Split Splat! (Quest)

Mickey Mouse

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Chugga chugga, chugga chugga, chugga chugga, chugga chugga…

CHOO CHOO!


The Shining Time Railroad ripped through the Nos’talgian countryside. At the head of the pack of train cars, a cobalt blue engine adorned with a silver face on the front smiled his way down the tracks, whistling a merry tune and heralding the locomotive’s arrival into the Toon Town station.

Toon Town’s particular stop on the Shining Time’s journey happened to be the origin point of the little engine that could. Every morning, the little blue train car -- affectionately referred to as ‘Thomas’ by those in the know -- woke up and greeted the day with his concrete cheeks before launching off on yet another lap around the quirky little planet. Mickey Mouse, leaning against a yellow wood-paneled wall of the train station watching the train arrive, figured the ‘little engine that could’ must’ve gotten tired of the sights by now. Sure, the mouse king himself still stood in awe of things like the delectable spectacle of Sweetzerland or the ever-changing landscape of the Imagen Nation, but after a while, the luster had to wear off, right?

The zippers on his new, less colorful attire -- a long black robe with a hood that his ears tucked nicely into -- clinked together as he pushed off the wall and approached the slowly stopping locomotive. He pulled a gloved hand out of his pocket and inspected the ticket he’d purchased. Bordered by a similar blue and featuring the smiling face of Thomas the Tank Engine himself, it read ‘All Aboard the Shining Time Railroad, car number 5, noon o’clock!’ Absorbing that information, the little mouse glanced up and spotted the fifth car, beginning his approach.

From car number four, the Proto Man tilted his sunglasses down and winked to his diminutive best friend. Mickey smirked in response, throwing up a gloved hand to signal receipt of the android boy’s signal and continued moving towards the fifth. They’d gone over the signals a thousand times last night, staying up way too late hanging out with PLUTA in the Spaceboat Willie’s bridge: a wink meant the target was, indeed, on the train, and a blink meant no dice.

A quick glance past Blues proved the wink correct. The same glasses-sporting, quite svelte Inkling from the cafe, a pair of lavender limbs hanging from the top of her head, sat nervously in the seat opposite the preteen machine, poring over a notebook of some sort. From Mickey’s vantage point, he couldn’t make out anything in it, but he could see plain as day the top of the Omega symbol painted on the back of her dress as she hunched over the little book.

He stepped onto car number five and slid into one of the seats near the front. The little Inkling - Argyle, maybe? Had that been her name? - glanced nervously back and forth over her shoulders, her neat-lookin’ tentacle limbs swaying to and fro.

So she’s suspicious, the mouse nodded, with a chuckle. Her burgeoning paranoia was probably wise, but nonetheless, now was not the time for him or Blues to jump. They’d lie in wait until the train had gotten far enough away from Toon Town… and near enough to the epicenter of Nos’talgia’s darkness, that strange, shadowy place the locals called the Uncanny Valley.

If this Darkseid fella had staked his claim anywhere on this peaceful, happy little planet, Mickey knew that would be it. And this Argyle lady… with any luck, she’d lead them right to it.

For now, though, he simply reached into one of the many pockets on the inside lining of this floor-length coat and pulled out a Ziploc bag of coriander, sticking a gloved hand inside and pulling out some leaves for a little snack. Not the most common snack, and he’d much rather have a whole block of cheese to just nibble away at, but a high-stakes train interrogation required a healthy mouse. The fiber, iron, magnesium, and all that would probably do him much good.

“All aboard!” someone from the front -- perhaps Thomas himself, for all Mickey knew -- shouted, followed almost immediately by the deafening sound of a train horn and the quintessential scraping of the locomotive’s wheels and axles rubbing together as it prepared to set off, once again, into the great, vibrant countryside of this weirdo planet.

Mickey narrowed his eyes. Shiznit was about to get real.

***

The Great Train Interrogation hadn’t been thought up overnight. Just the afternoon before.

