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"Why me?" Crusader_Blue Asked. It was too much for them, hearing about how their fellow moderators had been placed under a dark curse, causing them all to become their usernames. For some such as PhoenixQueenAzula this was a good thing, that gave them basically infinite power. For others such as SeparationBoundary, it was a painful ache of an existence.
"Have you looked in a mirror lately? You're in top fighting form!" said the magical bird.
Crusader_Blue glanced at themselves in the mirror. They were dressed in typical medieval knight gear, only instead of the typical silver, their armor was bright blue. "I'm a real crusader! But why is my skin blue?"
The magical bird flew towards Crusader_Blue. The bird looked to be a blue jay, but it was wearing a small tee shirt that said 27 on it. “You’ve become your username, just as have I.”
“What?....Oh!...Blue-Jay27, is that you?”
“Who else would it be?” Blue-Jay27 said, ruffling their feathers.
“So, I have to do what exactly?”
“Save your fellow moderators. Break them from the evil curse put upon them so that they may once again moderate r/FanFiction.”
“How do I do that?”
“Beats me. I just figure there must be some way. I’ve seen enough movies to know how this goes. I believe you have to find them all, and then it will work itself out,” said Blue-Jay27.
“But, what do I do?"
“Start with a walk around the town,” suggested Blue-Jay27.
“Alright, I suppose,” said Crusader_Blue, heading outside. They got some really strange looks, but continued on.
“Cool cosplay!” a few people commented at them.
After an hour of walking Crusader_Blue was fed up. They’d made no progress. They were about to give up when a large crow flew in front of them. It was not your typical looking crow, one of its eyes was a normal crow eye, but the other looked to be a normal human eye, making the crow look very terrifying.
Crusader_Blue instinctively drew a sword which they hadn’t even realized they’d been carrying.
“Whoa. Whoa. Calm down! I’m UchihaCrow, and I’m here to help!”
“Alright. Help how?” Asked Crusader_Blue.
“I am a crow, so that makes me wise and all knowing,” bragged UchihaCrow, spreading their wings. “I see I got the better deal here, bird wise. This cute little blue jay flying above you must be Blue-Jay27.”
“Cute little bird! I’ll show you cute!” said Blue-Jay27.
The two birds flapped their wings and stared into each others eyes intensely.
“You two knock it off! We need to save the rest of the mods,” said Crusader_Blue
“Fine,” said Blue_Jay27. “Let’s get a move on.”
The three mods walked for some time, or rather the one mod walked while the two bird bird mods flew above him.
“I really am all knowing. I know that in order to break the curse, you must fix each moderator,” said UchihaCrow.
“How on earth do I do that?” Asked Crusader_Blue.
“Well, look where we are now. I say we start here,” suggested UchihaCrow.
Crusader_Blue stopped in from of the run down hotel they were walking past. “Here? This is a run down hotel that doesn’t seem to even be opened anymore.”
“You see a normal hotel. But look closer,” said UchihaCrow.
“Westbest. And the address number is 1206…wait….does that mean-’ asked Crusader_Blue
“Is…is this whole hotel westbest1206?” Asked Blue-Jay27
“I believe so,” said UchihaCrow.
“So what do we do now?” Asked Crusader_Blue
“I’d suggest we enter westbest1206,” said UchihaCrow.
“You sure I can? The door looks pretty tight,” said Crusader_Blue.
“Just squeeze through,” said UchihaCrow.
Crusader_Blue squeezed inside of westbest1206's tight entrance, the two birds following behind. “I can’t believe I’m inside of westbest1206 right now. This feels so wrong,” said Crusader_Blue.
“Well, you aren’t the only one, look over there!” said UchihaCrow.
“Is that…” said Crusader_Blue, astonished.
“Yup. Frozenfountain,” confirmed UchihaCrow.
Crusader_Blue went up to the fountain and knocked on it. The ice surrounding the fountain was solid. “Can you hear me, Frozenfountain? Frozenfountain, what are you doing inside of westbest1206?”
“I don’t think they can hear you,” said Blue-Jay27.
