The Cartoon Continuum
Chapter 4:
Scooby Dooby Doo and the CNUD too! (Plus others)
Wow this is akward cuz I didn't wait till Febuary 12th to start writing this chapter. Oh well, I'm busy with a ton of writing projects. So let's get this started and hope it finishes soon now the long awaited Ace's POV. Oh, dear Lord help me…
Present Day Ways AN:
This chapter contains some things that I don't agree with my interpretation or direction with today. I was 14 and trying to make my work both mature and interesting while not understanding what I was writing about. However, my goal has been to keep these fics in tact as they were back then. So I hope that is understood.
Ace's POV:
Location, Fusion Mike's Lair in the Twisted Forest
*Fusionfall Soundtrack: Megas*
"HA!" I shout knocking back Fusion Mike with my favored weapon the Smack Hands.
"Could use a little help here guys!" A tied up Liv shouts, who's also tied up with an unconscious Kenneth and Liv's Starfire nano hovering above him.
"I'm sorry." Epic deadpans before ducking under a glob of Fusion Matter thrown at him. "Would you like to slip places? I'd be happy to be sitting around on the job!"
"Mike what are you doing?" I ask as I send a punch at his Fusion who easily dodges before kicking me in the chest.
He tampers with the personifier on his right wrist. "Damn it Dexter or Mal or whoever! This stupid thing won't work I'm trying to pick the Vito setting!"
"Who's trying to come out now?" Liv asks.
"Svetlana." He responds. "Why?"
"Let her come out." Liv commands going into command with Kenneth unconscious. "I have an idea that'll need her."
Epic tries to slash through a glob of Fusion Matter that Fusion Mike throws at him but to his surprise it latches onto the blade of his sword. The Fusion Matter then slithers down his sword to wrap around his body.
Epic shouts in pain while the Fusion with the Fusion Matter now consuming his body.
"Epic!" I shout in surprise. I let out a battle cry and run at the Fusion. I send a punch at him that he quickly ducks under. The Fusion tries to do a leg sweep on me but once again isn't able to as I jump up and try to smash the Fusion. But the Fusion dissolves into Fusion Matter and then slithers away in a trail of goo.
"Hee-Hee missed me loser!" It shouted while in its gelatinous state.
"Well that's just not playing fair." I say before getting up.
"Mike!" Liv shouts.
"Ok, Ok!" Mike shouts. Immediately he gasps and he spontaneously gains lipstick and mascara on his face.
"How does he gain that makeup when he changes into her?" Epic asks while still panting over the Fusion Matter.
"Really?" I laugh. "I always wondered where the wrinkles come from when he turns into Chester."
"Svetlana!" The Multiple Personality smiles posing with his right leg up and his arms out. "Ve'll see how you like me!"
"Really?" The Fusion deadpans. "The Russian gymnast? Summer Olympics are in two years bitch!"
"Vell I'll -ave you know that I am a renowned vigure skater as vell!" Svetlana huffs.
"Focus Svetlana!" Liv shouts still in the Fusion Matter trap with Kenneth. "Ace cup your hands and Svetlana get ready for the high jump event and look there's a blue spring board!"
"Svetlana vill get ze gold!" She shouts before running at me as I've cupped my hands though slightly annoyed at Liv's blue spring board comment. She runs and puts her foot in my cupped hands. I launch her into the air thanks to the strength of Rex's weapons as well as my own strength that Providence built up. "Svetlana!" The Alter ego sings while doing a series of flips and tricks in the air towards the Fusion.
I take the time to run at the Fusion as well, 'Svetlana' still singing 'her name.' I rush the Fusion who's confused on where to go as he's cornered and is surrounded by both me and Svetlana on an aerial and ground based attack. I slam my smack hands right into the Fusion's chin it falls back before being knocked down by Svetlana.
"That'll teach you, Fusion doppelganger!" Svetlana says triumphantly from on top of the Fusion.
*Fusionfall Soundtrack: Woods*
"Nice one Svetlana!" I smirk high fiving her.
"What are you celebrating for?" The Fusion asks scrambling under her/his foot. "I can leave at any time!"
"I'd like to see you try Vusion Scum!" Svetlana shouts.
"Friend, I am no longer able to assist." The Starfire nano says before turning into a ball of light and escaping into Liv's nanocom.
"Shit." Liv says. "Well looks like the Fusion's sleep abiiilityyy will *yawn* start…"
He nods off.
"Looks like it's you, me and Svetlana, Epic." I say to Epic who's still tied up.
"It's weird that he didn't put the sleep spell on this, maybe he was tired." Epic said trying to get out of his prison.
"I may be a Fusion, but I can forget things, thank you very much!" Fusion Mike yells. "Just wait till I get out of here!"
"Look around you Fusion Mike," I say to the Fusion. "We destroyed your experiments again so it's over."
"That's what you think." He smirks. "Oh… Mal… I could use a little help here!"
"Vhat…" Svetlana says, before her eyes widen in fear. "NO! NO! Not you!"
"Svetlana what's going on?" I ask her, great concern in my voice in fear of losing yet another friend to this war.
"Tie her down or something!" Epic shouts. "I think she's freaking out."
I wrap my arms around Svetlana as she's hyperventilating. Clearly struggling for control of Mike's body. Finally she gasps and I see Mike's dark brown hair swoop down over his left eye and rings form around them. He evilly grins at me.
*Fusionfall Soundtrack: Heavy Petting*
"Mike…?" I ask quite scared while keeping my hold on the boy in my arms and his Fusion under my foot.
"Get off of me!" He shouts his voice now changed into a now malevolent tone.
He begins to thrash in my grasp but I hold on unsure of what to do. Epic just watches as he's unable to do anything.
"Mike try to calm down!" I shout at the boy.
"I'm not Mike!" HE shouts at me still trying to get out of my death grip.
"Then who are you?!"I ask him, clearly scared of what's going on with my disordered friend.
"My name is MAL!" He shouts and quickly throws me off of him. I hit the rock wall of the Fusion Lair hard and see 'Mal' help Fusion Mike up.
