A/N: Whew! Sorry about the big delay guys, I got a bit sidetracked with other stuff, both IRL and online. To compensate, this is the longest chapter yet. Enjoy, and happy holidays!
Clancy looked attentively at the black hole in front of him, and just as the other toons in the room, he was waiting for the arrival of Kelly and Vincent. But the person that came out took everyone by surprise, and it didn't help that they were screaming at the top of their lungs before hitting the cold hard ground.
Connor muttered a little "Ow." before rising to his knees. All sorts of colorful animals were staring at him in shock. He tried to open his mouth to ask something, but all that came out was a long "Uhh…"
Clancy gulped and looked at Connor with surprise, "Who're you?" he interrogated the best stern tone he could manage.
"Who are you?" Connor shot back.
Clancy looked insulted, "B-But, I asked first!" he whined.
"Well I asked second – ahh!" Connor was about to say before being shoved forward by something or someone hitting him from behind. Falling on his face, he was pinned down by the weight of somebody else that had also come from the portal.
Anthony groaned and got off Connor's back, apparently he had followed him all the way to the alternate universe. Casual.
Connor shot up again and looked to his side, noticing Anthony sitting next to him, immediately kneeling down to help his friend up.
"Anthony? What are you doing here?" Connor asked as Anthony dusted his pants, "Where are we?" he inquired, this time turning to Clancy.
"You're in Toontown!" A voice called from the back of the small crowd in front of Anthony and Connor, the toons dispersed and revealed Flippy, "Oh my… Who are you guys?"
"I'm… C- Mmph!" Connor's mouth was covered by Anthony's hand, and the little kid looked at the toons around them with a funny face.
"Shh! Stranger danger!" Anthony told to Connor, and then looked at the toons again, "He looks suspicious!"
'Anthony, I just said your name out loud…' Connor thought.
"Suspicious? Absolutely not, little buddy!" Flippy assured, "We mean no harm, we just – I guess we just brought you in by accident…"
Anthony pouted, "What do you mean by accident?" he asked.
Connor moved Anthony's hand away from his mouth, "Who did you want to bring in?" he seconded.
"Somebody else," Flippy shrugged, and then looked over at the toons operating the computers, "What happened, guys?"
The scientist toons looked over at the data that was displayed on the computer, and after some moments they found the error that someone had made. The scientist that had made the mistake silently and swiftly fixed the error then looked over at Flippy, "It's all good now!" he assured.
"Oh!" Flippy hooted, then looked over at the two humans in front of him, "Guess that fixes it, you can go back home now! Sorry for the inconvenience."
"Wait a minute," Connor mused, "What do you need other humans for? In what part of the world are we, anyways?" he interrogated.
"You're not in your planet," Clancy added, and then backtracked when he realized how stupid it sounded all alone, "Well, I guess you're technically still in your planet? You're in a different dimension!" he concluded.
"Other humans agreed to help us out in an issue we have," Flippy added, "You see, we are being invaded by robots, and we have no idea where they came from…" he explained.
"Now that's stranger danger," Connor laughed, and then raised an eyebrow in confusion, "But, if you're invaded by robots what kind of people are you waiting for, soldiers?"
Anthony's eyes grew wide, "Or superheroes? Are you waiting for superheroes?" he asked in excitement at his theory.
"Not at all! Well, I'm not sure. For all I know they could be!" Flippy replied.
"Can we meet them?" Anthony asked.
"So much for the guy worried about stranger danger," Connor giggled, "But can we? I'd like to meet them, too!"
Flippy looked surprised, "You really want to?" he asked. Maybe, just maybe, the extra help he needed was coming to him via these two new humans. The dog looked over at the computer team, "Save this location, guys!" he ordered them, and after a few moments the black hole closed, the Dimensionator loading another shot.
Connor and Anthony stepped back as the Dimensionator gathered up energy again for another portal, this time – Flippy was sure – the other end of the new black hole would appear in the Petersons' backyard like it had done yesterday.
