Archive of Our Own ^beta

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Infinity Train: Orchid Observer

By Green Phantom Queen

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Prologue

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The Switch

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The clock was ticking.

He didn’t pay attention as he was doing research on the dining room table, munching on some celery stalks with a side of blue cheese dressing. With a loud crunch , the stalk was in between his teeth like a cigar. He furiously typed away and nodded his head when he found information, writing it down on a notebook before going to the next tab. 

This had been going on for some time, ever since he returned home. More and more research, videos, forum discussions. Everything he needed was for the biggest project he ever had to take.

He was done just standing in the sidelines and letting people walk over him. Now he was smarter, better, stronger . He was done with bullies and jerks who tried to convince him to hurt others.

The seconds ticked down as he finished the last of his work and closed his laptop with a sigh.

3…2…1…

Ding!

Jesse Cosay grinned as he tied on a blue apron decorated with white orchids over some pajamas. He quickly slipped on the oven mitts and went to open the oven, pulling out a rectangular casserole with a big grin on his face.

“Guys!” he shouted. “Dinner is ready!”

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“Wow, Jesse! This pumpkin lasagna is delicious!”

Jesse smiled as he saw his little brother dig into his plate of gooey cheesy lasagna with chopped sausage and mushrooms in it. He himself was already serving his parents with the green bean salad that he made on the side.

“I didn’t know you had a skill for cooking, son!” Stephan Cosay remarked.

“Well, when you fill in for a missing lunch lady, you learn to value the art of cooking for hundreds of people,” Jesse remarked. 

“It’s so nice of you to help out the school while Mrs. Graham recovered from her train trip,” Whitney Cosay said with a smile. “You’ve really changed since coming back from the train.

“Well, that’s because he had the bestest friend ever!” Nate cheered. “Isn’t that right, Lake?”

Lake, the only one sitting at the dinner table with silver skin, smirked. “Of course. Someone needed to help him get his mind in order.”

“Well you could’ve done it with a few less finger flicks to the head,” Jesse joked.

“But it’s thanks to her that you came back safe and sound,” Nate said.

“And it’s thanks to him that I’m here,” Lake said with a soft smile on her face.

Jesse placed a hand on the back of his head as he sat down on his seat and served himself a slice of pumpkin lasagna. As he was about to eat, Nate piped up with something.

“I wouldn’t imagine what it’d be like if I was the one on the Train,” Nate said. “I mean, without you, or mom, or dad…not able to make pillow forts or have dinner like this.”

Jesse swallowed, his mind flashing back to the last car he was in before his initial exit. “Yeah, me too.”

“Is something wrong?” asked Stephan.

“No…I mean, yes…” Jesse stammered. “It’s just that…there must be hundreds of children who are on the Train and separated from their families, their parents eating at the dinner table without a clue as to how they just disappeared completely, never to be found.”

“Are you talking about the Apex?” asked Lake. “After everything they did to us, I’d love to see them get punished for their cruelty.”

“I do admit that the kids are out of line,” Whittnay agreed. “But they’re still lost kids who don’t know any better.”

“Don’t know any better?” Lake repeated. “There are videos explaining the purpose of the Train! All they have to do is go to a car that has a newly awoken passenger and see it for themselves!”

“The problem is Grace,” Jesse pointed out. “She doesn’t care what you tell her. She’ll just spin it into an excuse that she has to continue as she is, regardless of how painful it will end. What was that called again? Oh yeah, sunk costs fallacy?”

“But how many more children, how many more denizens, are going to have to suffer until she figures out her mistakes?” 

“I…I don’t know. But I do know that Grace has a family, and that family needs to know the location of their daughter. The same goes with all of the Apex and their families.”

“Oh Jesse!” Whittnay exclaimed. “That’s so sweet of you to go that far to help them.”

“Yeah, Jesse’s a superhero!” Nate cheered. “Like Spider-Man!”

Jesse grinned as he began to eat his lasagna, all while Lake silently bit into the green bean salad.

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“Jesse?”

“Yeah?”

Lake looked up at the ceiling in Jesse’s bedroom, sleeping on a mattress on the floor. “Are you sure it’s a good idea to tell the families of the Apex about the Train?”

“Someone has to,” Jesse rolled to the side. “So that they can cling onto the hope that their children come back safe and sound?”

“And what happens if they decide to board the Train in order to search for them? They could be spending their entire lives navigating the Train and never finding them. And the Apex is so indoctrinated that they probably would refuse to even listen to their parents to stop with their ‘fun’.”

Jesse sighed. “I know that there are a lot of consequences, but I just can’t help but feel guilty about them.”

“That’s just you, and that’s okay.” Lake sat up. “It’s not your responsibility to save them. If they don’t want to be saved, then you can’t save them. Although…maybe we could terrify them with the consequences of their actions to make them shapen up?”

“With what? Nightmare therapy?”

Lake chuckled. “Maybe.” She then looked at the clock and noted how late it was. “Anyway, let’s get back to bed. You have school in the morning.”

Jesse yawned. “You’re right. The school year’s ending in a few days. Gotta make sure I ace my finals.”

Lake laid back, head resting on top of a black pillow, and smiled. “Night, Jesse.”

“Good night, Lake.”

Chapter Text

Yeaaaah…I have no excuse as to how long this took.

Blame NaNoWriMo, blame Moon Knight, blame my current obsessions with Delicious Party Pretty Cure and Yu-Gi-Oh Go Rush, blame my homework, etc, etc.

But also blame me not having a working story to tell.

However, thanks to Spinner_Nite, I’ve got a new world to explore that ties into Infinity Train: Seeker of Crocus and I hope you become interested with the twists and turns along the well.

And here we are! Let’s get back to Jesse’s time in school.

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Chapter 1

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Who Says

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“Morning Jesse!”

“Hey Angela! Glad to see things are getting better with your dad.”

“Hi Jesse!/Hey Jess!”

“Hey Mary! Hiya Laura. Glad to see your relationships have gotten better!”

“No way, Cosay!”

“Good to see you, Eddie!” Jesse gave Eddie a high-five. “How’s that dog of yours?”

“Doing better. See you at 3rd Period Chemistry!”

Jesse beamed as he walked the halls of Alyssum High School, feeling better than he ever had before. He didn’t have to worry about catching up on homework or meet-ups for the Swim Team thanks to tutoring and the Swim Coach allowing him to rest up after what must’ve been a “mind-changing experience” disappearing from home. He would be able to pass his finals without problem and perfected the butterfly stroke like he had known it his whole life.

He felt like a brand new him, and he honestly didn't mind singing about it as he went to his locker.

Practically every student at school heard the rumors that Jesse disappeared after his “friends” convinced his little brother to ride down a hill on a rickety laundry machine and break his arm. The Cosays were quick to press charges on Ethan Raffelsi and his buddies to pay for the cost of Nate’s hospital bills, not to mention how word quickly spread that Jesse’s disappearance was (somewhat) on them.

Naturally, this caused everyone to give Ethan the cold shoulder and he had been suspended for a week. And when Jesse came back to the surprise of, well, everyone , Ethan could only slink into the shadows in anger, especially since the swimmer had a new air of confidence with his stride. He was no longer the boy who was pushed around to do things like replace the school’s announcement with the screams and moans from a giallo film.

Jesse sighed to himself. Ever since he returned from his Train trip, his old “friends” haven't bothered him lately. But even he knew it wouldn’t last for long. Especially when he saw them march towards his direction.

“Oh it’s you,” Jesse said flatly.

“Look who thinks he’s hot shit,” said the burly sophomore with dyed blond hair and an olive jacket. He was flanked by three other boys – a Hindu with a lavender baseball cap and cyan shirt, a Caucasian boy with scruffy hazel colored hair and a red shirt, and a Korean with dyed green hair and khakis. “Glad to see things haven’t changed a bit, have they Jes-say?”

“Can you please get out of the way so I can go to my locker?” Jesse asked. “I have more important things to do.”

“Oh come on,” Ethan said. “Where’s the love gone? I thought we could hang out together like old times?”

“Well, I’ve been back for a few months,” Jesse stated coolly. “So why have you four decided to confront me now ? When there are people with phones out recording all of this?”

There was a pause as a few students were talking on their phones or chattering away on Facenote.

"Can't believe you're still alive," Ethan shrugged. "Thought you would've ended up like Sniveling Bee Simon.”

"Uh...who?"

Ethan groaned. “Have you been living under a rock? A couple of years ago, rumors had it that some eight year old kid with blond hair dressed in socks and sandals ran away after he misspelled a simple word. No one has seen him since. Some say he died or he drowned or became like that Japanese story of a girl on the toilet.”

“Uh-huh, spelling bee, socks… Simon ?!”

Jesse’s mind flashbacked back to a dingy car covered in graffiti, reckless children and two teenagers with red wavelength marks on their faces. One was African-American with purple satin gloves and the other had blond hair in a ponytail and a white hoodie.

“This is Simon. I met him when he was wearing socks and sandals. I trust him with my life.”

“But still that’s so pathetic to run away,” Ethan prattled on. “I mean, I get how you ran away because your little brother tattled on your parents, and yet –”

Jesse’s eyes widened, then he shook his head as he glared at Ethan.

“Hey! Even if he’s missing, that doesn’t mean he’s dead!” Jesse interrupted. “And I specifically recalled who egged me on forcing my brother to get injured! I know it’s my fault I didn’t speak up and defend my brother, but I’m not the only one responsible for it. Now you four can get out of my way before I bring this up to the principal. After all, all of you have been warned that you can be facing either expulsion or repeating the entire year if you don’t change your attitudes. Right?”

Ethan growled and clenched a fist, ready to punch the living daylights out of Jesse when, by cliché or miracle, the school bell started to ring. Jesse sighed in relief and pushed his way out of the row of bullies.

“If you or any of your buddies try something like that again, I’m not giving you a second chance to walk away,” Jesse remarked with a glare. “So think carefully when we only have a few more days into the semester.”

Ethan snarled before huffing out, “Fine. You’re lucky that the bell saved you, but this isn’t some funny sitcom or cartoon. You’re not going to be safe the next time we meet again!”

With that, Ethan and his posse stormed off with a huff, much to Jesse’s relief and concern. Yet he couldn’t believe his lucky break!

Simon. The same Simon who he met on the Train ran away from a spelling bee. That explains the “How” and “Why” Simon got on the Train, but not the “Who”, “Where” and “When”. If it wasn’t for the fact that he wanted to be as far away from his past, Jesse would have actually thanked Ethan for this.

As Jesse quickly gathered his textbooks from his locker, he nearly bumped into a taller teen with a black hoodie. He made his apologies as the student watched Jesse go.

And then, he pulled out a pen dangling on a chain by his waist and clicked it. He spoke into it like it was a microphone. 

“Target located: Jesse Cosay.” 

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Lake sometimes didn’t want to admit how those Flecs were right.

A chrome girl trying to live life in the real world without anyone noticing her? What with phones and social media? I mean, sure, it’s not like the Cosay residence was immediately going to be flooded to get a look at her as if she was an attraction in some sort of freakshow, but she never wanted to be poked or prodded at by ignorant buffoons ala Dumbo .

For once, she was happy for some authority figure actually being on her side.

In exchange for her cooperation when it came to learning about what the Train was like, she was allowed full protection by the government program known as the Infinity Train Community House – ITCH for short – in order to answer questions about the nature of the Train, random stuff about the mirror world, and if she had encountered any other passengers along the way.

And oh boy did she have a lot to say about the passengers she met.

“I didn’t get a lot of names, and I’m glad I didn’t,” Lake explained. “All except for the ringleaders Grace and Simon.”

“No last names?” A man with scruffy brown hair and wearing lots of khaki asked.

“Like I cared. They didn’t care about me at all. I can still hear Simon’s voice ringing in my ears at night. You’re no person .”

“And how long had they been on the Train?”

“I dunno; long enough to be shown to be pains in the butt,” Lake shrugged as she took a bite out of a slice of burned toast. “Jesse has been trying to do a head-count on missing children but without names and other past info about them, it’s trying to make 1 out of a 0, Keyes.”

“Too bad that you don’t have a vision to see a person’s name and their remaining lifespan,” Keyes chuckled.

“Yeah, yeah,” Lake said with a roll of her eyes. As she fingered the black ball-chain bracelet on her wrist, she added, “So, you think it’s possible if you can share that information with me?”

“No can do, Lake,” Keyes said. “This information is only to be kept guarded with those employed by ITCH. If this goes out, can you imagine the mass panic that will ensue if parents learn about their loved ones on a magic train and behaving like the Lost Boys?”

“I’m pretty sure there were a lot of girls getting in on the whole ‘Wheel the Null’ fun.”

“Point still stands. We keep information about you within these walls, and you make sure no information about the Infinity Train leaves it.”

“Ugh, fine,” Lake groaned. “Now is that it for this meeting?”

“That’ll be all,” Keyes said with a wave of his hand. “Just sign your name on your way out and remind Jesse that he needs to be here tomorrow for his talk.”

“Right,” said Lake, grabbing onto her burnt toast on a paper plate as she walked out. As she shoved the toast into her mouth, she paid no attention to the next person about to enter Keyes office, grasping onto the door knob with a hand that was decorated with a obsidian bead bracelet that had a simple charm.

A charm of a grey inverted cross superimposed on a blue sun.

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Jesse was so glad that the Geometry test was open-book. He loved fiddling with a calculator for most of those angle problems and his teacher liked his sketchbook project that involved a cute little comic involving the “Travelfriends” (and suggested that he take the Graphic Novel workshop when it came for the three-week Spring electives course coming up).

He was also glad that today’s lunch was chicken enchiladas with a side of Spanish rice and black bean soup. Ah, he couldn’t believe how much he missed cafeteria food. And he couldn’t believe how the cafeteria staff accepted his suggestions on how to make healthier food for everyone.

Amongst the chatter of friends with books or cellphones on hand, he quickly found a seat by himself and pulled out his spare sketchbook and pencil. The page depicted a buck with a pair of sunglasses, an arrow labeling them as “Alan Dracula” along with smaller images of himself and Lake holding hands. There was a speech bubble that also said, “We’re Travelbuddies!” 

“That’s a nice sketch.”

Jesse looked up and nearly jumped out of skin when he saw the tall teen with black hoodie staring down at him like the Grim Reaper. “O-oh, it’s you.”

Black Hoodie nodded his head. “You’re Jesse Cosay, are you not?” He asked softly.

“Yeah, kinda well-known at the school,” Jesse admitted as he watched Black Hoodie sit down (and without a lunch tray). “Never seen you before? Did you transfer here while I…was on a trip?”

“Y-y-yes.” Black Hoodie answered, as he fiddled with something connected to a chain. Jesse looked closer. Aside from his, well hoodie, Black Hoodie also wore a pair of jeans held up by a black belt with a silver heart buckle decorated with an orchid. And attached to the belt was a silver clasp where five items dangled down on chains: a small heart-shaped perfume bottle, a coin purse, a flash drive, a blue pen and a large twelve-sided die that didn’t have numbers but rather strange gizmos like a joystick, little gears, and what looked like a stress ball. That last item was what Black Hoodie fiddled with, as he pushed on the side of the die that had four gamer-like buttons that he pressed in a secret code. “I’ve been here f-for a while.”

“Cool!” said Jesse. “So…what’s your name?”

“S–S-Spencer. Spencer T-T-Thompson.” Black Hoodie stammered “I…”

“Hey, it’s okay, we’re friends now,” Jesse said, placing a hand on Spencer’s arm. Spencer flinched a little. “Um, you wanna have my black bean soup? You honestly look like you need it more than me”

“S-s-sure.” 

Jesse wordlessly handed the soup to Spencer and frowned. The way he talked and stammered, not to mention the hood he wore on his face and fiddled with that strange die, probably implied someone with a bad homelife or anxiety issues. Jesse knew that feeling, and was glad he found him before Spencer ran off onto the Infinity Train.

“Hey,” Jesse said suddenly. “I’m planning to go to the mall after classes are over with a friend of mine and my little brother. You wanna come?”

Spencer nodded a little. “That would be nice. I’m also meeting up with a friend.”

“That’s great! What’s their name?”

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At the Pamtrak Train Station, a girl sipped from her grape juice box while scrolling through something on her phone.

She sat at a table in front of a small cafe called Long Walk Café and was about to try a delicacy called “Fry bread”, dough that was deep fried and then topped with ground beef, lettuce, sour cream, cheese, pico de gallo and black beans. Just the sight of it made her mouth water; it wasn’t a croque monsieur and fries, but she’d take it.

The girl finished the grape juice box as she started to finish the text.

Cold_Ange: Made it at the train station! See you at the mall once classes are done!

Seconds later, she got her reply.

Idle_Spectator: Good. IN2G and shadow my target.

Cold_Ange: G

Idol_Spectator: Yes, I put a G there. I said, “I need to go”

Cold_Ange: The term is G2G.

Cold_Ange: You really need to brush up on your lingo

Idle_Spectator: AL

Cold_Ange: ????

Idle_Spectator: “Alright”

Cold_Ange: ….

Cold_Ange: Remind me to talk to Bullet about this later.

Idle_Spectator: AL

Idle_Spectator: Sorry, OFC

The girl set her phone down and began to eat, staring at her phone’s locked screen that depicted a selfie of herself at a trendy cafe at night, a blue moon with a pair of angel wings made of neon lights behind her as she placed the forefinger and middle finger on the side of her forehead, thumb up like a trigger, all while giving a wink and playful smirk.

Look out world, Colette Cadieux is coming here to shoot for the stars!

Chapter Text

And here we are with the next chapter. This one took a while to write cause I was bombarding Spinner with questions for the two newest heroes of Orchid Observer and, well, let’s just say that you’re not gonna expect the twist to this.

So with that, here we go!

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Chapter 2

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Everyday

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  You can do this. You can do this. You already traveled on your own, but now you're going into a different dimension without your partners in the slightest. I mean, think of this as you sneaking out to a PG-13 movie, except there's no popcorn and you're gonna be longer than a couple of hours.

Still, you can do this. You. can. do this! 

She thought this over and over in her head as she looked at the time on her phone and mentally double-checked that everything she needed for the trip. Or the fact that she was essentially running away from home without telling anyone about this.

At the very least she wasn't running away in the middle of the night. No, she just went to a safe place to change out of her school uniform and put on a more "reasonable" outfit and swapped her notebooks for whatever supplies she needed for her first other-world mission ever. Her partners were already making a cover story that she was to head off for a special workshop that suited her skills and she was to leave after school. Her parents and teacher didn't think anything was wrong with it, just as long as she made sure to get her homework finished on time along with a phone call when she finally reached her final destination.

So here she stood in the train station, waiting for the train that was just for her. Other people were going to take the Train for work, for home, for recreation. 

None of them were taking it for training or matchmaking.

A few electronic chirps -- ( Colli ) -- woke her up from her thoughts and she looked down at the Tamagotchi hanging on a chain around her neck. She picked it up, looking at its round appearance of a blue circle with a slight sliver of pink to the side. On the blue circle was a screen where a little blue blob of slime hopped up and down.

"Oh? What is it, Datchi-chan?" She asked. "Is it time?"

The slime chirped a few times just as the train arrived, like a long white serpent. It let out a loud hiss before finally opening their doors for her. Only for her. 

Was she really ready for this though?

She didn't think about it for long. She was an ill-tempered and irascible child, the sort of type that is itching to leave her hometown and explore something new. And all she had to do was say one word, "Yes". 

Clasping onto the tamagotchi around her neck, Collete Cadieux entered the Train and swiftly disappeared.

...

The Data Train supposedly ran on tracks made of light and stardust.

The interior of the Train looked like any typical train that one saw in television or in the movies. There were multiple cars for people to sit down and have their coffee, a restaurant where one could have sandwiches and tea, and large windows to let one see the scenery outside. The stars mixed with streams of light that would usually be found at an amusement park. Quite fitting for the stars spinning around in a universal carousel.

Inside the train were unusual cars too. There was an arcade and many rooms for others like her to get training done. Shooting galleries, padded rooms for martial arts, meditation rooms to clear the mind and sleeping quarters for those needing to rest their aching bones. There was a study room, an arts and crafts room, a park for some fresh air, and other places that made the Data Train seem like a home away from home.

Colette made her way to the café, where the chef, Ramil, was already waiting for her. "Hey Ramil!"

Ramil gave an elderly smile on his face, despite being the size of a child wearing a large red shirt with a blue girdle around the waist. "Great to see you again, Colette! What brings you aboard the Data Train this time?"

"I'm on my first ever other-dimension mission," Colette said, showing her screen. "I'm so excited! I've never done anything like this before. I mean, there was that trip a while back where I had to sleep in a tent and learn how to navigate a big city all by myself, but this is so much different!"

"So that means no Team Neo on you either?"

"Nope. They're busy with their own mission. They wish me the best of luck."

"I do too," Ramil chuckled. "Now then, you want the usual?"

"Of course!"

Ramil clicked his teeth. "It'll be done in a few minutes. Why don't you take a seat while I get it started?"

"I'm not in a rush," Colette said, pulling out her phone. "Because the person I'm going to be partnered with for the mission is also in this car."

"So you didn't just come here cause you missed me, eh?"

"Of course I missed you, Ramil," Colette said, rummaging for something in her backpack. "Here!"

"Oh!" Ramil gasped, taking the package into his hand. He opened it up to see four little cakes with a ring of green strawberries at the bottom.  "What are these?"

"Homemade mini Fraisiers!" Colette smiled. "Don't mind the color of the berries, though. Red ones are hard to find."

"I shall cherish these with my own heart!" Ramil said, setting the box aside. "Now go and meet your partner. Food will be ready in ten!"

"Thanks Ramil!" Colette said with a wave as she looked at her phone once again. There were only a few people at the cafe, either on their phones, studying, and one of them was fiddling with a...twelve sided die with numerous appendages that did not look like numbers.

"Colli colli !" Datchi-chan chirped from her Tamagotchi. "Colli !"

"Oh, so that's my partner then," Colette whispered, seeing the person in a black hoodie multi-tasking. His left hand kept tapping on the screen on his phone while his right hand played with the side of the die that had a rotating dial. She ran a hand through her hair before pulling out a pair of pink rimmed glasses to place over her eyes. Right, time to make a good impression.

Black Hoodie was so obsessed with his game -- Tuner Showdown -- that he didn't know someone was seated across from him until he smelled something...familiar.

"I heard these were your favorite," The young girly voice said.

Black Hoodie blinked before he saw the girl with red hair, pink rimmed glasses and a box of soft pretzel bites, each bite topped with slices of pepperoni and cheese. He set the phone down and took the box into his hands. "T-thank you."

"Welcome," The girl smiled. "I'm Colette Cadieux of Team Neo. Obviously that's not my real name, but it's a good idea not to reveal one's true name to strangers, else they can use magic to bind you into one place."

"Guess I'm lucky then. Since I don't really have a name to call my own."

"Really now?" Colette showed an image of Black Hoodie on her phone, showing his stats (4*, Element: Forest ). "Orchidea Nuocere, otherwise known as 'Orchid Harm'. The 10th ranked Tuner in all of Tuner Showdown . Your sword sings the songs of the earth itself. It is said that the enemies know that you are arriving because of the white orchids that you leave in your path."

Black Hoodie unleashed a drawn-out annoyed sigh. "That orchid fell out of my hand by accident. It was never meant to mean anything significant."

"And I was never supposed to get my hands on a veteran-level rapier-pistol, but here I am now. The Descendant's Shadow." 

Colette watched as Black Hoodie took a pretzel bite with his thumb and pinky finger before popping into his mouth. As he ate, she asked, "So, do you have a name I can call you?"

"I-I do," Black Hoodie said, taking a napkin to wipe away the crumbs off his face. He stammered out the name and Colette raised her eyebrow.

"That's really your name?"

"Y-yes."

"That's..." Collette paused. "You don't have any other name?"

Black Hoodie shook his head. "I was...orphaned...I n-never had a name to call my own. My b-birth mother abandoned me in a tree. I was taken in when I lost my o-other mother. She was..."

Colette took her hand onto Black Hoodie's own. "Say no more. I...I won't push the subject further."

"Thank you."

There was a silence between the two as a floating rabbit drone set some food down for Colette: a croque monsieur topped with an egg, French fries covered in garlic, parsley and parmesan cheese, and a glass of grape juice. Colette paid the rabbit drone some coins and watched it speed away. There was a quiet between the two as Colette took a bite out of her sandwich and Black Hoodie ate his pretzel bites, doing his best not to play his Idle game on the phone.

"Do you...want a name?"

Black Hoodie looked up. "Is it necessary?"

"Everyone should have a name, a name that means something. A name is the first thing that a person possesses. It is the first thing that parents give their newborn children. " Colette leaned close, and could see Black Hoodie's eyes. "How about...Spencer?"

"S-Spencer?"

"Well, it sounds natural on you. Plus, I saw your Notes, and you apparently have a legendary butler on your side so I thought it'd be wrong to call you 'Sebastian' or the like."

"S-spencer..." Black Hoodie had the ghost of a smile on his face. "I like that. But what about my s-surname?"

"Hmm..." Collette snapped her fingers. "How about Thompson?"

"Thompson...Spencer Thompson..."

"Yeah, cause I work with guns and one of the most well-known guns is the Thompson." Colette paused. "I mean, while I use a gun, I'm not a gun enthusiast. I rather just use guns in video games or arcades."

Spencer's eyes seemed to light up at the last word. "You're...you're into arcade games?"

"Yeah, I'm into light gun games and I don't mind the classics. What about you?"

Spencer blushed red. "D-dancing games. Sometimes I feel like I just want to follow the arrows and get lost in the music."

"You into DDR ?"

