Chapter Text
“So if we did this correctly…” Marmalade said slowly.
“Which we may or may not have,” Avid interjected.
“…Then we should be able to send you two back home. And maybe… we can go home as well,” Marm finished, looking first at Scott and Drift, then turning and smiling shakily at Avid.
“And what would be the worst case scenario if you didn’t do it correctly?” Drift asked uneasily.
“Well, you’d probably be dead,” Avid said. Marm poked him.
“Okay, technically yes, the worst case scenario is that it goes wrong and you die, but that is very, very unlucky to happen. The more likely bad scenario is that it sends you to the wrong place.” Marm explained quickly.
“Considering this machine’s previous runs… that seems likely,” Avid admitted.
“But this time, I actually know what I’m doing, and someone isn’t messing with my work this time,” Marm sent a stern glance at Avid, who looked down at the floor ashamedly.
Scott and Drift exchanged glances, a little overwhelmed by all this. “I guess you can start it. If we can’t go home, though, I honestly would rather stay here than be in some random place.” Scott pointed out, tail twitching.
“Agreed,” Drift nodded.
“Well. Let’s hope it sends you to the right place,” Avid chuckled nervously.
He and Marm placed their hands on the levels, took deep breaths, and pulled.
The machine started shaking. Glowing. Purplish light filled the air. Scott and Drift clung to each other in fear.
Avid and Marm made eye contact. Which was how Marm could see her friend’s form start to glow and flicker.
“Avid?” she called uneasily. He glanced at himself and his eyes widened.
“Uh! I don’t think that’s normal!” Avid yelped.
“Something’s going on with Scott, too!” Drift said, and sure enough, the tiefling was also flickering like static on a screen.
“Oh. Oh no, we’re not having that,” Scott muttered, yellow eyes panicked.
Then the shaking and glowing just—stopped. Unbalanced, they all fell over.
Marm lay there, breathing, for a moment before propping herself up with her mechanical arm and looking at the others.
She gasped. Something was very wrong.
Avid, her colleague, her island partner, her friend, her pain in the ass, was different. Way different. He had the same purple eyes and ruffled brown hair, but everything else? Completely different.
For one thing, his pallor was a little paler, unhealthy, and he had dark circles under his eyes. His neck had thick bandages wrapped around it. His clothes looked very old-fashioned and uncivilized; a loose white shirt with a green vest, gray pants, and boots, all untidy like he’d been running around in the woods, with a strap running across his chest holding a wooden stick carved into a point, and a bag slung across his back.
This… different Avid looked around the room frantically. “What happened? Where— wha—”
Avid had always been fidgety, but this was a new level. This guy gripped the stick, eyes darting back and forth, until he saw Scott and shrieked, jumping to his feet and backing against the wall.
Which was when Marm turned and saw that Scott was different, too.
Drift was stammering questions, while this new Scott glanced slowly around the room, much more composed than Avid, but even less likeable. He also had a very old-fashioned sense of style, with a dramatic black cape with a high collar over a red vest and heeled boots, with bluish-white hair, even paler skin, and red eyes, with bonus pointed ears and fangs, like he was cosplaying a vampire or something. He didn’t have the tiefling horns or tail Scott had had before. His gaze was filled with confused disdain.
“What is this? Who are you?” Marm demanded, standing up and brushing herself off.
“What happened to you guys?” Drift added.
“I think we should be asking you that,” the new Scott drawled.
“Where is this place? Who are you? What’s going on?” the new Avid yelped shrilly.
Scott turned to look at him. “Oh, it had to bring you as well? Typical.”
Avid was already trembling, but his shaking increased tenfold at seeing Scott. “S-stay away! Vampire! You—” he looked at Marmalade and Drift, and stopped abruptly, staring at Drift. “Drift! Drift, are you okay? What are you doing here? Why are you—”
“Whoa, hey,” Drift interrupted, stepping away from the two new people uneasily. “I don’t… Sorry, uh, I don’t know you? This version of you?” She glanced at Marm, clearly asking for help.
Marm stepped forward, raising her hands. “Okay. Let’s all just calm down and take a breath and introduce ourselves. I’m Marmalade, you can call me Marm. I’m a scientist, I work with Doak Tech alongside my partner, Avid.”
Avid blinked.
“Not you,” she clarified. “The other… you. Anyway. We were trying to create a portal to get our acquaintances, Scott and Drift, back to their home, but something went wrong and Avid and Scott got swapped, I presume with some other Avid and Scott. Presuming you have the same names.”
Scott looked disgruntled. “So you’re saying there’s some other universe where there’s another Scott and Avid, and you swapped us with them and now there’s some idiots in our homes?”
“Pretty much,” Marm said.
“Yeah, so, I’m Drift,” Drift added. “Do you… know another me where you’re from?”
“Mhm,” Scott answered.
“I do! You’re my roommate. A detective. And really nice and brave,” Avid said.