"We need to stop meeting like this, Fusion Mike." Mal says to the Fusion. "Leave, before these fools do something."
I get up to my feet and stand in front of the Fusion Portal my fists clenched and the pressure in my smack hands intensified.
"I don't know what's going on, but you better stay down Fusion Mike." I tell him.
"Careful kid," Mal laughed. "You don't know what you're up against."
"Okay, I watched all the seasons of Total Drama, I even auditioned for Revenge of the Island with Brick back when we were in Providence. But out of all your personalities I've never seen this before." I tell him.
"I was lying in wait." Mal explained. "Planning my moves for another season but now that this war has surfaced, it's so much better!"
"I don't want to fight you." Ace commented.
"Then this'll be easy." He laughed before approaching me.
The Fusion took the chance to escape through the Fusion Portal, Damn it! He got away. Mal however began running towards me going through the holographic interface of the personifier on Mike's wrist.
Reluctantly I decided to run at him as well, my fist reared back ready to knock the MPD out with a swift punch.
"Svetlana!" The dark one shouts and the holographic image of the Russian Gymnast Persona appears in blue behind him.
"He can use the personifier too?!" I ask before he does a hand spring, lunging over me. I stumble in surprise trying to regain my balance as my target jumps out of the way.
"Manitoba!" Mal shouts from behind me. I only turn just in time fore the glowing blue strand of energy to strike my stomach.
"Gah!" I shout, falling to the ground. I try to get up but Dexter made the energy whip too damn powerful. I feel incredibly weak as my muscles tense to get back up into the fight.
One more time I try to get up. Right arm. Left arm. Right leg. Left leg. Good. Now push! I try to hoist myself up on these limbs but sadly my muscles fail me and I fall to the ground.
*The Song: In The Hall of the Mountain King*
I look up hopelessly at my corrupted friend to see Mal snicker once more. He then reaches for the dial and laughs. "Vito!" The hologram of the Jersey Shore reject appears behind him. In it Vito is flexing and giving off his casual smirk. You can see Mal's muscles get slightly larger causing him to clench his fist with a malevolent grin.
He then sends a fist right at me, the finishing blow.
I already feel myself slipping out of consciousness and I look up to see the MPD once more.
Mal's muscles decrease and he smirks at me. "These are the mighty CNUD that those Fusion losers are so afraid of? Pathetic. Perhaps those Golden Explorers will be more fun?"
"M-Mal…" I gasp, still trying to fight.
Mal doesn't even acknowledge me as he calmly walks away.
The last thing I hear is the eerie whistling of the song 'In the Hall of the Mountain King.'
Dexter's POV:
Location, The Pimpleback Mountains
*Fusionfall Soundtrack: Woods*
I sigh as I rub my temples as I sit on the edge of the bed that resided in the cabin that Blossom and I have been sharing for the past two days. All the stress of the war was clearly getting to me. It's not that I want to overwork myself and pass up the opportunity to spend time with my new girlfriend it's just that I don't have a choice. The war needs men like me to invest all their time in the war, I don't have much of a choice. At least, that's what I keep telling myself.
I look over at the ginger super hero sleeping in her bed across the room and give her a tired smile. It's people like her that make me work so hard each and every day to make sure Fuse doesn't destroy the planet. Those who are close to me are what matter most. Blossom: my girlfriend, who manages to love me despite some of my quips that make others despise me. It would tear me apart if Fuse were to do something to her. Ben: my best friend, who somehow is able to remind me that I'm a teenager and that I can cut back and hang loose every once in a while. Normally I wouldn't worry about him but I fear that the Ultimatrix may not be enough to protect him and that this war could kill him one day. Buttercup and Bubbles: two of my closest childhood friends, if the two of them were to fall due to the war, I wouldn't be able to live with myself. My parents: who although neglectful, did raise me to be the young man I am today. I keep them atop my company building to protect them; mom and dad would never be able to survive out there. And of course Dee-Dee: my sister, she may be a major annoyance and probably even more of a hindrance to Dex Labs than Mandark Industries, but she's still my sister and is there for me when I need her, regardless of what it may seem Dee-Dee is always there when I need her and to lose her would be even worse than anyone else. All the people I hold near and dear -these only being a select few- are the reasons I keep working hard, in hope of a better tomorrow so that they can be safe.
I then make my way to the bathroom. However not before walking over to Blossom's bed and giving her a soft peck on her forehead, making her develop a small smile even in her slumber. That beautiful smile. Oh man, how did I get so lucky to end up with someone like her? I never would've imagined that the girl I had learned to love over the years would actually return feelings that I had hidden. I always thought that when I did get around to asking her out I'd be friendzoned, as Ben calls it. But it's small gestures like these that make each day worthwhile. No matter how many times I try to work it out I still can't figure it out. Blossom: my ginger superhero.
Finally I make it into the bathroom. I look into the mirror and see that the bags under my eyes and other various wrinkles have begun to form again. Time for another pill. I think to myself as I open the medicine cabinet scanning through the different medications until I find what I'm looking for. The small canister labeled 'Asprin,' is now in my grasp. I open it and find the twenty five remaining blue pills, which will be enough for the following week.
I then take five of the pills and quickly douse them with the water from the sink. I place the canister back in the pantry and look back at my face in the mirror. Now, I begin to look my true age as the wrinkles and bags under my eyes have seemed to vanish.
The drug I have just taken is known as demainfepochsim impeduro. It is able to hide any sort of stress marks left on a person so that they will appear to be completely normal as if they didn't have a care in the world. The drug will immediately bring a person's face to their original state and the effects of the medication last 12 hours and begin to wear out throughout the following two to four hours after those 12 hours is over.
