Beepsumu pulled Bowyetta and Jingletooth towards the wall, and Bonkakira followed. In the distance, they could hear what sounded like two people laughing and talking very loudly.

“HA! That really DOES look like Smithy!” Said one of the voices.

“Huh. Maybe I’ll grow a beard myself.”

“What, you? You know we can’t do that, right?”

“What are you talking about?”

“WE’RE MADE OF METAL, YOU DOLT!!”

Before the two voices approached, Bowyetta whispered to the group. “Do not be moving at all. Bowyetta is recognizing those voices.”

Two figures approached the group, one red and one blue. They were mechanical just like everyone else in the factory, but rather than being some sort of weapon like the others, they seemed to be made of armor.

The blue was the first to notice the group. “Hey! Turn that light off!”

The two approached the group. “What the heck are THESE things?”

The blue one “shrugged”. “New models, maybe?”

The red one inspected Jingletooth’s face closely. “This one’s kinda ugly. And doesn’t look much good at fighting either.”

The blue one took a look at Beepsumu. “What’s this one supposed to be, a walking TV?” Beepsumu’s frown turned more pointed than before. Of course, her technology was a bit dated, but she wasn’t exactly from this era, and in her time she would’ve been considered superior… She wanted to say something, but saw the look that Bowyetta was giving her.

Speaking of Bowyetta, it was her turn for an inspection. “You! Bowyer!” The red one barked at her. She twitched slightly at his voice, then stepped forward. It had been a long time since she had been spoken to like this… “Come on, we don’t have all day. Show us what you’re made for!”

Bowyetta produced an arrow from her hair and loaded it into her body. As much as she wanted to burn the place down, she also didn’t want to give them away, for fear they would be thrown into the furnace. “Hurry up!” The blue one yelled at her, startling her so much that she fired the arrow off anyway. It did not ignite, but left a very visible blue streak on her body.

The red one sighed. “Well, what are we supposed to do with these things?”

“I have no idea. I think they might be broken.”

While the two armor-suits were debating what to do with the group, the dog-arrow from before spoke up: “Run, my dear Bowyetta~! Run while they’re distracted~! Do not worry about me~!”

“Come on, let’s sneak away while they’re not looking at us,” Beepsumu whispered to the group.

As soon as he was called out, the Repairman grunted, trying to cover the light, with little success. Still, they seemed too busy looking at the others to notice. The Repairman found himself so wrapped up in trying to hide his siren light that he completely failed to notice his companions being casually insulted. That is, until one of them shouted for a Bowyer.

He watched as Bowyetta emerged and shot one of her arrows from before. Wait, what was that? “Broken”? “Run”?

Uh oh.

He looked around. It looked like the guards weren’t paying attention, so if he just crept past them and back towards the house…

Still, he worried a bit about the weird arrow thing. He pulled out a piece of flint and threw it the other way, in the hopes that it would distract the guards long enough to help the guy.

“STOP!” Galanthus flew in front of the Repairman’s face. “Back up a step or two,” the irritable snowdrop fairy demanded.

The Repairman flinched, leaning back a little. Dang, he…she…this character was pretty quick to get into his personal space.

“Oh, uh…” was all he could say for a moment or two. Still, it probably wasn’t a good idea to question this elfin person right now.

“…Okay then.”

He took a look behind him, and tried to mentally measure “steps” for someone like him. A couple of seconds later, he found an answer he liked and shambled back about a foot and a half.

“Why?” he asked, evenly. He couldn’t see any issue from where he was…

Zelda teeters back a step, regaining her balance since the wind had vanished so suddenly. Was a simple window shade enough to hold back whatever was on the other side of the portal?
“Me? But I- I didnt-”
The princess sputtered ungracefully. Why was she trying to explain herself to this talking black Boe? It mustve been a bizarre dream.
“I-it was like that when I got here.”
She felt like a kid again with her arms crossed and ears burning. The only difference this time was she was telling the truth.

The Repairman looked at the woman with a mix of confusion and…more confusion. He had met Toons who were apologetic, some not, but never someone who tried to…shift the blame? Huh…

“Well, who else would be here?” he asked, gesturing around the hedge maze. “I mean…”

He trailed off, and looked back at the shade. To him, the Wall looked concrete, but folks sometimes seemed to act like it was something different.

“…What did you see?” he asked, curious. “I’ve never seen someone pulled towards a crack in the Wall…”

While he was messing around with the mallet and the trap, I gave a signal.

“All right boys….on the count of three, we jump this chump!”

“Is that on three, boss?”, Stupid asked, “or after three?”

