Chapter Text
“Come on out Salem Rose, we have you surrounded and there’s nowhere to hide!” Flash yelled into the Color Vat, while the other three guardians – Hose, Paint, and Ore – stood on the sides of the vat. The four of them had just fought off the devious Salem Rose, a Raposa who was corrupted by the power of the Shadow Stones. As they prepared to attack the vat, the color began to bubble, and the level slightly fell. From inside the vat, they heard a voice ring out.
“Au contraire.” Salem Rose burst from the vat, dousing the Guardians with a splash of color, knocking them down to the ground. His body had been covered by both Shadow and Color, and he disappeared from the void.
“You never destroyed the Shadow Stone! You idiot, you’ve doomed your realm!” Willham yelled at the Raposa as he tried, but failed, to erase him. One of two screeners, Willham was created to protect the void and assist the developers in the creation of the games, having the unique ability to erase things from existence with his smoke, but ever since the void had been populated, he acted as a leader to the people of the void.
In the fight with Salem Rose, many residents of the void had gathered to fight, including Jinxy, an energetic, green Raposa who was considered by most to be the mayor of the Wii Village, Rocko, a Raposa who remembered time in canon operating the lava switch, Crawler, a natural leader who had formed a group of powerful enemies and bosses, although the group of them mainly just LARPed together, and Nolan, a humble human who was weak on his own, but strong when he had his friends to cheer him on. The four of them ran to the side of the Color Vat, pulling the bodies of the Four Guardians out of the spill.
“Hey, Flash, wake up now! We got a maniac t’catch!” Jinxy shouted, shaking the guardian’s body.
“Hose, get up man. You gotta help us out here,” Nolan said into Hose’s ear, slapping the guardian while he spoke. People continued to run to the Guardian’s sides, trying to get them to wake up, but nothing they could do would work. Suddenly, from each of the Guardians, a blue smoke resembling Willham shot up into the air. This caught the attention of Willham and his fellow screener, Shadow Mari, who both flew into the air to follow the smoke. Each of the four clouds shot off in different directions, but before the screeners could follow them, a booming voice echoed through the void.
“Willham, Shadow Mari, get up here! Someone’s here that wants to kill Salem Rose!” Before the screeners could disappear however, an explosion rung out from the Wii Village, catching the attention of everyone at the Color Vat.
“We might as well get out of here before anything else goes wrong, yeah?” Shadow Mari asked, repeating a mantra to escape the void and appear in the Developer’s Grove. Willham chuckled and did the same, disappearing from the void. Back on the ground, the residents of the void discussed the explosion.
“I need t’go see what just happened back home; you guys stay with the Guardian’s bodies and see if you can find out where those clouds went,” Jinxy said to the group.
“What about Salem Rose?” Rocko asked, hoisting Flash’s body onto his back.
“The screeners can take care of him and then come back when they’re done. For now, we need to figure out where that smoke went and what caused that explosion.” Crawler and his LARPing group walked up to Jinxy just before he left the group, preparing a speech while he walked.
“We’re coming with you. If something big is happening back there, you’re gonna need some firepower.” Jinxy looked at them, concern plastering his face.
“I don’t know if you guys have that much firepower to be honest.” Crawler and his group laughed before flashing their many weapons at Jinxy.
“Don’t forget that we were made to kill a Creation Hero. Hell, most of us are bosses!” Before giving Jinxy time to respond, Crawler’s group began to charge towards the explosion. Jinxy looked up into the sky at the smoke dissipating throughout the void, following one of them to the Wii Village.
“Alright then, I guess I don’t have much say in this. Let’s go!” The two of them followed Crawler’s group through the void, watching as the fire and smoke of the explosion grew closer. After a long run and some flight, the party arrived at the Wii Village, watching as a group of characters bombarded the Baki Temple with their attacks.
