Pick Your Poison
Apr. 2nd, 2014 11:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Author's Note:The Protectors of the Plot Continuum was founded by Jay and Acacia, and I write in it with permission. Epic Mickey was created by Warren Spector and Junction Point Studios and belongs to Disney Interactive Studios. The Poison Joke role play was started by Laburnum and kitsune106, and Poison Joke itself was created by Lauren Faust and belongs to Hasbro Studios and Studio B Productions. The fanfiction Epic Mickey with Millie belongs to Schoolie, and passages from it are bold. It can be read (now renamed) at https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12014680/1/Epic-Mickey-and-Mileena. The badfic has since been edited, and no longer syncs up with the lines quoted in the mission. (And it must be said, it has improved!) Thanks to the Irish Samurai and Ekyl for beta duty in an unfamiliar canon! This mission was first posted here.
Warning: Spoilers for the first Epic Mickey game.
This mission, and the badfic it sporks, were written before the release of the Epic Mickey sequels. Details in this mission may be contradicted by those later games, but the mission will only reflect information available at the time of its (and its badfic’s) writing.
Update August 10, 2017 I am embarrassed to admit I used to be far too obsessed with mini creation, and counted failures to use capital letters in proper nouns in minis. I recognize now that this is not correct, and am retconning my use of such minis in this mission. That would leave this mission with only a single true mini, "bolt;" however, having only one mini in this mission would change its plot significantly, so it will remain populated with a group of anonymous, unadoptable minis. I am also leaving "sweepers" on the PPC Wiki, as it was adopted by PPCer Outhra.
***
Pick Your Poison
Agent Doc opened his eyes and stared blearily at the ceiling. He knew exactly what time it was: he felt well-rested, and the Console wasn’t beeping, so that meant it was time to read. There were only a few chapters left in The Cavalier in White, and Doc was itching to find out who had stolen the titular painting. As he fished around inside his pillowcase for the book, Doc had the weird impression that the walls looked different somehow. The generic surface was a bit more . . . never mind. He opened the book, stuck the bookmark behind his ear and—
Couldn’t read. The pages were all blurry. Doc rubbed his eyes, trying to wake them up. It didn’t help; the letters were still a greyish smear on the page. Confused, Doc squinted, looking around the room.
He saw the pattern indented in the refrigerator door. He read the titles of his books on the shelf. He made out individual buttons on the Console. And for one very brief moment, Doc grinned in excitement. He didn’t need glasses anymore! He could see every—
His grin melted away as he looked back at The Cavalier in White. He held the novel away from his face. Still blurry. He retrieved his glasses from their case, hanging from the bed board above his head, and put them on. Nothing changed. His glasses were made to fix his near-sightedness. And overnight, Doc had turned far-sighted.
Agent Vania was awakened by a shriek from the bunk above her. Having only quit her video games a few hours ago, she was in no mood to wake up already, especially if it wasn’t for a mission. Ignoring for the moment that the room seemed oddly pink, she got up and peeked over the top bunk.
Doc was swaddled up in blankets, huddled against the wall behind the bed, staring forlornly at a book in the center of his mattress.
[What’s the matter?] Vania asked, immediately aware that something was very wrong with her voice.
“The Precious . . .” Tears slid down Doc’s cheeks. “We can’t see the—wait.” Doc’s Gollum-speak suddenly ceased. “What’s with your voice?”
[I’m not . . . sure.] Whenever Vania spoke, although her mouth made motions as though she were talking, she produced no sound. At the same time, both she and Doc separately observed a grey rectangle appear, floating in midair, in their respective ranges of vision. The boxes contained her words in white letters. Once she finished moving her mouth, the rectangles would disappear.
[I seem to be speaking in—text box,] Vania decided.
“And my vision is all screwed up,” Doc whined. “I can’t read. What is going on?”
Vania peered closely at Doc's face. [You've got some blue spots all over your eyes. I'm betting there are some on my tongue?] She stuck it out.
Doc leaned towards her to look. "No," he said hesitantly.
[Hum.] Vania shrugged and kicked outwards from the bed to dropp to the floor, giving herself enough space not to land on 221b baker street, who was curled asleep just under the edge of her bed. It was glowing pink instead of green. [Sometimes, bizarre things happen in Headquarters. It’s the nature of the beast.]
“But what do we do now? Are we stuck this way?”
[Well, something is causing this. I imagine we can head out into the corridors, find out what’s doing it, and stop it.]
BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!
[Or—]
“—not.”
The partners tentatively approached the console. Doc stopped short when he was still several feet away, amazed that he could already read the screen from there. “Epic Mickey? Isn’t that one of the games you just got?”
[Yep. Just beat it before I went to sleep. The Flowers never waste much time. They don’t have the luxury, really.]
“But . . . they don’t really expect us to go on a mission the way we are, do they?”
BIP
A new message popped up over the mission report. It read,
To: [DF]
From: [fheichhorniacrassipes.console188.DF]
Subject: Recent Events
It appears we’re all experiencing an unusual morning. Or whatever part of day this is. I have word that an investigation by the Department of Internal Affairs is underway. In the meantime, I have no doubt that my Floaters will continue to operate in a professional manner, in spite of any inconveniences.
—the Floating Hyacinth
Vania looked at Doc with lowered eyelids. [Of course they expect us to go on a mission the way we are. We’re understaffed, and there are always more badfics.]
Doc grimaced, and Vania patted him on the shoulder. [Relax. This is a short fic, so it won’t give us too much trouble.] Internally, Vania cursed herself for tempting the Ironic Overpower, but didn’t want to worry Doc more than necessary. [If this hasn’t worn off by the time we get back, we’ll take care of it then.] [Or we’ll have another mission waiting,] she added mentally.
“Um . . . I could read that.”
Vania sighed and grabbed her bat from the corner. [For disguises, we’ll go as the generic old cartoon characters that inhabit the game world. That should let us blend in just about anywhere in the Wasteland.]
* * *
The portal deposited Doc and Vania into Yen Sid’s tower, standing next to a dresser in a small side room. [Though it maybe won’t be so useful outside the Wasteland.]
“Your text boxes are different now.” Vania’s words now appeared inside a long, pale box in the bottom of the agents’ fields of vision, with Vania’s face and name on the left side.
[That’s what they look like in Epic Mickey. They must have changed with the disguise, I guess.] Vania started reading the Words out of habit, but immediately grabbed Doc’s collar and yanked him down. They flattened themselves against the front of the dresser as Mickey Mouse climbed out of the mirror mounted above it. He jumped down—less than a foot away from the agents—and peeked around the corner of a doorway.
Doc and Vania traded a worried look. If, for any reason, the mouse decided to turn around, they would be seen. Fortunately, Mickey seemed completely absorbed in the conversation in the next room—a workshop of sorts, with bottle-filled shelves on the walls and a large wooden table in the center. Yen Sid, a wizard in blue robes and a pointed hat covered in a star pattern, was talking to a young girl with yellow pigtails as she wore a red-violet blouse and a long blue skirt. Mickey watched as Yen Sid brushed paint on the model of the Cartoon Wasteland that sat on the table.
Doc put pencil to paper and began scratching down charges with the clipboard in his lap, repeatedly bobbing his head back and forth to change the distance from the paper. He continued to listen in while Vania read the Words.
Thanks to the vague description of “young,” the girl was slowly shifting up and down, from a kindergartner to an early teen. She said, "Father, I think this is your best work yet. Someday I'll be the one painting with the brush." Her father chuckled and said, "Yes, but soon, Millie soon."
“’Yes, but soon?’” Doc quoted, whispering. “Shouldn’t that be something like, ‘yes, and soon,’ or, ‘yes, but not for a long time?’”
Vania reached towards Doc’s face and pinched his lips closed with her thumb and pointer finger. With her other hand, she traced a large circle in the air on either side of her head, then looked pointedly at Mickey. Doc followed her gaze, then nodded.
Vania concentrated, trying to make thought-bubble text boxes like she had accidentally done in her RC. [That model is where the game actually takes place,] she explained for Doc’s sake. [Any stuff designed by Disney, but scrapped or deconstructed, or that becomes unpopular, goes there.]
Doc cocked his head—somewhat difficult, since Vania had never let go of his lips. He shrugged.
She answered his silent question. [To give them somewhere to live. Somewhere to feel like they belong, since they have no fans to love them in the real world.]
Yen Sid had finished painting and told his supposed daughter it was time for bed. In true Sueish fashion, she asked to stay up late, and her request was granted. “I promise I won't touch the brush, the paint, the thinner, or the model.”
[At least Millie is genre savvy,] thought Vania. [A magical world filled with very real living individuals is not something to play around with.]
♪
Mickey began to creep out into the main room while Millie said, "I wish I could hold the brush like my father, but I'm too young." Once she saw Mickey, the two characters introduced themselves—Millie revealed that her real name was Milline. Mickey showed Millie the mirror he had come through. (Fortunately, Vania had already hidden herself and her partner before they came around the corner.)
As in canon, Mickey began to paint a statue of himself with the magic brush. Millie looked at Mickey and hissed, causing her to speak in Parseltongue. "What are you doing? Wait! Stop! Don't combine the thinner and the paint! They going to-"
[How does she know something bad is going to happen?] Vania whispered to Doc inside their hiding place. [Yen Sid only told her that Paint and Thinner canceled out.] Vania thought for a moment. [If Yen Sid is Millie’s father, then who is her mother?]
But Millie's words were cut by a creation of the black blot and the paint and thinner falling on the model. Ink globs sprayed through the air and physically shredded the sound waves of Millie’s words to ribbons in midair. They floated to the floor as the Shadow Blot hid inside the paint can, for some reason. Mickey ran for the mirror while Millie ran upstairs to awaken Yen Sid, where she informed him of the trouble in a stuttering William Shatner impression. "Model…being ruined…black bolt coming out…Intruder…is…here!" A black bolt of lightning erupted from the model and charred the ceiling.
Once Mickey had leaped back through the mirror into his own room, Doc burst out of the drawer he had been hiding in at the bottom of the dresser. He sucked in a deep breath of air just in time to be clocked in the back of the head by Vania doing the exact same thing from the drawer above him.
[Nice!] she said, squeezing out with a wobbly motion to her animated body. [It’s good to be a toon.]
“Speak for yourself,” mumbled Doc, squinting at little books flying through the air around his head. He slapped them away with both hands, then took a better look at Vania’s disguise as he pulled himself from the drawer.
She was an anthropomorphic bipedal animal, like a horse or cow, wearing a blouse and a dress that hid her feet. Her hands were still humanoid, and covered in white gloves. She wasn’t exactly colorless, but was somewhere between being sepia-toned and outright black-and-white. She still held her bat, but it, like the rest of her, was greyish and had strong black outlines, like a drawing. Looking at his hands, and ignoring the blur caused by his far vision, Doc found himself to be much the same, but wearing pants and no shirt. Shaking his head a bit, he felt long, droopy ears slapping against his cheeks.
In the main room, Yen Sid and Millie had returned and saw the model partly destroyed by thinner. Millie also saw the blot coming out of the paint can. She wondered if it's attracted to love.
Doc frowned. “It’s crawling into the world of unloved things, so she reasons it’s attracted to love? We’re lucky we’re not in Sherlock Holmes again, because a deduction of this quality might have caused that universe to implode.”
Yen Sid went to the spell book, and he gasped in horror as he said, "Millie, it's just as I feared. The black blot is really the shadow blot. The blot is a servant of the Mad Doctor."
[Um, what? No. No, no, no.] Vania shook her head roughly. [The Blot was just created. Just now. It doesn’t spawn into existence and suddenly be under someone’s employ. Besides, the Mad Doctor is the one who ends up working for the Shadow Blot, not the other way around!]
“Why does a spell book have information on monsters, anyway? Particularly monsters that didn’t exist until five minutes ago.”
[Publishers are really desperate to get stuff out quick nowadays.]
Millie turned to see the blot trying to escape. She went and poured some thinner on it as it went down and she covered it with the cork.
Vania bristled. [Oswald and Ortensia were supposed to do that later! It was Ortensia’s heroic sacrifice! And a major cause of Oswald’s bitterness! This could change the entire plot!]
Millie turned to her father and raised her brow and asked, "The Mad Doctor? But who is he?" While Millie grabbed her eyebrows and stretched them up past her forehead, Yen Sid replied, "A once good doctor who lives in the unloved world now has become evil." Millie gasped, "You don't suppose he wants revenge on the color and light?" Yen Sid nodded.
[Kind of the exact opposite, actually,] Vania said. [He was a bad guy in the cartoon short he came from, but he was friends with Oswald in the Wasteland before—well, before it was a wasteland. Yen Sid seems to be clairvoyant in this fic.]
Millie said, "I have to find that intruder and tell him what's going on. He doesn't know what he did." She then proceeded to not do that at all. Instead, she started to make a map of the model. When she finished, she asked, "Father, I know I must never use the brush, but I need it. I need to finish the map."
