Chapter Text
KNOCK
KNOCK
KNOCK
Shrimpo's eyelids slowly cracked open as he woke up to the sound of solid metal banging on wood.
"We have a run, today, Shrimpo. Get up," buzzed an irritated feminine voice. "Not dealing with your sh█t today," she tagged on, her system automatically filtering out the profanity. It was a restriction that had been drilled into them after an unfortunate incident involving a lack of anger management skills and a subpar game show. The founders had realized that she'd need a little extra help with her duties, considering the stress they'd be under as a main character, and the most popular one, at that. Unfortunately, she was still stuck with it as neither Dyle nor Dandy could figure out how to remove it.
Shrimpo would poke fun at her over it from time to time, but only to an extent. He knew that he wouldn't win a fight against the hunk of metal if he had overstepped and pushed her temper too much. Their wrathfulness was somehow able to rival his.
KNOCK
"I said GET UP!"
"FINE!" Shrimpo yelled in response, not wanting to face a death by 20,000 volts. He despised that Vee was one of the only toons who could scare him into listening. "Hate runs," he grumbled to himself.
He sluggishly pulled off his blanket and slid out of his bed, his hind-tail flopping on the ground with a thud. He threw on a black, loosely fitting, long-sleeve shirt and layered on a dark red tee. After all of the black stains that he had gotten on the red, it was pretty much his dedicated attire for ichor runs. It was a shame, because it was a pretty cool shirt, too. It had a graphic of a song cover of a song that his handler really liked. Shrimpo, by proxy, also really liked it. He was interested in anything that she was.
"I'm still here, you know. I've been instructed not to leave unless you're coming with me to the elevator."
So much for skipping the run and listening to his CD collection.
"YEAH, YEAH, WHATEVER. GIVE ME A MOMENT. I'M STILL GETTING READY. Stupid piece of scrap…"
"What was that last part?" Vee questioned.
Shrimpo groaned. "NOTHING. LEAVE ME ALONE. I'M ALMOST READY."
"Good."
The crustacean rolled his eyes so hard that you could've sensed it from the other side of the door. He continued getting dressed, putting on a pair of black sweatpants that had been a bit torn up over the years, especially in the area where his knees were. They were long enough to where they partially shrouded his feet and were pretty roughed up at the bottom hem. Finally, he took a pair of black gloves from his nightstand. He hated the feeling of the valves on his hands; the dirty, rusty texture just rubbed him the wrong way. The gloves helped. Though, he also hated the constricted feeling they gave him.
Shrimpo, still really tired, sluggishly opened his door and stumbled out, slamming it shut with his tail. His antennae were curved in a manner that was getting irritating his face. He tried blowing them out of the way, but they would just droop back down to where they were.
"Finally. I thought you weren't coming out for a second. Actually, that's an understatement. I had no hope in you from the start," Vee remarked with a smug grin.
The used-to-be game show host still had that artificial confidence in their tone of voice that ground Shrimpo's gears. She stood in front of the doorframe in a black coat layered over a white shirt stained with ichor. The clothes fit her form almost exactly, just extending a bit over the bottom of her torso, leaving nothing but her metal legs sticking out. The antennas on her head were bent more than usual, and her screen had a bit of stutter, making her face spike out to the sides every now and then. It was a recent development, probably as a result of a lack of maintenance. Extra attention to detail was put into her outfits, as the founders always wanted her to look her best. Of course, all of the main characters were main characters, but based off of how the fans reacted with her, some main characters were main-er than others.
Shrimpo tugged on his antennae. "UGHHH, I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU!"
"What else is new?"
"NOT YOU."
Vee snarled, furrowing their digital brow, before her screen flicked back to a neutral face, and she started walking down the hallway towards the elevator. They looked back to make sure that the crustacean was coming along, but only for a moment. Shrimpo hated her lack of caring.
He clenched his fists and stomped after her in typical Shrimpo fashion. Much to his dismay, however, the small thuds that his feet made on the carpeted hallway weren't all that intimidating, and more importantly, did not get a reaction out of Vee. Stomping also just wasn't a very efficient way to travel, so he quit the act and picked up his pace to catch up to the droid, who was already at the elevator waiting for him. He made sure not to get his tail caught in the door; he was deathly afraid of the idea of getting it crushed by the hard, heavy steel.