“Hey! You five! Stop what you’re doing right now!” The five attackers complied with Jinxy’s demand, surprising the party. Among the attackers were a large monkey with a flame bellowing out of its head, a large, green squid with a translucent body, a red dragon that towered above any of the Raposa, a lanky robot that had electricity shooting out of its hands, and a Raposa with a striking resemblance to Wilfre, save for his orange fur and red jacket. “What do you think you’re doing, attacking the temple like this?”
“Oh Jinxy, we’re simply trying to save one of my old friends,” the monkey said. Jinxy looked at Crawler, who shrugged in confusion.
“Sorry sir, but I’m afraid that if your friend is stuck in the temple, then I can’t let you save them.” The Monkey smirked, his flame growing higher, as the other four characters prepared to attack the party.
“I don’t remember asking for your permission, Mayor. As my buddies and I see it, my word as Tree King takes precedence over yours!” As the Tree King made his remark, he charged at Jinxy, causing the rest of his group to charge at the party.
“Alright Crawler, get ready to use some of that firepower you promised me!” Jinxy and Crawler’s LARPing Group charged towards the give characters, sending the two groups into a spark-filled frenzy.
Developer’s Grove
After coming back from a violent fight against Salem Rose, Willham and Shadow Mari gave their goodbyes to their new friends from canon. Joseph Tringali, the lead producer in the Grove, who was in charge of operations in the Grove and the Void, sent everyone back home, leaving him alone with Willham and Shadow Mari.
“Well, it’s time for me to get back to the void. Where’s the sword?” The sword Willham mentioned was used by the developers and their former employees – the Droogles – to send characters from the Grove to the void. However, when Salem Rose attacked the Grove in an attempt to get to the void, the Droogle Leader, the owner of the sword, ran off into the woods with it.
“About that, the sword is missing.” Willham and Shadow Mari stood dumbfounded as Joe explained what had happened to the Droogle Leader.
“So what do we do now? A lot of things happened in the void before we left, and we need to get back as soon as possible,” Shadow Mari told Joe.
“A lot of things happened? Like what?”
“Well for one, the Guardians died. Salem Rose killed them when he attacked us,” Willham explained.
“There was also a huge explosion in the Wii Village, and we don’t know anything about that yet,” Shadow Mari continued. Joe listed to the screeners, rubbing his chin and thinking hard about the void.
“How much have you looked for the Droogle Leader already?” Willham asked as he approached the tree line of the Grove.
“I haven’t done anything yet. With GenericChallenge still on the loose and Milfre coming to visit, I haven’t had time to even leave this terminal.” Willham grunted in acknowledgement as he released a wave of smoke in front of him, erasing all of the trees in front of him.
“Damn. Even with all those trees gone, there’s still no sign of him anywhere.”
“I’m desperately hoping that you didn’t just erase him and the sword with that stunt,” Shadow Mari snapped, shooting a small beam of Shadow through Willham’s glasses.
“Don’t worry. I made sure to shoot high enough so that it wouldn’t delete him.” Shadow Mari glared at her fellow screener, but shrugged it off, both of them returning to Joe.
“Well, since that didn’t work, there is one last thing we could try.” The screeners looked at Joe as he pulled up a file on the monitor in front of him. “We can always go find Miah.”
Wii Village
The noise in the Wii Village rang out through the void as Jinxy’s group continued to fight against the Tree King’s group. Roars from the Red Dragon and battle cries from the Droogles filled the air while a puff of blue smoke shot through the sky. It began to slow down as it approached the battle, lowering towards the Tree King’s group. It descended onto the robot, who was fighting the rat trio – Rata, Tat & Tat. As the cloud disappeared inside the character, the robot began to short circuit, giving the rats a chance to knock it out of commission.
“Hey Jinxy! Gimme a hand here!” Jinxy looked over at Crawler to see him pointing towards the ginger Wilfre and the Red Dragon taking flight, leaving the battle behind. Jinxy nodded and ran towards Crawler, scooping him up and jumping through the jungle, trying to gain as much height as possible. After climbing as much as he could, Jinxy threw Crawler through the air. Crawler grabbed onto Red Dragon’s tail, but after hearing the dragon roar in pain, the ginger Wilfre turned around to see the stowaway.
