(A/N: Alright, now the story is really about to takeoff. Last time it was decided that I.B. was going to get the boot. How will he react? Will he take this as a betrayal from Sadness? What will that mean for their relationship? And what about Riley? So many questions to be answered. There's no Easter Eggs in this chapter, but keep an eye open in the future.)

Disclaimer: I own nothing

Chapter 6: Internal Conflict

They found him right where they left him, laughing at what was playing on the dream screen. He looked up as they came in, flashing them a smile that made Sadness blush.

"The acting is so bad," he said, motioning towards the screen. "It's no wonder people don't remember most of their dreams. Who would want to remember this stuff?"

Sadness giggled. "Yeah, it's awful."

Joy resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "Aaaaanyway, we just had a talk-"

"Yeah, how'd that go?"

"Um, I'm telling you now. So, we all had a talk about how things are going with the six of us working together."

I.B. raised an eyebrow. "And…?"

Joy fiddled with her fingers as she bit her lower lip nervously. "Weeeeell, it's not that you haven't contributed to the team and been a great help, it's just that-"

"You're out of here!" Anger snapped, getting straight to the point.

Joy slapped her head at his bluntness, but I.B. just stared. "Are you saying that you're firing me?"

Fear made a frightened sound, and Joy couldn't help but to agree with him. This was so awkward. "Um, in layman's terms… yes."

She waited for a reaction from the imaginary character, but there was none, so she continued. "Look, the fact of the matter is that ever since you started adding your… impute, a lot of Riley's memories with Jordan have been sad or angry, and sometimes disgusted."

"Your advice stinks," Anger once again stated bluntly. "Things were better before we started taking advice from you."

"But! But, you can still hang around Headquarters," Joy added quickly. "And we'll come to you for advice when we feel we need it. And you and Sadness can keep up with this… thing that's between you."

She made sure to end things on a positive note with a big grin. There was still no reaction from I.B. as he continued looking at them.

Sadness felt the need to comfort him. "It's not you, I.B., it's everything else. You're perfect, the perfect boyfriend according to Riley. But she's not living in an imaginary world, and so they feel that it's unrealistic to have such expectation for Jordan. Real life isn't a perfect, flawless place where everything works out the way you want. And to have Riley want things to be that way and react badly when they don't is only going to lead to problems."

Joy was nodding along with what Sadness was saying. She had learned the hard way that things couldn't be wonderful and happy all the time. Life had its ups and downs. You had to take the bad with the good. Dealing with the bad times was not only healthy for you, it made the good times even better and more meaningful.

I.B. cast his eyes downward. "I see. Well, you guys do know what's best. I'm just limited to the boundaries of when I was created. Just let me show you one thing before I go."

"Wait," said Joy, "you don't have to go."

"Yes, he does."

"Anger!"

"It's fine," I.B. replied. "I knew it would come to this eventually."

He came back over with a bottomless backpack similar to Bing Bong's bottomless bag. Reaching inside, he pulled out a golden hockey stick and a rope.

"Here, hold this," he said, handing one end of the rope to Sadness.

She gave it a confused look before taking it. "Um, ok…"

"Good. Hold tight." He took the other end of the rope and went over to the control panel. "Now I just need a memory."

He pressed a button, and a memory popped out of the recall tube. He snatched it out and proceeded to tie the end of the rope around it.

"Excuse me," said Disgust impatiently, "but what's the point of this?"

He placed the memory with the rope tied around it on the floor. "This."

He hit the memory with the golden hockey stick. It bounced off one wall, then another, going around the five Emotions. The rope coiled around them, tightly wrapping around them like a tetherball pole.

The Emotions looked down at the rope wrapped around them in confusion before Anger's head ignited. "Hey, what gives?"

I.B. smirked as he twirled around the golden hockey stick. "Riley's imaginary Never-Miss-Hockey-Stick. Take a shot with this, and whatever you hit will automatically go where you want it. I could have closed my eyes and made a shot away from you, and still have hit that memory right down your throat if that was my goal." He motioned towards them. "That rope is imaginary too. It can never be broken, cut, or untied by that which it is binding."