Mickey Mouse and Proto Man sat at a small, circular, wrought-iron table, situated outside a cute, French-themed café, in almost complete silence. Since the incident with the wall, the mouse king had found himself completely lost in thought, poring over every detail of the vision as many times as he could manage; eventually, there didn’t seem to be anything Blues could do besides let the little mouse’s noggin work it out.

The preteen machine’s patience wasn’t likely to run out soon. Mickey, on the other hand, had less robotic implements on his side to curb his frustrated impulses, and besides that, little Squee was positively infuriating him bouncing around this way and that across the café’s patio.

“Ughhhhh,” he groaned, throwing his head forward and slamming it not-so-gently against the table. The whipped cream on top of his creamy iced coffee jiggled a little bit at the impact; the mouse’s best friend leaned over and placed a hand on the keyblade master’s shoulder.

“Y’okay, Mick?” the cyborg asked, concern visible on his face even with his huge sunglasses covering half of them.

Mickey looked up at the boy weakly. “It was just so freakin’ vague,” he whined, the frown on his face growing larger and deeper by the second. “Blah blah blah omega symbol. Blah blah blah Darkseid.”

“Darkseid?” the Proto Man quirked up. Mickey blinked a little bit, and then realized he hadn’t voiced that word aloud yet.

Darkseid.

The word had started to sorta just seep into his consciousness in the hours after the incident at the wall, big and scary and altogether quite mysterious. He didn’t know who this Darkseid fella was, or what he looked like, or what the heck he even wanted. Yet, the more he let the details of the vision settle, and the more the feelings it invoked seeped into his very emotional fiber, the more he knew the importance of that word. The more he knew that word wasn’t even just a word: it was a name.

There wasn’t all that much to go off of, admittedly. Whoever the maker of this world was -- or, to use the locals’ word, the ‘Arbiter’ -- they had been decidedly skimpy on the details, and since they hadn’t decided to bless his best friend with this same knowledge, he’d been left altogether on his own to try and figure out what the heck they meant, what was going on, and what exactly the threat was.

Thus far, all the clues he’d gotten were as follows: the name Darkseid, that weirdo Omega symbol, and the cold, spine-tingling feeling he’d felt inside the great white void as the inky blackness had begun to suck it all up around him.

Like he said: not much to go off of.

“Mick,” Blues tapped him on the arm, pointing slyly past him. “Didn’t you say you drew an Omega symbol in your vision? Was it like that one?”

Mickey Mouse whipped around, and that was the first time he laid eyes on Argyle the lavender-limbed Inkling. She walked briskly down the main street of Toon Town, almost blending in with the colorful, cartoonish buildings as she did so were it not for her starkly black dress and the big, blue Omega symbol emblazoned sloppily on the back. The mouse king watched carefully as she occasionally glanced up nervously from the book she was reading, slowly disappearing down the street. He scowled a bit; she was a bit too far from them now for him to catch up to her without being noticed, but maybe…

“Squee,” he muttered, “wanna do some spy work?”

***

Squee’s espionage mission had been quite the success. Though Blues was astounded Mickey could understand the little orange fuzz ball’s strange and, to him, non-existant noises -- and though Mickey himself couldn’t really explain it -- the tiny creature had managed to follow Argyle back to the inn where she’d holed herself up for a few days, and absorb some vital info. She was hopping a train the next day at precisely noon o’clock, heading to some sort of gathering just past the wall, in the shallowest reaches of the Uncanny Valley, with some other Inklings to discuss something called ‘the Unmaking.’

The mouse king had found that term altogether foreboding and quite urgent sounding, so he and Blues had resolved to join the inky creatures at their little gathering and immediately popped over to the train station to secure themselves tickets. To lower suspicion, they’d gotten spots on different cars, and by some stroke of luck, the Proto Man had managed to get a seat on the same car as their Inkling friend.

