Work Text:
Your name is DOCTOR HEINZZ DOOFNZ and you are ABOUT TO DIE.
Your MOIRAIL has BETRAYED you. You always secretly blamed him for everything, but at least he was always there for you. But now he’s exposed you as a mutant to the EMPRESS, and now you are GOING TO DIE.
You had a good life. Well, maybe not a good one, but you had been somewhat happy with where you were at. You had almost all your quadrats filled - CHARLENE was a good matesprit, she loved you and pitied you and protected you, and despite how AGGRAVATING you knew you could be you knew that her pity for you was genuine. You had a decent KISMESIS - well, perhaps DECENT wasn’t the right word to describe ALOYSE EVERHEART ELISABETH OTTO WOLFGANG HYPATIA GUNTHER GALEN GARY COOPER VON RODDENSTEIN (You called him “Rhodney,” the name you knew he used as a kid. It infuriated him, but Kismeses are SUPPOSED to infuriate one another, and as long-winded as you can be you REFUSE to use his whole title every time you address him.) but he put up a good enough fight. But then there was your MOIRAIL - MAYOR RODGER DOOFENSHMIRTZ. The two of you had decided to share a title when you reached adulthood, in honor of your self-proclaimed brotherhood. The two of you had known eachother since you were kids- he had practically just emerged from wrigglerhood, and you helped him find his missing lusus, a bear he called “Mother,” and the two of you had been inseparable ever since. You almost can’t believe he’d betray you like this. Your own moirail, your own BROTHER, willingly sharing information that he knew would get you killed, and for what? A position of power over the tri-planetary area?
Maybe he didn’t mean it. Maybe it just slipped out. Maybe he doesn’t want you dead. But it doesn’t matter anymore, because he did it, and now you’re toast.
There’s only one possible solution to all this... One last desperate, crazy idea...
You crash your STARCAR* on the surface of Alternia.
*A starcar is an Alternian Spaceship. ... Trolls have the best names for everything.
You wake up to the sound of crying. Something burns, and everything hurts.
You open your eyes. There’s fire everywhere, which explains the burning. You are surrounded by the twisted remains of your starcar, painted with blue guts and your own chocolate blood. You turn your slightly-deformed head to find the source of most of the bloodstains - your right arm has been crushed beyond repair by the debris. You’ll have to make a new one. Carefully, you pull up your strife specibus - TOOLKIND - and remove a saw from the inventory. This is going to hurt. Thank god you have so many labcoats.
After many moments of SEARING AGONY, you are free. You use a BLOWTORCH to CAUTERIZE your newly-severed arm, then don a fresh LABCOAT, tying it off at your new armstump. This might have been horrifying for the average troll, but not you. You are a BRONZE-BLOODED MUTANT, meaning you are used functioning through near-fatal pain.
Rodger never knew what that was like. He was a goody-two-shoes blueblood, with a fierce lusus and an undeniable charisma. You always wondered what made him choose a freak like you as his moirail - You always thought you were lucky to have him. Who needs luck? Who needs him??? Look at you, sawing off your own arm because of him like it was NOTHING, just like you’re gonna have to saw off all your attachments. It’s not like you’ll ever be reentering adult society ever again - might as well get used to being lonely.
You force yourself to stop dwelling as you pull yourself out of your wrecked starcar. Charlene always told you you dwelled too much in the past, didn’t she? But it’s no use thinking about Charlene. After all, you’ll probably never see her again.
You remember how you met her. It was at a specialized training planet, just after you and your moirail became of age to leave the Tri-Planetary Area. It was an elite school, meant for highbloods, but Rodger had pulled a few strings and with an impressive enough portfolio of poetry and inventions alike, you were allowed to join him. She was a tealblooded lawyer, with the chosen title of “Attorney.” She believed that everyone deserved a chance, that nobody was actually “evil.” She believed in justice in a justiceless world, and that attracted you to her. She pitied you, and when the Imperial Drones inevitably came to your dormhives, she chose you as her Matesprit, and has stayed by you ever since. You wonder if she would try to save you if the Empress’s forces actually captured you. She probably would. She’d probably fail.
You manage to kick the door down, and stumble out of the smashed wreckage of what used to be your starcar. The crying gets worse, as it’s no longer muffled by twisted metal. You look for the source of the crying, and -
A few units away from the flaming wreckage is a wriggler. She’s a blueblood, but her dark hair shines copper in the light of a fire, similar to your own. She’s unharmed, but she’s crying. Something in you twists horribly, and you slowly turn towards the wreckage.
Underneath the hull of the starcar is the still-twitching, white corpse of a blueblooded demonflapper**. As you look, you realize the fuel line has been severed in the crash, and is now leaking carjuice directly into the fire, and -
You sprint towards the still-crying little girl, scooping her up in your only still-functioning arm, and duck behind a boulder just in time to avoid the GIANT EXPLOSION. Your ears are ringing, but you’re pretty sure this kid’s still crying, and you just realized that you KILLED HER LUSUS.
HOLY SHIT WHAT THE FUCK HAVE YOU DONE.
She’s still crying, and you don’t blame her. You kinda feel like crying too.
**A demonflapper is a giant, batlike lusus.
Thankfully, your OLD HIVE is left untouched.
It’s large, oddly-shaped, and purple. Just like you left it.
You almost expect your old lusus to greet you - Mama Ocelot was always very affectionate, if not a bit rough. But she’s moved on by now, off to protect a new little wriggler in desperate need of her help. You look down at the little wriggler in your arm - she’s sleeping now, her big, blue eyes closed and her carapace curled up against the crook of your arm like she belonged there, her strangely brownish hair shimmering in the light of the three Alternian moons. You begin the long trek up through your hive (why did you make such a big one?) and eventually reach your old grubroom. You’re not sure if it’s safe to leave wrigglers in splur slime, so you open up your old husktop (begging to the horrorterrors it still kind of functions after all these sweeps) and are amazed when the lockscreen flickers on before you. You enter your password and open up a browser to begin your research.
The wriggler yawns. You look down at her, as her big blue eyes scrutinize you curiously. You realize that it’ll be impossible to find this girl a new lusus, and that you’re not sure if you really want to leave her behind anyway.
You decide that if you’re gonna be stuck on this planet of children for the rest of your life, you might as well take care of this kid you just accidentally orphaned.
You decide to name her Vanesa.
Your name is ALOYSE EVERHEART ELISABETH OTTO WOLFGANG HYPATIA GUNTHER GALEN GARY COOPER VON RODDENSTEIN, and you are PISSED OFF.
Your Kismesis, DOCTOR HEINZZ DOOFENSHMIRTZ, is now on every WANTED poster in your sector. It’s sickening, and the worst part is he’s probably gotten himself killed by now. By someone other than you! But if that were the case, the drones would have taken down the posters by now, unwilling to have random trolls come to the Empress’s doorstep with fake bounties.
You consider going to Charlene for help with tracking him down, but you never really liked her. You mostly just put up with eachother for Heinzz’s sake. You get along well enough with his Moirail Rodger, but well... It’s his fault Heinzz is in this mess in the first place, isn’t it? So you decide to contact Charlene anyway.
ROTTEN SCIENTIST (RS) started trolling MERCIFUL ATTORNEY (MA)
RS: As much as I loath to say it, Cha{lene, I might need you{ assistance with t{acking him down.
MA: You (an (all him by his name, Rhodney. I’m sure Heinzz is fine; I mean, they haven’t (aught him yet.