“Well lookie here. Hey, monkey man, wanna hear a fun fact?” the Wilfre asked Crawler.
“I want you to pull me up! I’m about to fall!”
“Yeah, yeah, but listen to this! Did you know that the terminal velocity of a small monkey is approximately 33.89 miles-per-hour? It’s probably more with that mech suit, and I’m not much of a physics whiz, so let’s do an experiment to double check my work!”
“Don’t you dare,” Crawler shouted as the Wilfre kicked him off of the Red Dragon’s tail. As Crawler fell to the ground, the Wilfre watched in anticipation, but was saddened to see Jinxy swing past and grab Crawler, returning him to the battle.
“Aw come on!” the Wilfre exclaimed, plopping down onto the dragon’s back. “These people have no respect for the scientific process.”
“Hey, Gingerfre, shut it. We’re almost there.” Gingerfre gasped in excitement, peeked over the Red Dragon’s head, and watched as the Drawn to Life Village came into view.
Drawn to Life Village
Although the Drawn to Life Village was one of the most heavily populated villages, it was one of the quietest. Much of the populace were Droogles, who spent most of their time in the other villages, and the villagers who weren’t Droogles spent much of their time relaxing in their homes. One of these villagers, a Raposa named Barks, heard the explosion in the Wii Village. He ran out of his house and into a courtyard, watching as the smoke rose into the sky. Suddenly, from behind him, a pair of hands pulled him into an alley.
“Well look who we got here boys!” a large Raposa wearing a blue jacket said.
“C’mon Barks. Gonna fight back at all?” said a second Raposa who wore a yellow jacket. These two Raposa, along with two of their friends, surrounded him and began to bark at Barks, laughing at him in between their mocking. Unable to respond, Barks tried to run out of the alley, but the Raposa with a green jacket pulled him back.
“Now, let’s see how much this doggy can take,” said the fourth Raposa, this one wearing a red jacket. Suddenly, a blue cloud of smoke shot down over Barks, blowing the four Raposa down.
“The hell was that, Red?” the Raposa in a yellow jacket asked.
“Why are you askin’ me? That smoke was blue, so if anything you should be askin’ Blue!”
“Don’t drag me into this! I don’t know jack shit about what’s goin’ on!” The smoke began to flow through Barks’ body, and the Raposa slowly stood up.
“So this is the new body I got,” the cloud thought to himself.
“Yo, look at the hoops on ‘is ears!” the Raposa in green yelled. “Why’re they glowin’ like that?”
“Hoops? That’s not a bad name. Now, let’s see what these hoops can do.” The smoke channeled his energy into his ears, causing the rings to glow brighter. After a bit of charging up, he released the energy in the form of two, green waves, knocking the four Raposa unconscious. “Huh, neat.” Just then, a tall, foxlike figure walked past the alley, noticing the four Raposa and Hoopz.
“Oh my god, Barks, are you okay?” Fox said, running in to check on the conscious Raposa. Fox was the mayor of the Drawn to Life Village, appointed by the screeners a little over two years ago. Fox had been at the scene of the guardian’s death and ran after the smoke heading towards his village. He arrived just in time to see the waves dissipate outside the alleyway.
“…”
“Regardless, how’d you manage to do that? I never knew those rings actually had any power.” Fox checked Hoopz ears, but before he could say anything else, Hoopz heard a roar in the distance. The two of them ran out of the alley to see Red Dragon and Gingerfre coming closer to the village.
“They’re coming from the Wii Village,” Hoopz said to himself as he began to channel energy into his ears again.
“Wait, you can talk!?” Fox exclaimed as Hoopz shot another wave at the two. When the wave collided with them, the dragon fell to the ground a few blocks away from Hoopz and Fox. The two of them ran to the dragon as Fox began to ask Hoopz a mountain of questions. “How long have you been able to talk, Barks?”
“…”
“What were those four trying to do to you?”
“…”
“Did you see any smoke while you were out and about?”
“That was me,” Hoopz responded. Fox stopped in his tracks and his jaw dropped.