The Shining Time Railroad locomotive chugged out of Toon Town, sailing towards the edge of the Uncanny Valley with abandon. Mickey never really understood how big ol’ trains like these weren’t altogether slow and ponderous; he’d always sorta assumed size had a lot to do with something’s speed, but Thomas and his compatriots made their way into the less-colonized areas of Nos’talgia with ease and agility.

No stop existed to let passengers off into the Uncanny Valley -- for the most part, it seemed, locals and tourists alike were loath to venture into the darker swaths of the planet -- so Mickey watched the Inkling girl carefully as they continued their journey. How was she planning on getting past the wall, then? Someone with the mouse’s own acrobatic prowess might be adept at climbing it, but just from his brief observations of Argyle, she didn’t seem to have any sort of skills in that area. Nevertheless, she certainly seemed to be well on her way to this evening rendezvous with her inky comrades, and the mouse knew he had no other leads. This girl was, as of yet, their only link to whoever ‘Darkseid’ was and whatever the ‘Unmaking’ was.

Answers had to be gotten. He didn’t know why he felt this way, but something told him their time was running out, so he went to slide out of his seat when suddenly he noticed Argyle emerging from her own, as well.

…and she was holding a pretty honkin’ water gun-like contraption, complete with an orange tank filled with what looked like lavender ink. She leveled the Splattershot at an as-of-yet unaware Blues. Mickey couldn’t make words of warning leave his mouth fast enough, so all he could do was watch as lavender, inky goop exploded from the weapon’s barrel and completely covered his best friend.

Goshdangit!

Quest: Cultist Troubles
Mickey Mouse
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Quest WC: 1823/5000 (according to GDocs)
 

Mickey Mouse

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“You got inked, bee-yotch!”

Language!!

Argyle ducked, barely avoiding the incoming swipe of a keyblade as Mickey Mouse leapt into action. The Star Seeker sailed inches above her head, leaving an opening for her to tilt the Splattershot up towards the attacking mouse’s face and tug on the trigger.

Mickey swerved, his agility besting Argyle’s trigger finger; he dove beneath the lavender paint stream, throwing out his hands and sliding as efficiently as he could past the squid girl. He felt slightly regretful about the Shining Time passengers that got caught in the Splattershot’s blast; at least, he figured, this was just paint and not, like, giant skin-burning laser beams. At least, it didn’t seem altogether dangerous at first glance. Ink residue from the girl’s attack on Blues lingered on the ground where he’d slid, so some ended up on his coat; he didn’t feel any pain, so he spun around quite confident about his advantage in the weapons department.

Yet when he turned back, Argyle was nowhere to be found.

“The ink!” called a passenger from a few rows back who’d managed to block most of the squid girl’s spray with the daily Toon Town news rag. “She’s in the ink!”

Mickey’s gaze flew to the ink-covered floor. Lavender liquid oozed and rippled beneath his feet, but a quick hop assured him: the floor beneath him was still the floor. There was absolutely no way she could’ve hid inside it, and yet… she was gone, and he couldn’t exactly call this stranger a liar, could he?!

SPLOOSH!

A fist exploded from the lavender goop, followed swiftly by the rest of Argyle’s full five feet. Her punch connected with Mickey’s jaw, sending him sailing out of car number four and rolling to the center of car number five. Dang, he thought. For a pretty small creature -- his own diminutive size notwithstanding -- she certainly packed a wallop. Her fervor in combat stood in stark contrast to the nervous Nellie she’d seemed just moments before. Paranoia, the mouse king supposed, could to that to a person; being pursued by a pair of formidable foes certainly might give a shock of adrenaline to one’s system.

Up close, he’d noted that the “glasses” he’d thought he’d seen before actually hadn’t been glasses at all, but some round, bulbous goggles. Now, as she stood back on car number four, she slid the goggles to the top of her head. Nearby, Blues had similarly removed his trademark sunglasses, finally having some success rubbing the lavender ink off of them with his scarf. Without warning, Argyle rammed him in his face with the butt of the Splattershot, and he went tumbling backwards, flipping over the side of the locomotive and landing with a thud in the Nos’talgian countryside.

