Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

They took a step. Who were they?

They looked at their hands, nothing.

There was a light in the distance, it was dim, but it was bright compared to the darkness that surrounded them. They walked towards it. That wasn’t something they knew they could do.

The light became less bright as they got closer to it. They could make out shapes of things they could recognize but had no memory of. They touched the light and passed through it.

Dogday fell face first onto a pile of trash and scrapped metal. His body hurt a bit and his clothes were all dirty now, and to top it all off he had no idea where he was.

He thought of the last thing he remembered, Catnap had pushed them into that thing and now he was here, but he had went in with everyone else, shouldn’t they be with him. He cleaned himself off as best as he could and got up.

It was an industrial looking place, and very dirty. However owned the place clearly couldn’t maintain it. It was also eerily silent. The silence left Dogday alone with his thoughts.

He felt betrayed and also mad this time, he gave his best friend a second chance and this is what he for doing that. If they had simply walked away from him, reported him to someone, or just cut him off or something then he couldn’t be here right now. He felt guilty for thinking that.

He had aimlessly walked for 5 minutes now and he still hadn’t found anyone at all, not his friends or an employee. Right as he was thinking about just sitting down for a bit he saw something orange out of the corner of his eye.

It was a little plush that looked just like him. He was surprised, why would someone make a plush of him? Crafty was kinda good at sewing but she didn’t have enough practice to make something this good.

He stumbled back a little when the plush moved around and faced him. It had a wide smile on its face, he smiled back and waved.

“Hello… little me.” He kneeled to see the plush better, he was even more creeped out now. It moved so weird and probably wasn’t even to talk. The plush suddenly lunged at him and bit him in the talon.

He screamed and tried to get it away, he was perplexed at how painful its bite was despite having no teeth. He fell to the floor from the pain and started to tear up.

Kickin came running down the hallway and kicked the plush across the room, he swung a metal pipe to intimidate it, making the mini Dogday crawl away while whining. Kickin dropped the pipe on the ground and helped Dogday get up.

“Thank you, thank you. You actually saved me, are the others with you?” Dogday could barely use his right leg, his foot wasn’t so much bitten as it was bruised, the creature thankfully hadn’t done any fatal damage.

“No, you’re the first one I find. God, your foot looks bad. Do you want me to help you?” Kickin said as he held his left wing, they were both injured.

“You’re sure you can help me? Your arm looks bad too.”

“I’m fine, I just fell on it. I’ve felt worse, nothing I can’t handle. I can power through any kind of pain to help you, dude.”

Dogday tried to a step with his injured foot, he whined and grabbed the pipe to use it as support. “It’s fine. I think I can walk, for now”

Dogday picked the pipe back up and walked along side Kickin. It shook him up that an imitation of him had almost eaten his foot off.

“What do you think was that thing?” He asked, even if he knew Kickin didn’t have an answer either.

“I have no idea. I saw three other ones that looked like me, Bubba, and Crafty on the way here. I had no idea they were so aggressive. I thought they would be on our side because they, you know, look like us.”

Dogday couldn’t believe there were more of those things, and that they all looked like him and his friends. “Do you think maybe whoever owns this place is obsessed with us or something? Why would they make copies of us.”

Kickin tilted his and though about it. “That would be freaky. I mean I get being obsessed with me but if they’re obsessed with the rest of you then they must be crazy.”

Dogday smiled a little at what he said, Kickin still having his confidence gave him a little hope. They heard some footsteps around the corner and approached them with causion.

They were preferred to fight when they rounded the corner but they got a good surprise for once. It was Bobby, she ran towards and held Dogday’s cheeks in her hands.

“I’m so glad you’re both fine, or alive at least. We have to find everyone else and get out of here. Where even are we?”

Dogday shrugged. “We still don’t know.” The three of them sighed and kept wandering about. They kept walking aimlessly, encountering more of the mini critters along the way, they were fierce but not very dangerous.

After what felt like an hour they found a big door that had “Playcare” written on it. Hoppy, Bubba and Picky were already gathered there.

They greeted each other and checked how they were. Hoppy and Picky had a few bruises and scrapes in their arms from traversing the facility but they were mostly fine.

“We’ve been trying to open this thing but it won’t budge.” Hoppy said, she bashed herself against the door for good measure.

“Stop doing that, you’re gonna get a concussion. We think there’s something blocking it from the other side.” Bubba said as he rubbed his forehead, the noise almost gave him a headache.

“Then maybe we should just all push on the door at the same time, maybe our combined strength will do it.” Dogday suggested.

“We already tried that, didn’t work” Said Picky, she was laying on the ground and sharpening her own makeshift weapon out of a 2 by 4.

“Well there’s more of us now, maybe this time it will work.” He insisted. No one had a better idea so they complied.

The 6 of them pushed against the door, managing to open it up a little. Kickin raised his healthy wing up to receive a high five, only Dogday gave it to him. After that they continued pushing until the door was open enough for them to go in.

They could see now that the door was blocked by multiple crates and other debris, someone had likely blocked it intentionally.

They could also see all of playcare. The place was much more comforting than the rest of the factory, but it was nowhere near as good as seeing an actual sky. The most eye catching place was the statue, big statues of all of them, except for Catnap.

“This is too much, why do they have statues of as children, why do they those horrible little creatures. Why are we here, what have we done to deserve this?” Bobby started to hyperventilate, it was harder now to keep it all in.

“Let’s calm down. I’m sure there’s a way to get out of here actually, I’m sure Catnap knows.” Dogday tried to comfort her, but everyone reacted when he mentioned Catnap, and not in a good way.

“You still think he wants to help us? He’s the reason we’re here.” Hoppy told him.

He tried to fight back, but he couldn’t think of anything, in the back of her head she thought about how she was kinda right. He quickly dismissed the thought when he saw something purple out of the corner of his eye.

Catnap was sitting on bench, waiting for everyone else. Dogday pointed and him and rushed towards him as fast as he could with his injured foot.

Catnap smiled when he saw his friends, happy they had finally arrived. Dogday checked on him and surprisingly he was completely fine, not a single scratch on him.

The rest of the critters weren’t so happy to see him, but they were at least relieved. Except for Kickin, he walked up to Catnap and punched him, again and again, even using his bad wing to do it.

The others rushed to stop him, but Catnap still bleed a bit from his nose, for some reason he didn’t use his gas to defend himself this time. Everyone had mixed opinions on Catnap but they did not agree with Kickin doing that.

“What is wrong with you?” Bobby said.

“What’s wrong with me?! Come on, he betrayed us even after we gave him the benefit of the doubt. We should get rid of him.” He said, finally giving up and backing away.

“We can’t, all that we have right now is each other, we have to work together or we might not return.” Dogday told him, he was also weary of Catnap but he was still their friend, and if he would never admit, he also wanted to keep him around for his sleeping gas.

“Speaking of together. Where’s Crafty? She still hasn’t shown up.” Bobby pointed out, everyone looked around and noticed her absence.

“Do you have any idea of where she is, feline?” Kickin asked him in an accusatory tone.

Catnap sincerely shrugged. “I don’t know.”

Right as the group hit another dead they heard a phone ring. “It’s coming from below the statue.” Hoppy pointed at the entrance.

They walked down the stairs and picked up the phone, anxious for answers.

“Hello?” Dogday asked, of course he was the one who picked it up.

“What are you?…” A childish voice asked.

“We’re… I’m sorry could you elaborate on that question?”

“I had no idea they were making something like you. Where did they keep you? Why are you here?”

“I’m sorry. I don’t think we’re on the same page. Who is they and where would they keep us?”

“Playtime Co., the researchers. You must know.”

Dogday struggled to come up with an answer, he had absolutely no idea what the voice was talking about. Hoppy took the phone from him and put her mouth up to it.

“Listen, we have no idea what you’re talking about, or where we are. You’re gonna answer our questions first and then we’ll answer yours.” The line went silent for a few seconds before answering.

“You’re right. I should’ve introduced myself first, I’m Ollie. I know a lot about this place, but I know nothing about you.”

“Good, where are we then?”

“You’re in Playcare, the place where they used the keep the kids.”

The answer surprised her. Bobby then took the phone herself.

“We mean the whole building. Where is Playcare located?”

“You’re in Playtime Co. They really kept all of you in the dark if you don’t even know that.”

“You keep talking like we’re supposed to know, should we?”

“Yes, I’m confused about how little you guys seem to know. I never knew they were making toys like you, you’re all so different.”

“Toys? We’re not toys.” Bobby was starting to hyperventilate again. Dogday took back the phone, hopefully for the last time.

“I don’t think we’re getting at anything. I just want to answer two things. Do you know where our friend Crafty is, and how do we get out?”

“I know where your Craftycorn is, she’s in Home Sweet Home. As for leaving, I don’t think The Prototype will let you.”

“Who is that?”

“You really are clueless. He basically rules over the place, if I know you’re here, then he definitely knows. The good news is that you came here at the best time, there’s an employee in here, a live one, an outside influence that can help us. They’re not where you are right now, but I can inform Poppy about you. You’ll have to be on your own for now, good luck.” Ollie quickly hanged up.

Dogday frantically tried to call back, but he would not get any kind of reply.

“This the truth that I wanted to show all of you, The Prototype is the reason we’re here, and if we don’t help it, there will be consequences.” Catnap said, making a weird gesture with his hands and looking towards the sky, collapsing on the ground right after.

Bobby checked his pulse and found out he was just sleeping, he was not used to staying awake for so long. The critters did not feel good, they had more questions than answer now and they still had no idea when they could get out, they at least knew one thing. They were headed to Home Sweet Home to get Crafty back.

Hoppy carried Catnap and they took off. The doors were already open, it was a relief they didn’t have to struggle with these too. The place was even more delapidated on the inside than the outside, everything was broken and even burnt in some places.

They all began to shout for Crafty, getting no response. They decided to split up and search for her, Dogday decided to search around the second floor, it was hard to walk, not only because of his injury but because of how trashed the whole place was. Almost unbelievable this was where children used to live.

One the floorboard creaked as he stepped in, the whole floor then gave in under him. Very unlucky, and lucky at the same time since Crafty was in the room that he fell into.

She looked up from her drawing and got up to help him. His leg was a little twisted, but he was fine. Crafty herself had a scar around her eye, it looked like something almost poked her eye out.

“Oh my gosh Dogday are you ok? I’m so sorry for not answering your calls it’s just that… I wanted to be alone for a bit, I just couldn’t face all of you.” She said as she helped him get up. Everyone arrived to check the noise.

“That’s finally everyone. What do think should our next plan of action.” Bubba asked at no one in particular.

“Maybe we should try contacting that Ollie guy again? They seemed to know a lot about this place. Oh wait, Crafty wasn’t around for that, Crafty we found someone who knows where we are.” Dogday said.

“What did they say, where’s the exit? In what state, our country or whatever we’re in.”

“They really didn’t say much, all you need to know is that we can’t really leave, not know.”

Crafty dropped her pencil and started sobbing, she then stomped the floor in rage. Energy builded up around her horn and she unintentionally fireda red blast of magic, hitting Hoppy, she gasped, expecting something bad to happen, but all Hoppy did was grit her teeth.

“I’m suddenly livid. To hell with all of you, I’m not carrying Catnap around like a servant anymore.” She dropped Catnap to the ground and walked away.

“Whatever you shot at her really altered her. I had no idea you could that.” Dogday said.

“I can’t do that, at least I didn’t know I could. I’ve never trained to do a spell like that.” Her sadness and rage was replaced by confusion, she poked at her horn to see if it would do anything more.

As the confusion wore off the gang realized how they still had no idea what to do, they all felt tired and hungry, one of their stomach growled at that moment. They turned to look at Picky.

She rolled her eyes and gave over her snacks, she had overpacked for the hiking trip and that was coming in handy now.

After eating everyone settled into a bed, they were old, creaky and scratched but they did the job. Dogday picked Catnap up from the ground and tucked him, Kickin took offense to this.

“You’re still doting to him? That guy can sleep literally anywhere anyways. I have no idea why you’re so attached to him.”

Hoppy groaned loudly. “Can you not start an argument right now? I’m still kinda mad because of whatever Crafty did to me earlier.”

“I’m so sorry!” Crafty told her. Everyone else settled into their own bed, all they had to do now was fall asleep, that gas would actually be useful now.

“Do you think everyone back home is gonna be ok? I mean if they can’t we’re missing they have to notice somehow right? They have to… I hope my mom is ok.” Bobby said out loud into the room.

Dogday thought about her words and remembered what Catnap said, no one knew they were missing right now, if they died here then no one would care. He quickly pushed those thoughts aside, none of that will matter if they simply got out, and he was confident they would, probably.

“Goodnight.” He said, and did his best to sleep.

Chapter Text

Dogday opened one eye and then the other. He was very groggy, he barely slept that night, he put a foot down and winced, he forgot that was his bad foot. He grabbed the metal pipe that he put next to his bed and looked around, everyone else had left except for Crafty.

“Good morning, Dogday. Well… it’s not really a good morning, is it?” She awkwardly chuckled and went back to drawing.

Dogday waved at her and decided to look for the others, Hoppy and Kickin were right outside the building. Hoppy was playing with a jumping cord and Kickin was running laps around the statue, speaking of the statue, it was covered up by a tarb now.

“Good morning guys. Are you all ok?”

“Yeah, once you get used to the eerie artificialness of this place it’s not so bad. We went into that toy store and found a bunch of stuff, it’s all a little more kidish than I would prefer but hey, I got a jumping rope now, life COULD be worse.” Hoppy kept using the rope, she must’ve been on her 200 jump now.

“Don’t say that, that’s how you jinx us and one of us dies.” Kickin said as he ran around them, it was more like a jog, the eye bags under his eyes were even more pronounced.

“Did you guys get some good sleep. I really couldn’t.” Dogday scratched the back of his head

“I could not sleep at all. Adrenaline was running through my body and Picky was not helping with her snoring, we gotta put her in a separate room next time we do this.” Hoppy said. Dogday looked over at Kickin who didn’t bother to respond, but he could guess it went worse for him.

“By the way, are you relaxed now, from what Crafty did?”

“I wouldn’t say relaxed but, yeah. I’m not mad anymore, good thing that wasn’t permanent.”

“Where are the others?”

“Bubba and Picky are below the statue, Bobby is on a bench over there, and Catnap is standing in some corner, I don’t wanna see him and I don’t think he wants to see us. By the way, Bobby wasn’t doing good just now. She’s calmed down but some words from you would help her.”

Dogday frowned a little at the mention of Catnap, he wanted to check on him first but he wasn’t prepared for it, he decided to go towards Bobby and save him for last.

Bobby sat on a bench fidgeting with a toy, her eyes were red and she had a somber look. Her expression changed when she looked up to see Dogday. “Hi Bobby. I think I heard you crying last night, are you better now? Do you need something?” Dogday had no idea what he could possibly provide to make her feel better, he just automatically said it.