"No, Bust-a-Groove . It's so underrated. I liked playing as Frida. She had a cool style as a free-spirited artist and an amazing hip-hop song. She was a much better character than her sister, Comet."

"Kitty-N for me. I felt like the first her was the superior one. Her Special there fit her more than the claaaaawwww of the sequel."

Spencer scoffed. "Tell that to the wrestling fans; I've never seen a show where they actually start passive-aggressively talk smack about it."

"...Yet."

The two laughed a little as Collete took another bite out of her croque -- or rather croque madame -- and felt more relaxed. This wasn't any different than school; just sit down next to someone at lunch and get to know them better. She could do this. She was going to be the best partner to the 10th ranked Tuner of Tuner Showdown ever.

After ten minutes of silence and light talk, Colette finished her sandwich and juice. All that was left were the fries and pretzel bites. "So...after we're done here, you wanna take these two to go and head to the arcade? So we can know each other better?"

Spencer fiddled around with the joystick side of his fidget die and smirked. "Let's dance, Collete."

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"This is so exciting !" Nate gasped as he and Lake were at the entrance of the Arcadia's Bounty, waiting for Jesse to arrive. "This is gonna be your first time at an arcade, isn't it Lake?"

"An arcade, yes. But I already have experience in playing these types of games," said Lake.

"Yeah, that's the place where Jesse promised to bring you back here with him, right?"

Lake blushed a dark silver. "Yeah, he did do that."

"Hey guys!"

Nate gasped as he saw his big brother approach with someone with a black hoodie, as he finished off a soft pretzel covered in pepperoni and jalapeno slices. "Hey Jesse! How was school today!"

"Great, as usual," said Jesse, ruffling his little brother's hair. "Oh, I brought a friend. Meet Spencer Thompson!"

Nate just blinked at seeing the tall teenager with a black hoodie staring down at him and brought a hand up. "Uh...hi?"

Spencer looked down at Nate and raised a hand back. "Hi," he said softly.

"Hmm," Lake said, leaning close. "Jesse, he kinda reminds me about that Boo guy from your Literature class."

"Oh, Boo Radley you mean!" said Jesse. "Ha, that actually sounds kinda cool. So, uh, do you mind if we call you, 'Boo' or anything?"

Spencer shook his head. "N-no, I think I'd like my name just as it is." Lake nodded her head in approval. "If you called me that, then that would remind me of a --"

"BOOOOOO!!!!"

Spencer jumped out of his skin at the shout, dropping his fidget dice onto the ground. He whipped his head around to see Ethan and his friends laughing and giving each other high-fives. Jesse and Lake frowned while Nate hid behind Lake.

"Oh, what's the matter, ghost boy?" said Ethan. "You gonna hide your face in shame cause we looked at ya or something?"

"Uh...no?" Spencer said, hand reaching out for the pen that was attached to the chains on his belt. He clicked the top. "I don't...get the reference."

"You're a 'Boo'," said Leon, placing the word in air quotes. "In that old game, if you look at a Boo, they hide their face or something."

"But I'm not a 'Boo', I'm not a ghost or a s-s..."

"Hey, check this out," said Piers, picking up the green fidget dice. "Hmph, didn't know the ghost boy was a total nerd!"

Jesse frowned and marched towards Piers. "Give it back."

Piers looked at the die, then at Spencer, then said, "Hmm...nah! Catch!"

Piers tossed the die to Luis, who tossed it back to Leon, who then started to lick it before proceeding to throw it into the garbage can. Spencer panicked and began to go into the trash can to pull it out, wiping it clean with his jacket, to the amusement of Ethan and his resident cronies.

"Hey, leave him alone!" said Nate, marching up to Ethan and his friends. "You shouldn't take what's yours!"

Ethan clicked his teeth and leaned in close. Nate shivered but he did his best not to cry at the face of the monster who made his brother run away from home. "Look kid, just because you were brave enough to tell your parents about what we did doesn't make you a super hero all of a sudden! The only reason you got away with it was because of your parents threatening to press charges. Without them, you're nothing ."

"W-well, you're nothing without your parents' money!" Nate shouted , poking a finger at Ethan's chest. "If you weren't so rich or was on the school's football team, no one would ever like you! You're never going to have any friends at this rate!"

There was a pause as Jesse and Lake stared at Nate. Ethan and his friends stared at Nate trembling where he stood...before laughing even louder.

"Oh, boo-hoo!" said Ethan. "I'm sooooo scared of your little threats. I think I'll go home to mommy and ask her to make it all go awaaaaay!"

Even Nate knew that Ethan was faking it all while Jesse took a step forward, ready to tell Ethan to go away and stop bugging him, his brother and Lake.

"And what's with the chromedome?" said Leon, jerking a thumb at Lake. "What type of skinjob did she get?"

“What did you call me?!” Lake snarled, cracking her knuckles.

“Jeez, Jesse,” Leon noted. “You have some horrible tastes in women.”

"First of all, her name is Lake," Jesse stated, doing his best to not throw a punch. "And second of all, she and I are going to --"

"Excuse me, but what the heck have you been doing to my friend?”

The group turned around to see a girl with red hair, a white shirt with a blue moon on it, covered in black static clouds, blue leggings and a pair of boots. Wrapped around her waist was a light blue jacket. Covering her bright period eyes were a pair of glasses with pink frames. Her red hair was pulled back and then held to the side by a blue moon hair clip with a pink crystal dangling underneath it. And in her hands was a pink phone with a blue crescent moon sticker on the back.

"Uh...who are you?" asked Jesse.

"Colette Cadieux," said the girl. "And I couldn't help but overhear how someone was hurting my friend's feelings by stealing his special fidget die."

Spencer turned to Colette and sighed. "W-where have you been?"

"I was busy playing laser tag and scanning the area for games to play while waiting for you," Colette answered. "Although I think the kids I fought are glad that I'm not doing it anymore."

...

"Look, we can settle this peacefully." A boy said as he was backed into a wall.

"Tell that to poor Keanu right now!" Colette snapped.

"Uhhhh....who?"

Colette paused and laughed. "Oh, it's just that whenever I play laser tag, I like to create a backstory to go with it. 'Former hitman goes on a rampage because someone shot their puppy'. What's yours?"

"M-my guy has a laser gun?"

"Not anymore."

...

"So anyway, what happened here?" Colette continued.

"Those bullies wouldn't give Spencer's special die back, licked it and then put it in the trash!" Nate said.

"That's disgusting ! Good thing I come with sanitizing wipes!" Collette said, pulling out some sanitizing wipes from the blue moon-pink sky fanny pack strapped to her waist. She wiped it clean before handing it back to Spencer. "There we go, good as new!"

"Tch," Ethan grumbled. "Let's go, you guys. No point trying to punch a ghost."

"Not so fast," said Colette. "I kinda overheard everything you said to my friend, and I'm sure you know what happens if I post this online."

Ethan turned around, balling his hands into fists. "You wouldn't."

"I would ."

"Like anyone is gonna believe you," Piers noted with a snort.  "You didn't see any of us actually attack anyone. Not even the baby shark."

Nate frowned.

"A-actually," said Spencer, raising a hand. "I had that all recorded."

"Since when ?" asked Luis.

"Since I clicked my pen," said Spencer, raising the pen into the air. "You see, I like to record my thoughts from time to time, and if I exposed this to the principal..."

"Combined with my videos," Colette added.

"Then it's 1, 2, 3 strikes you're out," Spencer finished. "And it's high time that you all get a life."

"Oohhhh...." Jesse said as he and Lake fist-bumped.

"Wait, y-you can't do that!" Leon exclaimed. "Mom and dad are so gonna have my head for this."

Ethan swallowed, trying to keep his macho facade up. "Look, why don't you pretend this never happened, okay? Name your price."

"You want to give me money ?" asked Colette with a raised eyebrow. "Uh, no. Since we're all at this arcade, why don't we play a game? I win, and Spencer and I post our findings. You win, and they're deleted and our lips are sealed. Whaddya say?"

"Uh, Miss Colette? There’s no way you can win!" Nate whispered. "You can't beat these guys! They're tough, and big, and you're just a...a..."

"What? A girl?" Colette finished.

"Uhhh...yes?" Nate winced.

Colette chuckled. "I'm more than just a girl. I'm Colette Cadieux, the Descendant's Shadow. And there's no way I'm gonna let someone bully my friend for no reason. Now then," she turned around and gripped the frame of her glasses. "What game should we play?"

She scanned the arcade, seeing what seemed fun to play: basketball, air hockey, Whack-a-mole, spinning roulette, claw machines, oh a few shooting games too! Two players were leaving one that had a giant teddy bear boss.

"We're playing that one!" Colette decided, pointing to the arcade machine that read…

" CarnEvil ?!" Jesse said. "Are you crazy?! That game is hella scary!"

"Heh, so were the flecks," Lake grumbled.

"I'm not crazy. I just love a challenge!" Colette said before she showed her hand to Ehan. "We'll have five extra lives, that's 10 quarters for the both of us. Last one standing wins."

Ethan looked at the girl then chuckled. "Well then, thing about being into sports is that you have good hand-eye coordination. I'm sure you and your dollies wouldn't understand that."

"You are gonna regret saying that..." Spencer warned.

"Very well, then. Since you've accepted these conditions," Colette grinned as she pulled out what looked like a stick of Pocky from a bright red box and placed it in between her teeth (although upon closer inspection, it was actually a candied orange peel dipped in chocolate). "Let the bloodshed begin!"

Chapter Text

I had this chapter done for days, but a lot of other things keep distracting me from uploading it.

But here it is now, and hopefully I’ll be able to continue this story and other stories in the Crocusverse for my Camp NaNoWriMo this time (provided my online university and final set of classes before my Bachelor’s degree doesn’t kill me).

And here we go!

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Chapter 3

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Chase the Sun

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After getting the change needed for five extra lives on both sides, Colette and Ethan stood in front of the CarnEvil cabinet and picked up their guns. 

"You choose which attraction we go through first," said Colette. "Or do you want to go in order?"

"Whatever is fine," said Ethan as he chuckled. "Cause I'm gonna love kicking your ass."

"Excuse me!" said Jesse, seeing how Lake covered Nate's ears. "Be respectful to my little brother, why don't you?"

"Oh, I was ," Ethan stated as he and Colette placed two quarters into the cabinet. "I was respectful enough to not chase after him once I found out who ratted us out!"

"We were respectful enough to not make his stay in the hospital a living hell," Leon added.

"We were respectful enough to show some sympathy to your disappearance," Piers stated.

"And we were respectful enough to--"

"Okay, we get it!" Lake interrupted Luis before folding her arms and giving an eyeroll. "You're actually human beings underneath those crusty exteriors of yours. Now can we get to playing the game?"

"Whatever, chromedome," Luis sneered and gave Lake a flick on the forehead....only to cringe when he found out how painful it was to flick her. "OW!"

"I tried it before, doesn't work on her," Jesse said with a chuckle.

Colette sighed as she pointed her gun at the sign that read "Haunted House" and shot at it. The screen then turned into a purple-black spiral where Umalaut began his rhyme ( Welcome to the Haunted House, meet a ghoul who lost her head). Once he was finished, and Colette and Ethan began the trek into the haunted mansion, Jesse turned to Lake. "So, I got some good news in regards to my investigation."

"You do?"

Jesse nodded. "At school, Ethan told me about a little boy who ran away during a spelling contest. A boy who wore tube socks and sandals named Simon ."

Lake's eyebrows raised. "You mean, like the Simon we met on the Train?"

"The very same one." Jesse quickly showed Lake a news article on his phone that dated back to the eary 2010s. "Check it out. Got this on my way over here."

Search for Seattle Spelling Bee Boy Ends in Failure

"The search for Simon Laurent (8) has come to an end. After six months, the Seattle police have found no evidence as to the disappearance of Simon Laurent after he disappeared during a spelling bee at Alstromeria Elementary School. Classmates and teachers at the school explained that Simon was a shy and nervous boy with a love of writing who was picked on for his flights of fancy. He hoped to become a writer of a fantasy trilogy that he liked to call -- "

"Hey! Jesse and James!" Luis -- or was it Leon? -- barked as he snatched the phone out of Jesse's hands. He then placed two fingers towards his eyes and then back at the CarnEvil cabinet. "Eyes on the show, okay?!"

Lake snarled while Jesse calmas she and Jesse watched Colette and Ethan working on taking the monsters (but not together, as Ethan was doing all he can to steal the power-ups for himself to get the higher score and mocking whenever Colette was attacked by a zombie, not that Colette was paying attention to his trash talk). Seeing as it was too scary for his age, Nate was hiding behind Spencer.

"So, Mr. Spencer," said Nate. "You're good friends with Colette?"

Spencer looked down at Nate nodded. "Yes, I am. She and I have played lots of rhythm games together. Rhythm and dance are a g-great way to be in sync with one another"

"Coool..." Nate gasped. "And, what's with that weird dice in your hand? Colette called it a fidget dice?"

"Mm-hmm. I'm sure you've heard of fidget spinners, right?"

"Uh-huh."

Spencer showed Nate the fidget dice. "Fidget cubes are much cooler. You have different types of gadgets and gizmos to play around with. See?" Spencer pointed to a side that had three tiny gears, another side with a joystick, and another where one could click the top like that of a pen. 

"Ah. So did Colette give you the fidget dice?"

"Oh her?" Spencer chuckled as Ethan screamed at having died to the second round of Hambone and putting two more quarters into the cabinet. "No, it was given to me by my...father figure? Uncle? My...family gave it to me to help me overcome my nervousness."

"Whoa," Nate gasped. "So, uh, do you mind telling me a story as to how you and Colette became friends?"

"Why so curious?"

"I dunno...maybe because I don't wanna look at the scary game in front of me? Or because the two of you remind me of Jesse and Lake and how they got together? Did Colette find you on a magical train?"

"Well, Colette and I actually were first introduced through a messaging app, and we bonded when I took her to my home and we played lots of games. But this story is about history."

"I don't like history," Nate pouted.

"It's a different type of history, of a boy, his closest friend and a train."

...

"What do you mean I have to get involved with that world again?!"

In a meeting room, Colette states this to the 15-year-old historian in a white robe with blue glowing lines, white pants with belt buckles on the sides, and pristine white boots. Said historian rolled his eyes and didn't feel bothered when Colette tossed a bread roll at his face and messed up his brown hair.  Sitting on Colette's right was Spencer, mindlessly tapping away on his screen.

"This is absolutely unfair!" Colette exclaimed. "Come on Aric, are you sure that you want me , a ten-year-old girl, to do an investigation all on my own?!"

"It's a reconnaissance mission," Aric noted, reading the white tome covered in glowing orbs by rapidly running a finger through each row.  "So you're only going there to take a few notes, send them to me or Ellia to decipher and keep a low profile."

"Do you have any idea how crazy that mission was?" Colette added. "Team Neo had to save those four androids but their human leader got thrown into a Void Road! That thing could've taken him anywhere!"

"It did, but thankfully Kaito is currently in safe hands," Aric replied, briefly lifting his head off so Colette could see his navy blue streak better. "But speaking of him and his android buddies, there was another situation in regards to them. Or rather, an alternate version of them."

"Ugh," Colete shivered. "I am never going to get used to the idea of alternate selves."

"Isn't your reflection considered an alternate you?" Spencer asked with a raised eyebrow as he bit on a Neapolitan macaron.

Colette raised an eyebrow. "Is that a trick question?"

"Depends."

Aric cleared his throat. "Regardless, the alternate Zenkai is somehow connected with an event that was trying to draw out the 8th Wanderer in a small city associated with masked wrestlers."

He flipped a page in his book and a holographic image was projected, showing off five gears with different symbols inside them. 

"And due to you having a connection with the Zennkai world, it was decreed that you would be the representative of Team Neo to fulfill this mission.

"But why me?" Colette asked. "Why can't I have Successor's Twilight or Mirror's Rebirth with me?"

Spence raised an eyebrow. "Where do you get those names from?"

"Oh, ha," Colette said. "We got these names from our weapons. Cool, huh?"

"Does every Cyber Warrior get their nicknames from their weapons?"

"Nope, it's something that's only found in Team Neo!" Colette grinned before she turned back to Aric. "And again, why am I going on this mission alone? And what exactly is ths 8th Wanderer?"

"I am glad you asked!" Aric said, snapping his book shut with a sparkle in his eye. "Prepare yourselves, everyone! It's time for me to recite some history!!!"

Spencer flinched. "Is he...always like this?"

"Only when it comes to speaking about history," Colette answered. "He's an aspiring historian but also a terrible artist."

She began to dig into a sandwich that consisted of a baguette covered in layers of salty ham and buttered on both sides and sliced kosher dill pickles.

Aric cleared his throat as he pulled out a blue and white stylus. "Our story begins centuries ago, detailing the story of a boy named Armand Coleby and a demon named Nal."

He drew a crescent moon into the air and then two diagonal lines underneath it. Then he doodled two circles that were meant to be faces before identifying them.

"It is said that they were inseperable. Best friends for life and that they would always be together. Even if being together meant that they would venture aboard the 8th Wanderer."

Aric then draw a childish train with puffs of smoke in a beautiful glittering trail of light. It went "Toot-toot" before racing across the room, leaving a prismatic trail behind it.

"A train?" asked Colette. "Like the Data Train?"

"Kinda. The 8th Wanderer's true origins are said to be an anomaly that even we're still trying to decipher to this day. All we know is that it appears to someone at a low point in their lives, kidnaps them, and then brings them back after a certain period of time. In some worlds, it is the stuff of children's tales and supernatural terrors back when people believed more in witchcraft and deities than pure, logical science. 'Beware the iron serpent and do not hide your problems else disappear completely, never to be found.'"

"Fascinating..." Spencer noted, not even fiddling with his fidget die and just drawn to the story.

"Armand was a lonely boy, bullied by his peers," Aric continued. "That is until he met a demon that he named 'Nal', a play on the word 'Null'.  And things were fine until his connection said demon got him attacked by his fellow villagers--"

"Of course," Colette remarked, taking another bite into her jambon-beurre.

"And they were going on a literal witch hunt until the legendary Hero, Shadow Twilight, noticed the potential inside Armand. Not to mention Queen, formerly princess, Himura putting a stop to the mad chase."

"Himura...like Wakana Himura."

"Yep!" Aric grinned. "Wakana is Queen Himura's descendant."

"But how did they get on this Train in the first place?" Spencer piped up.

Aric opened his book and flipped towards a new chapter. "It was some time after Armand and Nal were trained to become heroes. And like all good heroes, they must take small steps that lead into giant leaps. But this small step completely changes everything for them, for the thief they were after, and...well," Aric grinned. "It also involves you, Colette."

Colette raised an eyebrow. "...Hmm?" 

Aric grined as he started doodling more faces, one with spiky hair that looked familiar to Colette. "Well, one day, Armand and Nal were chasing after a thief and this triggered the presence of the 8th Wanderer, which dragged them and thief into its clutches. While Armand and Nal were never seen again, the thief and his artifact were never seen in our world. At least for a short time.

"The thief became a changed man and would accept any punishment the judge would give him, especially since this artifact wasn't a fancy necklace or ring. No, whoever had this artifact had the powers of a god. 

"Thankfully, the artifact was eventually recovered by a man who happened to have bumped into the thief when he was also on the Train. Said man also wrote down his thoughts in a journal -- a journal that changed how we see the 8th Wanderer. Not as a malevolent monster, but rather a guiding hand toward the lost."

Colette and Spencer took this all in before Spencer raised a hand. "And...how is this relating to Colette's original question?"

"Oh!" Aric grinned. "Was just about to get into that. For you see, the journal was written by the person that was granted the title 'Vistor From Another'....at least, that's what the public knows. But we historians know him as Alec. Alec Cerise ."

Colette was just about to drink from her grape juice box when she knocked it onto the floor in horror. "W-what did you just say?"

Aric nodded as he snapped his book shut once more. "You heard me, Colette...or should I say Chloe Cerise. The thief that Armand and Nal chased down all those years ago, met up with with your great-grandfather, Alec Cerise, during his fateful train trip. Then, after his journal came to light, he went onto have a much quieter life, raised a family, and then the Data Train brought you here to complete this mission."

"But...but..." Colette Cadieux -- or rather, Chloe Cerise -- shook her head. "Why was I never told about this sooner?"

"Maybe Alec didn't want you or any of his descendants to get on the same path he did," Spencer suggested. "Or perhaps the story you were told was quite different than what he stated. Oral tradition gets the details wrong with each iteration. You can't just make assumptions without truly knowing what was going on in their hearts at the time."

"Even us historians have to figure out motivations from what scraps of clues are given to us," Aric agreed. "But did these answer your question about why you were chosen on this mission?"

Colette paused as Aric slipped the stylus behind his ear and went back to his reading. This...was not what she had in mind to an answer.

And yet, it was more than an answer to her now. It was her history. It was connected to her in ways she never thought possible.

"A man often meets his destiny on the very road he took to avoid it." Colette recited, picking up her grape juice box. She drank from it until the box was compressed and she sucked in every last drop. "Alec wanted to do his best to make sure no one in his family learned of his past, but here I am now, his great grandaughter holding onto his heritage." She slammed the empty juice box onto the table and squeezed her hands tight. "It'd be a disservice if I refused this. After all, how many more descendants will it take before a Cerise becomes connected to the story of the 8th Wanderer?"

"Soooo, I take it you're in?" asked Aric.

Colette grinned. "I'm totally in."

...

"Wooooowwwww...." Nate gasped, once Spencer finished the story.

Spencer nodded his head. "They say that things happen for a reason, and that all things are connected. And sometimes, the unexpected comes to you in the most unexpected of places."

"Like how my older brother found Lake," Nate whispered, seeing his older brother and his (girl)friend cheering Colette on.

Spencer chuckled and patted Nate's shoulder. "You're a good kid."

Nate blushed. "Thanks, Mr. Spencer!"

Ethan cursed as he had to slip two more coins after dying to Eyeclops, down to two more lives while Colette downed Eyeclops without flinching ( Bloody hell! the mid-boss screamed). The two players continued their trek into the medieval castle, past zombies with screws inserted into their skulls, one strapped to an electric chair, two that threw swords in mid-air and then going down a drain into a convery belt (with Ethan quickly snagging the flamethrower power-up from Colette).

"You're gonna burn for this!" Ethan cackled as he began killing off as many zombies as he could, including one that was thrown into a large meat grinder.

"Ugh," Jesse said, hand to his mouth as he watched all those ghouls be turned into pulp and dispensed into giant blue plastic bowls. "I think I've lost my lunch."

"I'm glad I don't have to eat lunch," Lake added.

Thankfully, Ethan and Colette didn't stay in that factory long, with Colette picking up the machine gun power-up just as a fez-wearing spider-monkey struck her last bit of health. Colette didn't hesitate to slip her two quarters in just as Ethan killed off the last of the spider-monkeys.

"What's wrong, Rapunzel?" Ethan sneered as the two destroyed some maggots. "Need a big strong man to save you?"

"What's wrong?" Colette remarked. "Need your mommy to still cook you lunch?"

"Of course not!" Ethan scoffed. "I've got a personal chef to do that for me!"

"Really now? What exactly does he cook for you? Tartiflette ? Coq au vin? Confit de canard? Bouillabaisse ? Or does he just quickly whip up something from someone named Chef Boyardee ?"

"Ooooh...." Luis commented as Ethan briefly glared at him. Even Lake whistled in shock.

"Who are ya, Julia Child?" Ethan snapped at Colette as the doors of the stadium opened. 

"No, but I did like that memoir of the woman who tried to cook all of Julia Child's recipes within a year," Colette remarked as a large train, the front of having Umalaut's face passed by.

"Don't wake the baby!!!" Umalaut cackled as the camera shifted on a giant crib that turned around to reveal a giant teddy bear with a large gash in the stomach, other gashes on its face and arms, and sharp fangs with a skull-shaped rattle in his right paw. Colette began to brace herself to fire back...but paused.

"What the hell?" asked Ethan as the screen showed the monster about to attack, its HP bar shown. But the music started warping and black glitchy boxes appeared on the sides of the bear. "Is the game glitched?"

Colette narrowed her eyes as she gripped onto the frames of her glasses. Something flashed in her vision when she stared at the frozen teddy bear.

"Oh no..." she gasped, hands nearly dropping the light gun. "Oh, this was a bad choice for a challenge! Maybe we should've gone with Haunted Museum instead..."

"What do you mean?" asked Jesse. "I mean, yeah, it's an old arcade game but it's not like the monsters are real. ...Right?"

Suddenly, static showed over the screen as a low ursine growl was heard from the speakers. Then, a massive paw reached out to grab Ethan by his shirt!

"Hey!" Ethan shouted, trying to pull the claw away, but instead, he was thrown into the glass monitor of the cabinet, screaming for help. His cronies just watched in horror while Jesse and Colette raced to grab his hand.

"Lake!" Jesse said. "Help me out!"

Lake nodded as she swiftly grabbed Jesse's waist, planting her feet on the floor. But it didn't stop Ethan from starting to pass through the glass and be sucked into the game itself .

"HELP!!!!" Ethan screamed just as Leon, Piers and Luis muttered something about calling the police or a supervisor of the arcade and raced off. Lake rolled her eyes.

"Cowards!" she shouted just as she saw Jesse start to be sucked in, tightening her grip as best as she could. "JESSE!!!"

"Jesse, whatever you do, don't let go!" Colette grunted, also feeling herself passing through. "If we wanna get to the bottom of this, we need to let Deaddy take us in!"

"Get to the bottom of what?!" Jesse repeated. "Colette, what's going -- "

That was the last thing he said as he, Ethan, Colette and Lake were completely sucked into the cabinet screen with a slurping noise like someone was finishing the last of a delicious vanilla milkshake. Then, all that was left was Nate and Spencer.

