Chapter Text
1x1x1x1 really didn’t have time to deal with anything this early in the morning, but whoever the hell was running around outside at 6:29 AM had other plans. They rolled out of bed and grabbed their swords, willing to kill anyone, even the child, for another half-hour of sleep.
What they saw when they opened the door was just a little weird.
“Doe? What the hell are you doing!?”
John Doe, who seemed to be dressed like a pirate, stopped in his tracks, with a crazed expression on his face.
“That’s no way to speak to your CAPTAin- WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU?!”
No, this wasn’t Doe. As far as anyone knew, he wouldn’t run around in a pirate costume at 6 AM, and he REALLY wouldn’t try and piss off 1x before breakfast.
Actually, maybe he would, but that’s besides the point.
1x decided to introduce themselves, because usually after they did that, people would run for their lives.
“I’m 1x1x1x1. You know. The hacker.”
The person in front of them didn’t recognize the name.
“Never heard of ya.”
“Have you been living under a rock?!”
“No, I’ve been living inside THAT DAMNED WHALE!!!”
It looked like today would be a very long day…
Guest 666 was walking to the main cabin, when they saw a figure standing ominously at the edge of the forest. It almost looked like a winged statue of- Noli?
Who in their right mind would make a statue of that guy?
Noli did have an ego the size of the sun, but he also had no artistic talent, as it’s hard to do that kind of thing when you’re the sun.
Suddenly, the figure snapped its head in the direction of Guest 666, and began to speak in a multilayered, glitchy voice:
“Why h4v3 y0u summ0nn3d m3?”
“Graah?” (What are you talking about?)
“D0 n0t pl4y g4m3s w1th m3, m0rt4l. D0 y0u kn0w wh4t y0u’r3 d34l1ng w1th?”
“Mrrr?” (Are you drunk or something?)
“Th1s 1s y0ur l4st ch4nc3, h34th3n. T3ll m3 h0w y0u g0t m3 h3r3 w1th0ut my f0ll0w3rs’ h3lp.”
“Hrr.” (What am I even supposed to tell you…)
Noli began to rise into the air, hovering in front of Guest, because apparently this version of him can just fucking do that.
”S0 b3 1t. Y0ur l1f3 3nds h3r3.”
“Mragh.” (I wish. Good luck with that.)
A few awkward moments passed, but nothing happened. Noli was very confused.
“1t 4pp34rs th4t s0m3th1ng 1s l1m1t1ng my p0w3r…”
“Grrrrh.” (Yeah, you just got nerfed. Looks like I don’t get to die today.)
About 10 minutes later, everyone had gathered at the dinner table, where Azure was holding his head in his hands, defeated:
“You know what, I give up. I’m not even going to try and find out why this is going on.”
The three “normal” killers nodded their heads in agreement.
Then, they realized that the numbers didn’t add up. 3 normal people, 3 strangers (There was a woman holding a meat cleaver frantically searching for breakfast sausages in the freezer, but nobody felt like questioning her at this point), someone was missing.
“Nraggh?” (Wait, where’s C00lkidd?)
In another case of perfect timing, (and definitely not just me wanting to go on with the narrative), everyone heard someone walking up to the table.
“This place is ridiculous…”
It was a man wearing a fedora and trench coat, holding a fluffy white bunny under one of his arms.
1x laughed,
“Took you long enough to noti- FUCK, even the kid’s been replaced?!”
Azure lifted his head up, and said:
“I was going to tell you to stop screaming swear words, but given that C00lkidd is now a grown man with a northern New Jersey accent, it’s fine.”
Meanwhile, at the survivor cabins, things were also slightly off. For instance, Taph had just been turned into a marketable plushie, Two Time was a literal catgirl catthey, Chance had dog ears, and Elliot was questioning his life choices that led him up to this point as he tried to keep things under control.
“Two Time, c’mon, don’t try to unravel Taph!”
Two Time simply stared blankly at Elliot with a piece of fabric in their mouth, and scampered away on all fours.
“Want me to go after them, woof?”
Somehow Chance had retained his human mind, but with the added consequence of needing to add a bark to the end of every sentence like it was his Animal Crossing villager catchphrase.
“No, it’s not worth it.”
“Hey guyssss! Who’s ready to PARTY?!”
Noob had walked in, dressed in an early 2000s Scene outfit, and almost made Elliot think that someone must’ve built a time machine in the basement.
“Noob, it’s 7 in the morning.”
“Alright, alright. By the way, I think Guest 1337 is cosplaying Goku, but like, he’s really in character.”