“Yeah, I think I’m better now. The others helped me earlier, I’m not as sad anymore.” She sniffled and kept playing with her toy, it reminded her of a plush that she had back home.

“It’s alright, Ollie is gonna tell us how to get rid of that prototype, we’re gonna talk things out with Catnap and we’re all gonna be fine, it’s gonna be fine.” That came out more frantic and desperate than he wanted, he really wanted to join her in crying, he just wanted to breakdown and cry, but he couldn’t do that right now, if they all saw him give up, then they probably would too. He had to remain strong, there will be plenty of time to cry once they’re out.

“Yeah, yeah. I just needed that reassurance earlier, atleast Hoppy is right, this place isn’t so bad once you get past the first impression. Has Bubba made any updates?”

“No, I was about to go see him after you actually. I’ll go down there and then tell you.” He waved goodbye to her and sprinted to the room below the statue.

Bubba was pressing every button on the phone while Picky watched from the sidelines, bouncing her leg.

“Thank god you’re finally awake, I’ve been toying with this thing all morning and I’ve gotten no response. I hope we’re only being ignored, if the person we talked to yesterday is dead or something then we’re also dead.” He furiously pressed the buttons again and again, it didn’t help how big his hands were.

“Stop smacking that thing like that, you’re gonna break our only method of talking to them.” Picky told him.

“Well maybe I wouldn’t be so mad if you came here and help me.”

“What do you want me to do? I’ve already seen you try to thinker with everything in this room, if you don’t know what to do then I definitely don’t.”

“Then why are you here just to pester me?”

“I have nothing better to do.” She fucked her hooves like they were nails. Bubba walked to her and opened his mouth to shout at her, Dogday stoped him and put himself in between.

“Bubba you should know that screaming is gonna fix nothing and Picky, you should know that Bubba is working very hard with the little options we have right now.” That made both of them mellowed out and Picky apologized, and Bubba did too.

“Thanks for that. Everything here is either useless or way too advanced. We’re gonna have to ration food and water really tightly if they don’t call back soon. Me and Picky actually did the math earlier and we only have about a day or two of snacks and water bottles left if we’re smart about it, unless we somehow find more.”

Dogday choked up at the news, he’d seen a vending machine or two around but the food in there was definitely expired.

“We specifically have to be careful with the water. Picky packed way less of those and water is even more essential than food. Did you know that depending on how healthy they are a person can last weeks without food while they can only last about three days without water. Picky could probably outlast all of us, hypothetically speaking.” Bubba didn’t even notice Dogday start to quietly panic while he listed off the facts.

“I think he got the point, Bubba.” Picky told him, the elephant smiled and backed off, trying to make another machine react. He didn’t that for much longer because the phone started to ring, the three started panicking and wondered if they should call the others, Dogday decided to just pick up the phone.

“Hello?”

“Hi! Good news, Poppy already has a plan, bad news, we’re gonna have to get you to where her and the employee are.”

Dogday was a little surprised at the voice cutting to the chase so quick. “That’s alright, does that mean we’re gonna have to go out with those things?”

“Yes, but I have sent you a map and some necessary keys. I have marked the safest route to the lower floors. Just one last thing, I don’t think you should bring that Catnap with you.”

“I know he’s been acting weird, but I’m not leaving my friend behind. Also, why do you have to specify “THE Craftycorn, THAT Catnap,” I know those little versions exist but it goes without saying you’re talking about us, the originals.”

The line went quiet for a full minute, Dogday was starting to worry that he had been too argumentative when Ollie spoke up again. “Alright, you can take him with you, but I’ll keep a close eye, goodbye.”

He hung up again, Dogday was starting to get frustrated with how uninformative the voice was, but he didn’t lie. A map and a 2 keys came down from a tube. The three of them went up to give everyone the good news, but Dogday wanted to find Catnap first before telling anyone.

Catnap really was tucked away in the corner, looking up at the fake sky. He turned around when he saw Dogday approach him.

“I’m not mad at you, well, I am, but I still care about you. Look, I know you’ve never liked being around people too much, specially now, but we’re your friends, and you need to trust us, so we can trust you.”

Catnap turned back around and faced him. He got up and hugged Dogday again. He was impressed, that worked really easily.

The both of them walked to the big doors, Bubba and Picky had already gathered everyone else there. Nobody was thrilled to see him again but they also didn’t just want to leave him alone to die.

They all mentally prepared and opened the door. They had already forgotten just how depressing and dangerous the outside was. There was bloodstains in some places, some hallways had red lights blaring, not to mention the mini critters, seeing a smaller version of yourself try to kill you never became normal. They were safer this time, at least, with all 8 in a group they could cover any possible blind spots.

The mini critters were actually pretty easy to deal with, all they did was crawl, they were almost like babies. The real problem was traversing the place, scaffolding was shaky, some halls were blocked off. At least everyone helped, including Catnap, it was kind of relaxing actually, having immediate problems to deal with made them forget about their future ones.

Eventually they found something they could not cross, a huge casum that was only crossable if you used some bars and platforms, and expandable hands, of course, none of the critters had that.

“Bro, who the hell built this place. Was being a professional parkourist part of the job requirements. How did people get to their office?” Kickin said as he stared in disbelief at the gap.

“There’s a retractable bridge on the other side, if one us got there then that would make things so much easier.” Dogday pointed at it.

“Great, then whose gonna be that someone.” Hoppy said, no one volunteered.

“Fine then, guess I’ll try.” The rabbit stretched, preparing for it.

“Woah, woah. I’m sure we can just take another route, I’m sure there was a less dangerous path to get across. Right Dogday?” Bobby expected him to say yes. He looked at the map and shook his head.

“See. Someone has to do it.” She took a deep breath and backed up.

“You really don’t have to do this.” Dogday told her.

“Yes, you don’t. You’re gonna get hurt, please.” Bobby pleaded with her.

“She’s right, that jump is actually impossible. You’re not just gonna get hurt, you’re gonna die.” Bubba tried to alert her.

“Hoppy, I’m sure there’s something around here to help us, stop.” Dogday also tried to stop her, they were right, but she felt something inside her, she felt like she could make it.

She moved herself forward and it all happened in a literal flash, everyone saw a yellow and green streak pass by and Hoppy was suddenly clinging to one of the bars. She could her heartbeat going 100000 miles per hours, she laughed a bit, she wasn’t expecting that.

“How?” Bubba flatly asked while everyone was astonished, Kickin raised his wing and cheered. Hoppy calmed down and built some momentum to reach a platform, she then used the same ability again to cross the rest of the gap, she pressed the button and hyped herself up.

“That was incredible, how did you do that?” Bobby checked her body to see if she was ok.

“I feel I’m about to pass out. Let me do that again.” Hoppy starting running laps about the place, she must’ve ran around the room at least 50 times before stopping. Catnap meekly clapped for her.

She was finally winded after that. “When am I getting something cool. I mean I’m happy for you and all but why do YOU get super speed.” Kickin folded his wings.

“Well, I guess that’s just what I get for training so much.” She held her stomach. “I think running that much was a bad idea. God, I’m so hungry.” She opened Picky’s bag without asking her and downed all the food she could find, and then drank all the water and poured some of it on her face. Picky was absolutely terrified by this.

“That was all of our food and water. Do you have any idea what you just did.” She gripped her clothes.

“Sorry, sorry. I didn’t know. I’m still kinda hungry tho.” She said, the weight of what she did started to sink in and her ears lowered.

“It looks like going that fast also sped up your metabolism, interesting. I have an idea about what’s going on but I need see more before I make a conclusion.” Bubba rubbed his chin.

“Hello? How are you not freaking out about the fact we have no food left.” Picky told him.

“I guess we’ll all have to speed up now, ha ha.” Bobby sat down and cradled herself, Hoppy opened her mouth to comfort but decided it was better not to. She just looked over at Dogday’s map and headed where they were supposed to.

Dogday wasn’t doing much better, that was another that they had to worry about, that HE had to worry about. Catnap nuzzle his shoulder, hoping to ease him a bit. Catnap’s touch no longer held the same warmth it usually had but he appreciated the gesture. He just sighed and moved on, if they just got the lower floors then maybe that Poppy person would help them out.

They kept walking, with some more urgency now, and feeling slightly less united now. After that they finally arrived to an elevator, it was industrial sized and could fit all of them in.

They flooded in and the elevator began to descend. This gave them a minute to think, which wasn’t good. Everyone’s first thoughts was to look at Catnap, either a quick glance or full on staring. He hid behind some boxes that must’ve been there unmoved for a decade.

“Guys, stop doing that. Look at what you did, just because you’re angry at him means we should shun him.” Bobby tried to help the situation.

“It’s not just that we’re angry, he’s a danger. I agree we should stop making it so obvious but it’s only natural. Also don’t act like you didn’t sneak a peak at him earlier, Bobby.” Bubba told her. The statement only made her feel worse because it was true.

“Stop being so hard on her, she’s just trying to help.” Hoppy elbowed him.

Crafty broke off one of the crayons she was drawing with on accident, all the arguing and noise from the elevator agitated her, drawing was normally her escape but it looked like even that couldn’t help her at the moment. Kickin scooted over to here and looked over her shoulder.

“What have you been drawing ever since we got here? Let me see.” He took a look at the painting and his eyes widened, Crafty defensively covered it with her hoofs and scoffed at him.

“Damn girl, didn’t know you had that in you.” Kickin said, walking back to his seat.

“What was the drawing?” Hoppy asked.

“I don’t think you Crafty is gonna like if I tell you.”

“Yeah I won’t. Mind your own business.” She neighed and went to back her drawing. Dogday wondered how well they were gonna go back to their lives after this, would they still be friends? Before he could think about it more he felt the elevator shake and stop making noise, they had finally arrived to the lower floor. Poppy was near, according to Ollie.

They walked towards the agreed location. A lobby of some kind of miniature amusement park, Dogday wondered why they would had something like that underground. They entered and marveled at place, the ceiling looked just like the one at the Playcare. But the most eye catching thing must’ve been the tiny doll woman riding a giant pink creature covered in bandages.

“Are you Poppy?” Dogday looked up at Missy.

“No. I’m Poppy. This is Kissy Missy… You all look so much like them, except made out of actual skin.” She shed a tear out of her glossy eye. “Im sorry. It’s just that you all look so much like them. Especially you Dogday, it was such a hard day when he chained you up. I never heard from you again.”

What Poppy said really put things into perspective for Dogday, it slightly answered the question that he gave to Ollie. It made him wonder why he didn’t just answer it right there and then if his ally had no problems with keeping it a secret, and then he thought about the words. “Real skin” was the Dogday in here some kind of plastic copy? Maybe Ollie didn’t answer just to spare his feelings.

“We’re here now. Ollie said you would give us instructions.” He stated

“Yes, yes. I almost got swept up. You will all go laboratory. The angel is currently dealing with one of the followers of the prototype. That should give all of you plenty of time to look for something useful in there.”

“The angel? Is there an actual angel down here?” Bubba asked.

“I mean the employee, did Ollie not mention them to you?”

“He didn’t call them an angel” Dogday clarified.

“That’s just how Ollie is, I suppose. Anyways good luc-aaahh.” Poppy lost her balance as Missy suddenly and sharply moved straight towards Catnap who was in the back of the group.

Dogday and Hoppy held back her legs to stop her from attacking.

“Missy, stop! Calm down, it’s not him.” Poppy caressed her fur to calm her down. Missy started deep breaths and backed off, her arms seemed to display shame.

“I’m really sorry about that. Seeing someone that looks like him again brings up some bad memories.” Hoppy spoke in her behalf. Catnap slouched at her words, all he did to people recently was make them upset.

“Like I was saying, good luck. Those scientists must’ve made some kind of weapon to put down the things they made.” Poppy handed them another map waved away as Missy started walking towards a different direction.

The critters gawked at the pair as they left. “I didn’t except her to be so small.” Said Picky, still within earshot of both of them.

“This place is full of freaks. I can’t believe we’re the normal people here.” Kickin said, except this time he actually whispered.

“Let’s not be so judgmental. They’re the only allies we have.” Dogday said as he checked the map, this one was much less detailed than the one Ollie gave them but it would have to do.

The amusement park was a nice chance of scenery. Most of it was incomplete and they had left out some animatronics which looked horrifying but it wasn’t all that bad, the laboratory wasn’t far from this location.

“Did anybody else hear that?” Hoppy looked around after hearing a noice.

“Yeah. I think I know what you mean, it’s like a squeaking sound, but very faint.” Bubba put his hooves up to his ears to try and hear it better.

Something sprang out of nowhere and grabbed Bobby. The creature started scaling up the roller coaster with her in his hand.

“Oh my gosh. I did not think there were gonna be any more visitors today. Nine of them in one day, this is record breaking!” The creature said, he looked like a jester except there was something terribly wrong with him, he looked ill, like there was some kind of liquid pressing up against his skin at all times making while also having an allergic reaction at the same time, him look bloated, along with the huge pimples covering his face and bugs crawling around his body.

“Let her down!” Dogday shouted. The clown let go of her for a second in which Bobby began to scream, after falling a few feet he catched her again, her breath became even more panicked now.

“Why the angry faces. I did what you told me to.” The clown began to laugh at his own joke. Hoppy quickly ran around, looking for the entrance of the roller coaster so she could catch them at the top.

The rest of the group panicked while they thought of a way to stop this.

“We are not your enemy. We just want to pass through!” Bubba shouted at him.

“You’re not my enemy? So you’re with The Prototype, right?” The clown asked them.

“We’re not in whatever prototype you’re talking about!” Kickin shouted at him, Bubba facepalmed.

“Then you ARE my enemy, and I’m sooooo bored I would do this even if you were with The Prototype.” The jester placed Bobby into a cart and fastened her seatbelt. After the did that the jester looked up to see Hoppy who had gotten there before them.

“I’m gonna break every bone in your ugly body.” She cracked her knuckles and prepared for a fight.

The jester laughed and pointed her, a pimple in his face bursting and spraying Hoppy with pus.

She was distracted by the disgusting liquid while the jester manually moved the cart a long.

The rest of the group felt useless as this happened, there was no way they could reach the top in time to help. Crafty tried to hit the jester with a beam but every shot failed, the jester making a ridiculous pose every time he dodged them.

Kickin looked around for some high ground and ran towards, grabbing a stone from the ground on the way there. He reached an elevated platform and tried to focus, he tried to hype himself up, he was great, he was hit some hard shots before, he could do this.

The tips of his feathers looked like they had caught on fire, glowing bright orange.

“Chicken really wants to hit me with a pebble, you’re even funnier than me.” He stopped moving to cackle at him, Kickin’s feathers dimmed after that comment. He was right, but he couldn’t give up now, he concentrated again and his feathers burned again.

He threw the stone with all his strength, hitting the jester right in the eye.