"W-what do we do, Spencer?!" Nate whimpered, grabbing onto Spencer's leg. "Is that teddy bear going to come after us next?! I don't want him to eat me!"

"He won't eat you." Spencer placed a hand on Nate's shoulder and gave the boy a wide smile. "Don't be afraid, Nate. I will protect you."

Nate's eyes widened. "You will?"

"I will.  As my oath as a Tuner, I will ensure no harm befalls you. And don't worry about Jesse. He has his friend, and my partner, to protect him. But I need you to be brave for me. Can you do that?"

Nate nodded.

Spencer then handed Nate his fidget die. "If you feel stressed, use this to calm you down."

"But...this is yours, isn't it?" Nate said.

"It is. It is the keystone to my powers, but it also reacted strongly to your courage for standing up to Ethan. Hold onto that courage, Nate. For that is something that the bullies and monsters can never take away."

Nate nodded, staring at the fidget cube as if it was a large emerald and gently played with the side with the sliders. He and Spencer then approached the cabinet that was still frozen at the image of the torn killer teddy bear.

And in front of the killer teddy bear were four people wielding guns about to strike him down.

Chapter Text

I have been wanting to update this chapter for a while, but procrastination is a jerk.

For most of the information on what’s going on in this story, that falls onto my friend SpinnerNite working on some worldbuilding for Camp NaNoWriMo July 2022 addition. I asked her a lot of questions on certain aspects that will be revealed over time.

So with this, let’s knock this chapter off my list.

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Chapter 4

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Another Sunrise

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Arizona was no stranger for unique desserts in the United States.

Connecticut has their snickerdoodles, Florida had key lime pie, while Louisiana had bananas foster and people in Utah consumed more Jell-o than in any other state Arizona's signature dessert was the sopapaillas , where the signature fry bread is covered in cinnamon sugar and honey, but that's not what the two teens decided to try out at a dessert café that called itself Another Sunrise .

The boy with blond hair cut a piece into his chocolate tamale, while in front of the brunette girl currently busy with a game on their phone was ignoring her bright purple sorbet decorated with a sprig of mint and a couple of raspberries.

"Yes! I finally got them!" The girl cheered, shoving her phone into her partner's face. "Say hello to the cutest little cookie ever, Sorbet Shark Cookie !"

The boy raised an eyebrow as he saw what said shark cookie was saying...or rather trying to say as the speech bubble had the cookie say "Oooo0oooh!" "Uh, why are they speaking like that?"

"Didn't you see the preview video a few nights ago? That's how they talk; a side-effect of wanting to become a cookie is that they speak with bubbles. It just makes them all the cuter!"

"Yeah, I tried to watch the video but I got bored after ten seconds. I don't see the appeal to them."

"This cookie is the shark version of The Little Mermaid ! How can you not be excited for it? And even better, Sorbet Shark Cookie doesn't just want to be a cookie, but a pirate! That's the best type of reason why you replace your fins for human legs!"

"Uh-huh. So you're gonna waste all that money on Rainbow Cubes for a chance to draw one dumb costume again?"

"Of course I am, Elion!" The girl snapped, going to the page for Costumes and pointing to an image of a woman in a dark dress like seaweed and a triden. "And I am not getting just a dumb costume. Did you not see Sea Waifu's Legendary Costume and the fact I can get a new lobby design and costume for her Wave Drop Pet? I need it. I need it so much ."

"Yeaaaah..." Elion drew out as he pushed the phone out of his way.  He bit into a piece of his chocolate sorbet as he added, "And I'll just go with the much easier and safer route of just getting the super epic costume at the Breakout Shop.  Because unlike you, Tesla, I know not to go impulse shopping and save my cubes for something better. I'll be waiting for the day that Moonlight Cookie gets her own Legendary Costume, thank you very much."

"You're no fun," Tesla pouted. "I mean, if it wasn't for those impulses of mine, I wouldn't have gotten all these Epic costumes!"

"And it's also because of you being so obsessed with getting your Sorbaby Shark that you''ve been neglecting your sorbet."

Tesla blinked and looked at how her sorbet was starting to melt. She yelped and began trying to scoop as much as she could into her mouth all while Elion chuckled.

"Anyway," Elion continued, staring at his phone. "I wonder how long it's going to take until someone causes a literal shitstorm at the arcade?"

"Hope it's not too long," Tesla replied, wiping purple sorbet out of her mouth with a napkin just as there was an explosion off into the distance. She looked across the street and saw a multitude of fireworks being set off. "Uhhh..."

Elion looked at Tweet-tweet and was amazed at how many posts were online, in regards to something called #ArcadeChaos, #CarnEvilChaos and #ZeppelWHAT with video clips of people at the arcade screaming at a giant zeppelin flying into the sky, fireworks everywhere, along with clowns big and small trying to murder people with hammers and pointy knives.

"Well," he chuckled. "Looks like we've just broken the internet in the city."

-----

Ten minutes earlier...

"W-where are we?" asked Ethan, looking around. He, Jesse, Lake and Colette were in some sort of arena where the lines were lined with blue wallpaper of clouds and moons. There were giant colored blocks, a dollhouse and train tracks. All for a baby the size of a skyscraper. "Wait a second...isn't this just before we were supposed to fight that boss?"

Don't wake the baby~! A cackling voice said as a jester faced train suddenly leered at the four players. He paused before leaning in close, one eye bulging out of his face. Wait a second...how did you get in the carnival?!

"Hold on...we're inside CarnEvil ?!" Jesse gasped. He began pacing back and forth in a panic. "Oh man, oh man, oh man, mom and dad are gonna ground me from seeing Chicken Choice Judy if they learned what happened!" This was met with Lake flicking him on the forehead. "OW!"

"That's what you're more concerned apart?" Lake exclaimed as Jesse rubbed his forehead in annoyance. "We're gonna get torn apart by Despair Bear here if we don't figure out how to escape!"

"Not to worry," said Colette, removing the blue moon barrette in her hair and swapping it with a dark blue hair tie that had a charm of a golden hand with a blue eye in the center. She began braiding her hair while she added, "I've done this before, so if you trust me, we won't end up stuck in this arcade cabinet for people to put quarters in."

"Wait, if we lose, we're gonna be stuck in the game forever ?!" Lake exclaimed.

"Unfortunately," Colette said, her hair now in a tight braid.  She had a proud smile on her face as she pointed to Deaddy. "So come on, let's get to fighting!"

"Uh-uh, no way!" said Ethan, shaking his head. "I want nothing to do with this!" he then pointed to Jesse. "This is all your fault, Cosay!"

"My fault?" Jesse exclaimed. "I was nowhere near the arcade cabinet and, hey, I was trying to save you from being eaten alive while your friends just upped and ditched you! This is the thanks I get by trying to play a good samaritan?"

"If you didn't run away from home all those months ago, I wouldn't be getting in so much trouble!" Ethan snapped. "All you had to do was be a man and take responsibilities for your actions and just accept whatever punishment your mommy was going to give you for getting your brother into a heap of trouble."

"I am a man," Jesse snapped back. "A man who realized his mistakes and is willing to do things that 'most' people would be considered 'un-manly', not to mention changed himself to not be pushed around by the likes of you. And I'd rather be that , then someone with a heart of stone who -- "

"Guys, stop!" Colette shouted, raising her hand. She sighed. "This is all my fault. I should've known that someone might have tampered with the game and put some sort of virus in it."

Ethan, Jesse and Lake turned to Colette with confused and angry looks on their faces (confused for Jesse and Lake and angry for Ethan).

"But before you start pointing fingers at me, there is a way to fix this!" Colette hurriedly explained. "If we defeat Deaddy, I can seal the virus that dragged us into the game for good. Then all we have to do is defeat Tokkentaker and it's game over!"

"Virus...defeat Deaddy...waitwaitwaitwaitwait, what are you saying?!" Jesse said. "So, you're like one of the Glitch Techs then?"

"Kinda..." Colette answered. "But that's..."

"EXCUSE ME!" Umalaut interrupted. "Are you four going to argue all night or will you come out here and fight?!"

"I'm about to get there, clown face!" Colette snapped before calming down as she turned to the confused teens. "Now then, let me get weapons for everyone. Excuse me."

She pulled out what looked like a white smartphone from her fanny pack and slapped it on her right wrist. With a hum, a black cuff appeared from its bottom and the screen turned on with blue light. Colette swiped through some symbols and then tapped it twice. 

Then, three of guns appeared in front of everyone in a burst of blue and white pixels. Jesse and Lake now wielded blue and silver space rifles and Ethan had what looked like a Super Scope. Meanwhile, Colette pulled out a purple/black fountain pen from her fanny pack, uncapped it and then tapped a button twice. Then, a large blade was unsheathed from underneath the nib of the pen before it grew into the size of a handgun, complete with a trigger and handgrip.

"Uh...what is that thing on your right?" Jesse asked. 

"You're more focused on that then the pen sword?" Ethan questioned.

"I mean the pen is mightier the sword," Lake commented.

"Oh this? This is a state of the art CyBrace Card Scanner," Colette answered. She pressed a button the side of her glasses, turning them into a pink visor that covered her eyes.  "Only accessible for certified Data Warriors like myself."

"It'd be so much cooler if you put it in some sort of power glove or something. It'd be so bad ." Jesse whispered in awe. Then he realized what he was holding. "Wait a second, there's no way I'm gonna use this!" He shoved the gun back to Colette's hands. "How the heck is a ten year old allowed to carry guns without a licence?!"

"It's either this or we all die," Colette pointed out. "And anyway, these guns have been enhanced to do damage to the enemies in this game. Plus you don't to reload or rechrage them."

"Really?" asked Lake, inspecting the blue-silver toy gun that looked ready to light up and make "pew-pew" noises if she pulled the trigger. "There has to be a catch."

"Who cares?!" Ethan snapped. "Let's kill every last one of them until they're all deader than dead!"

"And like I said, there's no catch!" said Colette, pumping a fist into the air. "Now come on, we gotta wake a baby."

"FINALLY!" Umalaut shouted. "We can start this show! Are you prepared? Then, ready...set....GO!!!!"

The game unfroze and the train finally continued its path on the train tracks as the four players approached the giant baby crib. It turned around and there was Deaddy, opening his mouth to roar at his new playthings.

"FIRE!!!!" Colette shouted.

Everyone began to rapidly fire as much as they can as Deaddy stumbled back. Then, he began to run off to the side as some giant blocks got his attention.

"To the dollhouse," Colette hissed.

The four of them began to hastily sneak off while Deaddy's attention was distracted, but it didn't last long as Deaddy began chasing after them, knocking a large pyramid of multi-colored blocks to the side, hoping to either smush them into pancakes or scramble their brains with his rattle.

"This is worse than that time we played Five Nights at Freddy's !" Jesse exclaimed.

"Which one?" Ethan snarked.

"I dunno, story gets too complicated after some time!"

"Yeah I think the game peaked after 3," Colette admitted.

The four entered the dollhouse as Ethan hastily grabbed the glowing red heart to heal himself (with Colette's visor showing how he now his health was now 3/4 of the way full).

"We're safe in here, right?" Lake whispered.

Suddenly, everyone looked up to see the plastic roof of the house be ripped off as Deaddy giggled at finding his toys.

"Okay, on my signal, fire away," said Colette, hand on her Card Scanner.

"He can't kill us from here!" said Jesse.

"No, but that vomit of his is going to be absolutely disgusting!"

"Wait, what?!"

Deaddy opened his mouth while everyone prepared for the worst.

"And...NOW!"

Deaddy began to hurl large globs of vomit on everyone just as Colette slammed pressed upon the image of a person in a large shiny bubble. An iridiscent dome covered the four of them while the vomit bounced off of it like volleyballs.

"Ugh..." Lake shuddered, the vomit transforming into harmless data particles. "I'm so glad I don't have a gag reflex."

Ethan kicked the back door down. "Everyone, this way!"

No one was going to refuse that command as they raced back onto the giant toy train and landed on an empty red platform. Deaddy was still a persistent enemy, each step a tiny quake as he began chasing after them.

"How much longer?!" asked Lake.

"Just a bit more..." Colette said, just as she turned around and saw the train about to crash off into the side. "Everyone out now!"

The teenagers turned to see the train about to collide with the blocks and they jumped just in time, landing on the dirt with an "oomph". Deaddy growled as he began hurling a giant safety pin at their faces.

"Focus on Deaddy, I got that pin!" Colette said, extending her hand out as the pointy end of the pin was about to skewer Ethan who turned away to avoid seeing it. A few seconds passed as he realized that he didn't feel anything. He looked up to see how the pin suddenly was floating in mid-air.

"Wha..." He muttered just as Colette lowered her hand and clenched it into a fist, causing the pin to drop.

"Don't just stand there! SHOOT!!!" Colette screamed, seeing the HP bar of Deaddy in her visor at just a sliver.

Everyone began firing a few more times, triggering the cutscene of Deaddy stumbling backwards to the electrical appliances that gave him life began to play. There was a loud screech as electricity poured through his body before he collapsed into black piles of stuff and fluff, finally dead.

"That...was a close one," Lake said just as some strage white orb with red glitchy outlines floated into the sky. "Uh..."

"Don't worry, I got this!" said Colette, pressing on her Card Scanner as a beam of white light struck the virus. Then, with her other hand, she began firing a few shots from the strange broadsword-pistol that caused the virus to screech in pain before it ultimately turned into harmless red and white blocks that got sucked into the scanner like a ghost sucked into a vacuum cleaner. An exclamation point blinked on her scanner. "There, virus elminated!"

"Isn't that what the Beast Morphers would shout whenever they defeated a monster?" asked Lake.

"Oh, yeah that season of Power Rangers was just the best!" Jesse exclaimed. "All the characters were amazing and I felt like Nate had the best character growth." 

"I know!" Colette squealed. "The crossover elements and how they incorporated Dino Charge with Austin St. John coming back as Jason one more time and the Metal Heroes with Captain Chaka was much better than Ninja Steel's attempts. All of that in just five episodes! And that twist ending just really changes everything you know about the series and that you can trust Pasbro to -- "

"Excuse me!" Ethan shouted. "Can we cut the nerd talk and just be done with all of this?!"

"But we're not done yet," said Colette, just as the demented playpen transformed into a pathway towards the final level: the Big Top. "We still got to meet with the ringleader of this freakshow. And if we manage to beat him, I'll finally get enough points to get that upgrade I've been saving for!"

"Let's get ready," said Lake, cracking her knuckles and resisting the urge to shove Colette to a wall and demand answers about how she was treating this situation like it was, well, a game. 

As the four enter the tent, Ethan turned to Jesse.

"Hey Cosay, let's make a deal," he said.

"Yeah?" asked Jesse. Ethan's deals were not something to trust easily, as it usually was based on him promising not to punch you or ruin your life if you just followed along with whatever he asked of you.

Ethan sighed. "If we make it out of here alive, I'll pretend that this incident didn't happen and we don't talk to each other for the rest of the school year unless it's for school related stuff. Fair?"

Jesse shrugged. "Fair enough. Now come on, time to see the Greatest Show Unearthed. Get it? 'Unearthed'? Cause it's a play on -- "

Lake placing her pointer finger on Jesse's lips was enough for Jesse to stop talking. "Let's save the puns for when we finally leave this place, 'kay?"

Jesse nodded as the four were thrown into a black and purple swirling vortex with Umalaut's smug face grinning at them.

"You made it to our main attraction

The three ring circus in the big top tent

We hope our clowns entertain you

Before making you the MAIN EVENT!!!"

As Umalaut vanished with his maniacal laugh, the four were met with small clowns wielding knives trying to stab their legs at the ticket booth. The gunners were quick to kick them to the side or shoot them before they got a chance to get close.

"Keep moving!" said Colette, waving her hand as a few more clowns were gathered into a ball and began floating in the air.

"Wait, how are you doing that?" asked Jesse.

"Save the questions until after we get out of here!" Lake snapped as the four entered the big top and were met with large purple wearing clowns wielding mallets. 

"And leave those mimes alone!" Colette said to Ethan. "They've done nothing wrong!"

"Well, they're creepy!" Ethan noted, seeing the mimes not even scream as he riddled them with bullets. "Don't tell me you don't feel freaked out with their white faces, their creepy smiles and the fact that they don't talk!"

"Hey, I happen to like their performing arts!" Jesse said, just as a rabid poodle jumped out of a flaming hoop.  It was dead after three bullets.

"Tch," Ethan scoffed.  "This is a shooter, you know! And you're supposed to shoot everything in sight!"

"He's right, you know!" Lake grunted while more and more poodles approached them. "There's too many of them; what are we gonna do?!"

"Okay, we need to split up from here," said Colette, pointing to the cannon. "I'll go high, everyone else goes low."

"Are you nuts?!" asked Lake, pointing to the tightrope. "If you fall, you're gonna die! You know how it goes, 'People die when they get killed!'"

"I'll be fine," said Colette. "I'm experienced in this line of work."

Before anyone could ask what she meant by 'experience', she stabbed a clown in the gut before firing a round of bullets at his chest point blank. She then raced off into the cannon and slipped herself inside, just as a mime struck a match and lit the wick.

"You heard her!" said Jesse, grinning as he pointed his space laser at the clowns. "Let them all say hello to our little buddies!"

"Ugh," Ethan groaned. "Why was I ever friends with you again?"

...

Colette thanked the mimes for helping to load her into the cannon. With a BOOM!, she was launched onto the platform of the flying trapeze. Without even thinking, she placed her gun into her mouth and grasped the trapze. She swung high into the air, doing her best not to scream before she let go and landed on the platform, gasping for breath.

"Oh my gosh, did anyone just see that? I hope someone saw that!"

( "That was amazing!!" Nate screamed on the other side while Spencer nodded his head in approval)

"You can do this, you can do this, you are the Descendant's Shadow..." Colette said to herself as she kept firing her pistol at the small clowns and flying devils that wanted to knock her onto the sawdust below. She turned to see two large clowns with their mallets doing their best to approach her step by step. She raised an eyebrow as she extended her hand out, causing them to float into the air. Then she moved them to the side like she was moving magnets around a refridgerator door.

"This is the part where you two fall down ," she said.

And the two clowns did fall with a whistling noise and a THUD! at the bottom, leaving behind two silhouettes.

"Hey, watch it up there!" Ethan shouted. 

"Sorry!" Colette stated as she took a deep breath, grasped onto her weapon and then launched herself into the air, floating in the air for a seconds...before she started to wobble. "No, no, no, come on, keep it together!"

She closed her eyes and focused on her fondest memory, running across a grassy field with him , golden eyes and bright smile...willing to take on the Data Train as members of Team Neo. How, because of him, she was the brave and fearless Colette Cadieux, the Descendant's Shadow and chosen hearld to Alec Cerise's legacy of the 8th Wanderer..

Colette opened her eyes again as she found herself floating above the tightrope and then she stood on top of the rope, arms out to keep her balance.

"Don't fail me now," she told her weapon as she took steady steps forward, looking across from her and not at the carnage below, not even when the rope wobbled. Once she made it to the other side, she sighed in relief as she picked up the Heart power-up. "Okay, that was close."

"GOTCHA!"

She only had one second to turn around before one of those flying devils with the pitchforks knocked her off. "AAAAHHHHHH!!!!"

"Oh no, Colette!" Jesse gasped. "We need an ambulance! We need doctors!"

Just as he said that, a small ambulance rushed onto the stage. And when the door opened, there were those small knife-wielding clowns. 

"That's not what I meant!" Jesse shouted.

The clowns cackled as they were ready to stab their knives into someone's shin. They didn't last five seconds with the lasers and bullets filling their bodies.

Colette extended her hand out towards the sawdust and the rings of the circus as she suddenly found herself floating a foot into the air. She sighed...and then fell flat on her face. "Ow..."

"Okay, how are you even doing that?" asked Lake. "Are you secretly a psychic and we don't know it?"

"We promise that we won't dump pig's blood on you when you become prom queen," Jesse vowed while Colette stood up and wiped away the stardust on her shirt and leggings.

"No, I'm not psychic but..." Colette turned to see two more undead poodles about to bite at her legs to which she shot them point blank. "Here we go guys."

The middle ring suddenly had sparklers lit up as a new platform rose, that of a surgeron's presentation  where a gorilla's body was strapped to a board, some metal helmet with wires connected to another board for a human body to rest in. There were large lamps, a control panel, some sort of specimen floating in a tube and an easel with a blood-stained poster shouting "WE NEED YOUR BRAIN!" Above everyone's heads was a round monitor that displayed the ringleader of the circus with a bald head, a pointed mustache and a monacle over his right eye.

"I am Ludwig von Tokkentaker! And you will be my masterpiece!" He announced while everyone prepared their weapons.

"How about I sweeten the deal?" said Ethan. "We make it out alive, I'll actually promote your new line of cafeteria food, Cosay Cuisine."

"Wow, that's...nice of you," Jesse commented.

"It's a one-time thing, okay?!" Ethan shouted just as the newest swarm of monsters approached.

"Hold him still! We need his brain!" Tokkentaker howled as a parade of clowns in surgical outfits, white coats, head mirrors charged towards the four wielding saws, drills and large syringes filled with purple liquid.

"I hate clowns!!!" Lake screamed, rapidly firing her space blaster at every clown she could see.

"That's something we both agree on!" Ethan shouted.

"Are we almost done?" said Jesse, as they raced behind the medical platform -- and briefly laughing at a chalkboard that said "Umalaut is a kiss-ass!" -- before kicking a clown in the gut.

"Almost there," said Colette just as Ethan shot the last clown in the chest. "We just have to..."

"Enough!" Tokkentaker roared as a large cage dropped down on the four. "There's no escape!"

"Yep, we're at the final stage," said Colette, visor scanning Ethan, Jesse and Lake. None of their HP was at critical levels and there was at least one Health boost on the way up. 

"Geeze, that guy definitely aced Classic Villain Talk 101," Lake scoffed as the elevator lifted them up. A few more of those gargoyles with pitchforks tried to strike them down, but Lake just punched them in the face and they dropped like rocks off a cliff.

Finally the cage was lifted up to find an observation galley that was empty, but with multiple monitors and another diagram for that "Ape Shooter".

"Welcome aboard." Tokkentaker's recording stated to the four. "From this study, I have observed your every move. But you do not obey! PREPARE TO DIE!!!!"

"Get ready!" said Colette as the cage was lifted one more time to the deck of the zeppelin and Tokkentaker laughed maniacally while being gunned down by Jesse, Lake and Ethan. Thunder and lightning roared behind Tokkentaker as he prepared a smoke bomb in hand. She took a glance at the invisible HP bar above his head decreasing with every shot taken. Yep, it was time for the final countdown.

"Umalaut, get him!" Tokkentaker commanded as he threw the bomb and disappeared. 

"At last we meet!" Umalaut cackled as he floated towards the four gunners with a trail of white sparkles following him.

"FIRE!!!" Colette shouted.

Umalaty flinched when someone struck a bullet at his forehead. He then leaned towards Jesse to bite his face off, only for Lake to stand in-between the creepy jester head and Jesse and pulled her fist forward, so Umalaut had no choice but to bite on a metallic knuckle sandwich. "Huh?"

"You need some iron in your diet?" Lake smirked as she fired her space gun right between Umalaut's eyes, causing him to fly back with a howl, and leaving him vulernable to ten more shots from  Colette and Jesse's weapons. Colette counted down from 3...2...1...and saw Umalaut's health bar completely empty. 

"AHHHH! I'm shattered!!!!" Umalaut scremed, transforming into numerous triangular pixels that disintegrated into nothing.

"Come on!" Ethan shouted. "Who's next?!"

Then he turned to see Tokkentaker up at the rafters, a blunderbuss in hand. He had enough time to blink as he was hit straight in the gut, hands thrown into the air.

"SHIT!" Ethan shouted as his gun fell out of his hands and out of the zeppelin, down to the ground below.  "W-well, I don't need a gun to defeat you anyhow!"

"But you need one to stop these skeletons!" Jesse shouted, back to back with Lake as four or five skeletons charged towards them. Colette was working on fighting Tokkentaker where he stood. After Jesse and Lake defeated the skeletons, Tokkentaker threw a smokebomb once more and vanished.

"That pathway is only good for one person," said Colette. "But Tokkentaker is gonna play dirty with his blunderbuss and skeletons!"

"Can you use that bubble of yours to protect us?" asked Lake.

Colette shook her head. "No, that thing was only good for two mintues and we all have to be under it for it to work. If only there was a way to just kill him now."

"Wait, I have an idea!" Ethan gasped, staring at Colette's scanner. "Does that thing carry bombs?"

Colette nodded. "Yeah, I got some back-up bombs just in case. Why do you ask?"

"Why don't we just throw one of those to Tokkentaker and end the game early? If we deplete his health now , we'll spare ourselves all this trouble of fighting all those skeletons and taking up too much space chasing him!"

"That's....actually a good idea," Lake commented.

"I dunno," said Jesse. "I mean, games have to follow some sort of programming right? There's only one path and that's the path that leads us to -- "

"Do you guys wanna keep being mauled by skeletons and being shot with a blunderbuss without shields and so little health?" Ethan questioned.

"Well... no ."

"Then my plan, it is." Ethan then gathered the others to huddle. "Okay, here's how it works: Lake terrifies him, Jesse and Colette disorients him, I go over the top and you support me. Good?"

"Better than nothing," Lake said.

"Let's end this now," said Colette.

"It's Game Over for Tokkentaker!" said Jesse.

"All right then! BREAK!"