“So what do I do?”
“You could break the ice,” suggested UchihaCrow.
“I just tried that. They didn’t respond,” said Crusader_Blue.
UchihaCrow flapped their wings in frustration. “I meant literally breaking the ice surrounding them, not breaking the ice as in starting a conversation.”
“Oh. Well how do I do that?”
“Maybe try hitting it with this bottle of gin?” suggested Blue-Jay27.
Crusader_Blue picked up the bottle of gin. “I’ve never seen this brand before,” they remarked.
“J?” said Blue-Jay27.
“Yes?” said Blue-Jay27.
“Not you! Jnn-j! This must be them!” said UchihaCrow.
“I think you may be right,” replied Crusader_Blue, gently holding the bottle of Gin with letter j on itjin his hand. “So what should I do now?”
“Well, you don’t want them to literally be their usernames, do you? So break them out of it.”
“How?” Asked Crusader_Blue, their brows furrowed in confusion.
“Try smashing jnn-j against Frozenfountain,” suggested UchihaCrow.
“Are you sure that is wise?” Asked Crusader_Blue, doubtfully.
“No, but what have you got to lose?” said UchihaCrow.
“My fellow mods, if this doesn’t work!”
“Well, they can’t exactly moderate as a bottle of gin and a fountain, now can they?”
“Good point. Alright then, stand back!”
jnn-j hit Frozenfountain with a hard force. Frozenfountain remained frozen, but jnn-j shattered into hundreds of pieces.
“Fuck! I broke jnn-j!” said Crusader_Blue
“Working as intended, I think,” said UchihaCrow.
“You sure? I think I killed them,” said Crusader_Blue.
“You didn’t kill me! You freed me!” said a voice.
“Jnn-j! You’re back to your normal self!” said Crusader_Blue happily.
“Yup. That hurt like a son of a bitch though. Felt like all my bones were breaking at once.”
“Hey, glad you’re back! So do I get three wishes now?” Asked Blue-Jay27.
“What? Asked jnn-j, confused.
“You just came out a bottle, so I figure that makes you a genie now,” explained Blue-Jay27.
“Hey, I’m the one who broke him out of the curse, I should get the three wishes!” Protested Crusader_Blue.
“Nobody is getting three wishes!” said UchihaCrow. “He didn’t become a genie.” He paused and then looked jnn-j in the eyes. “You didn’t become a genie, right?”
“No! I don’t think so!”
“That's disappointing...but moving on. We need to find a way to break this fountain.”
“Lets look for some tools or something to shatter the ice,” suggested UchihaCrow/.
“Alright. Lets the three of us split up so we can cover more ground?” asked Crusader_Blue.
“Sure thing. We’ll call you if we find anything,” said UchihaCrow.
Crusader_Blue failed to find anything, but it dawned on them that perhaps they could stick their sword into Frozenfountain. They were about to go tell the others the good news when they heard Blue-Jay27 start chirping for help.
Crusader_Blue rushed to the scene, nearly colliding with Jnn-j..
“Whats wrong?” Crusader_Blue asked.
“Umm…welll…” began Blue-Jay27.
“What! Chirp it out already, Bluejay!” said UchihaCrow.
Blue-Jay27 glared at them. “I well…I” They let out a few chirps before continuing. “I think I have food poisoning.”
“What? How?” Asked UchihaCrow landing down next to the fellow bird.
“I just ate some buttered bread that was on the ground and now my tummy hurts.”
“Well what do you want us to do about it?” Asked Jnn-j.
UchihaCrow started cawing uncontrollably and rolling on the floor.
“Are you laughing! It’s not funny!” exclaimed Blue-Jay27.
“You…you…you ate tereyaglikedi!” Exclaimed UchihaCrow
“What?!” said Crusader_Blue.
“Caw….caw….caw…ha…ha…alright…I think I’m done now,” laughed UchihaCrow.
“What do you mean that Blue-Jay ate tereyaglikedi?” Asked Crusader_Blue.