RS: Don’t call me that. And I wouldn’t be so su{e: Heinzz is pretty damn self-dest{uctive. He’ll find a way to get himself killed even IF he doesn’t get captu{ed by those da{n d{ones.
MA: How (an you say that? I mean, sure, he’s self-destru(tive, but he’s tough. He’ll get through this.
RS: Pah. As if! You know da{n well that he’d be LOST without us. He needs us.
MA: Well, alright, but say he survives. What are we supposed to do? Go and save him? You know as well as I do he’ll never get to rejoin society as a normal troll. I might be able to (reate a defense (ase for him, but even if I did I’m not sure how well it would work. He’s a mutant, Rhodney, and a mudblood to boot. He (an’t (ome back.
RS: I {efuse to believe that. Cha{lene, he’s OU{S. We can’t just... su{{ende{!
MA: We’re not giving up. We’re moving on. I think he’s survived; that man (an survive anything. But you more than anyone knows how smart he is; if we’re smart, we’ll leave him alone.
RS: What a{e you saying, Cha{lene?
MA: I’m saying we need to move on.
RS:... I knew contacting you was a mistake.
ROTTEN SCIENTIST has ceased pestering MERCIFUL ATTORNEY.
You put your massive head in your hands, rubbing off an ensuing headache. Apparently, the Matesprit of your Kismesis refuses to help you search for him. No matter. You refuse to give up. You call together the members of LOVEMUFIN - the society of scientists who now serve the Empress that Heinzz had founded and you had taken over due to his incompetence, and that the two of you have basically co-run together as you both competed for leadership - and tell them that you’re quadrupling the Empress’s meager bounty if he’s returned to you alive. You hate him so much, and you refuse to rest until he’s back in your clutches.
You try to convince yourself that your frustration isn’t poisoned by concern.
Your name is PERRY PLATYPUS. You are a HIGHLY SKILLED SECRET AGENT, employed by ROWCA (The Rebel Organization Without a Cool Acronym), an organization formed to counter the reign of the EMPRESS.
You are also a LUSUS.
This means that, despite your many talents, you are unsuited for any assignments outside the Tri-planetary area, which contains the three child-dominated planets of Alternia, Beforus, and Drusselstein. A few hundred sweeps ago, there were only two planets: Alternia and Beforus. But with the expanding empire and increased Troll population, the Empress had decided to plant a mother grub on one of the recently-conquered planets, thus adding Drusselstein and creating the Tri-planetary area. Each planet fostered a completely different environment: Alternia was harsh, but the residents were mostly free to do as they pleased, while Drusselstein was somehow far more dangerously strict with its citizens. You are currently situated on Beforus, the original planet and with far less surveillance. The entirety of Beforus was overall much... brighter than the other two planets in the tri-planetary area, and the Empress’s laws went largely unenforced, the citizens free to do mostly as they pleased. There were, of course, the occasional exceptions: certain citizens looking to gain the empress’s favor, but largely seen as no more than tattle-tales.
It was the perfect place for ROWCA headquarters.
Though you are a lusus, you are hardly capable of raising a wriggler at the moment - You know that Dennis Rabbit (another lusus agent stuck in the Tri-planetary area) had recently adopted a young tealblood, and even Pinky had succumbed to his lusus instincts and taken in a fierce little fuciablooded wriggler he found in the nearby lake (How on Alternia he plans to raise a descendant of the tyrant he’s trying to overthrow you’ll never know, but if anyone could do it it’s probably Pinky). As useful a cover having a wriggler could provide, you’ve decided to remain unattached - it allows you to travel between the planets of the area, and makes you a more versatile agent.
Right now, your assignment is on Drusselstein - an adult troll has crashed on one of the planets, and it’s your job to tail him. Having an adult in the tri-planetary area could be detrimental to ROWCA - adults were more loyal to the Empress, had access to more resources. It could just be a pilot with a malfunctioning engine, but it’s always better to be safe than sorry.
Using your custom, ROWCA-issued spacecar, you make the trek from Beforus, past Alternia to Drusselstein. After the long flight, you track him down to an old dingy little hive on the outskirts of the forest. Nearby is the remains of the crash - he appears to have crashed into a lusus, then escaped before the vessel exploded. Scrap metal and scorched blue bits of lusus flesh are scattered everywhere in the nearby clearing, and it takes all your training not to blow your cover by throwing up at the gore. No, you are just a mindless bachelor lusus, wandering the lands in search of a new wriggler to take in.
The door of the hive opens, and you duck behind a boulder.
He closes the door behind himself, an artificial arm carrying a big bag of scrap and a baby blue wriggler tucked in the other one. She must have belonged to the murdered lusus, you think.
Maybe he’s just a harvester. He was a lowblood, and lowbloods are usually assigned those kinds of tasks. Your stomach twists at the thought that this poor baby girl is probably going to be a victim of the Empress’s corporate evil, reduced to an ingredient for some processed food, or her mind turned into a computer processor for a gaming device. But there is little to be done; weaklings are culled, their remains used for the Empress’s purposes.
(You realize your sympathy is most likely the product of your parental lusus instincts: You shut them down. She doesn’t matter. Focus on the mission.)
The adult troll turns away from the door, and your blood freezes in your veins. You recognize this troll. He was on the pamphlets given to you during training, he’s the founder of LOVEMUFFIN, one of the organizations most loyal to the Empress, he’s Heinzz Doofenshmirtz.
He hums a cheerful tune as he locks the door to his hive, shoulders the big bag of scrap, and uses his hand to tickle at the wriggler girl’s belly. She laughs. He smiles.
It’s almost like watching some fucked-up lusus with his wriggler. He talks to her, but you’re not close enough to hear what he’s saying as he wanders into the forest. Is he an idiot? You think to yourself as you follow him. The forests of Drusselstein were NOT safe, especially not with a baby wriggler in hand! They were filled with the native inhabitants of this planet, Goozims and Donklebats and god knew what else. Yet this man, this stupid little man (that’s a lie, he’s taller than you and slouching, some ungodly dark lanky silhouette of a figure holding a child and traversing the haunted forests of Drusselstein as if he belonged here, it was like following a cryptid), he traversed the dully-lit greenery as if it was no big deal. Perry, being a lusus and unable to travel outside the tri-planetary area, was used to being bigger than trolls. He only ever saw the kids in person, and he only ever talked to the adults through a screen. It was strange, seeing someone so freakishly tall and dark and terrifying, and he immediately understood why kids and adults lived on different planets.
Eventually, they got to a clearing - there was quite the setup back here. There was an old launchpad, covered in overgrown weeds and the pieces to what looked like the beginnings of a new starcar. Beside the launchpad were a couple worktables and a shallow, homemade recuperacoon, filled with what looked like diluted sopor slime made from some of the remains of the dead lusus. Heinzz carefully set the wriggler into the recuperacoon, where she yawned and curled up to sleep. He smiles at her for a moment, before going to the workbenches and unloading his bag of scrap. He started tinkering with the bits and pieces, occasionally pulling out tools from his strife specibus, talking to the sleeping wriggler as he worked. You sneak closer to hear what he’s saying.