I had begun to take demanifepochsim impeduro a couple months after the war's onset. This was to throw off the medical team and other's who may be worried about my health, so that I may continue my efforts against Lord Fuse without many interruptions. The only one's I am sure know about this are, Ben and I. Ben wanted to tell someone but after some convincing he agreed not to. The only ones that I've had to worry about discovering the secret are Computress, XANA and a very suspicious Dr. Noah Hafez. Computress; has always been very worried about my mental health and knowing her, I'm sure she has been observing me more than she should. XANA; one of the more recent addition to my team of scientists and the second Artificial Intelligence that has access to the world's files along with my own AI Computress, he monitors everyone and everything and I hope that my disguised asprin has able to throw him off. Noah; the doctor that works to heal all the fighters in the war, he sees me often and so far hasn't been able to track the drug yet due to me masking it with other medications I have been supposedly taking. I refuse to tell Blossom because I don't want her to worry too much. She may constantly acknowledge the fact that I overwork myself and pester me about it, but that is manageable whereas if she knew about this the pressure would be unbearable.
I now take off my glasses and head for the shower knowing Blossom would prefer I be clean despite the fact that I only take a shower once or twice a week and just use shower-in-a-can and two full body sprays of deodorant to simplify things; it's quick and won't distract me from my work.
Running my fingers through my hair with shampoo is oddly relaxing. Maybe Ben's right? Maybe I should start showering regularly again. But that thought is quickly dismissed as I realize that a shower is ten to twenty minutes in a day wasted, ten to twenty minutes that could be spent trying to stop Fuse.
The warm water though, does seem to calm me just a bit as I scrub myself down. Within minutes I finish and climb out of the tub. Even though I don't like it, I think I still will think about the shower thing.
From within the bathroom I dry myself off and begin to put on my clothes, Blossom and I agreed that we would do it in the bathroom. I now look in the mirror to see myself in my black sweater and dark wash jeans. It feels so strange to not be wearing my lab coat or rubber gloves, but Blossom insisted that I not wear them for the week.
*Fusionfall Soundtrack: Poakey Oaks Jr. High*
Finally I walk out of the bathroom to see that my pajama clad girlfriend has awoken, with her towel and a change of clothes in hand.
"Morning, honey." Blossom smiles warmly at me from the bed she sits on.
"Yes," I return the gesture and smile back at her, now used to her nicknames like honey or sweetie. I've even made my own efforts to come up with a nickname for her, but so far nothing's come up. "Morning, Blossom."
"How was your night?" She asks.
"Wonderful, knowing that you were there." I reply.
"Aw…" She smiles before walking over and kissing me on the cheek. This makes me heavily blush and causes my heart to sink, every time she kisses me it feels like I'm falling for her all over again. "Thanks Dexy."
"Yes." I nod, still trying to get the redness in my face to go away. "Well, how was your night?"
"The same." The girl smiles. "It's great to have you here with me, Dexter. I was afraid I was gonna have to give my tickets to buttercup and try to convince her to take Rex."
I chuckle. "Yes, that would be rather unfortunate."
She laughs as well. "Yeah, well I'm off to take a shower."
"Okay." I say.
From within the bathroom she shouted, "Oh and remember we have the dinner we're supposed to go to tonight!"
"Yes, I remember Blossom."
And then the sound of rushing water begins. Even with that small interaction it reminds me that I need to work even harder as soon as this is over. Because without her, I don't know if I'd be able to go on.
Oh Blossom… How did I ever deserve you?
Ace's POV:
Location, Tech Square: Dex Labs Medical Facilities
*Code Lyoko Evolution Soundtrack: Arrival*
M-Mal…
G-Gotta stop him…
H-Have to finish the mission…
These are my thoughts as my slowly begin to flutter open.
Th-The mission! Mal!
My eyes shoot open and I shout. "MAL!"
"Well that's a fine hello." A rather familiar sarcastic voice drawls out.
I turn to the source of the voice. There stands a rather short Indian boy. Along with his dark skin he has dark root brown hair that hugs his head. He wears a maroon sweater with a blue vest over it along with blue jeans and sneakers. All over this is a long lab coat, as well as a cherry red nanocom, in his hands are an electric clipboard and a stylist. This is none other than Noah Hafez, the trusted doctor appointed by the Council of Ten as well as competitor in seasons 1 and 3 of Total Drama.
"Noah?" I ask, finding it strange that he would be here considering he never likes to be out on the field. "What are you doing in Fusion Mike's Lair?"
"Right…" Noah deadpans. "We're in Fusion Mike's lair and not in the nice and cozy medical facility inside Dex Labs, when I obviously have never been in a Fusion Lair without Dexter's command, when he is clearly busy doing absolutely nothing with his girlfriend because we all know he's still getting used to that."
I then look around and find myself in the swabbed clean medical bay. The blue color scheme and the tables filled with medical supplies as well as the seven other bed pads the room holds, three of them are occupied by my other teammates that are all still unconscious. Seeing that he's right I sigh, "Well you don't have to be so rude about it…"
"What do you care?" He asks me. "You're the biggest Total Drama fan I know next to Sierra, so really you should be used to my sarcasm, especially when someone in your team ends up here after almost every other mission."
"Still, Noah. No need to be a jerk." I say.
"Whatever." He rolls his eyes. "How long until your 'heroic' little friends get up."
"I don't know," I shrug. "How bad were we when we came in?"
"Well Zoey, Lazlo, Zak and Fiskerton came in with you four like 30 minutes ago before heading back to Mount Blackhead and to be honest, you and Kenneth looked half dead when you showed up. Luckily, I was able to heal your wounds and was able to clean any Fusion Matter off of you guys."
"You think Kenneth'll be okay?" I ask, worried for my leader.
"He'll be fine." Noah confirmed, giving me a heavy sigh of relief. "It just may take him a little longer to wake up."
"Okay." I nod.
"By the way, you had some burns from an energy whip on your chest. What I would like to know is how those got there when the only person in the world with that kind of weapon is Mike and his personifier when in the 'Manitoba Smith' setting. What I would like to know is how that happened?" Noah asks.
*Fusionfall Soundtrack: Heavy Petting*
"Did you ever watch Total Drama season 4?" I ask the doctor.