“Blues!” Mickey cried, leaping forward a few steps, but he didn’t have much time to concern himself with his best friend’s safety; Argyle was already on the move. He took a quick glance at the crowded train car around him and realized this situation had quickly gotten quite out of hand. What did this Inkling have that allowed her to go toe-to-toe with the Proto Mouse? He couldn’t dwell -- he simply had to make sure she couldn’t get her weird, inky projectiles all over the innocents currently cowering on this train car.

Argyle hopped onto car number three, spreading her feet into a fighting stance and lifting up the Splattershot. “You’re Mickey Mouse, right?” she scowled. “I saw you on TV. I thought you were supposed to be dead.”

“Can’t keep a good mouse down,” Mickey shrugged, glancing over his shoulder nervously -- the next car was the big one with all the coal, which meant no people. That was good, and elicited a sigh of relief from the little hero. The Inkling must’ve felt his anxiety, because she giggled.

“You’re scared of me after that crazy death tournament?” she grinned. “Man, the influence of the Fallen Arbiter must have more of an effect than I thought.”

Mickey blinked. The Fallen Arbiter? Was this Darkseid fella an Arbiter?!

Wait -- what the heck was an Arbiter?!

He didn’t have time to suss all this out right now. Argyle was already sliding her goggles back down over her eyes and positioning her finger over the trigger of the Splattershot, and he knew he had to do everything he could to make sure the passengers of the third car didn’t get inked like he, Blues, and car number four had. He darted back, racing down the length of the train car until he reached the gap between this one and the next. He pushed off the ground, leaping up and into the huge container and splashing into a pile of sooty, black coal.

He emerged, coughing up a storm, from the ocean of unhealthy train fuel, to see that somehow, Argyle had gotten the jump on him. She stood, lavender limbs swaying slightly in the wind, goggles firmly fastened on her face, and pointed the Splattershot down at Mickey. The mouse scowled as he looked up at her and struggled to dig his whole body out of the coal, to no avail.

“Hm,” Argyle mused, peering over the sights of her surprisingly formidable weapon, “I wonder if Vlad’s still looking for a sacrifice. You’re a big hero, right?”

Mickey’s brow furrowed and his eyes narrowed.

“Yeah, you are, I remember,” she nodded, lifting the Splattershot. “If my calculations are correct -- and they always are -- then you’re probably exactly the type of offering Darkseid wants from us. He’ll love us if we give you to him.” She pulled the trigger, absolutely covering the mouse king in goopy, lavender ink. Mickey brushed some out of his eyes and looked up to see her fiddling with some settings on the side before she lowered it once again and pressed the trigger.

Suddenly, the ink on him felt like it was being… called back into the gun? He struggled against the pull, but the lavender goop dragged him along with it, and he felt himself being slowly but surely being sucked up into the Splattershot.

Oh, brother, he thought, as Thomas the Tank Engine -- along with all the other cars -- slowly faded away until all he could see was ink, ink, and more ink.

Quest: Cultist Troubles
Mickey Mouse
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Quest WC: 2872/5000 (according to GDocs)
 

Mickey Mouse

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Do mice dream of sheep made of cheese?

Haziness dominated the mouse king’s brain as he found himself altogether inksorbed into the Splattershot. Argyle’s contraption somehow shrunk him even tinier than he already was and sucked him up into its tank, leaving him to bob and float in a relatively lake-sized vat of lavender ink. He couldn’t really focus much on anything around him, though, because the whole experience somehow left him feeling groggy and exhausted. Maybe it was the ink? Maybe being positively covered in it had some magical properties that resulted in pure, unrelenting lethargy?

Mickey Mouse had never been… intoxicated before -- Gosh forbid -- but was this what it was supposed to feel like? He couldn’t understand how anyone would want to do this to themselves. Floating around in a hazy, goopy nothingness, the world feeling altogether slow and plodding, and not in, like, a fun, relaxing way. Not that the mouse king would’ve ever been one of the far too many in the galaxy who chose to inflict such a state upon themselves. He’d barely ever been in a situation where drink was available to him, and on the rare occasion he was, he lambasted those that participated in such a willing destruction of their systems.