The Emotions began struggling and found that he was right. The rope remained stuck to them, unmoving and unloosening.

"What do you think you're doing?" Disgust demanded. "This is so not cool."

I.B. casually strolled over to them. "Not cool? You want to know what's really not cool? Being an imaginary boyfriend created to be perfect in every way, only to be discarded and forgotten as soon as the girl that thought you up gets a real one. That is not cool."

"What are you babbling about?" Anger snarled.

I.B. scoffed. "Of course you wouldn't understand. You're Riley's Emotions. You're a part of her. She'll always need you. But us imaginary characters, we're just temporary individuals that are only around for a limited amount of time until our person doesn't need us anymore and forgets about us completely. They move on and cast us aside to either be forgotten, locked away in their subconscious, or lost in the back of their mind."

He tapped the golden hockey stick against palm. "But not me. I can't just be forgotten. I won't be. I love Riley too much. I would die for Riley!"

"That is seriously getting old," Fear muttered, who was strangely calm for being the Emotion that he was.

I.B. pointed the hockey stick at him, causing the purple Emotion to panic. "No one loves Riley more than me. No one. Certainly not that Jordan. I'm much better for her than he is."

"You are imaginary, you idiot!" Anger snapped. "Riley can't have an imaginary boyfriend in real life! Now let us out of here, we have a job to do!"

I.B. smirked. "Not anymore. I'll be taking over."

Joy's mouth dropped open. "What?"

"Well, you've done such a great job training me, especially you, Sadness. And after reading all these mind manuals, I'm more than capable of working the control panel."

Joy began struggling harder. "No! I.B., no! You're not qualified! You'll only end up hurting Riley!"

He chuckled. "Have more faith. I think I might actually be more qualified than any of you. Unlike you five, I'm not limited to a single feeling. I'll tell Riley how she should feel. And my first order of business is to have her break up with Jordan."

Joy's eyes widened in horror. "What? Why? You can't!"

I.B.'s grin widened. "Oh, but I can." He walked over to the shelves filled with of ideas and picked up a light bulb in the shape of a heart with a crack going down the side. "All I have to do is put the idea in her head, and presto."

Disgust rolled her eyes. "Uch, don't you know anything? She won't break up with him just because you put the idea in her head. We control how she feels, bring up past memories, and put ideas in her head, but she's the one who decides what to do in the end. Are you sure you didn't skip a few chapters?"

If she thought this would discourage him, she was wrong. "That may be true, but there are ways to manipulate her. All I have to do is constantly make her feel angry, sad, and disgusted whenever she's with Jordan, no matter what happens. And when she's not with him, I'll constantly reply unhappy memories of her time with him, like the arguments they've had. She'll take the idea eventually and act upon it."

"And then what?" Anger demanded. "Just have her be all alone forever?"

"Nooooo!" Fear wailed. "We're gonna be a spinster!"

Ignoring the hysterical Emotion, I.B. addressed the red one. "Not entirely. She'll have me. I'll keep on having her think about her memories of me, and I'll make sure she's happy when she thinks of me in the future." He went over to the control panel and pressed a button. "All I have to do is summon a memory of me, and…"

"TripleDent Gum, will make you smile! TripleDent Gum, it lasts a while-"

"That's not it," he grumbled, sending the memory back. "In any case, I'll make sure she's happy. I may need to take out a few of her Core Memories, but I'll-"

"Take out her Core Memories?!" Joy exclaimed. "Are you insane?!"

"I would die for Riley! I'm the only one that can make her happy, and I'll be sure to do it. She'll only think about me. It'll just be the two of us, together forever."

"Ok, you are, like, officially crazy," said Disgust. "You can't have her pining away over you for the rest of her life. It's not real."

He glared at her. "You Emotions have no right to talk. You don't know what it's like to be forgotten, to be cast aside for something else. Well, not me. I won't allow it. Riley is mine now. You five are no longer needed."