“Ore? That’s you?”
“Call me Hoopz, but yeah, it’s me.” Hoopz kept running, forcing Fox to catch back up to him, just in time to find Red Dragon lying unconscious. The two foxes saw Gingerfre running into another alley, so they slowly approached the alley.
“She was right! These really are all over the place here,” Gingerfre said as he picked up a glowing, purple Shadow Stone. As he palmed the rock, his body began to be wrapped in a light grey shadow.
“Don’t move!” Hoopz shouted into the alley as he charged another blast.
“Alright, you got me! I won’t move an inch,” Gingerfre smirked as he slowly turned around. Fox and Hoopz walked into the alley, but Gingerfre began to shoot shadow towards the two of them. Before any of the shadow could hit them however, Hoopz released his energy, knocking Gingerfre unconscious and launching the Shadow Stone out of his hand, removing his shadow powers.
“Let’s get him out of here before he can wake up,” Fox said, kicking the stone out of the alley and into the courtyard. Hoopz joined him as they tied him up to a nearby lamppost. “Hey, I have another question for you.”
“…”
“What happened to Barks when you possessed his body?” Hoopz looked down at the ground, tensing up after hearing Fox’s question. “Hoopz, you good?”
“Barks is gone now. Even if I leave, he’s not coming back.”
Developer’s Grove
As Willham and Joe discussed how to locate the sword, Shadow Mari hopped out of the well with a smirk on her face.
“They’re on their way now.” The three of them turned to face the well as two voices grew louder and louder. From out of the well, two humans landed on the ground, one with a bright yellow dress and a red headband, the other with a blue vest and a pompadour.
“Welcome back Franco! It’s been a while, hasn’t it?” Joe asked, helping Franco to his feet.
“Two years now, yeah?”
“Well regardless, it’s good to see you again.” As the two devs reunited, the screeners welcomed Aly back to the grove.
“So, how’s Mike doing?” Shadow Mari asked, poking fun at her.
“Y’know, no matter how much time goes by, he still won’t finish that damn scene art.” The screeners laughed as Joe called the three of them over to explain the situation. After giving them a brief run down over Salem Rose and the Droogle Leader, Joe told them that they needed to find Jeremiah Slaczka, the lead producer of the Drawn to Life series, and the creator of the Dev Grove and its functions.
“Miah’s been missing ever since the release of The Next Chapter,” Franco interjected. “How do you expect us to find him?”
“Well first off, he decided to do what you two did. He acted as an agent in the games, but after we released The Next Chapter, he fell off our radar.”
“Who did he disguise himself as?” Aly asked.
“That’s a bit complicated. Unlike you two, Miah was never disguised as an NPC. It’s incredibly unlikely that you’ll be able to find him without a specific location.”
“You’re stalling Joe,” Franco snapped. “What’s the bad news?” Joe sighed and leaned back on the side of the house.
“He went in as Mike’s dad. As far as we know, he died in the crash.” The group stood in silence as Joe went to his computer and messed with the well’s date settings. “Which is where you two come in. I’m sending you back to before the crash happened so you can find Miah and bring him back for a bit.”
“I like this plan, but I have one question,” Aly said as the well was set for the day of the crash. “We’re both established in 2012 Belleview, so how are we gonna blend in in 2007 Belleview?”
“That’s where I come in,” Shadow Mari said, stepping towards the two humans. “This is gonna be cold, so get ready!” Suddenly, Shadow Mari doused Aly and Franco in shadow, changing both of their appearances once more. Aly’s short stature became a taller, adult woman in a pink shirt with pink and purple flowers in her blonde hair. Franco’s pompadour morphed into a pair of large headphones with a pair of sunglasses and an orange shirt. “Welcome Lyrica and Daniel James to the world!”
“Ooooh these are nice!” Lyrica said, patting the flowers in her hair. “Thanks girl!”
“No problem! So, you guys know who you’re looking for, you know who you are, and you know when you’re going, yeah?” The two humans nodded as they edged towards the well.