If he’d been thinking clearly, maybe he would’ve remembered Mugen, and his flask full of sake, and the many, many times he’d scolded the samurai whilst they battled the Giant Flower Eater.

Huh. Mugen. Where was that fella, anyway?

I miss ya, Mu.

Mickey’s thoughts drifted further.

Instead of the ocean of ink, Mickey’s eyes focused in on the aforementioned, probably imaginary, sheep made of cheese. What did you call that? A cheese sheep? A… cheep? A… sheese? He drifted off into unconsciousness with these truly poignant philosophical quandaries -- and nostalgic memories of lost or missing friends -- bouncing through his little mousy brain.

***

Meanwhile, the Squee tried to flee.

On the subject of imaginary creatures, the little orange puff did not take kindly to his Lord and Savior Master Mickey Mouse being inkducted by the weird, lavender-limbed squid girl. The second he watched the mouse king get sucked up into the Splattershot, he turned tail and tried to leapt off the side of the train.

That escape attempt was quickly derailed by a violent, magical yank lifting him up and back onto the locomotive. The origins of his mystical bond with the keyblade master were, as of yet, still quite mysterious, but the magic that bonded them seemed to be stronger than any force of will poor little Squee Squee could offer. As Argyle herself bounded off the other side of the Shining Time Railroad and rolled into a classic Nos’talgian meadow, greener than any grass on any of the Crossroads’ planets save maybe Kraw, the arcane link tugged Squee Squee along. He fought and fought and fought, but nothing could free him from being psychically dragged behind the Inkling and the captive, shrunken mouse.

He supposed, then, this was why Mickey insisted on crouching in the bushes outside Argyle’s window when he’d sent sweet Squee off on his very first espionage mission as part of the Proto Mouse crew.

“Why don’t you just go inside?” he’d heard the sunglasses-sporting android say.

“Squee’s got this,” his master had assured the robot. Squee didn’t know if robots were capable of skepticism, but he saw a lot of something that looked a lot like it on the Proto Man’s face. Mickey, though… Mickey really saw him. That’s why he knew he had to do a good job, and why he knew he had to dig and dig and dig until he found something. It was why he’d spent so much cranial effort -- a difficult task considering his tiny cranium -- on memorizing the exact date, time, and seating assignment of the train ticket he’d seen splayed on her desk.

As he bopped along behind his master’s abductor against his will, he figured that if he’d known this mission was gonna get him into shenanigans in the Uncanny Valley, he absolutely would not have agreed to go along with the mouse king’s plans so easily.

He was from Nos’talgia. He knew what was up.

That place was heckin’ scary.

***

“Aw, shizznit, Argyle’s back!”

Voices echoed outside Mickey Mouse’s prison, different from just the nerdy lavender Inkling’s. A hazy fog still blanketed all of his senses, and he felt his whole body absolutely dripping with gross-feeling ink, but he heard the voices nonetheless, loud and clear. On top of all the lethargy, too, he suddenly started to feel a strange chill creeping up his spine.

SPURT-ZZAP!

All too quickly, his stay in this inky prison came to an end, and he found himself growing exponentially back to his normal size and getting squirted out back onto dry land. He plopped against the ground, somersaulting forward and landing flat on his back. He started to blink his eyes, trying to get the world around him to focus and find the light, but the strangest sensation met his sight: it seemed, for all intents and purposes, like there was very little light at all wherever Argyle had taken him, and the above his head pitch black trees, devoid of leaves, weaved and wove through each other’s branches like a basket burnt to a crisp.

He blinked faster, pushing himself up to a seated position and laid eyes on who, he figured, must be the leader of this pack. The Inkling stood, one hand on his hip and the other leaning on his big, crimson-rhinestoned ink gun. Short, black and white, red-tipped tentacles were combed over in what Mickey assumed was supposed to look like a hair-style. The boy Inkling glared with ruby red eyes, a scowl forming on his little face.

