Blackwolfen - Hi to everyone reading this crossover here. I am very pleased that this story is brought to life here with the help of three wonderful writers. Katie Gemwing, Nataliepthatsme and LexieLuthor98. Thanks to them, the story has come to life, you might say. Therefore a big praise to the three and I hope you readers like this story here very much.
Gemwing2012 - It's an honor to co-write with Blackwolfen since I have enjoyed reading her Alicia in the Inkwell Isles series. And I'm super exited to see how far my first shared story co-written with her along with Lexie and Natty will go
Nataliepthatsme - I'm so excited to be working on another cuphead story with three intelligent women! It's amazing how much creativity is put into this and I'm so excited to be doing this story with you! I can't wait to see where this goes!
LexieLuthor98 - It's a huge honor to be a cowriter along with all my favorite folks! I'm having a lotta fun working with y'all and can't wait to see where this journey takes us
She stared at the basketball hoop attached to the pole in her backyard. It was there when Alicia and her family moved into the house. Only the net was missing. Well, it was already missing when they moved in, so it wasn't that bad. But that wasn't why she was staring at it. No, there was a reason. Only Alicia didn't know which one.
She scratched her head thoughtfully while her eyes were covered by her black hair. However, one could see the glow in her eyes that shone like sapphires and emeralds. Well, her eye colors were not one-sided but her left one was blue while the right one was green. Her other hand was in her jacket pocket. It was still summer but very windy and also quite fresh outside. That's why Alicia wore a thin jacket with a wolf emblem on the right side and a wolf snarling on the back. She wore three-quarter jeans with short shoes that she almost always wore in the summer. Red white sneakers.
Around her neck she still wore her necklace with a black wolf head that had golden gems for eyes. This necklace meant a lot to her which is why Alicia wore it every day. She held it tightly and sighed.
In the living room which is directly connected to the kitchen stood Alicia's brother John. He was also wearing a jacket, jeans and low shoes. His brown hair was freshly cut, which was also visible. Therefore he felt the wind more than his three years younger sister. But that didn't bother him at the moment, because he noticed that his sister had been standing outside staring at the basketball hoop for exactly an hour.
So he went to the sliding door took his shoes in hand and went outside. He was about to close the door behind him, but Duke came towards him. The 5-year-old St. Bernard was quickly on his feet when he heard John open the sliding door from the hallway. John already knew that the St. Bernard was staring at him almost grimly. Therefore he smiled also a little.
"Of course, how could we forget you, Dukey?" He asked, closing the sliding door behind him while the St. Bernard lay down under the wooden bench under which a blanket was placed big enough for him.
Alicia heard someone going down the small staircase and turned around for it.
She was relieved that it was her brother. At first she thought it was someone else.
"Well, are we moping again?" John asked her and put his right arm over her shoulder while he pulled her to him.
"No, you're not serious." Alicia replied sarcastically while John had to stifle a laugh.
"Your humor is still the best, sis." He commented.
He tousled through her hair, which was no longer straight but slightly tousled. You could see that she didn't like it because now her face showed an annoyed expression while John had to laugh even more than before.
"Not funny." Alicia straightened her hair so that it looked partly like before.
"Sorry but it did look a little funny." John shrugged.
"Of course." Alicia thought, annoyed as she rolled her eyes.
"But tell me why are you staring at the basketball hoop all the time?" John asked her.
Alicia couldn't give him an exact answer because she didn't know why she was looking at the basketball hoop like a moth staring into the light. She wanted to change the subject, but then she remembered. It was like a flash of inspiration.
Back when she and John were still in high school, they both just moved here in the middle of the year. Alicia knew it was hard to make new friends. Unfortunately, that's also when the bullying started. The name comparison with Alice from Alice in Wonderland and her hobbies were despised. Alicia hated going to that stupid school almost every day, which is why she refused to leave the house.
Her brother noticed that quickly because he and Alicia walked to school together almost every day.
"Another bad day?" John asked her while holding her backpack.
Alicia said nothing but nodded.
He knew who had teased her. It was not difficult to guess. John was in a class with this person.
"Richie, you ba..." he was silent. Swearing now would do him no good. He could fix this tomorrow, but right now he had to take care of his little sister, who looked crestfallen on the floor. "Hey, maybe a basketball game will cheer you up."
Alicia looked at him confused when he said that. How was a ball game going to cheer her up?
"I'm sorry John, but I'd rather not." She sighed.
But John wasn't giving up that easily. No, he wanted her to at least try before she gave up on it.
