AN: Before we start this chapter, I have an important message to all of my readers out there: Don't start writing fics for ongoing works unless you're sure you can keep posting chapters at a fast rate. "Yellow Helicopters" and "Cassette" were great, but they pretty much wrecked the entire plot of this fic (and yes, I had everything planned). I agonized a bit on whether to try and fit the events of those last two episodes with the plot, or to just keep doing it as I planned and call it an AU. I think I'm just going with the latter. Trying to tie it in with the show, while possible, would be needlessly complicated and would just ruin the mystery of "Cassette". So this is a different AU, the "Yellow Helicopters" and "Cassette" episodes don't count in this realm and I hope that in spite of my lack of ability to deliver these on time, you'll still find my story enjoyable. I might use some ideas from those episodes in the story, though… (Also, this chapter is super long, to make up for the wait)
"And none of this seems stranger to you at all?" Carlos asked, as they ran into the chaotic town. He tried to stop and catch his breath again, but had to jump aside when a huge slimy tentacle burst from the ground. Say whatever you wanted about his cardiovascular condition, but living in Night Vale had done wonders for his reflexes.
Cecil looked around, searching for something unusual. "….I guess so many events happening at once isn't something that occurs every day but-"
At that point he had to stop, because Larry Leroy (out on the edge of town) was flung toward them by some unseen force. They dodged Larry, and he landed on the sidewalk without a scratch, although the sidewalk itself seemed a bit dented.
"Um, Larry?" Carlos asked, worriedly while slowly backing away.
Larry's head turned 180 degrees; he hissed and lurched toward them. They dodged him again, and again he landed on the sidewalk. This time Larry seemed to be affected by the blow and just lay there, jerking while bleeding a weird black substance.
"Well, I don't remember him ever doing that before," Cecil said without much alarm. The ground beneath them shook. "You have a plan, right, Carlos?"
"If my theory is correct, then just you being here should fix things up." Carlos smiled. The ground shook again. Carlos looked worried
"Maybe… maybe it takes time," Cecil said.
"Yeah, maybe." Carlos wasn't entirely convinced. "We'll go to my lab; I have some stuff there that can help us."
The ground shook again, then violently ripped apart to reveal a swirling nothing with rows of sharp teeth.
"And by 'go', I meant 'run'," Carlos said. "Again" he added to himself, bitterly.
They started running, avoiding the holes and spikes that kept popping out of the ground, as well as the occasional resident of Night Vale who kept being tossed in their way.
"So Carlos, you haven't told me your theory yet," Cecil said and dodged a small child that exploded into something gooey and sticky before hitting the ground.
"Oh, yeah, sorry," Carlos said "you see-"
A weird buzzing noise was heard, and from the corner of their eyes they could see the Glow Cloud slowly approaching, leaving behind a trail of dead animals.
They turned a corner, and watched until the cloud was out of hearing, under the assumption that a large, glowing, mind controlling cloud had the same hearing range as a human being.
"So, as I was saying-" Carlos said, quietly.
But then a swarm of flies attacked them. Well, maybe "attack" was the wrong word, since the flies didn't seem to do any harm. They just gathered around Cecil and Carlos in a cloud thick enough to prevent them from talking, as just opening their mouths a little would make them choke on dozens of flies. The flies kept swirling around them as they kept running until the cloud was so dense that Cecil and Carlos had problems breathing. Then the flies just scattered off for no apparent reason, looking slightly ashamed.
Carlos spat out a few flies. "Hmmm..." he mumbled, thinking to himself. Then he shouted "ANYWAY MY THEORY IS-"
The sound of shrieking sirens was heard, and driving on the slowly disintegrating road as if nothing was wrong, was a black van with dark windows - which everybody knew belonged to the Sheriff's Secret Police.
"Cecil and Carlos! You are meddling in affairs beyond your permitted levels of knowledge!" shouted someone from inside the car. "On orders of the City Council, you are to be sent to re-education. We have you surrounded!"
Several other cars popped out, circled around Cecil and Carlos, and out of the cars came a seemingly impossible amount of baklava-wearing officers, government agents in black suits, a few familiar citizens (although Carlos could've sworn that most of them had been flung at them a few minutes ago, and looked a lot more injured when they hit the ground), and even some of the angels, clad in their usual angelic robes.
"If you get out willingly, you'll…um… you'll…" a mumbling was heard from the main car, "…get a… a lollipop!"
Carlos dragged Cecil into an alleyway created by one building flying in the air and crashing into the other.
"Listen, Cecil," he sighed. He felt like a bad boyfriend for having practiced this speech in his head, but as much as he wanted to see Cecil's blind loyalty to the various shady organizations that ruled Night Vale as just an endearing quirk, he always knew that one day it would be at odds with Carlos' job. He just hoped that Cecil would understand him, that they could work it out, that it would go better than the worst case scenario Carlos' brain kept imagining. "I know you're not going to like it at first, but…"
However, to his surprise, Cecil grabbed him and looked at him with a very serious and concerned expression on his face.