“You brought me rodent, Arg-eel?” He spoke with a thick accent Mickey pinpointed as Russian, though he couldn’t tell ya what that meant.

Argyle strode up beside him and rested her Splattershot on her shoulder, lifting her goggles up to her forehead. “Not just any rodent, Vlad,” she smirked, “this is Mickey Mouse.”

A collective gasp came from around him, and Mickey glanced around for the first time. In addition to Argyle and this ‘Vlad’ character, three other Inklings were gathered in this clearing. Mickey’s eyes traced the entirety of the area they were in, noting the ground had turned a stony gray -- although beneath his gloved fingers it still felt like regular old mud -- and the grass was just as dark and black as the trees above. A low fog hung over everything, not too thick that it blinded the mouse but certainly potent enough to see clearly.

“Mickey Mouse, eh?” Vlad noted, his lips curling into a smile. He walked slowly up to his prisoner, kneeling in front of him. Mickey suddenly became aware that the other four Inklings, too, had closed in on him. He felt their weird, fishy breath snaking over his skin as Vlad flashed some sharp teeth. “It looks like we hit jackpot.”

“I thought you might think that, Vlad,” Argyle grinned, whipping her head to look at the black ink-bearing Inkling.

This close, Mickey’s eyes fell down to Vlad’s gray bandana. The same Omega symbol emblazoned on the back of Argyle’s dress also adorned it. He tried to hold it in, but he couldn’t help but gulp from the sheet amount of anxiety.

“Scared, Mickey?” the Inkling boy asked. “You should be. You see… you have run afoul of Vlad the Inkpaler and the Sqwid Sqwad.”

Another inkling, orange-tentacled, chuckled behind him, causing the little hero to take a soft, furtive glance around him at his various captors. One of the more serious-looking fellas flashed a business card that read ‘Sqwid Sqwad,’ which Mickey quirked an eyebrow at, and the only other that the mouse hadn’t officially met yet started tapping on the ground in a weird, eerie rhythm. The mouse gulped again as he noted the Omega symbol emblazoned somewhere on all of their outfits.

His eyes were forced back to Vlad as the would-be leader grasped by the chin and yanked his face forward.

And ve are going to give you to Darkseid.

Quest: Cultist Troubles
Mickey Mouse
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Quest WC: 4237/5000
 

Mickey Mouse

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“D-d-d-d-d-Darkseid?!” Mickey sputtered.

The name sent a chill down his spine. It was the first time he’d heard someone who wasn’t him or Blues say it out loud, and the single spoken word carried with it all the foreboding qualities and sheer terror he could’ve imagined. So these fellas were… followers of this ‘Darkseid,’ then? Mickey couldn’t put his finger on it, but something about that just rang a bit false to him. The name ‘Darkseid’ carried with it such a darkness, such an overbearing shadow, that it seemed impossible that cute little dudes like these Inklings could actually be associated with this great, all-powerful evil force… right?

Calling them cute didn’t do justice to just how formidable they seemed, though. For all their adorableness, these Inklings seemed varied in skill and kinda scary in their own right. This ‘Vlad’ fella seemed to be the leader, walking around with his big ink machine gun contraption and a general goth aesthetic. It didn’t really suit Mickey’s fancy normally, but he’d grown kinda fond of his own long black coat in the short time he’d been wearing it, so he could see the draw.

The others were more brightly colored. There was obviously Argyle, her squid-like parts a delicate lavender shade with just her short black dress and goggles as extra adornments, carrying around a Splattershot. Standing next to her was another more girly-colored Inkling -- a pink one who didn’t seem to have a weapon, but instead carried around an… electric guitar?

Okay, these little guys were weird. Did Darkseid pick them out himself?

Vlad smirked, and took a few steps back. “Drag heem to center.”