"No." He deadpanned. "I only watched the episode recaps after that Lightning kid came here after some stupid injury last year and wouldn't shut up about how he should be the 'sha' winner of Total Drama Revenge of the 'sha' Island until I had to sedate him. Why?"
"Well you remember how, Mike has MPD and has his four personalities: Chester, Vito, Svetlana and Manitoba Smith right?" I ask the older boy.
"Yeah, who could forget?" He asked. "Besides everyone knows that whether they watch the show or not, since he's such a big deal to everyone."
"Yeah, well I think Mike has a new personality called Mal." Ace said.
Noah's eyes widened in fear. "That lunatic got out!?"
"You know him?" I ask, quite surprised since it's the first time I've heard of Mal and like he said, I am a huge Total Drama fan.
"Of course I do!" Noah shouts, throwing his arms in the air. "I oversee everyone's medical records and when one of the fighters in this war has Multiple Personality Disorder it's best for the doctor to know all of the different personas that patient has. Why do you think Dexter built that personifier thing in the first place? Part of it was to suppress Mal!"
"So what do you know about Mal?" I ask him.
Noah shrugs. "All I know is that he's evil, Duncan met him in juvy and that he wants to destroy the planet with Fuse."
"Seriously?" I gasp. "Mike would never do that!"
"But Mal would!" Noah shouted. "This is bad… this is very… very… bad!"
"Then I'll go and find him!" I shout, getting up from my bed.
"Woah, woah, woah!" Noah shouted. "Who said you'd be the one to find him?"
"I did." I say, trying to make my way out of the medical center but to my surprise Noah blocks my path. "Get out of the way the Noah, I'm going to look for him."
"To hell you are!" Noah shouts. "You may be strong enough, but your team is not!"
"I'll find him myself." I tell him. "It's my fault he got out in the first place now I'm going to finish the mission!"
"Sit down, Ace." Noah tells me. "You can't leave even if I wanted you to. XANA and Computress specifically told me that you guys have another mission to do with the time travel thing."
"Really?" I ask.
"Yeah." He says.
"Look Ace, don't worry about Mal." Noah tried to calm me. "Dexter and the Council of Ten have given me the authorization to send someone out to find Mal ever came out."
"So who are you going to send out?" I asked.
"Well, personally I would love to send out the whole damn army to find him but the council would kill me if I did." Noah explained.
"So what then?" I ask him.
"I'd love to send both you and the Golden Explorers, but I can't do that because the CNUD will be busy."
"Okay…"
Noah clicked a few buttons on his nanocom before it started making that same drawling noise used to signify that someone was being called. "Seeing as you guys can't go, I'll send out the Golden Explorers as well as the one person crazy enough to actually look for Mal."
"Who's that?"
"And here I thought you loved Total Drama," Noah sighed.
"Her?" I asked, mouth agape as it dawned on me who he was referring to. "Noah are you sure? The Golden Explorers hate her and even so Mal was able to take me on."
"And yet she still out ranks you." Noah smirked.
*Fusionfall Soundtrack: Summerland*
Finally the person picked up. "Noah Boa!" The person laughed.
"Hi Izzy…" Noah sighed.
"Noah, you never call me anymore and you always ignore or drop my calls." The crazy red head chastised him.
"Look, I'm sorry Izzy." Noah said between clenched teeth. "But look I have a new mission for you."
"Really?" Izzy asked excitedly. "Better than the one where you had me find the space bandits with Ed?"
"Yeah…" Noah said looking at me confused. I only shrugged in response as I have no idea what she's talking about either.
"Well, now I want you to find Mike." Noah told her.
"Who?" Izzy asked.
"You know, Mike. He's the guy who wears the blue shirt and acts like different people all the time." Noah explained.
"Oh!" Izzy shouted, realization dawning on her. "You mean Chester and Manitoba. Man, I'll tell ya Chester plays a mean game of canasta and Manitoba and I always go on all sorts of crazy adventures, looking for treasure."
"Yeah." Noah nodded, despite the fact he couldn't see her.
"I need you to wait at the KND outpost for the Golden Explorers to come and help you."
"Aww…" Izzy sighed. "But they're no fun. That Ice girl's creepy and Gus doesn't like it when I tell him about my adventures with the RCMP."
"Tell you what Izzy." Noah tried bargaining with the girl, hoping that the girl will put aside her displeasures if he gave her some sort of incentive. "If you go, then I'll give you a nice new weapon upgrade. Okay?"
"Yay!" She shouted. "Izzy loves new toys!"
"Good then just wait for them, okay Izzy." Noah told her.
"Okee-Dokey Noah Artichokey." She laughed.
"Bye." Noah said immediately hanging up the nanocom.
*No music*
"So you're going to call the Golden Explorers now?" I ask.
"Why would he be doing that?" A voice asks. The two of us turn to see a now awakened Epic.
"How are you doing Epic?" Noah asks, taking out his electronic clipboard and stylist.
"I'm fine." Epic states.
Noah jots things down on his clipboard before addressing him again. "Uh-huh. Feeling any side effects from the Fusion Matter?"
"No, not really." Epic answers.
"I see…" Noah answers, he then looks at his nanocom and tells us. "Very good. I think it may be time to wake Liv and Kenneth."
"Great," I smile. "The sooner the better."
Noah then takes out a syringe. He walks over to Kenneth and Liv's beds and quickly injects the needles into their arms.
Both Liv and Kenneth squirm a bit, their bodies to adjust to the new chemical injected into their systems.
Liv shoots up first he doesn't scream anything he just heavily pants, sweat dripping down his brow.
Kenneth then follows "Inderpal! Cashmere! Run! Quickly!" He shouts out.
"Clearly all of you –except maybe Epic- have issues…" Noah deadpanned.
"Noah?" Kenneth asks, clearly ignoring Noah's perception of our team.
"What's going on?" Liv asked.
"You four failed a mission and I've got a crazy MPD to find. Now get up you guys have to travel through time again." Noah explained.