The four separated as Colette began to hover instead of climbing the ladder, with everyone else following her.  Tokkentaker was startled, giving her enough time to jump out of the way as Lake fired her blaster at him. Jesse and Ethan climbed the ladder into a higher part of the rafters just as Colette flew upwards and began firing her weapon at Tokkentaker before he had enough time to pull the trigger on his blunderbuss.

"Okay, gonna get the bomb ready..." said Colette just as Jesse and Ethan finally made it to the top. She was already going through her scanner just as the two jocks were firing their guns at some skeletons. 

"Can you move any faster?" Jesse said, ducking out of a skeleton about to slap him across the face. He then elbowed the skeleton before shoving the gun into the skeleton's mouth, blasting his skull clean off.

"I'm trying!" Colette exclaimed as she nearly dodged the bullet from Tokkentaker's blunderbuss. "I'm not good at multi-tasking at high altitudes, y' know!"

"Give me that!" said Ethan, swiping through the cardscanner before finding an icon of a glass sphere with an explosion inside. He slammed Colette's hand over the icon and the same glass sphere with a red and white flame materialized in his hand. "Okay, here we go! CHAAARGE!"

"Wait, no! Don't!" Colette screamed as she saw Ethan race towards Tokkentaker..

But it was too late. Ethan threw the bomb towards the ringleader. Tokkentaker looked up in alarm just as the bomb shattered and he exploded into bits of gore and bone.

"Yeah, touch down!" Ethan whooped. "Game is over and we are out of here!" He then noticed how Colette was gritting her teeth, steam whistling out of her ears and that none of them were at the Game Over cutscene, but rather on the zeppelin still. "What? I just killed Tokkentaker! You should be happy!"

"You...you...what you did is not groovy, Ethan! " Colette screamed.

"Well, I destroyed the monster early and now we can get out of here!"

"You didn't destroy him!" Colette snapped. "That wasn't a bomb, that was the virus I extracted from Deaddy !"

"Well...well, you didn't tell me!" Ethan stated.

"I was trying to! My bombs look like this!" Colette snapped. She swiped the scanner on her arm and pressed a button of an icon that looked like three playing cards. 

"You carry card bombs?" asked Lake, as she finally made it to the upper rafters

"They're easy to carry, easy to replenish and very cheap," Colette says just as she held onto some of these card bombs. "Just think of explosive paper tags where you can slap them on whaver you want...oh I have no time to explain this! We have to get ready!"

"Wait, so, what's going to happen if Tokkentaker is suddenly infected with the virus?" asked Jesse. "I mean, it's not like the Glitch Techs and Tokkentaker is gonna emerge into the real world right?"

"..."

"...That's what is about to happen, isn't it?" Jesse asked and Lake grimaced when Tokkentaker suddenly reconstructed himself and was covered in a red staticky aura. Colette just nodded her head as they all heard Tokkentaker unleash a maniacal laugh.

"This power is wunderbar!" he growled. "With it I could...I can let CarnEvil take on the world. The REAL WORLD!!!! Welcome to the greatest show unearthed!"

Colette hung her head, dropping her shoulders as she grimly glared at Ethan.

"Er....sorry?" Ethan asked sheepishly.

Lake snarled and flicked Ethan across the forehead. "Next time, why don't you use the things between your ears first?!"

"That's provided he survives long enough to actually use it ," Jesse gulped as static began to appear in the sky. Then, the zeppelin started to quake and the sounds of fireworks whistled in his ears.

Colette shoved the deck of cards into Ethan's hands. "Hope your skills in football gave you a good throwing arm, cause you're gonna need it. And as for everyone else, I think Eve Harrington stated it best."

Umalaut's crazed laughter filled the skies as a swarm of skeleton minions began to encircle them. Colette narroed her eyes.

"'Fasten your guns, everyone. It's gonna be a bumpy ride."

-----

"Uhh, Spencer?" asked Nate, eyes glued to the arcade cabinet.

"What is it?" Spencer asked, lifting his gaze from his phone for a minute just as the monster he was fighting disappeared when the timer didn't drop to 0. Oh well, the monster he defeated didn't drop the item he wanted. He can finish it later.

"Is...that how the bad guy is defeated in CarnEvil ?"

Spencer blinked and saw how there was static and glitches covering Tokkentaker and the red electricity that caused the arcade cabinet to spark and stutter. "N-no...that's not...Nate, duck!"

He tackled Nate onto the floor as an earthquake suddenly started to shake. Other players of the various arcade games began to run towards the tables at the nearby pizza parlor as Spencer closed his game and went to another app on his phone.

"What do we do?" Nate whimpered. "What's going to happen to Lake and Jesse? And Ethan and Colette?"

"They'll be fine," Spencer said. "B-but I'm more worried about--NATE!"

Nate turned just as he saw a small monstrous clown in a white outfit and a giant smile about to stab him with a knife. The boy could only scream just as Spencer grabbed onto the clown's knife-wielding hand with his own.

"Not on my watch." Spencer growled.

Before the clown could react, at least 250,000 volts of electricity coursed through his body. The clown let out a cackling screech before he fell unconscious and turned into harmless white pixels. Spencer then blew away the smoke on his hand before he turned to Nate, who thankfully, was quite calm about the situation.

"Did you have some sort of electric joy buzzer on hand?" Nate asked.

"No it's...something that this body allows me to do." Spencer answered, showing his empty palm. "However, I only have enough power for just one shock until I can recharge."

"Recharge...what do you mean by that?" Nate gasped. "Are you a robot? A cyborg? An android? I always get those mixed up."

"It's...a long story," Spencer answered, looking down at the boy. "Now come on, stay by my side. Looks like the circus has come to town."

"Oh, like that Scooby-Doo movie with the werewolves!" Nate gasped. "I think my favorite one has to be the -- "

"Shh..." Spencer shushed Nate. "Be very very quiet."

As he said this, the interior of the arcade began to change into a three-ring circus, complete with creepy calliope music and maniacal laughter. A tiny car covered in polka dots drove toward them, and when the door opened, Spencer and Nate were surrounded by Spencer-sized clowns in purple outfits, curly red hair, white makeup and giant wooden mallets along with even more knife-wielding tiny clowns cackling and laughing at how they were going to turn the two into mincemeat.

Nate screamed as he clung onto Spencer's leg, trembling at the circle of clowns closing in on them. Spencer bowed his head...and then, he narrowed his eyes as he pressed on the image of a sword on his phone and whispered, " Ascalaphus."

Nate's eyes widened as a blue-green sword with a crescent blade suddenly manifested in Spencer's hand in a storm of bright green music notes, the hilt having six red rubies like pomegranate seeds. 

"Wha...what?! What is going on here?!" he gasped. "How did you summon that?"

"As my vow as a Tuner, I am to use my powers to protect the weak," Spencer declared, grasping the hood of his jacket and pulled it down. From what Nate could see, Spencer had bright silver hair and a pair of green quarter note earrings. "And from the looks of it, that includes the likes of you."

"Y-yeah, go get them Specter! Er, I mean Spencer!" Nate cheered. "It's time for some brutality!"

(Unknown to Nate, Specter flinched a little when he was called the former...)

The clowns continued to cackle at their newest target, but Spencer was not deterred in the slightest. He smirked, blue eyes glittering with madness.

"Come on then, let's enter the garden not of madness, but of Hesperides . Earthen lullaby!"

He placed the sword to his lips and whistled at the tip of the blade, the fingers of his right hand -- which were now painted chartreuse, except for the pointer finger; it was painted white with two black lines and a lime green quarter note -- pressed on the gems of the blade as if he was playing a flute. Then, the ground began to shake as a green aura erupted and transformed the circus into a lush green forest. Many of the trees somehow bore fruit. Apples that were as gold as the sun.

"Let me sing you all to an eternal sleep," Spencer vowed, sword at the ready.  "It's time for a round of Tuner Showdown!"

Chapter Text

Yeah, I should’ve gotten this done sooner…at least it’s here now!

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Chapter 5

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"....."

"...."

"...."

"...."

"...Specter?"

An 11-year-old Specter looked up from his fidget die and gulped, blue eyes darting back and forth to the others in the room. "Y-yes Ryoken?"

Ryoken Kougami, age 13, sighed as he picked up a cellphone in his hand. The two were in the dining room of the Kougami Manor, sitting across from one another. A plate of pancakes was between them, untouched. "So, let me repeat everything that happened to you when I left you to go to that mall for one afternoon. Just one! First, you went to the arcade to play some dancing games."

"Yes. I was glad to find them with an updated Bust-a-Groove cabinet!" Specter said with wide eyes. "I met up with a fellow dancer and we played a round of Best of Three."

"You also took some photos of normal people walking about, you bought some tea at Samsara Tea Shop, and then bought a pepperoni pretzel and a Neapolitan ice cream sandwich as a snack."

"Yes.!" Specter felt so proud of himself. He liked photographing people from a distance. "I thought a blend of pomegranate and blueberry tea would be a great boost of antioxidants. The spiced orange tea is really great for chilly mornings also."

"You bought some new chain accessories at Goth Topic to accent that black hoodie of yours."

"Mm-hmm..." Specter was currently wearing a thin black choker with a preserved white orchid as the accent. 

"And finally, as you were sipping your strawberry lemonade and walking back to the boat, you suddenly downloaded some weird game, didn't pay to the Terms and Conditions, got thrown into some virtual realm to fight monsters and 'accidentally' found yourself tangled into some secret superhero life?!" Ryoken snapped. He pointed to the app on the screen of Specter's phone, showing a sword and a music note. The app read "Tuner Showdown - Idle PVP RPG". "Because after you arrived on the boat, completely exhausted and we were made fully aware of why you came home so late, I had a long long talk with customer support about this game of yours."

Specter shrunk his seat, his face becoming red like a strawberry. "I'm...s...sorry?"

"Specter, how many times have we told you not to keep downloading Idle Games?" Kyoko Taki groaned and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Those things are not good for your sleep or your attention span."

"But I really do like them!" Specter noted with large eyes. "Masketeers is a really fun idle game with an interesting backstory. and it's easier to pick up than being on an MMORPG all the time..."

"So, there's no way out of whatever he got himself into?" asked Aso, looking at the app on Specter's phone in disbelief. "No uninstalling the game? No refunds? Nothing?"

"Unfortunately, no," Dr. Genome sighed, adjusting the frames of his glasses, staring at the app on Specter's phone like it was a cockroach that needed to be squashed. "That thing is stuck on his phone for the rest of his life, and he'll be fighting monsters over and over and over again and thrown into dangerous situations because of it."

"It is what he wanted though," Ryoken snarked just as a few notifications began blaring on the phone, stating that Specter should pick up his daily log-in bonus, that he's leveled up and gain a new ability, that he had to level up one of his Summons, etc. etc. etc. "And don't even try to weasel your way out of what happened to you after you installed the app. A fellow 'Tuner' of yours dragged you here and gave us an explanation about what you signed up for."

"Fellow Tuner?"  Specter repeated with confusion.

Ryoken groaned. "I have no time to explain this. Let's just say I'm going to be taking over your account from now on."

"I...don't think that's a good idea," Specter pointed out.

"Says the one who installed the app without double-checking?"

"...."

"Thought so," Ryoken grumbled, logging into Tuner Showdown. He watched the loading bar filled up , waiting to enter the main menu so he could go to the Settings and make the game uninstall himself. However, instead of seeing the menu, he saw something else.

Please enter your username

"Hmm?" Ryoken said, raising an eyebrow. "Stupid thing must be broken." He then typed out "Revolver" and pressed Enter. A loading screen of a music note and sword with a circle appeared on the screen before the screen refreshed.

Please enter your username

"The hell?" Ryoken muttered as he typed another name -- "Varis" -- before pressing enter. Unfortunately, he was met with the same page.

Please enter your username

Ryokeng growled as he tried different names -- "Baira", "Zarc", "Ray" -- but he was always met with the same prompt. "What type of app is this?! Are you sure this isn't some rogue AI that's masquerading as a game?!"

"Did the customer support tell you anything about that ?" asked Kyoko.

"Whether they did or not doesn't matter at this point. I'm deleting this app this instant!" Ryoken snapped, pressing on the app and waiting for the trash can option to appear. But after ten seconds, nothing happened. "What the hell is this app?"

"Maybe this is for the best?" Specter muttered, looking off to the side. "I mean, you always kept saying that I need to be more social without giving away our identity after what happened with SOLtech. So maybe..."

"I refuse!" Ryoken snapped, standing up and slamming his hand on the table, close to destroying the phone. "Do you realize what you're getting into?"

Specter swallowed, but he quickly stood up and looked Ryoken straight in the eye. "I do. After my first 'fight' as a Tuner, an NPC by the name of Gaid came to me. He explained that not a lot of people who play Tuner Showdown are 'compatible' with the Tuners program, and that I showed potential to help destroy a wave of corruption that plagues not only our world, but the worlds beyond. With that in mind, it's no different than being a Knight of Hanoi, right?"

Ryoken was speechless as Specter took his phone back and placed his hand over Ryoken's own, his thumb tracing the mark of a small red triangle by Ryoken's own.

"And, let's be honest. If you tried to destroy my phone, it'll probably find its way to repair itself or it'll appear in another phone I purchase. It's a part of me now, like my hair, my eyes, my name..."

"But...you don't have a name..." Ryoken muttered, bowing his head. Unfortunately, it didn't stop the tear that trickled down his face.

"Ryoken..."

"I'm just...I'm worried about you so much, Specter!" Ryoken whimpered, suddenly grabbing Specter close. The other Knights gasped, with Dr. Genome suddenly picking up a bowl of popcorn conveniently popped for movie night. "You've been with me for these past five years, keeping me strong over everything that's happened with the Ignis and the Lost Incident. After my father fell into a coma, I...I had no one. I didn't want to be alone! And I didn't want you to be alone either...I wished I could've rescued the other Lost Children as well, but it was so confusing with the police and they had parents but you didn't and I'm sorry about your original mother and how I stole you from that orphanage but I felt like it was my responsibility to make things right and..."

"Ryoken-sama..."

Ryoken sniffled, trying to be strong but couldn't.  No matter how hard he wanted to portray himself as the leader of the Hanoi, he was only a teenager. He had no guidance, like a boat without a rudder to help them fight against the currents. "Specter, please...I can't lose you. Please stay.... please ..."

Specter blinked, absorbing everything that Ryoken had just told him, feeling the pain in his voice and in his heart. He had never seen that side of Ryoken before. Ryoken always had everything under control, always had a plan, always knew how to react to danger. This was the first time he had seen Ryoken be so...vulnerable. So exposed.

Taking a deep breath, Specter leaned close, causing Dr. Genome to drop the popcorn in his hand onto the floor, and placed his lips on Ryoken's cheek. It only lasted five seconds, but when both boys stepped back, both of their faces were flushed as if they kissed for an entire hour.

"S-Specter..." Ryoken gasped, briefly touching his cheek in surprise. 

Specter's eyes widened as he pulled his hands away from Ryoken, face completely red as he covered his face with the phone. "I...I can't believe I just did that....I can't believe I just did that !"

"You did," said Kyoko before turning to Aso and Dr. Genome with a smirk and a hand gesture of her rubbing her thumb against her fingers. "And lit ooks like I won our little bet. Pay up, you two."

Aso and Dr. Genome grumbled as they began handing Kyoko some money, much to Ryoken and Specter's shock.

"I'm sorry, but was there a betting pool between you three about us getting together in the future?!" asked Ryoken in shock that his older brother and sister figure was doing this behind his back. Specter himself felt his cheeks burning red as cherries and he wanted to distract himself with the new daily quests awaiting for him.

"In truth, Ryoken...we all could see that you two truly belong together," Kyoko admitted with a sly smile on her face. "We just wanted to see who would be the first one to kiss."

"Regardless of who kissed whom first, it's nice to see that you two are opening up about your feelings for one another," Aso admitted with a fatherly smile. "And we hope you understand what Specter is trying to tell you, Ryoken."

"And that you understand where Ryoken's concerns are coming from, Specter," Dr. Genome added. "Your DNA has determined that you are going to go far as a Tuner, has it not?"

"I....g-guess so?" Specter answered back with flushed cheeks. He never understood Dr. Genome's insistent theory that DNA determined the fate of the universe. A part of him hoped he never would.

Ryoken wiped another tear falling down his face. He looked up at Specter with his blue topaz eyes glittering with hope and acceptance. "Specter, if...if you really want to do this, then all I can say is..."

"No, you don't have to say it," Specter smiled, taking Ryoken's hand in a firm squeeze. "If my beloved was going off on a dangerous mission, even I'd have some reservations of it all."

Ryoken opened his mouth in an attempt to deny that they were together, but smiled and shook his head. "Thank you for understanding. The other Knights and I are going to figure out how to support you when it's time for you to go to these other 'worlds' and fulfill your duties as a Tuner. You won't have to do this alone, I swear."

"I won't be traveling the stars for quite a while," Specter noted with a shy smile. "I just started yesterday, and Idle Games take a long time before you level up and start wailing on the bosses with permanent boosts to your character. Plus, there's a skill tree to consider, the rare items that I want to collect, the Tuning Armaments, and that butler that has been standing behind you since we started talking."

"Wait...did you just say 'butler'?"

"Yeah, he's standing behind you."

Ryoken blinked and turned around, only seeing empty space before staring at Specter as if to think that that Specter should be getting psychiatric help. Aso, Kyoko and Dr. Genome also stared at the spot where this butler "stood", also perplexed as to whether or not Specter brought an imaginary friend home. "Uh..."

Spencer scratched his cheek, still blushing. "I'll....explain more of this after breakfast and after our morning sweep throughout VRAINS. But rest assured when I say that, me being a Tuner doesn't change anything about me. I still see you, Kyoko, Aso and Dr. Genome as my family and I wouldn't have it any other way." 

Ryoken couldn't contain his tears any longer as he wrapped his arms around his boyfriend, not ashamed at how vulnerable he was at the moment. "I love you, Specter."

"And I love you too, Ryoken." Specter replied.

"Come on! Get a room, you two!" Dr. Genome shouted.

Five seconds later, Kyoko and Aso wasted no time dumping what was left of the popcorn onto his head.

"What?" Dr. Genome remarked, tossing a popcorn kernel into his mouth. "I was gonna share the popcorn, I swear!"

------

Spencer wasted no time slicing the clowns into tiny pieces with his sword all while keeping an eye on Nate, who had the right idea to run to a tree and hide behind it. Damn it, Colette shouldn't have made a foolish error of letting a virus get loose like this. What could've caused this?!

Nate whimpered as he watched Spencer do his best to mow down the clowns with the grace and skill of a dancer, spinning and twirling around in a dance of death. He wanted to help in some way, but he knew that jumping into battle without a plan, or a weapon, was going to be dangerous.

"RAAAAGH!"

Nate turned around to see a hammer-wielding clown above him. He rolled out of the way just as the hammer struck the tree down and began to race for his life. He had to get to shelter as soon as possible and wait until Jesse and Lake killed the evil Tokkentaker and put an end to this nightmare.

But as he was running for safety, he heard something buzzing in his pocket. Oh no, not now!

Nate pulled out his cellphone and grimaced at the caller ID -- Mom -- before picking the call up. "Um, h-hi Mom...How's everything..."

"Nathaniel Elan Cosay! Where's your brother?!" Whitney Cosay said in a panicky voice. Nate winced at that; he knew what it meant if mom used his full name. "Have you seen the news on Facefolio or Tweet-tweet? There's this giant circus taking over the arcade and there's camera footage of your brother and Lake on a zeppelin wielding a gun while fighting off skeletons and..."

"Uhhhhhhh, I had no idea!" Nate lied, doing his best to keep his voice calm as he found himself in some sort of medieval castle complete with drawbridge. Odd; the theme of the pizza buffet was themed more on Ancient Greek and Roman architecture, not like the King Arthur's Pizza place that he and his brother would get slices of New York-style pizza after his swimming practice.  "He, er, he must be playing at the upper level of the arcade while I go get some pizza with cheese and extra olives and a Caesar salad to share with Lake!"

But Whitney was not convinced in the slightest. "Nate, we've eaten enough pizza to know that you hate Caesar salad and pizza with olives on it. You practically shudder at the taste of the salad dressing and say that the olives look like empty black eyes staring at your soul. And you know that tonight was the night I was cooking Sonoraon style hot dogs for all of us!"

"I know...uh, but...but I decided that I want to conquer my fears of olives and dislike of Caesar salad by trying them out right now!" Nate hastily explained, entering the castle, going down the stairs to what he hoped was everyone else that hasn't been turned into baby food for the evil teddy bear. Ugh, he was reminded of those videos of people playing Five Nights at Freddy's . "I mean, it's better I do it now than when Jesse tries to do something to surprise me like uh...making a frybread caesar salad olive pizza combo. Hehehe..."

Whitney was still not convinced and Nate knew it. "Nate, you, Jesse and Lake are coming home this instant! Do you understa--"

"Yesmomiunderstanddontworrywepromisetocomebacksoon!! Bye!" Nate exclaimed before he hastily hung up. He panted for breath as he noticed that he was now in the dungeons and saw many people huddling in fear, praying that the monsters will assume the dungeons were locked and they wouldn't try to eat them alive. Nate put on a brave face.

"Don't worry guys! My older brother and his friend is going to beat that evil Tokkentaker!" he said. "You just gotta have a little hope and wait for them to make Tokkentaker blast off like he was blown up in a cannon.."

No one in the jail cells said nothing. Instead, they looked up as a shadow slowly approached Nate.

"We're going to win this!" said Nate, hand clutching his phone and other on Spencer's fidget cube (he mentally noted that he had to give it back to Spencer after this was all over). "And you can trust me or my name isn't -- "

"I am Eyeclops!" A monstrous voice roared.

Nate turned around and looked at what he had to face: a two-headed cyclops wearing spiked pauldrons, metallic gauntlets and wielding a broadsword in each hand. And on his chest and arms were numerous eyes blinking and unblinking and looking at him like a dead fish does in a seafood section of a supermarket.

Nate found himself unable to move, but he was capable of saying one thing.

"AHHHHHH!!!!"

....

"AHHHHH!!!"

"Nate!" Spencer shouted, stabbing a clown in the chest. "Hold on, I'll get someone!"

He pulled out his phone, which was currently on the menu for Tuner Showdown, and pressed a tab that read "Heroes". He double-tapped the image of a butler with slicked black hair, crimson eyes and a smile that belonged to a villain that had four stars on the upper left corner. He placed the phone to his lips.

"Note set. Realizing Tuning! The Wide-Eyed Genius, Socius!"

He pressed the "Summon" button and raised the phone into the air. An orb of black musical notes materialized within the phone before descending onto the ground. The clowns and poodles looked in confusion until the music notes popped like bubbles and the menagerie of creepy performers was swiftly slaughtered when a dozen daggers struck their heads or chests before they somehow returned to the dagger wielder's hand.

"It's about time I polish the cutlery anyhow." A calm voice stated.

The dagger wielder smiled, wearing an impeccable black suit that was accessorized with a dark blue silk tie and a silver crescent moon pin on the left lapel of his jacket. He turned to Spencer and bowed, daggers at the ready.

"What can I help out with today?" Socius inquired.

"Nate is in trouble," Spencer answered, finally able to catch his breath. "Protect him and make sure the monsters can't go after anyone else. We have to keep fighting until Colette and her group take care of Tokkentaker and capture the virus causing all of this madness."

"I shall fulfill thy request." Socius replied with his calm smile.

Socius then sped off, almost blending with the shadows as Spencer finished fighting off the other clowns, tossing a handful of red pomegranate seeds at them. The clowns blinked in confusion when they littered the ground, one of them even sniffing a seed before popping one into their mouths like it was a piece of candy. After there were no ill side-effects from consuming a seed, the rest of the clowns also joined in...all while Spencer chuckled.

"See you in Hades," he smirked as he snapped his fingers.

The clowns looked in confusion before they looked down at how their stomachs were starting to blink...and then blink rapidly like a bomb about to explode. The clowns looked in horror before they exploded in front of Spencer with a honk of a bicycle horn and a burst of purple and black confetti. A barrage of +1500 XP flashed before Spencer's eyes.

"Yes!" Spencer cheered as he saw the experience bar on his phone shoot up little by little and an indicator said he was at 99.98% . "Just a few more monsters and I can finally get that new weapon upgrade I've been saving up for!" He then noticed that a timer was counting down from five seconds to..."Oh no."

The forest started fading away, leaving Spencer in the Big Top once more. Seeing as there was no more monsters to slay, he began to exit the tent to assess the situation...glad that he didn't have to breathe or have a heartbeat. He could just walk silently and no one would...

Not so fast !

Spencer turned around and saw an axe just seconds away from splitting his head in half. He drew out his kopesh sword and glared at the axe-wielder: a woman in a bright pink ballroom gown and a tall white curly wig like she was born and raised in the French Court. She also had the pale complexion of those sorts of ladies, but her eyes and smile revealed that she was pure evil .

Ahahahaha!!!! The evil woman declared as she pulled the axe away and nuzzled her cheek against the handle. You're not getting away that easily, ghost. Not if Evil Marie has anything to say about it!

She began to swing her axe down on Specter's head once more while Specter began running. Evil Marie waved her arms into the air as a storm of purple-blue energy orbs began to rain down from the sky. Spencer grit his teeth as he looked at his phone, using it as a mirror to evade the attacks.

D-damn it. he cursed. I'm already at 20%. Battery saving mode is on. I have to be careful as to how I fight her!

He noticed how Evil Marie was closing in on him as he placed his phone in his pocket and turned around. Evil Marie began throwing multiple axes at him and Spencer rolled out of the way before grabbing an axe and hurling it back at the evil French aristocratic killer. The axe hit her in the forehead, causing her to yelp in pain and expose her neck just a little.