Two of the Inklings -- the orange-limbed one and the one in the cute yellow beret and military jacket -- grabbed him by his arms and yanked him forward. As he was forced from his seat on the ground, he noticed the Omega symbol, in addition being emblazoned on all of the squid people’s outfits, had also been carved into the charcoal gray soil of this clearing. Or, not carved, exactly, but… drawn in ink? Pretty haphazardly, too, if he said so himself; he wasn’t exactly an artist himself, but he could spot someone who couldn’t stay within the lines. The mouse’s eyes flicked up towards Vlad the Inkpaler and an idea hatched inside his brain.

“Hey, fella,” he piped up, “you draw this Omega symbol yourself?”

Vlad bristled a bit, the implication all too clear. “It was a team effort.”

“Hmmm,” the mouse king hummed, holding his hands up and then slowly reaching into his coat. The yellow-beret sporting Inkling leveled what looked like an ink sniper rifle at his face. “Whoa, wait a second, pal,” Mickey held his hand up, “I’m tryin’ to help y’all out a little bit.”

“And why,” the pink-tentacled Inkling slung their guitar over their shoulder, “would someone like you help us contact Darkseid?!”

“Arbiter-dammit, Orphie,” the orange-tentacled one, sporting a backwards baseball cap and rings on almost every finger, “why ya gotta fuckin’ go and spill the tea like that?”

“Sorry, Crush,” the pink one shrunk into herself a little.

Crush turned to Mickey. “Yeah, my name’s Crush,” she boasted, “because if you put your hand in your fuckin’ coat one more time, bitch, I’ll crush you like the tiny little pebble you are, got that?”

Mickey narrowed his eyes at this ‘Crush.’ “Watch your language, pal.”

“Hold on,” Vlad the Inkpaler interrupted, “What exactly you have in mind, mouse man?” Mickey smirked a little bit, then looked back to Crush. The orange-tentacled Inkling glanced over at Vlad defiantly, but the de facto leader of this Inkling cult waved her down, and reluctantly, she crossed her arms and took a few steps back. “Sarge,” the goth squid boy said, glancing at his militarily-minded compatriot, “stand down.”

The Sarge complied, lowering his scopes and taking a few steps back as well. Mickey went back to his coat, finally reaching a gloved hand inside and pulling a paintbrush from one of the deeper pockets. It wasn’t much longer or thicker than a normal paintbrush, but everyone in the clearing could tell that it wasn’t ordinary -- something about it simply sparkled. Not literally, of course, but the magic was undeniable. Each Inkling, and even Mickey himself, let out a deep breath when it came into view, almost as if its very presence brought relief to them all.

The mouse scanned the clearing. So they’d brought him here to be a sacrifice, to try and contact this ‘Darkseid’ fella… which meant they hadn’t actually been in touch with him, then. So they weren’t actually servants of his… just regular old Nos’talgians that figured they’d try their luck with a maniacal evil overlord.

To be honest, Mickey couldn’t really blame them. Even in his brief time working with this paint brush in the dream realm, the visions that had exploded into his brain were terrifying. He didn’t know if any of these Inklings -- Vlad, maybe? -- had encountered a similar premonition, but if they had, he certainly could see the logic in trying to cozy up to the evil tyrant who was supposedly about to Unmake the entire galaxy. He blinked a bit, realizing he still didn’t totally know what ‘Unmaking’ meant. His gaze fell to the paintbrush before him, and he knew… deep down… that maybe he was about to find out.

He dipped the paintbrush in the pool of ink that made the Omega symbol, and then his hand moved without his permission.

He stepped back, swiping across the ground in broad strokes and then engaging in delicate detail work; his eyes glazed over, and he felt the paintbrush take over, as if its magic was seeping into his very fingers, hand, and arm, as if that limb no longer belonged to him but only belonged to this moment, to this painting, to this piece of work he was creating inside the haphazardly drawn ink arch of their Omega symbol. He couldn’t see anything else but his canvas, but if he’d been able to look around, he would’ve noticed the five Inkling cultists’ jaws going slack as they watched him paint and paint and paint at high speeds, until finally, the scene was done.