“-and we’ll be outta here in no time, Vanesa, you’ll see. This isn’t a good planet for trolls like us, I should know, I grew up here. It’s dangerous, all full of rules and people who judge you... You’ll be much safer on Beforus, I hear that place has a thick enough atmosphere that the sun doesn’t immediately kill you if you stay out after light! And the rules, they’re all practically backwards, the highbloods actually look protect the lowbloods instead of culling them for weakness... I mean, not that that’d make life any easier for you, being a blueblood and all, but I think the compassionate environment would be good for you. I mean, we don’t want you ending up like Rodger. But I guess if he hadn’t betrayed me, I wouldn’t have met you! I mean, I also wouldn’t have squashed your original lusus, but...”
You realize he isn’t going to stop talking and start to tune it out. After all, he’s headed towards Beforus, the location of ROWCA headquarters. That kind of information needs to be immediately reported.
You quickly draft and send a report to Major Monogram, and shut down your husktop before carefully activating one of your bugs. You consider placing the bug on his wriggler, but decide against it. There’s a small chance he might leave her behind. The again, he seems to be modifying the starcar for a second, more delicate passenger - he plays with the gravity settings on a small recouperacoon, far too small for an adult but just the right size for the wriggler. Maybe you don’t have to bug the wriggler herself, just the vehicle.
You slip your ROWCA-issued blowgun from your hat and slip the bug inside. Carefully, you take aim, and blow.
The bug sticks.
Your name is MAJOR FRANCIS MONOGRAM. You are the leader of the Alternian division of ROWCA, the Rebel Organization Without a Cool Acronym. You live not on the planet’s surface (as the presence of an Adult troll on a child’s planet would no doubt attract unwanted attention to you and your cause), but in a top-secret facility orbiting the planet’s pink moon.
The Tri-Planetary Area was a single solar system, made up of Alternia, Beforus, and the much more recent addition of Drusselstein. Beforus is the closest planet to the system’s incredibly hot star of Skaia, and the first planet to fall to the Empress’s rule. Because of it’s close proximity to the sun, this is the hottest and brightest of the planets, and anyone who dares go outside during the daylight hours would be immediately burned alive. The Empress largely ignored this planet, so it’s citizens were mostly free to do as they pleased, foregoing the rules of the Hemoarchy and fearing the sun instead of the droids. The farthest planet from the sun is Drusselstein, a small-ish, dreary planet originally inhabited by Goozims and Donklebats and Der Kinderlumper, no intelligent life but enough ferocious creatures that even the fiercest of trolls feared the place, until the Empress decided to use the planet as a training ground to raise her strongest soldiers. After all, if someone could survive a childhood on this nightmare planet, surely they could survive anything. So she left behind a mother grub and one of her Heiresses, then declared it her own. Between these two extremes was Alternia, a planet where the sun might blind and burn but would not set you aflame, where the Empress’s rule was present but not so strict. This was the largest of the planets, orbited by two moons so large they held their own inhabitants, and many saw it as a Tri-planetary Area of its own.
The pink moon was inhabited by a different race, the “Meaps,” who were short but moderately intelligent and obsessed with the concept of cuteness. They were white and fur-colored, like lusii, but wore pink horns upon their heads and constructed their own structures like Trolls. They also had an army, and were willing to fight for their beliefs with an incredible fierceness. Their cuteness meant that many underestimated their abilities, which made them the perfect allies for ROWCA.
You are currently in a meeting with Intergalactic Security Agent Meap, one of the planet’s best and most experienced fighters (and one of the few members of his species who understands Alternian).
“I believe there might be a problem within the ranks. I believe Mitch, in particular, might be planning to join the Empress’s ranks - he’s always been sort of an outcast, but we’ve been keeping him for his unique scientific abilities. Who knows what could happen if he actually goes through with his threats...”
“Well then, Agent Meap, I want you to keep your Kismesis under control. If he does something to jeopardize the mission, put a stop to it. In the meantime, I want reports on this “Cutonium” you keep going on about. Have your scientists found a way to contain it?”
“That’s another problem, sir. It seems that Zachariah Yore might be abusing his position...”
You notice a bleep in your inbox.
“Hold that thought, Agent Meap. It seems Agent P has information about that adult troll that crashed on Drusselstein. Keep me posted if anything drastic happens.”
Meap gives you a salute before blinking out. You pull up the report.
File Report - Drusselstein, subject - Adult Troll
Adult Troll has been identified as LOVEMUFFIN founder Heinzz Doofenshmirtz. He appears to have crash-landed on surface of Drusselstein. Murdered lusus found on crash site, cause of death: explosion by starcar. Subject has artificial right arm, presumably lost in crash, and is accompanied by a female blueblooded wriggler, 1 sweep old, presumably the former charge of the murdered lusus. Subject is currently staying in old abandoned hive near edge of forest, and is incredibly skilled engineer. Subject currently building modified starcar, plans to relocate to Alternia.
Repeat, subject plans to relocate to Alternia. Starcar should be fully-built in approximately 3 hours, maybe less. Estimated travel time between planets is approximately a sweep due to starcar modifications.
Subject appears to have ties to newly-appointed Tri-Planetary area mayoral leader, Rodger Doofenshmirtz - kismesitude plausible. Reasons for his actions are currently unknown, but current evidence points towards position of Empress spy and/or wriggler experimentation.
Suggest high-alert status and full lockdown of ROWCA headquarters. Advise all agents maintain cover until subject is neutralized. Cannot let Empress forces know of ROWCA’s existence.
-Agent P
“Great Googly Moogly! Ckarll!”
Manager Ckarll Kcarrl, A meek rustblooded intern who only recently came of age, stepped into the office dutifully. “Yes, sir?”
“It’s Doofenshmirtz. He’s murdered a lusus, kidnapped a wriggler, and is headed our way. This is a code violet - I want all units disengaged, all facilities on lockdown, and all agents off-duty until further notice. We must maintain maximum cover - I don’t want this Empress spy catching even a whiff of this agency’s existence, do you hear me?”
“What about all the freelancers, sir?”
“Tell them to get host families ASAP! We still have roughly a quarter sweep before his arrival, I want you coordinating adoption procedures. And tell those agents I don’t give a damn about their hangups about resisting their instincts, a lonely lusus is a suspicious one and we need to protect as many kids as we possibly can with this maniac on the loose.”
“What about Agent P, sir?”
“It was his suggestion. You worry about the rest of the troops.”
He snaps off another salute. “You can count on me, sir!”
“Hurry! We don’t have much time!”
You watch as the kid races down the halls of ROWCA headquarters, sending messages and coordinating troops like a madman. You turn back to your monitors, preparing to send orders and commence lockdown procedures. You send Agent P his orders, then get back to work.
Good work, Agent P! Get back to Alternia before Doof can make liftoff, then report to the Adoption center immediately. Cover will be provided upon your arrival.
... He’s joking, right? You’re one of his best field agents, having a host family would affect your mobility! You decide to follow orders for now, then make your case once you get to Alternia. Carefully, you sneak your way out of the forest and get back to your own starcar.
The small size of your starcar means you’ll get there much faster than Heinzz’s bulky modified one. While he’ll take a sweep to get there, it’ll only take you a few Perigrees. Plenty of time for ROWCA to get things sorted out. (and for you to sort out how you feel about raising a wriggler...)
“Ah, Agent P! So glad you could make it. Ready to meet your new host family?”
You shrug and nod to the intern. In order to not draw suspicion, he’d donned a bright white fursuit to make him look like an overgrown nutbeast*. It was a surprisingly convincing disguise. He smiles and leads you down the sgrubs of Danville, before coming up to a bright pink treehive. You narrow your eyes at him - what were you doing at a hive? Shouldn’t you be given a wriggler to care for?