"Ugh…" Kenneth sighed. "Five more minutes mom…"
"No, you've got to go now." Noah said. "I don't wanna know what Computress and XANA'll do for me if you guys are late."
"But what about, Kenneth?" Liv asked. "He's not looking too good."
Noah scoffed. "One healing nano will do the trick. I tended to his wounds enough. I'm positive it'll work, I'm a genius, remember?"
"Alright." Kenneth sighed still ignoring his self pleasuring remarks, before clicking several buttons on his nanocom. "Come on out Eddy!"
The glowing orb of light ejects from his nanocom and there stands the nano of the chief scammer. He looks around quite annoyed. "What?"
"Heal the guy, dude!" Epic shouts.
"Don't tell me what to do!" The nano shouts at Epic before looking down at Kenneth. "Jawbreaker Break!"
A ring of light surrounds Kenneth making his figure glow a golden hue. Kenneth's expression changes from one of fatigue to a small smile within seconds.
"Ah…" Kenneth smiles. "Thanks Eddy!"
"Yeah… Yeah…" The nano grumbles before returning to the nanocom.
"Alright, so what do we have to do?" Liv asks.
"I don't know." Noah shrugs. "All I know is it has something to do with that time travel thing."
"Alright guys, let's go." Kenneth tells us and we all get up and walk over to the weapons cabinet taking out our individual weapons.
The walk through Dex Labs to the time lab is pretty uneventful just catching Liv and Kenneth up on everything that happened while they were out.
*Fusionfall Soundtrack: Sunny Bridges Auditorium*
Finally we make it to the time lab to immediately get an unpleasant greeting from the resident holographic artificial intelligence. "Well, it's about time you four got here. I was afraid we were going to have to start without you."
"We were a bit busy XANA." Liv told the AI. "It won't be happening again."
"I certainly hope not." The AI snidely remarks
"So what's the mission?" I ask.
Computress hovers over. "Your job will be to get back the capsule of imaginary energy that Mandark and Frankie had arranged to get transported to the Dark Lands two months ago."
"Didn't that blow up along with the Mystery Machine?" Epic asks.
"Yes," XANA answered. "That is why that along with Ben Tennyson, Frederick Jones, Mordecai Ornizure and Scooby Doo.'
"Sweet Mordecai's here?" Epic asked.
"I'm cool with Fred." I smile.
"I love animals!" Liv laughed. "Gotta love that Scooby Doo."
"Yeah, but animals hate you." Epic commented.
Liv pouted. "Still…"
"Enough guys." Kenneth says and we all turn towards him. "We've got a mission to do."
We all nod before heading towards the capsules to see that Fred, Scooby and Mordecai are already in them.
"Finally…" Mordecai drawled on. "My legs fell asleep ten minutes ago and my talons are chaffing."
Kenneth awkwardly rubs the back of his head. "Sorry Mordecai it won't happen again."
Mordecai opens his beak to say something before Fred cuts in. "It doesn't really matter. We should just start the mission before we go."
"Rah!" Scooby eagerly shouts. "Come on."
"Seriously guys…" Ben droned on. "Let's go! I don't wanna wait any longer."
"Get in the capsules." XANA commands. "Now, I trust that all of you will be able to complete the mission at maximum affectivity. We wouldn't want a failure now would we?"
"Can we just get on with it?" Epic asks, clearly irritated with XANA.
"Please get into the Time Travel Pods." Computress says calmly.
We do as we're told and wait for the process to start.
"Make sure not to 'screw this up' as you humans say." We hear XANA command.
Then there's a flash of light and then nothing.
Prickly Pines, Several Months Ago:
Ace's POV:
*Fusionfall Soundtrack: Woods*
I pop out of the light and being very used to surprises I do a tuck and roll on the rough ground. At least Providence taught me something, I know WHOOP couldn't…
I look back to see Kenneth land in a crouch, Ben with his legs apart and a single hand in the middle, Epic and Liv kind of flail their arms and tumble to the ground, Fred and Mordecai crash to the ground motionless and Scooby effortlessly lands on all four legs.
Seeing the others landings I smirk. "I think I'm getting used to the whole time travel thing."
"Yeah me too." Kenneth and Ben smile.
"I'm not…" Liv and Epic sigh rubbing the backs of their necks in pain.
"Rat reast you're not Red and Mordecai." Scooby chimes up.
"You've never time traveled before, Scooby. How'd you do that?" Ben asked the dog.
Scobby shrugged. "I ron't know…"
"Okay then…" Epic shrugs.
"We should probably wake up Fred and Mordecai now." Kenneth suggests.
"I'll take Fred." I say, walking over to the chief mystery solver.
"I've got Mordo!" Epic says excitedly.
I nudge the ascot clad teenager. He simply brushes me off reflexively. "Come on Fred, wake up!" I shout nudging him a little more.
This causes the boy to dazedly begin to regain consciousness. "Oh, hey Ace…" He sits up and yawns. "What are we doing here?"
"On a mission in the past. Remember?" I ask.
"Oh yeah…" He sighs.
Now fully up he clutches his large rifle. "Okay, let's go."
"Yeah man." Mordecai says while rubbing his feathers on his sword, he looks at it and smiles at his reflection. "I'm all fired up and ready to take out some Fusions!"
"First we need to find out where we are." Kenneth says, checking his nanocom. "Okay, Prickly Pines and from the looks of it the Mystery Machine will be coming here in about five minutes, we need to keep all Fusions the Fusions off of the Mystery Machine and make sure Scooby and Fred are not seen because they're the ones who are currently in the Mystery Machine. We don't need to meet a younger Fred and Scooby."
"Got it." Ben says. "If we're supposed to be discreet then it's time for an alien that I haven't used much." He then slams his hand on the Ultimatrix and disappears in a flash of green light.
What appears in his place is a new alien that none of us have seen before, at least I haven't. This one is a lizard like alien standing on its two hind legs with shiny, leathery lavender skin. Along with that it had sharp jagged teeth. The top of it's head seemed to be made up of a visor with three triangles, each one made up of the three primary colors, seemed to be it's eyes. The alien also had a short tail with a foot length spike sticking out of it and the familiar ultimatrix symbol on it's chest.