Drift’s mouth twitched. “A detective? That’s funny…”
“How come?” Avid asked.
Drift shook her head.
“Okay,” Marm said with a sigh. “You guys introduce yourselves now, and we’ll tell you about this world. It’ll take a while for me to get the machine back together, especially without Avid… Let’s just say, you’ll be stuck here for a while.”
-
“Do you think they’ll hear us out?” Shelby asked anxiously, while she and Scott were batting over to town.
“I don’t know. I don’t really care if they do, to be honest. I’m mostly coming to make sure you stay safe.” Scott replied with boredom.
The two bats landed unnoticed in the center of town. They no longer went unnoticed when they turned back into their normal form.
“What are you doing here, vampires? We didn’t invite you in!” Martyn hissed, stepping forward with his hands on his sword.
Cleo held him back. “They haven’t attacked yet,” they reminded him. “Stay calm.”
“What’s going on here? Why is Scott in town?” Avid yelped, darting over from where he’d been exiting his house.
Shelby wrung her hands. “Guys, listen!” she cried. “We don’t mean any harm.”
“Shelby?” Drift spoke out from the gathering crow, her golden-brown eyes glittering. “We’ve been so worried! Are you okay?”
“They’re fine, sheesh,” Scott muttered.
“I’m good,” Shelby replied, feeling slightly bitter that Scott was answering for them. Drift wanted the answer from them, not from Scott. “I’m better than ever, actually! I don’t even need my glasses anymore. I can turn into a bat and fly. I’m super tough now.”
“But you’re a vampire,” Avid said, like the one word might make them reconsider everything. “You drink blood! You can’t want that.”
“I mean, the blood part’s not the greatest, but I don’t have to drink people blood! I’m just eating animals right now.” Shelby tried for a smile, but that just made Avid wince. She realized that he must’ve seen her fangs.
“Okay,” Scott stepped forward, clapping his hands together, making several of the townsfolk mutter amongst themselves. Avid glared at him. “We’re here to talk about a truce.”
“Yeah, sure,” Avid hissed. “A truce probably enthralling us to be your bloodbags.”
“That’s not how thralls work, Avid, you should know that,” Scott chided lightly, like he was correctly a child’s pronunciation.
“Let’s hear this out for a minute,” Cleo said. Legundo and Drift nodded.
“Are you kidding me?” Apo jumped in. “This is Scott, the evil elder vampire or whatever! Why should we listen to him?”
Shelby shifted uncomfortably.
Scott started to respond, but was interrupted by the very air ripping into a swirling purple vortex next to him. The ground started to tremble.
Shelby shrieked and backed away, towards the townsfolk, which made her even more scared, especially with Martyn so close by, but Drift and Avid stepped protectively on either side of her.
Then she saw that Scott was flickering, like his invisibility was malfunctioning. Like something was trying to replace him with pure light.
“Scott…?” She called out. The older vampire, who had jumped away from the portal thing and was now staring judgementally at it, looked at Shelby, and his eyes widened. He pointed at Avid.
Avid was doing the same thing.
“What is going on?” Martyn yelled.
“Everyone—” Cleo started, but then the portal exploded, sending a shockwave of light that pushed everyone down and made their vision go white. Shelby cried out, toppling over.
Their ears rang from all the shrieks and cries, so they could neither hear nor see for a few moments. When everything cleared…
Avid sat up from the ground beside Shelby, except it was not Avid. Because their Avid did not have aviator goggles perched on his forehead, nor did he have a dark blue coat draped professionally over his red-brown button-up and light blue tie, nor did he have gold jewelry and a fancy belt, nor did he have a flexible blue-green peg-leg made of metal.
He also did not usually look so composed. This Avid was startled for sure, and a little disoriented, but once he blinked a couple of times and studied his surroundings, he only sighed and said, “Of course it malfunctioned. Of course!”
Drift laid her hand against Shelby’s shoulder, which was how Shelby realized she had fallen into Drift and was leaning against her. “A-Avid?” Drift stammered.
Avid’s gaze snapped toward her. “Oh, Drift! It brought you too. I almost didn’t recognize you…” he trailed off. “Why are you wearing a trench coat? And cuddling Shelby. How did Shelby get here? She wasn’t anywhere nearby!”
“Um, excuse me, Avid, I’m here too!” Scott’s voice said, but when Shelby looked over, it wasn't Scott either.
His eyes were yellow instead of red, or even blue like they’d been before he gained power. His hair was blue like before, but he wore more simple clothes, a long light green tunic cinched at the waist with a simple belt holding several small pouches, like he was a traveler or laborer or thief or something.
Oh, and he had horns. Curved dark blue horns sprouting from his scalp. And a matching scaly tail flecked with gold.
This Scott had the same self-assured tone, but he did not look so happy. His eyes darted back and forth nervously, and his tail was twitching nervously, almost hiding it against his leg.