“Sorry Agent P, but the next generation of wrigglers doesn’t come for another sweep, and Candis was already in the database so...”
Candis. You knew that name. Candis was Dennis’s wriggler, the bossy tealblooded girl with the ridiculously pointy horns. (You knew because she rammed you with them at ROWCA’s 12th Perigee’s Eve party before giggling adorably. You still had the scar.) Why were you being assigned to Dennis’s wriggler?
Ckarll could somehow tell that you were thinking. “Dennis went rogue.”
That made no sense. Sure, Dennis had always been kinda selfish, and a bit of a backstabber in the field, but if he went rogue then why didn’t he take Candis with him? He loved that kid.
Ckarll hands you an envelope. You take it numbly. “These are the reassignment papers, including adoption, liability, all that jazz. It’s due by the end of the perigee, but the sooner you turn it in the better. You’ll... probably want to keep a lookout for rogue agents, but drones are kind of rare in this neighborhood. Keep her safe.”
You nod to him, then make your way into the girly hive. It’s... small, especially considering the kid’s status. There’s only one room, covered from top to bottom in shades of pink and purple, with a slanted roof and an alcove. A gold-studded recuperacoon sits next to the single window, and a round lusus bed rests on the floor of the opposite corner. It’s small, simple and impossibly girly. But it also feels like a home.
A small girl sits curled up in the alcove, staring out the window at the single tree in the yard below. She’s only 2 sweeps old, just old enough to be a kid instead of a wriggler. Her face is painted teal with her tears. She glares at you.
“You’re not my lusus.” You tilt your head at her, looking at the empty lusus bed. Her face scrunches up, and she lifts her chin defiantly. “He’ll come back. He always does. Mister Cutie Patootie is just... On a trip. He says I’m a big girl now, I got my hive now, so I don’t need a lusus all the time. But he’ll come back, he’s just got some stuff he’s gotta take care of.”
You furrow your brows at her. She’s... she’s just a kid. She’s so tiny, and vunerable... and Dennis just, just left her here to fend for herself? What if a threshecutioner had come by? What if a bigger kid tried to cull her? What if she starved? You thought Dennis cared about this kid. He used to call her his “little firecracker,” used to speak of her so fondly, used to take her out on missions with him because he didn’t trust anyone else with his kid, not even her own moirail’s lusus. What had happened? Why did he abandon this poor little girl, leave her crying teal in the single window of a simple pink hive? Who could do that?
You step forward. She shrinks back. “Don’t get any closer!” You stop. She relaxes a little bit.
“... Why’re you still here? I told you to go away! I don’t need a lusus!”
You raise an eyebrow at her. She ducks her head.
“Fine. Do whatever you want, I don’t care.”
You sit down. Building her trust is going to take a while, but you’re invested in this kid now. You might have your hangups about parenting, but there is no way you’re going to let this kid (practically still a wriggler) just fend for herself. Figuring you’re going to be here for a while (and knowing she’d probably seen stranger, having been raised by Dennis up until now), you pull out your adoption forms and begin to work.
She stares at you warily as she draws the curtains of her lonely window and goes to the ablution block to freshen up.
She’s having some difficulty crawling into her recouperacoon. You move forward, an offer for help - but she waves you off.
“I got it, meat-brick!” She says as she deftly (clumsily) climbs a secret ladder in the side of the recouperacoon’s outer structure to get into the comforting slime within. She nuzzles herself into the soothing slime with a yawn, and looks at you warily.
“... You’re not going away, are you?” she asks. You shake your head. She sighs dramatically, the air whistling through the small gap in her teeth. “Whatever. You’re still not my lusus.” With that, she rolls over and falls asleep.
You sleep on the floor.
Your name is CANDIS FLYYNN. You are two sweeps old, which means you aren’t a wriggler anymore! You get to have your very own hive now, with a big kid recuperacoon and everything.
This also means you’re old enough to look after yourself. Mr. Cutie Patootie said so himself. Well, he didn’t SAY it, but he taught you how to do a lot of things. You can grow carrots, use a strife specibus (bostaffkind! That means you can fight with almost anything, so long as it’s vaguely stick-shaped), and all kinds of other things - you even know Alternian Sign Language, so you can communicate with anyone that knows it, even other lusii. Mr. Cutie Patootie made sure you’d be prepared to know how to take care of yourself before he left.
He’ll come back, though. He promised.
But now there’s this other lusus in your hive. Why is he here? They don’t do that unless -
Unless you’re an orphan. But you’re not an orphan, Mr. Cutie Patootie promised he’d come back. He promised. And it’s not like lususes don’t leave their kids from time to time - you’ve read stories about trolls raised by superfeirce lusii, some of them don’t even live in the hives with their kids because they’re so big and ferocious! Some kids even have lususes that aren’t ever awake, the just sleep forever and talk to their kids in their dreams. Some kids have lususes that don’t come to visit for sweeps on end after they finish wrigglerhood. You’re lucky.
So why’s this... this other lusus here? Who does he think he is, coming into your hive and trying to replace Mr. Cutie Patootie?
The other lusus (you’ve decided to call him “Meatbrick” for now) is a little bigger than Mr. Cutie Patootie. He’s weird-looking, a rectangular creature with a flat tail and a beak thing on his face. He looks like he’s built for a tealblood, this weird creature in-between the furbeasts of lowbloods and the seadwellers of highbloods. He looks kinda familiar, and you think you might have seen him on one of Mr. Cutie Patootie’s adventures. Maybe that’s why he’s here, watching you from Mr. Cutie Patootie’s corner of the hive. But Mr. Cutie Patootie didn’t like other lususes looking after you (except Ms. Shika, but that’s just because she’s Stacey’s lusus, and Stacey’s the best moirail of all time. And even then, you had to talk him around to letting you have sleepovers.)
Speaking of Stacey, you should probably call her. She’s been worried about you, living alone in your hive, no matter how much you try to convince her it’s okay. She’d want to know about the Meatbrick. You take out your husktop and activate Trollian.
CandyRox (CR) started Trolling StaciLicious (SL)
CR: Hey Stace
SL: Dude! Where you been?
CR: Oh, you know, the uje. Well, until the meatbrick stopped by. :/
SL: Meat... Brick...?
CR: Yeah, there’s this weird lusus in my hive? He doesn’t wanna leave.
SL: Oh! Did Dennis come back?
CR: MR CUTIE PATOOTIE has yet to return home. This guy’s different. He seems pretty harmless, but IDK
CR: He’s kinda gross
SL: How so?
CR: He’s... kinda like a quackbeast, but he’s got this weird flat tail, and he’s furry??? What is this thing
SL: Oh, you mean a Platypus.
CR: ...You just made that up.
SL: No, Shika showed me when we went to visit my Ancestor’s homeland on the other side of Alternia. It’s this rare kind of super-weird lusus, it’s the only furbeast that can lay eggs.
CR: Okay, now I KNOW you’re making that up.
SL: Say what you will, Candis, but it’s real.
SL: I don’t know how one ended up in Danville, though.
You glance over at the weird meatbrick that wandered into your hive. He’s facing away from you, but you can tell he’s still watching you somehow.
CR: What else do they have, eyes in the back of their heads?
SL: No, but they CAN see souls with their face.
CR: WHAT.
SL: And the boy ones have poisonous ankle barbs
CR: Why didn’t you tell me that FIRST? What if he stabbed me with his ankle???