With a flurry of noises, the portal opened once more.
==MEANWHILE==
The sounds of a mediocre tuba show filled the Petersons' household. Vincent had gave up on practicing his drumming skills given how loud Kelly was playing her tuba, now just wondering how his parents and him were capable of standing such noise for too long-
"Kelly!" Mr. Peterson had to shout to get her attention, "Calm down with the tuba, please."
Kelly, lowered her tuba and pouted, freeing the house of the sounds of the instrument she was playing. With a sigh she put away her tuba and sat down on the couch next to Vincent, who was more than glad that the environment was much quieter. Their father, relieved as well, went back to his office room.
"How much longer do we have to wait until the portal opens?" Kelly whined, resting her head on Vincent's shoulder. On cue, the two heard a small sound coming from the backyard – that had to be Flippy and the rest!
"Nevermind!" Kelly chimed and sprang up, trotting towards the backyard, not before asking Vincent "Did you tell our parents?"
Vincent nodded and went after her. The two had agreed to make an excuse for being absent for a few hours – they were waiting for an event in the park near their house. Thankfully neither Mr. nor Mrs. Peterson noticed the duo exiting the house through the back door rather than the front door.
With a (very ungraceful) leap, Kelly and Vincent hopped into the black hole, ready to resume their Toontown shenanigans.
==MEANWHILE==
Connor and Anthony didn't really know what to expect from the portal. Would the persons that came out of the black hole be actually average? How old were they? Would they be nice to them? Those were some questions that Connor pondered about; Anthony was just excited about finding out if these people were soldiers or the like.
And then in a flash two bodies launched into the room and fell on the floor face-first with a slapping sound. So much for superheroes, huh?
Flippy and Clancy rushed to help Kelly and Vincent up. The two siblings looked around, before locking their sight on the newcomers.
"…Flippy what the heck." Vincent said flatly, studying the two kids in front of him. One of them looked familiar.
"Hey, I've seen you at school!" Kelly said to Connor, who pointed at himself in confusion. Kelly nodded at the gesture, "Yeah! We've never talked, though…"
Connor blinked at a loss of words. Was he confused, or…?
Flippy, however, took this chance to speak up, "So, I'm assuming you guys live close together?" he asked, the replies he got were shrugs and nods, "Well… I guess that's it guys!"
Anthony pouted, "That's it?" he asked, "But- But- We haven't seen them do some cool robot fighting stuff! We don't even know their names!"
Kelly held back a giggle, "Aww, so you have told them about us, Flippy?" she asked the blue dog, then looked over at Anthony, "My name is Kelly! Kelly Peterson, and this," she introduced herself and pulled Vincent into a sideway hug, "Is my brother Vincent!"
Vincent looked at the duo in front of him with a goofy grin, "Hi guys! What are your names?" he asked, waving hello at them.
"I'm Anthony!" Anthony puffed out with pride, Connor on the other hand shrugged. "I'm Connor, Connor Olmos!" Connor greeted.
"Can we see some cool robot fighting?" Anthony turned to Flippy, putting on his best puppy eyes, "Please, just this once!"
"Well I…" Flippy mumbled, glancing at the other toons, who all gave him a "why not?" sort of shrug, "Suppose you can! But we have to stock you guys up with some gags first!" he finally decided, which caused Anthony to give off a very excited squeal, "Come on guys, this way." the toon urged and led the group of four towards the upper floors of the Town Hall.
==A LITTLE WHILE LATER==
Flippy swung open the double doors of the Town Hall and trotted down the stairs with Kelly, Vincent, Connor and Anthony following after him. Connor and Anthony were spinning around, taking in every single detail of the new world around them.
"Hey!" Connor shouted, pointing at the top of the Town Hall, "Is that Mickey?!"
Instantly the others whipped their heads and stared up at the sign that adorned the Town Hall. Flippy's jaw dropped open in surprise.
"You know Mickey?!" The dog asked in shock.