He covered his eye in pain, a copious amount of blood gushing from it. “Are you a robot. How did you do that? This is not funny.” He was really angry now. “Look at what I’m gonna do to your friend now.” He took out a toy hammer that had sticks and nails driven into it.

Bobby instinctively put up her hands to block and it seemed to somehow work, thinking of the fact she would not gato say goodbye to anyone. The hammer finally made contact with something, but she only felt a pang of pain in her chest. A shield in the form of a heart now separated Bobby and the jester.

“Do you all have some trick up your sleeve?! Why couldn’t I get some defenseless victims.”

Bobby examined her shield thing while the jester complained to himself. Maybe if she moved her hands she could push it, she moved her hands outwards, sending the shield directly into the jester face, knocking him lose balance.

Hoppy arrived just in time to make sure he fell off, that didn’t do much tho. He instantly caught himself with the infrastructure of the roller coaster before he could hit the ground.

“You all win for now. I’m gonna leave you all alone, you’re no fun. Just wanted to let you know that all those tricks you have and the numbers you have, don’t mean anything. Ha… Hahahahahaha, you’re all nothing, you’re already dead, this place is gonna eat you whole.” His sick laughter echoed as he ran away.

Bobby unbuckled her seatbelt and Hoppy carried her back to the ground, Bobby tried to wipe some of the left over pus on the rabbit’s face, she wasn’t even sure it was real pus.

“What the hell was that.” Picky said once they were all reunited.

“You mean the clown or the abilities just showcased. It seems we’re all developing these powers, but I can’t figure out the reason. I’m gonna need more examples, but that’s for when we get home.” Bubba said

“So anger thing I did with Hoppy earlier was my special ability? Just my luck. I can make people angry. It would’ve also been nice of any of our friends to tell us about the creepy clown going around.” Crafty said, she was fed up with this whole place.

“Poppy said the angel was distracting someone, they probably didn’t expect him to be threat.” Bobby tried to excuse them.

“Let’s just not think about it. The faster we get to the laboratory the sooner we’ll all get rest.” Dogday said, holding Bobby’s hand to help with the stress of what just happened, if this was a normal situation they would both probably decided to pull everyone into a hug, but it was obvious most of them were not in the mood.

They walked through the amusement park again, making sure they did not get distracted with anything else this time and making it to the laboratory extra fast.

Their efforts actually payed since they did arrive quick, the only problem now was the entrance. It was completely sealed shut, like any evil laboratory would be.

“Step aside. I know what I’m doing.” Kickin went ahead and concentrated again, his feathers glowing yet again, he put his wings in between a little crack on the doors and forcefully separated them, the sound of metal scraping and bending echoing across the room.

He flexed his wings and looked back at his friends. “Now who’s the strongest, Hoppy.”

Hoppy hit him in the shoulder and gave him a thumbs up. “Still me, but I have to admit, that was pretty cool.” He smiled, his feathers, shining brighter again before he remembered to mentally turn off whatever that was.

The laboratory had a waiting room before entering the place proper. “Why don’t we rest for a bit here. I think we’re all a little winded from all that. It would help us to relax for half an hour or so.” Dogday suggested to everyone. No one said yes but they clearly agreed, most of them sat and laid on the chairs and sofas with a sigh of relief.

Dogday sat on one of the chairs, not wanting to take up too much space for the rest of his friends.

Bobby saw that and invited him to the couch that her and Hoppy were sitting in, he joined them and nuzzled against Bobby, who hugged him back. Dogday asked them if he could also invite Catnap but Hoppy refused, he whined at the rejection but thought it for the best. He didn’t want to push Hoppy’s boundaries and Catnap would probably decline anyways.

Bubba, Kickin and Picky shared another sofa while Crafty and Catnap were in their own chairs. This would be a long 30 minutes.

Chapter Text

Dogday stretched as he forced himself awake. He’d basically taken a nap for the whole break, he normally had so much energy.

The rest of the group unenthusiastically moved along, that half hour felt more like 5 minutes. They couldn’t postpone the inevitable for much longer, so they decided to get on with it.

The laboratory was slightly more pristine than all the places they had seen, but it was still apparent some horrible things had happened in here.

There wasn’t much of use in here, not like they were expecting to find a ray gun but there wasn’t even a harmless experiment in sight. It was all mostly papers and whiteboards showing some progress.

They were all mostly on the human body, they found it weird how literally every chart and paper only referred to humans. The only human they had ever seen in person was their teacher, so it was hard to believe that literally everyone who worked here also was one.

They were also pretty hard to figure out, even for Bubba, they were leaps and bounds ahead of any scientific paper he had ever seen. From what they had picked up this place was a factory, what the hell would a factory worker get out of knowing how long a brain can live without oxygen.

They eventually found something especially distressing, it was an illustration of Dogday. It explained the rough process on how a person’s body could be transferred to a shell that looked like him. It was disgusting, showing how the organs and muscle would eventually cling onto the synthetic parts like they were real.

Dogday couldn’t look away as almost everyone else did, Crafty even throwing up a little in her mouth. Why would anyone even want to do this? To replace the real? But that couldn’t be because the Dogday shown here was way bigger than any normal person, everyone would be able to immediately.

This atleast now answered the question on how all the strange things they had seen before existed, but now they wished they could forget the answer.

Catnap slammed a book into a table to get everyone’s attention, making himself flinch. “I need you to show something now, we’re so close to where he told me bring all of you here.”

They almost forgot, Catnap was actually allied with the prototype, the thing that was also with the killer clown from just now. “Catnap, who or what is the prototype. I’m sorry but I’ve been too lenient on you, explain things or we will not follow you.” Dogday literally put his foot down after saying that.

Catnap swallowed some saliva and put his hands on Dogday’s shoulders. “We are not real.”

“Wha-what are you talking about? I can see you right now, I can feel you, we’re all real.” Dogday put a hand on his cheek, trying to reassure him that they were physically there.

“Not in that way.” Catnap pulled out a magazine from one of his pockets. It advertised the new “Smiling Critters” plush line and Tv show. The group gathered around to read it as Catnap flipped through it.

It even gave the plot synopsis of a few episodes, they were things they could remember. The critters were speechless, Dogday could only hear his own heartbeat, Hoppy started pinching herself, Crafty started pulling on her hair, Kickin sat down, Bobby kept repeating reassuring things to herself over and over, Picky started biting her nails, and Bubba held his head on his hands.

“Everything about us, everything we know, was made by someone who used to work here. The Prototype is the only one who can help us.” Catnap held Dogday’s hand, he didn’t want to say this because he knew it would go exactly like this.

“But-but if we were made by them then how are we not one of those monsters. I can feel my own skin, I know for a fact it’s real.” Hoppy told him.

“That has to do with the thing I wanted to show you.” He turned around and walked down a halfway, the others had no choice but to follow him. Catnap traversed the rooms quickly, like he had been here before, even though he technically hasn’t.

The group felt anxious as they followed him around, they felt like they were better now knowing what Catnap knew, but it was too late to turn back.

Catnap finally lead to them a big machine, it made a loud whirling noise and something inside of it spun around, it looked a bit worn down, like it had been running for years without a break.

“What is this?” Dogday asked, the sound of the machine scared him.

“It’s what made us, The Prototype wants us to help fix it.”

Kickin moved ahead of Dogday. “Isn’t the prototype the thing that has trapped us here, the boss of that clown that tried to kill us earlier. Why should we trust it?”

“It’s our only option.” Catnap looked down at the floor.

“Wait, so the prototype or whatever is gonna hurt us if we don’t do this?” Bobby asked.

“Not directly, but yes. If we don’t help him then we’ll be stuck here. I’m so sorry.”

“He’s right, if the prototype has control over who gets to leave then we don’t have much say in the matter.” Bubba affirmed.

“Come on, listen to yourselves. This machine could be a giant bomb or something, we can’t fix it. Come on Hoppy, back me up.” Kickin looked at her with anticipation. She shook her head.

“Whatever, I’m not helping you all build a doomsday device.” He went to sit in the corner while everyone else got to work.

There were files full of information on the machine. Normally Bubba would gladly handle them on his own but they were far too complicated to be figured out by a single person, most of what was in them was just theory, hypothesis on how the machine would work.

According to the researches, the machine could create and alter realities. The fact they were there proved the researches right, if only they were still alive to see that. Most of the papers on the process of creating the machine actually weren’t that helpful, what help most was a schematic they found.

They dismantled some equipment and got started on replacing some pieces, it was hard work, and their injuries made it even harder, but they didn’t time to complain. Most of the machine made sense, at least as much sense as something of this magnitude could possibly make, the weirdest part of the machine was a little compartment that held a monkey toy constantly watching a tiny screen. Dogday wondered if it was sentient and if they should get it out of there, Bubba advised him not to, according to the schematics it was a very important piece, Dogday softly said “sorry” as he sealed the monkey toy back in.

After a while of work and a ton of sweat they had done a lot of work on the machine, they couldn’t fix everything though, the machine had to be kept working as they fixed and there was only so much material they could repurpose, but it was still in a much better shape than before.

Bubba fiddled with a controller in his hand, it was a controller for a toy car he had modified to send signals to the machine. He moved the speed dial and then pressed the on button. The space infront of him tore and broke as the machine did its work. This tear was different than the one that brought them here, this one emitted light.

“Do we go through it?” Hoppy asked. Picky shrugged and went into the tear before anyone could stop her.

“She just walked in, oh my god.” Bobby exclaimed. The critters now all really had to follow her in, one by one they entered it, leaving the factory.

The switch was almost immediate, the loud sounds of the machine were replaced by the chirping of birds. It was disconcerting but relieving, they were finally out.

Picky rubbed her body on the dirt, enjoying the feeling of the earth again. “We’re back, we’re finally back.”

Dogday couldn’t believe it, he finally felt the rays of the sun on his skin again. Hoppy stretched and started walking away. “Gonna see you guys in an hour or two to talk about what just happened. I’m starving right now.”

“Don’t just leave! We have to go the hospital or something. We have to rest.” Dogday yelled at her.

“Who’s there?” A scared voice asked. The critters looked around for the voice, they couldn’t remember the last time anyone but them visited that forest.

“We’re just hiking, yeah. Who are you?” Dogday asked.

Out of the bushes came out a cat yanking the arm of a dog. “Oh my god, look Dogpressed, a silly mirror, in the middle of the woods!”

“I really don’t think this is a mirrorooooh!” She said as she got yanked forwards by the cat towards Dogday and Catnap. Catfeine got her face micrometers away from Catnap’s face, her coffee breath assaulting his nostrils.

“Your friend is right. We’re not a mirror, what’s your name?” The orange dog asked.

Catfeine manically laughed. “Yeah, I knew. I just thought it would be funny, but seriously you’re like our twins.” She laughed again, the laughter ringing in Catnap’s ears, she already wanted to get away from her, he breathed some of his red gas but Dogday closed his mouth before it could reach her, making some of the gas come out of his nostrils, surprising him. The other critters were also surprised by the similarities

“Yeah, it’s weird. You didn’t tell me your name by the way.” Dogday insisted.

“Hey everyone, come look at this!” Catfeine shouted towards her own group of friends. Both groups were baffled by the similarities, it truly was like a fun house mirror.

“What the fuck.” Groddy pointed at Bobby like she was a stain.

Uniquecorn approached Crafty, staring at her horn. “You’re a unicorn, infront of me.”

“Yeah, that’s me.” Crafty backed away from him, the horse trying to closer to touch her horn.

“Have you all moved here recently.” Dogday thought about how they must’ve been gone for a whole day or two, it was totally possible 8 new people have moved in that time.

“What are you talking about? We’ve lived here for all of our lives.” Dogpressed told him.

“That makes no sense, so have we. It would be impossible for us not to notice any of you, unless…” Bubba got down on his knees and slammed the ground. “This is still not our home, god damnit!”

Catfeine bumped Wimpin’s shoulders. “What a drama queen.” The orange cat said, Wimpin tried her best to look away.

“Does that mean we have to go back to the factory?” Picky asked in an exhausted tone.

“No, we shouldn’t. I think it would be best if we stayed for a day. It would help us unwind and we could even get more materials for the machine.” Dogday said. The frowning critters stared with confusion while they discussed what they should do next.

“What are they talking about?” Dumba asked. Catfeinne moved her tail up to her ear and and spun around a finger.

“Hey, do any of you mind if we stay at one of your houses for a bit. It will just be a couple of hours we promise.” Dogday said while holding his hands together.

“Yeah! Floppy always has space in his house, right?” Catfeine looked over the sleeping bunny.

Groddy started elbowing him. “Bitch, wake the fuck up bitch. There’s a green female clone of you.”

Floppy snorted awake and looked at the new group of infront him, making blink slowly. “This is the third time I’ve had this dream I think.”

“This is not a dream, bitch. They want to stay at your house.” Groddy slapped him in the back of the head to really wake him up.

“Ok, ok! Jeez, ok. Follow me” Floppy lead them out of the forest, taking little naps ever now and then and stumbling on his own feet all the time. Catnap was lazy but it seemed like this guy was so tired he could barely even function.

Catfeine narrowed her eyes as Floppy and the critters left. “They look like they just survived a tornado.” Wimpin told her.

“Yeah, and the purple me just tried to smoke kind of red gas at me. I think we should keep an eye out on them, this might the most interesting thing that has happened in years.” Catfeine said.

“I-I really don’t think we should bother them. Come on, let’s just have a nice day.” Dogpressed hugged her friend, hoping she would listen this time. Catfeine’s smile softened a little from her usual wide grin, she then took another sip of coffee and started blinking while looking around, disoriented.

“What were we talking about? What just happened?” She asked.

“We were talking about the people that look like us.” Dogpressed told her. The cat went right back to her wide smile.

“Oh yeah! Yeah we’re gonna follow them.” She said, way too loudly. Dogpressed recognized there was no point in arguing further, she sighed and sobbed. Groddy then stepped in.

“We’re not gonna get in trouble for following people around like stalkers. I’m not dealing with your bullshit to-agh.” Catfeine tightened her tail around his throat.

“What did you say? You didn’t finish that sentence properly.” She let go of him. He started breathing again and protected his throat with his hands.

“Whatever, just know that I’m not gonna take any of the blame when we get caught.” He crossed his arms.

While the frowning group did their own thing, the smiling group reached Floppy’s house. It was messy and completely unkept, almost as bad the factory, but with way less dried blood.

“Damn, do your parents just do nothing?” Dogday asked him.

“They’re hibernating right now.”

“Rabbits don’t hibernate, and it’s not even cold.” Bubba told him.

“I don’t know, man. I believe them, I feel tired all the time. Speaking of.” Floppy sat on the couch and instantly feel asleep.

The critters had a moment to rest now that he was asleep. They looked around for a first aid kit and they miraculously found one, they quickly used it to properly patch up and disinfect their wounds as best as they could. The group thought about putting Kickin’s injured wing in a makeshift cast but he insisted that he was way more useful without it.