“What happened to, ‘but I’m too young?’” Doc rubbed at the side of his head, then tried to push his not-present glasses up his nose out of reflex. “The contradiction is rather frustrating.”
Her father understood and handed her the brush.
[Shocker.]
He was amazed at the artistic movements his daughter does when she paints.
“So shocking. Um, also, what are these things?”
Two little creatures now stood behind the agents. Their bodies were pretty much all face, with a huge mouth dominating their chest and large orange eyes bulging out of their heads. Their skin was a light blue color, and they had scrawny little legs, lopsided round ears, and long arms that ended in three-fingered hands. A light orange splotch covered one side of their faces, as though they had been struck in the eye with yellowish paint. Oddly, they also both wore a pointed hat like Yen Sid’s, covered in stars.
Vania gasped, which rendered itself as, [*GASP* Minis! And they’re like little Spatters. How adorable!]
One mini-Spatter saluted the agents. The other began punching himself in the head.
“I hear someone talking, Papa! Maybe it’s the intruder again!”
“Who is there?” Yen Sid said in his deep, rumbling voice.
[Time to go!] said Vania, scooping up a mini in each arm. Doc fumbled with the RA, but got a portal open in time for both agents to hop through before Yen Sid came around the corner.
[Ah, now that’s Wasteland.] Vania said once the portal closed. [Much better.]
“Better? By what definition?” The agents and minis were in the crumbling remains of Dark Beauty Castle, where the Mad Doctor had built his laboratory. The ceiling was completely absent, having collapsed inwards and littered the floor with stone debris. The room was filled with stairways, all of which led up to a raised walkway underneath a stained glass image of a cartoon rabbit in knight armor. The window was missing jagged pieces of itself, as were large portions of the walls and walkway. The edges where parts were missing were softly glowing blue, revealing these objects to be made of paint.
“This place is pretty messed up.”
[I know. Doesn’t it look awesome?]
“What is awesome is being able to see all this detail without corrective eye-wear.”
[Right. Maybe let's give me the RA for this mission?]
By now, the Shadow Blot had reached up out of the model and pulled both Mickey and Millie into Wasteland. Millie wakes up in a large birdcage as Mickey woke up in a machine.
[That’s the same as the cages the Gremlins are always stuck in. That’s actually a pretty clever detail on the author’s part, and better than just tying her down to the same table as Mickey.]
As in canon, the Mad Doctor activated the machinery that filled the former throne room and it began to pull on Mickey’s chest with a plunger to extract his Heart. Millie was horrified as she screamed, "Mickey! No!" She looked away, but she couldn't bear to see her new friend get hurt. Then her heart shone in light that was making her heart strong, it was so strong; her anger broke the rails of her cage. Millie twisted her face into a stupendous frown, which then shattered the bird cage with a wave of red light.
Doc gaped. “That was . . . quite frightening. She shoots anger beams.” He set the pile of papers against his knee and tried to write more charges.
What they didn't know is that someone watching them in amazement a rabbit, Oswald the lucky rabbit. Oswald, who looked a lot like Mickey with longer ears and blue pants, hopped up one of the staircases and watched the proceedings from behind a piece of electronic equipment.
A mini-Spatter in a jester outfit dripped into existence before the agents. It and Vania waved to each other, but the mini-Spatter suddenly jerked its head, as though startled by something beside Vania. As she turned to look, she thought—for the slightest moment—she had seen movement, but there was nothing there.
The doctor sent his blot after them, but Mickey and Millie showed it the brushes sending the blot running away, but the mad doctor escaped.
As a fourth mini appeared, the agents exchanged confused glances. Doc asked, “Why are there suddenly two brushes?”
[I don’t know. We must have missed something back at Yen Sid’s.]
Doc settled his eyes on the stone walls to read the Words. Despite ostensibly being far away, he found it difficult to focus on them with his vision so different from usual. Eventually, he found the second brush’s point of origin. He read, "Then the blot went to Mickey's room as it awakens and abducts him and Millie to Wasteland. Mickey grabs the brush as Millie grabs the spare as they were sucked down to darkness."
[That’s it?] Vania asked. [There just happens to be a spare?]
Doc shrugged. “I don’t see it mentioned anywhere else, so . . .”
Vania puffed air out of her lips. [*PPPFFF* Talk about lazy writing. Now we’ve got a copy of a one-of-a-kind magical tool-slash-weapon with no explanation of how or why the copy was made.]
Gremlin Gus saved them by showing the way out as they began to shut down the machines, even though the heart extractor was never stated to attack them. Doc watched the little green man, wearing a helmet with goggles, and kicking his feet at high speed to hover in midair. “That’s a gremlin? Like the ones you said were stuck in cages?”
[Yep. They’re from some World War II propaganda cartoon that was never released. They’re in charge of maintenance in Wasteland, which is why the Mad Doctor started locking them up.] mad doctor sprang to attention at hearing its correctly-capitalized canon counterpart’s name spoken. [Now they can’t keep anything working, and the Wasteland has fallen into even greater disrepair.]
Then Mickey and Millie explored what was called "Dark Beauty Castle . . ."
The agents and minis began to follow Millie, Mickey and Gus.
A while later, they were attacked by Blotlings.
With the scene change, the agents and minis hit a wall at the top of another staircase in a new room. As the mini-Spatters sat stunned, Doc and Vania dusted themselves off and watched Mickey and Millie spraying Thinner from their brushes to melt monsters made of ink. After the enemies were gone, the canons began to discuss the map Millie had made.
[I don’t know why the Sue felt it necessary to make a map in the first place if she was going to have Gus tag along anyway,] said Vania. [Gus is a native Wastelander; he’s all the map Mickey needs in the game.]
“Just a way to make Millie feel more important.”
First they found a portal that led them to Beanland
The PPC group bounced off the edge of a massive film reel.
and entered the boat ride to help open the door
They fell down into the cups on a spinning teacup ride.
but first they went to China town to raise the high bridge
They smacked into the wall of another ride and began to slide down.
Then we went to the Land of the Gremlins and tried to fix the town
They rolled down a Gremlin’s roof.
The Protectors and the minis went on bouncing around to new locations as soon as they could pick themselves up, with the number of minis increasing with every stop. With panic in his voice, Doc asked, “Why is this happening, Vania?”
Vania replied while the group careened down the stairs of a model Colosseum. [The story seems to be summarizing events without spending any time to describe them! They’re getting through complicated tasks so quickly, it’s making time speed up! And we’re getting dragged along for the ride! Or rides, as it were.]
With the next scene shift, they found themselves falling through the air, headed to the pool of Thinner in front of the Clock Tower. The minis were several yards away from the agents. Vania’s face froze for just a second after seeing the green lake beneath them; then, she quickly pulled out the RA and created a portal in midair beneath the gibbering minis. All of them fell through, making a wet, squelching sound on the other side. She was about to make another portal for Doc and herself, but thanks to another scene shift, they landed face first on brick pavement in Mean Street instead of the Thinner.
Vania groaned as she pulled her flattened face off the sidewalk. [*GROAN* Speedy thing goes in, speedy thing does indeed come out.]
“Has it stopped?” Doc asked as he rolled onto his back, ignoring the newest flock of books fluttering about his head.
Vania took in their surroundings. They had landed in a circle of projector screens, which connected different parts of the Cartoon Wasteland. Millie, Mickey and Gus were at the other end of Mean Street, a shopping district packed with buildings. Whizzing through the town at high speeds, the game’s protagonists grew closer and closer every tenth of a second. Without another thought, Vania grabbed Doc by his arm and dragged him to the nearest projector screen. Doc’s protestation was cut off when she jumped at the screen and went right through.
Then they traveled to OsTown.
[Yes, but you didn’t specify going through a projector screen to get there this time. That means the projector to OsTown is safe from the time distortion.]
Doc looked around. The agents had exited another projector screen, which sat in front of a mirror, onto a huge dresser. A giant globe of Earth was spinning in front of them. Above and below, the room they were in was surrounded by black edges with square holes, like the sides of a reel of film. “What is this place?”
[Projector screens are the main mode of transportation around here. We basically just jumped into an old Mickey Mouse cartoon. Make sure to get temporal distortions onto the charge list; it’s a major one, and a classic to boot. May I?]
Doc stared at her for a moment. He glanced down at the charge list, then back to Vania before handing the clipboard over. Vania started reading. Fortunately, she managed not to create any thought bubbles this time, because Doc would have been embarrassed seeing her read charges like, “gracious family mumbler” or “spectral treatment.” Nearly every word changed in size halfway through, and many letters had lines that looped widely away from the rest of the word.
[Um. How about—since I know this canon—I do the charge list for the rest of this mission?]
Doc stayed stony-faced, but nodded.
[Okay! Come on, now that we’ve escaped the fic’s weird time speeding, it should be safe to move forward into OsTown.]
* * *
[Okay, you are seriously out of shape, Doc. We need to find you an exercise machine or something.]
Doc was panting from exertion. “There were . . . huge drops! Playing cards with . . . swords!”
[Or at least get you playing some video games. The fall-to-your-death holes weren’t even that far to jump across.]
Doc collapsed on the cool sidewalk, still breathing heavily. Vania rolled her eyes and stepped away from the projector screen to peek at OsTown. It was filled with small, but brightly colored, cartoon-style buildings, with a statue of Oswald in a fountain in the center of town, out of which bubbled a thin trickle of Thinner.
Vania frowned. A couple of things seemed different from the way they were in the game. Doc spoke to her from the ground before she could figure out what.
“Where did you send the minis?”
[They’re in our RC. I had to save them from landing in the Thinner, or they would have melted.]
“Ah. And we would have been fine, because we’re real-world people, right?”
[Well. No. We’re technically toons right now, thanks to the disguise generator.] She gave a meek grin. [We would have melted, too.]
Doc stared at her for a few moments. “I see.” He blinked. “I see.”
[I mean, obviously, I couldn't just let them—]
But Doc had already turned and walked past her, farther into the town.
[Um.] Vania jogged to catch up to him. [So, unfortunately, we have some cleanup to do here.]
Doc stared straight ahead. “Oh?”
Vania read to him from the Words. [“. . . They saw Mickey and Millie's Wasteland version of their homes. Then they saw Animatronic versions of Goofy, Daisy and Donald Duck as they told Millie and Mickey that the Mad Doctor had stolen their parts, which they later recovered.”]
“And?”
Vania sighed. [Firstly, we need to get rid of Millie’s house. She’s not a real Disney character, so she would never have retired to the Wasteland. Can’t imagine how another house can fit here, it was already packed full of buildings . . . Anyway, only Animatronic Goofy is supposed to be here during the game. Daisy should be in Ventureland, and Donald should be in Bog Easy. We’ll have to move them back where they belong.]
Doc looked down for a moment as the agents stopped walking. After a moment, he said, “Is it safe to move them? The fic says their parts get recovered later. Won’t Millie notice if they’re not where she left them?”
Vania shrugged. [The fic tells, but doesn’t show. The characters themselves never get mentioned again. I think we can put them back in their canon locations, and things will keep moving like nothing happened.]
“Hey!” shouted a loud, scratchy voice. Doc and Vania looked up at the same time to see that they had stopped right in front of the silo-shaped capsules containing the three Animatronics’s heads. A round sphere of glass at the top of each allowed the heads a view of their surroundings. The robotic Donald and Goofy were both missing eyes, with little light bulbs visible inside the empty sockets; Daisy had a spring sticking out from the broken metal bow on top of her head.
Donald continued, “What are you talking about us for?”
[Hi, there!] said Vania, smiling brightly. [We’re here to, well. Um. We have to. Separate you guys.] Her smile faded. [Sorry. About that.]
“Oh, my!” said Animatronic Daisy. “Whatever is the matter with your voice?”
“Yeah! You sound really funny!” Donald began snickering, and missed the looks he received from Daisy and Goofy.
Doc stepped forward and wrapped his arms around Animatronic Donald’s capsule. He strained as he tried to lift the device off the ground.
“Let go! What’s the big idea?” Donald shouted.
[Sorry, guys, but we have to get you back where you belong!]
Animatronic Daisy pleaded, “I belong with Donald!”
“How are we going to move them?” Doc asked. “These things they’re in are way too heavy! We need a cart or something.”
“Well, gawrsh!” said Animatronic Goofy, speaking for the first time. “There should be something like that left in the old Gag Factory!”
“Goofy!” Daisy scolded.
“Don’t help them!” added Donald.
Goofy frowned and lowered his eyes. “Sorry, fellers. But the Gag Factory is all closed up, anyhow!”
♪
Vania turned around to regard the Gag Factory, a brick structure with a large facade overhanging the front door, which was easily the biggest building in OsTown. [That’s all right. We have the key.] She opened another portal with the RA, and she and Doc left the Animatronic characters behind.