"Oh, dear Carlos, I think your theory might be more right then you thought!" Cecil moved from concern to fear. "Night Vale is falling apart! I'm sorry, but we'll have to defy the City Council. For the greater good of the city!"
"Umm, I kinda expected you..." Carlos mumbled. Now he felt like a really awful boyfriend. "...never mind..." Those kinds of problems would be settled when Night Vale was safe. Well, as safe as Night Vale was usually.
"The Sheriff's Secret Police would never work with the angels! Because they're not real! And if they were, they would never work for the City Council!" Cecil continued in a panicked tone. "Whatever did this can rip apart reality to try and capture us!" As Cecil spoke, Carlos realized that the town's chaotic streets were slowly turning back to their usual selves and the cars were disappearing.
"And it clearly doesn't like it when you try to talk about your theory."
"The good news is-" Carlos added, then noticed that the street being stabilized wasn't the street he expected, but one closer to the lab, "-that we don't need to worry all that much anymore. My theory is right! You're stabilizing the town!"
Cecil looked back in surprise and suddenly Night Vale seemed to shriek. It glowed in a variety of quickly changing colors and started to disintegrate again.
"Or maybe not..." Carlos put a determined look on his face, and they started running again.
Quickly they went into the lab. Outside of a few broken windows, it was unharmed.
Carlos pulled a slice of Wheat-Free Pizza, thrown at them by the giant, man-eating Pizza Blob that came out of Big Rico's to capture them, out of his hair. Cecil noticed this and immediately started cleaning the cheese remains out of Carlos' hair.
"Cecil! Saving Night Vale now, hair later!" Carlos said, not for the first time. "Come on! This is going to help us." He went towards a half finished device on the table, turned around and saw Cecil's disappointed face. "Something is very wrong in Night Vale, you said so yourself."
"Yes, yes... rescuing the community from the clutches of this unknown menace is more important than your h... your... then your ha-" he paused, "-more important than anything. I'm sorry, Carlos," he said to his boyfriend, who was busy finishing up his device.
It looked like it was made mostly from household items; a vacuum cleaner, a few lamps, a small computer screen and a balloon – although from inside it, Cecil could hear the humming and buzzing of the various scientific devices Carlos kept in his lab, which Cecil was never quite sure what they did but they were still fascinating.
Carlos looked very pleased with himself, checking to see if any sort of crazy things were going to attack his new device. "This is supposed to-" he then looked around nervously. "Remember what I told you this morning? About the energy that I believe holds Night Vale together?" For the sake of his lab, he avoided explaining more about his theory. "This is going to cancel that energy," he petted the device affectionately, "just temporarily, so it won't do any permanent damage to Night Vale, but we will still be able to defend ourselves."
Carlos wondered how he could test whether it would work, then realized that he knew the answer to that question. "SO, ABOUT MY THEORY!" he shouted.
The giant pizza hand broke through the wall and tried to grab them. Carlos aimed the device at the creature. Without anything like a flash of light, or a glowing energy wave, the hand shook and turned into sand.
"Sand? That's… not what I expected." Carlos handed over the device to Cecil and carefully touched the sand. It felt like real sand, although that wasn't saying much, since a few moments ago it felt like a real giant wheat-free pizza monster.
Suddenly the sand shifted again into a solid form. Carlos didn't even have time to blink before he was grabbed by the giant disembodied hand. Cecil aimed the device at the thing and it turned back into sand.
"Keep it on!" Carlos shouted and moved back as fast as he could. "I don't understand! That should've worked!" he bumped into one of the tables, picked some of his notes and checked them.
"It did-"
"No! It should've neutralized the energy effect longer!" Carlos yelled at himself. "Something is wrong here!"
Suddenly Cecil's phone started ringing.
"Oh, that's Intern Charlie," Cecil said. "I guess Station Management wants me to do a special report. Carlos, do you mind answering it for me? We shouldn't anger Management."
Carlos answered the phone and a young voice on the other side said, "Cecil, you fool. Just give up on him and get everything back to how it's supposed to be." Then Carlos noticed that the phone started heating up and quickly threw it to the ground, where it exploded.
"Oh..." Cecil said. "That's the third one this month..."
Carlos wondered if he meant the intern or the phone. Probably the phone; interns died at a much faster rate.
The city shook again.
"Um, Carlos… this theory of yours…" Cecil said, worriedly.
"I don't know! It should've worked!" Carlos stopped for a second and threw his notes away "I'm such an idiot! I was so sure I was on to something I… arrgh!" He sat down and rested his head on the table. "…idiot…" he mumbled.
"Carlos…" Cecil looked at him, he really wanted to go and comfort Carlos. But he had that curious piece of sand to keep in check and-
Suddenly the sand disappeared. Cecil didn't notice because he was too busy with Carlos, but the chaos outside the lab calmed down.
Just enough to give him and Carlos some time, but not too much to make it obvious like last time.
Carlos noticed Cecil's hand stroking his back, he looked up.
"I'm sorry for dragging you all the way here, I was just…everything seemed to come together for a second," Carlos said, "but, I think my theory is incorrect."
Suddenly everything went quiet.