It was time to eat after that. Floppy’s house didn’t have the best dinner selection, the fridge was mostly left overs and food that had gone bad, but Picky knew how to save a mediocre meal. She prepared the food to her friend’s liking as much as she could, everyone started to dig in except for Crafty, she just stared at the food with a frown on her face.

“What’s wrong Crafty, it’s just some vegetables and rice. If you don’t like it I could give you something different?” Picky said, knowing that she really didn’t have anything else to offer.

“I’m just not hungry.”

“But you haven’t eaten in a day. Come on, just a few bites at least.” Picky insisted, everyone else was starting to get worried about her.

“All my appetite is gone.” Crafty pushed the plate aside.

“Do you want me to buy something in specific? I saw plenty of stores in the way here.” Picky offered.

“I just don’t want to eat. I mean what’s the point? Even if we go back to our actual town, it doesn’t matter. None of it matters, my parents, our friends, who we are. It’s all just one big set.”

“Don’t say that, it still matters.” Bobby offered her paw to her. Crafty looked away.

“Does it? Your mom is ill isn’t she? She’s that way because someone wrote her that way. You’re so kind and caring only because someone made you that way. I only like art because I’m Craftycorn and that’s just how I’m supposed to be, do I truly enjoy what I do?” Crafty said, everyone stopped eating by now just to look at her.

“So you want to do something that’s not art?” Dogday asked.

“I don’t think I want to do anything.” Crafty slumped in her chair, thinking about what she was even gonna do now.

Dogday quickly scarfed down the rest of his food and got up. “Alright! Why don’t we split up to find the things we need. Me, Crafty, Bobby and Picky will go buy food, while the rest go buy materials for the machine. How does that sound?” He said with a smile.

Hoppy got up and gathered her group around. “Sounds great! Let’s go, go, go.” She forced Kickin, Bubba and Catnap out the door.

The remaining critters in the house looked at each other. “Im gonna try to take a shower, you guys can leave without me if you want.” Crafty got up and left.

Meanwhile team B was already on the streets of this city. It was different from their own town, it didn’t look awful it just looked, shitty.

“Man, you could’ve been more careful. My wing still hurts, you could’ve pulled on the wrong and I would’ve screamed.” Kickin told Hoppy.

“Sorry, I just really needed to get out of there, it stunk.” Hoppy wasn’t entirely lying, that place actually did stink.

“Why did Dogday want Catnap to go with us? No offense to you Catnap but I think the other group would’ve been far more suited for you.” Bubba said.

Catnap thought the same, did Dogday just want a break from him? Is that why he chose to be separated, he was finally tired of him? He hated him, just like all his former friends.

The other three noticed Catnap starting to hyperventilate. “Dude, it’s fine. You kept that secret in for so long, I get why you were acting so weird now.” Hoppy told him, she didn’t quite know how to calm him down, it was usually the other way around.

Catnap held his own hands, she was probably just lying. The group found a hardware store after a few minutes of wandering about, it was a bit run down, but it would do.

Bubba held a hoof up to his forehead and pointed at an item in a shelf, trying to move it with his mind.

“What are you doing?” Said Hoppy, she simply took the screw’s off the shelf with her hands.

“I’m trying to find my ability. Unfortunately it is not telekinesis, I’m actually really upset because that would’ve been really useful.”

“Didn’t except you to just accept the superpowers so quickly. Thought you would explain how they make no sense.” Kickin told him.

“Just because I point out something shouldn’t be happening isn’t gonna make it stop happening. I might as well accept it’s happening and try to figure out how it works.” The elephant continued to shop around.

“Maybe if we deny this hard enough we’ll wake up in our beds and this will all turn out to just be a dream.” Hoppy said as half a joke.

“I wish.” Kickin replied, he smiled a little and looked over Catnap, he was doing his own thing away from them. Kickin approached him, making the cat tense up.

“I’m sorry if I’m not picking things fast enough, I don’t know much about construction.”

“It’s fine. I just wanted to apologize for punching you earlier, that was a stupid thing to do. I was just mad.”

“It’s ok, I kinda deserved it anyways.”

“You didn’t. I mean, I guess you did but, ugh.” Kickin shoved his wings into his pockets, if only he was good with words. He gestured towards Bubba to help him.

“Catnap, what happened back there was not your fault, at least not entirely. There’s no point in blaming yourself.”

His words made Catnap feel slightly better, if they really did hate him then they wouldn’t give him so much attention, right? He asked Bubba what sort of things he could get, Bubba verbally gave him a list, he then slinked away to the other side of the store.

The rest of the shopping was sort of relaxing, it was until they realized that they had to pay for all this. They checked their pockets and saw they collectively only had 50 dollars, 2 cents and a piece of paper, they were either gonna steal all of this or beg for money. Stealing was the more appealing option until Bubba pointed out that if they got caught then the authorities would realize they have no record of them and ship them off to some kind orphanage or juvi. So begging it was.

“Can anyone give us a couple of bucks. We really need them.” Hoppy got into a box to get the costumers attention, she felt humiliated, and the worst part is that no one even looked her way, no one apart from Dumbba who came out from behind a shelf and took out some money.

“I have a couple hundred, much do you need.” She looked around her wallet. Groddy peaked out from behind the same shelf and smacked the side of it to get her attention. “Oh yeah, I’m not supposed to be talking to you, sorry. Just act like I wasn’t here, even though I am.”

“Aren’t you two from the group we saw earlier? Have you been following us.” Hoppy said.

“Yeah, pretty much.” Dumbba nodded her head, Groddy smacked his against the wall.

Hoppy took a wrench and swung it right in front of her face, Dumbba didn’t even flinch, the air simply making her blink a few times. “Cool wrench.”

Hoppy looked in confusion at her. “Can you just give me some money and leave.” Dumbba handed her wallet and hid behind the shelf again.

Hoppy shrugged and faced her friends. “No more money problems.”

“Isn’t that stealing.” Bubba pointed out.

“She gave it to me fair and square. I don’t see how that’s stealing.”

Bubba scowled at her response.

“Look, do you wanna live or do you wanna die knowing someone kept their…” Hoppy looked around the walled. “Their eighteen dollars, yeah, totally worth our lives.”

Bubba shrugged. “You’re right, i suppose, let’s get back to the house.”

“Nuh uh, we should totally stop to buy weapons, a bat, a knife, maybe a gun if we’re lucky.”

Catnap made a sound of discomfort at the mention of the weapons.

“We’re gonna have to defend ourselves one way or another. I’m not following the order of someone who’s only the test version for something.” Kickin told him

“You don’t understand, fighting is not gonna end well. He’s shown me what he can do. You were all dead, Kickin you… you had chunks bitten out of you. You all died in horrible ways.” Catnap covered his face in shame, he was starting to tear up

The three of them looked at him in shock. “Those weren’t us, just because they failed doesn’t mean we will.” Kickin told him, taking ahold of of his shoulders, Catnap pulled away at first but he then started to calm down. Hoppy and bubba did the same.

“It’s alright, we’re alive. Doesn’t matter how real we are or not, or what happened.” Hoppy told him. Catnap started to control his sobbing.

Dumbba watched from the sidelines while Groddy threw insults at her, she felt something she couldn’t identify, but if she had been better read she would’ve been able to identify it as jealousy. Her ears lowered as she could do nothing but watch the group pay for their things and leave, they had some left over money so they would go on with their plan to buy weapons.

Back at the house, Crafty had just finished taking a shower, she really took her time with it. She calmly combed her hair as she looked around for the bottle of cream she always put on after a shower. Wait, the bottle wasn’t here because she wasn’t in her house, she just remembered she was in the house of a stranger, that was also in another universe.

She laughed at the absurdity of it all as she put on her clothes, the shower was rendered a bit null by the fact she only had the same dirty and torn up clothes but she still felt refreshed by it. She walked down the stairs, her friends waiting for her, she had hoped they would’ve left by now.

“How was the shower?” Bobby asked in a soft voice.

“It was nice.” Crafty said as she sat down on the couch, she was waiting for someone to say they were gonna leave:

“It’s best if we go now. The sooner we get it done the sooner we’ll eat something better and relax.” Dogday said, wanting someone to reply to him but no one did. He sighed and opened the door.

The way to the supermarket was pretty silent, Bobby fiddled with her hands and Dogday stared at the floor. Picky noticed the awkwardness.

“What are you guys gonna get? A good hotdog sounds amazing right about now.” She elbowed Crafty, but the unicorn did not like that.

“I know it’s not breakfast but I wish I could have some pancakes right now.” Bobby said, holding her belly.

“Mmm, I wish I could have some beef, that would be amazing.” Dogday’s belly growled.

“What would you want Crafty?” Picky asked.

“Food”

“Of course you would want food, which one in specific.”

“Salad, I guess.” She said while distancing herself from the group a little.

“After all this time all you want is a salad? Think a little bigger.” Picky told her.

“You bother me about what food I want and when I tell you, you make fun of me.” Crafty would’ve curled up her fists if she had any.

“Sorry, I just felt like it was too little.”

“Of course you would be the one to think that, Picky.”

Picky picked up on the insult, but decided not to reply. The atmosphere felt even more akward.

“Why don’t we play a little game. Whoever finds a store first is the winner.” Dogday ran ahead, panting while his tongue was out. No one else had the energy but Bobby and Picky decided to join in anyways, Crafty kept up the same pace.

After a bit, Dogday found a store, they sold all kinds of food. “I found it! I found it!” He said. The others went towards him.

“You’re the winner, what do you win?” Crafty asked him.

“Well, there isn’t really supposed to be a prize.” Dogday answered her, sensing this was not gonna go in a good direction.

“Then what was the point of making it a competition if no one is gonna earn anything.”

“Fun” Dogday said, shrugging his shoulders.

“Crafty, you can’t keep acting like this. Weren’t you making something earlier? Why don’t you show us that.” Bobby asked her.

“It’s personal, and I don’t even think I want to continue it.” Crafty went through the store doors, she might as well just do what she was supposed to.

The shopping went well, there weren’t many arguments, the only problem was the price of the food, it was all way more expensive than they expected, Crafty luckily had a ton of left over money on her, her money never meant much to her and now it meant even less, so she was not afraid of spending it.

The quartet exited the store and sat down outside a nearby table, taking out some of the food from the bags, the lackluster meal from earlier had barely given them any energy, Crafty refused to eat again.

“What did you think the point of drawing was before all of this, why did you do it?” Bobby asked.

“I just thought it was fun, it was a way of expressing myself, you know. I made pretty things, I thought I had found something I liked on my own, but now I know that was always how I was gonna turn out.”

“I don’t really care about that, and I think neither should you. We still went through those things, you’re still good at art. Even if you were predestined to do it that doesn’t change what happened. I saw that too, and I questioned myself, but I know that I act like this because I want to, not because someone told me.” Dogday told her, moving his hands, wondering if what he said made sense.

“I’m still not sure if I want to go on.” She traced circles on the table with her hoof. Picky pulled something out of one of the bags, it was a sewing kit along with some yarn.

“Here, you always said you wanted to try out knitting. They were selling some of these and I thought it might help you.” Picky said, honestly expecting her friend to reject it.

Crafty looked at the needle and started levitating it, she then grabbed some of the yarn and started working on something. She actually snacked on something while making it, after 30 minutes or so she was done with it. It was simply the flower she always drew when she was bored and had no ideas, it wasn’t amazing but she was happy with it.

“That actually was fun, huh.” She sniffled. “Yeah, I think I can go on.” The group smiled and started to pack up, they guessed the other group must’ve ended their part by now.

Bobby started talking as she picked the bags up. “I’m still thinking about the critters we saw earlier. They didn’t look very good, especially the one that looked like Dogday, poor girl reminds me of that fox in our class that’s always crying. Do you think we could come back here and help them someday?”

Dogday shrugged. “Hopefully.”

Catfeine watched them leave as she covered her face with a newspaper, Dogpressed being by her side, being covered by nothing. “Did you hear them? I wasn’t, my ears were ringing the whole time.”

“The unicorn talked about how she failed to see the point in things… I understand her. The part I didn’t understand was them talking about something vague, whatever they were talking about must be the reason she was so sad.”

“I knew there was something weird about them. We’re gonna go ahead with the plan.” Catfeine started manically laughing until a waiter placed tea on the table, she threw the cup off the table and resumed laughing.

Meanwhile, the 4 of them arrived, and they were right in their assumption, everyone else was already there, sharpening some knives too. Dogday worryingly asked about all the weapons and they replied that it was for self defense, Kickin also lamented the fact they were not able to buy a gun.

They set the food down and Picky started cooking, they talked as they had a proper meal in the kitchen. Conversation was much better this time, they talked about what they would do once they got back, their plan, and their encounter with Dumbba and Groddy, they mostly brushed it off as the pair being weird people.

Everyone decided to sleep in the house so they were rested before going back to, that place. They tried to ask Floopzy for permission to move pillows and covers around but he didn’t really care.

They set up a sleeping area in the living room, it was comforting, it reminded them of the time where they would have sleepovers at Dogday’s house often. Catnap thought about sleeping next to Dogday, but he just couldn’t, Dogday needed his space anyways.

They slept for a few hours but Kickin could not fall asleep, he walked over to the bathroom to splash water on his face. Bubba was woken up by his steps, the elephant following into the bathroom and standing in the doorway.

“Dude, you look a little creepy in the middle of the dark.” Kickin said.

“Sorry, let me just step in there with you.” Bubba got closer. “You’ve been awake the whole night haven’t you?”

“None of your business.” Kickin turned to look at himself in the mirror.

“Everyone else is asleep, if you want to talk one on one about something then now’s the time.”

“It’s just, everything that’s been happening and that little tv guide or whatever. I looked so stupid, do I look stupid right now? Was I made to be stupid?”

“Look, I’m not gonna sit here and tell you that you’ve never done anything dumb, but I think you’re cool. You try a little too hard sometimes, you’re way better when you don’t.” Bubba told him, getting even closer and holding his shoulder.

“Thanks, I still don’t think I’m gonna be able tho sleep tho.” They looked at each other in the eyes, they went back to the living room and slept next to each other.

Few more hours went by and Bobby woke up early, just as the sun was coming out. She looked down at her friends sleeping for a moment, she wished she could’ve kissed them in the cheek. She instead prepared herself a cup of cocoa and looked out the window, the view was beautiful.

She heard someone move behind her, Hoppy stood beside her, also looking the window.

“Good morning.” Bobby told her as Hoppy still stretched and cracked her bones.

“Good morning, you’re up early.”

“I just don’t feel very tired. Feels like there’s adrenaline in my veins and I’ve already slept enough, that’s how you feel most of the time, don’t you?” Bobby asked, nuzzling up against the rabbit’s shoulder.

“You described it very well. I just hope you’re not too stressed out or anything, you should use this time to rest.”

