Chapter Text
It started as just a cute, modest walk home after another day of classes at Acme Tech, the streetlamps guided a sweet bear cub in thrilly pastels and cute accessories down the sleek streets and sidewalks of Acmetropolis with others following a similar routine…
Unfortunately, the sweet stroll turned into a sinister escape for her life seemingly not at all shortly. Something was stalking the streets, something horrible… Something unholy… Something elegant and foreboding.
The big but sweet bear girl ran, trying to escape what was after her, swiftly turning into stroked, painted alleyways, always changing direction to try and throw her stalker off, her phone couldn't even turn on without automatically playing that one rainbow space cat meme on full volume, so she kept it off.
"What's the matter, my dear? Are you that afraid of me?" The voice of her hunter called out smoothly, softly but the venom in his voice was clear as day.
The bear didn't let her voice go out of her throat, if it did, he'd find her…
"We don't have to play hide and seek… Come out, my dear…" That voice called out again. "The lights shall not protect you forever."
She just ran as fast as her striped knee sock wearing legs could carry, eventually finding an open door to a store and slamming it shut… Soon, a sense of security washed over her, under the belief she was finally safe from… Him.
"M-Mom… I-I wish I can call you right now…!" She whimpered, she got her phone out of her strawberry milk carton purse and turned it on…
Da-da-deda-da-doooo…! … That was better than NYA NYA NYANYANYANYAN on full blast.
She breathed a sigh of relief, now she could just press contacts and call her mom— than somehow this store felt eerily dark, there wasn't anyone else other than her in here… Maybe even thinking about turning on her phone was the worst mistake she'd make today.
The darkness of the store felt like something was there… The girl shinned her phone's flashlight around to really check if she was safe in here… It confirmed nobody was here with her but didn't help soothe her one bit…
"Do you really think you CAN hide from me?" The voice felt closer… He somehow found her?!
She sharply turned to see what was behind her… Her own shadow twisting… Splitting into shadowy beasts as she only had the guts to take a few steps back…
The bear cub screamed as they lunged at her, powerless to do anything about her fate…
The morning sun welcomed a new day in Acmetropolis, and especially to a gray and white rabbit who was still under his carrot patterned covers, gently shifting as the gentle daylight was shone upon him…
Even if the grip of sleep was a bit strong, Ace sensed the growing light from his closed eyelids, soon sitting up rubbing the sleep from one of his beautiful blue eyes, a big stretch came to him instinctively, a cute yawn was added too.
The bunny climbed out of his bed, only haphazardly spreading the blanket evenly on his mattress, being a superhero wouldn't usually allow him to take the time to thoroughly do so.
He didn't recall any dreams he had last night as he brushed his choppers, washed his soft face, and when his morning routine was done walked out into the kitchen still in black shorts and a lightweight shirt that refused to stay on one of his fuzzy shoulders.
Who he found was a cream and white bunny wearing a pastel pink nightshirt with fuzzy blue pajama bottoms making some toast, a duck in a tacky onesie and nightcap just enjoying his pancakes, and a coyote with glasses and a green sleepwear hoodie sipping on a mug of coffee.
"Morning, chief." Tech was the first to greet him, even with a yawn.
"Heyya guys." Ace replied as he fetched a cup for some carrot juice. "Did Rev n' Slam wake up yet?"
"I hadn't seen Slam." Duck had another bite of his pancakes.
Lexi's ears perked up. "Here he comes…" She giggled.
Before any one of the boys at the table could ask which one she meant, a gust of wind messed up their fur and hair up equally with its gentle yet firm smack from the door, which made Duck splash himself with his drink.
The source of it was none other than an hyperactive roadrunner holding some packages and letters, wearing a sporty tank top and sweatpants.
"Morning guys I just got the mail real quick in case the boss calls any second now someone ordered handful of stuff so let's see Lexi Duck Duck Duck Duck Tech Duck Ace me…" Rev chattered as he sorted.
"Remind me to block all shopping sites on Duck's electronics…" Tech shook his head with a small smile.
"Oh please, you should get rid of some of your electronics, Tech." Duck responded in his usual sarcasm.
Today seemed to be a rare day, there were no calls about anything, no criminals… No rouge machines, and not even weird alien parasites or cats from outer space. It was just… Peace and quiet. Even if they have to be on their guard in case it could turn into a usual day with ease.
A day off would've felt like a vacation, or at least maybe whatever's going on today was easy enough for the police to handle without much of their help.
"Man, 'dis day's been uneventful so far." Many vehicles and locals from just outside in the city below went about as usual enough.
"Normally Zadavia would've called by now." Ace yawned as he turned to go get himself some breakfast.