“God fucking dammit…”
“Language!” Shedletsky shouted from the doorway. No, wait, that wasn’t Shedletsky, he sounded different, but before anyone could ask who this was, Builderman chimed in:
“It’s fine, Telamon.”
Everyone’s attention shifted to the admins, except for Two Time, who was hiding under the table, trying to sleep.
Builderman looked almost the same, just with a yellow and blue hard hat and an orange shirt, but Shedletsky? He was almost a different person, most of his identifying features covered by a hooded robe. The only things that anyone recognized were the wings on his back (Which brings into question why anyone recognized the wings, as the Spectre never let Shedletsky have them), and the curly brown hair poking out from under the hood.
Everyone was shocked, but some were more shocked than others, namely, Noob:
“Waitwaitwaitwait- SHEDLETSKY WAS TELAMON THIS WHOLE TIME?!”
Taph stood up, stuffing still leaking from their earlier battle with Cat Time, and expressed their confusion:
(Noob, dude, how did you manage to live this long without figuring it out? It’s like- HQ’s 2nd worst kept secret, only under the fact that Doombringer committed war crimes in the 1870s!)
“Taph, th’ hell are ya goin’ on about?”
(NOTHING)
Builderman looked at Telamon, looked at the perplexed survivors, and then back at Telamon.
“Telamon. Go get Dusekkar, will ya?”
The other admin left, and Builderman waited until his footsteps faded away to address the survivors:
“I hate ta ask this of y’all, but can ya be a little… uhm- careful- ‘round him? He ain’t all there, if ya know what I mean.”
Elliot sighed, realizing this was far above his pay grade.
“Is he gonna kill us?”
Builderman hesitated, trying to find the best way he could say this:
“I can’t guarantee it.”
Chance laughed nervously:
“Dude, why’d you hire him then, ruff?”
Builderman simply shook his head, and left the room.
The killers, having gotten a little more adjusted to the random people who were now living in their house, were trying to explain how the Spectre’s realm actually worked to their guests.
“So you mean I get to kill people every day with absolutely no consequences?!”, Yi Xi asked.
“Yeah, it’s pretty great.”
“Can I eat them afterwards?”
Azure was a little concerned by this, but this wasn’t the first time someone with a taste for humans stayed in the cabins, and the last one was pretty harmless, albeit only for the first 12 hours.
“Uhhh- I guess you could.”
While everyone else was in the emergency Q&A session, the deity floating in the corner, because apparently he’s too good to stand on the floor, was thinking of his followers. Surely they’d be fine on their own, but Noli didn’t want them to be TOO fine on their own, given that they were supposed to be loyal to him.
But then again, the version of him from this world had to be capable of taking care of the cult, after all, he was another Noli.
There was no way that any instance of Noli was anything other than an extremely intelligent and calculating being, right?
Another Noli, OUR Noli, opened his eyes, only to be met with a group of people wearing white drama masks surrounding him.
Oh, fuck, what kind of drugs did I take last night?
He quickly remembered that he hadn’t taken anything, and that sent him into a minor panic, only amplified when the crowd bowed down to him.
All except for one, who was distinguished from the others by a silver crown, not too dissimilar from Noli’s.
“My Lord, it appears the ritual was a success, albeit unworthy of Your greatness. We beg for Your forgiveness.”
Noli recognized the man’s voice, but couldn’t quite place it. There was no time to think about it too hard. Noli had to come up with something real quick in order to convince the cult he was actually their god.
“Y0ur-our d3dic@t-ation 1s en-3nough f0r m3.”
Hopefully I’m supposed to be a merciful deity…
“I am eternally grateful, my Lord. The reason we have called You before us is so we may seek Your guidance.”
Dammit, the hell am I supposed to tell him? Ugh, I’m not qualified for this-
“A|| 1’d b3 able-le t0 t@lk t0 th3m about-out i$ th3-h3 FNAF l0r3…”
He then realized he said that last part out loud. He was screwed.
“I apologize, but what is this “FNAF” you speak of?”
Nobody knew what Noli was talking about, maybe he could actually salvage this.
“It- 1t- It i$ a t@le fr0m long-ong ag0, on3 wh1ch-ich I kn0w ver-ery w3ll. 3xcept f0r wh@t cam3 af-after P1zzeria-ia s1m. D3aling-ing with-h th@t 1s n0t worth-orth my t1me.”
An apprentice scribe was hastily scribbling down these words, adding the note: “Post Pizzeria Sim=Blasphemy” to the page.