There was very little room to walk inside the Gag Factory, as stacks of crates towered straight up to the ceiling. Shelves lined the walls, filled with boxed sets of portable holes and giant magnets and mallets. Doc and Vania weaved between piles of props and equipment, looking for something to move the Animatronics around with.
“Here’s one,” Doc said. A bright red hand truck was still wedged under the last thing it had moved, a big tower of wooden crates. Doc couldn’t get the crates to move, so he sat on the ground and tried to pull the hand cart out from under the stack while pushing on the bottom crate with his feet.
[And here’s another!] Vania had found one pushed into a corner between a shelf and the wall. She wheeled it over to where Doc was.
Doc was still heaving at his hand truck, making the stack of crates wobble above him. Vania only realized what was about to happen too late to call out a warning. The top crate wobbled a bit too far and fell off, dropping six shiny, black spheres down toward Doc. Only one hit him, but one was enough. As it smacked into his forehead, Doc’s body jerked and yanked the hand truck free.
Vania ran to Doc’s side and grabbed his shoulders. He twisted away and shrugged her off before putting a hand to his head. A comically long bump had sprouted from under his fur, and the flying books had reappeared.
[Don’t worry,] Vania said, smiling lightly. [That’ll probably be gone by the next scene change.]
“Joy,” said Doc. “Who stacks boxes of bowling balls up that high?”
Vania grabbed one of the balls and turned it over in her hands. [Not balls. Bombs!]
“Bowling bombs?”
[No, booming bombs!] Vania grinned. [We can use this to get rid of Millie’s house. We just need to find some matches . . .]
* * *
After returning through the portal to OsTown’s main road, and Doc discovering that Vania had been right about the bruise not lasting into the next scene, the agents shoved the flat ledge of each handcart under one of the Animatronic ducks’ capsules. Ignoring the characters’ complaints, they then headed around the fountain to look for Millie’s supposed house. It didn’t take them long.
[Sheesh. I don’t think we even needed the bomb.]
OsTown didn’t really have room for another building, so the Word World had placed Millie’s house on a large sheet of cardboard, sticking out over the lake of Thinner that the fountain had been draining into. It appeared to be supported by wooden planks stuck diagonally into the side of the cliff beneath the house. Millie’s house was rather featureless; it was splashed with blue paint in random splotches, but otherwise was just a very generic house.
Vania set the bomb down at the generic front door, then struck a match from the Gag Factory. She and Doc sprinted away as the fuse burned down, down, down . . . until finally, it disappeared inside the bomb casing. Immediately afterwards, there was no explosion.
[What happened?] wondered Vania.
“It’s probably been sitting in the Gag Factory too long. Must be a dud now. We can go try another one.” Doc approached Millie’s house to retrieve the failed bomb.
Waiting for him to come back, Vania started reading the back of the matchbook she had found. After a couple of seconds, her eyes widened. [Doc, get—]
The rest of her shout was drowned out by the delayed explosion from the bomb. Vania’s eyes traced Doc’s flight through the air above until he landed in a crispy heap next to her.
[Gag matches,] she said as she shook the matchbook apologetically.
“It’s good to be a toon,” Doc said, a puff of smoke erupting from his mouth as he spoke.
It was also good that Millie’s house and its questionable foundation had been knocked over by the blast. Pieces of the house were now slowly sinking into the Thinner, the painted portions dissolving away.
Not as good was the fact that the explosion and ensuing crash had drawn the attention of several OsTown citizens.
[Shake it off, Doc. Get your Ray Bans ready!] Vania grabbed Doc’s arm and dragged him back to where they had left the Animatronic ducks. As a crowd of colorless toons gathered at the former site of Millie’s house, Vania opened a portal, and she and Doc carted the ducks through before returning. Approaching the crowd, both agents put on sunglasses while Doc dug into his pocket for a neuralyzer.
[Hey, everybody!] The text boxes created by Vania’s words easily got everyone’s attention. All the toons—including Animatronic Goofy—looked directly at the agents in time to catch a bright flash of light.
* * *
With the uncanon house destroyed, the ducks returned to where they belonged, every character in need of a memory wipe neuralyzed, and Vania finally bored with singing Donald Duck’s theme song over and over, the agents were ready to rejoin the action of the fic at last. Which was exactly what they were dreading the most.
[I can’t even understand this!] Vania complained. [Listen to some of these lines! They made their way to the Collector's hut and found Gilda's axe. They returned to Mean Street and got 5 Power Sparks for Markus. There they helped a pirate win love.] Vania shook her head. [Most of these are side quests! They don’t even have anything to with the plot! And then, entire levels of the game are relegated to a short little paragraph! Seriously, was this fic written with an online walkthrough as the only source? The Lonesome Manor area only gets one sentence! And that was the hardest. Level. Of. The. Game!]
Doc didn’t point out that the last part was not exactly a reasonable charge; he kept walking through the projection reel that led to Mickeyjunk Mountain. (Now that they were catching up to the story, they were avoiding portals to put off the fast forward syndrome as long as possible.) Doc had been reading the Words as well (with difficulty, considering he wasn’t yet good at doing so without glasses) and had questions of his own.
“Sometimes, when Millie and Mickey fight an important character, it says they 'redeem' it. What does that mean?”
[It’s the whole Paint vs. Thinner thing in the game,] Vania explained. [Mickey can use either one to solve puzzles and fight enemies. The Thinner offers a quick and dirty solution to problems, to escape from the Wasteland faster. Using Paint is usually a lot more complicated and time-consuming, but it makes life better for the resident Wastelanders. When a boss character gets redeemed with Paint, instead of destroyed by Thinner, they put their energy into fixing things up and improving the world.]
“So it’s sort of a right vs. wrong choice for the player to make?”
[Exactly. And we’re not charging for any of the ones in this fic, because they’re all legit decisions for Mickey to make in canon.]
The agents reached the projector that marked the end of the transition cartoon. [This is it. Time to get back in the action. Ready?]
Doc nodded, and jumped into the screen, followed by Vania. On the other side, they were standing at the base of the mountain, surrounded by the clutter of retired merchandise that gave the mountain its name.
[Looks like we haven’t caught up to the scene changes yet, so we’d better stick to hiking for now.]
Doc gazed up at the peak high above them. “Wonderful,” he said, trudging forward. “And I can’t even read.”
Vania laughed. [Since when do you read on missions?]
“The point is I COULD be!” Doc yelled, marching stiffly ahead with his fists clenched at his sides.
Vania paused, then hurried to catch up, and continued walking silently beside him, her gaze on the ground.
Both agents were panting—Doc much worse, although Vania didn’t comment on it this time—once they reached the mountain’s snowy summit, where Millie and Mickey were battling the piece of the Shadow Blot that had kidnapped them in the beginning of the story. They were fighting the blot, but Oswald and Olsen put in that they fought only the drippings.
Vania tilted her head sideways. [Olsen? I don’t remember any Olsen. In the game or this fic.]
“Millie is different now, too,” added Doc. The Mary Sue’s age was no longer fluctuating. The confused agents started reading backwards through the Words; meanwhile, Oswald argued with Mickey near the giant bottle that contained the true Shadow Blot.
Reading back through the scene in Yen Sid’s tower, the agents came across the sentence, “Millie was a young 10-year girl with long black hair as she wore a red-violet translucent blouse and a long blue skirt that reached the floor.”
“Translucent? Oh no!” Doc clamped a hand over his eyes and frowned. “But it didn’t say that before, did it?”
During the scene at Dark Beauty Castle, “What they didn't know is that someone watching them in amazement a rabbit, Oswald the lucky rabbit and a human boy named Olsen.”
[And there’s Olsen! That’s weird. I could have sworn I saw something . . . something near us. It was right at that moment, when that sentence took place!]
“Probably not a coincidence. Who is Olsen, though?”
[Here, back where they first talked to Oswald: “They said that before Mickey or Millie were made; Oswald was the first to be a star and the first to be forgotten which caused Oswald to be envious of Mickey's popularity as Olsen was popular in wizardry until Millie came in as he gain envy on Millie's popularity.”]
“So . . . Olsen is a counterpart to Millie? A human hanging out in the Wasteland with Oswald?”
[Yeah . . . and “popular in wizardry?” The Cartoon Wasteland is supposed to be for cartoon characters to retire, not random wizards. Besides, I thought Millie was still in wizard training, or whatever. How could she have become more famous?]
“Unless it means he was a famous wizard character? And Millie started playing the role of wizards in cartoons, and took over his roles?”
Vania shook her head. [That’s still completely missing the point of the game. Epic Mickey runs on bringing back old characters the player had forgotten or ignored. You can’t just throw some OC into the Wasteland and expect the audience to accept him as a famous character! Same goes for Millie.] Vania’s face went blank. [I’m still just so confused. I know I saw something back at that early scene, where Olsen has suddenly shown up. And I’m sure these sentences are written differently than before.]
“Wait a minute!” Doc said while watching Olsen and Oswald stamp up and down on the bottle’s cork in frustration. “This is a fanfiction. If the author edited the story while we were still in it . . .”
Vania’s eyes widened. [Then anything could have been changed! And we didn’t notice, because we weren’t watching the action when the author hit submit!]
The pressure from Olsen and Oswald finally made the cork crumble apart, releasing the fully-powered Shadow Blot from the jar.
“At least Olsen is made to be equally culpable for this mistake.”
The true blot was free, and grabbed Oswald, Olsen, and Gus. The blot offered their freedom for Mickey's heart. Instead of Mickey's heart it took, it was Millie's heart. Since all this was her fault she pushed Mickey away and let the blot take hers.
[Um, no. It is very much Mickey’s fault; he played with the magic brush, even when Millie warned him not to. The original game shows that Mickey still would have created the Blot whether Millie had been around or not.]
But her heart made her live, as soon as the blot had her heart, Millie gasped for air as she fell and dropped her paintbrush in front of Mickey; Gus Olsen, and Oswald were free, they ran to Millie's side as she coughed hard.
"Mickey, you have to go into the blot and find my heart, please. You can do this without me.”
“Of course he can! That’s the whole problem here. You’ve tossed yourself into the story where an extra character wasn’t needed, and promptly failed to add anything of value beyond trifles.”
The Blot then grabbed Millie and sucked her up. Mickey grabbed her brush, and the canons headed for the Moonliner Rocket in Tomorrow City, which they planned to fly into the Blot to save Millie.
[Okay, this is something I didn’t understand in the game,] said Vania. [The Blot has Mickey’s Heart—Millie’s in this case—which he needed to leave the Wasteland. That was the whole point in dragging Mickey into the Wasteland in the first place: get his Heart, and use it to escape. He now has a Heart. Does he leave? Nope! He goes back to where he left off before Oswald and Ortensia locked him up—attacking the Wasteland.]
Doc shrugged. “Spite? Actually, isn’t he made out of Paint? Sucking all the Paint out of the world could make him stronger once he actually leaves.”
[That’s true. Although, now I’m wondering why it kidnapped both Mickey and Millie in this fic. It only needs one Heart to leave . . .]
After more bouncing around the world due to the continued minimal descriptions of events, the agents finally came to a stop in the fireworks control room in a tower of Dark Beauty Castle, where Olsen, Oswald, Mickey and Gus were gathered. Olsen wondered about the feeling inside whenever he talks only about Millie. He realized that he was in love with Millie and knows that Mickey was the same as her.
Vania clapped her hands against her cheeks. [Oh, wow! He’s the love interest! I never would have guessed!]
“I’m just going to assume that last sentence isn’t supposed to imply Olsen is also in love with Mickey.”
[Or that Mickey is love with Millie. Ew.]
"Ew."
Olsen turned his head slightly and looked at the agents. He gave a weak smile and waved to them. “I’m not sure either, honestly.” Caught off guard, the agents stared dumbly and waved back.
Then the blot found the control room and grabbed Oswald, Olsen, and Gus. All three were panicking, but Olsen was specifically looking at the agents, calling to them for help. “Hey, you guys! Do something!”
“This is not good. He knows we’re here.”
[Well, we are pretty close to the end of the game. We should probably get around to charging them soon anyway.]
“Already?” Doc asked, rolling his eyes. "Yeah, it was such a short fic."
Vania grimaced. [I wasn't expecting so much time compression. It does feel like it's dragged on more than a chapter, doesn't it?]
Mickey needed someone to use the second brush. Mickey combined his brush and Millie's to become a new brush and ran into the heart.
“That doesn’t really follow from his train of thought just now. Also—” Doc never had the chance to finish as the fic yanked them after Mickey, to the insides of the Blot. The Shadow Blot’s interior was—well, dark and inky, with black tendrils snaking across every surface. Millie’s Heart and body were wrapped up by tendrils in separate locations.
She was tied up looking weak, as her dress was ripped and torn; her hair was crazy and messy.