I glared at him, and I snapped, “Just…. just jump on him!”

“One,” I counted, as we inched closer, “Two,” we posed, ready to jump. “Three!”, I shouted and we all jumped on the Breaker.

All of a sudden, we heard a whistling noise, and Stupid shouted “Cannonball!”, and then he belly-flopped on us.

“Uh-oh….” He whimpered, as the floor shook, and we crashed through the floor, going down. We all crashed through floor after floor, till we hit the basement.

-Smartass

“Oof! What the–?”

And then the Breaker fell.

The Repairman, meanwhile, was still trying to regain control of his own giggling. Was it really this hard for weasels? He couldn’t even hear the leader’s orders over his fits.

He did, however, get to see five weasels and his alternate universe self crash through several stories in that classic Toony fashion. This only made him laugh even harder as he looked into the newly-created hole. Because of the mass of Toons that fell, it looked less like a singular Toon shape and more like an abstract painting.

The Repairman stopped laughing and started screaming as his bouts of laughter caused him and his wheelchair to fall down the hole.

So this is what “die laughing” means…

He landed, still screaming, with a splat! on the basement floor next to the others.

Once he got up, he still had a weasel-ish form, but the fall was not kind to that. He began fiddling with his wig, trying to get it to its normal handsome look, when the wheelchair landed on him, squashing the inkblot into something resembling a Rorschach test.

The Breaker was seeing stars, but he was still up. Granted, “up” is not that impressive when you’re the same size as the Repairman, but it was clear he was still standing. And that the finger trap was still on him. He tried to steady himself, swaying every which way in the process. He swung his half-broken mallet around as he did so.

“You got a frenemy…” he slurred in his daze, “…When the toad looks rather dead…”

E could tell his tone was on the unsure side but otherwise seemed fine with being on his own. That was good enough for E to feel no regret on leaving the repairman alone.

‘I have people and places waiting for me on the other side, So yes.’

Once shown, E closed the notebook, slipped the pen back in the spirals and tucked them safely back in their pockets. Then held a hand out for a handshake.

“Ah, all right,” he replied. Still seemed odd to take the monster-infested tunnels, but hey, they seemed to know what they were doing.

He extended an inky hand and shook E’s. Nodding, he thanked them once more and began to head out. He idly wondered if he’d be back here any time soon.

Psycho giggled with maniacal glee as the Breaker peeled open layer after layer of tape

I pulled Psycho aside and hissed “What’s in that damned box??”

He said, with a mischievous glint in his eye, “just a little something to keep him occupied for a while!”

The Breaker FINALLY got to the very last layer, revealing……a Chinese finger trap?

As soon as he touched the finger trap, picked it up to examine it, his fingers.. or what I presumed was his fingers..got trapped on either end.

-Smartass

As the Breaker picked up the finger trap, he wondered if this was extra wrapping for that remote. How irritating. He put a psuedofinger in one end of this wrapping to peel it off when…it got stuck. Oh well, he had another hand, maybe he could just use the other end and…

Nope. That hand was stuck, too.

The Repairman found himself stifling some very weasel-like laughter as he watched his Nega doppelganger try to pull his fingers back out. He tried desperately to contain it, but soon a few quiet “Heh’s,” followed by several loud, rapid “HA’s” came rushing out of his mouth.

The Breaker glared at the group as he stopped his half-hearted struggling. He moved his arms downwards and sprouted two more.

“Oh, you think that’s funny, huh?”

He pulled out an enormous wooden mallet, but he didn’t seem to be looking at the group of weasels anymore. He seemed to be looking at the audience…

With one hand, he readied his mallet, while the other tried to pull at the finger trap along with the other two. Bah. If only he didn’t have to walk to get his box cutter.

E just nodded to that and let a bit of silence fall. They took some time to look around, eyes eventually falling back to the tunnel. They realized they could probably leave the Repairman here. The road lead right into a small town with quite a few pay phones, and he looked capable of fending for himself if left alone. Just to be sure though, E wrote out a half joking:

‘Think you could find your way from here? There’s not more tunnels to help you navigate from this point on. :p′

The Repairman looked around as they fell into silence. Finally, he heard the sound of E scrawling on the paper again, and turned back to them expectantly. He chucked as he read.

“…Uh,” he started, taking a look through the clearing. “…Yeah, probably. You heading back?”

He wasn’t sure whether or not he would visit this world that often, but he was certain E was a huge part of it. If he came back, he had a feeling he’d see her again.

This guy’s a smart thinker, I thought, as he pulled out his cap and box.

