Chapter Text
Session #3
Webmaster: EavesdroppingEarpopper has joined the chatroom.
EavesdroppingEarpopper: Let me get this straight, your base of operations is a toon’s basement? I knew you were a credditor, but I thought you at least had some dignity.
Webmaster: BoastfulBrainiac has joined the chatroom.
BoastfulBrainiac: Hilarious, Benjamin Biggs. Yes, I wiped off the door handles already, they’re sanitized. Would you get down here now? I’d personally prefer if no one else had to wait any longer.
EavesdroppingEarpopper: Never thought of you for being the kind to care about other people. Where’s the real Brian?
BoastfulBrainiac: Benjamin, I swear to cog, just get down here.
Webmaster: BoastfulBrainiac has left the chatroom.
Benjamin put his phone away in his burgundy trenchcoat's pocket. He could hear footsteps in the grass. He looked towards the sound to find a blue, ugly cat stepping out of the school house. It looked exhausted. And disgusting. Even worse when it raised up a gloved hand towards Ben.
“Keep your mangy gloves away from me.”
“Oh- sorry," Their ears went back, "I was just going to ask that if you guys were going to have a secret meeting down there, if you could please keep it quiet? My students are having a test right now and I don’t want them to be distracted.”
“Oh, o’ course!” Ben feigned a sweet voice, “Is this a more suitable volume, mate?”
The appropriately named Bellringer shook his head, fast and loud, “EY KIDDOS!! School's out early for the day!!” And they smiled at the toon teacher as the young classroom ran out of the school. He couldn't help but sneer as it desperately chased after its newly rogue class and Benjamin ducked into the schoolhouse basement.
Behind the creaky doors was the schoolhouse basement. Benjamin had been down here before but the awful place never got better. Benjamin would offer to clean the place for Brian but then again, only a masochist would actively clean this horrendous place. The walls were covered in dust and just from the doorway, Benjamin could see at least 5 cobwebs, maybe 6 if they dared to look under the torn-up seats. Now, Benjamin wouldn't call themself a clean freak, but, they found it concerning that they were the ONLY one panicking about the mess. Did all their fellow managers live in a barn!? Why was he the ONLY ONE worried about all of this!?
Brian was the first to notice him, straightening his back. “FINALLY, took you long enough, Benjamin Biggs, I'm not High Roller, I cannot handle 32 pairs of eyes on me for as long as him,” He said to Benjamin characteristically condescendingly.
“I’m just what you’d call fashionably late, luv.” Brian rolled his eyes dramatically, “Well, whatever, as long as we can finally start.” His hands shifted behind his back.
Benjamin got himself cozy besides Misty, she made no fuss about him standing beside them. They mostly messed with her black raincoat. Lightning bolts jumped between clouds in her light blue hair. She tugged her black mask further over her face. Her yellow, star-like eyes kept looking over to Prester, the Witch Hunter, as he glared back twice as angry.
Brian stood straight.
“Now then, I’m certain we are all wondering what exactly is going on. Why have I so foolishly invited all of my fellow managers, all in the same room, knowing that they could all fight or even worse, destroy the structural integrity of my work place.” Yes, the basement he so brilliantly stole from the toons like a cog with the self respect of the banana peel on a Bottom Feeder. “Well! The answer is simple, I-”
A soft chime rang throughout the basement from a very obvious source.
Bellringer comforting Misty by ringing his bell. Misty gave him a smile under their mask.
“AHEM. Do you mind, Benjamin Biggs?”
“Prester was scarin’ Misty. ‘he was scared, I was simply calming ‘er down, no need to get your wires in a twist.”
“SHE is a WITCH! A HARPY! An obstreperous HAG! A curse upon these lands!!” Prester aggressively pointed at Misty, a flame starting at his fingertip. “AND YOU!! YOU AND YOUR BLASPHEMOUS, IMPIOUS PUPPET SHOW ARE JUST AS ABHORRENT AS SHE IS!!” Benjamin had been yelled at enough by now to naturally tune out all of Prester’s words.