“tereyaglikedi translates to buttered up in turkish. Seems tereyaglikedi became a nice tasty piece of butter bread,” said UchihaCrow.
“So what do we do now?” Asked Crusader_Blue.
“Well…I think if we wait a few hours tereyaglikedi will come out of Blue-Jay27 the natural way, if you know what I mean,” said UchihaCrow.
“There has to be another way!” Protested Blue-Jay27
“Well, there is, you would have to-”
Suddenly they were cut off as Blue-Jay27 let out screams of pain.
The others looked and could see their stomach was moving and looked ready to burst.
“Uh oh. Anyone remember that scene from Evil Dead?” Asked Jnn-j.
“AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW CHIRPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP AWWWWWWWWW” screamed Blue-Jay27.
“Ha! Looks like I’m gonna be the only bird now,” flexed UchihaCrow.
Suddenly Blue-Jay27’s stomach burst open. The contests flew out, not like a bird, but rather like something from a horror movie. They came at such force that they landed straight at UchihaCrow, breaking his bird brain into tiny pieces. Crusader_Blue and Jnn-J looked on in stupefied horror.
“What happened?” Asked UchihaCrow. “Hey! I’m no longer a crow! I liked being a crow!”
“I feel better now…hey…I’m me again!” said Blue-Jay27.
“Well, that's certainly one way to kill two birds with one stone,” said Crusader_Blue. “Wait, where is tereyaglikedi?"
“Right here. I need a moment. I was some place dark with worms crawling all over me,” tereyaglikedi replied, shuddering.
“Worms?” asked Jnn-j.
“I had strange cravings while I was a blue jay, don’t judge!” replied Blue-Jay27.
“I don’t judge. I had a craving to have somebody drink from my hole, but nobody did,” replied Jnn-J.
“Yeah, and I love being a Crusader and getting to wear this snazzy blue outfit. Are we sure this is really a curse?”
“Do you think Frozenfountain really likes being a frozen fountain?” Asked UchihaCrow.
“Well, they look pretty awesome, don’t they?” said Jnn-J.
“I suppose we should try to return them to their former self. After all, we need to make sure the subreddit has enough mods…wait…whose running the subreddit now?!” asked Crusader_Blue, horrified.
“Probably nobody!” said UchihaCrow
Crusader_Blue let out a string of profanity. “Let’s get on with this then so we can go back to moderating!” Crusader_Blue drew their long thick sword out and roughly shoved it into Frozenfountain.
The other mods took cover as Ice shattered flying in every which direction. Crusader_Blue had such great armor on that the shards that hit them didn’t even hurt.
Frozenfountain emerged from the ice. “I don’t know what just happened, whether that was the worst pain I’ve ever experienced or the best pleasure, but feel free to shatter my ice anytime.”
“Alright. So what now?” Asked Crusader_Blue.
“Well, there is an arcade game over there,” said Blue-Jay27.
“This is hardly the time for games,” said Crusader_Blue.
“I mean…I think that game might be its_game_over_man!” said Blue-Jay27.
“Well fuck. So we just destroy the game then?”
“Yeah, probably,” said Jnn-j.
“Want me to destroy this game while the rest of you look for Mr_Blah, holliequ , SeparationBoundary, westbest1206, and PhoenixQueenAzula?” Asked Crusader_Blue.
“We’re inside of westbest1206 right now, remember?” reminded UchihaCrow.
“Oh yeah. I forgot about that. It sure is cozy in them,” said Crusader_Blue.
—-------------------------
6 hours later:
“Finally! Where have you guys been?!” Asked Crusader_Blue.
“We’ve been busy,” said Blue-Jay27.
Crusader_Blue gave a frustrated sigh. “Well, I’ve been kicking its_game_over_man for hours with no luck. The game won’t even stop doing the demo!” They paused and then asked, “Is that Mr_Blah01?
“Yup.”
“Well, glad you got him back to his normal self, now come help me destroy its_game_over_man.”
“He might look normal but he won’t stop talking!” said Jnn-J
“He seems quiet now….oh wait! You gagged him!” said Crusader_Blue.