"-And that's all the mail!" Rev held his hips with the sorted piles of mail, which was about ten packages for Duck, two for Lexi, a card from his little brother Rip, a magazine for Ace, some nuts and bolts for Tech… And one box that had no label whatsoever, the bird checked to see if it was just simply on a different sign but he couldn't find one anywhere on it.
"Hey, this one's a no name." Rev examined it, even lending a ear to it to check for ticking which only resulted in silence from it.
"And there's no ticking but we can't be super sure so Tech can ya go scan it real quick to see?"
Tech pulled out a phone-sized gadget from his pocket without saying a word and pointed it at the labelless box, gently moving it up and down for each side… And the results were clean, no explosives or anything to worry about, in fact there wasn't even any bit of metal in the box according to it.
"Everything checked out just fine." Tech answered. "Perhaps open it slowly just in case?"
Rev followed his instruction, the loud rip of the tape that sealed whatever was within the box was the only scary part of unboxing whatever it was, he even took a pair of scissors to snip the tape on the sides of the folds.
Finally, what was in this anonymous box was revealed…
…
It was just a pillow? A sense of relief and disappointment filled the room. It was in a pastel rainbow that consisted of mint, lavender, and a hint of a gentle gold, there was even some cute star embroidery on a corner.
"Maybe it's just a mix-up?" Ace theorized.
"That still wouldn't explain why it came without a label." Lexi responded.
"Oh please, I think we got a fan girl who gave us an anonymous gift!" Duck dismissed it with a smirk.
Before Tech and Rev could say anything, Duck simply took the pillow from the road runner's hands and tossed it into a pile of bean bags nearby without much precaution in mind.
"And still nothing happened!" the mallard twirled around "Seems like secret fangirl to me!"
Ace groaned at Duck's blatant disregard, a part of him assumed he would've done the same to an actual explosive and have no remorse doing so unless it hurt a little kid or Misty Breeze. He could even tell Lexi was probably thinking the exact same thing about the short bird.
Lacking the motivation to head to the lab to work on his gizmos, Tech settled into the pile of bean bags that the pillow was casually tossed into, sitting up initially just looking out the window.
"Maybe we got the day off for once!" Duck smiled. "I was planning on getting back at Tech for all those times he beat me in that one monster collecting game!"
"And that's coming from the duck who keeps spamming moves that don't effect a chunk of my team?" Tech shot back with a smirk, which left the bird in silence from that roast alone.
Just a few minutes later a large Tasmanian devil finally came into the kitchen stretching, Simply having a long sleeved lavender shirt with matching shorts and fuzzy slippers.
"Morning Slam, how'd you sleep?" Lexi greeted at the gentle giant.
"Gahehehehe…! Good." Was the reply of the big guy.
"Somebody mailed us a pillow over where Tech is but other than that everything was quiet and peaceful which seems super rare for us it's like a mini vacation really-" Rev rambled.
Tech lied his head onto the pastel pillow, just taking the moment to relax and enjoy the peace as much as he can before Zadavia came knocking… If she was going to, of course.
In just a few moments, he noticed a gentle feeling in his body, whatever it was, he only felt held by it, not squashed still or launched into the sky, it was some middle ground that was… Just right, like there was some ghostly blanket that only he could feel over himself that comforted him and gave him a feeling of levitation.
A slight move of his arm was quick to dispel the feeling, which soon came back to that arm.
That was strange, given that he just woke up, had breakfast and a cup of coffee… He wasn't sure if this was somehow hypnogogia or at least something similar to yoga-nidra despite his eyes being still wide open. He knew he hadn't been sleeping well for a few days so perhaps that might've been part of the explanation.
Each blink he took went from milliseconds to seconds, his eyelids only grew chronically heavier as he realized how his breathing slowed to a steady rhythm, which was off-putting at how quickly it seemed to be coming one piece at a time but… At the same time… He actually wasn't too bothered by it.
The coyote glanced over to his conversing teammates, his head lazily turning… Haven grown too comfortable to move even just an inch, he hardly payed much attention to what exactly they were talking about, but the sounds of their voices was more like white noise that didn't even annoy him, only comfort him further.
One thing he knew was he felt safe around them, with them he could not be as tense as if he was in the lab creating some delicate prototype or dealing with another criminal or rouge machine.
Soon, Tech's eyes gave up the fight to stay open and closed… His thoughts fading quietly as he finally drifted off, with the last thing he heard being a near affectionate sigh from himself.
…
……
………
A noise gently awoke Tech.
At first he assumed it was just someone dropping something, yet his still heavy eyes told him another story; there was something that didn't belong here, that being a seemingly copy-pasted door that was better off in a retro styled home or something similar.