“A’ least tat puppet sho’ is funnay compared to yewr averagings, Prestahr.” Spruce said.
“HOW DARE YOU?? YOU VITUPERATIVE BARK-EATER!!”
“Bark-eatah is a new one! Weirdly childish though for Prestahr, ey, Chip?”
“I had to use up my extremely limited paid time off for this…” Chip’s arms were crossed, one finger tapping his arm. “I don’t have the patience to be stuck in this basement, listening to Prester yelling.”
“It’th not tho bad! Briiian built a brand new mathhine!! One that he worked thuper hard on and didn’t methth up on!!”
“Do not patronize me.”
“Yea, Buck, he’s got a fragile ego, didn’t we learn anything from Maypril Fools 2025? He was sooo jealous!”
“Gr-Graham-”
“I’m just telling the truth, my firecracker.”
“I-It’s not that, it’s just I-I don’t want you to add more heat to the fire…”
“Ooh, the fighting. They’ll clear up. Brian knew what he was getting into, because he’s soo smart.”
“You know, I wa’n’ expectin’ everyone to immediately start tearin’ each other apart when I rang my bell.”
“Something shells me you wanted to sea everyone start fighting, Ben.” Mary stared at Benjamin with a disapproving look.
“Maybe a lil’.” And they reveled in the beginning chaos. Yes...fight, all of my fellow managers. Fight... evil hand rubbing.
“I’m not surprised…” The antenna on Cathal’s hat twitched, “My dad says that everyone in the Sellbots is way too willing to start throwing punches…” Tawny yawned, already tucking herself in with a blanket he apparently brought with them. “This is an awful place to sleep…….the carpet is horribly itching, Brian." "I DID NOT INVITE YOU TO SLEEP-"
“Well, isn’t this just rude. You youngins are worse than my grandkids hopped up on WD40. Mr. Brian is trying to-” A telephone cut noise could be heard as a different cog interrupted Belle.
“You and ya grandkids, Belle, what about ya real kids, ey? Ya got any of those?”
“Hey! You talk the same way about your satellites, Cosmo.”
“Belle, darling, don’t give him the jukebox. He’s only gonna keep playing his nasty beats on it. Me personally, I think we should all turn down the volume, that includes you, Buck.”
“Aww! What?? I didn’t thay nothing too bad!” Buck laughed into his metal beak, “I wath jutht complimenting my old friend, Brian!!” He roped his arm around Brian, pulling the buggish cog in for a noogie.
“YOU ALL HAVE YOUR HEADS UP YOUR ASSES, YOU BUNCH OF WI-!!” Everything went entirely silent, everyone staring at Witch Hunter with big eyes, his finger landed on the group of Managers but no angry mob flooded the basement, luckily being stopped by Holly covering his speaker. “Doth thou think at all!? Thou shan’t bring his wrath upon this classroom. You, neitherth your mob!” The horse cog stomped her back foot, hard enough to bring the attention back to Brian, “Our fellow hast something to show us! We’d be worst than a basilisk’s breath to continue our in-fighting ANYMORETH.”
Brian pushed Buck away from him, arms flailing. “Thank you, Holly! AHEM.” Brian comedically easily pushed everyone back into a singular group.
“If everyone is done fighting like a bunch of stupid toons...” Brian finally tore off the blue sheet over the machine that had been waiting so patiently for its reveal. Benjamin wasn’t quite sure what he was looking at, except for a bright red lever that Buck immediately placed eyes full of stars on. He stood next to Dave.
“Obviously, you are all wondering what exactly this is! It’s so obvious! Ohoho~! So, you all know about that weird phenomenon that occurred here in Toontown roughly 5 years ago, correct? You all met her, we have all interacted with ‘Leaf Sproutling’. The High Roller’s little pity project.”
“Your Know-It-All ith thhowin’, Brian,” Buck held his beak shut between his hands as if trying to muffle his loud snickering. He sounded like that skeleton from that banned movie: The Last Toon. Banned for reasons similar to The Greatest Showcog: Showing positive relations between toons and cogs. For what it's worth, it was Benjamin's friend's friend's favorite film. Wiretapper.