“I’m as rested as I can be. I want to make sure everyone else, especially Catnap.”

“Speaking of him, he told me something very concerning while we were shopping. I feel like you should know.”

“Really, what did he say-“ Bobby shut her mouth and rubbed the side of her face after a boulder hit her. Catfeine was outside the window waving at them.

“We want to see you!” She shouted.

“You’re like five feet away from us you didn’t need to assault us with a rock and shout!” Hoppy told her, everyone else was woken up by the noise.

Once every critter was woken up they decided they might as well follow the cat, anything to keep the trip to the factory away. Catfeine was a chatterbox the whole way through, most of what she said made barely any sense.

In the middle of a rant about how people should start running a very specific way she stopped to explain the reason she was stringing them along to the middle of the forest. “You’re all very interesting, probably the most interesting thing that has happened here in ages. I can’t just let go of you just like that. Tell me more about yourselves, please.”

“We can’t talk about where we came from. It really doesn’t concern you.” Dogday told her.

“You have no idea how much it concerns me.” Catfeine pulled out a gun from beneath her clothes and cackled.

“What is wrong with you?!” Bobby shouted at her, she put up a heart shield.

“Many things. Mmm, why don’t you all start off by telling me about the thing you were talking about outside the grocery store? That sounds interesting.”

“You also followed them? Oh my god, that’s why your friends were watching us earlier. I still got your friend’s wallet, by the way.”

“Like I care about Dumbba’s wallet, she loses something every month. You can keep it.” Catfeine waved the threat away, still holding everyone at gun point.

“We’ll tell you if- Oh my gosh, there’s someone behind you!” Crafty pointed behind the cat.

“You think I’m brain dead? I’m the opposite of that, I ain’t budging.”

“There’s actually someone behind you, they have an axe.” Kickin shouted, the other critters caught onto what they were doing and acted scare too.

Catfeine knew for a fact they were lying, but her mind still vividly imagined someone splitting her head open with an axe, she wouldn’t turn around, she WOULD’NT turn around. She HAD to.

She turned around and fired a few shots at nothing, Hoppy took the opportunity to run up to her and wrestle the gun off her hand. They briefly fought for it before Catfeine poked her eyes with her tail, she aimed the gun at the rabbit.

“Sayonara.” Crafty fired her horn as she pulled the trigger, hitting her in the arm and making her narrowly miss.

“Come the fuck out of now, can’t you see I’m losing?” Catfeine shouted towards the woods. Unique and Groddy came out of a bush, they didn’t have guns but they did have makeshift weapons.

Bubba tried to think of a solution quick, as he crunched up his head the world suddenly began to slow down, he blinked and everything suddenly had a yellow hue. He saw a thousand things happen at once until the scenario landed on something.

More critters would come out of the bushes and surround them, luckily he could also see where they would all move to, unluckily he had a killer headache now, his head felt like it was about to explode but he still managed to shout some instructions to his friends .

Everyone moved to fight back and it was barely even a fight. Most of them just backed away and ran.

“Wow, thought I wasn’t friends with any snakes just until now.” Catfeine stopped smiling as she watched her “friends” flee. The only ones who stayed where Dogpressed and Groddy who just watched from the sidelines.

Picky chewed some gum to help herself think better, she accidentally swallowed it as she dodged a rouge bullet and tried to spit it back out, not realizing she fired a sticky blob of a red substance at Catfeine’s chest.

She tried to wipe it off her shirt and got her hand caught on it. “I knew you caught my eye for a reason, just because I’m outnumbered doesn’t mean I’m gonna give up now.” Having an arm immobilized didn’t affect her much, her tail completely made up for it. She started shooting faster, forcing Bobby to make her shield bigger, she clutched her chest in pain everytime a bullet hit it, at least it didn’t hurt as much as actually getting shot.

The critters panicked behind the shield, it looked like she had more magazines than Bobby could handle. “As she reloads, Hoppy should carry me to her at super speed and then I knock her teeth off.” Kickin said, his feathers burning again.

“You’re probably gonna kill her if you do that, we can’t just kill someone.” Dogday said, it’s not like he had better plan, and Bubba was almost incapacitated.

“I have an idea! Catnap, you breathe some gas into the air, Kickin, you flap one your wings towards the her.” Crafty said, the two of them got the plan and executed. The gust of smoke hitting Catfeine right in the face.

“Smells floral.” She said, she then gasped and fell limply to the floor. Everyone sighed in relief.

Groddy looked down at her with a smile, the first time he had done that in a long time. “I told you so.” He had never felt happier, until he noticed she was not breathing at all. Dogpressed checked her pulse and found nothing. “You killed her!”

The critters all flinched at those words, Catnap’s gas was only supposed to make people fall asleep, it had to be a lie or something.

“All the coffee she drinks, her body must’ve not been able to handle her heartbeat slowing down.” Bubba said, still massaging his head.

“She tried to kill us first!” Catnap shouted, he didn’t think that was gonna happen, there was no way he could’ve predicted it. Dogpressed cried over her body, she knew her friend had started it, but she was mad.

“I hate you! I hate all of you, why did you have to come here?!” You could hear her cries from a mile away. They couldn’t just leave now, they had to fix this somehow.

“I think we can still start up her heartbeat again. If only we had bough a defibrillator.” Bubba said.

That gave Crafty an idea. “Hoppy, try rubbing your hands together.” Hoppy shrugged and sped up her hands, electricity crackling between them. She then pressed on Catfeine’s chest, zapping her and burning off the residue Picky left.

Catfeine got up and gasped, her eyes darted around the place. “I think I just saw god. He’s bigger than I expected.” She blinked multiple times, somehow dying for a minute cleared up her head.

“Hey, sorry for shooting you. I know this isn’t a good reason but I was bored and I-“ She felt guilt, she forced all her friends to participate in her crazy scheme.

“Hey doggy, I’m sorry. You too Groddy, I don’t know what I was thinking, I don’t know what I ever think.”

“You apologizing has to be the most unbelievable thing I’ve seen today.” He said, he didn’t want to admit the gesture made him glad.

“I’ll be nice from now on. Take this guy, I don’t need it anymore.” She handed the gun to Dogday.

“Thanks? Also, good to hear you’re gonna be better in the future, it’s important to be responsible when people look up at you.” He said, he tried to throw the gun away but Kickin offered to grab it, he kept it, he really didn’t trust Kickin with a gun.

“We should really get going on.” Bubba tapped Dogday on the shoulder, his headache was just now starting to fade.

“Yeah! Goodbye, have a nice life!” Dogday waved away as they walked further into the woods. Bubba took out the controller and opened another tear, he was sure this one would lead to the factory, everyone braced themselves as they entered in, for what would hopefully be the last time.

Chapter Text

The critters felt awful returning to the factory, even the run down town they went was practically paradise compared to this place, the sound of the machine and the putrid smell attacking their senses.

Crafty put her hoof on Picky’s shoulder as they sat down. “I didn’t thank you earlier for giving me that sewing kit. Thanks, and I’m sorry for yelling at you earlier.”

“It’s alright, I didn’t really care, just don’t do it again.” Picky shrugged off the situation and looked at the machine, the rest of the group already started fiddling with it again.

They changed more parts of it here and there, a few tweaks more and bam, the machine was as fixed as it possibly could be. They looked over at with some sense of pride, except for Catnap, he frowned.

“IT’S DONE, IT’S FIXED!” He shouted at the absolute top of his lungs.

“What’s the shouting for! We can see it’s fixed.” Picky along with everyone else was startled by the sudden noise.

“I’m sorry, I’m really sorry. The Prototype told me I had tell him when the machine was done. He will arrive any minute now.” Catnap pulled his hoodie over his head to try and hide.

“Come on! What happened to our plan of fighting back, I thought you believed in us.” Hoppy said.

“We can’t.” Catnap sat down in one of the chairs, waiting for him to arrive.

“Let’s just go, the machine is fixed, we have the controller, we should just leave.” Hoppy told Bubba, trying to grab the controller from him.

“We can’t leave! We don’t know what that person will do with this machine. They’re clearly evil, whatever they do with it will not be good.” Dogday stopped her, panicking about what will happen now.

“He’s right, we have to stay here and stop him. We have powers, we have tools. I bet beating that guy’s ass will be easy.” Kickin put his wings around Hoppy and Dogday’s shoulders.

“Yeah… yeah! Let’s go, go, go!” Hoppy shouted. The trio looked hopeful but most of the group was unsure, especially Catnap, but they gave it a shot anyways, what’s the worse that could happen?

They broke every piece of glass that was available to them and scattered them across the floor, they knocked over heavy machinery, they fortified the place like a stronghold.

The morale was high this time, they were talking and joking about how easy this win would be. “I’m glad we’re all having fun but remember. This person is very dangerous, we should not let out guard down even if it seems like we have it under control.”

“You really need to ease up, we got this. Especially with that brain of yours, tell me what I’m gonna do in the next five minutes.” Kickin said.

“I can’t just use pre-cognition at will, my head is still throbbing from the last time I used it, although I don’t need powers you’ll probably do something stupid in the next five minutes.”

“Pre-cognition, you already gave it a name?” Dogday asked.

“Well… I felt like it would be useful to give it a name.”

“Ahhh, you thought of a cool name and wanted to use, didn’t you?” Kickin pointed at him, Bubba shamefully nodded.

“Name mine, name mine.” Picky raised her hand and tried to get up, she was taken off her balance by the floor shaking. Everyone turned to the hallway as they began to hear footsteps, they scrambled towards their weapons and positions, sure they were ready for what was about to happen.

The shelves and machines they placed were crushed and flung like they were made out of cardboard, a heavy machine almost hitting Bubba as the prototype threw it across the room.

Everyone quickly checked on him and looked back at the prototype. It was massive, they could estimate he was about 12 feet tall or so from the distance. It had a broad and skeletal frame, his “bones” were covered by blue fur, pink rubber, purple stitch work and the suit of the jester they fought earlier, their hopes were diminished due to the implication. Its head looked like part of a superhero suit, a broken symbol sticking out of its head, one of his hands also looked the arm of an action figure while the other one was thin and made out of metal with some exposed bone.

The glass trap barely scratched it’s metal feet as he approached. “Back away from the creator.” It said, in the voice of a man, the lights in his eyes lighting up when it spoke

“No, you back away now!” Dogday’s hands were shaking as he held the gun, aiming right for the prototype’s head, but it just kept walking, Dogday didn’t fire.

Hoppy ran at it while swinging a bat, as soon as it connected with one of its legs it made her abruptly stop, the momentum sending against a wall.

Every step it took made a metallic noise and shook the ground, lifting one foot to crush Hoppy, Kickin put himself in between them before he could completely bring it down, he wasn’t as strong as previous times, he felt scared. He could feel the foot slowly starting to crush him.

“Use the damn gun!” He shouted. Dogday fumbled with it in his arms and fired 3 shots at its abdomen area, it screamed in pain with the voices of multiple people at once and lost its footing, Kickin was finally able to overpower it and knock it off its balance. The noise it made when it fell must’ve echoed the entire building.

“Why didn’t you just use that from the beginning, fire more, kill it!” Hoppy shouted as Kickin helped her get up.

Dogday pulled the trigger again but it only clicked. “It’s empty”

Bubba put his head on his hands. “We should’ve asked for her ammo.”

The machinery inside of it worked hard as the prototype got up, the bullets actually hit quite a few vital organs, but it had more than enough replacements.

“What’s the plan now? Oh right, we have no plan.” Bubba paced back and forth on the back of the room.

“Just use your powers!” Crafty shouted, watching the prototype regain his footing.

“It doesn’t matter, all I’m gonna see is bodies, we’re all gonna die, we’re gonna die.”

“Dogday, you must have a power too, use it!” Crafty put her hand on his shoulders.

Dogday clenched his fists, he could feel a fire inside of him, inside of Crafty, Kickin, Hoppy, Bobby, but that wasn’t enough, the flame inside of him quickly faded. “I got nothing…” He looked down at the floor, his mind going blank. He could see Bobby being thrown back after the prototype hit her shield, her shoes scraping against the floor, she clutched her chest.

“Crafty, just shoot him!” Bobby shouted, she didn’t even care about what would happen the toy.

Crafty’s blasts hurt but they were nowhere near as powerful as a gone, she already knew that wouldn’t work, she thought about how guilty she felt about how she treated her friends and how that was gonna be one of her last memories with them. Her horn shined and shot a blue beam that hit the prototype before it could reach them, it paused.

The critters huddled together, watching the prototype remain as still as a statue.

“You can pause people?” Bobby asked.

“Can I? I-I didn’t think it would have that effect.” They remained together, still scared of the giant in front of them.

“Do you think he’s dead?” Hoppy looked at everyone’s faces to gauge their reaction, the prototype soon started moving again, like it had heard her and did it out of spite, but that would imply it cared about how she felt.

“Catnap, come here.” It moved his clawed hand to hold him, Catnap separated from the group and did just as he was told, the others clung onto his clothes, begging him not to leave, he ignored.

The cat looked up at the unfinished toy, waiting for more instructions. “Trade. Give me the controller, I give you Catnap.”

There was really no choice, Bubba slowly walked towards him and put the controller on the ground for it to pick it up. It picked up with its normal hand used it with its long metallic fingers, opening a tear behind him.

“Now give him back.” Dogday asked, a little hopeful that even if they failed to protect other people his best friend would be safe.

Catnap jolted a little when he felt a claw pierce his stomach and exit out through his back, the prototype moving it a little to pierce more of his organs. He groaned and fell to the ground.

The critters shouted for him and ran to help him, not caring about what the prototype could do them. He chocked and spat out out blood.

“Pull his head backwards! Put pressure on the wound… it’s too much, it’s too much!” Hoppy started hyperventilating as she looked down at her friend, blood gushing out of his abdomen.

“You promised you would return him!” Dogday shouted at the prototype, it did not look back, going through the tear and blinking out of existence.

“Catnap, just breathe. It’s gonna be fine.” Dogday sat down next to him and held his hand, he tried to focus on his best friend’s face and not the gigantic gash in his stomach, Catnap softly returned the gesture by holding his hand.

Picky rushed to get a first aid kit out of her bag, she tossed it to the group and they began their best to help him. “Come on, it’s not working, Bubba you know how to fix this, right?” Kickin shook him to make him focus.

Bubba had no idea what to say, he already knew how this gonna go but he didn’t want to believe it, they all knew to some degree.

Blood smeared all over his shirt and his hoodie, Dogday’s hands only spreading it even further. “I’m sorry, it’s my fault you’re all here. Even before all of this, I’ve never been the best friend.” He took a deep breath and coughed more. “I hope you can all forgive me, even if I don’t deserve it.”

“Don’t say that, there’s nothing to apologize for. Just stay awake.” Dogday felt the grasp on his hand slip as Catnap closed his eyes. Dogday started crying and hugged him tighter.