Millie’s hair gibbered nonsense and was throwing Twinkie wrappers all over.
While Mickey began working to free Millie and her heart, both agents felt a tug on their sleeves. Turning around, they discovered Olsen standing right behind them, looking scared and a bit sheepish.
[Hi there,] said Vania, forcing a grin and tightening the grip slightly on her bat.
“Hi,” said the boy. “I’m really, really sorry about this! I’m not too sure about what’s going on . . .”
“What do you mean, you don’t know? You’re with Millie, aren’t you?”
Olsen blushed. “Well, I wasn’t always. I was supposed to be in the story, but I was only written in two sentences. Then they got deleted, and I was just kind of . . . around. But not really . . . there? I saw you guys when you were at the part where I had first gotten named, but I couldn’t do anything to get your attention.” The boy looked around. “Then, the story must have changed, because suddenly, it was like I had been there along! And I remember doing all kinds of stuff, even though I know I wasn’t there.”
Doc turned to Vania. “How can this be?”
Vania shrugged slightly. [He’s an unused character who got edited out of the final story. A lot of the Wasteland’s residents wound up here for the same reason, and they’re all aware of it. Olsen may be a badfic character, but he fits into the meta nature of this universe pretty well.] She met Olsen’s look. [Kid, I have some bad news about you and your friend Millie.]
“I know,” said Olsen. “You’re trying to get rid of us. Just give me a chance to talk to Millie, OK?”
“Why bother?” Doc brandished his pole. “She’s a Mary Sue. It’s not like you can talk her out of being what she is.”
[Let’s give the kid a chance, Doc.]
Doc glared at Vania. “You . . . I don’t get you, Vania.” He turned away and started towards the characters. Vania watched her partner for a moment, then looked back at Olsen.
[Come on, Olsen. You’re with us now.] The two followed after Doc.
Millie's heart and body were set free. As her heart and body fell, the heart landed on Oswald's hand, as Millie landed on Olsen.
Being a little more aware of what was going on, Olsen managed to catch Millie as she fell, rather than get crushed by her.
Oswald thought of the chance he could be free as Olsen tried to wake up Millie. But Oswald knew this wasn't Mickey's heart, it was Millie's and she needed to get home.
[Again, Oswald makes the right choice here in the original canon, without Millie being around to influence him.]
Oswald handed it to Olsen who gave it to Mickey as he walked to Millie and let it fall to Millie's chest.
Olsen was just as confused by this game of “heart potato” as the agents, considering Millie was already right next to him, but followed along with the fic’s words anyway.
Pulse reentered her body as Millie's eyes fluttered open when she saw her friends. Mickey handed Millie her brush back, but Doc grabbed it away from him before Millie had a chance to take it. “I don’t know when or how you took these apart again, but I’m glad we don’t have to worry about a double magic brush now.”
Oswald and Mickey gasped and staggered back from the toons who had suddenly appeared in the Shadow Blot’s gut. Gus asked, “Who are you two?”
[Gus has a British accent. Who would have thought?]
“They must be working for the Blot!” Oswald said. He removed an ear and pointed it at Doc like a fencing sabre. “Come on! You want a piece of me? I’ll let you have it!”
Doc ignored the rabbit. “What do we do with this?” he asked Vania, raising the copy brush.
[Keep it, dude! That's some proper, rare swag for bartering, right there!] She opened another portal to their RC, and Doc heaved the paintbrush through.
Millie sat up, looking longingly after the brush. “Olsen, who are these people?”
“They’ve been watching us. They saw when I got added to the story. They’re here to fix it!"
“Story?” asked Mickey. “Uh, what do you mean by that?”
Millie frowned and lowered her eyes. “But . . . this is supposed to be my story.”
“Well, it isn’t," said Doc. "It’s Mickey and Oswald’s story.”
“Hey!”
Doc rolled his eyes. “Fine. Oswald and Mickey’s story.”
“Millie,” Olsen reasoned, “we’ve been playing around here for a long time. But we don’t really belong around here, right? I think we should go and let stuff get back to normal now.”
Millie sighed without looking up. “It’s just . . . it’s such a cool story. I wanted to be part of it. And part of Mickey’s life, you know?”
[. . . Yeah. I know what you mean.] Vania leaned down and looked Millie in the eyes. [But the truth is, this isn’t your story, or your world. We have to make you leave now.] She looked at Doc for a second, then turned back to the girl. [You and Olsen can come with us.]
“What?” asked Doc. “She’s a Sue! We can’t take her to Headquarters!”
Vania’s expression turned sour as she rounded on Doc. [Remember what I said before, about the Paint and the Thinner?]
Doc raised an eyebrow. “We’re not in a game, Vania! I mean, we are, but the PPC isn’t a game! And I’m tired of you putting us in danger today! We can’t trust someone from a badfic.”
Vania blinked and leaned back a bit. [Danger?] She shook her head and pressed her point. [What about Miss MacKinnon and Who?]
“They weren’t the same thing! They weren't the actual sources of those badfics. Millie is a Mary Sue! Olsen probably is, too!”
[Doc, look around! Canon is mostly unchanged, and everyone in the Wasteland is close to being in character. The Sue isn’t the problem this time. It’s just the writing that’s bad, those temporal distortions . . . Seriously, Millie, was this written from a walkthrough?]
Millie’s eyes flicked from side to side.
Vania sighed. [Let’s just get the kids back to HQ, all right?]
Doc scowled. “Not a chance!”
“Either way,” Millie interrupted, clutching her hands to the center of her chest, “there’s something I need to do first, in Yen Sid’s tower.”
[What?] asked Vania.
* * *
Yen Sid stood looking down into the model of Wasteland, quite confused by the goings-on below and fearful of his daughter’s safety. While watching the progress of Millie and the intruder across the Wasteland, he had also observed some of Oswald’s Animatronic friends getting carted out of OsTown by two mysterious toons. He had lost sight of the whole lot once Mickey had jumped into the Shadow Blot.
Yen Sid was so intent on watching the Shadow Blot rampage across the model, he didn’t hear the portal open behind him. He only turned when a box of text appeared in the bottom of his vision.
[Greetings, Master Yen Sid!] Vania winced and corrected herself. [Sorry. You’re not a Keyblade Master in this continuum. Uh, anyway—] She was cut short by Yen Sid standing to his full height and glaring down at her.
His glare vanished when he saw one of the people the toon woman had brought with her. “Millie! You have escaped. It is so good to see you again, my dear.” Millie ran to him and gave the old wizard a hug.
Yen Sid raised his eyes—and his amazingly thick eyebrows—and looked at Vania. “It would seem you have returned my daughter to me, young woman. You have my thanks for that. However, I must ask how you came to discover my tower.” He looked over the group’s shoulders to the shimmering portal behind them.
[Well, it isn’t quite that simple . . . Millie?]
“Right.” The little girl sucked in a big breath, then puffed out her chest and strained. After a moment, her recently returned Heart pulsed out of her chest, glowing bright red. Yen Sid’s eyebrows raised even further, but before he could speak, the Heart dove into his own chest. He staggered back against the table, clutching at the front of his robes.
“I’m sorry, father! But, well, you aren’t really my father at all. And I needed a Heart to be like Mickey and fit in.”
[Yeah, but Millie couldn’t have that kind of Heart. A Heart comes from having fans who love watching your work, but Millie never had that.] Vania walked over and picked up the spell book that had shown knowledge of the Shadow Blot prior to its creation. Handing it to Doc, she continued. [You can write a backstory, but you can’t make up fans in the real world. The only way to get a Heart . . .]
“Was to take one from a character who was already famous. I’m sorry, fa—Yen Sid.”
“Yes,” said the old man. “I understand now what has happened. My true memories are returning.” He looked at Millie. “That is powerful magic you wield, young lady. Especially if it can reach across worlds.” He crossed his arms over his chest and moved to stand over the Wasteland model, where fireworks were now exploding into the air. “Taking care of another world, even one with fictional inhabitants, is still a very great responsibility, and should not be taken lightly.”
“Well said, sir,” said Doc, who had shoved the spell book into a large pocket in a leg of his shorts. He was very pointedly avoiding looking at Vania. “Messing around with unfamiliar characters can be dangerous.”
Vania pursed her lips, but said, [We need to get out of here before Mickey comes out. Millie, Olsen? Turn around and close your eyes.] After the children had done so, Vania and Doc put sunglasses over their own eyes.
Vweeyoom!
[Yen Sid, you are a wizard who watches over a world for the forgotten. You do not have a daughter—or a wife, for that matter—and have never met anyone else currently standing in this room. Mickey did not have a human toon accompany him through the Cartoon Wasteland, and there hasn’t been another human toon hanging around with Oswald there. When we leave, you will forget this happened, and go back to watching the model.]
After the uncanonical characters had walked back through the portal, Yen Sid turned back to see Mickey Mouse come hurtling up through the skies of the model, fresh from the defeat of the Shadow Blot. Yen Sid caught the troublemaker with one hand. Mickey smiled timidly, then handed over the magic paintbrush after seeing the look on the sorcerer’s face.
* * *
In an alleyway in OsTown, Vania took out Doc’s clipboard and cleared her throat: [*Ahem* Now, we need to make this all official-like, before we go back to Headquarters.]
[Millie, aka Milline. You are hereby charged with being a family member of a canon character, giving yourself special powers and a special weapon, which was a copy of a one-of-a-kind weapon, tagging along with the game’s plot, with skipping over scenes that didn’t interest you, and thereby causing an extremely dangerous example of fast-forward syndrome.] Vania decided not to mention endangering PPC agents and minis, both to avoid making Doc any angrier as well as for Millie’s sake. Millie was already hanging her head, and Olsen had his arm around her shoulders. [You are also charged with stealing the Heart from a canon character and creating numerous minis. Olsen, you are charged with aiding and abetting a Mary Sue.]
Vania crumpled up the charge list with both hands. [On the other hand, you are also responsible . . . for making use of some clever details in your story, and of editing it to make improvements and expand the plot.] She smiled. [Too bad there’s no OFU for Epic Mickey. You’ll make a fine writer someday, Millie. For now, I think you two should stick around the Nursery and help out there for a while. Right Doc?]
Doc didn’t answer right away, and refused to turn to look at the others. Finally, he said, “I guess. Vania’s the experienced agent. I’m sure she knows what she’s doing.” There was a dullness to his voice.
[I’m not saying every Mary Sue can be reformed,] Vania said. [But when they can be, it’s better to make new friends.] She opened a portal back to PPC HQ.
As soon as Vania was on the HQ side of the portal, she tried singing, which only produced text boxes surrounded by music notes. [♪Welcome back, to that same old place that you laughed about♪ Well, the dreams aren’t all that’s remained. My voice is still turned around!]
“I thought the whole box thing was kind of weird,” said Millie.
“I was afraid to ask!” said Olsen.
“Why is the floor sticky?” asked Doc. Looking down at his feet, he saw puddles of dark ink all over the generic surface. Lifting his face, he saw the cause: all the mini-Spatters, wandering the RC in their various costumes. Behind them, his bookshelf was also covered in ink.
Vania barely caught Doc before he could finish throwing himself bodily at the crowd of minis.
“IT RUINS THE PRECIOUS!”
Excerpts from Doc's Mission Report
Yen Sid (Epic Mickey, 2010)
Medium: video game
Existence: canon
Universe: Epic Mickey
Role: protagonist
Species: human, toon
Gender: male
Occupation: caretaker of Cartoon Wasteland
Weapon: spellbook
Power: magic
Notes:
Wizard who watches over Wasteland and characters therein. Stand-in for Walt Disney, in a way. Observed Mickey’s journey through Wasteland, and revealed results of Mickey’s actions after sending him home.
Mickey Mouse (Epic Mickey, 2010)
Medium: video game
Existence: canon
Universe: Epic Mickey
Role: protagonist
Species: mouse, toon
Gender: male
Occupation: cartoon star
Weapon: magic brush
Power: picked up ink from Shadow Blot
Notes:
Accidentally created both the Shadow Blot and sea of Thinner. Heart is a major plot point for other characters to attempt escaping Wasteland. Depending on player, either redeems himself by helping Wastelanders, or ignores their plight to escape.
Shadow Blot: (Epic Mickey, 2010)
Medium: video game
Existence: canon
Universe: Epic Mickey
Role: antagonist
Species: one-of-a-kind monster made of Paint and Thinner
Gender: unknown, but character is based on male Phantom Blot
Occupation: escaping the Cartoon Wasteland
Weapon: Paint and Thinner
Power: creating monsters: Blotlings and miniature version of self
Notes:
Giant monster made of Paint and Thinner. Allied with Mad Doctor and attempted to take over Wasteland, leading to showdown against Oswald who locked it inside bottle. Kidnapped Mickey for Heart to try to escape. Released from bottle accidentally by Oswald, and stole Mickey’s Heart before attacking Wasteland. Defeat led to rain of Paint which fixed the Wasteland.