“We couldn’t take anymore! He wouldn’t shut up!” said UchihaCrow.
“Well, when did you gag and handcuff him? He’s probably back to normal now,”
“Well, the gag is because he won’t stop talking. The handcuffs are because he kept removing the gag and calling for help,” said Blue-Jay27. They removed the gag and Mr_Blah01 immediately started screaming for help.
“See. He’s not back to normal,” said tereyaglikedi.
“Yeah,” said Blue-Jay27 before placing the gag back in Mr_Blah01’s mouth.
“I think more drastic measures may be needed,” said UchihaCrow, grinning manically.
“What do you mean?” Asked Crusader_Blue, oblivious.
“They mean we should cut his tongue out,” said tereyaglikedi.
“You can’t!” Protested Crusader_Blue.
“It’s alright. He’ll just grow it back and become his normal self again just like the rest of us,” assured Jnn-J.
“Well…if you’re sure,” said Crusader_Blue hesitantly.
Mr_Blah1’s muffled protests went ignored as his fellow moderators begin discussing who should cut out his tongue. It seemed as much as all the mods were in agreement that Mr_Blah1 needed to be fixed, none of them were willing to do it.
“Crusader_Blue, it should be you who carries out the deed,” said tereyaglikedi.
“What? No! I’m not sure sure this will work!”
“You must do it. You’re head mod. It is your duty,” said Jnn-J
“I…fine! Hold him still and open him wide for me,” said Crusader_Blue.
Blue-Jay27 held Mr_Blah1 on one arm, while held the other arm. UchihaCrow took on the hard duty of holding Mr_Blah1’s mouth open and narrowly missed being bitten as they removed the gag.
“This might be over kill, but here goes!” Crusader Blue said.
Crusader_Blue slammed his gigantic sword against Mr_Blah’s mouth, in the process cutting off not only Mr_Blah1’s tongue, but his bottom lip as well.
Mr_Blah gave a terrible noise in response as his tongue was severed from his body.
The moderators waited a few moments, and sure enough, Mr_Blah1 grew his tongue and lower lip back.
“What the fuck guys? Why the fuck would you do that and how the fuck did my tongue grow back?”
“It’s a curse,” replied Crusader_Blue. “Now, how do we beat its_game_over_man?”
Mr_Blah1 eyed the arcade game in front of the, “We could uh you know, actually play the game. Have you tried that?”
“No. I didn’t think that would work. After all, it’s not like I drunk from FrozenFountain to break them out of it,,” said Crusader_Blue
“Well perhaps I could try. Or, who here is the best videogamer? They should try it. Surely once someone wins it won’t be game over and the curse will be broken, right? Or wait, should somebody lose instead? Wait no, that wouldn’t make sense for that to break the curse. Perhaps instead-” Mr_Blah1 said.
“Should we do it again? He’s still talking a lot. Maybe the curse isn’t broken on him,” said UchihaCrow nodding to Mr_Blah1 who by now all the other mods had tuned out.
Mr_Blah1 backed up in fear and stopped their chatter. “I’m sorry! I’ll be as quiet as your typical fanfiction reader on a not safe for work fic!”
“You’d better. We can’t have anybody rebecoming their username,” threatened UchihaCrow.
“Alright, so who here is good at video games?” Asked Crusader_Blue.
“I am,” said Frozenfountain.
“Alright. Try and beat its_game_over_man,” said Crusader_Blue.
The moderators stood by, waiting for the game to load.
The moderators gazed at the scene on the screen. “Huh. I thought it would be something like Final Fantasy!” said Jnn-J.
“Hello Kitty Adventure Island? Huh. Sounds somewhat familiar,” said Crusader_Blue, pretending as though it wasn’t secretly their favorite game.
—---------------------------
Several hours later:
“I can’t believe that took so long!” said Crusader_Blue.
“Sorry. Couldn’t help myself. Had to pet all the kitties, even if they are digital. Never have gotten over the death of my tamagotchi. May he ever rest in peace,” said Frozenfountain.