When he’d streaked the last stroke, the paintbrush vibrated in his fingers and he felt himself get thrown back by a sudden gust of wind. The utensil dropped to the ground and rolled away from the masterpiece, painted in the charcoal gray dirt, so that all six pairs of eyes -- seven, if you counted the cowering Squee Squee just behind the line of gangly black trees -- could gaze on it.

The scene laid before them was terrifying. A clockwork world, broken and destroyed, but not burning… or, really, being destroyed by any feasible means of destruction. It didn’t even really seem like things were being disintegrated as much as they were just reversing in existence. Entire sections of the city seemed to go from being fully made to being in the middle of some dark, evil transformation. They seemed to literally be shrinking at the touch of whatever this nasty business was, shriveling up into something wholly unrecognizable.

The Unmaking, Mickey realized.

“Holy shit,” Crush lifted a hand to their mouth.

“What… is it?” Orphie squeaked.

“That’s Govermorne,” the Sarge chimed in with his deep, confident voice. “I did a tour of duty there, back in the day. It didn’t look anything like this, but… I still recognize it. All those cogs and gears.”

“Vlad… is this what Darkseid is trying to do?” Argyle glanced toward their leader.

Vlad the Inkpaler, it seemed, had decided to shut his goshdang mouth.

Proto… Buster!!

A flash of bright, white light burst from the tree line, slamming into the already-stunned Vlad the Inkpaler. The Inkling fell back, and the other four lifted their weapons as the Proto Man rolled in from the darkness.

“Let the mouse go,” he scowled. Another blast charged in his arm cannon, but Mickey stood and placed himself between the line of Inklings and his best friend.

“Wait, Blues,” he called, lifting a hand. The preteen machine glanced at Mickey Mouse over the top of his sunglasses, and the mouse king tried his best to communicate the delicacy of this situation with just a look. He wasn’t incredibly efficient at nonverbal communication, but he and Blues were on another level, so the android reluctantly powered down the Proto Buster and stood down.

The mouse turned back to the Sqwid Sqwad.

“This,” he started, “is what your ‘master’ is going to do. He doesn’t care about you fellas, he cares about this. Only this.” His gloved finger pointed towards the illustration of what he now knew was the Unmaking of Govermorne, another world somewhere in these weirdo Crossroads, the place that he was, now, trying his best to call his home. The place these Inklings already called their home. “You fellas live here, right? You’ve always lived here?” he asked, getting scattered nods from the Sqwad. “Then are you really willing to give it all up and let this bozo do this to it? Just for the chance you might be spared?”

The Inklings were silent.

“I’m not from here,” Mickey admitted cautiously, “but I’m tryin’ to do something about this. I’m tryin’ to save this place. Shouldn’t y’all be doing the same dang thing?”

For a few moments, no sounds were heard in that corner of the Uncanny Valley except from the eerie whistling of the wind through the dead-lookin’ trees. The four Inklings that remained standing shuffled their feet and glanced at the ground, shame creeping over them, as Vlad the Inkpaler pushed himself up into a sitting position.

“Hell no,” he muttered. “We can’t, Sqwad. We can’t let him get away with this.” The Sqwid Sqwad turned to Vlad, and each of them in turn took a deep breath, nodding in agreement. Crush walked over and extended a hand to Vlad, who took it and brought himself back up. He glanced toward the mouse king. “We can’t let Darkseid destroy our home, Mr. Mouse. Squid Sqwad ain’t about that shit. No way.”

Mickey grinned. “Then let’s take the fight to him, pals.”

Mickey Mouse has used an application of Focus, and his Paint Brush trinket, to amplify his Diplomacy Master Skill and convince the Sqwid Sqwad not to brutally sacrifice him. He has 3 Focus remaining.

Quest: Cultist Troubles
Mickey Mouse
Post WC: 1704
Quest WC: 5941/5000

Quest Complete!
 
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