Oswald the Lucky Rabbit (Epic Mickey, 2010)
Medium: video game
Existence: canon
Universe: Epic Mickey
Role: protagonist
Species: rabbit, toon
Gender: male
Occupation: former cartoon star, leader of the Wastelanders
Weapon: none
Power: can detach ears or feet to use as weapons, tools, etc.
Notes:
Precursor to Mickey Mouse. Reigns as king of Wasteland. Was extremely jealous and bitter of Mickey’s stardom, and only helped Mickey to make him leave faster. Angered by Mickey’s admission of creating Blot, but finally came to understand Mickey was not a bad guy.
Gremlin Gus (Epic Mickey, 2010)
Medium: video game
Existence: canon
Universe: Epic Mickey
Role: protagonist
Species: Gremlin, toon
Gender: male
Occupation: mechanic, freedom fighter
Weapon: wrench
Power: repair
Notes:
Forgotten character residing in Wasteland. Opposes Blot and Mad Doctor along with other Gremlins. Guides Mickey through Wasteland with advice, encouragement and reprimands.
Oswald’s Animatronic friends (Epic Mickey, 2010)
Medium: video game
Existence: canon
Universe: Epic Mickey
Role: protagonist
Species: robot (Goofy: dog; Donald and Daisy: duck)
Gender: (Goofy and Donald: male; Daisy: female)
Occupation: adventuring around the Wasteland with Oswald
Weapon: none
Power: survive being dismantled
Notes:
Animatronic versions of Mickey’s friends built for Oswald by the Mad Doctor before his later alliance with Blot. Have same personalities as originals. Attacked by Beetleworx and dismantled. Collecting parts are side quests in game.
Author's Note: The Cavalier in White belongs to Marcia Muller. The GLaDOS quote comes from Portal and belongs to Kim Swift and Valve Corporation. The lyrics from "Welcome Back" belong to John Sebastian.
The Sorcerer's Apprentice was written by Paul Dukas and is in the public domain. The remix of it, as well as "OsTown Thinner 1," were composed by James Dooley and belong to Junction Point Studios and Disney Interactive Studios.
Warning: Spoilers for the first Epic Mickey game.
This mission, and the badfic it sporks, were written before the release of the Epic Mickey sequels. Details in this mission may be contradicted by those later games, but the mission will only reflect information available at the time of its (and its badfic’s) writing.
Update August 10, 2017 I am embarrassed to admit I used to be far too obsessed with mini creation, and counted failures to use capital letters in proper nouns in minis. I recognize now that this is not correct, and am retconning my use of such minis in this mission. That would leave this mission with only a single true mini, "bolt;" however, having only one mini in this mission would change its plot significantly, so it will remain populated with a group of anonymous, unadoptable minis. I am also leaving "sweepers" on the PPC Wiki, as it was adopted by PPCer Outhra.
Agent Doc opened his eyes and stared blearily at the ceiling. He knew exactly what time it was: he felt well-rested, and the Console wasn’t beeping, so that meant it was time to read. There were only a few chapters left in The Cavalier in White, and Doc was itching to find out who had stolen the titular painting. As he fished around inside his pillowcase for the book, Doc had the weird impression that the walls looked different somehow. The generic surface was a bit more . . . never mind. He opened the book, stuck the bookmark behind his ear and—
Couldn’t read. The pages were all blurry. Doc rubbed his eyes, trying to wake them up. It didn’t help; the letters were still a greyish smear on the page. Confused, Doc squinted, looking around the room.
He saw the pattern indented in the refrigerator door. He read the titles of his books on the shelf. He made out individual buttons on the Console. And for one very brief moment, Doc grinned in excitement. He didn’t need glasses anymore! He could see every—
His grin melted away as he looked back at The Cavalier in White. He held the novel away from his face. Still blurry. He retrieved his glasses from their case, hanging from the bed board above his head, and put them on. Nothing changed. His glasses were made to fix his near-sightedness. And overnight, Doc had turned far-sighted.
Agent Vania was awakened by a shriek from the bunk above her. Having only quit her video games a few hours ago, she was in no mood to wake up already, especially if it wasn’t for a mission. Ignoring for the moment that the room seemed oddly pink, she got up and peeked over the top bunk.
Doc was swaddled up in blankets, huddled against the wall behind the bed, staring forlornly at a book in the center of his mattress.
[What’s the matter?] Vania asked, immediately aware that something was very wrong with her voice.
“The Precious . . .” Tears slid down Doc’s cheeks. “We can’t see the—wait.” Doc’s Gollum-speak suddenly ceased. “What’s with your voice?”
[I’m not . . . sure.] Whenever Vania spoke, although her mouth made motions as though she were talking, she produced no sound. At the same time, both she and Doc separately observed a grey rectangle appear, floating in midair, in their respective ranges of vision. The boxes contained her words in white letters. Once she finished moving her mouth, the rectangles would disappear.
[I seem to be speaking in—text box,] Vania decided.
“And my vision is all screwed up,” Doc whined. “I can’t read. What is going on?”
Vania peered closely at Doc's face. [You've got some blue spots all over your eyes. I'm betting there are some on my tongue?] She stuck it out.
Doc leaned towards her to look. "No," he said hesitantly.
[Hum.] Vania shrugged and kicked outwards from the bed to dropp to the floor, giving herself enough space not to land on 221b baker street, who was curled asleep just under the edge of her bed. It was glowing pink instead of green. [Sometimes, bizarre things happen in Headquarters. It’s the nature of the beast.]
“But what do we do now? Are we stuck this way?”
[Well, something is causing this. I imagine we can head out into the corridors, find out what’s doing it, and stop it.]
BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!
[Or—]
“—not.”
The partners tentatively approached the console. Doc stopped short when he was still several feet away, amazed that he could already read the screen from there. “Epic Mickey? Isn’t that one of the games you just got?”
[Yep. Just beat it before I went to sleep. The Flowers never waste much time. They don’t have the luxury, really.]
“But . . . they don’t really expect us to go on a mission the way we are, do they?”
BIP
A new message popped up over the mission report. It read,
To: [DF]
From: [fheichhorniacrassipes.console188.DF]
Subject: Recent Events
It appears we’re all experiencing an unusual morning. Or whatever part of day this is. I have word that an investigation by the Department of Internal Affairs is underway. In the meantime, I have no doubt that my Floaters will continue to operate in a professional manner, in spite of any inconveniences.
—the Floating Hyacinth
Vania looked at Doc with lowered eyelids. [Of course they expect us to go on a mission the way we are. We’re understaffed, and there are always more badfics.]
Doc grimaced, and Vania patted him on the shoulder. [Relax. This is a short fic, so it won’t give us too much trouble.] Internally, Vania cursed herself for tempting the Ironic Overpower, but didn’t want to worry Doc more than necessary. [If this hasn’t worn off by the time we get back, we’ll take care of it then.] [Or we’ll have another mission waiting,] she added mentally.
“Um . . . I could read that.”
Vania sighed and grabbed her bat from the corner. [For disguises, we’ll go as the generic old cartoon characters that inhabit the game world. That should let us blend in just about anywhere in the Wasteland.]
The portal deposited Doc and Vania into Yen Sid’s tower, standing next to a dresser in a small side room. [Though it maybe won’t be so useful outside the Wasteland.]
“Your text boxes are different now.” Vania’s words now appeared inside a long, pale box in the bottom of the agents’ fields of vision, with Vania’s face and name on the left side.
[That’s what they look like in Epic Mickey. They must have changed with the disguise, I guess.] Vania started reading the Words out of habit, but immediately grabbed Doc’s collar and yanked him down. They flattened themselves against the front of the dresser as Mickey Mouse climbed out of the mirror mounted above it. He jumped down—less than a foot away from the agents—and peeked around the corner of a doorway.
Doc and Vania traded a worried look. If, for any reason, the mouse decided to turn around, they would be seen. Fortunately, Mickey seemed completely absorbed in the conversation in the next room—a workshop of sorts, with bottle-filled shelves on the walls and a large wooden table in the center. Yen Sid, a wizard in blue robes and a pointed hat covered in a star pattern, was talking to a young girl with yellow pigtails as she wore a red-violet blouse and a long blue skirt. Mickey watched as Yen Sid brushed paint on the model of the Cartoon Wasteland that sat on the table.
Doc put pencil to paper and began scratching down charges with the clipboard in his lap, repeatedly bobbing his head back and forth to change the distance from the paper. He continued to listen in while Vania read the Words.
Thanks to the vague description of “young,” the girl was slowly shifting up and down, from a kindergartner to an early teen. She said, "Father, I think this is your best work yet. Someday I'll be the one painting with the brush." Her father chuckled and said, "Yes, but soon, Millie soon."
“’Yes, but soon?’” Doc quoted, whispering. “Shouldn’t that be something like, ‘yes, and soon,’ or, ‘yes, but not for a long time?’”
Vania reached towards Doc’s face and pinched his lips closed with her thumb and pointer finger. With her other hand, she traced a large circle in the air on either side of her head, then looked pointedly at Mickey. Doc followed her gaze, then nodded.
Vania concentrated, trying to make thought-bubble text boxes like she had accidentally done in her RC. [That model is where the game actually takes place,] she explained for Doc’s sake. [Any stuff designed by Disney, but scrapped or deconstructed, or that becomes unpopular, goes there.]
Doc cocked his head—somewhat difficult, since Vania had never let go of his lips. He shrugged.
She answered his silent question. [To give them somewhere to live. Somewhere to feel like they belong, since they have no fans to love them in the real world.]
Yen Sid had finished painting and told his supposed daughter it was time for bed. In true Sueish fashion, she asked to stay up late, and her request was granted. “I promise I won't touch the brush, the paint, the thinner, or the model.”
[At least Millie is genre savvy,] thought Vania. [A magical world filled with very real living individuals is not something to play around with.]
♪
Mickey began to creep out into the main room while Millie said, "I wish I could hold the brush like my father, but I'm too young." Once she saw Mickey, the two characters introduced themselves—Millie revealed that her real name was Milline. Mickey showed Millie the mirror he had come through. (Fortunately, Vania had already hidden herself and her partner before they came around the corner.)
As in canon, Mickey began to paint a statue of himself with the magic brush. Millie looked at Mickey and hissed, causing her to speak in Parseltongue. "What are you doing? Wait! Stop! Don't combine the thinner and the paint! They going to-"
[How does she know something bad is going to happen?] Vania whispered to Doc inside their hiding place. [Yen Sid only told her that Paint and Thinner canceled out.] Vania thought for a moment. [If Yen Sid is Millie’s father, then who is her mother?]
But Millie's words were cut by a creation of the black blot and the paint and thinner falling on the model. Ink globs sprayed through the air and physically shredded the sound waves of Millie’s words to ribbons in midair. They floated to the floor as the Shadow Blot hid inside the paint can, for some reason. Mickey ran for the mirror while Millie ran upstairs to awaken Yen Sid, where she informed him of the trouble in a stuttering William Shatner impression. "Model…being ruined…black bolt coming out…Intruder…is…here!" A black bolt of lightning erupted from the model and charred the ceiling.
Once Mickey had leaped back through the mirror into his own room, Doc burst out of the drawer he had been hiding in at the bottom of the dresser. He sucked in a deep breath of air just in time to be clocked in the back of the head by Vania doing the exact same thing from the drawer above him.
[Nice!] she said, squeezing out with a wobbly motion to her animated body. [It’s good to be a toon.]
“Speak for yourself,” mumbled Doc, squinting at little books flying through the air around his head. He slapped them away with both hands, then took a better look at Vania’s disguise as he pulled himself from the drawer.
She was an anthropomorphic bipedal animal, like a horse or cow, wearing a blouse and a dress that hid her feet. Her hands were still humanoid, and covered in white gloves. She wasn’t exactly colorless, but was somewhere between being sepia-toned and outright black-and-white. She still held her bat, but it, like the rest of her, was greyish and had strong black outlines, like a drawing. Looking at his hands, and ignoring the blur caused by his far vision, Doc found himself to be much the same, but wearing pants and no shirt. Shaking his head a bit, he felt long, droopy ears slapping against his cheeks.
In the main room, Yen Sid and Millie had returned and saw the model partly destroyed by thinner. Millie also saw the blot coming out of the paint can. She wondered if it's attracted to love.
Doc frowned. “It’s crawling into the world of unloved things, so she reasons it’s attracted to love? We’re lucky we’re not in Sherlock Holmes again, because a deduction of this quality might have caused that universe to implode.”
Yen Sid went to the spell book, and he gasped in horror as he said, "Millie, it's just as I feared. The black blot is really the shadow blot. The blot is a servant of the Mad Doctor."