“Please, I can’t live without you.” He pressed his face against the side of the cat’s neck. He could feel no movement from his chest whatsoever.

Most of them began weeping right after him, Catnap was never the most social, but that didn’t hurt with the pain, it felt like they had taken him for granted.

Hoppy wiped the tears from her face and looked at the tear, they still had to go home, even if Catnap was gone, they couldn’t die here. “The portal, the controller! We need to follow him, we need it to go back.” She pulled on Kickin’s arm.

“We go? Right now? Our friend just died, can’t you give us a few minutes?” Kickin looked at her with anger.

“He might be gone in a few minutes. We need to go, NOW.”

“I want to go too, I need to see that thing stopped.” Picky raised her hand. Kickin looked at her with some hesitation. “I guess it’s now or never, I’m going too.”

“Anyone else wants to go?” The rabbit looked at her mourning friends.

They shook their heads. “I need to stay here. I have an idea.” Bubba said.

“What idea?” Crafty asked.

“I don’t want to say it right now. It has a big chance of not working, and I don’t want to disappoint even more. Bobby, Crafty, can you two help me with it!”

They looked back at the corpse, Dogday still clinging to it. “Sure, things can’t get worse.” Crafty said.

“Me too.” Bobby said in between tears

“We only have three people to go… unless.” Hoppy looked at Dogday and thought about it, he hated herself for thinking about interrupting him but she had to if they wanted to have the slightest chance to succeed. She touched his shoulder.

“You need to come with us. If we’re stuck here then Catnap dies for nothing, think about everything that we have to go back to, think about us, we’re here for you.” Hoppy smiled softly, maybe that would motivate him more.

He away his tears and fought to speak in between sobs. “You’re right, we need to move on. I need to be there for all of you.” Dogday carefully removed Catnap’s pendant, its yellow glow covered by red

The squad looked at the tear which remained open, the prototype should be planning to return eventually, they had to stop that, they didn’t know what they would return with. They held each other hands this time and stepped through it.

Their eyes struggled to adjust again to the new source of light, but it wasn’t bright, it was covered up by a layer of fog and smoke, that was good, that meant there was civilization here.

They found that was not a good thing when they heard an explain go off a few blocks away from them and a car crashed into a telephone pole. The man driving shambled out and puked on the floor, he the passed out, falling into the pile of puke.

“It’s not even been five minutes. How has he already turned this place so apocalyptic!” Kickin pointed at the world around himself indignantly.

“We really have to sped up. I’m just gonna run ahead and comb the place to find him.”

Dogday grabbed her hand before she could run off. “Don’t do that! You could get hurt and we would have no way of helping you, you can’t do that!” His nails dug into her.

“Ok, ok. I won’t! But that means we have to find another way to move quickly.” She pulled herself away from Dogday and looked at the car. “Do you guys think it still works?”

“Do any of us even know how to drive?” Picky asked her.

“I’ve been taking lessons with one of my siblings. I can totally do it.”

“Sure, if it’s only our only option. Dying in a car crash doesn’t sound so bad right about now.” Kickin walked past the man on the floor and got on the car. “It reeks in here.”

Hoppy took the wheel as everyone else sat on the back seat and Dogday sat on the passenger seat. She reversed the car out of the pole and sighed at the fact it still worked.

“We’re on the road!” She held out her hand for a high five to Dogday, he turned away and looked out the window, fidgeting with the pendant in his hand, the blood starting to dry out. She retracted her hand and turned her eyes back to the road.

The place looked like the set of a disaster movie, windows were smashed, buildings were crumbling. There was dried blood all over the pavement, this didn’t help their mood.

“So what’s our plan to find him?” Picky asked.

“Well I was planning on following some kind of path of destruction but this whole place is a wreck.” She punched the panel of the car in frustration, their changes of returning home looked more grim by the second.

As she was thinking about just returning to the tear before it closed a car streaked pass them, a pink and yellow blur were visible for a second. Hoppy thought the possibility.

The car backed up and a familiar face looked back at her. It was Kickin, except this one had a huge scar in his forehead, the Kickin looked at the Hoppy in front of him and then back at the one beside him. “What the fuck?”

The other Picky stuck out her face too, eating some unknown raw meat in between some burger buns. She smiled and waved at her normal counterpart, her teeth were absolutely rotten, Picky almost felt like throwing up.

“Hi. I know this is gonna sound weird but we’re you from another universe and we need help finding this giant robot, have you seen anything like that?” Hoppy looked at the other Kickin with a nervous smile.

Kickin looked back at his “friends”. “Dogday, are you seeing this?”

The other Dogday stepped past Picky and looked out the window, focusing on his other self. “Thats me, and that’s you, and that’s Picky and that’s-“

“I can see that. I have eyes dumbass, what do you think we should do.”

“You’re asking me what I think.” Dogday sniffled.

“You’re the only other coherent person in here. Hey Hoppy! How many feathers am I holding up.” He held up four, Hoppy only made car noises with her mouth.

Kickin stick his head out the window and slid back his hair. “Hello, from a handsome chicken speaking to another handsome chicken, why don’t you help us? Self help is important.”

“Are you trying to seduce yourself?” Picky asked him, his body blocking her view.

“Shhh, if he’s anything like me then he’ll accept the flattery.”

The scared Kickin looked at his own winking face and then took out his phone, he had a message, he read it and winked back at Kickin.

“So is that a yes?” Kickin asked. The other one took out a gun and aimed, Kickin ducked down as fast as possible and the bullet went through the window and out the other one. Hoppy stomped on the gas as fast as she could, her heart sped up again.

“Why did he do that!” Kickin asked, still shivering from the bullet almost hitting him.

“Why does every version of ourselves that we find wants to shoot us. Why couldn’t have we landed in a place where we’re made out out of candy or something. Are they following us.” Hoppy tried her best to concentrate.

Dogday looked out the window, they were being chased, Kickin grinned as he fired another bullet, aiming to hit Dogday in the head. He hastily pulled his head back. “They’re trying to tail us!”

Kickin and Picky got down on the floor to avoid the bullets, good thing for them that Kickin didn’t have very good aim in a swerving vehicle.

“Can you make this thing move less?!” He looked at his Hoppy, she responded with more car noises, he facepalmed.

“Don’t hurt them!” Dogday grabbed him by the shoulder, Kickin shouldered him and tried to aim again, a thick viscous red substance splattered itself on the windshield

The normal Picky wiped her mouth, setting down the bag of sour gummies in her hoof. The liquid bubbled as it began eating through the windshield, blocking their vision.

“Do you think that’s gonna stop them?” Dogday asked, looking through the rear view mirror. The Kickin smashed through the window with his foot, absolutely frothing a the mouth with anger. Dogday watched this bend down to grab something beneath, which Dogday accurately guessed as a gun, a shotgun this time

The chicken smirked as he lifted up the barrel. “Hoppy, swerve, swerve!” She looked through the mirror as well and screamed when she saw it, she tried to move the car as unpredictable as possible, uncaring of what poles or other objects she could hit.

“Stop, stop, don’t hurt them!” Dogday slapped Kickin’s hand, making the shot hit an unrelated building.

“Stupid dog! Do you think bullets grow on trees?” He struck him on the nose a couple of time, hard enough for him to start bleeding.

“I’m sorry.” Dogday wiped his blood nose.

“You’re gonna be. This is the last time you do something like this.” Kickin grabbed by him the shirt, Dogday struggled and continued apologizing. Kickin opened the door and moved Dogday’s face close to the street.

“Let’s see how pretty you look after the pavement is done with you.”

Dogday struggled back, supporting himself with the floor of the car, but he would lose eventually, Kickin was stronger.

Hoppy watched this all happen from the mirror. “Dogday, you’re gonna have to take the wheel.”

“What?”

“I have to help you, the other you, can’t just let him die.”

“But I don’t know how to drive.”

“We’ve played those arcade machines together before, it’s similar.” Hoppy opened the door and hesitated to put her foot on the street, she questioned what she was about to do and did it.

It hurt for a second before her speed kicked in. Dogday shifted seats to grab the steering wheel, he gave a thumbs to Hoppy as she ran beside the car.

She gave a sign off that could be missed with a blink and went to help out the other dog. She kicked Kickin in the face and took a hold of her friend’s lookalike.

“What the fuck, you’re a mutant? So that’s the trick Bubba mentioned, giving a vague heads up again.” Hoppy held down, looking at the Dogday for help.

“Im not sure if I can… sorry.”

She rolled her eyes, what could ever make someone be such a pushover. She started feeling the other Hoppy playing with her ears, it felt insulting.

“Hoppy, are none of your leg in the wheel!” Kickin shouted. The car hit a fire hydrant.

Dogday screeched to a halt, the trio got off the car and ran on foot to check on them.

Hoppy was alright, would definitely have a big bruise after but not bad considering the speed they were going at.

The others were alive too, but their main concern was Hoppy.

“Why did I let you do that!” Dogday caressed her head, she was out of it. Kickin wasted no time in holding down his angrier version.

The crazy Picky bit his wing as hard as she could as soon as she saw the opportunity. The other pig stopped her, sticking her mouth up with more gum, launching those things felt weird to her, almost like vomiting.

“Thanks… so what are we gonna do now. There’s still no sign of the prototype.” Kickin went back to making sure his alternate version would not move.

Dogday wished Bubba would’ve come along with them, he would’ve probably thought of something clever by now, and then he realized something. He pulled out the empty gun on the crazy Kickin, aiming it right at his head.

“Where’s the other ones, where’s Bubba?”

“Calm down! He’s probably in his lab, like always. I can take you to him, just let me move.”

“You’re not moving. You’re gonna stay put and you’re gonna guide us, ok?” He put his foot on the chicken’s chest.

“Alright, alright!”

Kickin and Picky looked at the dog with some concern, but they didn’t want to tell him to ease up, it was just what they had to do. Picky restrained the rest of them with their gum and after that they were on the road again, Kickin grouchily giving instructions.

Restraining the other Dogday wasn’t necessary, he sat in the backseat with the others while his braver counterpart took the wheel, the dog couldn’t help but recoil as Kickin helped him with his bleeding.

Hoppy regained her full consciousness as they were about to reach their destination, they drove far from the city and deep into the woods. “Hey Dogday, good move back there. Didn’t know you were capable of that.” She raised a thumbs up, still holding her head.

“Thanks… do you feel good now?”

“There’s a giant bump in my head, I feel as good as I can… I know you feel regret about threatening someone but you shouldn’t, they tried to kill us, and it was an empty gun anyways.”

“It was empty?!” Crazy Kickin kicked the car in rage. Hoppy restraining him during his tantrum.

“Hoppy’s right you know. He was fully ready to fill us with lead. You really shouldn’t feel bad for treating them bad.” The normal Kickin said.

Dogday thought about what they said, he felt they were kinda right, and he didn’t like the fact he could admit that.

“Your life seems so good. Can I come with all of you?” The other Dogday asked.

“I’m not sure if that would work, sorry dude.” Hoppy responded, making Dogday sit back down and look at the ground.

“Don’t worry, we’re gonna get rid of The Prototype and this place will go back to normal.” The normal Dogday told him.

“Who’s the prototype?” He raised his head to ask.

“You don’t know him? He’s the one who did all of this, isn’t he.” Dogday responded to his copy

“I never heard of that person. Life has always just been like this.”

“Oh… in that case we can just… We’ll think of something when we get there. We should be arriving right about now, right?” The sunny dog looked at their captive, Kickin grunted, which he could surmise as a yes.

They reached an abandoned looking building in the middle of the forest not long after. They got out of the car and asked Dogday if this was the place, it was.

“Alright, we can’t come in while keeping track of all of you so I’m asking you this favor other me. Wait here and make sure you your friends don’t escape. Got it?”

“Got it.” The dog’s shook hands as they separated. Making sure his “friends” wouldn’t escape from the sticky substance was the first time he had felt close to being a leader in years.

Before they could enter the lab there was one more tiny obstacle, the door needed a password. “Hey, there’s a number pad on here, can you tell us the code.” Dogday yelled back.

“It’s eight eight eight eight.”

The dog scratched his head, there’s no way that kind of password was made by Bubba, way too simplistic. He typed in the code and was amazed when the door actually opened, this Bubba must not be as bright then.

The first floor of the building was desolate it. They had just repurposed an abandoned office building, things were broken, there were some graffiti and writings on the wall, the writings all being the alternate critters leaving notes for each other, using not very kind language.

Hoppy’s phone suddenly buzzed to life, making noise in the dead silent room, Kickin screamed and reactively hit one of the cubicles.

“Calm down! It’s just a message. I wonder how it could be.” She turned on the phone and saw it was a message from Bobby, more alarmingly she saw the phone was almost out of battery, she had to read and answer quick.

“Hi hoppy is everyone there ok we’re to where you guys are right now we are fine I love you.” The message read, Hoppy quickly typed back

“You’re in here????? Whatever I’m glad you’re fine and yeah we’re also alive but I have no idea how I’m gonna tell you where we are.”

“We don’t need need that don’t worry Hoppy remember that tracking chip I got on Dogday that one time? It works here too we’re coming to help you right now and I have good news.”

The phone shut off as Hoppy glued her face to screen that displayed Bobby typing something else, she stomped on the floor.

“Who was it, what did they say?” Dogday asked.

“It was Bobby, they’re here too now. She’s tracking you by the way, they’ll be here soon.”

“That chips still works? I had no idea it worked at all and much less in here. Doesn’t matter, I hope they can make it here safely, and that whatever Bubba thought of worked.” Dogday looked at the spot in his arm where the chip apparently still is, explains the itchiness he feels sometimes.

“So should we wait for them?” Picky asked.

“No, we shouldn’t stall anymore. The longer we stay here the more likely it is The Prototype will leave.” Dogday said. An intercom blared through the building soon after, first it was the sound of static and then someone clearing up their throat.

“Welcome friends. I’m glad you could make it despite some obstacles. I will open the elevator for you, very exited to meet you all.” Bubba’s goofy yet deep voice came from the speaker.

“Yeah, right. As if we’re gonna fall for that. Come out yourself and face us coward!” Kickin yelled at the speaker.

“I must inform you that my side doesn’t have any audio from you, and I don’t have the energy to decipher your beak flaps so save your blabbering for when we meet, properly. Goodbye for now!” The static crackled again and an elevator in front of them began to open, there was no way around it.

They got onto the elevator, the thing closing and lowering on its own. Old timey music playing inside of it, the kind that Bubba like listening to sometimes.

The elevator made a ding as it opened, the critter looking out to the desolate halls of the basement. The underground was actually larger than the ground level, this must’ve been here before Bubba took over.

He also obviously saved on the electricity bill by only having only a few dim lights on. “Alright everyone, just like the factory. We’re gonna walk back to back.” Dogday took the lead, leaning behind every corner.

