Chapter Eleven:

Double Trouble Over

Time didn't matter to them right now.

Ten minutes, twenty minutes, an eternity. It never mattered. Everything seemed hopeless, and SMG4 sat in the corner, festering in his frustration, as his mind slipped away. All he could see was his fellow meme guardian, sitting across from him at a bo-staff's length, scowling and festering with frustration.

This was what it came to, two protectors of the universe, a meme man and a graveyard celebrity, losing their minds the longer they stayed within the prison that was the elevator. And all they had in the universe was hatred, never-ending hatred for each other, a hatred they thought had ended when their true purpose was found.

In their mind, the fire was alit, and their eyes contracted. Silently, wordlessly, SMG3 seethed with fury, glaring at SMG4 with nothing to say, feeling the urge to strike. And SMG4 was feeling similar thoughts, but perhaps they both knew what was going through their minds, due to the unbreakable cosmic connection they'd shared for years.

'Look at that bozo just staring at me, with that hat and those gloves.' SMG4 thought, biting the near-irresistible urge to snarl with fury at his old nemesis, 'SMG3... That man has no rizz. And I can't believe I walrus-flopped on him in that igloo, and he turned over a new leaf, even while he still bears that skull on his hat. Why should I care about his style?'

'SMG4...' SMG3 thought, his irate emotions bubbling through his veins, 'I hate you... with the rage of a million nuclear blasts. I miss being the villain, why should I care about memes, and being the good guy? AND WHY SHOULD I LET YOU KEEP MAKING VIDEOS AND MEMES ALL ABOUT STUPID MARIO STUFF! You… baka!'

All of the stress, and all of the frustration, the emotions the two men struggled to bottle up, was getting closer to the boiling point like a volatile volcano on the edge of eruption. They were alone, trapped in a box, surrounded by nothing, and every breath in their lungs was getting shallower by the minute. Nothing in the universe could save them now, or could it?

For a grim moment, the situation was bleak. But then, they felt it, the jolt, the sensation of the elevator going up. SMG4 felt his body quiver, his legs wobble, and SMG3 felt the same thing too. They slowly climbed to their feet, and their eyes were fixed on the blinking lights on the lift's panel, as a resonating beep filled the elevator.

The counter that showed the floor numbers blinked constantly, counting upward past the intended floor number that the meme guardians of the universe intended to travel too. Five, six, seven, eight. Both former enemies felt the jolt of the lift stopping, and their eardrums shuddered as the elevator chimed, and the doors rolled open, finally granting freedom to SMG4 and SMG3.

They took a confident step forward, stepping out of what had been their prison, and noticed a flight of stairs leading up to the roof. When both meme men had last heard from their good friend, Meggy and Mario were going to the rooftops, and they were likely waiting at the top after finding out what had jammed the elevator.

Meme man and Graveyard celebrity began the ascent up the stairs, step-by-step, and their feet moved fast. They raced to the top, and stepped through the door that led onto the roof of YouTube's headquarters to find Mario and Meggy waiting by the elevator's mechanisms, even though the tent and the piles of trash raised an eyebrow or two.

"Hey, welcome back, you two!" Meggy greeted happily.

"You and Mario did it!" SMG4 hugged the ex-Inkling, his heart filled with relief, and his mind began to heal from the descent into near insanity.

"Another minute with this moron and I could have died." SMG3 remarked, mocking his partner as he did so, "Can you begin to imagine, the two of us dying together in the damn elevator?!"

"Now, we can rescue my channel." SMG4 coughed, changing the subject.

Mario raised a gloved hand. "Oooh, Mario doesn't think that will be a problem anymore!" The fat Italian reported, "It turns out your old enemy, a certain former YouTube CEO, was behind the demonetization, but Mario killed her, and we unjammed the elevator."

SMG3 blinked, and SMG4 double-blinked. They all took a few moments, and processed a fraction of what the pudgy plumber had told them. Even after a certain dinosaur had stepped down from YouTube, the company was still capable of demonetizing videos. Just hearing that she was responsible, that she'd done it, even after leaving, it was maddening.

"It's true. We found her up here, and Ms. Susan Whatever confessed to being the one who'd been demonetizing videos as revenge." Meggy told the meme guardians, "Oh, and she blocked the elevator. Mario gave her an ass-whooping, and he didn't pull any punches. We don't have to deal with that stupid YouTube CEO ever again."

"And that stupid demonetization has just been removed from your video." Mario added, he held up a phone with the YouTube website visible onscreen, "We just took care of it."

"Wow, I didn't think we'd be dealing with that dinosaur-faced hag." SMG3 remarked.

"My video's safe! My channel's safe!" SMG4 said elatedly, "I can make more videos with her bad influence finished for good. Now let's head back to the Showgrounds... and I need a shower since I don't know how long we were stuck in that elevator."

SMG3 tapped a button on his phone, and summoned a portal. "I'm going back to the Internet Graveyard." He said in a tired voice, "See you later, guys."

The red-eyed villain-turned protector of the universe walked through the gleaming rift in reality, the vortex that bridged universes, and departed from the universe as the portal sealed shut once he'd gone through. Mario, SMG4, and Meggy stood alone on the roof, taking in the fresh air, and they stepped away, ready to leave YouTube's headquarters for the time being...