[Um, what? No. No, no, no.] Vania shook her head roughly. [The Blot was just created. Just now. It doesn’t spawn into existence and suddenly be under someone’s employ. Besides, the Mad Doctor is the one who ends up working for the Shadow Blot, not the other way around!]
“Why does a spell book have information on monsters, anyway? Particularly monsters that didn’t exist until five minutes ago.”
[Publishers are really desperate to get stuff out quick nowadays.]
Millie turned to see the blot trying to escape. She went and poured some thinner on it as it went down and she covered it with the cork.
Vania bristled. [Oswald and Ortensia were supposed to do that later! It was Ortensia’s heroic sacrifice! And a major cause of Oswald’s bitterness! This could change the entire plot!]
Millie turned to her father and raised her brow and asked, "The Mad Doctor? But who is he?" While Millie grabbed her eyebrows and stretched them up past her forehead, Yen Sid replied, "A once good doctor who lives in the unloved world now has become evil." Millie gasped, "You don't suppose he wants revenge on the color and light?" Yen Sid nodded.
[Kind of the exact opposite, actually,] Vania said. [He was a bad guy in the cartoon short he came from, but he was friends with Oswald in the Wasteland before—well, before it was a wasteland. Yen Sid seems to be clairvoyant in this fic.]
Millie said, "I have to find that intruder and tell him what's going on. He doesn't know what he did." She then proceeded to not do that at all. Instead, she started to make a map of the model. When she finished, she asked, "Father, I know I must never use the brush, but I need it. I need to finish the map."
“What happened to, ‘but I’m too young?’” Doc rubbed at the side of his head, then tried to push his not-present glasses up his nose out of reflex. “The contradiction is rather frustrating.”
Her father understood and handed her the brush.
[Shocker.]
He was amazed at the artistic movements his daughter does when she paints.
“So shocking. Um, also, what are these things?”
Two little creatures now stood behind the agents. Their bodies were pretty much all face, with a huge mouth dominating their chest and large orange eyes bulging out of their heads. Their skin was a light blue color, and they had scrawny little legs, lopsided round ears, and long arms that ended in three-fingered hands. A light orange splotch covered one side of their faces, as though they had been struck in the eye with yellowish paint. Oddly, they also both wore a pointed hat like Yen Sid’s, covered in stars.
Vania gasped, which rendered itself as, [*GASP* Minis! And they’re like little Spatters. How adorable!]
One mini-Spatter saluted the agents. The other began punching himself in the head.
“I hear someone talking, Papa! Maybe it’s the intruder again!”
“Who is there?” Yen Sid said in his deep, rumbling voice.
[Time to go!] said Vania, scooping up a mini in each arm. Doc fumbled with the RA, but got a portal open in time for both agents to hop through before Yen Sid came around the corner.
[Ah, now that’s Wasteland.] Vania said once the portal closed. [Much better.]
“Better? By what definition?” The agents and minis were in the crumbling remains of Dark Beauty Castle, where the Mad Doctor had built his laboratory. The ceiling was completely absent, having collapsed inwards and littered the floor with stone debris. The room was filled with stairways, all of which led up to a raised walkway underneath a stained glass image of a cartoon rabbit in knight armor. The window was missing jagged pieces of itself, as were large portions of the walls and walkway. The edges where parts were missing were softly glowing blue, revealing these objects to be made of paint.
“This place is pretty messed up.”
[I know. Doesn’t it look awesome?]
“What is awesome is being able to see all this detail without corrective eye-wear.”
[Right. Maybe let's give me the RA for this mission?]
By now, the Shadow Blot had reached up out of the model and pulled both Mickey and Millie into Wasteland. Millie wakes up in a large birdcage as Mickey woke up in a machine.
[That’s the same as the cages the Gremlins are always stuck in. That’s actually a pretty clever detail on the author’s part, and better than just tying her down to the same table as Mickey.]
As in canon, the Mad Doctor activated the machinery that filled the former throne room and it began to pull on Mickey’s chest with a plunger to extract his Heart. Millie was horrified as she screamed, "Mickey! No!" She looked away, but she couldn't bear to see her new friend get hurt. Then her heart shone in light that was making her heart strong, it was so strong; her anger broke the rails of her cage. Millie twisted her face into a stupendous frown, which then shattered the bird cage with a wave of red light.
Doc gaped. “That was . . . quite frightening. She shoots anger beams.” He set the pile of papers against his knee and tried to write more charges.
What they didn't know is that someone watching them in amazement a rabbit, Oswald the lucky rabbit. Oswald, who looked a lot like Mickey with longer ears and blue pants, hopped up one of the staircases and watched the proceedings from behind a piece of electronic equipment.
A mini-Spatter in a jester outfit dripped into existence before the agents. It and Vania waved to each other, but the mini-Spatter suddenly jerked its head, as though startled by something beside Vania. As she turned to look, she thought—for the slightest moment—she had seen movement, but there was nothing there.
The doctor sent his blot after them, but Mickey and Millie showed it the brushes sending the blot running away, but the mad doctor escaped.
As a fourth mini appeared, the agents exchanged confused glances. Doc asked, “Why are there suddenly two brushes?”
[I don’t know. We must have missed something back at Yen Sid’s.]
Doc settled his eyes on the stone walls to read the Words. Despite ostensibly being far away, he found it difficult to focus on them with his vision so different from usual. Eventually, he found the second brush’s point of origin. He read, "Then the blot went to Mickey's room as it awakens and abducts him and Millie to Wasteland. Mickey grabs the brush as Millie grabs the spare as they were sucked down to darkness."
[That’s it?] Vania asked. [There just happens to be a spare?]
Doc shrugged. “I don’t see it mentioned anywhere else, so . . .”
Vania puffed air out of her lips. [*PPPFFF* Talk about lazy writing. Now we’ve got a copy of a one-of-a-kind magical tool-slash-weapon with no explanation of how or why the copy was made.]
Gremlin Gus saved them by showing the way out as they began to shut down the machines, even though the heart extractor was never stated to attack them. Doc watched the little green man, wearing a helmet with goggles, and kicking his feet at high speed to hover in midair. “That’s a gremlin? Like the ones you said were stuck in cages?”
[Yep. They’re from some World War II propaganda cartoon that was never released. They’re in charge of maintenance in Wasteland, which is why the Mad Doctor started locking them up.] mad doctor sprang to attention at hearing its correctly-capitalized canon counterpart’s name spoken. [Now they can’t keep anything working, and the Wasteland has fallen into even greater disrepair.]
Then Mickey and Millie explored what was called "Dark Beauty Castle . . ."
The agents and minis began to follow Millie, Mickey and Gus.
A while later, they were attacked by Blotlings.
With the scene change, the agents and minis hit a wall at the top of another staircase in a new room. As the mini-Spatters sat stunned, Doc and Vania dusted themselves off and watched Mickey and Millie spraying Thinner from their brushes to melt monsters made of ink. After the enemies were gone, the canons began to discuss the map Millie had made.
[I don’t know why the Sue felt it necessary to make a map in the first place if she was going to have Gus tag along anyway,] said Vania. [Gus is a native Wastelander; he’s all the map Mickey needs in the game.]
“Just a way to make Millie feel more important.”
First they found a portal that led them to Beanland
The PPC group bounced off the edge of a massive film reel.
and entered the boat ride to help open the door
They fell down into the cups on a spinning teacup ride.
but first they went to China town to raise the high bridge
They smacked into the wall of another ride and began to slide down.
Then we went to the Land of the Gremlins and tried to fix the town
They rolled down a Gremlin’s roof.
The Protectors and the minis went on bouncing around to new locations as soon as they could pick themselves up, with the number of minis increasing with every stop. With panic in his voice, Doc asked, “Why is this happening, Vania?”
Vania replied while the group careened down the stairs of a model Colosseum. [The story seems to be summarizing events without spending any time to describe them! They’re getting through complicated tasks so quickly, it’s making time speed up! And we’re getting dragged along for the ride! Or rides, as it were.]
With the next scene shift, they found themselves falling through the air, headed to the pool of Thinner in front of the Clock Tower. The minis were several yards away from the agents. Vania’s face froze for just a second after seeing the green lake beneath them; then, she quickly pulled out the RA and created a portal in midair beneath the gibbering minis. All of them fell through, making a wet, squelching sound on the other side. She was about to make another portal for Doc and herself, but thanks to another scene shift, they landed face first on brick pavement in Mean Street instead of the Thinner.
Vania groaned as she pulled her flattened face off the sidewalk. [*GROAN* Speedy thing goes in, speedy thing does indeed come out.]
“Has it stopped?” Doc asked as he rolled onto his back, ignoring the newest flock of books fluttering about his head.
Vania took in their surroundings. They had landed in a circle of projector screens, which connected different parts of the Cartoon Wasteland. Millie, Mickey and Gus were at the other end of Mean Street, a shopping district packed with buildings. Whizzing through the town at high speeds, the game’s protagonists grew closer and closer every tenth of a second. Without another thought, Vania grabbed Doc by his arm and dragged him to the nearest projector screen. Doc’s protestation was cut off when she jumped at the screen and went right through.
Then they traveled to OsTown.
[Yes, but you didn’t specify going through a projector screen to get there this time. That means the projector to OsTown is safe from the time distortion.]
Doc looked around. The agents had exited another projector screen, which sat in front of a mirror, onto a huge dresser. A giant globe of Earth was spinning in front of them. Above and below, the room they were in was surrounded by black edges with square holes, like the sides of a reel of film. “What is this place?”
[Projector screens are the main mode of transportation around here. We basically just jumped into an old Mickey Mouse cartoon. Make sure to get temporal distortions onto the charge list; it’s a major one, and a classic to boot. May I?]
Doc stared at her for a moment. He glanced down at the charge list, then back to Vania before handing the clipboard over. Vania started reading. Fortunately, she managed not to create any thought bubbles this time, because Doc would have been embarrassed seeing her read charges like, “gracious family mumbler” or “spectral treatment.” Nearly every word changed in size halfway through, and many letters had lines that looped widely away from the rest of the word.
[Um. How about—since I know this canon—I do the charge list for the rest of this mission?]
Doc stayed stony-faced, but nodded.
[Okay! Come on, now that we’ve escaped the fic’s weird time speeding, it should be safe to move forward into OsTown.]
[Okay, you are seriously out of shape, Doc. We need to find you an exercise machine or something.]
Doc was panting from exertion. “There were . . . huge drops! Playing cards with . . . swords!”
[Or at least get you playing some video games. The fall-to-your-death holes weren’t even that far to jump across.]
Doc collapsed on the cool sidewalk, still breathing heavily. Vania rolled her eyes and stepped away from the projector screen to peek at OsTown. It was filled with small, but brightly colored, cartoon-style buildings, with a statue of Oswald in a fountain in the center of town, out of which bubbled a thin trickle of Thinner.
Vania frowned. A couple of things seemed different from the way they were in the game. Doc spoke to her from the ground before she could figure out what.
“Where did you send the minis?”
[They’re in our RC. I had to save them from landing in the Thinner, or they would have melted.]
“Ah. And we would have been fine, because we’re real-world people, right?”
[Well. No. We’re technically toons right now, thanks to the disguise generator.] She gave a meek grin. [We would have melted, too.]
Doc stared at her for a few moments. “I see.” He blinked. “I see.”
[I mean, obviously, I couldn't just let them—]
But Doc had already turned and walked past her, farther into the town.
[Um.] Vania jogged to catch up to him. [So, unfortunately, we have some cleanup to do here.]
Doc stared straight ahead. “Oh?”
Vania read to him from the Words. [“. . . They saw Mickey and Millie's Wasteland version of their homes. Then they saw Animatronic versions of Goofy, Daisy and Donald Duck as they told Millie and Mickey that the Mad Doctor had stolen their parts, which they later recovered.”]
“And?”
Vania sighed. [Firstly, we need to get rid of Millie’s house. She’s not a real Disney character, so she would never have retired to the Wasteland. Can’t imagine how another house can fit here, it was already packed full of buildings . . . Anyway, only Animatronic Goofy is supposed to be here during the game. Daisy should be in Ventureland, and Donald should be in Bog Easy. We’ll have to move them back where they belong.]
Doc looked down for a moment as the agents stopped walking. After a moment, he said, “Is it safe to move them? The fic says their parts get recovered later. Won’t Millie notice if they’re not where she left them?”
Vania shrugged. [The fic tells, but doesn’t show. The characters themselves never get mentioned again. I think we can put them back in their canon locations, and things will keep moving like nothing happened.]
“Hey!” shouted a loud, scratchy voice. Doc and Vania looked up at the same time to see that they had stopped right in front of the silo-shaped capsules containing the three Animatronics’s heads. A round sphere of glass at the top of each allowed the heads a view of their surroundings. The robotic Donald and Goofy were both missing eyes, with little light bulbs visible inside the empty sockets; Daisy had a spring sticking out from the broken metal bow on top of her head.