“What do you think fake Bubba is gonna try to kill us with? I’m thinking of robots.” Picky said.

“Don’t jinx it. I’m sure it’s gonna be something worse now.” Hoppy replied, a magic blast hitting Picky in the shoulder seconds after

“It’s Crafty!” Dogday yelled. Hoppy pulled them off to safety behind a wall, also making Picky’s shoulder hurt even more.

“Crafty can just shoot one of these things whenever she gets mad?” The pig uncomfortably held her shoulder, the blast had burned through her clothes and given her a burn.

“Dogday, come out of there. Bubba wants to see you.” Crafty sounded tired, but no in an exhausted way, she felt disgusted that Bubba had practically forced her to do this, it completely cut into her drawing time.

“Never!” Kickin shouted, he grabbed from Picky’s backpack and launched at Crafty, his feathers firing up again.

She shot at it, making it redirect to the ceiling which it embedded itself in.

“Are you insane! That would’ve straight up killed her if it worked.” Dogday punched in him anger, Kickin’s feathers dimming.

“I’m sorry! I just thought it was fair, she’s trying to kill us, why should we feel bad?”

“Even if she’s misguided that’s still Crafty in some way. Crafty’s always been kind, maybe we can talk this out.” The dog walked out, holding his hands up.

“Crafty, I know you don’t want to do this.”

“You’re right. I don’t.” A cyan laso came out of her horn and wrapped itself around Dogday’s arms, it tied them together and pulled him towards the unicorn, their heads colliding once Dogday got close enough, she never got the hang of that. She grunted in anger and grabbed Dogday before he could do anything

Hoppy clutched her stomach as she tried sprinting towards them, her limbs aching this time as well.

Bobby opened a door and ushered Crafty and the new captive in, she blew a kiss goodbye as they entered and she closed the door.

The now trio stared in disbelief at the closed door. Hoppy overcame the pain and slammed herself towards it, again and again.

“Kickin! Help me break down this thing, we have to save him.”

“What’s the point, we’re not coming back. Catnap already died and now Dogday, I don’t care anymore.” Kickin slumped down to the floor.

“Dogday is still alive. We can still help him.” Picky said. The rabbit grabbed him by the torso and tried to carry him.

“We’re not giving up, we can’t. Kickin, you’re the one who encouraged us to fight, you can’t give up now.”

Kickin groaned, trying to pry himself away from Hoppy. “That’s the problem. Catnap is dead because I wanted to fight back, and now Dogday, and probably the rest of us. I don’t want to fight anymore, I just want to die already.”

Hoppy let go of him with one hand to wipe away a tear as she started sobbing. “It’s just as much my fault. I wanted to fight too. We have to go reach home, we have to do at least that.” She kept dragging him a long, another unfortunate event from giving up too, Picky following close behind.

Dogday was strapped onto a hospital bed by Bobby. Crafty leaving as soon as she could. “Tell him not to not do that again.” The unicorn leaving through another door in the hallway they were running through.

Dogday was still rattled by the head slam, it took him a few seconds to notice Bobby caressing his face. “You look just like him, but better.” She pinched his cheek.

“Bobby, you’re kind, even if it’s deep inside of your heart. You don’t have to do everything that Bubba tells you to.”

“You have such a way with words. You’re the perfect replacement.” He opened his mouth to speak again but Bobby used her hand to close it. “Don’t ruin this moment with words.”

She rammed through several doors like this was an emergency until he made it to Bubba’s room, he turned away from his computer to look at the two.

“Dogday! You’re here, sorry for having to do this but I just wanted to meet you, 𝙖𝙡𝙤𝙣𝙚.” He looked at Bobby.

“But I want to spend more time with him.” She hugged the dog.

Bubba walked towards her and held her hands. “What did you promise?”

Bubba making eye contact made her feel shame, she whined and left the room, leaving them alone.

“Finally! The Prototype had a lot to say about you and your friends. He had a hunch you would follow him anyways and what a smart man he is, you did just do that.” He moved Dogday’s bed to be under a lamp, a tv in front of them, it was like a dentist’s office

“He’s gonna betray you!” Dogday tried to struggle against his bonds, they didn’t give much wiggle room, cutting his blood flow slightly.

“We’ve already made a deal. I experiment on you to figure out what gave you those abilities, and in turn I give that information to The Prototype, it’s a win-win.”

“You’re gonna experiment on me? There’s nothing even special about me. I’m the only one in the group without a power.”

“I’m sure there’s something especial about you. Why would your powers skip the leader after all… don’t look so scared. The tests won’t kill you, and I won’t even start now, we should talk first.” The elephant took out a notebook and placed it on his lap. “Start, just talk”

Dogday thought of what to say. The Bubba he knew could already be distant at times, if his speech didn’t work on the others then it wouldn’t work on him. “Since when has this place been this bad.”

“Since always. Your reality is very pleasant, I presume. The Prototype has told me some things but not all the details, tell me more about where you come from.” He wrote down every single word spoken, still looking at Dogday.

“It’s a nice place, we play, we go to school. We go to the library every other Thursday, Bubba. We’re still reading this one big book together, about a fantasy kingdom, it’s called-“

“Dogday, I’m not ‘Bubba’. I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re not gonna make me feel bad for you.” He patted Dogday’s cheek. “Speaking of, where’s Bubba, you brought another three along.” Bubba took a remote and pressed it, the tv lighting up, showing different footage of security cameras, looking at the other critters.

Kickin was walking now, although Hoppy was dragging him along, not like she looked much more hopeful either, Picky followed them from behind, turning her head back often.

“You’re not gonna do anything to them, right?” Dogday asked

“Depends on how things turn out, and what The Prototype tells me, he’s already given me full ownership of you.” Bubba took out a wooden stick from his pocket and forced Dogday’s mouth open with it, his eyes squinted while he looked around.

“Your abnormality is not visibly from here. I expected that, just wanted to get a good look at your mouth, the actual procedure to identify it will require surgery.”

“Surgery?! I might die!” Dogday tried breaking from his restraints again, harming himself in the struggle.

“Calm down, it’s not guaranteed. I have some practice with surgery, but yes. It’s a possibility.”

“Can I at least ask for a favor beforehand. I didn’t get to say goodbye to Catnap properly, can you let me talk to yours for a second. I know it won’t be the same but I need to say goodbye to him.”

Bubba shrugged and rolled his eyes. “You won’t get much of out that, but sure.” Bubba pressed a purple button on the controller and sat back down.

They waited through a few minutes of uncomfortable silence until Catnap opened a door, a cigarette in his mouth letting off red smoke. His face and way he moved would have you believe he never had a wink of sleep in his life despite being all he does outside of smoking.

“What do you want now?” Catnap clumsily stepped towards them. “Why is Dogday tied up. I don’t want to be involved in this today.” His voice was raspy and slurred, his mind wasn’t all there.

“Hi Catnap. What we’re doing is not important, I just wanted to talk to you.”

Catnap looked down at Dogday, the cat looking even taller for the dog in that position. “I already know I should smoke. I don’t care what you think, Dogday.”

“No, it’s not about that. I just wanted to talked to you. Life has never treated you the the kindest, and as much as I try I can’t be there to help you all the time. I just want you to know I love you.” Dogday’s voice trembled, his eyes starting to swell up again.

The cigarette almost dropped from Catnap’s mouth. “Thanks? We haven’t talked in a long time. What is this leading up to?”

“Nothing. This might be the last time I get to see you and I want to say goodbye.”

“Uhhh, goodbye, Dogday?” Catnap waved.

“I told you he wouldn’t make for a good conversation. Are you ready to start now, I’ve grown impatient.” Bubba said.

“Just one last thing, Catnap, can you get closer to my face, please.”

Catnap removed the cigarette and looked at it, him and Dogday were inseparable years ago, but that felt more distant by the day. Spurred on by the new found emotion and the gas taking up most of his brain, Catnap decided to go for a kiss.

The red gas filled up Dogday’s mouth, Catnap still producing it even without the cigarette, the dog’s lungs burned as he refused to breathe, Catnap breaking off the kiss after an agonizing minute, Dogday used his left over strength and wafted the gas towards Bubba.

The elephant wasn’t fast enough to react to it, the gas entered his trunk before he could stop it. He got up in alarm. “You stupid dog! I- that’s poppy mixed with vanilla, what a lovely, lovely…” Bubba fell to the floor.

“Untie me, untie me!” Dogday yelled at the look alike of his best friend, his eyes watering from holding in the smoke. Catnap did not process what just happened, he just helped friend by unstraping him, took some effort in his high state but it got done.

Dogday checked his body before quickly looking up at the tv. They had gotten out of the car, the other Dogday could not stop them, he was being dragged along by the other Kickin through the building, bruises in his face, and they were about to walk into the hallway where his friends were.

Panicked, he looked around the room, Bubba’s desk where he accessed the speakers nearby, a map of the building also found at the desk. If he spoke into them then the entire building would hear him, not just friends, still a better option than leaving them on their own.

“Guys! You’re close to me, enter the room to the left and keep going in a straight line!” The speakers blared.

The critters flinched as they heard his voice again, they looked at each other. “What are we waiting for, we have to rescue him!” Kickin yelled, his confidence coming back to him.

“Yeah, let’s go, go, go.” Hoppy yelled, Picky surprised at the speed they had picked up, her morale rising as she watched her friends become more active.

“They’re heading to Bubba’s room, get them!” The other Kickin yelled at his teammates.

They chased the critters through the hall, Kickin foregoing his gun and throwing random things he found at them. It was hard to keep up the pace, especially for Hoppy, who still had a horrible headache along with her whole body feeling the consequences of using her power so much.

Dogday was waiting behind the door to open it for them and close it as soon as they came in. “Why are you free?” Dogday heard Bobby’s voice behind him.

“Bobby! Just leave, you shouldn’t be here.” He swatted his hand at her.

She looked at Bubba’s unconscious body and Catnap right beside it, staring out into nothing. “I can’t let you go.” Bobby took the pencil that Bubba dropped, the dog opened the door for the others while he avoided her.

The other critters ran in through the door, with Dogday not being able to shut the door they did not register in time to close it themselves. Dogday ducked as Bobby tried to stab him, Hoppy running to help him and stop her.

Catnap watched from the sidelines as the other animals went feral and attacked each other. It was entertaining, until it got boring, his mind started to drip off to sleep as he looked at the cameras, more double’s of his friends coming in. Not interesting enough, he could pursue his new found feelings for Dogday after a nap.

Bobby stabbed Hoppy several times with a pencil, didn’t do much damage due to its dullness but it still hurt a lot. Kickin and Picky fought off the 4 other ones.

Bobby suddenly ran into the room, out of breath and holding a few gas masks. “Put these on, put these on!”

“Bobby, you’re here!” Hoppy was happy to see the correct version of her friend.

“I’m happy to see you too, but you need to put this on, right now!” Bobby dodged the crazy critters, handing the gas mask to her friends.

Dogday stared at his, there was only one reason why they would need them. Bobby shut the door as a purple gas with yellow sparkles began to fill the room.

“Mmm, lavender.” The crazy Bobby said, her body falling limp on the ground. After few more second of the room being gassed Bobby opened the door to let the gas escape.

“That was the plan that Bubba had, how did you do that?” Dogday began to tear up, he had to be near.

“He looked at the notes the scientists left behind and did something. I don’t know what though, I didn’t wanted to look at the surgery.”

Crafty and Bubba then came in through the door, Crafty barely holding onto the elephant by his shirt, Bubba looked exhausted, his eyes barely focusing on anything.

“What happened to him?” Kickin lifted the elephant’s head up.

“He’s unwell from using his power too much. But he’s gonna be fine, I think.” The unicorn handed him over to the rest to hold him, letting her horn rest, a migraine forming in her head too.

“Where is he?” Dogday looked out of the door, waiting for the cat to arrive. A vent made a loud clanking sound as it opened and Catnap crawled into the room.

“Catnap!” The critters said in unison. Dogday immediately ran to hug him, clutching him tightly. “How are you alive? You died!”

“I did, I’m still not sure how I’m alive again. Bubba tried explaining it to me, but I don’t think he understands it fully.” Catnap pulls away and lifts up his shirt, he has a huge stitched scar from the hole that used to be in his stomach, he then lets his shirt down again, some of the scar still visible through the hole in his shirt.

“I used purple string to try to mask it, didn’t work perfectly but hey, it’s better than if I used red or something, right?” She chuckled and sighed.

Dogday went for a hug again and grabbed something in one his pockets, taking out Catnap’s pendant. “Sorry for taking, I thought you would never use it anymore.” He placed it around his neck again, he noticed the blood still on it, he chipped away as much as he could with his claws, Catnap stopping him.

“It’s fine like that… we can clean it once we get home… speaking of home. How are we gonna get back. You’ve dealt with him already, right?” Catnap’s ears dropped as he remembered once again why they were here, pulling him out of the happy moment.

“No… but we can try again. Crafty can pull off the same move and Bubba can..” He looked the elephant being held up by feathers and Hoppy’s arms.

“I still don’t know what I did to stop The Prototype earlier… I think it was my guilt, I made him feel it too.”

“Well he clearly didn’t feel that guilty because he still killed Catnap afterwards. I don’t think it’s gonna work again.” Picky said.

“We should stay here for now, until we find him, we shouldn’t rush.” Dogday sat down, pushing Kickin’s unconscious body aside with his foot.

“No! We need to find him, every second we spend here is another moment that he can just use the controller and-“ Hoppy was interrupted by the ground rumbling, almost like an earthquake, a face appearing in the security cameras above.

“GET. HERE. WONT. WAIT.” The security feed spelled out, they changed to a sequence of corridors leading to a big door.

“There goes our rest.” Bobby sighed, almost wanting to cry.

“We can think of something on the way there. Let’s just go now, if he leaves then we might be stranded here forever.” Dogday lead the group again, they discussed a few things they could do, Bubba regaining his conscious more and more along the way.

They talked about the guns their mirror versions had, but they forgot to grab those, so that plan was out of the question. They talked about Dogday’s power then, they still had no idea what it was so they couldn’t build a plan around that, and before they knew it they were at the door. It opened itself as Dogday closer to it.

The Prototype stood in a warehouse room, it had moved the shelves to make more space for itself. “Come here, I will not wait, only Dogday.”

“You’re crazy if you think he’s gonna do that.” Kickin shouted.

“I will, I have to.” Dogday stepped forward, stopping halfway through the space between the door and The Prototype.

“Come closer.”

“This is close enough. Tell me what your intentions are and then I’ll get closer.”

“You’re in no position to argue, come closer”

“Why can’t you come closer then?”

The Prototype moved his hand and froze again for a minute before responding. “You are stubborn, and that’s why I want you to join me. You have won against the odds many times, you should join me, it is your best option.”

“Why would we join you? All you’ve done is hurt us and destroy everything you come across. What do you even want us for?”