The elevator door screeched as it slammed shut, and, other than the constant pitter-pattering of Shrimpo impatiently tapping his foot, the ride up to the lobby was dead silent. Shrimpo squinted his eyes as they adjusted to the bright lighting of the elevator, which greatly contrasted with the lighting of his room and the hallway, both of which were quite dim. Neither he nor Vee could be bothered to speak to the other, but Shrimpo didn't hate to imagine that the death stare he gave to Vee the whole time was intense enough to make a noise that only she could hear. He hoped that it hurt her microphones.
The metal components of the elevator clattered together as it ground to a halt. It played its little jingle, before opening up to the lobby, where all of the other toons were waiting for the two of them. Vee stepped out first, and Shrimpo begrudgingly followed. His senses were quickly filled with the noise of everyone conversing, before they all stopped and turned to him.
He didn't like the feeling of their eyes on him. Not one bit.
"I've got him right here," Vee said, cracking her metallic knuckles, each one making a mechanical click, before she walked over and joined the group. She was off talking to Badstro, or some other stupid toon that Shrimpo didn't care about.
Rodger, who was now right in front of him perked up. "I'm glad to see that you've made it, Shrimpo!"
The detective was wearing a dusty, dark brown trench coat over a maroon shirt. He had black gloves enveloping his hands, though they were a bit fancier than Shrimpo's and seemed to be a lot more worn. He also had a pair of dark, khaki pants, and slung over his shoulder was a small, black messenger bag. It was akin to that of a large purse, though when Shrimpo had asked about it in the past, Rodger insisted that the two were completely different concepts.
Shrimpo twirled one of his antennae around with his claws. "I DID NOT AGREE TO BEING HERE."
The detective put a fist up to his eye and cleared his throat. "Ahem, well, you see, I tried to tell them that you wouldn't like to be here, but they insisted. Apologies. I'll be more convincing next time."
Shrimpo lowered his voice, just a bit. "'WOULDN'T LIKE' DOESN'T QUITE DESCRIBE MY HATRED, BUT WHATEVER. YOU TRIED, I GUESS."
"WHY DO THEY WANT ME TO COME ALONG, ANYWAY? THEY'RE ALWAYS COMPLAINING ABOUT ME BEING A LIABILITY."
Rodger shrugged. "More hands are always good."
Shrimpo sighed. "I JUST WANT SOMETHING TO EAT. I WAS DRAGGED HERE RIGHT AFTER WAKING UP."
"Oh, I've accounted for that. I have a few protein bars with me," he said, rummaging through his bag. He pulled out a handful. "Take whatever you'd like. I'm on good terms with Dyle."
The ravenous crustacean snatched the bars in the blink of an eye. The plastic wrapping crinkled in his hands. He didn't look at the branding on the bars because it had imagery of Sprout on it, who he hated.
Rodger squinted his eye. "What do we say?"
"RIGHT. Uh, THANKS."
"I'm proud of you," he said, bending down a little to ruffle the shrimp's antennae with his hand.
It made Shrimpo's head feel a little fuzzy, but in a way that wasn't awful. His face darkened a little bit and he averted eye-contact, but he didn't fight the positive attention. He just tore open the protein bars and shoved them in his mouth in silence
"Hah, don't choke, Shrimpo," the old man warned, chuckling.
"STOP BEING SO NICE! THERE ARE OTHER TOONS AROUND, YOU KNOW," he shouted quietly, still chewing on his food. He cautiously looked around.
"Oh, so now you can tone your voice down," Rodger teased.
"SHUT UP…" he bit back, but without any of his usual venom.
"Well, Shrimpo, that isn't a very nice way to speak to your elders," the detective remarked. He took the wrappers from Shrimpo when he was done with the bars and crushed them up, stuffing them back in his bag.
Shrimpo instinctively reached for a hoodie string for something to chew on after he was done eating, only to grasp nothing but air as he remembered that he wasn't wearing a hoodie at the moment. So he settled on biting his claws. They where kind of sharp, but the feeling of them on his tongue was interesting. He looked over at the other toons to see who else was on the run.