Donald continued, “What are you talking about us for?”
[Hi, there!] said Vania, smiling brightly. [We’re here to, well. Um. We have to. Separate you guys.] Her smile faded. [Sorry. About that.]
“Oh, my!” said Animatronic Daisy. “Whatever is the matter with your voice?”
“Yeah! You sound really funny!” Donald began snickering, and missed the looks he received from Daisy and Goofy.
Doc stepped forward and wrapped his arms around Animatronic Donald’s capsule. He strained as he tried to lift the device off the ground.
“Let go! What’s the big idea?” Donald shouted.
[Sorry, guys, but we have to get you back where you belong!]
Animatronic Daisy pleaded, “I belong with Donald!”
“How are we going to move them?” Doc asked. “These things they’re in are way too heavy! We need a cart or something.”
“Well, gawrsh!” said Animatronic Goofy, speaking for the first time. “There should be something like that left in the old Gag Factory!”
“Goofy!” Daisy scolded.
“Don’t help them!” added Donald.
Goofy frowned and lowered his eyes. “Sorry, fellers. But the Gag Factory is all closed up, anyhow!”
♪
Vania turned around to regard the Gag Factory, a brick structure with a large facade overhanging the front door, which was easily the biggest building in OsTown. [That’s all right. We have the key.] She opened another portal with the RA, and she and Doc left the Animatronic characters behind.
There was very little room to walk inside the Gag Factory, as stacks of crates towered straight up to the ceiling. Shelves lined the walls, filled with boxed sets of portable holes and giant magnets and mallets. Doc and Vania weaved between piles of props and equipment, looking for something to move the Animatronics around with.
“Here’s one,” Doc said. A bright red hand truck was still wedged under the last thing it had moved, a big tower of wooden crates. Doc couldn’t get the crates to move, so he sat on the ground and tried to pull the hand cart out from under the stack while pushing on the bottom crate with his feet.
[And here’s another!] Vania had found one pushed into a corner between a shelf and the wall. She wheeled it over to where Doc was.
Doc was still heaving at his hand truck, making the stack of crates wobble above him. Vania only realized what was about to happen too late to call out a warning. The top crate wobbled a bit too far and fell off, dropping six shiny, black spheres down toward Doc. Only one hit him, but one was enough. As it smacked into his forehead, Doc’s body jerked and yanked the hand truck free.
Vania ran to Doc’s side and grabbed his shoulders. He twisted away and shrugged her off before putting a hand to his head. A comically long bump had sprouted from under his fur, and the flying books had reappeared.
[Don’t worry,] Vania said, smiling lightly. [That’ll probably be gone by the next scene change.]
“Joy,” said Doc. “Who stacks boxes of bowling balls up that high?”
Vania grabbed one of the balls and turned it over in her hands. [Not balls. Bombs!]
“Bowling bombs?”
[No, booming bombs!] Vania grinned. [We can use this to get rid of Millie’s house. We just need to find some matches . . .]
After returning through the portal to OsTown’s main road, and Doc discovering that Vania had been right about the bruise not lasting into the next scene, the agents shoved the flat ledge of each handcart under one of the Animatronic ducks’ capsules. Ignoring the characters’ complaints, they then headed around the fountain to look for Millie’s supposed house. It didn’t take them long.
[Sheesh. I don’t think we even needed the bomb.]
OsTown didn’t really have room for another building, so the Word World had placed Millie’s house on a large sheet of cardboard, sticking out over the lake of Thinner that the fountain had been draining into. It appeared to be supported by wooden planks stuck diagonally into the side of the cliff beneath the house. Millie’s house was rather featureless; it was splashed with blue paint in random splotches, but otherwise was just a very generic house.
Vania set the bomb down at the generic front door, then struck a match from the Gag Factory. She and Doc sprinted away as the fuse burned down, down, down . . . until finally, it disappeared inside the bomb casing. Immediately afterwards, there was no explosion.
[What happened?] wondered Vania.
“It’s probably been sitting in the Gag Factory too long. Must be a dud now. We can go try another one.” Doc approached Millie’s house to retrieve the failed bomb.
Waiting for him to come back, Vania started reading the back of the matchbook she had found. After a couple of seconds, her eyes widened. [Doc, get—]
The rest of her shout was drowned out by the delayed explosion from the bomb. Vania’s eyes traced Doc’s flight through the air above until he landed in a crispy heap next to her.
[Gag matches,] she said as she shook the matchbook apologetically.
“It’s good to be a toon,” Doc said, a puff of smoke erupting from his mouth as he spoke.
It was also good that Millie’s house and its questionable foundation had been knocked over by the blast. Pieces of the house were now slowly sinking into the Thinner, the painted portions dissolving away.
Not as good was the fact that the explosion and ensuing crash had drawn the attention of several OsTown citizens.
[Shake it off, Doc. Get your Ray Bans ready!] Vania grabbed Doc’s arm and dragged him back to where they had left the Animatronic ducks. As a crowd of colorless toons gathered at the former site of Millie’s house, Vania opened a portal, and she and Doc carted the ducks through before returning. Approaching the crowd, both agents put on sunglasses while Doc dug into his pocket for a neuralyzer.
[Hey, everybody!] The text boxes created by Vania’s words easily got everyone’s attention. All the toons—including Animatronic Goofy—looked directly at the agents in time to catch a bright flash of light.
With the uncanon house destroyed, the ducks returned to where they belonged, every character in need of a memory wipe neuralyzed, and Vania finally bored with singing Donald Duck’s theme song over and over, the agents were ready to rejoin the action of the fic at last. Which was exactly what they were dreading the most.
[I can’t even understand this!] Vania complained. [Listen to some of these lines! They made their way to the Collector's hut and found Gilda's axe. They returned to Mean Street and got 5 Power Sparks for Markus. There they helped a pirate win love.] Vania shook her head. [Most of these are side quests! They don’t even have anything to with the plot! And then, entire levels of the game are relegated to a short little paragraph! Seriously, was this fic written with an online walkthrough as the only source? The Lonesome Manor area only gets one sentence! And that was the hardest. Level. Of. The. Game!]
Doc didn’t point out that the last part was not exactly a reasonable charge; he kept walking through the projection reel that led to Mickeyjunk Mountain. (Now that they were catching up to the story, they were avoiding portals to put off the fast forward syndrome as long as possible.) Doc had been reading the Words as well (with difficulty, considering he wasn’t yet good at doing so without glasses) and had questions of his own.
“Sometimes, when Millie and Mickey fight an important character, it says they 'redeem' it. What does that mean?”
[It’s the whole Paint vs. Thinner thing in the game,] Vania explained. [Mickey can use either one to solve puzzles and fight enemies. The Thinner offers a quick and dirty solution to problems, to escape from the Wasteland faster. Using Paint is usually a lot more complicated and time-consuming, but it makes life better for the resident Wastelanders. When a boss character gets redeemed with Paint, instead of destroyed by Thinner, they put their energy into fixing things up and improving the world.]
“So it’s sort of a right vs. wrong choice for the player to make?”
[Exactly. And we’re not charging for any of the ones in this fic, because they’re all legit decisions for Mickey to make in canon.]
The agents reached the projector that marked the end of the transition cartoon. [This is it. Time to get back in the action. Ready?]
Doc nodded, and jumped into the screen, followed by Vania. On the other side, they were standing at the base of the mountain, surrounded by the clutter of retired merchandise that gave the mountain its name.
[Looks like we haven’t caught up to the scene changes yet, so we’d better stick to hiking for now.]
Doc gazed up at the peak high above them. “Wonderful,” he said, trudging forward. “And I can’t even read.”
Vania laughed. [Since when do you read on missions?]
“The point is I COULD be!” Doc yelled, marching stiffly ahead with his fists clenched at his sides.
Vania paused, then hurried to catch up, and continued walking silently beside him, her gaze on the ground.
Both agents were panting—Doc much worse, although Vania didn’t comment on it this time—once they reached the mountain’s snowy summit, where Millie and Mickey were battling the piece of the Shadow Blot that had kidnapped them in the beginning of the story. They were fighting the blot, but Oswald and Olsen put in that they fought only the drippings.
Vania tilted her head sideways. [Olsen? I don’t remember any Olsen. In the game or this fic.]
“Millie is different now, too,” added Doc. The Mary Sue’s age was no longer fluctuating. The confused agents started reading backwards through the Words; meanwhile, Oswald argued with Mickey near the giant bottle that contained the true Shadow Blot.
Reading back through the scene in Yen Sid’s tower, the agents came across the sentence, “Millie was a young 10-year girl with long black hair as she wore a red-violet translucent blouse and a long blue skirt that reached the floor.”
“Translucent? Oh no!” Doc clamped a hand over his eyes and frowned. “But it didn’t say that before, did it?”
During the scene at Dark Beauty Castle, “What they didn't know is that someone watching them in amazement a rabbit, Oswald the lucky rabbit and a human boy named Olsen.”
[And there’s Olsen! That’s weird. I could have sworn I saw something . . . something near us. It was right at that moment, when that sentence took place!]
“Probably not a coincidence. Who is Olsen, though?”
[Here, back where they first talked to Oswald: “They said that before Mickey or Millie were made; Oswald was the first to be a star and the first to be forgotten which caused Oswald to be envious of Mickey's popularity as Olsen was popular in wizardry until Millie came in as he gain envy on Millie's popularity.”]
“So . . . Olsen is a counterpart to Millie? A human hanging out in the Wasteland with Oswald?”
[Yeah . . . and “popular in wizardry?” The Cartoon Wasteland is supposed to be for cartoon characters to retire, not random wizards. Besides, I thought Millie was still in wizard training, or whatever. How could she have become more famous?]
“Unless it means he was a famous wizard character? And Millie started playing the role of wizards in cartoons, and took over his roles?”
Vania shook her head. [That’s still completely missing the point of the game. Epic Mickey runs on bringing back old characters the player had forgotten or ignored. You can’t just throw some OC into the Wasteland and expect the audience to accept him as a famous character! Same goes for Millie.] Vania’s face went blank. [I’m still just so confused. I know I saw something back at that early scene, where Olsen has suddenly shown up. And I’m sure these sentences are written differently than before.]
“Wait a minute!” Doc said while watching Olsen and Oswald stamp up and down on the bottle’s cork in frustration. “This is a fanfiction. If the author edited the story while we were still in it . . .”
Vania’s eyes widened. [Then anything could have been changed! And we didn’t notice, because we weren’t watching the action when the author hit submit!]
The pressure from Olsen and Oswald finally made the cork crumble apart, releasing the fully-powered Shadow Blot from the jar.
“At least Olsen is made to be equally culpable for this mistake.”
The true blot was free, and grabbed Oswald, Olsen, and Gus. The blot offered their freedom for Mickey's heart. Instead of Mickey's heart it took, it was Millie's heart. Since all this was her fault she pushed Mickey away and let the blot take hers.
[Um, no. It is very much Mickey’s fault; he played with the magic brush, even when Millie warned him not to. The original game shows that Mickey still would have created the Blot whether Millie had been around or not.]
But her heart made her live, as soon as the blot had her heart, Millie gasped for air as she fell and dropped her paintbrush in front of Mickey; Gus Olsen, and Oswald were free, they ran to Millie's side as she coughed hard.
"Mickey, you have to go into the blot and find my heart, please. You can do this without me.”
“Of course he can! That’s the whole problem here. You’ve tossed yourself into the story where an extra character wasn’t needed, and promptly failed to add anything of value beyond trifles.”
The Blot then grabbed Millie and sucked her up. Mickey grabbed her brush, and the canons headed for the Moonliner Rocket in Tomorrow City, which they planned to fly into the Blot to save Millie.
[Okay, this is something I didn’t understand in the game,] said Vania. [The Blot has Mickey’s Heart—Millie’s in this case—which he needed to leave the Wasteland. That was the whole point in dragging Mickey into the Wasteland in the first place: get his Heart, and use it to escape. He now has a Heart. Does he leave? Nope! He goes back to where he left off before Oswald and Ortensia locked him up—attacking the Wasteland.]
Doc shrugged. “Spite? Actually, isn’t he made out of Paint? Sucking all the Paint out of the world could make him stronger once he actually leaves.”
[That’s true. Although, now I’m wondering why it kidnapped both Mickey and Millie in this fic. It only needs one Heart to leave . . .]
After more bouncing around the world due to the continued minimal descriptions of events, the agents finally came to a stop in the fireworks control room in a tower of Dark Beauty Castle, where Olsen, Oswald, Mickey and Gus were gathered. Olsen wondered about the feeling inside whenever he talks only about Millie. He realized that he was in love with Millie and knows that Mickey was the same as her.
Vania clapped her hands against her cheeks. [Oh, wow! He’s the love interest! I never would have guessed!]
“I’m just going to assume that last sentence isn’t supposed to imply Olsen is also in love with Mickey.”
