“Oh,” said the Narrator. “Oh. Well.”

The Repairman’s remark had thrown him off-balance; he hadn’t expected something so cutting from the mouth of an strange, misshapen inkblot. That… that hurt.

“Well, you’re doing an uninspired job of fixing the fourth wall, yourself. Don’t you realize that’s a hopeless task? Nowadays, breaking the fourth wall is all the rage. Don’t fool yourself, inkblot, or you’ll be taping together an imaginary wall for the rest of your life. Most people would find that job… soul-crushing.”

The Repairman felt a twinge of guilt as the narrator reacted. He had expected to make a point, but this voice seemed to take it personally. Maybe he should apolo-

“IMAGINARY?!”

The Repairman reddened somewhat. All thoughts of guilt escaped him, as did any more thoughts about being careful.

“Listen, you…” he fumed, knocking on the Wall, “This wall is no more imaginary than you are! I should know; I’ve been fixing it for over eighty years!”

He breathed heavily, realizing he was just adding more to his workflow.

“Besides,” he said, more quietly, “I was made for this. I could probably do this for another eighty years.”

He somewhat regretted that last statement, but it was true. It was what he was drawn to do, after all.

He silently turned back to his toolbox, digging for some planks and nails.

🐜

inabatherabbit:

Inaba was frightened by the size of everything else conpaired to her. She was used to being atleast 2 feet smaller, but not this small!

The Repairman looked around idly as he set his toolbox down. It was just another forest setting to him, but forest settings were always pretty nice to see.

The inkblot wondered where everyone was. He wouldn’t be here if there wasn’t someone cutting his work out for him.

After looking around fruitlessly, he decided to look down.

He widened his eyes in mild surprise. He was not at all used to rabbits that were much smaller than him, let alone ant-sized ones.

“Oh, hello,” he said. Noticing her distress, he asked, “Are you all right?”

“Think we should just plug ‘em all back in, or do ye reckon that’ll take the whole underpass down?” Bruce asked, grimacing at the thought before glancing about his surroundings at the other’s inquiry. “Ah, aye! It’s up ‘ere. Ye want me to toss it down to ye? Unless ye’ve got somethin’ fragile in there I should know ‘bout…”

“Yeah,” the Repairman replied, “I don’t think we can. I forgot which wire was which, anyway.”

“Um,” he continued, eyeing the robots, “…I think I’ll just head back up.”

As he began his ascent, he was blocked by another white glove. This one was holding a non-copyright-specific cleaning pad, and it was clear it noticed the Repairman.

“On second thought,” the inkblot said, trying not to sound distressed, “could you drop the red toolbox down here?”

Scratch watched as the inkblob started failing as he tried to explain. He wondered if this happened often to this poor guy, or if he was just touching on weird universal stuff between canons. Wait, what’s a canon? Why are all these words about higher dimensions suddenly popping into his head?

“ One of those cats I saw, at least I think they were, nearly mistook me for one, until his buddy said something about me being a little short for a Legal Eagle. ”

~~And the Stormtrooper joke went right over your head, Scratch.~~

“Well,” the Repairman said, wryly, “I’d never be fit for that, then.”

He climbed down the ladder, shaking his head.

“Well, I might need to get going soon,” he said, looking at Doris. “Just be careful if you go back to the polygonal ToonTown. Heck, be careful here!”

He folded the ladder up, packing it and the spray adhesive back into his toolbox.

“Good luck,” he waved, pulling a crash helmet from off-screen and donning it. He had a feeling about the particular New York he was visiting. Like he might have to deal with that one rabbit-creature again.

The great white nodded, even though the other couldn’t quite see his reaction. The shark turned around, investigating his surroundings but not touching any device or even any walls lest the machinery accidentally roar to life and result in them being trapped further.

“Think we can use the arms to pry open the tunnel?” Bruce suggested, calling back into the tin can.

“Maybe…” the Repairman said, thinking about it. “…Except I don’t think they’ll listen to us. All the arm controls were unplugged.”

If he had had feet (or been on the ground, for that matter), he would have shuffled them. How was he to know? Well, they were labeled, but still.

A thought occurred to him.

“Wait,” the Repairman asked, “Did I leave my cart up there?”