"Chamalien!" It shouted in a thick Russian accent.
"Wow." I say. "That's interesting…"
"Oh come on..." Ben slithered over to me; he wrapped his arms around me feigning affection. "You know you love it!"
"I refer rildrutt!" Scooby snickered.
"Ooooohhh, Burn!" Mordecai laughed.
"Vhatever." Chamalien says. He then begins to scurry away from me and back to where he was originally standing.
"Can we please get on with it?" Epic asks, clearly impatient with our banter.
"Um… Why exactly is Scooby here?" Liv asks.
I nod in agreement. "That's a good point. You're not exactly a fighter."
"Scooby insisted he come." Fred shrugged. "Computress was okay with it so I didn't really care."
"That's great…" Kenneth sarcastically remarked before his eyes widened. "But now you need to get out of the way!"
We turned and saw the Mystery Machine coming up.
"Uh oh!" Chamalien shouted before he vanished and within seconds so did Fred.
Scooby, Mordecai and the rest of us all split up and hid in the bushes.
On the right side of the road I ended up with Kenneth, Epic and Scooby.
"So the four of us are on this side?" Kenneth asks.
"Rhats Right!" Scooby confirmed.
"Okay good," Epic says.
"No not good, I don't like one of our team mates being alone." Kenneth sighs.
"Well he's not exactly alone, he does have Ben and Fred with him." I explain.
"I guess you're right." Kenneth sighs.
"Don't worry about it," Epic tries to cheer him up.
"Okay, for now we've gotta follow that machine!" I shout.
The others nod and take out their hoverboards. Scooby follows after us while we make rustling noises in the trees. I just hope we're not seen. I see that the same rustling happening on the other side of the road, all the while we're following the Mystery Machine.
"So, Scooby?" Kenneth asks the running dog. "You were in the Mystery Machine at the time, when exactly is the machine supposed to blow up?"
Scooby thinks for a second before answering. "It was rear the Camp Kidrey with that Scrout Raster Rumpus guy."
Epic groans. "Really? We have to fly all the way to Camp Kidney how much time is that gonna take?"
"It's not too bad." I reassure him, but look down at my nanocom anyways. "We're at the northern edge of Prickly Pines and we're just crossing over into Camp Kidney right now."
"Well that's not too bad…" Epic sighs. "But still…"
"Rat reast you're not running!" Scooby shouted at him.
"That's a good point." Kenneth agreed. "Suck it up Epic, at least you've got your hover board."
"Okay guys that's enough." I say, gathering everyone's attention. But out of the corner of my eye I see something moving in the distance, it's not the others and this thing is moving faster and faster towards the Mystery Machine. "I think we have company…"
Epic turns his hover board to a stop. "Berserker Bears? But what are they doing in Camp Kidney, don't they usually like to hang around the Pimpleback Mountains?"
"Doesn't matter," Kenneth says as we both turn our vehicles to a stop, "The point is that we can't let them get at the Imaginary Energy."
Within seconds a sharp black needle struck a Berserker Bear in the back of the eye, it began to ooze Fusion Matter before falling to the ground dead.
"Why does Ben always get the first attack?" Epic aks, before flying out and ramming into a Berserker Bear, he then quickly flies into the other side where the leaves rustle before he flies out again, a huge grin on his face.
*Fusionfall Soundtrack: Megas*
Kenneth cocks his rifle while I watch Mordecai fly out on his own hover board and slice through a Berserker Bear. Landing on the board he smirks, before turning around and fighting more. Within seconds a flurry of Fusion Matter shots, large black needles, energy blasts and Mordecai and Epic with their swords and hover boards trails the Mystery Machine.
Not liking to be the one to be the one left out of the fight I fly out behind the Mystery Machine, it's amazing that the people inside haven't noticed this.
I fly out and rush towards the Berserker Bear I see and pull all my weight towards it, quickening my charge. I rear back my fist and once I'm within their vicinity I send my punch at the bear's muzzle causing it to recoil in pain but remain standing.
The bear gets up and throws a glob of Fusion Matter at me, luckily I drop down to the bottom of my board so that I'm lying atop it on my stomach. While clutching the edge of the board in my two hands, I push my weight forward as well as upward so that the board is propelling me towards the Berserker Bear. Clutching the board with one hand I extend my right fist forward and extend it towards the Fusion Monster. Once my fist connects with its face it explodes into Fusion Matter.
Mordecai flies by me and gives me a thumbs up along with a smirk before gesturing for me to come along. I hop up to my feet before following along with him.
Mordecai flies towards a Berserker Bear on his hover board. Once the blue jay is within the Bear Fusion's vicinity it swipes a paw at the blue Jay, however Mordecai is faster and jumps over the swipe and actually uses the Berserker Bear's arm as a stand and uses his arms to propel himself into the air, all the while his azure hover board is flying under him.
While the Monster is turning to the blue jay, who lands on his board is slightly wobbling as he pulls out his blue hilted sword. Taking their distraction to my advantage I fly towards it and give it a swift punch. Mordecai, who is now ready with his sword stabs through the middle of Berserker Bear's chest so that the sword pops out of its back.
Mordecai flies towards me, smiling. "Nice work, dude!" The anthropomorphic blue jay congratulates me with a thumbs up.
"You were awesome too!" I agree, before giving him a high five.
This is quickly interrupted when I'm knocked off my hover board. Before I even hit the ground the board is quickly recalled into my nanocom, Dexter's failsafe to avoid any boards being broken or stolen. I land on both feet and stumble a bit. I feel a scorching pain on my back.
Crap! The Berserker Bear actually got in a hit! I quickly pull out my nanocom, to pull out a nano to heal my wounds. At this point I don't care which nano… Just any nano!
A ball of light then escapes my nanocom and out pops a nano. "Courage!" It shouts out.
"Oh thank, God." I sigh. "Courage, can you take care of my back?"