“Th3 $tory-ory begins-ins 1n @n anc1ent ag3 know-own a$ th3 ‘70s, w1th-ith tw0 men, buis-isne$$ part-artn3rs, n@med-amed H3nry Em1ly, and W1ll-illi@m Aft0n. Th3y h@d th3 id-idea t0 star-art @ fam1ly-amily r3sturaunt-aunt and ent-ent3rt@inment v3nue, th@t they-ey w0uld ¢all-all “Fr3db3ar’s fam-am1ly d1n3r”.”
“CHA, MAGANERA!”
“DOE, I DON’T SPEAK SPANISH!”
Azure had drawn the metaphorical short straw, so he was stuck monitoring 1x1x1x1 and Captain Ahab while they tried to kill each other. Somehow, 1x had managed to convince everyone that Doe needed to test out her moveset before going up against the survivors, but Azure had a sneaking suspicion that they were doing this to get back at Ahab for waking them up so early.
Either that, or they couldn’t wait 2 hours for their round to start so they could stab someone. 50/50 chance.
Azure wanted to go and do something more productive, but the last time 1x was left unsupervised in a fight, Noli died of blood loss. He doesn’t even have blood, (at least, not anymore), so the leading theory as of today is that 1x has the ability to give people imaginary blood, just so they can bleed out. Wait, what was I saying? Oh, yeah, they’re dangerous as hell.
While Azure was contemplating this extremely obvious fact, the fight had gotten just a little out of control, and one of 1x’s daemonshanks had just gained a one-way ticket to Doe’s vital organs.
However, the sword instead pierced the ground, as Ahab disappeared before 1x could land the blow. Azure breathed a sigh of relief, because this meant he wasn’t going to be partially responsible for a murder today, (He’d prefer to be fully responsible), but the other killer was disappointed.
“Oh, come ON! I was just getting to the good part!”
“It’s just one kill. Calm down.”
“Yeah, but I don’t get to kill Doe that often…”, 1x grumbled.
“That’s not even remotely true, you guys have homoerotic fist fights every Thursday.”
“It’s not enough- wait, what did you say?”
“Nothing.”
The killer spawned in the thematically accurate Pirate Bay map, but this 10e-1 IQ move by the Spectre was completely lost on Doe.
“THAT SWORD WAS SUPPOSED TO PIERCE MY HEART, MINE!!!”
After a brief mental breakdown over NOT dying, Ahab collected himself as best he could, and remembered what she’d set out to do today:
Kill that fuckass whale the survivors.
As luck would have it, one was standing still directly in his line of sight. They looked a little odd, with a metallic shell and wires poking out of them.
Is this the robot they were telling me about?
“I'LL GUT YOU LIKE A FISH!”
The survivor didn’t react when Ahab started running towards them, nor when she started slashing at them with the Gasharpoon, sending sparks flying in all directions.
“Tell me… is your belief unbreakable? IS IT ABSOLUTE?!”
Elliot and Chance were watching this from afar, unsure of what they were actually witnessing.
“Is he- fighting a generator?”
Chance nodded silently in agreement, unsure whether he should laugh or run away, this was the killer, after all.
“Mrow…”, Cat Time had also joined the crowd, but this time, they had a dagger in their mouth. Have you ever given a cat a dagger? If you’re in the 0.71% of the population who has, you’d know it’s a bad idea. Elliot is somehow part of that 0.71%, and he knew he needed to get the weapon away from them before something went wrong.
“Heyyy, buddy, uhm, can you drop the knife?”
Two Time just stood there, either unable to understand Elliot, or, more likely, just straight up ignoring him. The pizza boy had to figure out something, it’s not like he could just let the cat have a bladed weapon. Maybe bribery would work?
“I’ll give you some pizza, but only if you drop it.”
The feline survivor seemed to consider it for a moment, but ended up choosing the dagger over a hot slice of pepperoni pizza. Elliot was losing hope, but Chance had an idea:
“What if I exchange my gun for it, arf?”
“No! What- that’s like, the worst possible thing we could do!”
“But cats can’t use guns, boof!”
“They have opposable thumbs, they can do it! I’m just gonna take it from them.”
So, Elliot ran up to Two Time, grabbed them by the neck, and tried to pry the dagger out of their mouth. Unfortunately, the Spectre also granted the cat claws, which were now put to good use scratching wildly at Elliot.
“CHANCE, HELP ME!”
Chance tried his best to separate the two, but with no luck, as Cat Time had no intention of backing down.