Apart from him and Rodger, there were Sprout, Cosmo, Astro, Vee, Tisha, and… Shelly. In other words, every surviving toon in Gardenview who wasn't Dandy, Dyle, or Pebble. Dyle was too valuable to risk on runs, so Dandy never let him on any. Dandy never tagged along because he was too busy managing the operation. Pebble, though? Shrimpo had no idea why they had forced him on and not Dandy's stupid pet.
He stopped biting his claws. "RODGER."
"Yes?" he responded.
"WHY DID THEY BRING ME HERE AND NOT THE ROCK?"
Rodger thought for a moment.
"…Rock? Oh! You mean Pebble. Dandy refused to let him come along, and he didn't want to talk about it when I pressed further to know why."
The crustacean squinted. "WHO'S GOING TO KEEP THE TWISTEDS BUSY, THEN?"
"Sprout," Rodger promptly answered.
Shrimpo deadpanned. "I WOULD NOT TRUST HIM IF MY LIFE DEPENDED ON IT."
"I apologize, but our lives may be depending on it today." He bent down a little to get closer to Shrimpo's level and looked at him in the eyes.
"Everything will be alright, okay? Nothing will go wrong. You can trust me."
He took a deep breath. "FINE."
A loud clap grabbed the attention of the two of them, and the two of them quickly turned to see who it was. Sprout was standing up on one of the benches, with his hands clasped together.
He cleared his throat with an unnecessary amount of volume, which irritated Shrimpo.
"AHEM, so, we have everybody?" He looked down to his side at Cosmo, who was standing next to the bench.
Cosmo glanced around at everyone, before giving smiling and giving him a thumbs up.
Sprout grinned. "Great! Alright, y'all. Let's make this one quick. I don't want to be down there any longer than we need to. I say… ten floors?" He looked down at Cosmo again for reassurance, and the Swiss roll gave him a nod.
"That should be sufficient," Vee buzzed in.
"Alright! Ten floors it is."
"HOW CAN HE BE SO… CHEERY ABOUT THIS?" Shrimpo shouted under his breath, looking at Rodger.
The old man just tilted his head and shrugged.
"Can we get going already? I'm getting a little tired over here," Badstro whined.
And with that, all of them piled into the elevator and began their descent. Shrimpo quickly took his brooding spot in the back corner of the elevator, opposite from the side with the television. He stayed away from the television because it reminded him of Vee. Rodger joined Shrimpo in his corner, which he didn't hate.
Most of the floors were pretty uneventful. Every floor, Sprout would sprint out of the elevator, quickly finding the twisteds and wrangling them all up. Then he'd run to the other side of the floor and stay there until all of the machines had been extracted from and they all went back to the elevator. The floor would be finished, and every other floor Dandy would show up to trade goods for any spare tapes. If Shrimpo was lucky—or unlucky, depending on how you saw it—he'd snag a machine every now and then. The valve would always jam, though, so usually he'd get frustrated and just hand the job over to Rodger.
Sprout's lack of a reaction to being burdened with the responsibility of running around and keeping the corpses of what used to be his friends and co-workers disgusted Shrimpo. The crustacean hated thinking about it, and he also hated that he kind of envied Sprout's ability to be so indifferent.
He also hated how slow he was compared to the stupid berry. Compared to everybody, actually. Even Rodger could run faster than him, despite his old age. He'd always felt like a fish out of water whenever he was on a run. Especially when extracting. He didn't know why turning the valve was such a struggle for him when all of the others could do it just fine. Of course, shrimp were crustaceans, not fish, which he had learned from Finn back when the fishbowl was still around, but his point still stood.
The eighth floor was what flipped everything around.
"Does anyone else hear those loud thuds and the growling? It sounds like it's coming from the other side of the map," Tisha asked.
"I've never heard anything like it before," the toon next to her commented.
Shrimpo grumbled with indifference. "WHO CARES, IT'S PROBABLY NOTHING!" he shouted, though his tone was missing a bit of his usual overconfidence.