“So now, what? Asked Crusader_Blue.
“Now we wait. I’m sure its_game_over_man will appear any moment,” said Blue-Jay27/
—-------------------------------
10 minutes later:
“Maybe you have to lose, that way it actually is game over?” Suggested jnn-j.
“Worth a try, I suppose,” said Crusader_Blue
“Alright. Wish we would have tried that first!” said UchihaCrow.
“Fuck! How the hell do you lose at this game?” Asked Frozenfountain.
“Might have to start attacking the cats?” Suggested UchihaCrow
Frozenfountain and tereyagliked gave UchihaCrow death stares.
“He may be right,” said Crusader_Blue. “Try it.”
“I can’t! Someone else play!” said Frozenfountain.
“I’ll gladly do it,,“ said UchihaCrow.
Several dead digital cats and kittens later a message finally came up saying it was game over..
”Finally!” all the mods exclaimed.
Sure enough its_game_over_man appeared in front of them. “Thanks guys. I was stuck on the end screen, couldn’t even play, just stuck on the damn game over screen!”
“Yeah. Well now we gotta still help, holliequ , SeparationBoundary, westbest1206, and PhoenixQueenAzula. We’re inside Westbest, but how do we find the others?” Asked Crusader_Blue
“I don’t know,” said UchihaCrow
“Lets just walk around some, maybe we’ll find them,” said Frozenfountain.
The mods started walking randomly around the hotel, searching for anything that could be one of their fellow mods in disguise.
“We should probably set this place on fire,” said UchihaCrow.
“What?!” said the other mods.
“You know we’re inside Westbest1206, right?” Asked Crusader_Blue.
“Yeah, and as nice as it is, its just wrong. We know what must be done.” said UchihaCrow.
“He’s right!” said Frozenfountain. “Breaking the ice freed me, perhaps setting him on fire will do the same for Westbest.”
“Can’t argue with that logic,” said Crusader_Blue.
“Anyone got a match?” Asked jnn-j
Silence.
“Well fuck!” Exclaimed Crusader_Blue.
“Seems quite a few of you are giving up smoking. What bad timing!” said Frozenfountain.
“Hey, look at that holly over there, its so weird!” said tereyaglikedi, pointing to the weird looking Christmas decoration on the door.
“Huh. Looks like a circle with a small line in it,” said jnn-j
“Is that a Q?” Asked Blue-Jay27.
“Guys…I think we might have found holliequ,” said Crusader_Blue
“How do we turn them back?” Asked Blue-Jay27.
“Well, I hate Christmas. Let me do it,” said UchihaCrow.
“Very well, then,” replied Crusader_Blue
UchihaCrow grabbed holliequ gently, before savagely tearing her asunder. UchihaCrow smiled at their handiwork as they waited holliequ’s return.
“What’s going on here? I felt like I was a plant!” said holliequ.
‘You were, dark curse, yada yada,’ said Crusader-Blue
“Well, now we just have to find the Queen,” said UchihaCrow.
“Any idea where to look?” Asked tereyaglikedi.
“We could go look for a palace, isn’t that normally where a queen would reside?” asked holliequ.
“Sure, lets go out the back way, since we didn’t see anything the other way,” said tereyaglikedi.
It was a tight fit, so one by one the mods exited out of westbest1206’s back door. It took them a while, but soon they were all outside.
A nearly blinding light greeted them all. In the distance they could see a dark haired woman wearing a red robe adorned with gold.
“She really is living up to her username,” said Frozenfountain.
“Did she actually become her favorite character?” Asked holliequ.
‘So lucky!” said tereyaglikedi
“If I’d know we were gonna become our usernames, I don’t think I’d have gone with frozenfountain,”
“Yeah, i would have chosen differently too,” most of the mods replied.
“At least none of you got eaten,” said tereyaglikedi, glaring at Blue-Jay27.
“So, what do we do?” Asled Crusader_Blue
“We have to defeat her, somehow, I suppose,” said jnn-j.
“Wait, what about Separation_Boundary?” Asked Frozenfountain.
