Chapter Text
== FORTE-VERSE ==
Step Two of Polly's plan involved the very Rest Stop of which got stopped as soon as it was discovered along the highway. The Rest Stop did not have a hotel inside, but it contained a multitude of other necessities.
The first necessity Forte saw had been a bulletin board, with locations already mapped out and a nearby telephone booth in the event of an emergency. The second had been to a picnic table, the likes of which Scott and Polly both gravitated towards after parking the car right across from it. Morty, Leonard, and Vicky all sat with them, watching Forte's distant movements carefully. They looked to be engaged in an intense conversation, which stopped dead in its tracks upon the unexpected arrival of Puck.
"...Kudos to stopping a Kaiju's rampage," Puck's eyes darted in the direction of Leonard and Vicky, his voice tense and awkward. The Fairy then looked around, waving at the monsters who greeted him, and he flew over to where Momo and Forte sat.
"Ah, Forte, I thought you might've had a hand in this..." Puck closed his eyes, and took a deep breath.
Momo put up a defensive posture, sandwiching herself between Puck and Forte to protect the latter, "What do you want this time, Puck?"
Puck backed away a bit, "Well, honestly, having more than one mortal client is not something I expected, but Kyu shirking clients across all of Monstropolis and the surrounding area is..."
Forte took out the Lailani Omni-stone, "When I have all the Fairy Wings, I can kill her for you." Puck's eyes affixed themselves to it, as he saw the small Heads-Up-Display (HUD) with a black Fairy Wing icon and the number of already-collected wings: 2.
Puck shook his head, "D-don't. Venus would have my hide. With King Oberon and Queen Titania dead, there is only one Seelie Court person who my people will answer to now."
Forte sneered, "Sounds like you lot have got buyer's remorse, for keeping me around for so long." Fifteen years. I was moulded into a weapon to streamline Seelie politics for fifteen years. And you jackasses didn't think Venus would somehow keep a status quo in which everyone except her suffers?!
"We didn't buy you," Puck corrected, "You simply became a 'red case-'"
"What defines a 'red case' to you?" Forte queried, and then pointed at Leonard, "That one is on some wack-ass 'soul search' which we interrupted by nearly killing him on the road." The Mystic Theurge then pointed at Vicky, "And I have a temporary truce with the Stitched Class President, on account of Kyu having ripped her off."
Puck nodded, "I read their files. I know Kyu failed the Colour Crew a few years back. In spite of her failure, the other Colour Crew members have been majorly successful at getting dates at Camp Spooky. Vicky is simply the odd one out."
Their conversation halted abruptly, when a cadre of Bronze Dragons could be observed from the sky above, encircling the Rest Stop all the mortals (and Puck) had inhabited.
"This is your only warning," one Bronze Dragon bellowed in baritone, "Abandon your 'Engage the Venus Motherf*cker' Quest, or we will intervene. You cannot be allowed to kill her. Your universe is already on thin ice, for straying from the True Timeline. We can, and will, erase you from existence, Snow 'Dark Lord Forte' Henderson."
Forte looked with incredulity at Puck, "Did you send some people to pretend to be Bronze Dragons to dissuade me from going after one of my two archenemies?"
Puck looked up at the sky, "I wish I thought of that idea. No, these are real Dragons, and they're also real assholes."
"You status quo-obsessed freaks are a little late to the party, by about fifteen f*cking years." Forte shouted back, as he saw the Bronze Dragons close in on everyone. "Besides, I already know there's a bunch of Paradox guys who you probably would rather be after instead. So, why aren't you bothering them?!"
A different Bronze Dragon answered, "Ancient Prophet and Iron Demon have been helping us resolve continuity snarls across other timelines, usually by accident. However, a few instances have put us into the same side. You may yet be one of those instances, if you keep this foul ambition up."
"You guys really want Venus alive," Momo piped up, "But a lot of things are also her fault."
"The atrocities many of The Pantheon commit are natural to the True Timeline, for Heroes are born out of them. Heroes who go on to forge themselves along it. None of you are such Heroes," a third Bronze Dragon spoke with condescension in their voice.
Forte then tilted his head, "Pantheon? You mean these Arch-Mages who LARP as immortal deities convene with each other on the reg?"
Puck shuddered with fear, "U-um..." He looked at both Momo and Forte, who seemed expectant for a concrete answer. After a while, he yielded and gave them one, "Yes."
-
Finn temporarily escaped from being under Mr. Pappas' back-breaking throne, and found himself at a Bus Stop. While being a personal assistant would otherwise have been considered a dream job, where one would actively improve their CEO of choice by optimizing their everything for them, all the Merfolk saw himself doing while at AwfulCorp had been lifting up Mr. Pappas' throne. When overlooking different job advertisem*nts online, Finn saw an opening arise for a better boss. After checking the background of the better boss, he spruced up his resume, got dressed in something fancier than his usual attire, and took at least a week of time off so he could make it to the interview over by The City of Vice.
The noise of everything around him at his Rest Stop of choice made him stop by and look around. He saw Bronze Dragons in the sky, heading in his general direction. He looked around, and realized he got pulled into the gravity of one of Mr. Pappas' archenemies: "Forte," he and others in the office called the one-eyed Human who had turned out to be more of a nightmare than anyone would have guessed. At first, Mr. Pappas still considered three other Humans to be more worthy adversaries than "Forte," but then things with the white-haired spell-caster kept escalating whereas the Worthier Opponents gradually faded from the Monsterican limelight.