SL: Relax, Candis. They don’t do that to family.
SL: And besides, if he was going to attack you, I think he’d have done it by now, don’t you?
CR:
CR: You are a HORRIBLE Moirail.
SL: <>
CR: <>
CR: Still, though. Why’s he here? I’ve already got a lusus.
SL: ... Are you sure about that?
CR: Mr Cutie Patootie promised he’d come back to visit. Besides, I’m a big girl now. I don’t need a lusus around all the time anymore.
SL: Then why is Shika still around?
CR: She’s different! You’re different! Mr Cutie Patootie has more important things to do than take care of me, and I can take care of myself now! You’re different, you’re amazing but what if someone tries to hurt you?
SL: What if someone tries to hurt YOU?
CR: I can take care of myself! I can fight!
SL: Candis, you’re the same age as me! You were just freaking out about a harmless platypus, what makes you think you can fight off a full-grown threshecutioner?
CR: BECAUSE MISTER CUTIE PATOOTIE SAID I CAN!!!
...
SL: Candis. I’m not doing this over Trollian.
CR: What are you talking about?
SL: My place. Feels jam. Now.
StaciLicious (SL) ceased trolling CandyRox (CR)
You hop out of the alcove and captchalogue the husktop. Meatbrick looks up at you. You stand defiantly.
“I’m going to Stacey’s house. Don’t touch my stuff.”
You abscond.
The next day, she spends at her moirail’s house. Stacey Hirano is a nice girl, a fellow tealblood Candis has known since before anyone can remember, and her lusus is an intelligent and noble horned hoofbeast who calls herself “Shika” (歯科鹿). You decide she can be trusted to look after both kids on her own, and use this time to turn in the paperwork Ckarll requested.
It only takes a few minutes to get to ROWCA headquarters, and before you know it you’re knocking on the door to Ckarll’s block. He opens the door with a smile on his face and steps out to join you in the hall.
“Ah, Agent P. I see you have that paperwork I wanted -” he takes the envelope from your grasp and closes the door behind him. “Come with me, I think Monogram wants to speak with you about the details of this new arrangement.” You follow him down the hall to the main conference room, where most of the main officials of the resistance (along with a few agents) are seated. Ckarll hurries to his seat beside Major Monogram, and you take your own next to Agent Meap. He nods to you, and you nod back, a little confused by his presence. Monogram rises, and everyone else automatically stands at attention.
“At ease, gentlemen.” Everyone sits but Monogram. “As you all know, there is an adult troll on route towards this planet who will be here in approximately four perigees. This adult troll is Doctor Heinzz Doofnz, AKA Doofenshmirtz, founder of the League of Villainous Empress Manservants United for Frightening Inventions and Naughtiness, AKA LOVEMUFFIN: a collection of the Empress’s most diabolical masterminds. The man crash-landed a starcar onto the surface of Drusselstein, instantly killing an innocent Lusus and kidnapping his wriggler. We don’t know what he’s up to, but intelligence shows that he will be arriving here -” he slapped a stick onto a map of Alternia “- in Danville. I want all agents to be on a high-alert status, maintaining full cover for his arrival. But I also want someone to keep an eye on him, report any suspicious behavior, and make sure to put a stop to any dastardly schemes. Agent P, considering your fine intelligence work concerning this subject, as well as the fact that your host is in the closest proximity to his estimated landing point, you will be conducting any and all operations concerning Doctor Heinzz Doofnz. I suggest you let at least a sweep pass before making any direct confrontations. Gather as much intelligence as you can.”
Ckarll raises his hand. “Why a sweep, sir?”
“We have reason to believe he plans to do something with the next batch of wrigglers.”
The room falls silent. Most of the agents are Lusii, parents fighting against the Empress to give their kids a better future. Trolls might not care much for wrigglers, but they are what the majority of this organization is fighting for. They are to be protected at all costs.
You know what you have to do.
Candis is just waving goodbye to Stacey and Shika when you get back to the hive. You sneak into the lawn ring just as she turns around, swiftly putting your fedora back into your strife specibus deck before she can see it. She scowls at you as she walks back home, but Stacey and Shika look at you curiously. You wave to them, and Stacey waves back hesitantly as Shika nods. Candis stomps over to you and crosses her arms over her tiny chest defiantly.
“So. You’re still here.”
You reach behind yourself and pull out a small doll. It’s a bright yellow plush that you’d gotten on a whim at the office store, a kid’s toy labeled “Quackbeast Momo.”
*nutbeast = squirrel
Your name is Perry the Platypus, but your wriggler calls you Meatbrick. For some reason, you’re okay with that. She’s not okay with you calling her your wriggler, though, but you like to think that makes you even. She started a small grub farm near the carrot garden, which means good compost for her and good meals for you. She’s not exactly the most affectionate kid around, but she’s bright and bossy and likes to play dress-up. She carries the quackbeast momo doll everywhere she goes, talking to it and playing with it like it’s one of her best friends.
You never planned on being a parent, but you wouldn’t trade this weird little family you’ve created for anything in the world.
Your name is VANESA DOOFNZ. You are two-and-a-half sweeps old, which means you’re a kid now. Apparently that would usually mean making your own hive and dodging drones, but you’re not a normal kid. Normal kids have lususes that are big white animal things, and normal kids live on planets instead of Starcars. But your lusus is a tall dark grown-up troll who does science and makes things blow up, and you’ve been living in this Starcar for the past sweep. Dad (you call him that sometimes because he gets uncomfortable when you call him lusus) says that today you’re finally landing on Alternia. You can see it out the window - a big, gray planet, much bigger than Drusselstein, with not one but TWO great big moons orbiting it. The pink one’s so big, it’s even got a baby moon of it’s own! You bounce on your heels excited (and a little nervous) as you stare down at your new home. You turn around to look at your dad, and grin at him.
“Look, daddy! It’s the planet!” He smiles and scoops you up in his warm metal arms. You grab his labcoat to keep from falling with a giggle as he spins you around.
“That’s right, baby girl! It’s a whole new life for us, you’ll get to build a hive and make new friends -”
“What if they don’t like me?”
Your dad stops spinning and sets you on the ground, kneeling to be able to look directly into your eyes with his hands on your shoulders to keep you from falling of dizziness. “Who wouldn’t like you, Vanesa? You’re the smartest, most adorable -”
“Dad!”
“Hold up, I’m not done. Bravest, bestest, most incredible kid in the whole entire Tri-Planetary Area. And anyone who can’t see that is a dummkopf, and dummkopfs aren’t worth your time.”
You think for a moment. “Yeah; I guess you’re right dad.”
He ruffles your hair, and you laugh. “Good. I don’t want my baby girl getting hurt on her first day home.”
You look up at him. “You’re gonna make some new friends too, right?”
The silence that follows is unnerving. Dad is never quiet. He’s always talking and rambling and humming to himself, filling the lonely starcar with his voice. Even in his sleep, he snores and he mumbles through the sopor slime of his recouperacoon, filling the space with soft noise that lulls you to sleep at night. To have him silent isn’t natural, it isn’t right.
You reach up and pap his face. “Daddy? Are you okay?”
He smiles. “I’m fine, pumpkinpops. Just thinking.” It’s a lie. Dad always mumbles to himself whenever he’s just thinking, this was different. You decide to play along anyway.
“Whatcha thinkin about?”