Brian looked like he wanted to be ruder when he said, “Buck, please cease any and all comments until the end of the presentation,” but figuratively held his tongue as a cog without a visible mouth. Buck snickered again, moving back next to Cosmo where he had been standing before. …Huh, Benjamin swore Buck was standing next to…okay. Whatever, Buck rarely sat still. Maybe he wanted a colder person to stand next to. It wasn’t exactly room temperature in the basement.
“‘Hem.” Brian muttered, “Any more of this fake throat clearing and I’m going to break my voice box…”
“Obvious to anyone who knows the differences between a cog and a toon looks like, she isn’t from here naturally. Not from outside of Toontown either. High Roller is a reality warper when he’s around,” Brian hovered his hand towards Dave and then Buck who…seemed to be distancing himself from the rest of the group for some reason.
Misty looked tense again, hand slowly raising. “Like I said to Buck, please hold off on questions or comments until the end of the talk.” Misty lowered her hand, stretching and messing with her raincoat between her grey hands. She was sweating.
“So, as the answers and smarts one of us all,” Brian spared Graham a quick glance, receiving crossed arms in return, “I briefly stepped away from other plans as soon as Maypril Fools was over to study the bizarre arrival of someone so obviously not from our plane of reality. After much research, I discovered something incredible! We, Toontown and our world, are one upon endless other worlds, dimensions! While I could not find Leaf’s exact place of origin, I found other worlds, full of many cogs just like us! Misty, I said no questions. Please be patient.” Misty’s foot tapped the ground, if other cogs listened over Brian’s monologing, they could hear thunderclouds rolling in outside. …And above Misty’s head. She was focused on Buck inching closer to...the machine itself.
Brian sighed, rolling his head. He would press a button on the contraption and a cartoonish umbrella would pop out of the top. Benjamin would try to hold in his own giggles. Brian always thought of the funniest situations.
“As you may expect now, this machine can travel dimensions!” The brainiac held his head up as he practically skipped over to an extra blackboard and dragged it over. He scribbled all over it with the plan he had so expertly thought of. “So, with this newfound power, we can jump into other dimensions and bring cogs from THOSE worlds and bring them HERE to make conquering Toontown a slice of- Whaaaaaaaat Misty??” Brian’s arms exasperatedly dropped to his sides, “What is so important that you need to repeatedly interrupt me!?”
Misty raised a single finger and gestured it over Buck.
Buck, who excitedly wiggled his fingers near the big red lever. The chalk dropped from Brian’s hand, “BUCK NO–!” But by the time Brian finally took notice, it was far too late: Buck yanked the lever on the machine down, taking it for a spin.
“HAHAHAHA!!!"
“Buck!” Brian shook the body of someone he was ashamed to once have called a friend. Any scolding Brian intended to do was immediately interrupted by a bright light erupting from the machine.
Pipes burst on it with steam, gauges flicked and spun way past safe levels, oil ran from newly made leaks in the machine’s make-up. It started as barely noticeable but as the it continued to violently shake and squeal with steam and the light got brighter, there was a strange…pulling sensation. And then Buck got violently ripped from Brian’s hand into the light. He yelped, falling back from the machine. "[BARP]-!!"
Followed immediately by Brian himself, being swirl towards the light like a blackhole of sorts. No amount of grabbing a nearby chair could stop this. Managers continued to be violently pulled in. Mary, Misty, Holly, Prester-
Benjamin covered his face from the light's suffocating glow. His feet planted firmly on the itchy carpet. His burgundy trenchcoat now got caught in the machine's pull. Maybe he could manage to take a singular step back from it's clingy suck but- “GET DOWN!!” Digging his golden hands into the carpet did nothing to stop the inevitable. And they too were pulled into the machine’s inescapable pull, unsure of where he'd end up on the other side of that bright, impossible to look at light.