"Sure!" The nano smiles before enveloping me in a ring of light.
The wound subsides a bit but not completely. I'll have to worry about getting patched up again later.
"Thanks Courage." I tell the nano showing it my appreciation.
The nano nods before returning to my nanocom.
I then turn and notice that most of us have joined the throng of Fusions and fighters on the ground, Kenneth is seen firing away from near the edge of the tree line with Liv, Mordecai is on the ground now slashing away at the Berserker Bears with Epic and Fred, and then there's the currently visible Chamalien firing the needles from his tail.
A Berserker Bear approaches me and tries to claw at my chest. However I send one of my metal gloved fists at the Berserker Bear's swinging arm forcing it back. Then I finish it off with an uppercut which sends it flying until it hits the ground and dissolves into Fusion Matter.
I then quickly turn around and send a jab at another oncoming bear but it remains still intact. The Berserker Bear then stands up on its hind legs and barrels towards me. I send a punch with my right hand but the bear blocks it. I send a punch with my left and it blocks that as well. The Bear growls and glares down at me.
"Guys a little help here?" I ask.
"A bit busy!" Kenneth shouts, while sending the butt of his rifle into the muzzle of his own Berserker Bear.
"I've also got my hands -er claws tied right now." Chamalien chokes from atop a Berserker Bear's back, his arms around it and tail propped up ready to fire it however he was clearly struggling.
"Sorry, can't do anything." Liv apologized as he was doing the same as Kenneth.
"Sorry dude…." Mordecai sighed as he was blocking the claws of a Berserker Bear with his sword.
"Sure, if I could fly or something, I'd easily help you." Epic sighed as he struggled with his own Berserker Bear.
"Kinda busy…" Fred sighed as he was also fighting off his own Bear with the butt of his energy shot gun.
I then look towards the Mystery Machine as I continue trying to push the bear back and that's when I notice another Berserker Bear barreling towards it.
"Uh… Guys who's got the Mystery Machine covered?" I ask.
"Oh no…" Liv chokes out.
"Somebody do something!" Mordecai and Epic shout together.
"Scooby!" Fred shouts out.
The famed dog pops his head out of the bushes that line the path. The dog looks scared, and shoves his head back inside.
"Scooby!" Mordecai and Epic join in on Fred's cry.
Seeing as he's our only hope the rest of us join in on the cry. "Scooby! Scooby Doo! Help!"
Scooby now confident jumps out from where he is hiding from within the bushes. "Scooby Dooby Doo!"
He jumps in front of the Mystery Machine and growls. However the Berserker Bear still advances on the Mystery Machine, this causes Scooby's glare to falter a bit.
"Come on Scooby you can do it!" I shout, still struggling with my grip against the Berserker Bear.
"Yeah!" Fred shouts. "Just attack, we know you can!"
Scooby then lunges for the Berserker Bear and to our surprise after a short struggle the bear falls.
"Scooby Dooby Doo!" The dog happily smiles.
Knowing the Mystery Machine is safe I turn back to my own monster. Without any other options, I send a kick between the bear's legs. Although it doesn't show any visible pain but its grip is slightly loosened. That's all I need to push the Fusion Monster back. The bear falls on it's back and I lunge towards it, sending a fist towards it's muzzle.
Turning around I watch Kenneth pull out a small pistol and fire that at the bear, killing it.
Ben, finally finding the correct grip fires the needle into the bear's eye, causing Fusion Matter to ooze from it. The Bear fell and within seconds it completely dissolved into Fusion Matter.
Liv then sends a hard thrust at the bear with the butt of his energy rifle and then turns his gun around and shoots at the bears head. The bear's skull looks as if it's going to pop right out of its socket but instead it just dissolves into Fusion Matter.
Mordecai seeing no option jumps up in the air and flies for a few seconds before landing behind the bear and shoving his sword in its back. The bear dissolves into Fusion Matter within seconds.
Epic pushes his monster back before jumping in the air in a flip and slashing his sword through it. He lands on both feet as the monster finishes dissolving.
Fred then turns his gun around and hits the bear in the muzzle with it. Once it's distracted Fred then expertly fires at the bear's face, dissolving it into Fusion Matter.
We all end up in a circle, with the exception of Scooby, each looking around for more enemies to show up. However no monsters appear for some time.
Kenneth sighs in relief, "I think it's over."
"Thank God." Mordecai sighs in relief.
"I don't know, I thought it was fun." Epic smirks.
"Yeah…" I roll my eyes. "Because almost failing the mission, getting exposed and losing our lives was 'fun.'"
"Ben, sneak over and check the Mystery Machine make sure that the imaginary enemy is still there." Kenneth tells the alien changeling.
Chamalien nods before vanishing into thin air. We see Scooby jump a bit before returning to us and the Mystery Machine door open for a few seconds before closing again.
Chamalien appears before us and turns back into Ben. "Uh… guys we have a problem."
"What do you mean?" I ask.
"The imaginary energy canister's gone and I found a spot of Fusion Matter where it was." He explained.
"Damn it!" Mordecai yells.
"Some Fusion went off with it!" Liv shouts, "What are we gonna tell XANA and Computress?"
Kenneth looks down regretfully before sighing. "Let's go home everyone…"
Dex Labs, An hour after the CNUD and friend's departure:
Ace's POV:
*Fusionfall Soundtrack: Heavy Petting*
Out of the portal we walk and the giant Chronosapien closes it. Ben then changes back to normal.
"You four have a lot of nerve coming back here…" XANA growls.
Computress glares at him. "XANA stop! What happened guys?"
Kenneth being the leader is pushed in front of the group to answer. "We'd fought the Fusion Monsters like you'd asked, but a Fusion ran off with the imaginary energy. As you most likely know the Mystery Machine wasn't destroyed. We have no idea who may have the imaginary energy, the Fusion didn't leave any indication to who it was and they must of done it when we were fighting off the Berserker Bears."
"We're sorry we failed the mission…" I sigh.