"Yeah! He's a cartoon in our world," Kelly added, before her mind clicked together, "Wait a minute – Does this mean other characters like Donald or Pluto live here?!" she asked.
"Can we meet them instead of fighting robots?" Anthony begged.
Flippy tugged at the neck of his shirt, "Erm, sorry guys, but I'm afraid not," he stated, which caused the rest of the group to sag, "Donald and the others have long since moved into other towns. And as for Mickey and Pluto, well…"
==MEANWHILE, IN A PLACE FAR, FAR AWAY FROM OUR MAIN STORY==
"Oh boy!" Mickey chimed, hopping onto a tanning chair next to his dog, Pluto, "This cruiser will sure be fun! I hope no big changes occur in Toontown while we're gone, because we're going to be on this vacation for a long, long time!" he chimed and gave Pluto a piña colada, to which Pluto replied with a happy bark and began to drink the beverage.
==BACK TO THE STORY==
"…He's out of town as of now." Flippy shrugged.
"Aw, bummer…" Anthony mumbled, "Can we still fight robots, though?"
"You sure can, buddy!" Flippy assured, "Come along with me, guys!"
The toon leaded the group of humans all across the other side of the playground. They approached a small area with a trolley leading into a pitch-black tunnel seemingly powered by a wind-up key.
"This is the game trolley," Flippy explained, "You can play games and you win jellybeans in return."
"Jellybeans?" Vincent asked, "What are we supposed to do with them?"
"Well, jellybeans are our form of currency; you're going to need them to buy some gags over there." Flippy explained, pointing at a shop next to the trolley.
"Alright…" Connor hummed, "What are we supposed to do in the games? How does the trolley even work?" he asked.
"The games are very simple, trust me!" Flippy assured, "Once you all hop into the trolley it will automatically bring you to a game, and as soon as you're done you'll be brought to the gag shop."
"Wait, you're not coming with us?" Kelly whimpered.
"No, the trolley only manages up to four players," Flippy shrugged, "But don't worry, if you ever get stuck the trolley allows you to exit the minigame. Oh! I almost forgot! You'll need a place to store your jellybeans -"
"Eh, I'm sure we can just store them in our pockets." Vincent added.
"Come on!" Anthony interrupted the explanation, "I want to battle robots!" he begged, tugging Connor's shirt.
"OK guys, guess we've got to get going!" Kelly added, and the four kids (well, more along the lines of 3 teens and one kid) hopped onto the trolley. Connor and Kelly were in between Anthony and Vincent, and while Connor was more or less pleased with the result, his face made him look as if he was uncomfortable. The wind-up key on top of the trolley made a jingle and began spinning slowly, and soon the trolley itself began to move into the black tunnel opposite to the gag shop.
For a while all the four kids could see was darkness, but soon the trolley approached a light source and eventually stopped moving when it reached the inside of a large room with a series of blue squares on the floor. The group jumped out of the trolley and into the room, bemused at all the plates on the floor.
"What are these?" Vincent asked and approached a square in the corner, as soon as his foot touched the tile, it flipped around rapidly, causing Vincent to scream and fall on his back. The tile now had the picture of a squirting flower.
"It's a memory game!" Kelly exclaimed and poked another tile with the tip of her foot. This tile now had a pink background and the photo of a cupcake, "Aw shoot…"
Anthony rushed into the middle tiles, carefully avoiding stepping into other ones, and tapped another tile. The two revealed tiles went back to their unrevealed state as the new one showed to be another cupcake. On cue Kelly tapped her tile again, and as soon as the picture of the cupcake came into place the two tiles disappeared with a satisfactory jingle.
"Wow, that's a bit freaky…" Connor muttered and began tapping tiles as well, Vincent following soon after he stood up.
The group managed to get a few pairs of pictures to disappear, but this was hard considering most of the time they opened tiles in a rush or accidentally stepped into another one. In frustration, Anthony looked over to where the trolley was parked and noticed a clock that was counting down to something.
"Guys, look!" Anthony shouted and pointed at the timer, the others making faces in disgust.