He peered in closer and noticed that there was a long red scar around her neck like a ribbon. Could it be...if she was based off of the real Marie Antoinette, who lost her head to a guillotine...then that meant...

"How...how dare you!" Evil Marie screeched. "I think it's time to go off with your head!"

"I'm not gonna join the likes of Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard!" Spencer snapped as Evil Marie flew towards him once more. "Trust me, I've had this annoying pop song in my head about Anne Boleyn ringing in my ears for the past three days and this ear worm is gonna make heads roll if I have to hear it one more time!"

"Really now?" Evil Marie purred. "You mind if I helped you out a little? It's said that prehistoric medicine for headaches was to drive a stone stake into one's skull and --

"No thank you." Spencer stated. "I'd like my head intact. And knowing the likes of you, you'd probably eat my brains or use my skulls either as a soup bowl or to piss in it or to piss in them, then wash them to use it as a soup bowl."

"Excuse me?!"  Evil Marie screeched. "Do you think I'm that obscene?"

Spencer shrugged his shoulders. "But enough about that. In all this discussion, I seemed to realize something. I wanted to ask you a personal question."

"And what's that?"

"Well, I couldn't help but feel quite interested in that dress of yours and a lady like yourself needs some flowers to complete the ensemble! Did you know that Marie Antoinette's favorite flowers were the cornflower?"

"What are you getting at, peasant?"

"Oh nothing much," Spencer drawled with a roll of his eyes as he looked at himself through the reflective surface of his phone with a smirk before placing his thumb at the bottom of the screen. "Just that, I just want to show you that my powers are nothing to sneeze at! Pollen bomb!"

Spencer raised his phone into the air and pressed a button. Then, a stream of green leaves and music notes surrounded him, along with numerous flower buds. Evil Marie snarled and began slicing and dicing the buds in annoyance...only for them to unleash a storm of sweet-smelling pollen.

"What is this?!" Evil Marie screeched, the pollen surrounding her as Spencer laughed and began to sing.

"Sorry, not sorry 'bout what I said, I'm just tryna have some fun!" He sang as he practically danced and twirled all around Evil Marie, who kept missing him with her axe strikes. Evil Marie snarled as she could hear Spencer sing the next verse. " Don't worry, don't worry, don't lose your head! I didn't mean to hurt anyone."

Evil Marie noticed Spencer standing in the corner and smirked. She screamed as she sliced his head clean off...only for the pollen to disperse and revealed that it was only a copy of Spencer made of thorny vines that suddenly grabbed at her arms and legs, suspending her in the air like a puppet.

"Like my Copy Plant?" Spencer purred as he was suddenly behind her and made an upward slice. Evil Marie gasped when she saw how the slice had gone through her right arm, and saw it drop onto the ground, flopping like a fish. And in that hand was her axe . "I just got it like three seconds ago thanks to all those experience points I've been given!"

"B-but I'm the only opponent you've been fighting! How did you get those 'experience points'?" Evil Marie asked in confusion.

"Yes, you're the only one that I'm currently fighting," Spencer agreed. "But did you recall my servant whom I summoned a few minutes before you grace me with your presence?"

"Socius, yes...he looks like someone who deserves to eat cake until he bursts!"

"Well, here's the thing. Socius was my first draw when I first became a Tuner and I've had him for quite some time, making sure to fine-tune his abilities to compliment my play-style. I also had to re-roll a few times before I got one of the rarest passive abilities that I could get."

"And what's that?"

Spencer cackled. "For every monster that Socius destroys, I get a bit of the experience points he would've received per enemy -- an 'Experience Share' if you want to get technical. Those clowns helped inch me just a little bit closer, but while I was setting up that Pollen Bomb, Socius killed something called an -- " Spencer shook his head. "Oh wait, I won't spoil that for you cause..." He suddenly began dancing around her singing, LOL, say oh well or go to hell! I'm sorry, not sorry 'bout what I said...

Spencer smiled as he whispered the last line with the tip of the kopesh sword at Evil Marie's neck. Don't lose your head.

"Wait, I--"

And with two swift strokes of his blade, Evil Marie's head chopped off and plopped to the side, her eyes wide.She then exploded into pixels as Spencer got another round of 10,000 XP added to his level.

Spencer looked up to see the zeppelin in the air as numerous skeletons were being blown out of the sky and crashing into the ground below, shattering into pieces. Without hesitation, he said, "Optical scanners. Zoom in...200%."

His eyes flashed blue as they began zooming in on four figures -- three humans, one made of metal -- fighting for their lives against Tokkentaker's skeleton crew -- ha ha -- while Tokkentaker cackled and summoned cherry bombs and fireworks that lit the sky like it was New Year's Eve. 

"You better make a miracle, Colette," Spencer muttered, staring at his phone. "Or else we're gonna be in big -- "

"BOO!"

"AGH!" Spencer shouted, patting his chest as a voice in his ear blared "Warning, Battery level is at 18%. Charge as soon as possible." He turned around only to see Nate standing behind him cheerfully. "N-Nate! W-where did you come from?"

"I came from the front door," Nate said cheerfully. "But still, you were right! My courage is what helped save the day! What happened back there was...awesome!" Nate gasped, hugging Spencer. "You should've been there, Mr. Spencer!"

Spencer raised an eyebrow as he noticed the tall, thin shadow behind Nate, polishing a knife. "Would you care to explain, Socius?"

"I shall comply," Socius replied with a bow and an all-knowing smirk. "It all started ten minutes ago..."

------

Ten minutes ago ....

Pretending to sword fight through the use of brooms, wooden swords or flashlights was easy. He was quite an expert on doing that thanks to all of the time he's done it with Jesse.

Actively picking up a sword to protect yourself from dying? Not so much.

Nate ducked behind a suit of knight armor and watched as its components were separated by a simple swing of Eyeclops' sword and struck the ground with a rattling noise like a collection of frying pans clanging against one another in a failed attempt to recreate the set of balls on string that swing back and forth when they clicked. Without hesitation, Nate began throwing the gauntlets and helm of the armor in an attempt to distract Eyeclops so he can pick up a firepoker and thrust it into one of the eyes. After all, all video game bad guys had a weak point, and it looked like Eyeclops had seven of them.

Eyeclops howled and shouted "Bloody hell!" when Nate struck the eye on his chest and blood spewed everywhere, nearly causing the boy to puke. But if there was something Nate learned from horror films is that it usually takes a lot more than just one hit for the monster to go down. A lot more.

"S-someone!" Nate shouted, bringing the firepoker above his head to deflect a blow from the swords. He grit his teeth as he put his strength into pushing the sword back before Eyeclops looked down and kicked Nate towards a wall and then kicked the fallen fire poker to the side so Nate couldn't try that again. No one said a word as Eyeclops dragged his swords on the ground all while Nate looked at Spencer's fidget die, recalling Spencer's words.

Hold onto that courage, Nate. For that is something that the bullies and monsters can never take away.

Yeah they can never take away his courage, but they can take his life if he made one false move!

But this is exactly what it felt when Jesse's "friends" kept pursuing him, and how it was terrifying to be afraid of them when there was no big brother around. Those weeks worrying about Jesse while he had to confess to police officers about what happened, and having to be afraid of those four boys taunting this little "tattletale" about how they were going to smash him into shark bait (the only reason that never came to fruition was because Mr and Mrs. Cosay were quick with restraining orders and sending the boys into court for what they did to their baby shark)

Still, Nate looked at Eyeclops preparing his axe and then at the fire poker. He had one shot...

"I think I can, I think I can, I think I can..." Nate swallowed. "I THINK I CAN!!!!"

He raced towards the firepoker and performed a slide kick, grabbing the fire poker just in time and stabbed it at another of Eyeclops' eyes. The monster stumbled in agony and then...stopped moving.

"Huh?" Nate asked in confusion. "W...what was..."

Then Eyeclops howled as blood sprayed everywhere and he fell to the floor, just as a bloodied knife was yanked out of his body. The hand grasping the knife then wiped the blood with a white handkerchief. Nate took a deep breath, counted to four, then exhaled, also counting to four. The man in the dark suit and equally black hair smiled at Nate.

"Are you okay, Nathaniel?"

"I...I think so," Nate mumbled, staring at the fidget die. "Thank you, and please, just call me Nate."

"Then you have my permission to call me Socius."

An awkward pause came between the two before Nate had the courage to speak once more. "Um...A...are you a demon disguised as a butler?" 

"I am no demon, child," Socius answered. "I wanted to interfere a bit sooner, but I couldn't help but observe your courage. You did quite a good job protecting everyone."

As he said this, Socius gave a side-eye to all of the "prisoners" behind bars. None of them could look Socius or Nate in the eye. Socius shook his head as he pulled out more knives from his sleeves and smiled as he placed them inbetween his fingers like claws. "Now then, please step back. I cannot be at fault if you had a close shave with Death. "

He then sliced through the bars of the jail cells, letting the pieces clatter to the floor. And not even a second later, everyone began screaming and racing out of the dungeons while Nate looked at his phone and saw just how many messages were on the screen. The latest one is what made him nervous.

Whitney: You, Jesse and Lake better be in the front of the arcade in ten minutes! We'll have a lot to talk about on the way home and you'll be lucky if you get dessert tonight!

Nate gulped and hastily texted back, "I promise to get Jesse and Lake with me. Don't worry, love you!" Socius just chuckled.

"Now then," said Socius. "I think it's time for me to catch up with my master."

"Master?"

Socius smiled. "It's a bit of a long story. I hope you don't mind..."

...

"So everyone is racing towards the exit all safe and sound with no more zombies or bats or ghosts or evil grabby hands to attack them!" Nate finished. "How's my brother doing?"

"J-Jesse is..." As Spencer said that, he heard some explosions and looked quite deadpan as he added, "Q-quite busy at the moment."

------

"So wait, we have to start this part all over again?!" Ethan asked as ducked from Umalaut's teeth trying to go for the jugular.

"No, we just have to figure out how to fight Tokkentaker like we're supposed to, make sure that the virus doesn't spread out throughout the entire city and then contain it until I can bring it back to the Data Train," Colette answered. She stabbed Umalaut through his mouth without even flinching.

"Data Train?" Jesse repeated, unaware of a skeleton creeping up behind him. "Is that similar to the -- "

Lake shot the skeleton and it collapsed into a heap of bones while Jesse gave her a thumb's-up. "Ask questions later, remember?"

"Ethan, you gotta come with me," said Collette, grabbing the jock's sleeve. "You're the most vulnerable and I'm the one with the best defenses."

"Normally, I wouldn't be talking to girls who wield weapons and seem to have knowledge of shit that's probably gonna be erased from my memories once this is all over," Ethan grumbled. "But I'll make an exception this one time."

"Okay then," said Colette. "Jesse, Lake, you know what to do!"

"On it!" said Jesse, pumping a fist into the air. "Time for the Travelfriends to show what they're made of! WHOO-HOO!"

Lake rolled her eyes but smirked as she and Jesse began firing at a swarm of skeletons, the lasers hitting their marks and making their targets collapse into heaps of bones. Meanwhile, Colette and Ethan climbed the ladder to the highest level of the rafters, just as Tokkentaker fired another blast from his blunderbuss that nearly took Colette's head off.

"Give it up, Tokkentaker!" Colette proclaimed as she hopped off of the ladder and fired her weapon at him. "Once you're taken down, no one is gonna remember you or this Tale of the Carnival of Doom!"

"Well, that's only if I'm taken down! But if I get taken, I'll make sure you go with me!" Tokkentaker cackled as more skeletons marched towards Collette. They were quickly taken care of just as Ethan threw one of the explosive cards at the evil ringmaster...who threw a smokebomb and the card hit a skeleton taking up the rear. The card then exploded and the skeleton went along with it.

"Come on, we gotta corner him!" Colette said. "Thankfully, I've played this game a few times to know where he'll go next."

Ethan nodded as the two went through the rafters, Collette swiftly reloading her weapon or stabbing a skeleton so that Ethan could stuff a card into a skeleton's jaw to make them explode. Tokkentaker would always try to play dirty every time they turned around -- "Now you must die!" he bellowed as he fired his blunderbuss that knocked a quarter of Colette's health down -- but there were signs that he was getting weaker. His blue coat was looking more and more tattered and he was snarling and cussing in German more and more.

"What's next?" asked Ethan.

Colette panted. "I think this is the part where he says -- "

"Auf Wiedersehen!"  He cackled as he suddenly ran towards Colette and kicked her in the stomach, causing her to momentarily drop her weapon and fall off of the edge of the zeppelin.

"COLETTE!" Jesse and Lake screamed, seeing the girl flung over Tokkentaker's head and face about to be shredded beyond recognition...

But before that could happen, Ethan somehow managed to close the gap between himself and Tokkentaker, dove out to the side and grabbed Collette so she landed on the top of the turbine. Up above, Tokkentaker tried to pick up Colette's weapon, but only found himself cursing more in German all while being electrocuted.

"Ha...ah..." Colette looked up to see Ethan helping her stand up. "W-why did you..."

"I'm a bully, but I'm not a monster," Ethan stated with a sigh. "Besides, I can't get into any more trouble if another kid gets injured on my watch. Don't think this means I'm suddenly your friend and you wooed me over with the magic of friendship or whatever!"

Colette nodded as she looked up, seeing Tokkentaker still unable to free himself from her weapon. She then turned to her Card Scanner and scanned for a symbol of a pair of boots with springs underneath. "Ethan, I'm gonna lure Tokkentaker to you. Get to the lower rafters and fight off the skeletons until I return."

"How long do you need me to stall them?"

"Can you last about ten seconds?"

"Ten? Pssh," Ethan chuckled. "Trust me, in a game of football, every second counts when I'm running."

Colette nodded as she pressed the symbol on her Card Scanner. "Spring boost online! And in the immortal words of Announcer McAfee, For the brand!!!"

A similar symbol flashed underneath her feet before she jumped into the air, rolled forward and picked up her weapon (without even getting a thank you from the evil ringmaster for relieving him of this pain). Instead, he threw a smoke bomb and ran away while Colette followed, being met with even more of the skeleton crew.

"I've felt enough emotions for one day," Colette snarled, adjusting her glasses as they showed multiple cross-hairs. "So I think it's time to rip and tear all of you till nothing's left !!! Rapid-fire!"

She spun around as she fired at least five to six bullets marked with a lightning bolt symbol. Each of the bullets struck the skull of a skeleton and caused them to be shocked before they collapsed into low-polygon bones. Ethan had already thrown more and more cards as he could before he jumped onto the boat half of the zeppelin himself and was figuring the final confrontation judging by Tokkentaker asking, "How about some fireworks?!"

Ethan knew how to dodge attacks, but he knew that if got hit by one of those cherry bombs then there'd be no way to recover from them. After all, when was a quarterback ever going to go through this type of shit? However, he was so busy trying to avoid the fireworks whizzing by his head, that he didn't see the skeletons creeping up on him.

Thankfully, he didn't have to worry about that when Lake practically landed on top of them with Jesse and Colette using the ropes to swing down and take care of the rest. Tokkentaker fumed and began cursing in German and Colette's display of the HP bar above his head meant that he was getting ready for his last stand. 

"Serve me!" He pointed towards the four as colorful rockets whizzed by, leaving yellow, chartreuse and fuchsia trails of fire as they whistled in the air. Jesse and Lake began firing at the ringmaster as Tokkentaker howled, "Obey me!"  

Colette brought her arm out as the fireworks stopped just a second at their faces. She then tossed them over her head like they were soda cans to be thrown into the trash, and they struck a pair of skeletons about to attack them from behind. Three seconds later, they exploded into bones.

"Let's see you survive this!" Tokkentaker cackled as he threw a large bundle of dynamite at their faces, then lit on fire and just seconds away from blowing up in front of their faces. Thankfully, Colette had her weapon in hand and a hand out.

"Return to sender!" Colette remarked as she threw the dynamite back at Tokkentaker, watching as it blew up, burning a bit of his suit and exposing most of his skeletal body in its low polygon glory. "Ethan, final blow now!"

Ethan stared at Tokkentaker and at the cards in his hands. He inhaled deep before he threw the cards past Tokkentaker and let them stick onto the railing in front of the zeppelin's steering wheel.

"Shoot him down!" Ethan said, turning away for a brief moment and then seeing another bundle of dynamite thrown towards his face. Thankfully, it was thrown back towards Tokkentaker's face.

"Here's another Sonic reference for you all, It's no use !" Colette smirked as the dynamite exploded, tearing Tokkentaker's uniform completely and was thrown back from the impact. He could only howl in horror as the propellers of the zeppelin shredded him into bloody chunks. The virus that was stuck in his body began to fly about, snarling in rage.

"Virus eliminated for real this time!" Colette shouted, pulling out a white capsule and hurling it at the virus. The virus shrieked as the capsule opened and a stream of white light grabbed onto it, sucking it inside before the capsule flew back into Colette's hands.

"All that work for one virus," Colette said. "But it was worth it."

A holographic screen popped up from her Card Scanner, showing an Experience Meter filling up to its fullest before a cheerful blare of heroic music blasted.

Level Up!

New Level: 25

New Skill unlocked: Telepathy III 

(Skill Description: Can freely use telekinesis without holding Cyber Tool, as long as said Cyber Tool is close at hand)

Colette gasped as the holographic screen winked out. "Yes! Finally got enough points to do this!"

She dropped her weapon to the deck and then tossed her Card Scanner into the air. Before it fell, Colette stretched her arm out and the Card Scanner began floating around. Colette smiled as she spun around, arm stretched out. The Card Scanner followed her movements before she beckoned it to come back to her hand. “This is the best thing ever! Gotta message my partners about this as soon as we’re about that.”

"Yeah, about that,” said Lake. “What happens now that Tokkentaker is defeated?"

"Well, if I remember correctly, there are fireworks and explosions and the zeppelin starts crashing down..." Colette answered...just as fireworks and explosions started erupting around the zeppelin that was starting to rapidly descend. "Oh. Right."

The four screamed and tried their best to grab onto something. Ethan grabbed onto the steering wheel, Lake and Jesse hung onto some ropes, and Colette rolled towards the side and grabbed onto the railings, grabbing onto her weapon as well..

"Can't you use this telekinesis of yours to slow it down?" Lake asked.

"My limit for levitating things is a truck!" Colette answered. "Besides, there's a more important thing I need to keep afloat."

"And what's that?!"

"All of us! Now that I can do weapon-less telekinesis, I think I can..." Colette grunted as she stretched her arms out and imagined she was wrapping Ethan, Lake and Jesse with invisible ropes. "Hang on!"

As the zeppelin was nearing the ground, it suddenly started to glitch out. Ethan, Jesse and Lake looked alarmed as they were about to land onto the floor without a safety net as Colette closed her eyes and concentrated, really concentrated...

...

Jesse opened his eyes and blinked when he found himself about a few centimeters above the ground. He couldn't believe his eyes and reached his arm to note how far he was from the ground....just as Colette dropped her arms and everyone fell flat on their faces.

"Ow." Jesse groaned, looking around to see that they were now back in the (now empty) arcade. "That was..."

"Virus captured and mission accomplished," said Colette, slipping her Card Scanner and her pen back into the fanny pack around her waist. She also removed the scrunchie keeping her braid together and seamlessly slipped it on her wrist. "Still, that can't be just a coincidence..."

"So you chose the one arcade cabinet that got infected with one of those words glitchy...viruses...it's just a coincidence!" Lake exclaimed.

"No," Colette shook her head and the look in her eye looked in contrast to her age. "I need to ask the guys who run this place about the last people who played CarnEvil . This felt like a setup. They knew I was coming."

"And I need to get the hell out of here," Ethan said, stomping off. "Last thing I need is my parents wondering why I'm acting nice around Mr. Arizona Missing." He tried to take a step forward, but suddenly felt as if someone had connected a pair of handcuffs to one another. "Hey, what the -- "

"Ah ah ah," said Colette, wagging a finger. "You need to sign this 'Keep Quiet Agreement' with me to ensure that you never ever EV-ER tell anyone about what happened. I have to write a report for each and every virus I catch, and I need to ensure that you don't accidentally blab this to the public."

"And what are you gonna do if I do blab this? Erase my memories? Pull a 1984 on me?" When Lake raised an eyebrow, Ethan scoffed. "I read on my downtime; I need to keep a certain grade point average to stay on the team and all."

"Just sign it," Colette said, pressing a button on her Card Scanner as a holographic non-disclosure agreement scrolled through Ethan's eyes. She also handed him a white stylus. "Don't ask for my pen; you'll either find it weighing the equivalent of a car or electrocuting you."

"Excuse me?" Jesse gasped.

Ethan snatched the stylus and was about to sign on the dotted line when he paused. "Wait, why is it that I have to sign it but Jesse and the Chrome Girl -- " Lake snarled. "Don't have to go through this NDA?"

"They'll be signing it just in time, but given how you're also in loads of trouble for bullying outside of school..."

"Okay okay fine!" Ethan scribbled his name before shoving the stylus back into Colette's hands. "Happy?"

"Hmm...fair enough, have a nice evening and try not to reply to anyone about what happened. Oh and you might wanna shut the traps of your posse as well."

Ethan grunted and walked off and as he did, Colette groaned and placed her hands over face. "I am so gonna get called out of this by Elia...and my partners."

"You can worry about that later," said Spencer, approaching the three with Nate by his side, clutching onto Spencer's fidget die. "Cause this little thing was..."

"So cool!" Nate cheered. "You should've seen me, guys! I fought off a guy with a lot of eyes and I even got a few hits in! Why don't you tell them Socius!"

Nate turned to the side and so did Jesse and Lake. "Uh, Nate...is that your imaginary friend over there?" asked Jesse.

Nate blinked and saw that Socius was standing there, placing a finger to his lips and winking at him. "Er, no, not an imaginary friend but...oh, shoot! I almost forgot! Mom's coming in a few minutes!"

"Oh...that's not good," Jesse said, seeing how many missed calls were on his phone. "Well, I'm sure that we won't have to worry about people swarming us right? Uh, right?

…

Eventually, the group made it out of the arcade just as there was a news crew and people waving their phones in front of Jesse, Lake, Spencer and Colette's faces. Jesse covered Nate while he looked around. Ethan also hadn't gotten far, trying to push a few cameras away with annoyance.

"What was going on back there?"

"Was this all some sort of publicity stunt?"

"Is there any way that Arcadia is going to be doing another event like this in the future?"

Lake groaned as she covered herself with her hands, her chrome body reflecting the flashes of light back into people's faces. Jesse was quick to remove his varsity jacket to cover her up while Ethan snarled.

"This is none of your goddamn business," he said. "We nearly got ourselves killed by Tokkentaker and a giant teddy bear and we'd like it if you just leave us alone!"

"Can't you do something about this?" Jesse hissed while Colette was tapping on something on her Card Scanner. "Oh...you are gonna do something about this."

"When I give the signal, get Lake and Ethan to turn away," Colette whispered. "Uh, everyone! I'm gonna be able to explain everything to all of your livestreaming fans but you all have to stare at my phone because it shows you the truth. "Okay? Look close and..."

An image of a blue full moon covered in black static clouds briefly flashed as Spencer told Nate, Jesse and Ethan to duck. Then a blast of bright light covered the paparazzi's eyes as Colette sighed.

Jesse looked up and blinked at what he was seeing. An entire crowd of people just staring blankly ahead, like zombies.

"This was just a publicity stunt for the arcade. Come visit it when you can and share your experience with your friends!" Colette told the dumbstruck journalists and to everyone watching from their phones and laptops with blank eyes with a blue glassy sheen. "Now go home, nothing to see here!"

The reporters nod at once before they shuffle back to their cars and begin to make comments on their social media about what just happened. When there was no one else to disturb them, Colette wiped the sweat from her brow.

"That was a close one," she said. "Now, what else is there to worry abo--"

A car suddenly drove towards them, headlights on. Ethan took one look at who was driving and screamed in terror. Colette blinked slowly, what could scare a hardened bully like that?

When the window rolled down and a furious mother with a face similar to Jesse and Nate's own appeared, she quickly got her answer.

"H-h-hi there, Mr. and Mrs. Cosay..." Spencer stammered. "We're good friends with your...

"You three. Inside. now ," Whitney snarled. 

"You have a lot to explain about what just happened!" Stephan added.

"But mom, dad, can you give me a few seconds so I can, wait a second stop! Jesse!" Nate shouted as Jesse was already pushing him inside the car with Lake behind him.

"Thanks for the fun tonight, hope you two have a safe trip home!" Jesse said, waving goodbye as the car left the parking lot, leaving Colette and Spencer on their lonesome. Colette and Spencer blankly stared at the car, unsure what to do, and having no idea what they were going to do for food. Or shelter. 

That is, until Colette got the sound of something beeping. Colli! Aric has a message! Get it on the double!

Colette wasted no time seeing that, indeed, Aric was messaging her through a holographic screen, book in his hand while the other was behind the wheel of a rented car. "Uh, Aric? I can explain."

"Don't explain, Colette. You and Spencer better start cleaning up before I come by here with the rental car!"

"I already made the command for them and anyone who sees the image through an uploaded video will also have the subconscious commands play out. I also made that bully sign an NDA, Cosay and family are driving back home. Everything is accounted for...I think."

Spencer nodded as he went to pick up his phone to see a little avatar fighting monsters. And then he went back to his fidget die that was....

"M-my fidget die!" Spencer gasped. "W-where is it?! Did I drop it s-somewhere? Who c-could have possibly s-sto--"

He paused before he placed his hands on his forehead and looked ready to have a seizure. Colette stood on her tip toes and grasped Spencer's wrists.

"Spencer, it's okay," Colette said. "Take a deep breath and focus on getting rid of all evidence of what happened online. We'll get your fidget die back."