“We’ll deal with them after we defeat the queen,” said UchihaCrow.
“How do we do that?” Asked holliequ.
“Well, it should be no problem for me, I’m a Crusader,” said Crusader_Blue, flexing. “My minions, distract her while I find a way to sneak an attack in,” Crusader_Blue commanded their fellow moderators.
“We’ll die!” protested Frozenfountain.
“Just do as I say. I’m head mod,” threatened Crusader_Blue.
The mods did as they were bid, fighting PhoenixQueenAzula. As they dodged the fiery attacks from PhoenixQueenAzula, the sparks from PhoenixQueenAzula set westbest1206 aflame.
While the mods fought, the westbest motel continued to burn until they were a pile of rubble. At that point they were finally restored to their normal self and joined the others in fighting PhoenixQueenAzula.
An hour passed, and then two, the mods were tiring. “‘I want to be done with this and back on reddit, doling out justice to misbehaving subredditers! There’s no place like r/FanFiction!’ said Crusader_Blue
"I know! Think of how many bashing post have remained up, and how many fanfics have probably been posted to the front page of the sub since we've been gone!" said Blue-Jay27.
The anger of thinking of all the rule breaking posts that must be going unpunished set Crusader_Blue into a frenzy and finally they delivered the killing blow to PhoenixQueenAzula.
“That was fun!” exclaimed PhoenixQueenAzula, now transformed back to her normal self.
“Well, now , how do we get back to /r/FanFiction? It’s driving me crazy thinking of all the infractions I haven’t been around to dole out!” said Crusader_Blue
“Same,” agreed the other mods.
“All of you click your heels together three times, and says, “Take me home to /r/FanFiction,” said UchihaCrow.
The mods all began to click their heels and repeat the chant. Holliqu finished their chant and then remembered they had all forgotten something. “Wait…what about Separ-”
Unfortunately it was too late. No sooner then they had said those words had they disappeared, along with the other mods.
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'"There's no place like /r/fanfiction. There's no place like /r/fanfiction. There's no place....' said Crusader_Blue.
"Wake up, Crusader_Blue!” .
“There's no place like /r/fanfiction. There's no place like /r/fanfiction. No place.....”
“Crusader_Blue. Crusader_Blue, dear, It's holliequ!”
Crusader_Blue opened their eyes and gazed upon the familiar face of their fellow moderator. “Oh, holliequ, it's you!”
“Yes, Alpha Mod,” said holliequ.
“Hello, there! Anybody home? I - just dropped by because I heard our fearless head moderator got caught in the big - Well - he seems all right now!” Exclaimed tereyaglikedi.
“Yes. He got quite a bump on the head. We kind of thought there for a minute he was gonna leave us,” said Frozenfountain.
“But I did leave you, my underlings! That's just the trouble. And I tried to get back for days and days!”
“There, there, lie quiet now. You just had a bad dream,” said holliequ.
“No!”
“Sure. Remember me, your old pal, jnn-?”
“Oh,”
“And me, UchihaCrow?”
“You couldn't forget my face, could you?” Asked Blue-Jay27.
“No. But it wasn't a dream. It was a place. And you - and you - and you - and you were there,” said Crusader_Blue. He paused, confusion furrowing his brows. “But you couldn't have been, could you?”
“Oh, we dream lots of silly things when we -” said holliequ.
“No,holliequ, this was a real, truly live place!”
“Why don’t you tell us about it?” Suggested Mr_Blah1.
“Well…I was in this strange world where all of you were cursed and turned into your reddit usernames. Worse, there were no mods left to moderate the sub!”
“Sounds terrible”, said holliequ
Crusader_Blue looked around at all their underlings. All of their fellow mods were here with them, except for one. “Where is SeparationBoundary?” Asked Crusader_Blue.
“No idea, nobody has heard from her since yesterday,” said tereyaglikedi,
And nobody ever did hear from SeparationBoundary again. It turned out that SeparationBoundary was now trapped in the strange world they had left, to fittingly forever be a separation boundary between the fantasy world and the physical world.