He pressed a button, and a recall tube slid down from the ceiling. I.B. walked over and picked up the memory tied to the end of the rope. He glanced at the Emotions, noticing the heartbroken look on Sadness' face.

Sighing, he gave her a look that was almost apologetic. "Hey, I'm sorry about this, babe. It's nothing personal. You were just a means to an end."

A tear slid down the blue Emotions cheek. "So then everything between us was a lie?"

"Not necessarily. I was created to be Riley's idea of a perfect boyfriend. She means everything to be, and I'm willing to do whatever it takes to get her. As the perfect boyfriend, I know what it takes to make a girl happy, especially Riley since I'm her ideal boyfriend. And Sadness, no offense, but your very nature made it very easy to get to you."

Fire shot up from Anger's head. "I swear, when I get out of this-"

"Sorry," I.B. interrupted as he held the tied up memory under the recall tube, "I can't hear you over your exit."

The recall tube sucked up the memory, which pulled the rope, which pulled the bound Emotions. They cried out as they were sucked up and dragged out of Headquarters. Screams emitted from the Emotions, especially Fear until he passed out from fright.

They were spat back out into a pile of memories in Long Term. There were pained groans, especially from Anger, who had ended up on the bottom.

Shifting until they were upright, Anger spat out three memories. "I think I just swallowed the memory of what Riley had for breakfast this morning."

"Forget what she had for breakfast!" Joy cried. "We just got kicked out of Headquarters!"

Disgust shifted against her bindings. "Hey, Sadness is the one who let him into Headquarters in the first place. This is all her fault."

"You're right," the blue Emotion replied tearfully. "I'm so worthless."

"No, no, no, you're not," said Joy. "It's not your fault."

"Um, yes, it is," Anger growled. "We only agreed to let him in because she was enamored with him."

"Can't argue with that," Fear muttered as he began to regain consciousness.

"This is what happens when you break the rules," Disgust added.

Joy shook her head. "Look, now's not the time. We need to find a Mind Worker or an imaginary character to get us out of these ropes."

"I've had my fill with imaginary characters for today," Anger grumbled.

"Well, we can't get out of this on our own," Disgust reminded him. "Everyone, on your feet."

Working together, they shifted onto their feet and stood up. Being much shorter, Anger and Sadness' legs dangled down, unable to reach the ground as the three taller Emotions tried to get balanced.

"Will you hurry up!" Anger snapped. "We need to get out of here and get back up to Headquarters."

"Yeah, no kidding, genius," Disgust remarked. "Got any bright ideas in that blowtorch you call a head?"

"The train," said Sadness. "It's how I.B. came to visit me before."

"Of course, the train!" Joy exclaimed. "If we can get to the next station, we can take the train all the way up to Headquarters, and have it take I.B. back to Imagination Land when it leaves."

"But what if we don't make it to the next station in time?" Fear asked.

"Then we just take the next one when it comes, duh," Disgust muttered.

"The next one won't come until tomorrow. What if I.B. completely ruins Riley and Jordan's relationship before then?"

"Think positive," said Joy.

"Ok," Sadness muttered. "I'm positive we won't make it in time."

Joy resisted the urge to groan; she should have seen that coming. "We can do it, Sadness. Where's the closest station?"

The blue Emotion motioned with her head. "That way."

"Ok then, let's go. Right, left, right, left."

They slowly moved along, trying to remain balanced as Joy, Fear, and Disgust all but carried the two shorter Emotions. Tied together as they were, it made it very hard to move, and it wasn't long before they toppled over.

"Guys," Fear muttered, "this isn't working."

(A/N: I.B. has made his true intentions know. You probably figured that out early on based on this story's summary though. I'm not entirely happy with the way this chapter turned out, but I was suffering from a bit of a writer's block. I really hate those things. So, now we have the Emotions kicked out of Headquarters, and I.B. has taken over with the intent to sabotage Riley's relationship. But after having made the journey back before, surely Joy and Sadness will be able to lead them all back a second time, right? Guess we'll have to wait and see.)