Coli is right! A voice chirped. Colette lifted the Tamagotchi and a little blue slime popped out, hopping around. Spencer will be all right soon! Datchi-chan has already traced the signature!

"Y-you're r-right," Spencer said, blue eyes glowing briefly. "The f-fidget die is safe for now."

Colette nodded as Aric's rental van arrived at the parking lot. The doors opened as Colette stared inside to find that it was all decked out in cybernetics and a recharging station. "Sweet! Great to see Elia decking out the car with the latest Data Train tech!"

"Get in, losers!" Aric said (All while mentally cheering at how he was finally saying the line). "We're getting dinner!"

...

"Well, that just happened." Elion muttered, seeing the uploaded video and comments and the fanart (how quick for people to make fan art always eluded him).

"Awww, we missed out on the pew-pews!" Tescla pouted, making her hands imitate fireworks. "Now what are we gonna do tonight?"

"The same thing we're gonna be doing the next few nights," Elion muttered, swiping to the side and texting something. Once the message was sent, he smirked.

"We gotta get ready for the show."

Chapter Text

So, before this chapter begins, I need to make a few notes about the timing of everything.

First off, the IT world is set in the year 2020, but in a timeline where Covid never happened. From author notes, Tulip entered the Train in late November 2019, and the COVID-19 pandemic wouldn’t have been known until the end of the year and lockdowns came months later. I didn’t realize that Jesse’s adventures happened in 2020 until discussing this with a friend.

For Colette’s world, this story takes place long after the finale of Pokemon Journeys and right around the time Ash is relaxing with Misty and Brock (aka ‘’Aim to be a Pokemon Master!”). As for Goh? I like to headcanon that he travels to the Johto region to team with Tokio both to see Celebi again but also do research on the Legendary Beasts after fighting Lugia and missing out on Ho-oh. I also like to believe that Ash asked Goh to visit Kurt and finally learn the truth about the GS Ball (due to it being associated with Celebi and whatnot). 

(Huh, someone should do a fanfic about that…)

For Spencer, he comes from a world where Season 3 of VRAINS didn’t happen. More details will be brought up at a later point. All that can be said is that his relationship with Ryoken is much better than what’s going on with the Crocus-version.

I also thought about how our four protagonists are related to the LGBTQA+ community outside Spencer being gay. Jesse is asexual, Lake is female non-binary and aromantic, and Colette’s sexuality will be revealed in the story proper.

If you didn’t read ‘’Descendant’s Shadow’’, then you’re not missing out on a lot in regards to Colette’s adventures since they will mostly follow the original anime for the most part. She has new Pokemon outside Yamper and Eevee – and even then these two are buffed up compared to their limited movepools from canon – but they aren’t important compared to Jesse and Lake having focus.

And with that, let’s get inside all these people.

0-0-0-0-0-0-0

Chapter 6

0-0-0-0-0-0

Inside All The People

0-0-0-0-0-0-0

Throughout the drive back to the Cosay residence, no one said a word.

Whitney was fuming, Stephan fiddled with the radio, Jesse played some sort of Picross game on his phone, Lake crossed her arms over her chest while frowning, and Nate was busy playing around with Spencer's fidget die. No one had any words to say about the arcade, but Whitney did mutter at how much of a headache this gave her.

Once the Cosays, and Lake, finally made it home, Whitney wasted no time talking in a hurried breath over how she and Stephan were worried for the three of them and that they got roped up in this situation with Jesse and Lake apparently wielding guns and Nate cheerfully talking about his new friend being a tuner.

Jesse, on the other hand, knew that mom becoming worried when it was her turn to make dinner was never a good sign and decided to help her heat up the already cooked bacon wrapped hot dogs and set the table while Stephan and Lake were helping Nate calm down in the living room, looking like he drank something with a lot of sugar in it.

"You okay, buddy?" asked Lake, realizing she was still wearing Jesse's varsity jacket and immediately removed it, draping it over the couch. "What type of evils did you have to face while we went up against Tokkentaker?"

"I had to face stuff from a Freak Show!" Nate said excitedly, hopping up and down in the room. "I fought against this monster called Eyeclops and got a few hits in!" Nate giggled, one hand still holding Spencer's fidget die. "And then there was this butler with an evil smile with daggers and he helped me destroy Eyeclops and get everyone to the exit!" He took a deep breath as he stared at the fidget die. "He was right, my courage was my superpower...that's what Peter Parker must've been thinking when he stood up against that Hammer Tech! And he got praised by his idol . That must've been the greatest day of his life..."

"Still," Stephan noted, seeing the strange fidget die in his youngest son's hand. "We should give this back to its rightful owner. Did any of you get any information on where he lived?"

"None at all," said Lake, currently on Jesse's cellphone. "He doesn't have an account on Facefolio, Tweet-tweet, nothing ! It's like he just...popped up out of nowhere."

"Kinda like you," Stephan noted.

Lake blushed. "T-that's different, Mr. Cosay...I think."

"Maybe Spencer is using a nickname?" Nate responded. "Or maybe he just doesn't like social media?"

"Either way, everything regarding him and his partner is bugging me the wrong way," Lake muttered as she began to pace back and forth around the living room. "Those two just drop by into our city with high-tech powers and weapons and didn't even bother erasing our memories. Heck, Colette didn't even bother to erase Ethan's even though he would definitely blab about it in order to get people to kiss his --"

Just then, someone was knocking on the door.

"I better go see who it is," said Stephan, approaching the door and looking into the peephole. He peered closer then stepped back. "Um, Nate?"

"Yeah?"

"What did Spencer Thompson look like?"

"Tall, wearing jeans, and a large black hoodie covering his face. But when the hood is down he's got white hair and blue eyes plus green earrings."

"Ah good. That definitely matches the description of the person at the door."

"Goodie!" Nate gasped. "Dad, open the door so I can give Spencer his dice back. That's what good people do."

"I dunno..." Lake grumbled (in a way that reminded her of Atticus and his wariness for anything suspicious…like how she wanted to swap places with Tulip for her own freedom). "We still don't know what his deal is."

"Please Lake?" Nate begged, looking up at her with bright shimmering eyes like a puppy. "Spencer is the reason I'm still alive, after all. Besides, what's the worst he's going to do if we don't give it back?"

Lake wanted to look away, but Nate just kept staring at her. Damn it, the way Nate looked at her was like how Atticus kept tilting his head to get into Tulip’s head.

"Ugh, fine..." Lake muttered in a similar way Tulip would do. 

Stephan opened the door just as Spencer scrambled into the living room and fell to his knees, shivering and shaking.. "H-help m-me..." he begged. "Please h-h-help me..."

"Spencer, hold on!" Colette said as she and Aric entered the house, Aric wiping his feet at the Welcome mat. "You're not gonna die if we don't get the fidget die back."

But by the way that Spencer was spasming, it looked like he would if nothing was done about it.

"I n-n-need my fidget die before I shut d-d-down," Spencer stammered, looking up with terrified blue topaz eyes. "Nate, p-p-please give it b-b-back to me!"

"Okay Spencer," said Nate. "Let me just -- "

"Hold on a minute!" Lake interrupted, hand in front of Nate. She gave a glare to the three guests. "We don't know if we can trust you."

"But Lake..."

"I don't care if he was acting nice to you, Nate, but this guy is hiding a lot of secrets from us!" Lake interrupted. "I mean, his partner just erased everyone's memories of what happened at the arcade. And she wields a gun!"

"Colette didn't erase everyone's memories...we still have ours intact," Nate pointed out. "She said that as long as we keep it secret and because we willingly fought alongside her and Spencer, then we get a free pass. Sure they might be keeping things secret , but that doesn't mean they're evil . Besides, what's the difference between them and us and the government keeping the Train's existence a secret?"

Lake tried to find some sort of excuse, but Nate would always try to figure out something to go against her. Damn it, why was she the reflection of someone who was always using logic?

"Nate, Lake, what's going on?" Jesse asked, racing out of the kitchen and saw how Spencer was spasming on the floor. "Oh my god, we gotta get him on the floor now! Lake, get my jacket and fold it into a pillow!"

Lake wanted to retort, but Spencer did look close to having a heart attack. Reluctantly, she picked up the jacket, folded into a square shape and spread it on the cool tile. Meanwhile, Stephan and Jesse helped lay Spencer down, head resting on the jacket, all while Colette searched for something in her fanny pack and Aric was trying to explain to Stephan Cosay that everything was doing okay and that he had a license that proved that he wasn't some maniac or killer.

"Where is it, where is it?" Colette asked, dumping the contents of her fanny pack onto the floor. Tissues, packs of gum, a boomerang, even some juice boxes. "Where did I put you again?!"

"Dad, help me bring Specter to the floor," said Jesse. "One of my fellow teammates in the swim team had a nasty seizure once, I know what to do."

"All right, son," said Stephan, helping Spencer to lie on his back. "There you go."

Spencer was still spasming but he didn't resist the medical care he was given.

"What do we do next?" asked Lake.

"Well, we have to make sure that he isn't wearing anything that could be obstructing his breathing or anything that could hurt him," Jesse answered. "So we have to remove his hoodie."

"Wait!" Aric stammered, eyes wide. "Uh, I don't think that's a good idea!"

"You want Spencer to die?!" Lake snapped as Stephan grabbed the end of Spencer's hoodie and began to pull it up, while Jesse grabbed Spencer's hands and placed them together above Spencer's head. "I mean, I don't trust him but I'm not that cold to refuse giving him medical aid!"

"No of course not! I'm not saying that we let Spencer waste away," Aric exclaimed, eyes darting back and forth. "But, uh, you see...Spencer is...he's albino! Yeah, he suffers from a severe case of albinism that makes him super sensitive to any types of light, especially fluorescent light. So if you remove his hoodie then you're only going to make his condition wo--"

"AHHHHHHH!!!!!!"

Lake turned to see Nate screaming and pointing at Spencer, eyes bugging out of his head. In fact, she also noticed Stephan and Jesse just standing there in silence, Stephan having dropped the hoodie onto the floor. "What's going on?" she asked. "Why is everyone -- "

She placed her hands over her mouth at what she saw. There was Specter in his grey hair and blue eyes, but his body...it looked like it was made of porcelain. Instead of joints for his elbow and shoulders, they were replaced with white spheres the size of tennis balls. His chest was bare, as in, the type of chest that's usually found in Ken dolls. Even his fingers looked off with those joints sticking out and how they click clack click clack on the floor like typewriter keys. "W...what the..."

"Spencer is a homu...a homu...he's a homu-robot!" Nate shouted.

"A homo what?" Lake repeated.

"You know that term of an artificial human but not made of science!" Nate babbled. "You know, a homun...homu...harmoni..."

"A homonculus?" asked Aric.

"Yeah that!" Nate said. "But...that's not...how is that possible? What's going on here?!"

"Well...uh, once upon a time in a magical land called -- "

"I got it!" Colette said, pulling out what looked like a pendent of a golden star and crescent moon, the moon studded with blue crystals. Upon closer inspection, it looked like a...flash drive?

"What's that gonna do for him?" asked Lake. "He needs professional help!"

"No, he just needs to 'recharge his batteries, so to speak,'" Colette said, kneeling down. "Okay, turn him on his side, please."

Not sure why they had to do it but seeing as they had no choice, Stephan and Jesse helped turn Specter to his side. And that's when they noticed a small slot on the back of his neck. Big enough to fit a...

Before anyone else could question what was going on, Colette inserted the flash drive into the slot. Spencer suddenly stopped spasming and his eyes lit up, flashing with a lightning bolt signal before he sat up and sighed in relief. "T-that's much better."

Everyone just watched as Spencer happily stood up, and stretched his arms, looking like had just woken up from a nap. "Thank you, Colette! I really was in need of some charging."

"Oh thank goodness I saved you!" Colette exclaimed, practically tackling Spencer to the floor. "Are you okay? How do you feel?"

"I-I feel haha...l-like I'm haha gonna...explode!" Spencer answered, shaking madly with a big grin on his face. "A-and I hahahaha don't know why!"

Spencer had to push Colette away as he began to spasm once more, but he still had a big grin on his face as he fell to the floor, rolling with laughter.

"What?!" asked Stephan. "What did you do to him? He's going to explode?!"

"Duck and cover right now!" Nate screamed, hopping towards the sofa yet poking his head out just in case.

"Ohhhh right," Aric said. "The Armor Tuner body gets super sensitive during recharge mode, to the point of being ticklish. It goes away once the body's internal battery is at 60% but can be blocked if you put some clothes on them too."

"You decide to tell all of this now ?!" Colette exclaimed.

"I thought you wouldn't have had to deal with it until you got to the hotel and you could just shove him in the closet while he rested!"

"What's this about shoving people into closets?" asked Stephan with a raised eyebrow. "Now, I don't know who you are or where you come from, but we are a household that embraces diversity and is proud to stand by the Arizona LGBT community."

"Oh nononono, we are not like that at all!" Colette stammered. "Spencer is gay and he's currently going steady with his boyfriend back home and I’m also a bit bi-curious because I’m..."

"Okay everyone! I finally got these hot dogs ready for di--"

Whitney dropped the casserole dish of hot dogs in shock. The only reason that there wasn't a mess to clean up was because Colette stretched her arm out just before the casserole dish shattered and slowly let it float into the air as if lead by invisible strings and then brought it to the dinner table with a sigh.

"So, uh, these look delicious," Colette stammered. staring at the hot dogs and the rest of the food on the table. She was suddenly silenced by a spatula near her throat and gulped. "Uh..."

"Explain. Everything. NOW." Whitnay Cosay growled.

Colette gulped while Spencer was snickering and laughing at the funniest joke ever conceived. Aric looked in embarrassment, knowing how this was going to be on the reports.

"...Can we have dinner first?" Aric asked.

...

Once Jesse found three more chairs for the dinner table, everyone began to eat. Aside from the hot dogs, Jesse also helped his mom cook brown rice, fajita bell peppers and onions, and a nice cilantro-lime mayonnaise that would go well with the store-bought salsa and guacamole.  Other sides included lime wedges, shredded lettuce, and (store-bought) crinkle cut potato chips.

"These are so good !" Colette squealed, taking a bite out of her own hot dog covered in onions and a slathering of mayonnaise. "They're even better with this cream sauce!"

"Oh you're too kind," Whitney said with a bright smile. "The recipe usually calls for pinto beans, but I decided to go with black beans instead. Of course, there's not a lot of difference between them health-wise."

"Mm, we should definitely send a picture of this to Ramil and see if he can cook this up next time," Aric added. "The diced onions are very refreshing."

Meanwhile, Nate wasn't even bothering with his own hot dog, even when he decided to pour mustard and salsa verde on it. Instead, he kept staring at Spencer -- back to wearing his black hoodie but having the hood down so he could see that flash drive sticking out of Spencer's neck like a horrible growth -- and silently adding salsa onto his hot dog before taking a bite. Or at least, that was what Spencer was about to do. 

Noticing Nate's stares, he turned to the boy and smiled. "I-is anything wrong, Nathaniel?"

Nate shook his head. "No, I-I'm fine Mr. Spencer...and please, just call me Nate."

"Very well, Nate. Is anything wrong?"

"I...yeah there's a lot of things wrong!" Nate shouted, pointing to the fidget dice in his hand. "How did that evil teddy bear suck Ethan into that video game? Where did Colette get all those guns? How did you summon a sword from thin air? And why are you a homu-robot?!"

"Nate!" Jesse hissed. 

"What, don't tell me you not curious as to what's going on!" Nate exclaimed. "I mean, this is weirder than everything you went through on the Train!"

"NATE!" Jesse snapped. "Don't mention anything about that to them!" 

Colette was about to bite into her hot dog before she paused. "I'm sorry. Did you say Train ?"

Jesse's eyes widened, so did Lake's, as he turned to Colette. "Uh, I mean...well...you weren't supposed to hear that! Use that memory zapper thing to erase everything you just learned!" 

"Actually we were supposed to hear about the Train," said Aric. "Jesse Cosay, the reason that we have arrived in your town, in your world, is because of your expeditions on the 8th Wanderer."

Jesse paused. "Uh...the 8th...Wanderer?"

"A legendary piece of machinery that travels towards infinity, filled with phantasmal worlds that are supposed to be used in some sort of external therapy," Aric explained. "Some myths state that if you keep your problems to yourself, it kidnaps you and forces you to play its games until you finally learn your lesson...although some never make it out alive."

"You're definitely talking about that Train, aren't you?" asked Lake. Then she growled. "Wait, how do you know so much about it?"

"We've known of its existence for quite some time..." Aric explained.

"And how long are we talking? A hundred years? Two hundred? Five hundred?!"

"Actually, we've known about it since the 90s," Aric admitted. "But it wasn't until we discovered the diary of a former passenger called Alec Cerise that we started to get an inkling of what was going on."

"Yeah, cause video instructions didn't come till much, much later," Lake noted with an eye roll. When Aric, Colette and Spencer stared at her, she said, "I'm sorry, was that me being sarcastic? Cause I’m honestly telling you the truth."

"Why did it take that long for the conductor to even make videos?" Spencer questioned. "Shouldn't that be one of the first things to prepare? Given that the Train comes for all sorts of people who speak different languages, perhaps in different periods of time as well. Not everyone is going to know English or speak it."

"Don't ask me," Lake shrugged. "I...kinda separated from my original self just before she could get answers."

"Original self...you're talking about Tulip Olsen, aren't you?" asked Aric 

Lake narrowed her eyes. “And how exactly do you know this?”

"Because truthfully, we've made contact with her already."

Jesse nearly dropped his hotdog in surprise. "Wait, you already whati ?!"

"Wellll, technically it's Colette's team-mates who are doing all of this," Aric explained just as Colette turned to Aric in surprise. "In fact, I bet they're also having dinner in Minnesota, being served a delicious serving of..."

...

"Hot dish?"

That's what the boy with brown skin, purple hair and gold eyes asked, staring at what was served on his plate. It was apparently a casserole created with ground beef, tater tots, a mixture of frozen carrots and peas, and a can of cream of mushroom soup. All of this was topped with a bubbling layer of melted cheddar cheese. His partner, a teenage boy around eighteen years old in a black leather jacket and fluffy cyan scarf, took a spoonful into his mouth and sighed.

“Mmmm, it's very filling!" He said, taking another spoonful into his mouth. "Come on, Hop. Try it out."

"If you say so..." Hop muttered, scooping tater tots, beef and peas into his mouth. His eyes widened in shock. "Wow, you're right Alain! That is good."

"Oh, it's just something I usually whip up if I don't have time for proper cooking or if I don't want to waste time and gas on take-out," The chef, a middle aged woman with light blond hair, said with a smile. "And my daughter, Tulip, is gonna be helping with the salad."

Hop raised an eyebrow. "You named your daughter Tulip?"

"Your parents named you Hop?" A girl with red-orange hair tied up in a ponytail remarked, raising an eyebrow. She was currently slicing some green apples to toss into a bowl full of whipped cream and cherry flavored jell-o. "And if you continue to make remarks like that, I could let you eat nothing but raw onions instead."

"Now come on, bud," Tulip's mother said with a chuckle. " You keep talking like that and perhaps I won't be making blueberry pancakes before you three head off to that Chicken Choice Judy concert in Arizona."

"...ehehe, let's leave the raw onions for Juicy Lucy Night then..." Tulip said sheepishly.

...

"Wait, you seriously have made contact with Tulip?" asked Lake.

"Indeed," Aric said. "We'll be planning a meeting with her tomorrow morning at 7:30 AM your time. We expect you to be punctu--"

"Hang on a second!" Colette exclaimed, grabbing Aric’s arm, green eyes narrowed. "You mean to tell me that Mirror's Rebirth and Successor's Twilight were also coming to this world?"

"I told you that you were going on this mission to meet up with Jesse Cosay alone ," Aric explained. "I never said anything about the other members of Team Neo coming to join in on the fun. In fact, you got so caught up with the revelation of your great-grandfather being on the Train that it probably slipped your mind to ask me about their mission."

Colette snarled as she let go of Aric’s arm. "Oh, I really hate when you go on about how you're --  "

"Okay hold on a second, how long have you guys been spying on me?" asked Jesse. "Better yet, how did you guys even know I was on the Train in the first place?!"

"We've been monitoring your movements for a while," Aric answered. "And I was actually stationed along with Colette and Spencer to be part of a Passenger Protection Program for you."

"So, does this mean you're going to move me to a safehouse away from everyone I know and love?" Jesse answered.

"No, no. You'll be allowed to stay as you are. No memory wipes or moving at all."

"Good. I was afraid that you'd brainwash me to give you all of my research notes and then forget that I even had them in the first place!" Jesse sighed.

"Hold on," said Colette, raising an eyebrow. "You've been doing research on the 8th Wanderer?"

"If you mean that Infinity Train then yeah," said Jesse. "Hang on just a sec."

He left the dining room and raced to his room upstairs. Five seconds later, he rushed down with a few notebooks in hand.

"I've combed the Internet and compiled my notes into a project throughout the ages and across the world in regards to people who entered the Infinity Train," Jesse explained, opening a notebook that had the sticker of a blue meteor on the cover. "Like there was this high school student in Japan under the nickname of 'Meteor' who entered a few years ago, and he was an expert in Bruce Lee kung fu. His friend was in a coma, and in order to find a cure, he had to kill another person as proof that he'd do anything to save his friend. Another man from Japan traveled around the Train for a while, carrying a pair of flower boxers on a pole and holding a broken medal of a bird as a memento. And then the train arrived during the Wild West when a man called Sundown Kid -- "

"Don't you mean 'Sundance Kid'?" Whitney interrupted.

"No 'Sun down ' Kid," Jesse clarified. Nate looked wide-eyed, entranced with the idea of a cowboy riding on his horse covered in rhinestones like that old song he heard on the Classics Radio station. "He left a diary that said that after a shootout killed everyone he loved, he wandered across the Wild West with a bounty on his head in the hopes that someone would kill him. Instead, he entered what he called an 'Iron Horse', went about saving others, and returned home a changed man dedicated to finding companionship and protecting the innocent from danger."

"This is very well detailed," Aric breathed, flipping through another notebook and seeing sketches, newspaper articles and even a timeline of passengers entering and exiting the train from around the world, along with notes about what the Train looked like. He then saw a strange red wavelength signal and tilted his head. "Oh? What's this? The Apex?"

"Yeah, they're basically a bunch of children going around wearing lipstick and destroying cars and lives like they're the kings and queens of the Train," Lake grumbled. "Their leader, Grace, wanted to kill me and Alan Dracula by throwing us onto the wheels of the Train and almost made Jesse become one of her mindless puppets who would do whatever she said without complaint! And her boyfriend stated in no small terms that I wasn't 'a person'."

"Seems like she's been missing for more eight years now," Colette noted, seeing the articles dated as early as 2012 along with the image of a young girl -- Grace Monroe -- all made up in her Sunday best with a disgusted look on her face while her parents placed their hands on her shoulders but also didn't look like they wanted to make happy memories. Honestly, she couldn't help but sympathize with Grace. Even she would take a chance to get  away from her stuffy, strict parents for short periods of time. 

(Colette had a thought of a girl with grey hair wearing a cerulean dress taking her by the hand into a brand new game world and blushed. The girl asked her out on a date in the land of Hi Skitty Online all about crafting Zodiac wands and tending to her farm so they can craft food for a charity event. But then this mission came up and…)

"And today I just learned the name of her right hand man, Simon Laurent," Jesse added, snapping Colette out of her thoughts. "He ran away wearing socks and sandals because he made an error at a spelling bee. This is good news actually, because I've been trying to identify the names of all the Apex members that I can and see if I can contact their families in an attempt to give them some closure."

"You mean, you can't contact anyone on the Train?" Colette questioned.

"If I could, I would've used my phone the second I entered into a giant rolling grassy field and that bowling ball told me what I was supposed to do to leave," Jesse said with a shrug. "But even if I used it to gather photo evidence, the guys at ITCH have stated that people tried that trick before, but all photo evidence looks completely blurry. Locations, denizens, everything from the Train looks like it was pixelated, even the numbers on their hands. Only the passenger can be seen at a time. And trying to remove the blurs from the photo makes the computer or phone freeze in place."

"I guess that makes sense," Colette noted. "The Train doesn't want evidence of it to go out in public. Imagine if one posted a travel blog while on the Train, downright tempting people to board this place without being prepared. Or worse, if people with their degrees and greedy, exploitative personalities tried to use the Train for their own needs."

Spencer raised an eyebrow. “Since when did you use such large words, Colette?”

“Since I’ve been hanging out with…’’ Colette blushed as she sank in her seat. “Regina…’’

Spencer raised an eyebrow. “Regina? Isn’t she your girl–’’

Colette’s face turned salsa red. "I...I dunno. She and I are working on what we feel for one another, but I don't see myself liking boys and girls yet. Regina wanted to have a date before I headed off and I don't want to go with the cliché of wanting it to be perfect , but…"

"Hey," said Jesse, placing a hand on Colette's wrist. "It's okay if you don't know which way you swing yet. It's pretty brave of you to confess that you're bi-curious."

"That's what the term is called?" Colette said, blinking.

"Answer this question, what do you feel when you're around Regina?"

Colette paused as she pulled out her phone and looked at the wallpaper on her phone screen. The image that she once had of her and Hop along with her Yamper and Eevee and his Wooloo at a night market was now replaced with an image of her and Regina in a blue room decorated with crescent moon and stars as they shared a slice of blue velvet cake, looking shy despite their smiles. Sitting on their laps was her Eevee and Regina's Glaceon, Mirchie.

Colette felt her heart race and the tears swell in her eyes. Even though she felt a closeness with Hop, being with Regina was a different experience. Hop made her feel safe and protected, that as long as they were together, nothing stood in their way.