[Or that Mickey is love with Millie. Ew.]
"Ew."
Olsen turned his head slightly and looked at the agents. He gave a weak smile and waved to them. “I’m not sure either, honestly.” Caught off guard, the agents stared dumbly and waved back.
Then the blot found the control room and grabbed Oswald, Olsen, and Gus. All three were panicking, but Olsen was specifically looking at the agents, calling to them for help. “Hey, you guys! Do something!”
“This is not good. He knows we’re here.”
[Well, we are pretty close to the end of the game. We should probably get around to charging them soon anyway.]
“Already?” Doc asked, rolling his eyes. "Yeah, it was such a short fic."
Vania grimaced. [I wasn't expecting so much time compression. It does feel like it's dragged on more than a chapter, doesn't it?]
Mickey needed someone to use the second brush. Mickey combined his brush and Millie's to become a new brush and ran into the heart.
“That doesn’t really follow from his train of thought just now. Also—” Doc never had the chance to finish as the fic yanked them after Mickey, to the insides of the Blot. The Shadow Blot’s interior was—well, dark and inky, with black tendrils snaking across every surface. Millie’s Heart and body were wrapped up by tendrils in separate locations.
She was tied up looking weak, as her dress was ripped and torn; her hair was crazy and messy.
Millie’s hair gibbered nonsense and was throwing Twinkie wrappers all over.
While Mickey began working to free Millie and her heart, both agents felt a tug on their sleeves. Turning around, they discovered Olsen standing right behind them, looking scared and a bit sheepish.
[Hi there,] said Vania, forcing a grin and tightening the grip slightly on her bat.
“Hi,” said the boy. “I’m really, really sorry about this! I’m not too sure about what’s going on . . .”
“What do you mean, you don’t know? You’re with Millie, aren’t you?”
Olsen blushed. “Well, I wasn’t always. I was supposed to be in the story, but I was only written in two sentences. Then they got deleted, and I was just kind of . . . around. But not really . . . there? I saw you guys when you were at the part where I had first gotten named, but I couldn’t do anything to get your attention.” The boy looked around. “Then, the story must have changed, because suddenly, it was like I had been there along! And I remember doing all kinds of stuff, even though I know I wasn’t there.”
Doc turned to Vania. “How can this be?”
Vania shrugged slightly. [He’s an unused character who got edited out of the final story. A lot of the Wasteland’s residents wound up here for the same reason, and they’re all aware of it. Olsen may be a badfic character, but he fits into the meta nature of this universe pretty well.] She met Olsen’s look. [Kid, I have some bad news about you and your friend Millie.]
“I know,” said Olsen. “You’re trying to get rid of us. Just give me a chance to talk to Millie, OK?”
“Why bother?” Doc brandished his pole. “She’s a Mary Sue. It’s not like you can talk her out of being what she is.”
[Let’s give the kid a chance, Doc.]
Doc glared at Vania. “You . . . I don’t get you, Vania.” He turned away and started towards the characters. Vania watched her partner for a moment, then looked back at Olsen.
[Come on, Olsen. You’re with us now.] The two followed after Doc.
Millie's heart and body were set free. As her heart and body fell, the heart landed on Oswald's hand, as Millie landed on Olsen.
Being a little more aware of what was going on, Olsen managed to catch Millie as she fell, rather than get crushed by her.
Oswald thought of the chance he could be free as Olsen tried to wake up Millie. But Oswald knew this wasn't Mickey's heart, it was Millie's and she needed to get home.
[Again, Oswald makes the right choice here in the original canon, without Millie being around to influence him.]
Oswald handed it to Olsen who gave it to Mickey as he walked to Millie and let it fall to Millie's chest.
Olsen was just as confused by this game of “heart potato” as the agents, considering Millie was already right next to him, but followed along with the fic’s words anyway.
Pulse reentered her body as Millie's eyes fluttered open when she saw her friends. Mickey handed Millie her brush back, but Doc grabbed it away from him before Millie had a chance to take it. “I don’t know when or how you took these apart again, but I’m glad we don’t have to worry about a double magic brush now.”
Oswald and Mickey gasped and staggered back from the toons who had suddenly appeared in the Shadow Blot’s gut. Gus asked, “Who are you two?”
[Gus has a British accent. Who would have thought?]
“They must be working for the Blot!” Oswald said. He removed an ear and pointed it at Doc like a fencing sabre. “Come on! You want a piece of me? I’ll let you have it!”
Doc ignored the rabbit. “What do we do with this?” he asked Vania, raising the copy brush.
[Keep it, dude! That's some proper, rare swag for bartering, right there!] She opened another portal to their RC, and Doc heaved the paintbrush through.
Millie sat up, looking longingly after the brush. “Olsen, who are these people?”
“They’ve been watching us. They saw when I got added to the story. They’re here to fix it!"
“Story?” asked Mickey. “Uh, what do you mean by that?”
Millie frowned and lowered her eyes. “But . . . this is supposed to be my story.”
“Well, it isn’t," said Doc. "It’s Mickey and Oswald’s story.”
“Hey!”
Doc rolled his eyes. “Fine. Oswald and Mickey’s story.”
“Millie,” Olsen reasoned, “we’ve been playing around here for a long time. But we don’t really belong around here, right? I think we should go and let stuff get back to normal now.”
Millie sighed without looking up. “It’s just . . . it’s such a cool story. I wanted to be part of it. And part of Mickey’s life, you know?”
[. . . Yeah. I know what you mean.] Vania leaned down and looked Millie in the eyes. [But the truth is, this isn’t your story, or your world. We have to make you leave now.] She looked at Doc for a second, then turned back to the girl. [You and Olsen can come with us.]
“What?” asked Doc. “She’s a Sue! We can’t take her to Headquarters!”
Vania’s expression turned sour as she rounded on Doc. [Remember what I said before, about the Paint and the Thinner?]
Doc raised an eyebrow. “We’re not in a game, Vania! I mean, we are, but the PPC isn’t a game! And I’m tired of you putting us in danger today! We can’t trust someone from a badfic.”
Vania blinked and leaned back a bit. [Danger?] She shook her head and pressed her point. [What about Miss MacKinnon and Who?]
“They weren’t the same thing! They weren't the actual sources of those badfics. Millie is a Mary Sue! Olsen probably is, too!”
[Doc, look around! Canon is mostly unchanged, and everyone in the Wasteland is close to being in character. The Sue isn’t the problem this time. It’s just the writing that’s bad, those temporal distortions . . . Seriously, Millie, was this written from a walkthrough?]
Millie’s eyes flicked from side to side.
Vania sighed. [Let’s just get the kids back to HQ, all right?]
Doc scowled. “Not a chance!”
“Either way,” Millie interrupted, clutching her hands to the center of her chest, “there’s something I need to do first, in Yen Sid’s tower.”
[What?] asked Vania.
Yen Sid stood looking down into the model of Wasteland, quite confused by the goings-on below and fearful of his daughter’s safety. While watching the progress of Millie and the intruder across the Wasteland, he had also observed some of Oswald’s Animatronic friends getting carted out of OsTown by two mysterious toons. He had lost sight of the whole lot once Mickey had jumped into the Shadow Blot.
Yen Sid was so intent on watching the Shadow Blot rampage across the model, he didn’t hear the portal open behind him. He only turned when a box of text appeared in the bottom of his vision.
[Greetings, Master Yen Sid!] Vania winced and corrected herself. [Sorry. You’re not a Keyblade Master in this continuum. Uh, anyway—] She was cut short by Yen Sid standing to his full height and glaring down at her.
His glare vanished when he saw one of the people the toon woman had brought with her. “Millie! You have escaped. It is so good to see you again, my dear.” Millie ran to him and gave the old wizard a hug.
Yen Sid raised his eyes—and his amazingly thick eyebrows—and looked at Vania. “It would seem you have returned my daughter to me, young woman. You have my thanks for that. However, I must ask how you came to discover my tower.” He looked over the group’s shoulders to the shimmering portal behind them.
[Well, it isn’t quite that simple . . . Millie?]
“Right.” The little girl sucked in a big breath, then puffed out her chest and strained. After a moment, her recently returned Heart pulsed out of her chest, glowing bright red. Yen Sid’s eyebrows raised even further, but before he could speak, the Heart dove into his own chest. He staggered back against the table, clutching at the front of his robes.
“I’m sorry, father! But, well, you aren’t really my father at all. And I needed a Heart to be like Mickey and fit in.”
[Yeah, but Millie couldn’t have that kind of Heart. A Heart comes from having fans who love watching your work, but Millie never had that.] Vania walked over and picked up the spell book that had shown knowledge of the Shadow Blot prior to its creation. Handing it to Doc, she continued. [You can write a backstory, but you can’t make up fans in the real world. The only way to get a Heart . . .]
“Was to take one from a character who was already famous. I’m sorry, fa—Yen Sid.”
“Yes,” said the old man. “I understand now what has happened. My true memories are returning.” He looked at Millie. “That is powerful magic you wield, young lady. Especially if it can reach across worlds.” He crossed his arms over his chest and moved to stand over the Wasteland model, where fireworks were now exploding into the air. “Taking care of another world, even one with fictional inhabitants, is still a very great responsibility, and should not be taken lightly.”
“Well said, sir,” said Doc, who had shoved the spell book into a large pocket in a leg of his shorts. He was very pointedly avoiding looking at Vania. “Messing around with unfamiliar characters can be dangerous.”
Vania pursed her lips, but said, [We need to get out of here before Mickey comes out. Millie, Olsen? Turn around and close your eyes.] After the children had done so, Vania and Doc put sunglasses over their own eyes.
Vweeyoom!
[Yen Sid, you are a wizard who watches over a world for the forgotten. You do not have a daughter—or a wife, for that matter—and have never met anyone else currently standing in this room. Mickey did not have a human toon accompany him through the Cartoon Wasteland, and there hasn’t been another human toon hanging around with Oswald there. When we leave, you will forget this happened, and go back to watching the model.]
After the uncanonical characters had walked back through the portal, Yen Sid turned back to see Mickey Mouse come hurtling up through the skies of the model, fresh from the defeat of the Shadow Blot. Yen Sid caught the troublemaker with one hand. Mickey smiled timidly, then handed over the magic paintbrush after seeing the look on the sorcerer’s face.
In an alleyway in OsTown, Vania took out Doc’s clipboard and cleared her throat: [*Ahem* Now, we need to make this all official-like, before we go back to Headquarters.]
[Millie, aka Milline. You are hereby charged with being a family member of a canon character, giving yourself special powers and a special weapon, which was a copy of a one-of-a-kind weapon, tagging along with the game’s plot, with skipping over scenes that didn’t interest you, and thereby causing an extremely dangerous example of fast-forward syndrome.] Vania decided not to mention endangering PPC agents and minis, both to avoid making Doc any angrier as well as for Millie’s sake. Millie was already hanging her head, and Olsen had his arm around her shoulders. [You are also charged with stealing the Heart from a canon character and creating numerous minis. Olsen, you are charged with aiding and abetting a Mary Sue.]
Vania crumpled up the charge list with both hands. [On the other hand, you are also responsible . . . for making use of some clever details in your story, and of editing it to make improvements and expand the plot.] She smiled. [Too bad there’s no OFU for Epic Mickey. You’ll make a fine writer someday, Millie. For now, I think you two should stick around the Nursery and help out there for a while. Right Doc?]
Doc didn’t answer right away, and refused to turn to look at the others. Finally, he said, “I guess. Vania’s the experienced agent. I’m sure she knows what she’s doing.” There was a dullness to his voice.
[I’m not saying every Mary Sue can be reformed,] Vania said. [But when they can be, it’s better to make new friends.] She opened a portal back to PPC HQ.
As soon as Vania was on the HQ side of the portal, she tried singing, which only produced text boxes surrounded by music notes. [♪Welcome back, to that same old place that you laughed about♪ Well, the dreams aren’t all that’s remained. My voice is still turned around!]
“I thought the whole box thing was kind of weird,” said Millie.
“I was afraid to ask!” said Olsen.
“Why is the floor sticky?” asked Doc. Looking down at his feet, he saw puddles of dark ink all over the generic surface. Lifting his face, he saw the cause: all the mini-Spatters, wandering the RC in their various costumes. Behind them, his bookshelf was also covered in ink.
Vania barely caught Doc before he could finish throwing himself bodily at the crowd of minis.
“IT RUINS THE PRECIOUS!”
Author's Note: The Cavalier in White belongs to Marcia Muller. The GLaDOS quote comes from Portal and belongs to Kim Swift and Valve Corporation. The lyrics from "Welcome Back" belong to John Sebastian.
The Sorcerer's Apprentice was written by Paul Dukas and is in the public domain. The remix of it, as well as "OsTown Thinner 1," were composed by James Dooley and belong to Junction Point Studios and Disney Interactive Studios.