So they both went back home where Duke was already waiting for them. Well, as soon as the front door was open, the young St. Bernard bounded out of the door and gave the two siblings a kiss. Both siblings, however, were less thrilled with the kiss. Well, it was probably more because of the drool smeared across their faces.
"Ewww!" Alicia winced.
"Duke!" John moaned.
They wiped away the slobber with their jackets before going into the house and depositing their things in the kitchen. Alicia wanted to go upstairs to her room but John insisted that she at least play some basketball.
"Okay, but only one round!" She stated.
Only that one round turned into several to be exact. Alicia at first thought she wasn't good enough but as it turned out she was very good at putting ball after ball into the basket. John was very excited about what his sister could do.
"Wow, that was awesome, Sis!" He beamed.
Alicia was also very surprised. Normally she would never have thought that she would be so good. Sure she missed the first few balls but when John tipped her off to let her anger out she hit the mark every time.
From that moment on, Alicia didn't seem to think the once dorky ball sport was so dumb after all. John also suggested that she play on the school team. She initially said no, but John jumped the gun and signed her up. Of course she was angry and annoyed at the same time, but she couldn't change it, so she took part.
As the years passed the better Alicia played basketball. She was the ace of the team. At least that's what the coach said. But unfortunately that changed when John graduated and Alicia now went to school alone.
Due to the bullying, she finally gave up playing basketball and devoted herself to studying more in order to get accepted to the university.
Since then, the basketball hoop and also the basketball were no longer used by the two siblings.
John walked over to the now not so nice looking basketball he picked up. Surprisingly, there was still enough air in it to play with.
"Shall we, Sis?" he asked her.
Alicia nodded and they both began to play while Duke continued to sleep.
Katie sighed as she flopped back onto her bed, brushing back the fringe of her dark chocolate brown hair out of her bright blue eyes after a few minutes of embroidery. She had been working on for a couple of days, making bookmarks for a summer fair her archery club is holding in summer and she had been asked if she could make some bookmarks in her designs for it.
For weeks, she had been working on several batches of bookmarks for the summer fair, occasionally stopping to take a break to chat with her good friends online for discussions over writing a new fanfiction and exchanging jokes and precious memories of their previous adventures.
Katie remembered fondly of her recent adventures with Lexie, Natty, Liam, Matt and Kaichi inside The Cuphead Show! universe after a little mishap with a wasp that made their magic keys go haywire that zapped them into the cartoon when trying to watch it on Netflix. She even still has a copy of the photo of them with the TCS Cup family and all of the amazing friends they had made on the Inkwell Isles in the show.
She got up from her bed and pulled out the special diary she had gotten as a gift from her cartoon friends from the game version of the Cuphead franchise from the drawer in her desk. She opened it to look over the photo taped to one of the pages.
Katie's signature crystal blue and white cold shoulder jacket over the midnight blue tank top with the light blue shoulders, medium navy blue jeans, black knee-length boots, purple belt bag and long midnight blue handless gloves were not that difficult to miss out even though the photo is purely monochrome. She can even still make out her book-shaped locket. While her appearance outfit wise had hardly changed, Lexie and Natty's certainly had.
Natty still retains her signature pink shirt, golden star necklace and the bracelet made from woven purple cords with two bright blue beads and a pink one in the middle and a yellow spacer bead in the back to hold it in place. However, she had now switched out her black leggings for purple ones with a silver six-pointed star on the left leg while her white shoes had been replaced with black ankle length boots and the denim skirt now bared pockets. She also now dons a light blue denim jacket with rolled-up sleeves, breast pockets and gold buttons as well as a silver bracelet on her left wrist. Lastly, in her medium length black hair, she now wears a white headband with two bright blue beads and two stars, with the biggest star being pink while the smallest one is silver.
Lexie still has her silver butterfly necklace and trademark black newspaper boy hat with the red band around the brim and the golden butterfly behind the letter "L" pin on it. The red ribbon scrunchie holding her flowing, curly hair in a ponytail now looks like a bow to resemble a butterfly with a small sunflower charm in it. She still has her dark blue jeans and brown boots but she traded in her red blouse for a red T-shirt and now has a brown belt with a small bag over her left hip. Her dark gray jacket now has rolled-up sleeves with a bit of red accents and gold buttons. On her right wrist is a gold bracelet with a butterfly charm on it.
Katie smiled fondly as she recalled all of the amazing adventures in the TCS world and how she had met her recent boyfriend, the Shadow/Ice Dragon hybrid, Validor as well as Natty's own love interest, Andrew. And, before Vale and Andy showed up, the girls had made yet another interesting new friend, who also came from the Real World, but was also trapped in her own version of the TCS world in an alternate dimension akin to Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart.