But when she was around Regina, she felt…whole. She wanted to get closer to her, to know her even more. She wanted to support Regina as she worked on her journey to better herself. She wanted to explore the world, and savor the moment. 

Colette placed her hands over her heart. "I like her…I like her a lot."

"Then that's good enough for now," Jesse said. "Say, this reminds me of a song! You know that musical I’m gonna be performing in next week? The musical centered around those photographs?”

“You mean the one where the last song is about this girl who would do anything to be prom queen?” Stephan asked. “So she opens the doors to the school gym and then…”

“No, don’t spoil it for me!” Lake interrupted, covering her ears. When everyone turned to her, she set her hands down with a blush on her chrome cheeks. “I’m…gonna be seeing the musical to hear Jesse singing in it and he told me to avoid spoilers for that specific song.”

“I wanna go but apparently it’s for bigger kids,” Nate pouted, but then he perked up by stating, “But dad and I are gonna be watching Seussical: the Musical ! Heard it’s much better than the Spider-Man musical.”

“And on the bright side you’re not gonna be hearing some of the more…colorful language from what I’m singing,” Jesse chuckled. “But back to the subject, one of the songs talks about a girl who gets into a relationship with someone on a Monday, but can’t take how slow they’re going. In fact, she doesn’t last until Saturday before she tells her partner to just cut the relationship off. The partner is quick to mentor the lover that what they need to do is to take it slow and to savor the relationship. It’s the journey of love that counts, not the destination. So cherish each and every moment, and when it’s time for the two of you to walk the aisle, then you can look back at all of the memories you made and start a new adventure together.”

“Yeah, I keep getting that all the time,” Colette sighed, bowing her head. “Starting with my mom telling me to take it slow and find something I like, to my dad telling me to follow my heart. The advice is always about the journey, never about the end. That’s the story of my life.”

“There’s no such thing as an ending, just a moment where you close the book or stop the camera rolling." Spencer piped up. "Only you can choose how the story ends and what to make of it."

"I hope to one day be like Ash," Colette smiled. "Even after becoming the Champion of the World, he still wants to see more, do more. Things have changed yet he stays the same."

“Wait, Ash who?” Nate asked, leaning close.

Colette gulped. “Uh, just ‘Ash’. It’s against Rune Masquerade protocol for me to freely give out information about my loved ones. But, if he was here right now…I guess he’d be happy to be eating this delicious food, making friends out of strangers, then heading out down the street onto a road to, well, somewhere .”

"Cute philosophy moment, but we have a train to catch," Aric noted, taking a bite out of his hot dog. "There are still things to be more concerned about. Namely about that Virus."

"And how Colette was packing heat," Lake agreed. "Care to explain?"

“It’s part of my job as a Cyber Warrior,” Colette explained, pulling out the purple pen while Jesse pulled out a plate to protect himself. “Don’t worry, it’s safe. I know what I’m doing. Anyway, viruses are born on a distant planet and spread out throughout the entire universe of Arcanum. Cyber Warriors are people who are ‘Rune-sensitive’, as I call it, and are capable of entering Data Trains.”

“And are you trapped there until you fix a problem with yourself?” Nate asked innocently.

Colette shook her head. “No, think of it like Alice Liddell had a mirror that can let her freely enter Wonderland by her own volition to have fun and learn lessons through a myriad of songs.”

“Ohh…so you’re like a Glitch Tech,” Jesse stated. “Wait, are the Glitch Techs real ? Is it true that Miko may be a glitch in human form or – “

“We’re…kinda like that, but we don’t associate with them,” Aric answered hastily. “Anyway, let’s get back to introductions. Spencer Thompson is a Tuner – a player of a Rune Masquerade developed game called Tuner Showdown .”

“It’s one of those addictive clicker games, right?” asked Jesse. “I noticed how he was constantly jabbing a finger on the screen.”

“Yes, Tuner Showdown is one of the more addicting games out there. However, if you download the game and accept Terms and Conditions, well, you can say goodbye to a normal life,” Aric opened the book and depicted a diagram of a stick figure wielding a sword, fighting off some tadpole monsters based off of quarter notes. “For once that app is on your phone, you become part of an order of warriors that protect humans’ abilities to create and perform.”

“That sounds so cool!” Nate said, watching as the stick figure came to life and began fighting the enemies. “Hey, maybe Jesse should become one of those. He loves being creative and performing!”

“It’s not that simple,” Aric said, shutting the book with a snap . “And besides, Jesse has a different type of power that shook the foundations of what we know about the Train.” 

“But why is it me out of all the people who once boarded the Train, that you’re investigating?” Jesse asked.

“Because, Jesse Cosay,” Spencer stated, his thumb fiddling with the joy-stick doodad on his fidget die. “It’s not because of you specifically.” He turned his gaze towards Lake. “It’s also because of her .”

Lake frowned, a silver flash grasping the fork on her plate. “What do you mean by that?”

“He means that you two did something that no one ever believed was possible,” Aric said. “By all accounts, there’s no such thing as a denizen who ever desired to leave the Train or even made it out. But somehow, you two cheated the system and left the Train without any major repercussions. Wishes and miracles of this degree need an equally high price to pay, but both of you are still alive and are able to live happily ever after. It’s always said that one person can change the world, but it also takes the likes of a miracle to make it happen.”

“Miracles in Arcanum are legendary things,” Colette said, clasping something on her neck. When Jesse looked closer, he noticed that it was a pendant with a purple and black hand with an all-seeing eye. “To create a 1 from 0, to fight against Fate…only a select few have done it. And when they have done, they fling a light into the world, another star hanging in the endless night”

“And…I’m the one who made the miracle?” Jesse blinked.

“So did Tulip,” Nate added. “If it wasn’t for her, there’d be no Lake and there’d be no instruction videos either!”

“Indeed, a girl who only wanted to go to her dream camp ended up on a quest to return the true Conductor to his rightful throne,” Aric agreed. “What are the chances that the car she ended up in would just so happen to have the real Conductor in it? Was it a coincidence? Or was the Train waiting for the right person to pick up to stop the false Conductor before they went over the edge?”

“Tulip did talk about this, something about it like the chances of monkeys on typewriters punching out Shakespeare or whatever,” Lake muttered. “Still, it’s because of her that I’m here…” 

“And life in the Cosay residence has never been better,” Stephan noted, chuckling when Lake started blushing.

“Well, we’re going to have to cut our talks short,” said Aric, looking at the time on his watch. Said watch had a large holographic circle projecting time, along with the time zones of about four or five different locations and a pop-up text from someone named “Elia” in regards to some trouble with the artisan dragons…wut. “For now, Spencer and Colette need to rest up and write some reports about what happened this afternoon.”

“Are you sure you can’t stay here though?” Nate pouted. “We could have a slumber party. We could watch superhero movies and I can help Jesse make pumpkin waffles in the morning!”

Spencer smiled shyly. “T-t-that’s a kind gesture, Nate…b-b-but it’s best that we do what Aric says and go to a hotel.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll have all of tomorrow and the next few days to get to know one another,” Colette smiled. “We’re also here because of this ‘CCJ’ concert.”

“Wait, Chicken Choice Judy is also involved with you guys?!” Jesse exclaimed. “How and why and – “

“Who wants dessert?” Whitney interrupted, somehow vanishing during the conference and returning with a tray of tamales that smelled like chocolate. “I bet you never tried the magic of chocolate tamales, have you?”

“I don’t know if we should…” Aric started, just as Nate looked up at the archivist with wide eyes and a quivering lip. Then, he looked up to see Jesse and Lake glaring daggers, as if daring Aric to refuse the kindness of a hard-working mother and an innocent boy. Thankfully, Colette was there to save the day.

“We can spend another half an hour if you want,” she said placing her hands in Nate’s. “And if you want, you can play with my tamagotchi pal as well.”

Nate gasped as he saw Colette lift her hands. In his hands was a pink and blue tamagotchi, and hopping out of the screen was a small blue slime with a wide smile on their face.

Datchi-chan is here to say hello! The digital pet chirped, blinking their beady little eyes at Nate. Please introduce yourself to Datchi.

“My name is Nate!” Nate cheered. “And I wanna be your friend!” 

Jesse and Lake sighed a little while Stephan focused on the food on his plate. After meeting Lake, he learned to just stop asking questions. Whitney set the tray of tamales on the lazy susan, along with a spatula and some dessert plates as well.

“I didn’t know you had a way with kids,” Spencer whispered to Colette.

“Trust me, I’ve had to deal with both my little brother and Daga’s antics before,” Colette chuckled as Nate saw Datchi hop around on his shoulders, to his head, and then leaping onto Jesse’s shoulder. “At least Nate’s not going to try and chase after renegade viruses with bubble wands…or begging to play squid games.”

“Because these games revolve around squids and it’ll get messy?”

Colette snorted as Datchi hopped onto Lake’s head and Lake freaked out as if she was being attacked by bees. “Let’s just say everyone in Refusion wishes these squid games actually involved squids.”

—---

After chocolate tamales and watching two wrestlers beat each other up in a “Boneyard Match”, Spencer, Colette and Aric drove off to the nearest Rest Western Hotel, and Jesse helped mom clean up the kitchen table and put the dishes in the dishwasher, Jesse marched to his bedroom and began studying for his finals, humming a song about Crazytown. Lake scrolled through social media about the incident at the arcade while Nate played Pokémom: Let's Go, Eevee! on the family’s Nintendo Switch. He giggled a little when he went to the Move Tutor and learned that his partner Eevee was capable of learning a terrifying move known as Baddie Bad .

"I still don't think we should trust them," Lake noted as she sat on Jesse’s bed, arms folded. "They want to know way too much about the Infinity Train."

“So do we,” Jesse admitted, his hand briefly patting the folder containing his Train research. “I mean, I got lucky. If you didn’t come in and bluntly tell me I was a jerk for letting Nate get injured, I wouldn’t have figured out what was wrong with me and I would’ve been brainwashed by Grace to kill you and Alan Dracula.”

“That girl is a jerk !” Nate pouted. “She’s worse than Team Rocket, capturing children and forcing them to do evil things like throwing denizens into the wheels!"

“You mean the ones with the talking cat?” Lake questioned, recalling The Cat back in her little carnival car. The way she hissed at Grace definitely hinted at some relationship.

“No no no, the other group with the Raticate!” Nate corrected. “They got a Drowzee and used it to hypnotize a lot of Pokémon in the Orange Islands, right? And then they were defeated by a Pokémon they completely underestimated – Misty’s Togepi!”

Jesse chuckled. “So you’re comparing me to a Togepi, then?”

“If you gel your hair up a little, you’d have the spiky head of one,” Lake smirked.

“Speaking of Team Rocket,” Nate hummed, staring at his Eevee partner on the Switch. “I feel like this ‘Ash’ Colette mentioned is familiar…”

----

“Hi sis!” A boy with maroon hair and a red shirt said, a Piplup in his lap. He was in his bedroom decorated with starry wallpaper, his bed sheet depicting rockets flying into the depths of outer space. " How's everything going so far?"

"My partner and I made contact with our targets and I had to fight off a virus before it turned an arcade building into the greatest show unearthed," Colette answered, sitting on the maroon bedsheet of her bed. She looked quite refreshed with her skin glowing from the use of tea tree oil cleanser, along with the white towel wrapped around her head and her white tee and jeans replaced with a long sleeved pastel pink pajama set decorated with midnight blue crescent moons. "Tomorrow is when we really get the ball rolling."

"Awesome! This is your first ever outer world mission, right? After everything you went through with the Cursed Wave, you deserve a vacation!"

"Well, I'm not sure if 'vacation' is the best way to put it. Especially given how mom and dad would freak out upon learning I was lying to them once more."

"That's true.”

“Speaking of which, have Ash or Goh sent me any new messages?”

Parker picked up some letters on his right. “Ash said that he’s recently reunited a Banette with their long lost Trainer. And Goh is traveling alongside your Suicune so that he knows what it’s like chasing after a ‘roaming Legendary’. He’s hoping to find the whereabouts of Entei or Raikou to fight them.”

"Really now?"

"Yeah, I can't believe you caught Suicune. I expected Goh to be the one who would."

"I have to agree with you on that. Hopefully his Regeleki isn't causing too much trouble bouncing around Cerise Park like a pinball."

“Don't worry, I'll make sure to keep an eye on everyone! They’re all working super hard to train, and I get to have fun playing with them or giving them baths. Oh, speaking of moves, guess what? Creamsicle learned a new move today!”

“Piplup lup Pip lup!” Creamsicle the Piplup chirped, waving a flipper at Colette before five more copies of Piplup appeared on the bed. The doubles vanished seconds later.

“Did you see that, sis?” Parker asked. “Now we can use Double Team to get the jump on opponents or confuse a virus before I trap them!"

"That's amazing Parker!" Colette exclaimed. "You've really improved!"

“We gotta be ready for a virus attack at any given moment!” Parker grinned and hugged his Piplup. "So, have you gotten into any crazy adventures with your ghost knight partner?”

“Well…” Colette then saw a notice that someone else was calling her. “Oh, I gotta pick this call up. Remember to keep this on the down-low.”

“Promise!” Parker grinned as he and Piplup saluted Colette. “Talk to you later!”

Colette hung up before picking up the other call and saw it was on face-cam. “Hop, Alain…Why didn’t you guys tell me that you were also involved on this mission?!”

“Because we were shipped off at the last minute, that’s why,” Hop explained. Instead of his usual denim jacket, he wore light blue pajamas with a herd of Wooloo in the center of his shirt. He and Alain were in some sort of guest bedroom, Alain now in a simple white tee and black sleeping shorts. “Thankfully there weren’t any situations on our end, outside of Tulip’s nervousness of not wanting to look in a mirror.”

“Lucky you,” Colette pouted, briefly glancing to see Aric doing some more studying at the corner and Spencer standing in the closet, now set up to be a “charging station” where numerous cables and monitors kept an eye on his vital organs. “There was a virus that took over a CarnEvil cabinet. I had to rescue three bystanders after some idiot hurled the captured virus at Tokkentaker. I nearly lost my head!”

“Well, at least you can finally cross that off of your list of games that you want to play live,” Hop chuckled.

“Don’t jinx it, Hop. Else we’re gonna have to go through something horrible.”

“Like what? A haunted museum?” Hop questioned.

“No, we’ll have to traverse Silent Hill…but as a rail shooter!” Alain raised his arms and made ghost noises while wiggling his fingers menacingly.

This caused the three to laugh. The idea of having to fight off the creepy monsters of that hellhole with unlimited bullet rain did seem wacky. After a good belly laugh, Colette calmed down and frowned.

“Usually I’d joke about entering that carnival in the dark, but something was wrong about the entire situation,” Colette noted. “Why would there be a virus here in all cities? And it was in the arcade that I was going to meet up with Spencer, Jesse and Lake. Oh and Jesse’s former friend also. Someone planted it there, knowing specifically I'd choose that cabinet. Or worse."

“Viruses shouldn’t be roaming around in that world,” Alain noted. “It’s strictly a normal world, outside the government programs that have been researching the Eighth Wanderer for the past few decades.”

“Honestly, my great-grandfather needs a better name for that hunk of metal,” Colette grumbled. “Every time I hear ‘Eighth Wanderer’, I keep confusing the train with a giant. Still, if I can finally get something out of this from Jesse and Lake, maybe I can finally understand how my family is tied to the darkness that is Arcanum and those of the shadows.”

"But what about that virus attack?" asked Hop. “That should be top priority; all Cyber Warriors need to report renegade viruses after all."

Colette pulled out a notepad and checked off a list. "I'm gonna go talk to the employees tomorrow and see if I can take a good look at their security cameras. I do remember seeing a boy and a girl leaving that specific arcade cabinet. After that, well, we'll just have to figure it out. I highly doubt my hacking skills would be of good use."

"Because you don't have any hacking skills," Alain pointed out.

"I'm only 10; do you think I would suddenly be able to hack into the security cameras?"

“Just be careful,” Alain warned, twirling a box-cutter in between his fingers before it transformed into a glowing blue broadsword with a mirror in the middle of the hilt like a glass eye. “We may have stopped the Cursed Wave, but some of the masterminds behind it were able to escape during the confusion.”

“And those who were put in comas still need to recover,” Hop noted sadly. 

Colette nodded. “I honestly hope that this incident isn’t connected to the Cursed Wave. Last thing we need is an Epithet gauntlet match.”

“Must you always put wrestling terms in everything you say?” Alain asked.

“I’m sorry, should I put them in magical girl terms then?” Colette asked. “Cause I could just call in Iris to have her and the girls be an opening act for Chicken Choice Judy and – “

“Shut up!” Alain hissed. “You guys promised to never say it so casually!”

“Which is kinda hard cause it’s obvious you like them…” Hop muttered. Seconds later, Alain threw a pillow at the back of his head.

“Aw, no fair! You guys get to have pillow fights!” Colette teased. “If only I could stay with you guys…”

“But it’s gonna be awkward that you’re sleeping with two guys who are much older than you,” Aric noted, momentarily looking away from his notes. “Your father would have a conniption fit if he found out.”

“He’d probably have one if he found out Goh and I made a childhood marriage promise when we were like 5,” Colette remarked.

“...are you gonna get married in the future?”

“Of course not!” Colette exclaimed. “Really, I’m happier that Goh’s happy with someone like him. Someone willing to see the good in him and encourage him to do better. Just because Goh and I aren’t ‘together together’, that doesn’t mean we don’t think of each other, nor are we distant. I know he’s safe, both because Suicune is keeping an eye on him and because he’s brave, confident and smart. He’ll grasp the future in the palm of his hand, no matter what.”

(In another world, A boy with black hair and two red stripes on each side sniffled. Must’ve been the night wind)

“Either way,” Colette yawned. “I gotta get up early to write the report, and you gotta accompany Tulip and her friend for their trip to the mall, right?”

“ Right,” Hop said. “Tulip wants to get some coding type game called Pony Island so we’re going to make sure she doesn’t get into trouble, and perhaps get her friend Mikayla to try out some other types of games.”

“She hasn’t download Solitaire or Sudoku or even Picross on her phone?”

“Yeah, most people are gonna insist those aren’t games , they’re apps. Totally different things.” Alain snarked.

“Either way, games or not, let’s make sure that no virus gets into any one’s gameapps,” Colette concluded. “And with that, I declare this meeting of Team Neo adjourned. Stay Neo!”

“Stay Neo!” 

The phone call ended as Colette stretched her arms and fell back onto the fluffy hotel pillow. She placed her hands over her heart and inhaled. She’s slept in hotels before back in her own world, but every experience away from Vermillion City was always a new one, and always nerve-racking. At least with the hotels back in her world, her father knew where she was resting (since he paid for the rooms and the flights), and they would talk on the phone or she would send photos. But for this mission, she had to be radio silent outside of a few phone calls and emails. If her dad discovered what she was doing, she’d be grounded for life!

No need to be sad. Datchi-chan is here!  The little slime chirped as he bounced off of the tamagotchi from the bedside table and hopped onto Colette’s head. Colli’s father won’t suspect a thing.

“I hope not,” Colette noted as she pulled the blanket from underneath her before she crawled under them and removed her glasses. “Still, it’s best we rest up for now. Night 1 of Operation: Chord Capture complete.”

“For you it is,” Aric muttered, pointing to four to five holographic monitors floating around his head. “I have to start gathering data about the ITCH program and cross-reference Jesse’s notes to the Data Train Database, not to mention I’m having to ensure that my sister doesn’t take ReFusion on a joyride again!”

“Can’t you ask the Cyber Mages of another train to take over duties?”

“If I could do that, I would’ve done that already! I don’t think any of them are going to last a few days when they see the Pokémon roaming around the Train.”

“Oh it can’t be that bad.”

“Tell that to the poor inspector who was traumatized by Gunning’s Skiddo after mistaking it for a topiary.”

“Oh. Right…”

“Regardless, things are peaceful on ReFusion for now. It’s normal for Cyber Warriors to experience an end to one long-running quest and go towards the next one. Or maybe, they take a break and ramble about, explore the world, gather resources, mingle. It’s no different than real life, except it’s gamified, if you know what I mean.”

Colette nodded. She had a lot to learn about the other Cyber Warriors and their trains. She heard that there were tournaments once a year where each Data Train would choose up to three Cyber Warriors to represent them to obtain the coveted Cyber Warrior Cup. When this business was over, she would sign up for the qualification trials. At the very least, she wanted to prove to Gunning and the rest of his court that she deserved to participate in one round.

But for now, she turned off the lights and kept the bedside lamp on. She sighed as she turned to see Spencer still asleep, jacket off, the artificial body he inhabited charging for the night as those wires snaked around his body.

“I wonder…” Colette murmured as she saw the glowing blue data flow through Spencer’s deactivated body. “Do Tuners like you dream of Mareep?”

That thought was still on her mind as she drifted off into sleep, snuggling with a field of Wooloo with Hop and Alain, and even Regina, by her side.

—-

Whenever Spencer slept while he inhabited his IGNIS-6 Armor Turner body, he didn’t dream of electric sleep.

His mind briefly ventured throughout a forest, where numerous music notes hummed a soulful hymn as he interacted with Sothius. The butler calmly polished the cutlery before remarking how the Tuner has made improvements to his fighting, or perhaps give him tips for next time. After thanks, he would wake to light.

The process took only ten minutes, he counted, and each time he did, the same words would flash through his eyes.

Now awakening, Tuner: Orchidea Nuocere

Time: 8 hours and counting

Objective: Mental and Physical recharge

…

…

…

And then, Specter would wake up from the hibernation pod. 

A sleek rhombus capsule where he wore nothing but a pale white hospital gown and numerous wires were connected to his wrists, chest and forehead, keeping an eye on his vitals. The lid of the hibernation pod was a cool soothing blue and with a hiss , it slid down, so he can be greeted with the most beautiful sight in the world.

“Good morning, Sleeping Beauty,” Ryokan’s husky baritone greeted Spencer Specter, placing a kiss on the forehead of his boyfriend. “Care to tell me a story?”

Specter nodded as Kyoko began to carefully remove the wires taped to his body, a sleepy look in his eyes. “Of course, although please do me a favor.”

“What’s that?”

Specter inhaled as he tried to remember what was on today’s schedule. Oh right, today was going to be refueling day for the Hanoi boat, and the town they were entering was going to have some sort of carnival and farmer’s market for some sort of fundraiser or whatever.  “Let’s…not visit the carnival today if we can help it. Don’t think I can stomach popcorn and clown shows without thinking of one of these performers ready to enter the audience to shank me to death.”. 

Ryoken paused before he shook his head.

“...I’m never going to understand the context of your adventures, am I?”

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Chapter 7

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Paraffin

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"So, that girl took the bait?"

"Yeah, Leander, she took it and we can confirm that it caused a lot of fireworks," Tesla noted before she pumped a fist in the air. "Yeah, beat the boss on the first try!"

Leander growled, knowing what the two were doing without having to use face calm. Elion and Tesla were in their hotel room, barely paying attention to the phone call. Instead, they sat on their bed, the phone they used to talk to Leander in-between them as they were playing Super Smash Bros. Ultimate on a Nintendo Switch. Elion went with Marth while Tesla chose Pikachu, and Elion controlled Marth towards the map in hopes of fighting another Spirit.

"I was told that you two were some of Elipzo's best agents when it comes to games. All I'm hearing are the words of a bunch of slackers." Leander remarked.

"Excuse me, lionheart, but I don't think you have the patience to wait hours upon hours upon hours upon hours to kill a superboss," Tesla scoffed.

"And choosing when to use your gatcha shows a lot of decision making skills," Elion added.

"Don't forget that you need to have flexible fingers to move joysticks and clicking the mouse."

"And you need to have focus on everything coming in around you!"

"Oh yeah, gotta have nerves of steel when -- "

"Alright, fine!" Leander snapped. They began mumbling something about these two were worth a fortune, to which Elion and Tesla turned to each other and smirked and exchanged a fist-bump. "Still, the fact that little Colette is here is perfect."

"What's the deal with this Cauli girl that's got you so riled up?" Tesla questioned, briefly picking up a Dr. Pepper can at the side and gulping it down. She sighed before tossing the empty soda can behind her. It left a nice clunk sound.

Leander clicked their teeth. "Let's just say that her Gun ex Machina prevented me from fulfilling my...master plan. One that would change the cosmos with how much power that would have been channeled through fragments within the Cursed Wave."

Elion paused the game as he briefly turned to a notification on his phone. "Poetic much?"

"Just pay close attention to her and her partner in the future.  It is through her that pure harmony can be created."

Elion dropped his phone and frowned. "Okay, spill. Why did you really hire us?"

Leander scoffed. "Oh now you care about the mission."

"Hey, we care about Elipzo's end goal just as we care about our right to game with controllers or VR headsets!" Tesla remarked. "Besides, ever heard of playing the long game?"

"I have, but given how we don't have much longer, you can see how your little games are testing my patience. The girl who made contact with the passenger...I have a very big score to settle with her."

"You do realize the girl is barely in her double digits, right?" Tesla questioned. "Gotta say, from what was seen in that big CarnEvil fight, she should definitely go for a Gunner Dressphere."

"I'm not a big fan of the half-skirts though," Elion noted. "I'm more of a Black Mage fan myself."

"Can you please stop making video game parallels with that little witch?!" Leander snapped. "If she's here, then she'll start connecting the dots to me. And I don't want to reveal my cards until it's time."

"So....what do you want us to do about this?" Elion asked. 

Leander paused, the only sounds heard were from the video-game as Elion and Tesla's characters were beating up another Spirit.

"I want you to make sure that her game is over. Plain and simple."

----

In her restless dreams, she saw her son. Simon Laurent.