"Wait, I think it actually-?" Cecil started. Everything went crazy again, and judging from the intensity of the screaming and other noises outside, it was worse than before. Several things flew over their heads, but were not really attempting to hurt, or even capture them.
"I… think that… whatever is doing all of this, is upset," Carlos said. "It thought that I was on to something, too. So it just wasted its time trying to stop me from telling you my theory."
There was another shriek. Actually, it sounded more like hundreds of shrieks, like every citizen in Night Vale was screaming as loud as they could, which was only supposed to happen on special occasions like weddings, or an 85% sale on dairy products at the Ralph's.
"You know, Carlos, I'm still pretty curious about that theory of yours." Cecil smiled an incredibly dorky smile. "You implied that I was… pretty central to its main idea."
"Yes, well. My theory WAS-" Carlos emphasized the last word as much as he could. They both flinched, but nothing happened. "-that this town is like one living creature. The energy readings I've picked up are part of what connects it all together. But it creates too much energy, so it focuses on a certain person to balance itself. I thought you were this person. That Night Vale used you, and possibly the other radio announcers before you, to balance itself. And that the chaos in the town was because you left and made Night Vale go off balance. But if THAT was true, things should've been fixed by now. So I think-"
Carlos noticed suddenly that Cecil had returned to worryingly and gently cleaning up bits of cheese and sand out of Carlos' hair.
"Hair. Later. Cecil." Cecil sighed sadly. "When we finish saving Night Vale, I promise you'll get to wash my hair tonight"
"Really?" Cecil squealed in happiness.
"Oh, yeah. And you can shampoo it" Carlos gave Cecil his device. It might not have been as effective as Carlos had thought, but at least it did something. He also kept some weapons at his lab just in case, although he hoped it would never come to this. He didn't actually know how to use them and he would probably look really pathetic if he tried to. Still, he tucked a gun into his lab coat pocket, and several protection spells Cecil had recommended to him into the other one. "But right now, we have a town to save… " they started walking to the main door, "and I don't even know where-"
Carlos opened the door and realized that his lab was actually floating, perhaps 20 meters from the ground. Night Vale was still glitchy, and several other buildings were also floating.
"The library would be a good place to start!" Cecil said happily and pointed to the building, which was indeed close enough to the lab that they could jump to it. "Normally, I would have said we should avoid it, but…" he shrugged, "librarians are really not as bad as some of the other things we had to deal with today." Cecil was still pretty excited about saying "we". For a change, he and his Carlos were actually going on a Night-Vale saving adventure together, instead of him having to stay behind.
Carlos agreed, and with slight difficulty, the two jumped to the entrance of the library. Cecil opened the doors. Inside the library was even more badly lit then usually and it looked abandoned, which wasn't unusual. Librarians are good at sneaking.
"Remember, if we do meet a librarian, we should both cut off one of our arms and offer them as gifts," Cecil said, using his phone as a flashlight. "There's a 67% chance they'll accept it and leave us alone, okay?"
"Yes, Cecil, you tell me that every time I go to the library…" Carlos answered.
"I'm just worried-WAIT!" Cecil suddenly shouted, "I haven't thought about what we should do if the librarian accepts one offering, but not the other…" He pondered for a second. "Carlos! We should totally connect the remaining arm to the other person!" He waited for an excited reaction from Carlos. "Like, if the librarian doesn't eat my arm, you could have it and if your arm doesn't get eaten, I would get it! Isn't that, like, the most romantic thing ever?"
"I don't think we'll meet a librarian. I think this place really is abandoned" Carlos replied, and then noticed the books. There was something wrong. "I'm pretty sure those books weren't here before…" He took one off the shelf. "'The Best of H. P. Lovecraft: Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre'? Have you seen this book here before?"
"Oh Carlos, you know I don't like all those hyper-realistic stories," Cecil rolled his eyes. "But… I don't think I ever saw this book before…" his head started to hurt again,"…anywhere"
Carlos took a closer look at the book; it was in bad shape, but not in the usual Night Vale Public Library way. Yes, there was an occasional blood splatter, but mostly it just had slightly torn pages (not shredded with claws, just a bit torn) and silly doodles. Normal things you could find in any "favorite book" of a child or teenager. He had a few books like that, mostly the "Young Scientist" types of books. It was hard to read the text with only the light from his phone but from what he could tell, it was indeed just a normal collection of Lovecraft stories. Carlos browsed through the pages, looking for something unusual and then stopped at the first page.
On the first page, someone had written a name. Presumably someone who once owned the book and wanted people to know whose it was in case it ever got lost. Someone had written, "Cecil G. Palmer."
"You… never saw this book before?" Carlos asked.
Cecil grabbed the book and looked at the cover. "No" he gave Carlos the book back "why?"
"Well…" Carlos was starting to think about what to tell Cecil, when he noticed the book was suddenly replaced by a brain dripping blood. Carlos automatically threw it away in disgust. They both looked around, confused, then the library suddenly blinked out of existence and was replaced by something else.
Something similar, but blood-soaked, and filled with bright, smiling shapes.