XANA chuckles, the two red eyes of XANA begin to glow an even darker crimson red. "You're sorry…" XANA laughs once again, his eyes glowing even redder. "You're sorry?" The digital entity laughs once again. "But of course… I mean it was only a mission to recover the missing imaginary energy and restore the Mystery Machine. It's wonderful that you had to complete the less important part of the mission, which is perfectly fine."
His hologram then started to grow bigger and bigger as all the screens around us began to broadcast the eye of XANA begins to flash on every screen.
"I mean it only shows your incompetence as a species! It makes one wonder how you people expect to win a war when you just settle for mediocrity?" Smoke began rising all around the room, the rest of us just looked around wide eyed, not quite sure what to do. "This is why I should-"
Suddenly XANA's hologram disappeared and Computress sighed. "That'll keep him quiet for some time."
Epic just kind of looked around and decide to answer the question that was on all our minds. "Um… What the hell just happened?!"
*Fusionfall Soundtrack: Character Creation*
"Seems as though XANA had a bit of a meltdown." Computress answered. "I can see why though, this mission was very important to him. This was the first time Dexter left him in charge and you know Dexter, he will blame anyone in sight."
"So what happened to XANA?" Kenneth asked.
"I've temporarily disabled his holographic projection as well as locked him out of any of our systems. For now he's most likely roaming the extranet deleting and distorting programs out of anger. Only Franz Hopper, Dexter and I are able to carry out this command." Computress explains.
"So what's going to happen to him?" Ben asked.
"I'll give him some time to blow off steam," Computress answered. "Then I'll talk to him, hopefully he'll calm down a bit."
"So is Dexter going to find out about the failed mission?" I ask, worried that we'll have another disappointment added to our records.
"Unfortunately yes." Computress answers. "But not to worry, I'm sure the next mission will be better!"
"Is that all then?" Fred asks.
"Yes, you are dismissed." Computress answers.
"I gotta head to the medical wing, my nano's healing is already wearing off."
"We'll join you." Kenneth smiles.
As we leave we hear Computress sigh, "Oh no, XANA just shut down all the World of Warcraft servers, I'll have to take care of it before I start getting calls from Bloo and Sam."
The rest of the day is okay: While Noah's tending to my wounds he tells me that they found Mike and he has no idea what happened; once we got home I insisted I train some more but the others insist I get some rest; I called Brick to check up on my old Providence friend and we end the day going out for pizza with Ben, Mordecai and Scooby (Fred said he was busy.)
By tomorrow I should be ready to get back to work.
Why in the hell do each of these chapters end up always coming up to 38 pages? How was the chapter? I know I didn't focus on the mission that much, but Mal needed to be talked about for my other story and I didn't feel like introducing him too early in the other one. He'll be appearing once we get to the Dark Lands, so not for a while. Um… Yeah, I think I did Mordecai, Fred, Dexter, Noah and Blossom pretty well and I feel like I'm absolutely terrible at writing Scooby Doo… So next chapter the mission will focus on the Total Drama Jumbo Jet and Dexter may or may not be back… I'm not sure… The good thing is I think I'm working out parts of Ace's personality down. That's good. I'll be writing him again later.
By the way now I'm gonna announce a project that I've been working on for a while but kinda lost interest in until today (April 22, 2014) when I mentioned Brick and Ace being friends.
CNUD: Origins. In this story we'll be going over each character's lives before the war and how they got involved. I started with Ace's first chapter sometime before Return to The Past Now! Part 2 and now I'll pick it up again. For Ace we'll be hearing about his time in Providence and before that, for Kenneth well, we'll see… All I know is I'm going with Evan's continuity for Kenneth, for Liv you'll get how he was bullied and stuff… and for Epic be expecting some again I don't really know yet because I'm going with Evan's continuity again… So be looking out for that in what I'm hoping will be before June…
Present Day Ways A/N:
I feel like I have a lot of explaining to do with this chapter because hoo boy.
To start with, let's talk about Mike and all my boneheaded ideas for him back in the day!
So this was written as Total Drama All Stars was out? I think? And I was starting to just get deeper in the Total Drama fandom at the time. The good old writers forum haha.
But yeah, I was a big fan of Mike back in the day and as a kid, I liked Mal. I got older and realized how much he sucked and why.
The general idea with Mike was that he was going to weaponized his personalities and would become very useful during the war. Dexter developed "The Personifier" which was meant to channel his personalities in different ways to control them and actively surpress Mal. It was a whole thing.
I am not happy with this decision today and while I was young it doesn't really excuse me for writing it this way. The way I cringed at reading "Tie him down" was just kinda eugh.
My intent is to leave these fics as they were when I was writing them but I am not at all happy with this representation of DID and would certainly approach him differently today.
And then there's Dexter popping pills like no man's business which is somethin' as well. There certainly was a plan and an arc I was trying to go with him but yeah, being very young and my lack of understanding of such topics was something. At the very least I had the sense to note this as a negative but the fact that I had him take enough pills to kill a man in a single swig certainly rubs me the wrong way too. Then again, the point definitely was to be superfluous but still a bit irresponsible on my part. So… yeah. Sorry about that.
So on much lighter topics now:
The way I write him is still cringe and like another character. Same goes for Blossom, God what was I thinking?
I don't know why I had them share a bed.
Doctor Noah is a weird but kinda funny addition. I actually kinda like his characterization here.
Ace is still a little bit of a nothing character, but then again so is everybody.
I think this is the only time I have ever written Chamalien, but I really liked the alien back in the day and wanted to use him.
This is also probably the only time I have written anyone from Scooby Doo and I'm not very happy with it lol. Never say never, could give them another shot. But back then? Yeesh.
Mordecai was also a fun addition.
I feel like the buddies I brought along for each chapter was less about what they would add and more about "Pick your favorite Cartoon Network Character of the Week"
And I thought XANA flipping out at the end was admittedly funny. I still would not write him this way today, but at the very least it made the character a lot of fun to read.
So… With that problematic chapter out of the way, let's move on to the next one!