“Good luck you guys. Get Miah back here in one piece,” Willham called out as they fell back into the well, disappearing from the Grove.
Wii Village
As the fight raged on, the Tree King had slowly been moving back to the door of the Baki Temple. As Jinxy’s group fought against him, he artfully dodged their attacks, redirecting them into the door behind him.
“Well you guys, I must thank you for this exhilarating round of combat, but unfortunately, we really must be going.” Drawing the attention of the group, the Tree King turned around and blasted the door with a wall of fire.
“No! You can’t!” Jinxy yelled as the wall crumbled down.
“Oh, but I just did. Now, I’d like to introduce you to a good friend of mine.” The Tree King gestured to the entrance to the temple, where a shadowy figure stood, staring at the groups through a wooded mask with three, red, feathers poking from the top. “As far as I know, it doesn’t have a name, but I like to call this guy Jungle Creature.” When the Tree King said its name, the Jungle Creature shot shadow tendrils out to the group, scooping the Droogles up and throwing them into the temple behind it.
“What is that?!” Rocket Vulture yelled as another tendril wrapped around her, forcing her into the temple with her companions.
“I hate to do this to you all, but I can’t have you running after us if we’re to finish what we started here.” As the Jungle Creature stepped out from the temple and into the void, it continued to capture Jinxy’s group and throw them into the temple until only Jinxy remained.
“I don’t know what your goal is, but I swear I’ll stop you.”
“Yes, yes, I know. Now, have fun exploring the temple!” the Tree King said as Jinxy was thrown into the temple with the rest of his group. Before they could try to run out, the Jungle Creature sprung a wall of shadow in front of the cave, solidifying it into a grey, fuzzy block that sealed the group inside the temple. “Robot, get up. It’s time to move forward.”
From inside the robot, the smoke finally reactivated the body, opening its eyes to see the Tree King, Jungle Creature, and Squid standing over them. Looking up at them, it tried to speak, only to find that the body it inhabited didn’t have a mouth to speak. In a desperate attempt to get up, the cloud channeled its energy through the body, releasing a violent blast of electricity from their hands.
“Those rats really did a number on you, huh?” the Squid grumbled as the Tree King helped the robot to its feet.
“Now, let’s go towards the Color Vat. Once we’re there, nothing can get in our way!” the Tree King laughed, leading the four of them to The Next Chapter Village. Remembering that its body was still laying by the vat, the robot decided to follow along with the group in hopes of finding out where the other Guardians had gone.
Rapoville, 2015
“Hey Mr. Brown! I just caught a huge fish we can cook up for dinner tonight!” Mildew had been sent from the void by the screeners and Guardians to be an NPC in Two Realms, and ever since having his void memories erased, he happily lived on with Farmer Brown as a farmhand.
“That’s great Mildew! I’ll cook up a Banya loaf tonight, and we can…” Farmer Brown suddenly trailed off in the middle of his sentence. He looked down towards the ground, a strange, electronic hum coming from his mouth.
“Sir, are you okay?” Mildew reached out to Farmer Brown, resting a hand on his shoulder. Suddenly, Farmer Brown jolted up.
“Oh my god, Mildew! What year is it? Where are we?” Mildew was taken aback by the sudden outburst, backing up as Farmer Brown looked around the village. “C’mon Mildew, the year!”
“It’s-it’s 2015. Are you sure everything’s okay Mr. Brown?”
“Damn it, I overshot. Is the book still here?”
“The book? Sir, I’m not sure what you’re talking about.” After a long groan, Farmer Brown ran off towards Creation Hall, leaving Mildew confused at the farm. After bursting into the empty building, Farmer Brown frantically searched for a single, green book. After some noise and a lot of searching, Farmer Brown finally pulled the Book of Imagination off a shelf, opening it up as a portal swirled around him.
“Finally. I really hope I’m not too late for this.” Farmer Brown said, setting the book down on a pedestal. Stepping back as the portal grew larger, Farmer Brown fell to the ground unconscious as a pink and black, Raposa-like figure took his place, stepping towards the portal and disappearing into the human realm.