along the now bloody blade and absorb the little bit of Mike's remnant within, the many eyes in the darkness brightening ever so slightly in satisfaction.
It gave Mike an extremely stupid and reckless idea.
William had made it clear that he was willing to go after anyone nearby and it probably wouldn't be long before more people would accidentally stumble across this dangerous situation. Police at least if any of the employees had managed to get a call out or the far worse scenario, families and children that wouldn't know about the threat until it was too late. Mike had to get this twisted version of his father out of there and knew the perfect bait to do so.
"Hey, you demented furry!" Mike insulted with a grin, letting all his anger and determination amplify his remnant, making his eyes glow brightly and even his veins become more visible as the energy grew. He knew it was working as all of William's eyes immediately stared at him with obvious craving. Mike began running towards the exit, flipping off William as he shouted, "Catch me if you can you psychotic easter bunny!"