Eva Laurent wished on her 6th birthday that she would be noticed. Not for her singing voice, or her grades, or even her hair. But someone would notice her struggles of having to deal with her parents struggling with their finances after her father was laid off from his job and had to go back to school for more education (for he only had a high school GED). 

Then, after her husband died in a car accident, she made a wish on the first New Year's after the funeral that someone would help Simon break out of his shell. For nights after Daniel Laurent's death, she would see Simon rush into her bed and cry that he didn't want to die. And she could do nothing but promise that he wasn't going to die yet, and that he was far too young to even think about such things. 

She also had far too many things to worry about, and for once she was glad for her part-time job and online schooling giving her the focus she needed to tend for her children. She poured her heart in saving enough money to get Simon into a good public school and spent most of her food money on coffee so she could use it for all-night study sessions. She was going to get her law degree or die trying.

But in the midst of leaving her waitress job to become a lawyer, and having to take care of Nadia with the help of her patient, if a bit smothering, mother and mother-in-law, she began thinking that her boy needed friends his age. The boys in his class were...rough, but all the parents dismissed it with the same phrase. "Boys will be boys".

Those same parents who dismissed their children's antics swiftly turned pitiful when Simon vanished, but it wouldn't have done anything. It wouldn't bring her son back.

When exactly did her life change? She was certain to not do anything stupid like drinking herself to death or going to night clubs. No, she focused on taking care of Simon and later Nadia. She vowed to her late husband to make sure these two had a normal childhood even though they didn't have a father figure. That not having a father wasn't seen as abnormal.

Perhaps, things changed the day she asked Simon to go next door and greet the new neighbors. 

It all started when she was playing some edutainment game with Nadia. Simon rushed into the house, a composition book in hand, stating  there was a giant truck next door. Nadia became curious and went outside to have a look-see.

She didn't think that they were anything special at the time. Just a mother and her 13-year-old daughter moving into their new home sweet home. The mom looked exhausted, and the girl wore a single fingerless fishnet glove on her right hand. It was that very same glove that made her son so...drawn to her.

And in hindsight, that girl with the fishnet glove would be the cause of her son's disappearance.

She shouldn't have insisted that Simon go next door to ask if the new neighbors wanted to have salmon noodle casserole and share his story with her. Simon shook his head, giving an excuse that he didn't want people to laugh at his story, but she reassured him that the girl next door wasn't going to be that mean. So Simon, as if he was on a quest to slay a dragon, marched the seven steps it took to reach the entrance of the house next door, clear his throat so that the girl with the fingerless fishnet glove could set a box of mugs down, and then stammer that his name was Simon Laurent and he wanted to know what her name was.

She was called Edith, her mother's name was Dawn. 

They were moving as far away as possible from their ancestral home, a rickety mish-mash of rooms and windows and towers like someone decided to build a castle without consulting a blueprint, and because they were quite...infamous. When asked over salmon noodle casserole and cherry lemonade, Dawn made sure Edith never got a word in about who they were in the past.

"There's a reason why we left your great-grandmother alone." Dawn muttered. "Although I bet she would've loved the obituary and news article posted about how the matriarch of the Finches has flown the coop. Or rather, died in the coop."

With a bit of digging, Eva discovered the truth that Dawn and her daughter wanted to hide. The Finches were famous for the tabloids centered around a "curse" that claimed every member of their family in a gruesome way. No one was safe. Most of the deaths weren't publicized. The ones that were -- like the mysterious death of the former horror star Barbara Finch being immortalized in a comic book now sitting in some collector's basement -- made Eva question why Edie wasn't sent to a therapist sooner. 

Nevertheless, so long as Eva and Simon never mentioned the...legacy of the Finch family, (especially about the remains of Edith Finch, Sr.), Dawn and Edith became welcome additions to the Laurent family. Dawn was willing to babysit Simon and Nadia during those long, long nights that Eva needed to study for her tests. She doted on him like he was her son, albeit there were times she would act nervous at Simon's fantasies. Edith, on the other hand, was charmed by him, mentioning a brother named Milton who was a talented artist and loved to pretend he was the ruler of his own kingdom.

"You mean like Max and the Wild Things?" 9-and-a-half year old Simon asked one night while scooping salmon chowder into his mouth.

"I guess you can say that." Edith replied, mindlessly stirring the straw in her glass of sparkling water. "At the very least, he's probably having a better life than what happened with my other brother, Lewis."

"Lewis...like the guy who wrote Alice in Wonderland?"

"Yeah, just like the guy who wrote Alice in Wonderland...He took a job at the local salmon cannery, and we would always have salmon morning, noon, and night."

"Can you tell me more about them? Can you? Please?"

Needless to say, Eva's chat with Dawn about what they would do when summer vacation started ended when Simon came screaming into the patio and begging her not to take him to a salmon cannery or any place that had a guillotine in it. Dawn made Edith leave early and gave Edith a huge scolding for that.

But those happy times didn't last forever as soon enough, Dawn was diagnosed with cancer. 

It happened suddenly, then Dawn was in remission, but then it came back. Edith was struggling with stress and having to work with her mom working on a will, along with Eva willing to raise Edith until she was 18. Everything was going downhill and the stress was going to reach its boiling point.

For all that Simon was a bit of a lazy student with his head in the clouds, he was good at putting two and two together. He learned a little too much about Edith's past, and Eva should've been more strict about it. But alas, stress makes a fool out of everyone.

Eva leaves for five minutes to talk to her mother about Nadia getting her homework done when she heard screaming two people arguing. She raced out and saw  Simon and Edith saying something they shouldn't have.

"This is all the fault of your stupid great-grandmother!" Simon snapped. "She's nothing but a coward who is afraid of saying what she wants to say. All she had to do was to not fill everyone's heads with this stupid curse and none of this would happen. The only reason people like the story is because she's a LIAR! Nobody would care if she died alone!"

Eva immediately took the opportunity to intervene, telling Simon to apologize. Simon refused, stating that Edith had to hear the truth. Edith stood there with tears in her eyes before she shouted back, "Well at least people were interested in what she had to say. Nobody is ever going to read the story from a kid who doesn't know how to use a spellcheck!" 

In hindsight, Eva should've realized that this was the moment when Simon's fate was sealed.

The two drove home, Simon silently staring at his notebook and asking his mom if he was spelling certain words right. She made sure to keep calm and helped him out, but this did not help Simon for what happened the day after.

The school was having a spelling bee. Nothing big, just a contest for all ages to see if they can show their smarts. Simon wanted to prove that he was super smart, but when he went on the stage to spell his first word...

"I'm sorry, Simon. But preparation is not spelled with two Es." The teacher stated.

Needless to say, the sound of students laughing at him made him rush out of the stage and into his mother's arms. The students were quick to call him a "Momma's boy", which only went away when Eva pulled out an air siren and blew it so loud that a few eardrums popped. Needless to say, no one was going to make fun of her child while she was around. It didn't take long for her to bring Simon to the bathrooms to cheer him up.

"You did nothing wrong, sweetheart," Eva encouraged her. "It was a simple mistake."

"But I hate making mistakes!" Simon sniffled. "Everyone is gonna laugh at me at how I'm not smart...and...and no one is ever gonna read my stories like Edith said!"

"Edith didn't mean to say that. She's angry and hurt because her mom is..."

"I hate her!" Simon shouted. "She didn't know how much work I put into making a kingdom where she could see her brothers again and no one dies from getting their heads chopped off or run away or...or..."

"She'll understand when she sees the story for real," Eva said with motherly reassurance. "Now come on, go to the bathroom and freshen up. After the spelling bee is over, we'll go out to eat. I know a certain someone who wants a certain food with two 'z's in it."

With a runny nose and red eyes, Simon went to the bathroom and Eva waited for him...and waited...and waited...and waited.

Simon never came out of the bathroom. When she entered the bathroom five minutes later, it was completely empty.

She thought it was a joke; that her son decided to run away through a window. But that was impossible. There were no windows in the bathroom.

Panic settled in as she began asking everyone she knew if she had seen her son. No one did as eye-witnesses clearly saw Eva take Simon into the bathroom herself. This didn't help Eva at all. Panic settled in over the entire afternoon as she asked every teacher and parent she could find over the whereabouts of her son. But no one had seen him come out of the bathroom. It was if he disappeared.

Disappeared, just like Edith's older brother did.

Eva wasted little time driving to the hospital, fury in her heart over Edith and her damning words. If Edith didn't terrify her son about his poor spelling, then...then...

Eva Laurent woke up to the sound of her cellphone vibrating by her bedside table. Groaning, mentally cursing how her boss was going to ask her to do a double shift with little pay, she picked it up to prepare her standard "Yes sir." text. However, as she was about to dismiss it as another day until retirement, she noticed it was a Facefolio post from some boy named Jesse Cosay.

Jesse Cosay...where did she hear that name before...

Oh right! He was nicknamed "Mr. Arizona Missing". Ran away from home and then mysterious appeared weeks later, stating he had a crazy adventure where he lost then "found" himself. Then there was the case of the Minnesota girl named after a perennial flower who ran away in November but returned sometime in April. But what would a boy in Arizona be messaging her for?

Ms. Laurent, I know where your son is.

Without hesitation, Eva sat up and replied back. Give me everything you have about him as soon as you read this message. Where's my son?

She can't believe it. After a decade of silence. Of heartbreak, her son's disappearance deemed a "cold case", the death of Edith's mother, and then Edith herself through childbirth...there was finally some hope of learning where her son vanished?

"Please don't be a lie, please don't be a lie, please don't be a lie..." Eva choked. "Please...tell me where my son is..."

As if an angel listened to her pleas, her phone had another Facefolio message.

He was on the same place I was. On a train in another world.

----

Jesse Cosay sat on his bed, and looked at the time on his phone. 6:15 AM. He then looked at the chat window on Facefolio where Eva Laurent was hastily replying to his text message.

"You're seriously going through this, aren't you?"

Jesse didn't look up to see Lake standing above him, arms crossed, a large frown on her chrome face. "I'm seriously going through this, Lake."

"You don't know what type of person Simon's mom was. She could be as big of a jerkwad as he is! I mean, I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'd rather not have Simon meet up with an abusive mom! Not even he deserves that."

"If not for Simon's mom, then maybe his extended family. They deserve to know. And besides...we owe it to Grace as to why we're here."

"Are you serious?!" Lake exclaimed.

"I am." Jesse picked up his sketchbook and flipped it towards the sketch of him, Lake, and Alan Dracula in an autumnal forest, about to begin their travels. "Again, if she didn't say that she wanted to wheel you and Alan Dracula, I wouldn't have gotten the courage to stand up to her and finally get my exit. And if she didn't call the Mirror Cops on you, you wouldn't have found the resolve to truly arrive at the Tape Car to confront One-One. And there are now two less Mirror Cops who will sand innocent reflections to dust. Irony of ironies that the one who tried to break us is the one who built us up and gave us our way home."

"And that gives you all the reason to forgive her?"

Jesse slammed the sketchbook shut and looked up. "This isn't about forgiveness, it's about giving her a chance to go home because if we don't do it, who does? And if she has to learn her lesson the hard way, how many passengers and denizens will have to suffer before she gets it? I'll never forgive her, but I won't let her die alone either."

Lake groaned. "You're not going to let this go, are you?"

"At the very least, I want to make a change. Don't you?"

"There's a term that goes 'No good deed goes unpunished,'" Lake stated. "People tend to walk all over you because they see you as nothing but a doormat to wipe their shoes on. In order to survive, you have to fight back."

"And was me standing up for myself when Grace proudly stated she wanted to kill you not fighting back?"

Lake was speechless, but Jessie continued.

"Maybe your way of fighting is to grind a Mirror Cop into the train wheels and I don't blame you for it. It was an act of self-defense and it wasn't easy to accept that you had to kill someone to save yourself. But I see myself fighting my own battles by not giving into darkness or to the peer pressure of hurting others. I fight darkness with kindness. By helping others, making them smile, giving them a compliment, giving joy to others. It's naive of me to still think that way, even after it nearly got us in trouble with Grace...but I still want to try, because being kind is my best asset."

Lake inhaled, looking ready to slap Jesse upside the head. Instead, she sighed, leaned forward with her fingers on Jesse's forehead. Then, there was a metallic clang as she flicked her friend.

"Ow!" Jesse yelped, rubbing is forehead. "What was that for?!"

"That was to remind you not to get so high and mighty," Lake smirked. "Now come on, let me help you email Mrs. Laurent about what's been going on with Simon. I hope she doesn't mind to what he's said to the both of us."

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Chapter 8

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Laces

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Colette woke up to her phone's alarm clock blaring in her ear, turning it off as she felt so refreshed and cheerful. Thank Arceus she brought those melantonin gummies with her. She was out like a light while dreaming about her and Regina planting pumpkins and tomatoes in their garden within the Hi Skitty MMORPG. 

She felt guilt gnawing at her gut. Regina has been wanting so much time with her, and she keeps playing hard to get. The girl didn't deserve this, even as Regina had decided to take a sabbatical from her Cyber Warrior duties to develop herself as a Pokemon Trainer, in contrast to Colette trying to fill the time by going on missions until she could go to the school of her dreams.

Colette went to the Contacts list and pressed Regina's name. Just one call. She deserved this. She laid down on the bed, staring at the ceiling as she waited for the call to be picked up.

"H-hello? Chloe, is that you?"

Colette sighed. "Hi Regina. You doing okay? I'm not disturbing anything right?"

"Oh, of course not. Just finished breakfast. It's...wow, it's been a while hasn't it? Last we talked, it was after Ash became the World Coronation King and how you were applying to become a Pokémon Ranger."

Colette didn't want to look at the last time they texted or talked to each other. "Yeah, it really has been that long. Still waiting for the Almia academy to sign my approval. How's everything been doing on your end?"

Regina's voice became more animated. "Things have been...normal. Mircie and I, and the rest of my Pokémon, are planning to travel to Ecruteak City to meet up with a group of sisters called the Kimono Girls. They're trainers who have Eevee evolutions, but I don't think they'd mind a Kimono Girl with a Glaceon!"

"That sounds amazing!" Colette exclaimed, imagining Regina in a cerulean kimono with white flowers. Colette's would be pink and blue...or purple and black. She had trouble coordinating clothes with others. Perhaps they would enter a village where Beautiflies fluttered under the light of a hundred lanterns? "You'll make a wonderful Kimono Girl."

"Yeah, I want to be able to share the beauty of ice and snow with others. I also have been reading books on architecture as well. That show I made of making an ice castle for your class got me inspired to build eco-friendly houses that can be used to help trap heat while also being easy for people to afford. No one shouldn't afford a home after all."

"You've really changed a lot. There's something new about you; it's the way you talk."

"Ah! R-really?"

"Really. There's more confidence in you. Is it because of your partners?"

"You mean Noah and Yuvi? Yeah; they've been helping me out in plenty of ways. In fact, we'll all be gathering in a couple of days for a Mana trial."

"A Mana trial?"

"Yeah! For my Rank 1 initiation test! I'm supposed to go through Secrets of Mana with my partners to test if I can work together as a team. I'll be playing as Primm, Noah is Randi, and Yuvi is saddled with Popoi! You should've seen Yuvi going on a rant when he saw the character art for the little sprite!"

"I can imagine it actually!" Colette giggled. In her head was a tall, pale skinned vampire, around Alain's height, with icy blue eyes and an elegant black coat ranting and raving while lightning sparked everywhere, complaining at being a small little trickster sprite for a challenge. "I still haven't done any trials with Descendant's Twilight and Mirror's Rebirth. Been wanting to go into a crazy adventure myself."

"Oh come on! There's no need to hide their names when you're talking to me." Regina teased. "I've met them face-to-face plenty of times. Why all the secrecy?"

"Sorry, force of habit," Colette stated sheepishly. "And also cause I have a big mission that might be related to the fallout of..."

"Oh."

"I don't want you to think about it so soon. Everything that happened was still..."

'"I'll be fine Chloe. I know that we need to be separated in order to recover and focus on our own dreams, but I miss you. I really miss being with you..."

Colette paid no attention to the tears in her eyes.  "I miss you too."

The door to the hotel room opened and Aric entered with a paper bag that presumably had breakfast. "You better end that conversation soon. We've got a meeting in ten."

"I should hang up then." said Regina. "Thanks for calling, and let's plan our next get-together in Fula City for their Wind Festival."

"I'm looking forward to it" Colette smiled. "Take care."

"Always."

Regina hung up as Colette exhaled, hand to her heart. It was better to take it slow, appreciate the moments they had because they will eventually make it towards the goal of them being...together.

Colette set her phone down and washed up. As soon as her face was squeaky clean, she changed into a new white tee of an Eevee wearing a pumpkin on her head and a purple ribbon tied around her tail along with some leggings. Then, she opened the closet to take note of Spencer still in sleep mode. 1 h 26 minutes remaining till full charge.

Shrugging her shoulders, Colette approached the small table where Aric opened a styrofoam take-out box filled with black beans, and some corn tortillas smothered in a red-hot salsa and cheese. "Don't worry, I was fully aware of your sensitive tongue and asked for a medium heat salsa."

"Not my fault I accidentally confused a tomato with a Tomato berry," Colette sighed as Aric turned on their laptop and signed in. He also typed in something to log him into the chatroom where two more windows popped up. One for Jesse and Lake, the other for Tulip, Hop and Alain.

"Everyone is present and accounted for," Aric announced. "So, let's start with introductions and meeting log."

Colette pulled out her Card Scanner and a stylus. "Meeting has begun. Cyber Mage Aric alongside the members of Team Neo -- Colette Cadieux (Alias), Hop Hosta, and Alain Astrantia -- have brought on board the Passengers of Jesse Cosay, Tulip Olsen, and Lake. And on that note -- " Colette put the Card Scanner down. "Are you seriously telling me that you never bothered to bring up that you're also part of this mission?"

"We just got the announcement at the last minute!" Hop said sheepishly. "It took a while for me to tell Lee that I was heading off on my first off-world mission as it is. Given everything that happened prior..."

"Telling Blackbird was easy. Pulling Mairin away wasn't," Alain admitted. "I was running away from Chespie's Pin Missile for about five minutes before I was finally allowed to leave. Sorry about that, Colette."

"Black who?" Jesse asked and Lake shrugged her shoulders.

"If we can go back to our original subject," Aric interrupted with a loud cough. "Jesse Cosay, you are -- "

"The Chosen one?" Jesse asked with a raised eyebrow. He frowned. "I may be nice and kind, but I'm not an idiot. And really, even I think that's kinda cliched. I mean, I wasn't chosen to save Lake. I chose to save Lake. There's a huge difference!"

"You're not the Chosen One, but you have gained the interest of some baddies who believe that harnessing you can tip the scales towards changing destiny." Aric elaborated. "Where we come from, miracles are akin to a super power, and those who can create a miracle have the potential to become gods."

"Are you serious?" Tulip said.

"Yes, and the miracle you created means you're also a target, Miss Tulip," Aric continued. "It's..."

"No coincidence that I somehow got in the same car where the true Conductor was dumped at?" Tulip interrupted. "I've kept asking myself that question for the longest of times and I've learned to stop questioning it."

"It's not about the circumstances, it's how you act upon them," Alain stated. "You could've left One-One to rot, same with Atticus, but you chose to come back to save them. Would it have changed anything if you knew beforehand that One-One was Conductor?"

Tulip paused and stared at her hand. "No, it wouldn't have. One-One's my friend before anything else."

"And that's all that's needed." Alain smiled. "Anyone can become a chosen, and anyone can not be a chosen yet still do great things."

Tulip blushed a little. It didn't make sense yet also made sense, and that's all that was needed.

"Now, if we can get back to the other subject," Aric stated. "There was the alert on the individuals Ryan Akagi and Min-gi Park. Aka Chicken Choice Judy."

"Why exactly is some old rock duo so important to you guys?" Lake asked. "Unless bingo night suddenly involves apocalyptic treasures or something."

"Because Chicken Choice Judy is somehow able to generate a surge of powerful harmonic energy that Arcanum has not seen in decades. Chord."

"...Come again?" asked Tulip inquired.

"To put it simply, Harmony is a creative energy that brings life, but Chord is the more battle-infused version of this energy." Aric explained. "The last recorded person to ever utilize Chord at such a high level was none other than the Arcanum Hero, Armand Vale."

(It was brief, but Hop and Alain noticed Colette's eyes turned into a glare at the mention of Armand.)

"And...who exactly is Armand?" Jesse piped up.

"A legendary hero, founder of what would become the modern Arcanum," Colette answered. "Supposedly, he grew up in a village with a single mother to raise him, bullied for being different. One day, the local bullies pushed him to enter a cave where a shadow demon lurked. The demon granted him any wish he desired. Armand asked for the demon, initially named Nal but later known as Vale, to be his friend."

"Annnnnd this is the part where you tell us how this ended up badly and how there was a price to pay for the wish," Lake grumbled. "Did Armand get a soul gem he wore over his heart?"

"Actually...no," Aric answered. "Nal fully respected Armand's wish, and the two were completely inseparable. They had so many adventures in the future, ones that I would dedicate a decade of my life to properly research! In fact, thanks to researching more on Alec Cerise's journals, there's now solid research that Armand and Nal also entered the 8th Traveler at least half a century ago."

"What?" Tulip gasped.

"Excuse me?!" Jesse gasped.

"That explains so much," Colette whispered to herself.

"Hold on," Alain said with a raised eyebrow. "I've been doing some...research about Armand's life under the request of my teacher, but I never heard anything about this before."

"8th Traveler?" Lake inquired, annoyed that she had to play the role of clueless dolt who parrots everything.

"Cyber Warriors can travel across one of seven vehicles called Data Trains," Hop explained, typing something on the square device on his wrist. A holographic projection popped up, showing seven trains, all of them different colors. "Data Trains travel across the space between the worlds of Arcanum. It's where Cyber Warriors rest up and train inbetween missions. Some Cyber Warriors are shipped off after their training at the academy, but ones like Chloe and I can enter as we please so long as we show off our Cyber Tools." Hop pointed to the image of a blue Data Train. "This is the train associated with Team Neo -- ReFusion. This will take us to Arizona in a heartbeat, Tulip."

Tulip gasped as she grabbed Hop's vest. "We're going to be traveling on one of these to Arizona? Really? What's inside?"

"ReFusion has all the accommodations of a normal passenger train," Alain explained. "Kitchen with a dining car, sleeping quarters, a garden, a gym room with a pool, steam room, and sauna included, an arcade room."

"Arcade room? With retro cabinets?" Tulip squeed with sparkling eyes. Lake placed a hand over her face.

"Yes..."

"I. am. so. EXCITED!" Tulip exclaimed. "I am gonna play on them all night and no one can stop me!"

"Actually there's a curfew to prevent all-night playing..."

"Hold on a second," Jesse interrupted. "This mission isn't just about keeping an eye on me, but also to protect a senior duo from being captured? I mean, these guys ain't Wyld Stallyins with a time traveling phone booth, but they can't be that dangerous...right?"

"Wait, a band had the time traveling phone booth?" Tulip asked. "I thought it was a doctor with the tacky scarves."

"We're getting off topic," Aric sighed. "Ryan and Min-Gi may not be able to generate as much Chord as they used to, but they could still be analyzed so that their energy signals can be used to identify future wielders of Chord. And, if nothing else, there's the fear that either you or Jesse might be candidates to manifesting Harmony."

"Excuse me?" Hop asked. "If these two were able to manifest Harmony, why wait for them to be under watch after they got off the Train? Unless..."

A horrifying thought crossed everyone's mind while Lake groaned.

"Okay, super imagination powers aside, if these guys are important, don't you have bodyguards keeping an eye on them?" she asked. "There's no way Chicken Choice July doesn't have security to protect a couple of grandpas."

"We actually have a specialist to keep an eye on them," Aric said. "Aside from normal security on the ground, the Cyber Warriors of ReFusion are keeping constant surveillance. Should there be an emergency of high Arcanum levels, then they'll be deployed to deal with the aftermath."

"And what exactly is the name of your on-field agent?"

-----

Ryan and Min-Gi had arrived in Arizona a day prior, having decided that it'd be nice to relax and practice their set list to ensure they didn't get brain fog when they performed for what would be the last time they would ever perform in the Sunset State. They had an interview in the morning to promote the concert, and then it would be time for a meet-and-great before the concert. It amazed Ryan that there were still people who wanted to listen to some old-timers about the Train to Nowhere.

The two were at a small cafe with a third person, sharing a large order of chilaquiles with medium salsa, some fried eggs, and coffee. A few fans said hello and asked for selfies, to which they obliged.

"So...not to be rude or anything Mr. Baccano," Ryan explained.

"Mr. Baccara," The man with sunglasses and two faint slashes on their left cheek interrupted.

"Right, Mr. Baccara, I don't mean to be rude since we've known each other for a few days but...what happened to your face?"

"I got into a...fight a while back," Mr. Baccara answered, touching their cheek. A twitch formed underneath their glasses.

Said assistant was at least half of the ages of Ryan and Min-Gi, wearing a red power suit with a white blouse and black pants, ending in black boots. Their auburn hair was tied into a ponytail with a hairband that had a magenta "C" with small black dots.

"Did you press charges?" Min-Gi questioned.

"I couldn't," Mr. Baccara answered. "I had no choice but to escape or else endanger my life."

"Still, it's not like you two will ever see each other again," Ryan said optimistically. "What are the chances?"

Min-Gi sighed. "Thank you for spending this morning with us, Mr. Baccara."

Mr. Baccara chuckled as they sipped their coffee. Black, no sugar. "Oh don't be so modest, Min-Gi. It's my duty to ensure such famous musicians are given the best security possible.

"Also, I wish for all of us to be on a first name basis. Just call me Leander."