Stupid nudged me as the Nega-blob opened the door. “He’s scary!” Stupid whispered, “and he smells like vinegar!”

I guess that had to do with the…. what, was he made of play doh? It looked like he wasn’t made of ink and paint, but like he was the thrown out project a kid made in summer camp.

Greasy smoothed the Breaker over, because he saw us and eyed us suspiciously. “We’re bodyguards. He’s carrying valuable stuff.”

“This better be good,” the Breaker growled, “I’m missing my marathon of ‘Dynasty’!”

“It’ll be good!” Psycho giggled. “You’ll be REALLY surprised.”

-Smartass

The Repairman handed the box over to the Breaker (who was such a lazy, pathetic knockoff that he didn’t even call himself Fourth Wall Vandal).

“Jes’ check da package,” he said, ignoring the Breaker’s indignity, “and we can move dis along.”

The Breaker knew he had a box cutter on the table but…that was pretty far. A whole six feet away.

“All right,” he muttered, as he began to peel the tape off, “I did want that automated remote control…”

He stopped to rattle the box. Oddly, it sounded like something was in it, despite it being empty. Curious, he continued peeling, hoping he would finally find that remote, so he would never have to press a button again.

For several minutes, the building felt strangely quiet. The ambient noise of the office building – the low buzz of the fluorescent lights, the hum of the computers – seemed muted.

A loud crackling sound shot through the silence like a bullet. “Gooooood morning, corporate America!” boomed the Narrator, his voice masked briefly by microphone feedback. There was a faint clicking as the Narrator presumably adjusted his sound equipment. “Good morning,” he said again. His voice seemed to issue from an invisible speaker in the ceiling. “Good morning. Testing, testing, one two three… oh, what’s this?”

A green toolbox was sitting on one of the desks.

“ghh…Huh?”

He had no idea how long he was out. All he knew was that suddenly, a voice was blaring.

Uh-oh.

The Repairman quickly came to his senses and remembered where he was. He was not going to have another fight with a narrator. Once this week was enough.

He lay still, hoping the toolbox would be able to stay unnoticed. The narrator seemed to be busy testing something.

He tentatively pushed aside a trowel, an instruction manual for a lawnmower, and a case of light bulbs so he could peek out from under the lid.

Unfortunately, he started to do this as the Narrator noticed the toolbox, but it was too late. After the voice said “what’s this?” two white, painted eyes emerged from under the lid. Only black could be seen in the toolbox.

Oh boy…

Jingletooth eyed him oddly as she spoke. “Spackledorf NEVER comes with me anywhere!” she complained. “But SOMEONE has to keep the house from BURNING!”

“Please to be keeping your voices down,” whispered Bowyetta. “we are approaching a more dangerous area.”

Bowyetta wasn’t kidding before. The next room was slightly hotter than the the last. Bonkakira was quick to complain about it. “Bonkakira doesn’t do so well with heat.”

Bowyetta was too busy staring at something to comment. The walls in this room were lined with rows of mechanical monstrosities, some of them resembling Bowyetta herself, complete with a wide, sharp-toothed mouth. However, none of them looked exactly like Bowyetta, in fact they were even more unsettling than she was. Bowyetta’s “lip” twitched slightly. “Prefect they are being,” was the only thing she could say.

As she stared, she began to get an idea. “Bowyetta is wondering how well they are burning…” She broke into another of her smiles, but this one wasn’t cheerful or friendly. She knew that she shouldn’t be doing this, but now that she was no longer bound by Smithy’s rules she didn’t exactly care either. Not to mention, she was still a Bowyer, and she had quite a strong instinct for causing destruction.

However, her thoughts were interrupted by Beepsumu. “Ack! Someone’s coming! We have to hide!”

The fact that they were now in a castle somehow made Jingletooth’s inflections less strange. The Repairman nodded. At least the house would…hopefully be in one piece as they got back.

A small amount of mist slowly rose off of the Repairman as they entered the next room. He couldn’t see what Bonkakira was complaining about; this was nice, relaxing, cleansing…

Distracting was what it was, he thought as he mentally shook himself. Almost as distracting as Bowyetta right now…

He thought it best to step back a bit as he heard her remarks about these other…metal…plant…things. Wouldn’t want to be collateral damage, and he doubted he could stop her right now anyway.

Especially since someone was coming.

Looking around, he found an empty space in the line of creatures on the wall and went to it. He struck a hieroglyphic pose, and effectively froze.

Well, his siren light was still blinking. But hopefully, whoever was coming wasn’t paying much attention…