"We're on a timer?!" Connor whined, and then looked at their insignificant progress, "At this pace we'll never finish in time!"
Anthony, Kelly, Connor and Vincent stood there for a couple of seconds figuring out what to do. They had 30 seconds left, and a lot of tiles that still needed to be uncovered.
"You know what?!" Vincent screeched, "Screw this! Nobody's got the time for the memory game!" and as soon as he said that, he sprinted across a row of tiles, uncovering each after the other. The others took cue and took rows of their own to run across. The room soon was filled with the abundant noises of tiles flapping and victory jingles as soon as pairs were found.
Amongst all the chaos that the kids were stirring up pair after pair of tiles was found and wiped off the room. 10 seconds were left and the group had reached the end of the room, they all turned around, and to their horror, the final pair was at the other end of the room. Vincent however didn't waste time and sprinted towards the tiles, with Connor following soon after as soon as he realized what was going on.
7… 6… 5… The sprint towards the tiles seemed like an eternity.
4… 3… 2… The duo was so close, yet so far. In an act of desperation, Connor and Vincent launched themselves towards the tiles at the same time.
1… As soon as their bodies hit the blue squares they were mercilessly shot out into the air as the tiles swapped to reveal the last pair.
The pair of bike horn pictures disappeared from view as soon as the timer hit 0. Vincent and Connor faceplanted the floor with a thud as the room blared a much longer victory jingle. Seems as they won apparently.
Kelly and Anthony rushed to help the two while laughing about it. Kelly helped up her brother and adjusted his glasses.
"Did we win?" Vincent asked, rubbing his nose.
"We sure did!" Kelly chimed, putting her hands on her hips as soon as Vincent regained balance, "Now come on you most valuable players, we've got to see how we're going to get jellybeans."
The group hopped onto the trolley in between giggles, and as soon as the last person boarded the trolley began to move towards another black tunnel. Soon another place came into view; it seemed to be the back of the gag shop, as it was an open place with a table and four empty plates and small screens in front of them, to the right was the back entrance to the gag shop. As soon as the kids stepped out of the trolley the screens all flashed the number 40, and with a puff of smoke a pile of exactly 40 jellybeans appeared in each plate.
"Woah, we're loaded!" Connor joked and approached his plate, picking up his jellybeans with both hands, "Oh, oh crap," he eeked, "How are we going to open the door now?"
Vincent rolled his eyes and headed to the door, opening it before reaching into his pile of jellybeans.
==MEANWHILE==
Flippy was talking on and on about the humans that had just entered the trolley to a red rabbit that worked on the gag shop: Clara.
"So… When are they returning?" Clara asked.
"Well, I suppose they should be here at any moment -"
The door that led to the back of the store flung open and after a while the 4 humans rushed inside, all their hands cupped to support all the jellybeans they had won.
"Wow, you guys did great!" Flippy congratulated.
Vincent rushed to where Clara was sitting and spilled all his jellybeans into the table, "GAG SELLER, I DEMAND YOUR FINEST GAGS!" he stated, putting his hands on his hips.
Clara just stared at him dumbfounded.
Vincent laughed nervously and adjusted his glasses, "Haha, sorry about that, I couldn't help it," he giggled, "What can I buy with this, for real this time?"
"Oh! Well, I think for the moment you can only buy cupcakes and squirting flowers," Clara said and reached for the giant shelves behind her, looking for the gags she was about to sell the group. After a bit, she stopped and turned her head to look at the kids, "Hold on, do you guys have gag pouches?" she asked.
"A gag pouch?" Vincent asked.
"Yes, it allows you to store your gags easily," Clara explained, "Err, you don't have one, do you?" she asked, and the group shook their heads in unison, "Alright then, give me a second!"
==SOMETIME LATER==
Kelly, Anthony, Connor and Vincent had all received small gag pouches from Clara for free, the hammerspace inside them let the kids carry 20 gags each, spread evenly in cupcakes and squirting flowers. The group then rushed towards the nearest tunnel to a street, Loopy Lane, in order to fight a cog, with Flippy tagging along with them.