“Well... I’m not sure if there’s going to be many friends for me to make down there. I’m a grown-up, and there aren’t any grownups for me to make friends with anymore.”
“Do you wish there were grownups to make friends with?”
“No. All the grownup friends I’ve had turned out to be jerks. Except your mother, but I think even she was just sorry for me.”
He talks about her a lot. You’ve never met “your mother.” You’ve only ever heard of her through your dad, but you still kinda admire her. From what he’s told you, she’s a fierce warrior who fights her battles with words rather than violence. She is loyal to her cause, whatever that cause may be, and honestly believes that there is no such thing as evil. Everyone deserves a chance, even the mutant stowaway her father was when they first met.
“That sounds lonely.”
He smiles, and the world feels a little better. A little more normal. “Don’t worry, sugarbear - If worst comes to worst, I could always build someone to keep us company. And besides, who could ever get lonely with you around?”
You consider for a moment. “... Do you think my friends will end up being jerks?”
“Everyone gets some friends who’re jerks, kiddo. There’s a lot of jerks in the universe. But you know what, the good friends won’t be jerks to you, and they’re mostly worth it.”
You take a moment to consider this. Dad ruffles your hair and wanders off, humming to himself as he goes to do whatever it is he does.
“You might wanna strap in, kiddo” he says. “We’ll be entering orbit soon, and you don’t fit in your custom respitecrib anymore.”
“Ok, dad!” you shout as you run to the loungeplank and quickly strap in your seatbelt, before turning on the gravity protection sphere. (dad says you’re too young to survive the pressure of entering and/or exiting a planetary atmosphere - you wouldn’t know, you’d only ever done it once, and that was way back when you were still a wriggler.)
You look out the window to the planet that will soon be your home. You’ve spent most of your life in a starcar, with only your dad as company, and you are understandably a little nervous. Excited, but scared. What will it be like, living on a planet?
Your name is CANDIS FLYYNN. It’s a normal morning in the Subgrubs of Danville - your lusus, Perry, is just inside your hive, probably drinking that hot leaf juice he loves so much, and you’re in the garden, tending to the carrot patch and the small grub farm. It’s been sweeps since you’ve last seen your old lusus, but you keep the carrot patch in tip-top shape just in case he ever decides to return.
It’s when you’re tossing the weeds you pulled from the carrot patch into the compost pile of your grub farm that you look up into the Alternian sky and oh my god what the hell is that.
Hurtling towards your lawn ring is a flaming SOMETHING and you don’t have time to figure out what it is because you’re already running and screaming towards the panic shed.
Your name is HEINZZ DOOFENSHMIRTZ, and your daughter is meeting a friend. You plan to interrogate this “friend,” see if they’re good enough for your little girl. Vanesa rolls her eyes at you, tells you she’s not your “little girl” anymore. She’s almost 7 sweeps old now, but her skin is still the pale grey of a youngling and her eyes have yet to fill with blood. She’s chosen to hide her blood color, wearing all white with strange symbols decorating her attire. You assume it’s a phase. You had one like that, when you were about her age. But you wish she’d hold on to her childhood a little bit longer - she doesn’t know how HORRIBLE it can be out there, in the space beyond Alternia’s thin atmosphere, doesn’t know how fragile the freedom she has now really is, how easily it can shatter into fear and suffering. And she doesn’t know that she’ll ALWAYS be your little girl, no matter how many sweeps have passed.
You let her meet this friend, but on the condition that you do it in a public space. You walk with her to the park, occasionally getting strange looks from passers-by: you’re used to it by now. You’ve been living on this planet for ten sweeps, the only adult on a planet of children. It gets lonely, sometimes, but you have your daughter and your inventions to keep you company, so it’s fine.
Eventually, your daughter seems to spot her friend, and she waves at them - you look at the direction of her waving, and see an odd little group. A teal-blooded girl, around your daughter’s age and possessing an unusually long neck waves back furiously, and behind her are two younger boys, a rustblood with a rather sharp head and - is that a LIMEBLOOD???
Before you can follow this train of thought, you catch sight of their lusus. It’s a massive creature, almost as tall as you, with a flat tail and a large beak, and ohmygod are those HANDS??? But the most captivating feature is the creature’s sharp eyes, which are glaring directly at you.
Suddenly, he’s on you; you dodge almost instinctively, and pull the first thing you can grab out of your STRIFE SPECIBUS - which turns out to be a wrench. You take a swing at him, but he grabs your arm and punches you square in the nose, sending you reeling. He punches you again, and you’re flat on your back. Man, you’re out of shape. You’re dimly aware of your daughter and her new friends pulling him back, but it’s difficult to tell anything right now, because for the first time in sweeps, you feel something. And, for the love of god, you don’t care that he’s a lusus, because right now? You’re seeing SPADES.
The sharp-headed rustblood leans down and offers you a hand. “I’m so, so sorry about that. Perry’s usually so well-behaved! I don’t know what would make him do that...”
“Ah, it’s fine. Most people usually feel like punching me in the face the first time they see me.” You take his hand and pull yourself up into a sitting position. “So, what’s your name, kid?”
“Well, I’m Phineas and this is my brother Ferb! And that’s our Auspice, Candace.”
You squint at them. “So what, you and your brother are... Kismeses?”
The rustblood - Phineas - laughs. “Oh, no. Ferb’s my Moirail.”
“... Can you auspice moirails?”
The tealblooded teen crosses her arms and gives you an unamused glare. “Trust me bub, with the amount of trouble these two get into they NEED an auspice.”
“... I’ll take your word for it.”
After a bit of chatting, the kids have run off to do god-knows what. They’re good kids, though - despite your initial reluctance, you find yourself trusting them.
But this leaves you behind with the lusus - Perry, was that his name? - and a somewhat awkward silence falls between the two of you as you sit on a bench.
”Sooooooooo,” you say, and the lusus looks over at you, “are all platypi named Perry?”
Perry rolls his eyes, and gestures for you to follow him. Curiously, and perhaps against your better judgement, you follow him into an alleyway, out of sight of your kids.
He suddenly turns on you, and slaps a fedora on his head. You gasp in shock
“PERRY THE PLATYPUS?????”
“I finally found you.”
Rhodney finds Doof. Mitch betrayed ROWCA. Meap is devistated, but unsuprised. They try to escape - he goes to hide out on the pink moon, but the Empress still finds him. The Meapians take a heroic stand, and a legitimate battle breaks out. The Lusii go into hiding, ROWCA is disbanded, and the Empress’s lackeys catch him. Then her ship comes. Rodger emerges first, as the political representative of the Tri-Planetary Area. He won’t look his former moirail in the eye. Then the door opens, and out steps Empress Gracia-Shapiro herself. Her hair is long, dark, and flowing, pulled into a low ponytail to spay out behind her in waves of black. Her eyes are deceivingly kind. You could almost forget she was a genocidal tyrant, looking into those crinkled fucia eyes. Her full lips conceal leathal pointed teeth, and are framed by deep-set smile lines, as though she were the kind of person who grinned constantly through the thousands of years she had lived. (I’m making Isabella’s mom evil and it is FUN) The way she held herself gave it all away, though - her posture was impeccable, relaxed, and full of the kind of power that can only be gained through millenia of backstabbing and negotiating. This was the woman who owned entire galaxies, and she had come personally to the execution of a single mutantblooded traitor. But this wasn’t any mutant - this was her personal scientist, the man who had founded the society that supplied her entire armada and invented her most sinister weapons. This man had been the one to personally design her planet destroyer, the ship that she came in on now. She had trusted and depended on him, and she had lied to her. He would be made an example of, to show the universe under her reign that, no matter how much you struggle, no matter how hard you work to gain her favor, the weakest must perish. Not even her personal scientist can escape the law.