“This plan has all been to find soldiers. Once I find enough, I will return to my world and wage war against humanity. The factory would’ve never been enough. But now, thanks to The Creator, and your help. I have been given access to things humanity could’ve only imagined. You eight have proven superior, worthy soldiers. Join me or die.”

Dogday walked closer to the Prototype. “No! Absolutely not. You tortured Catnap, he’s never doing anything wrong to anyone in his life and you decided to just use him! Just like what you’ve done to us and what you’re gonna do to all your ‘soldiers’ once you get what you want. Give me the controller, we’re going home.”

“You are less intelligent than I thought. Your home is not real, your family, your friends. They were all made by humans for their own benefit, don’t you want revenge on them. Your world and everything you have ever know is only a fabrication. Joining me is the closest you’ll ever get to being a person.

The critters felt a lump in their throats, his words held truth, their personalities and mannerisms were made with the goal of appealing to kids. A cartoon on the screen was not a whole person with dreams and desires and complex feelings.

Dogday didn’t care about any of that, he felt angry. “What does that matter? Is being here not real enough for you? I feel fear, I feel love for my friends, why I exist doesn’t matter to me. Your life being meaningless doesn’t make our life the same.” Rage burned inside of him, more and more, some it wasn’t even his. He could the anger of his friends, their determination to get out of here.

His fur became flames, his body glowing. He could feel 7 other hearts beating inside of him, telling him the same words. He raised the empty gun in his pocket and fired, a fireball shot out and hit The Prototype, the creature back up in pain and holding onto the shelves for support, the metal almost breaking.

Dogday balled up fist and build up moment as he ran to hit him. The Prototype catching with his non clawed hand, the skin and flesh searing right off the synthetic bone. The titan roared in pain.

It clawed at Dogday, trying to puncture his skull, the claw failing to go through, he stabbed Dogday, his claws beginning to melt from the heat.

“Leave us alone!” Dogday grabbed it’s head an forcefully pulled it apart from it’s body, wires and veins snapping off.

“You’re closing unimaginable doors to yourself right now. You’ll regret doing this one day.” The Prototype got to say before his neck fully snapped off.

“I won’t.” He tossed the head away.

“Dogday, I’m a little scared of you now.” Hoppy said, stepping into the room, the other critters following her steps.

“So it’s over? We get to go now.” Crafty said, looking at Dogday. His fur went back to normal and as he calmed down, he sighed in exhaustion.

“Shouldn’t we help them? The other versions of us. They need help.” The dog said, pulling out the controller out of a pouch in the prototype’s body.

“I don’t think we can help them, ‘Day. At least not right now.” The unicorn responded, helping him safely get off the prototype’s torso with her horn.

“I hope we can return one day. Everything outside of our world seems so miserable…” Bobby said.

“So this is really the end then. We get to go home.” Dogday looked at the controller in his hand, thinking about some makeshift invention Bubba made could hold this much power.

“Are we gonna be friends after this? Like so much has happened, I don’t know what to do now.” Bobby said.

“I think I want to be friends with all you forever now. How can we ever split up after something like this?” Kickin said, putting his wing around her shoulders.

“I’m not sure what we’re gonna do after this but I want you to be there for whatever it is.” Hoppy did the same.

“We’ve learned so much in so little time. I would prefer to forget most of it but I can’t. It is better to move forward with it.” Bubba said, stepping behind them.

Crafty was most unsure of her future, but Kickin pulled her into the hug.

“If any of you need help just ask. Won’t bother me.” Picky said.

Catnap wrapped his extended tail around them, the lavender smell soothing their worries even if only slightly.

“Yeah, whatever happens next. We’ll always have each other.” Dogday said, he handed the controller over to Bubba who opened a tear.

They stared at each other’s eyes one last time and took each other hand’s. They then took a step in.

Together.

Chapter Text

Hoppy struggled and limped as she opened the door to her house, doing anything felt like she was moving the world’s heaviest object. She just wanted to sleep and never wake up.

Her house didn’t make things better, it was just as loud and overwhelming as always. Her many siblings asked questions and she was not in the mood to answer them, the younger ones were easy to brush off but not her siblings around her age, she made up a story that she ran a marathon through the whole town multiple times over without eating just to challenge herself, none of them remembered where she had been all day, so they didn’t question it, just pointed out how stupid of an idea that was and laughed.

Eh, didn’t matter, they’re second rate real anyways, Hoppy can just think of their opinion as less whenever they annoy her.

She stood in front of her mom who was watching tv, one of those dramas she really likes. “Hi mom. I look like I got stuck in a trash compactor for a day and survived, doesn’t that interest you?”

“Were you in a garbage compactor?”

“No. I went to hell, mom”

“That’s just how your teenage years are, dear, we all go through that eventually. And take your shoes off, you’re getting dirt and other things all over the floor and I just cleaned this morning.”

She always says the same thing, she didn’t see the point in finding her dad, he would care even less. She went to the kitchen and grabbed a left over burger to eat, diet be damned she was starving. She took bites of it as she walked to her room, finally melting into her pillow, she put her phone to charge and waited, she wanted to have a conversation with someone before sleeping. They exchanged their goodbyes went they got back and promised to talk to each other first thing tomorrow but she needed to talk now.

She checked the time and date on her phone, she had missed 2 days of school, that almost made this whole thing worth it. Another thing caught her attention, she already had a message from someone, a voice message actually, from Bobby.

“Hi Hoppy. I hope you see this before tomorrow morning, but if you’re seeing this just then that’s fine too. I just wanna talk to you, please message me if you see this.”

She called Bobby immediately, she didn’t want to just text. “Hi Bearhug, alone on a Friday night?”

Bobby blushed and chuckled. “It’s not Friday, and I’m not alone. My mom is fine, she’s in living room right now, maybe I should stop worrying about her, she looks completely fine after a few days without me or anyone else…”

“Bobby, it’s cool that you care about your mom and all but she’s an adult, just because she has some illness doesn’t mean she’s gonna drop dead if you don’t look at her constantly.”

“You’re right, it’s just hard to see it that way… wait! I didn’t greet you. I’m so, so, so, so happy you saw my message.” Bobby gave a kiss to the screen.

“I’m happy you messaged me. I don’t wanna be bored before sleeping tonight. Did you send that message to the others.”

“I thought about it but no… I didn’t want to annoy them, but I really wanted to talk to you. I’m not being annoying right now, right.”

“You never are. I really needed to someone to talk to before sleeping, I’m looking forward to it but not waking up. The pain from my muscles is gonna be unbearable tomorrow.”

“I can pick you up tomorrow if you don’t feel like walking, on that note, what are we gonna do tomorrow? Apart from talking, what are we gonna do after that, just have fun? What are we gonna do the next day after that.”

Hoppy sighed and looked up at her ceiling. “I’m just gonna let Dogday think about that one, if I try to think about my head will explode.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t, maybe it’s just gonna come naturally to us… We’ll I’m gonna sleep soon, I’m really tired, is that ok with you?”

“Yeah, just wanted to chat for a bit. I’m about to pass out too.”

“Goodbye then, see you tomorrow, Hoppy.” Bobby blew a kiss to the screen and hung up. She waved goodnight to her mom too and went to her bed, but she wasn’t read to sleep yet, she took out a notebook and ripped a page from it.

“You are Bobby Bearhug. You have 8 friends, their names are Dogday, Catnap, Hoppy, Kickin, Bubba, Crafty, and Picky. You live in Smile’s Valley, in a house located in the woods. Your mom is Moma Bearhug.” She taped the page to her wall and looked it, would certain words get erase if her friends got erased? Would she be able to tell or would it be like they were never there? She didn’t write enough, she had to write down more, just in case, and then make a few copies. She couldn’t possibly be careful enough.

Back in her place, Hoppy placed a pillow over her face and tried to sleep, she only tried for a few minutes before realizing it would not work. She just needed another conversation with someone else, Kickin of course

“Wadup, how are things in your house going. I just got a lecture for coming to the house looking like this. Told mom I tried doing that trick again, she believed it.” Kickin was on his bed, bandages on his face.

“You already know how it’s going. How’s Picky?”

“She’s fine, she’s with mom and her dad right now. I’m in my room right now, you gonna sleep too?”

“Yeah… hey I wanted to talk to you about what happened in there, at the evil lair or whatever that was.”

Kickin groaned and hit the back of his head against his pillow. “Oh my god Hoppy. I’m fine now, we were gonna die, I was at a low point. I’m fine now, it doesn’t matter.”

Hoppy sighed and laid her chin on her fist. “Fine. I won’t bring it up then. Do you have any plans for tomorrow.”

“Gonna test out my super strength. Maybe we could make a superhero team or something. I’m the strong one, you’re my fast sidekick.”

“First off. I wouldn’t be your sidekick. Second off, don’t you remember what my powers do to me. I swear I’m dying over here.”

“Ehh, maybe I could carry around a big pouch of food for you to pig out on.”

“You’re lucky Picky can’t hear you… do you really believe our new powers are gonna be useful. I mean if you’re hurling a car at a criminal, and they point your suit is stupid, which it probably will be, then that’s all your strength gone and we end up with pancake chicken.” Hoppy laughed at her own comment and yawned, her eyes struggling to remain open.

“Why don’t you sleep instead of talking smack. I’m still gonna be here if you wake up in the middle of the night. I need a few more hours with my room before sleeping. Relax a little after days of torture.”

“Yeah, think I’m gonna head out now, bye.” Hoppy waved and hung up and close her eyes, she would need all the energy she could get for tomorrow.

Kickin looked around his room, he thought he would never see this place again, he would cry but then his parents would notice there’s something wrong, they all had to play it off cool, he had practice with it at least. He looked around the door opening only slightly. A pink-ish hoof let a plate on his table.

Kickin looked at the muffin and took a bite, vanilla, his favorite. “Thanks.” He should actually say that to her tomorrow. He needed something to fill the void now, Bubba should do.

“Heyyyy, what’s up Bubs.”

“Be quiet, I shouldn’t be up. My parents aren’t happy with me. They can’t remember where I’ve been the past three days, now I’m stuck here for a month.”

“A month!” Kickin realized he screamed and then shushed himself. “You can’t be there for a month, you need to be there tomorrow, and the whole week, we need you now more than ever.”

“That’s what I told them. They did not want to hear me. I won’t be there tomorrow, sorry.” Bubba grimaced while looking at his friend. He felt mad, he didn’t know how to express, not like it mattered, his friends couldn’t help him anyways.

“You HAVE to at least sneak out tomorrow. It just feels like it’s gonna be important, we’re gonna figure out how what the hell to do now. You’re the smart guy, Bubba, it’s gonna go better if you’re there.”

Bubba had never sneaked out, or disobeyed his parents at all. Kickin and Hoppy always encouraged him to do so, his fear of the consequences always stopped him. If he went against the rules that would only make his parents crack down harder on him. Following all their rules was safe, even if it didn’t make him happy.

But this was a special occasion. Could tomorrow really determine the rest of their lives? If he was left out could that make him drift away from the others? He was already a little distant, but could they even drift away after all the things they’ve gone through? Would that even be good for them, would they all stay together willingly or would they all be a burden to each other.

Yeah, he should sneak out. “My parents both go to work before the nanny arrives. I could make up some lie and so she wouldn’t check my room. That should give me at least an hour or two.”

“Yes! Wait, you have a nanny? You’re almost eighteen.”

“They got rid of her two years ago, they’re bringing her back for this month.” He said, ashamed.

“And how’s Picky!?”

“She’s good too. She just gave me a cupcake actually.” Kickin showed the cupcake off to the camera.

He looked at the door for a moment. Picky was in living room looking at the little paper Crafty had given her before they all split off, she gave one out to everyone actually, none of them had given it much thought though, except for Picky. It was a little doodle of her along with a message that read: “Thanks for being there for me. I was acting rude and the circumstances weren’t really an excuse but I hope you understand. I always appreciate your cooking and all that you do. I hope you can forgive me.”

Picky wasn’t used to this, she always gave things to other people, and she never excepted anything in return, but a small gesture like this, she didn’t even think Crafty acted very rude during those days, she should tell her that tomorrow. She looked up from the paper and at Kickin’s room, she thought he would be asleep right now but he could still hear some sound coming out.

Bubba smiled at the cupcake. “I should stop playing with my luck now. I’ll need it for tomorrow. Goodnight.”

Kickin signed off with his wing and relaxed. He wondered how everyone else was doing. Especially Catnap, literally dying must affect you bad. The last he saw of him was the cat walking away with Dogday, they’re probably at his house at this very moment. He wondered what they were doing.

Dogday scratched the top of Catnap’s head as the feline rested on his lap and stared into nothing. His normally vibrant purple fur looked washed out from blood loss.

“I went somewhere when I died.” Catnap broke the silence.

“It was a forest clearing. All the colors were so bright they almost made my eyes hurt, everyone was there. Everyone in our group was there, I mean.”

Dogday looked down at him like he was the important thing in the universe as he spoke.

“We were having a picnic. I still don’t know if it was heaven or hell or something but we were the only things there. I could see our houses through the trees, the only buildings there. The thing that looked like you talked to me first. He only said the same five things, no matter what I did. I punched him, I scratched him, they all told me the same thing. ‘Someone’s grouchy. Go take a nap, those always make you feel better’. I thought I would be stuck there forever, and then I woke up.”

Dogday felt like he needed to say something after that story, some words of reassurance, but the only thing that came out his mouth was:”I’m sorry.”

Catnap snapped out of his trance by the sudden statement. “Sorry for what?”

“I forgot about you. You were alone and I wasn’t there to help you.” Dogday started sobbing after holding it in for the last hour.

Catnap ran his paw down his arm to hold the canine’s. “It wasn’t your fault. Everything was out of your control, I’m not mad.”

“But I failed you. I never want to forget about you again.” Tears ran down his cheek, landing on the cat’s body, on his huge scar. The normally sunny dog felt a tail wrap around him. Catnap got up to face his favorite person, struggling in the process, his whole body hurt when he moved.

“I love you, Dogday. When I was dead in that place, I just thought about how I never got to tell you that. I know this is morbid but I hope that when I die properly, I’ll do it near the same time as the rest of you. I want to spent the rest of eternity with the real you.”

Dogday tried to speak, a knot forming in his throat. He decided to do something else instead, their lips connected softly. Catnap’s eyes widening, a rare sight, he then leaned into the kiss. The dog’s warm arms wrapping around his skinny body.

“What are we gonna do?” Dogday asked, clueless about tomorrow.

“You’ll figure it out, you always do. We’re here to help you, I’m here right now.” Catnap laid his head on his chest, he purred.

Dogday was relaxed by the vibrations in his chest, something he thought he would never hear or feel again. Life could be worse, he has his friends, his home. What happened, happened. All they can do now is move forward to the next day, like he always does, and it’s not all bad, he was a new love now.

There will be plenty of time to think, tomorrow.