This special new friend is Alicia Powell, a young woman, who, unlike Katie, Lexie and Natty, still retained her live action appearance. But she is also half-demon. After she had helped Liam rescue the girls and the TCS Cup Brothers from their Devil, Alicia had been afraid of them pushing her away and accusing her as a monster. But the girls knew that deep down she is a good person with a pure heart since she had helped them.
As a sign and a reminder of their friendship, the Dreamstones had made a bracelet similar to their own from woven cords and glass beads in Alicia's favorite colors.
After some misadventures during her stay in their dimension, Alicia had to return to hers once her friend, an anthropomorphic fox named Varian Stormwood had fixed the machine to bring her back. It was sad to see her leave but the gangs had wished her luck on returning home herself and that they would see her again someday.
"I wonder what she's doing right now…" Katie wondered. "It would be so nice to see her again. We could even hang out to grab some drinks at a cafe and talk about our adventures in the TCS universe."
"Speaking of get-togethers…" she mused aloud.
She grabs her iPad and sits back down to go onto a live chat with Lexie and Natty to arrange their next meeting during the summer. Since she became online friends with them, Katie had been a little shy about doing a face reveal since she had been used to typing down her conversation with them through texts on her Chat page. But after seeing them in person and what they had been through since their first big adventure, she was confident in trying anything.
"Hey, guys!" Katie beamed, waving.
"Hey, girls!" Natty cheerfully smiled. "Good to see you gusy!"
"Heyyyy, how are y'all doing?" Lexie smiled, waving back.
"I'm doing okay." Katie replied. "Just been doing some embroidery for a summer fair. So, how are you guys holding up?"
"Wedding planning has been a bit hectic for Lee and I." Lexie replied. "I'm still waiting on the alterations for my mother's wedding dress. And, I'm still trying to work out how to get everyone at Inkwell to witness the wedding without freaking out my family."
"Makes sense. Audie told me the same thing when she was getting married." Natty sighed. "And while it's exciting, it can be stressful. I should know, I'm getting married soon to Andy."
"Misterie is still working on something that would give Vale a human disguise when he's able to visit me since we're still dating." Katie explained. "Although… I'm a little worried about what my parents would think of him once I have them introduced to one another. I'm still new to having a boyfriend and I still don't know much about the concept of how it works, like if it's okay to date even without your parents' consent."
"I'm sure they'll love him once they get to know him." Natty assured her. "I mean, it was a while for my parents to know that Andy travels to different dimensions, but once they found out he could take them to Hawaii without flying there, they were hooked."
Lexie chuckled as she piped up, "My parents were the same with Liam. My dad likes to take him hunting during the winter years and man, the deer my dad makes is great!"
Katie smiled, thankful for her best friends' assurance and support as she said, "All of that sounds great. Thanks guys. So, are we still up for meeting up this summer?"
"Uh yeah!" Lexie giggled. "I've saved just enough paid time off for this trip! I can't wait to visit California!"
Katie chuckled. "I know! This is gonna be awesome!"
"I wanna see Disneyland…" Lexie sighed. "My dad got to go when he was younger but I've never been."
"I've been to DisneyWorld Florida at least once back in the early 2000s." Katie spoke up. "It was amazing. I still have the little Baby Pegasus bean bag toy from Hercules among my plushie collection."
"Awww, how cute!" Lexie beamed.
"That's so sweet!" Natty added.
"I've also heard that they also do great pizza!" Katie exclaimed. "Maybe nowhere near the level of the ones from New York but still good."
"Yeah, we'll have to see how that goes." Natty chimed in.
"Okay, cool! So, you guys like to do some roleplaying for a bit?" Katie suggested. "I could do with a good laugh of us roasting the Big Doofus and old cheese cube after a busy morning I've been through."
"Always!" Lexie laughed. "Wanna do the part where we're roasting the Devil's 'pitch spoon' again?"
"Oh, heck yeah!" Katie grinned. "Natty's the best at doing his lines."
Natty faked a bow with a smile and responded, "My pleasure!"
All three girls laughed together. Even though they lived far apart from one another, their friendship remains ever so strong. And it's amazing how a shared love for a humble franchise concerning a certain character with a cup for a head had brought them together.
For those of you who are still confused about our characters, I would like to suggest that you read our stories so that you can get an even better insight into them.
I highly recommend reading Heart, Soul and Mind as well as A New Stroke to the Pen, Within Fine Lines and Another Story, Another Time.