In all of the chaos, the survivors had forgotten one minor detail:
Captain Ahab had now reduced the generator to a heap of scrap metal, and had quickly noticed the literal cat fight going on in the distance. Why were the survivors trying to kill each other?!
“What, are they trying to take the GLORY OF THE KILL FROM ME?!”
Doe fired off a corrupt energy, serving as a wake-up call for the trio, or maybe it’d be described better as a blackout call for Chance, who, after a direct hit on top of 14 stacks of weakness, was impaled and died on the spot.
Elliot decided to take his chances (not the actual Chance, mind you, dragging a body around would be a bit of a disadvantage) with letting Two Time have their dagger, and retreated to the safety of Not Fucking Here.
Not Fucking Here turned out to be in a small walled structure, with a generator, an alien robot, and a demigod in the middle.
“Gleep glorble zorp.”
“I have no idea what you’re saying.”
“Blorbol zingle bingle…”
“Do you need help, or something?”
“I might.”
Elliot had shown up, with torn clothing, and scratch marks all over his skin.
“GLORP LAZ PINTLE!!!”
This was the first time either of the new survivors had seen the sheer brutality of the Forsaken realm first hand, but not exactly in the way they’d expected.
“Is the killer on your tail?”, Telamon asked, making the most obvious and reasonable guess as to why Elliot looked like he’d been sent partially through a paper shredder. However, Telamon severely underestimated the sheer STUPIDITY of the Forsaken realm, as Elliot’s answer was pretty unexpected.
“No, Two Time attacked me. The killer got them and Chance.”
This actually made Telamon a little less scared, (Alienronica, on the other hand, was shaking in her metaphorical boots), as this meant that maybe he wasn’t going to be the most incompetent person here. That hadn’t been the case in a long, long time.
After Captain Ahab finished turning the cat and dog into corruption (pallidation?) kebabs, he found himself alone, with no targets in sight. Ignoring the VERY OBVIOUS TRACKING ABILITY she had at her disposal, she decided to have her crew track them down.
“OARSMEN, CHART YOUR PATH TO THAT WHALE!”
“…”
“Wait where the fuck is my crew”
Her crew, as you may have guessed by now, was still living inside THAT DAMNED WHALE, and trying to figure out what had happened to their captain, as he’d been replaced by a man with an obsession that almost rivaled that of their captain’s drive to kill the Pallid Whale:
MAPS.
“Seriously?! You’ve been in here for AGES, and you haven’t drawn ANY maps?!”
“Don’t tell us how to do our jobs! You haven’t spent a DAY on the open ocean, you’d be eaten alive before you left port.”
If John Doe wasn’t so dead set on pissing off the sailors that were currently keeping him tied to a chair, he may have noticed that Builderman, or, as he was apparently called: 37% of Ahab’s impulse control First mate Builderman, didn’t have a southern accent, which was cursed as hell.
“We’re not on the open ocean, we’re- WAIT, HOW DID A WHALE EVEN GET THIS BIG ANYWAYS?!”
“Need me to deal with him?”
“Go ahead, Jane.”
Before John could question who Jane was, he got clonked on the head with the blunt end of a harpoon, knocking him out cold.
First mate Builderman breathed a sigh of relief, as he was temporarily freed from the stranger’s constant questions. Crew harpooner Jane shared the same sentiment:
“God, he’s fucking annoying.”
Now, back to our favorite little universe (yes our), where Ahab was prowling around Pirate Bay, looking for any sign of the survivors. It wasn’t going well, but that’s pretty expected for someone who can’t find his tracking ability, like, girl, it’s RIGHT THERE.
What he DID find was a graffiti drawing of him on a wall, which seemed to be pointing the Gasharpoon straight at the real thing. But something was missing.
Why’d they draw me bald?
Doe wasn’t the most vain person to begin with, in fact, she tended to neglect her appearance with the reasoning that good looks don’t kill whales, but there was a can of spraypaint right there, and it’d only take a few seconds to correct it…
“Yeah, I can fix this.”
Unfortunately, just as Ahab made the first few- strokes? Sprays? What do you even call it? Alienronica found him, and she had some… interesting things to say to the person who seemed hell-bent on ruining her hard work.
“SCHLOOPLEGLORP NINZ BILPOBLOR PLOOBLEBLOINK!!!”
This was probably the worst possible thing Alienronica could’ve done at this point, because not only was Ahab a murderous, hotheaded sea captain, she was a murderous, hotheaded sea captain who, for some godforsaken reason, was fluent in alien. Needless to say, he didn’t appreciate it when Alienronica started cursing her out.
“WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU JUST CALL ME?!”
We may never know the answer, as before the alien could say anything, she was slide kicked into a conveniently placed generator, and ended up undergoing what many of her kind had on this planet- being dissected by THE MOTHERFUCKING CIA- I mean- a sailor. The attack didn’t stop until Alienronica was in too many pieces to count, the last thing she heard being Ahab’s maniacal laughter.
“I’ll have your heart on my harpoon…”, he said between fits of laughter, somehow unaware that robots don’t have hearts.
Elliot was fearing for his life as he walked towards the house near the edge of the map, trying to find a medkit.
Elliot was also nowhere near the killer, and he knew it.
What he was instead afraid of was the really ominous looking man in a robe walking beside him, who Builderman had vaguely warned everyone about earlier that morning. Elliot had tried to convince Telamon that he’d be fine on his own, but the demigod insisted that they stick together. Safety in numbers, that kind of thing. In reality, Telamon’s presence made Elliot feel as if he could be stabbed at any given moment.
“Is something wrong?”
Elliot froze, trying to think of a response that wouldn’t get him killed.
“No, nothing. Just a little nervous.”
Telamon seemed to accept this answer, and by accept it I mean he didn’t react violently, instead he appeared to be… disappointed? Suspicious? Elliot was just guessing, it’s hard to figure out someone’s emotions when their face is obscured by a hood.
Does he know I’m on to him now? Was he actually gonna kill me? What’s his deal?!
Telamon was, in fact, disappointed, but he tried his best not to let the other survivor know.
Am I not good enough for him or something? Is he scared I can’t defend him? Does this guy not know who I am?!
Thankfully, he’d soon be interrupted by something a lot easier to deal with than interacting with people.
That something being the killer, who was heading straight towards the two survivors.
Telamon drew his sword, and turned to Elliot.
“You go, I’ll hold her off as long as I can.”
“We’ve only got 30 seconds, let’s just run!”
Elliot’s attempt to talk some sense into the other survivor was in vain, as Telamon just repeated his command, this time sounding much less friendly:
“I SAID GO. NOW.”
Elliot took the hint, and, not wanting to have an argument with the deity who had some kind of death wish, grabbed the medkit on the ground and took off, just as Telamon and Ahab squared up for a fight to the death.
“We shall see whose evil is greater!”, Ahab yelled to the empty air in front of her. Wait. Empty? He looked up, only to see Telamon in the air, a wide smile just barely visible under his hood, about to stab the killer in probably the most dramatic way possible.
Fortunately, (or unfortunately, depending on who you’re rooting for), the captain wouldn’t be shanked today, as Telamon ended up stabbing nothing but the ground. He wasn’t even close.
“Shit.”
Why is it all just bandaids?! Where’s the gauze? Not even any aspirin?
Elliot knew very well the pointlessness of critiquing the evil entity keeping him trapped in hell’s choices in first aid kits, but that wasn’t going to stop him. There’s only so many bandaids you can open up before losing your mind, after all, and Elliot felt like he was about to reach his limit.
Before he could start another villain arc, though, he heard the all-too-familiar sound of someone’s head being stomped on.
Shoot, they got him.
He tried his best to use the medkit quickly, but the bandaids kept getting stuck to themselves whenever he peeled off the backing. Eventually he just gave up, the health wasn’t worth the mental pain.
He’d soon regret this decision, at least, he would’ve, if it weren’t for the fact that, only moments after getting up, he was impaled by a spike, finishing him off.
Ahab hadn’t even been aiming for Elliot, she’d just been using the tried-and-true method of firing off an attack in a random direction and hoping it hit someone. She wasn’t complaining, but it would’ve been nicer if he’d been hunting Elliot down himself. 6 down, 1 to go. 2 if you counted the Pallid Whale, but that wasn’t really an option right now.
The position of the last survivor was revealed to her, but, instead of seeing the small yellow outline run away from her in terror, they appeared to be getting closer. The killer just stood there, confused, until the survivor was directly in her line of sight.
If Dragon Ball had existed in the Limbus Company universe, maybe Doe would’ve been scared, but, unfortunately, he did not have the power of background knowledge (also known as a middle school weeb phase) on his side.
Yes, the last man standing was none other than Son motherfucking Goku, who appeared to be completely unafraid of the person who’d just killed 5 people in less than 5 minutes.
“Hey! I heard you’re pretty strong!”