"..." Finn counted two-dozen Bronze Dragons descending from the sky to confront the Human who seemed intent on taunting them. He looked around, and saw this Human had a posse who looked eager to get into a fight, including with a Fairy. All the stories of Fairies from Abovewater had the Merfolk remember they were basically employed as similar personal assistants, but not exclusively to those who were filthy rich enough to keep a personal assistant position open. Finn did not recognize this Fairy, but he met many who were like him during what most of Monstropolis broadly referred to as "the Golden Song Incident."
Finn also did a headcount of Forte's posse. With Puck, there had been a net total of eight people thus far. Finn looked worried for them, and turned to a "Noodles Gift Shop" set up to his left. Even if he and Noodles intervened against the Bronze Dragons, this would only total about ten people versus twenty-four mature Dragons, for which Finn knew one of them could single-handedly wipe out an entire Merkingdom army if they felt the impulse. The Merfolk also saw Forte's first-and-a-half-in-command, Momo, approach Noodles.
"Hey, Momo begrudgingly needs your help," the cat-girl sheepishly declared, "Do you have 'That Thingie' on you?"
Noodles' tentacles immediately rifled through underneath the booth, but came up with items which were not the one Momo wanted, "Nope; sorry. I think I left it in a different time-loop."
A different time-loop...
Finn wondered why the bus he waited for had not arrived, despite it being well over four hours since he sat down. At least he proudly got comfortable in the seat he sat down, having made sure to posture check every now and then. Even he could hear the Bronze Dragons rant about "The True Timeline" or whatever; he did not understand their ranting, but he heard their draconic bellows. Perhaps Momo sought "That Thingie" as a way to ward off the Bronze Dragonflight, but Finn had no idea what "That Thingie" even was. Before he could approach Momo one-on-one to ask, she darted back to Forte's side, with no sign of her enthusiasm having dwindled from being bereft of a seemingly-important item.
Then, one of the Dragons aimed a breath of sand at the pink convertible which had been the Posse's vehicle of choice. The vehicle started getting damaged, until it eventually blew up.
"Know your end of the Blood Feud is not the only end we must peacefully conduct," a fourth Bronze Dragon bellowed, as they returned to flying back up in the sky, "We journey now to Sky Garden, to talk some sense into Venus. She is evil, but she is a NECESSARY evil for what's to come. As are you." They then flew off into the distance, satisfied with what they perceived to be a road block into the City of Vice journey.
Once the Bronze Dragons were out of sight, Puck turned to Forte, "Now what?"
Momo whistled using her thumb and pointer finger. Then, an un-identified flying object de-cloaked from behind all of the Rest Stop's fixtures. All parties turned to face it, as Fridge emerged from the front door and welcomed all inside. Before Finn could get inside, however, Snow "Forte" Henderson stopped to offer a hand-shake to the Mer-man.
"I don't believe we've met. Not formally, at least," Forte smiled, "It is good to see you are free from Mr. Pappas?"
"Not entirely," Finn confessed in resignation, "I..."
"Come in, come in. You were eyewitness to these reactionary Dragons' garbage, same as all of us," Forte bowed graciously, "I am Snow 'Forte' Henderson."
The spaceship AI informed Forte of an outside situation he and the other Terrans could not have possibly known, "An L-Gate has been opened. And, much to my dismay, the Ladu Federation accidentally let loose an army of synthetic nanites far more advanced than our XT-489 common enemy..."
Forte and Momo looked at each other, and nodded. Momo then spoke, "Momo presumes you, Niadra, want us to-?"
Niadra continued, "This army of cybernetics is far more powerful than even the Ladu Federation's most powerful fleet, by several multiplication factors. No; we are to still gather more forces, possibly even build our own starships, if we are to have anything to do with stopping what my home species considers 'The Gray Tempest.'"
Forte nodded, "We should at least spread the information to-"
"No," Niadra interrupted the Human, "I've been conducting research of my own accord, while I observed you and your friends on your 'Human Road Trip.' This research involved reading some quite terrible Craig Alanson novels, of which I realized too late were fiction when the one you call 'Fridge' had to talk me out of putting 'Skippy the Magnificent' on a list to be killed on sight."
"Yeah, we need to get you a better set of books to read while you're bored," Vicky lamented, "I can look up some, if we can find a Barnes & Noble for our next destination? Or a Books-A-Million!"
Niadra then put up a screen, which showcased the stats picked up from recruiting Finn as a Hitch-Hiker (+6 PARAGON, +4 SHROUD):
PARAGON - 24
SHROUD - 16
"WAAAGH!" - 14
CREDITS - 6
RENEGADE - 10
CONSTITUTION - 5
"I do not know if a Bookstore is among the Locations possible on your 'Human Road Trip' video-game. I know some approximates, and can guide you," Niadra spoke, her words devoid of tact, "I remember from hearing out of a different AI's position, of a place where you might also be able to get a vehicle: a Used-Car Dealership."
Forte groaned, "Ugh, a used car dealership?!" He then shook his head, "If we took a used car, we would need to be sure the car's not given to us in disrepair, or left with little mileage left before it dies. Those sound like extraneous variables, in a Quest which appears to have changed from 'Engage the Venus Motherf*cker' to 'Engage the Gray Tempest Motherf*cker.'" He then pondered, "Let me guess, they're stronger than either the Simparan Ecclesiarchy or XT-489 Eliminator forces."
Niadra blurted out a "Correct," while otherwise not saying much further.
Forte then looked at Finn, "Sorry you had to be a part of all this..."
Finn smiled calmly, "It's all good. While you and the AI were talking, I managed to get a bit of the run-down on your guys' plans to go to Monster Mash."
Good, so my allies talk amongst each other while I'm distracted. Just like last time. Forte nodded slowly, "...Good. Then, you might be able to give us some insight as to a future location, then?"