Right after that, two loud barks were heard. He turned over to see a large bundle of rocks held together by elongated chords of ichor. Each of its eyes had a red sclera, and it's gaping maw was dripping with black. Also, it was charging right at him with a speed unprecedented by any other twisted.
Everyone had already ran off, but Shrimpo just froze in fear. He couldn't bring himself to make even the slightest movement of his muscles. He stared at the beast wide-eyed, wondering if he was about to become just another tally on the death toll of the operation. Would he be missed? Probably not. No one would have a reason to miss him. Maybe Rodger, but only because he was one of the only toons who actively interacted with the detective. The others were a bit put off by his constant investigations and interviews.
Time seemed to slow. He just stood there, observing what used to be Dandy's pet rock. Now he knew why Pebble couldn't come along. He was dead. And soon, Shrimpo would be too.
Twisted Pebble rammed into him with the force of a semi-truck, slamming him into the wall with a loud thud. He heard the disgustingly wet ripping sound of his left arm being torn open by its teeth as he raised his hands to protect himself. The only thing stopping him from passing out right then and there was the rush of adrenaline. It grabbed him by his head-tail with its mouth and picked him up, smashing him into the ground. Another hit, and he'd be done for.
Or he would've been done for if a moment later, the blast of an air horn hadn't pierced his antennae and drawn the attention of the monster in front of him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sprout running away with what used to be Pebble pursuing him.
His left arm felt wet and cold, and he felt his smooth, bitter ichor dripping out of his mouth. He wiped it off with his good arm, completely staining his sleeve with black. He laid in a puddle of liquid that would preferably still be inside of him, and not splayed on the floor.
Then the pain started to kick in.
"F—fuck…" he choked out. His senses were flooded by a loud ringing in his head. Yelling was off the table. He felt the sharpest pain in his arm that he had ever felt in his life, and his abdomen felt like it was on fire. He coughed up more ichor onto the ground next to him. Maybe it would've been better if Sprout just let Pebble finish him off. Staying alive was not worth all of the pain.
He looked down at his now torn and tattered shirt. It was a shame, really. He was quite fond of this one. He remembered the look on his handlers face as she was showing him this one, and he remembered the long info dump she did about the song cover on it.
The crustacean relaxed, completely settling down on the ground. He stared up at the ceiling, observing the strange patterns that littered it. He smiled, but only a little bit. He'd never really bothered to admire how big each of the floors were. Gradually, everything started to mix together as his vision blurred and everything went dark. The last thing he heard before completely going out were panicked shouts and rushed footsteps quickly approaching him.
Shrimpo's eyes slowly cracked open. Everything was blurry, and he was surrounded by blinding lights. He was laid down on something nice and soft, so he knew that it wasn't his mattress. Seeing as it wasn't very wide, and it had walls, it was probably a couch. He was in a bedroom, a pretty spacious one at that. The walls were striped with shades of red, and he could sort of make out a few posters on the walls of a red and green figure. Sprout, maybe?
He sat up slowly. Every part of his body was aching, so he knew that he wasn't dead. So where was he? And why was he in his red shirt from back when Gardenview was open!?
He quickly tried to pull it off, before realizing that it was all that he was wearing, other than his black sweatpants. Someone had changed his clothes for him. His face flushed. He shivered at the idea of someone seeing his body without layers and layers of fabric on top.
He looked down at his body to see it bandaged up. Mainly, his left arm was heavily wrapped in gauze, and he felt a similar pressure on his head-tail. He reached up to feel the texture of the wrapping.
His vision started to clear up.
…Ah.
So he was in Sprout's room.
Shrimpo flinched at the sudden sound of a door opening, breaking the previous silence that filled the room. The door clicked shut, and he looked over to see who it was.
"I see you're awake," Cosmo said, speaking quietly.
"WHY THE—"
Shrimpo burst into a coughing fit, before resuming.
"—WHY THE FUCK AM I IN SPROUT'S ROOM?" he weakly croaked out.
"Keep it down, will you? Sprout's still asleep," the Swiss roll reprimanded.
"…Not anymore," said a stirring Sprout, now sitting up on his bed, rubbing his eyes.
Shrimpo grumbled.
"Oh quit whining," Sprout snapped. "At least your body's mostly intact! After I pulled that thing away from you, it almost tore my forearm clean off! Not even a 'Thank you, Sprout,' for saving your life?"