Charlene rushes off the ship and runs directly towards him. She stands in front of him, arms flung wide, facing the Empress herself in an act of defiance. Protecting her matespirit.
“Wait!”
Rhodney sneers. “Stand aside, Charlene.”
“He at least deserves a fair trial.”
“You can’t expect to protect your matespirit forever, Charlene.”
“No, no, she’s right. He’s not special. He needs to be treated like anyone else. He will have trial.”
“Don’t worry, Heinzz - I’ll get you out of this.”
“How? I’m a MUTANT, Charlene, and she knows it - that’s a crime punishable by execution!”
Charlene, despite it all, flashed her trademark ‘I got this’ smirk. “True, but you’re a valuable asset to her empire. More so than she realizes. She doesn’t want to admit it, Heinzz, but without you her scientific department’s been declining. Not only that, but we can argue you used the escape from her watchful gaze as an opprotunity to infultrate the largest threat to her power. Your kismesis is a ROWCA agent - not only that, but he’s the highest-ranking feild agent in this sector of the empire! He’s got access to the rebellion’s most classified information. And you’ve gotten cose enough to dual-quadrant with him as his kismesis/moirail... moirails get all the good secrets. You have information that can end the rebellion and secure her empire, land you back in your role as her elite scientist - it’s a perfect narrative. The mutant Drusselstinian scientist uses his unique underdog status to infultrate the rebellion and bring it down from the inside, using everything that others say makes him worthless to proove his worth AND his loyalty to the empress. Nobody’ll care what color your blood is; you’ll be a hero!”
“... what about Perry?”
“What about him?”
“What about - ! Charlene! He’s my nemesis! And my best friend! I can’t... what’ll happen to him if I do this?”
“Well,” she said, considering “he’s too important to the rebellion to go unpunished. But maybe I can argue a claim of ownership. He could be kept as evidence for the trial, and we can worry about fighting his case after we make sure you’re not culled.”
“... a claim of ownership?”
“Yeah. Well I mean, he’s not a troll or anything, and maybe we can convinve the court that becoming your pet would be a more humiliating and fitting punishment than execution. You were working on that borg technology before your self-imposed banishment, right? Maybe you can turn him into a platy-borg in order to ensure he remains loyal to the empire instead of the rebellion.”
“You mean brainwash him.”
“Heinz, I know you really care about him. But I don’t think you understand the situation here. If we don’t win this, you die, and he gets culled anyway. We can worry about the ethics of using technology to alter the loyalties of your kismesis/moirail later, but right now I’m worried about keeping you alive.”
“Heinzz?”
The mutant scientist glared at the empress herself with candy-red eyes, the picture of defiance. “No. I won’t tell you anything, you fish-headed bitch.”
“What a shame.”
She gestured to the Executer, who nodded and raised his axe. He cut the string of the head-slicer, and the blade fell.
Heinzz’s head rolled onto the ground.
Perry was locked in an evidence room. He was looking for escape routes - Heinzz had trapped him so often over the sweeps, that he had become a master escape artist. But this particular trap wasn’t designed for people, it was designed for things, and was much harder to escape a trap that wasn’t designed with people in mind. He heard banging from outside the locker, and quickly hid behind one of the crates. A big, muscular adult troll opened the hatch, and his buddy threw in something that landed with a heavy thump. Something smaller rolled off the heap, towards Perry’s hiding spot.
Perry caught just a glimpse of the thing before the door shut and eclipsed him in total darkness again. He almost vomited. He had only caught a glimpse of messy brown hair and peircing red eyes surrounded by pointy everything, but he knew that face. It was the head of his kismesis, his moirail.
It was calling to him.
Through the last whisps of his consiousness, Heinzz was calling to him from beyond the grave. The man never could shut up, and it seemed even in death he had more to say.
Shoving aside his nausia, Perry crept forward and cradled the decapitated head of his ... his everything... in his hands. (they were really front paws, but Heinzz had always called them hands. It was one of the many things he did to humanize the lusus, make it feel like they were equals.)
Perry the Platypus...
Perry gripped the head tighter in his hands and nodded, trying to hold back his tears.
Perry the Platypus, this might sound like an... ODD last request, but...
Perry shook his head. Nothing was too strange right now. He’d do anything for this man. Anything.
I never got to... to kiss you, and um... I think that’s the last thing I want to feel. I know you don’t really have lips or anything, but I’m dead, so I guess I don’t really care? I just... I feel like this is the last chance I’ll have to -
Perry brought the head up to his face and pressed his bill against cold lips. He could feel the last bits of life, once so strong he could taste it from across the room, fading fast. As the last bits of life faded, and his ghost began to dissipate from his senses, he could feel Heinzz’s spirit smiling.
Thank you, Perry the Platypus.
And he was gone. Perry let the tears flow then, harsh sobs wracking his entire body, and he felt smaller than ever. He was GONE.
Your name is Heinzz Doofnz, and you just died.
But you also just woke up.
...What afterlife is this?
You are surrounded by purple. Tall purple buildings under a purple sky, with purple brick roads and dark-skinned people wearing nothing but purple clothes. For a moment, you think they’re trolls, but they’re too short, their faces too simple, their heads all covered with some garment or another. You look down, and realize that you, too, are wearing purple - and on your chest, you bear a light purple moon instead of the jagged ancestor sign you usually wear.
You think back to what happened before you woke up. You remember... A trial. Charlene fought for you, but she failed. You failed her. But you don’t feel any of the usual regret or self-disgust that usually comes with that thought. Why aren’t you sadder about failing her?
Oh yeah. You meant to do it this time.
After you refused to give the Empress the information that would save your life - information that would lead to Perry getting brainwashed, Phinas and Ferrbs getting culled for their mutant status, Candis being left to be taken in by her old abusive lusus in the wake of being torn from her family and Vanesa being left all alone, with nobody to care for her. You couldn’t let that happen. No matter how much you loved Charlene, you love your family more.
So you died.
And after that...
You touch your lips, remembering the phantom feeling of Perry’s bill on your dying lips. You feel heat burst in your face with the realization that he’d kissed you. I mean, yeah, it had been your dying wish, but...
It wasn’t a hatesnog, either. You can’t hatesnog a corpse (well, not unless you’re REALLY weird, but you filled two quadrants with a lusus so you guess you can’t judge), but there had been so much... Pity in that last kiss...
You realize that you might pity him, too. Dear lord, just how many quadrants can you fill with one person? Isn’t Charlene your matespirit, anyway?
Well, you guess you’re dead now, so romantic bullshit shouldn’t be so important right now. Especially since it wasn’t very likely you’d ever be seeing any of them ever again. Not unless they die, but you don’t want them to die. And besides, it’s not like you’ve got anything better to do, so you guess mulling over romantic bullshit is all you’ve got left to do for now.