“I’m… assuming this isn’t your world,” Avid said slowly. “It looks a little… sorry, primitive, even for you.”
“What—what is this?” Martyn yelled. “What happened to you two? Why does Scott have a tail?”
Scott blinked rapidly and lowered his head slightly.
Avid bit his lip. “Okay,” he let out a breath. “Let me explain. I’m Avid. My friend Marmalade has been working on a machine for a while, which I may or may not have… messed with—”
“Oh, that’s Avid, all right,” Cleo snorted.
Avid cleared his throat, stepping closer to Scott like they were gravitating toward each other. “Which ended up in us being teleported to a world that is almost entirely void. But that’s not important. So we made the machine again—”
“Oh my god, you’re just as stupid as the other one,” Apo groaned, dropping her head in her hands.
“Okay, yeah, don’t know what you’re talking about, anyway. We made the machine again, accidentally teleported Scott and Drift to our world, we tried to get them back, and that’s how we appeared.” He looked at Drift. “But you’re not… the same, are you?”
Drift shook her head, befuddled.
“Okay, whatever, why does Scott have horns and a tail? Where are the original Avid and Scott?” Martyn demanded again.
Scott shrank away further, wrapping his tail around his leg.
Avid crossed his arms. “Okay, don’t be all nosy and judgy about his tail, he’s sensitive about it. And… Wait, you’re saying there were other versions of us here?”
“Yeah,” Shelby spoke up. “They started flickering weirdly and then just… disappeared and were replaced with you. How…”
“Okay,” Avid rubbed his temple. “Okay. This is weird.”
“You knew Shelby’s name,” Drift interrupted. “If there’s another Drift on your world, is there another version of everyone?”
“Not everyone,” Avid responded, studying the townsfolk. “But, yes, I do know a Shelby. They’re part of the Birch Kingdom, though, while me and Marm and Scott and Drift are Dark Oak. They’re nice, but they’re kind of a… Roman god on a vacation, gone wrong, if that makes sense?”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Legundo answered slowly, studying both of them.
Avid glanced at him. “Oh! You’re there too. You’re part of the Jungle Kingdom.”
Legs looked puzzled. “Okay, why are your ‘kingdoms’ separated by trees?”
Avid hesitated. “Well, whenever a person first arrives on the floating-island world, they get put into a kingdom that has a monopoly on a certain type of tree. We use those trees as money, basically.”
“Wood for money?” Cleo repeated skeptically.
“I know, it’s so weird,” Scott spoke up. “Makes it easier to get stuff, though.” He smiled knowingly.
“It’s very uncivilized, I know,” Avid agreed, putting a hand on his chest. “Me and Marm did a lot of amazing work there, though.”
“Although,” Scott continued, ignoring Avid’s boasts. “Judging by the fact you all got your weapons out, I can’t say you seem all that civilized, either.”
That prompted some mutters in the crowd. “Look,” Martyn started. “Scott, the other you, the one you got swapped with, was not a good person. He wasn’t a person at all.”
Scott wrapped his arms around himself. “Oh, so you’re judging a guy by his species, again?” The more time that passed, the more sure of himself he seemed to get. Perhaps it was the learning of new information.
“No, seriously,” Apo said. “He was a vampire and is trying to turn or kill us all.”
Avid started laughing. “A vampire?”
“Don’t tell me you don’t believe in vampires,” Drift said, standing up and helping Shelby to her feet.
Scott poked Avid’s shoulder. “Avid. Avid. If I, a tiefling, can exist, then so can a vampire. Maybe not in your universe, but in this one.”
Avid’s laughter died down a bit, though he was still giggling a little. “Yeah, I guess. Still! Seems ridiculous.”
“You’re the one who has been screaming about vampires since the start!” Martyn snapped in disbelief.
“Oh, you mean the other me? Seriously! I am not a vampire-obsessed maniac, and Scott is not a vampiric supervillain.” Avid blinked suddenly, as if he was realizing something. “…but said maniac and supervillain may be back in our Kingdom right now with Marm and Drift.”
Scott stiffened. “…You guys didn’t happen to be exaggerating about other-me’s dangerousness?”
“Unfortunately, no,” Cleo said. “Though he’s not an uncontrolled monster. He’s not going to kill anyone right away. But he’s very manipulative and clever, which is probably worse.”
“That does sound like me. Without the evil part, of course,” Scott mused.
“Is the other-Avid dangerous?” Avid asked.
Everyone looked at each other. “Depends,” Cleo answered. “Now, he’s pretty uncontrolled, very paranoid, very impulsive. I think he does want to help, but he is terrible at helping and is more likely to hurt.”
“Oh no. Oh no.” Avid started to pace in a circle. “I need to… Ugh, I don’t have any of my notes!”
“Maybe we should learn more about this world,” Scott suggested. “Then we can figure out how to leave.”
Avid took a breath. “Good point. Tell us about your world.”