Sprout lifted his right arm, revealing a bandaged mess akin to Shrimpo's. It wasn't nearly as bad, however. "Thank Arthur I'm left handed. Working in the kitchen is going to be awful for the time being. Why were you just standing there? You didn't even try to run!"
Cosmo lightly punched Sprout in the shoulder. "Hey, cut him some slack. I'm sure he was scared out of his mind."
"When has he ever cut us any slack?" he bit back.
"Just be the bigger person for a moment!" Cosmo scolded, lowering his volume.
"Anyways, you passed out, so we quickly finished extracting all of the machines on that floor and immediately headed back up. Rodger requested that we take good care of you. I bandaged you up and changed your clothes," the Swiss roll explained. "Found that red shirt in the back of your closet. That's the one you'd wear back when Gardenview was open, right? Thought you might like—er, not hate that one."
Shrimpo flushed again when he was reminded of that dreaded red shirt.
"YEAH, WELL, I DO HATE IT. I'M OUT OF HERE. BYE."
He quickly got up and stormed out of the room, but soon enough his lightheadedness caught up to him and he had to grasp the wall to stop himself from collapsing onto the ground.
"Need help?" he head Cosmo yell from behind him.
"NO. YES. WHATEVER. TAKE ME TO… TAKE ME TO RODGER'S ROOM."
As the two of them made the excruciating journey towards Rodger's, Shrimpo reluctantly had to use Cosmo as a support the whole time. He hated that dealing with Pebble had left him too weak to stand up for himself, but he'd just try his best to forget about everything later. After what felt like forever, they had arrived, and Shrimpo leaned onto the wall to support himself.
"Well, see you around, Shrimpo," Cosmo said, turning around to leave.
"I HOPE NOT. SCRAM. GO HANG OUT WITH YOUR BOYFRIEND OR SOMETHING."
Cosmo rolled his eyes. "Mhm. That's what I planned on."
The baker walked away, leaving Shrimpo in the hall. He waited until he heard the sound of the elevator door closing to make sure that Cosmo was gone. He made one loud—
BANG
—on Rodger's door with his fist. Soon after, he heard the click of Rodger's door unlocking, and it swung open.
Shrimpo stumbled into the room and fell into Rodger's arms. The detective looked down at the crustacean, his one eye wide enough to almost entirely cover his glass. He quickly directed Shrimpo to somewhere to sit down, before gently closing the door so as to not upset the little shrimp with a sudden loud noise.
"Uh—I didn't expect to see you here so soon, Shrimpo. How are you feeling?" Rodger inquired.
"AWFUL," Shrimpo responded bluntly.
"YOU LIED. YOU SAID THAT EVERYTHING WOULD BE ALRIGHT AND THAT NOTHING WOULD GO WRONG. YOU SAID TO TRUST YOU."
"Well, I'm afraid I can't predict every outcome, but I'm truly sorry about what happened. It was sickening to see your ichor strewn about the floor like that. But you're alive, and I think that that's what matters."
"…I GUESS."
"I trust that the bakers have taken sufficient care of you?"
Shrimpo just shrugged in response.
He looked up at Rodger, fiddling with his claws. Rodger looked back.
"RODGER?"
"Yes, Shrimpo?"
"WHERE ARE MY CLOTHES FROM THAT RUN? I HATE THIS SHIRT."
Rodger perked up. "Oh! I've had your shirt sewn back together for you. I remember how you once mentioned that your handler had gifted it to you, so I assumed it was important." He walked over to his desk and picked up Shrimpo's dark red t-shirt. He held it out, presenting it to the crustacean. "I was going to hand this back to you later. Your gloves should be nicely laid out on your bed, alongside your other shirt, which has also been repaired."
It definitely wasn't in the same condition as it was before, but whoever had put it back together had done a pretty good job. He took the shirt and gestured for Rodger to turn around, and quickly changed shirts as soon as he did so.
"WHOSE WORK IS THIS?" Shrimpo asked. "TISHA'S?"
"No, actually. Shelly did it for me. And I'd like for you to give her a 'thank you.'"