You’ve done this before. You’ve left a life behind, accepted the fact that you’d never get to see the people who cared about you ever again before. So... Why does it hurt so much more now? You’ve left Charlene, Rodger and Rhodney, the entirety of LOVEMUFFIN... your whole life behind. Now you’re leaving behind a whole different life, and somehow it hurts so much more to think that you’ll never get to see them again. Not Vanessa, your strange little adopted wriggler; not Norm, the construction drone you hacked to help build the hive you all live in together who started calling you “dad”... Not Phinas or Ferrbs, the bright kids that stole your heart the moment you saw them inventing together the same way that you and Rodger used to back in Drusselstein... Not Candis, the spunky little girl your daughter developed a hatecrush for at the drycleaners... not Monobrow or his little intern, not Peter or Mystery, the strange couple you and Perry got to auspice together, and not Perry.
Somehow, the fact that you’ll never see Perry again hurts the most. More than your own daughter, even. Never again will you get to trap him, or ramble to him your most heart-wrenching backstories, or engage in the strange hatedate/feelsjam hybrids you two shared on a daily basis. There was never a word for what the two of you were, not really. “Nemesis” was what you’d called yourselves, and the title stuck, even as your nemesiship strayed into more romantic hatred, and even as that relationship shifted again to include paler emotions. And now, it seems as though it’s begun to shift again into red. Except you’re dead now, so you’ll never get to explore that potential together. You’ll never get to punch, hug, or kiss him ever again.
One of the little creatures approaches you as you cry for Perry. Wordlessly, he takes you by the hand and leads you. You let him.
As you pass through the streets of this strange purple world, you attract more attention. Other creatures begin to follow you with their eyes, if not break from their rutines in order to trail behind you out of curiosity. You swipe a purple sleeve across your face to clear up the snot and tears and look down at your little conpanion.
“Where are you taking me?” But he just looks up at you and smiles with his eyes. It appears these creatures didn’t speak. You let him lead on anyway - you were already dead, it wasn’t like he could hurt you more, right? - and he came to a slightly bluer building, standing out from the rest of the purple landscape.
He stops outside the front door, and pushes you forward.
“Alright, alright, I’m going!”
You open the doors and wander inside. Perry would love this place - it looked just like his secret lair. Curiously, you wander upwards, to one of his tunnels - was this place a reflection of the world you left behind? - and go up.
There. In his lusus bed, sleeping, was...
“Perry the Platypus?”
...
You expected him to wake up at that.
He was always a pretty light sleeper,
ImaginationStation (IS) and TurboFerbo (TF) entered FIRESIDE TROOP ROOM
IS: Hey guys, Ferb and I found a way to beat the Empress!
FiresidePrincess (FP), StaciLicious (SL), CandyRox (CR), and RebelGoddess (RG) entered FIRESIDE CHAT ROOM
“Well, while we were doing an archeological dig to find some cavetroll remains, Ferb and I found some ancient artifacts along with what we think is a game called Sgrub. After doing some extensive research, we found out that this game is supposed to cause apocalypse, and that we’re all supposed to escape to this place called the Medium where we’d work to create a new universe to live in. But we found a way to reverse-engineer the game to make it think that this universe IS the medium. Which, in a way, it kinda already was since this universe was created by our Dancestors resetting the game? Anyway, the remains of their lands are scattered all over the solar system, so all we need to do is Restore and use them.”
“Okay, but how does any of this help us defeat the empress?”
“Well, remember how when Doctor D got executed, but then Perry found him on another planet and brought him back to us?”
“Yeah?”
“Well, that’s a mechanic of the game! If you die, another player can revive you by reawakening your dream self on Prospit or Beforus with a kiss of life.”
“Wait, Perry, you kissed dad?”
“Hey, we’ve kissed before! We’re kismeses Vanesa, what, do you think we just fought all the time?”
“Guys, guys, that’s not the important part. The existence of Derse and Prospit in this universe means that we all have dream selves that can be revived. Which MEANS we can take advantage of some of the more OP mechanics of the game.”
Candis scrunched up her face. “OP mechanics? What’s more OP than causing apocalypse, reviving the dead, and creating an entire new universe?”
Ferb: “Becoming a god.”
“Like most RPGs, this game has a leveling system. If you work long and hard enough, you can eventually gain the ultimate level of “God-Teir.” But, almost all records state that reaching this level can take millions of years to achieve through just grinding - luckily, there’s a shortcut. The legends say that if a hero is slain upon his or her deathbed, they will ascend to God Teir. There’s some glowing and some wingbeasts being freed from the clouds, something about a sacrifice for the cohorts, but it’s mostly just freeing the hero’s spirit from their physical form so that they can ascend to a state no mere mortal could ever achieve. You know, typical prophecy mumbo-jumbo.”
“So, wait, you have to DIE?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll do it.” Everyone looked at Doofenshmirtz. “I’ve died before, it’s not all that bad. Hurts less than some of the bullshit I’ve lived through.”
Phineas shook his head. “No, Ferb and I already talked with Stacey about this. Every player has a different thing that they can do, defined by a class and an aspect. For example, Stacey’s a Seer of Void, which is part of why she knows so many secrets. It also means she can peer into the fabric of nonexistence and understand the nature of reality and unreality, and see into the void. That’s how we figured out that this universe was created by a game reset. The strongest aspects in the game are Time and Space, and since I’m the Heir of Time and Ferb’s the Knight of Space, we’ll be the only ones to risk going godteir.”
“No.”
“Isabela...?”
“I’m not letting you die, Phineas.”
“That’s exactly why I want you to be the one to do it.”
“Do what, exactly?”
“When I’m on the deathbed preparing to ascend to godteir, I want you to be the one who kills me.”
“WHAT?”
“You’re the only one I can trust to do it right. Isabella, I know you, and I know you won’t let me stay dead forever.
The princess stands over the sleeping body of her (Kismesis? True Love? Rival? Friend?)... Companion. He told her to do it. He told her himself that this was the only way for them to defeat her mother, that she was the only one he trusted to -
She swallows a lump in her throat. She knows what she has to do.
She slides her trusty sash from her Strife Specibus. She grips it in her hands. Stares at the badges that decorate it, the intricate latticework she weaved it into in order to make it deadly. She twists in into the familiar shape of a whip. She can’t do this. She has to do this. She stares at the peaceful expression on his triangular face. He looks so calm. So sweet. So pityable. How could she have ever thought she could pretend to hate him? How could she have fought him, time and again, just to see that smile split across his face as he teased her playfully, just to see him toil over blueprints and construction drones just to impress her with his ability, just to have an excuse to find out what he was doing? How could she -
He trusts you. There’s a reason why he asked YOU to kill him, and nobody else. He needs to die, here and now, nowhere else, and you’re the only one he trusts to do this the right way.
You raise your whip, and aim for his throat.
A crack sounds throughtout the land. You wait.
And wait.
Wait.
Something’s wrong.
Phinas told you that the bed was supposed to glow when he died, that it was supposed to signal his dream self awakening into his new God Teir form, and that he and Ferrbs would then be able to return and use their god-teired powers to shape time and space. But there’s no glowing, and the flying creatures are still trapped in their clouds. WHAT’S GOING ON???
Suddenly, you are struck by a memory. Heinzz had died by the hands of the Empress, but he was still around because Perry...
The kiss of life! Phinas’s dream self must still be sleeping, he needed a kiss to wake up!
You hurry to the bed, attempting to avoid looking directly at the blood still spilling from his throat, and tilt his nose up to get a better angle at his lips. You close your eyes, and lean in.
When you open your eyes again, you are surrounded by a magnificent blur of impossible color, lit by the brilliant glow of his invention. You sigh in relief.
Butterflies.
He always gives you butterflies.