The shark blinked, glancing down at the tin can which emitted a clear, echoing sound of the other’s voice. Granted, it probably wasn’t the weirdest thing he had witnessed in Toontown, or the outskirts. It certainly didn’t even reach close to the list.

“Ye seen anythin’ down there?” the great white asked, making sure to avoid shouting into the tin can.

The Repairman looked around (thankfully, his siren light was still blinking). Black wires snaked down the tunnel, which forked every which way. A couple of white-gloved robotic hands could be seen doing something far below, though they were too .

“Looks like I have some paths to try,” the inkblot finally said into the can. “There’s a couple to the left and a lower one to the right.”

After looking down again, he added, “And I think we should keep an eye on those robot hands. I’m not sure what they’re doing…”

He remembered unplugging all the wires for the arm controls. Why were these still moving?

“ Are these two connected? Or, is it like how there’s a bunch of cities called the same thing almost everywhere? I heard something about some country on some planet having a Portland on each coast. I’ll take a guess that boats a big thing there… ”

He remembered seeing some cartoonish animals (uncannily reminding him of Sonic) using pies and seltzer and one-tons to take out some of the bird guys. Maybe…

“ If there’s anything I like doing, it’s causing mischief, hoo hoo! ”

“Well…um…”

The Repairman started to gesture vaguely everywhere. How could he put this?

Of course, he quickly stopped his motions when they were causing him to lose his balance on the ladder. After a brief bit of flailing, he found his grip on it again.

“Yes,” the Repairman finally said, figuring out what he wanted to say, “They just happen to have the same name. This is a place where all Toons can come together, while that ToonTown focuses on…”

C’mon, you don’t have to break the wall again here.

“…a battleground between animals and robots.”

He lowered his voice slightly as he said, “Between you and me, the Cogs are Toons too, despite what they say.”

He chuckled a bit as he applied the adhesive.

“Honestly, you’ll fit in either if you like that. Plenty of folks to apply it to!”

He tried to ignore the fact that he had some “applied to him” just a minute ago.

@askthefwrp liked for a starter

coconerds:

“Listen, man. Ah didn’t break nothin’; it was Scratch.” The naughty bot lied.

“Uh…”

The Repairman stopped, nonplussed. All he had done was open the door, and there this monkey was, defending himself against this perfect stranger of an inkblot. He wasn’t even sure what it was the robot didn’t break.

On top of that, Scratch didn’t seem to be around…

“…Is…is this a bad time?”

“ I know that, I guess I figured that out earlier. On my way here, I saw a couple other robotic bird guys who said they didn’t know what a Robotnik even was when I asked. ”

He looked around, wondering where those guys were.

“ Then one of them said something about ex post facto. I told him I’d pass on being mailed fun facts about his exes. He looked at me weird. ”

“Oh,” the Repairman said, noticing the chicken’s confusion, “You must have been in the other ToonTown.”

He set the ladder down and clambered up to yet another crack in the Wall. He hoped he had enough to pay Doris after all this.

“Those Legal Eagles are something else,” he commented. “Try telling them they’re vandalizing.”

He winced.

“They’ll say something about ‘pecking orders,’ and send a bunch of birds after you.”

Still, the Repairman remembered some Cogs being all right. The VP was a pretty nice introduction to that universe, after all.

The great white blinked, curiously nudging the empty tin can with the tip of his pectoral fin. “Tin can phone? Never ‘eard ‘f ‘em, sorry. Can’t say I’ve ‘ad the time to come through the loonier part of the hand-drawn district everyday. More so, it’s just a route to get from ‘ere to there. Never really stopped to see what anyone was doin’… apart from ‘em all screamin’ and runnin’ ‘way from me,” he added with an abashed chuckle.

Humoring the Repairman, though, the great white dipped his head closer to the open end of the can. “’ow do ye use it? Like a phone? Reckon that’d explain the name…” he mused. “As long as I keep a fairly good distance- a half meter or more- from the magnet, it shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Heh,” the Repairman replied, looking back down into the inner workings, “I see. Yeah, it’s just a phone.”

He spoke into his can.

“Testing, testing…Okay, just act like it’s a normal phone, you don’t need to get too close to it…”

And with that, he began to climb down again. He was hoping his attempts to fix the doors didn’t affect the robotic arms he was too much…