"Was that there before?" Tech gently got himself off the beanbag.
"Seriously, get even one slice of a Hawaiian pie and Slam will hunt it DOWN!" Lexi giggled, seemingly oblivious the very out of place door just like the others.
"Hey, do you guys see this?" Tech asked, only to fall on deaf ears.
"Umm… HELLO?! There's this that came from nowhere!" he gestured. "Do any of you seriously need glasses or hearing aids?!"
…Was he the only one who could see this? That still wasn't explaining why his team seemed to be deaf to his voice alone.
Without much more hesitation, the coyote opened this out of place door and went inside to investigate by his lonesome. Inside was a seemingly endless, dark hallway, the only lights being stars plastered on the black walls and doors painted in neon colors on the ceiling, clearly out of reach for him.
He didn't even fell a chill down his spine or his anything, just a small feeling of warmth that was strangely enough to keep him calm, curious about all of this even.
The coyote could only describe this as… Entrancing? Orphic? A word like that would describe whatever this was just fine.
Tech briefly turned his head back to see if any of the others had followed him in, only to observe either the door was shut or wasn't even there anymore… He didn't even question or bother, simply pressing ahead on his own.
"Maybe I'll hit the arcade after this." Tech suggested to himself as he traveled deeper into this alien hall, that idea felt like a nice treat after this.
While the team was chattering and bantering, Lexi was the sole one to take notice of how quickly Tech fell back asleep, despite having a cup of coffee just a few minutes ago. And even if he hadn't drank his normal morning brew, it would've taken the canine about twenty five minutes or maybe a little shorter than that, but a look at the clock showed her that only a measly two minutes had passed.
That wasn't normal, even for an workaholic inventor who rarely goes out and about outside of missions such as him, even if he skipped a night or two of sleep it might've just taken him five.
"… Do you find it weird that Tech fell asleep so quickly?" Lexi asked the others. "It only took him two minutes."
"Eh, let him sleep." Ace lazily dismissed. "Must be sleep deprivatin' finally hittin' him like a truck again."
"Hee flee aslee daah quikee?" Slam innocently asked, ignoring Ace's dismissal of it. "Daaz weer."
"Oh please, Slam! Tech should get the hell out of that lab and do non-nerdy stuff more!" Duck rudely butted in. "Keep him from passing out and not waking up until we kicked the troubles butt black and blue!"
"Duck, we've been through 'dis before…" Ace crossed his arms.
As Duck, Ace and Slam were busy with each other with mainly Duck's attitude, Lexi turned her head away to briefly check on Tech and suddenly, her ears perked up with pink energy gently encompassing them as she picked up something rather… Not so ordinary while Rev was just casually making his usual "Super-Duper Booster pick me up shake" ignoring the other three boys.
"I… I think something's going on with Tech." Lexi sensed, which drew the attention of the roadrunner.
"What'cha mean by that Lexi he's just dozin' off on beanbags I mean he didn't sleep well for a few days he totally deserves some shut eye so maybe you're just picking up something normal-ish like what's it called REM rebound or something like-?"
"No, if it was something normal, than I wouldn't feel that—"
The cream rabbit was cut off when something strange happened; What seemed like a collage of cloudy lights manifested above Tech who didn't even stir… Maybe on the contrary, the exact opposite. It was like these lights were keeping the coyote asleep.
"Well, you don't see that everyday." Lexi blurted out in astonishment.
"What in da world is dat?" Ace's eyes widened when he first saw it.
"Don't tell me that stupid hunk of junk galaxy projector turned itself on again!" Duck sarcastically concluded. "We should've taken that stupid battery out ages ago!"
"Duck, I don't think dat's the galaxy projecta…" Ace replied to the mallard in disbelief.
"Preeetty…!" Slam watched on in childlike wonder.
As Lexi's ears tuned and turned to try and decipher what it was she was picking up from this seemingly paranormal light show, who evaded her eyes was the roadrunner driven by curiosity approaching the spectacle to take a closer look himself.
"Rev, it might be dangerous to approach dat!" Ace noticed, warning Rev.
"I… I think someone's calling my name." The bird responded, getting slightly closer in hopes to hear whatever it was better.
"Rev! Get away from that!" Lexi realized and demanded, from the looks of it he was about to get sucked into whatever it was!
He… Could hardly imagine even stepping away, even if he stood right where he was, it'd might've been enough for him to perhaps hear whatever it was just enough to figure out.
But, before he could process it, he felt a sense of weightlessness… His body refusing to move on his command… And just as quickly as it felt, he was lifted up and was supernaturally thrown into it like some trash into a bin!
"REV!" Was the last he heard from the team before he was fully sucked into the curious rift.