The group looked around for any sort of robot that could have been roaming the streets, but aside from the few toons running about, there was no activity on Loopy Lane. Until…
"What the heck is that?!" Connor shrieked, pointing at a slender robot in the distance.
"Is a Cog!" Vincent replied and ran towards it, Kelly, Anthony, Connor and Flippy following soon after.
On a closer look, the Cog was thin and had white skin, err, metal plates. It had a navy blue suit with a red bowtie. But what stood out most about it were its huge, pointy fangs sticking out of his mouth.
"That's a Bloodsucker!" Flippy added.
Kelly snatched a cupcake from her pouch and readied it to throw it at the Cog, "Hey! Suck on this!" she taunted, and before the Bloodsucker got a chance to react, the cupcake had already hit it square in the face, dealing a considerable amount of damage.
The Cog quickly shook off the cream out of his face and looked at his attacker. What on Cog Nation was that?! And there were 4 of them, all ready to pelt him with more of those insufferable gags! The rules he was given included never backing down from a fight with a toon, but these… things, whatever they were, were clearly not toons at all. Surely the boss could make an exception –
SPLAT!
Anthony hurled another cupcake, and this time the Bloodsucker didn't hesitate to pull out a propeller from the top of his head and start it up, lifting his feet from the ground.
"The Chairman must know about you!" The Bloodsucker shrieked as his propeller raised him to the skies. The kids all tried to pelt him with more gags before he got away, but he was just simply too fast, and soon enough the Cog was nothing but a speck on the sky.
"Hey! Come back and fight you coward!" Anthony shouted and shook a cupcake furiously in his hand. All of the others just stared in awe at the reaction the Cog had made.
"Are those things meant to do that?" Connor asked to Flippy.
The toon shook his head, not taking his eyes off the sky, "I've never seen a Cog retreat like that…" he admitted, and looked at the kids with a hint of worry in his face, "Um, guys? I'm sorry to say this but, I think I'm going to have to cut the guide trip short, something important just came up." he said, dead serious.
==EVEN LATER THAT NIGHT==
All the kids had returned back to Earth, they all agreed that tomorrow they couldn't make it, they had important stuff to attend to, but they could go back to Toontown the day after.
The playground in Toontown Central had no one in it, most of the toons had gone back home or to the streets for some shopping, and the ones who remained were just the night shift clerks of the buildings in the area.
Inside the Toon Hall, however, everything was lonely except for Flippy's office. The blue dog was pacing around the room as another red dog looked at him intrigued.
"Who the heck is the Chairman?" The red dog asked, tapping his foot.
"I don't know, Lowden!" Flippy wheezed, "That Bloodsucker just said his name, maybe the Chairman's his – I don't know, boss or something!"
"Well, if it is their boss, then we might be into something big," The red dog, named Lowden, added, "But if said Chairman actually finds out about the… humans that you're bringing here, you're putting them in jeopardy, don't you think?"
"Not as long as they don't find out where the Dimensionator is hidden…" Flippy hissed.
"And if they do?" Lowden dared to ask, "You know how Cogs are, trying to pry their hands into anything they consider profitable. You just gave them a clue that we're onto something."
Flippy sagged, "I know…" he muttered.
Lowden stood up, easily taller than Flippy, and put a hand on his shoulder, "Look Flippy, I know why you wanted to get help from the humans, and that Bloodsucker running away wasn't your fault, but we need to keep this hidden from the Cogs as best as possible." he stated.
"But then how will we get help?" Flippy asked.
"Well, we'll have to think on that," Lowden shrugged, "But for now, putting some kids from another dimension in peril isn't worth it. I mean, if they were older…"
The two dogs looked surprised as their minds clicked on the same idea.
"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Flippy asked, his spirits lifted up after the idea popping up.
"I think I am," Lowden chimed, "But this time, let me help you out, OK?"