Super Otaku Brawl Gaiden (Round 1: Whispering Rock Psychic Summer Camp)

The Copycat watched with envy as his friend the Plagiarist came up with what was almost an original idea. He could never be so creative; it wasn't fair. Still, even if he couldn't be the first to have an idea, he could be the first to set it into motion. He rushed to gather some of his favorite characters and revealed himself to them in his infinitely black realm, one just like every other grandmaster had.

"Greetings, heroes, villains, and ancillary characters! You've probably wondered why I've gathered you here today. And where it is I've gathered you, I guess. Well, fear not, for all will be explained!"

"I'm what some of you might recognize as a god, and others as a primal force of creation and destruction. You may all think of me simply as a grandmaster; the point is, I'm waaay more powerful than any of you, as evidenced by bringing you here and keeping you all restrained, so you have to do what I say! And what I say is this: you'll all be fighting to the death until only one of you remains. The winner will get... something, I'll figure it out when that happens. It'll be great, though! Also, I'll obliterate you in body, soul, and memory if you don't."

What had previously been a completely obscured expanse of nothing was suddenly lit by eight pillars of light, none of them bothered by the fact that they had no source and nothing to define their boundaries. Within each was a being; their sizes and shapes varied widely.

"So now that that's settled, let me show you who all you'll be fighting. First up is Jack Spicer, boy genius! He's a master of robotics and probably whatever other sciences are convenient, and also he has a bunch of magic trinkets that let him do all sorts of crazy things. Watch out for him! Or give him a noogie and take his artifacts, it's really up to you."

"Next is the man known only as The Clown. Hired as an entertainer, but anything but entertaining, there is no limit to the havoc he can cause with the simplest of objects. Tales and legends are filled with stories of the destruction and woe that follow him and those like him. Plus, he's pretty creepy-looking."

"This enormous monster is Rayquaza! Or a rayquaza, I guess. Who cares. It has mystical powers over the weather, plus the potential for any amount of other weird abilities. Also, it's a huge flying dragon. I've nicknamed this one Romano."

"The giant fighting robot you see here is Starscream, an ex-scientist, current-lieutenant, and always-megalomaniac. In addition to being enormous and robotic, he has fancy ray guns and can turn into a jet-plane. He may also be functionally immortal. Have fun with that!"

"Shadow here is... Well, he was genetically engineered to be the ultimate life form (tee em), and the amount of things he can do and all the things he's done are just... just ridiculous. Figure him out yourselves."

"Willy Wonka here is a chocolatier. He has a cane. He loves children! His seemingly-magic factory and candies are beloved throughout the world, despite the fact that the recipes may or may not contain people or crude euphemisms for genitals. He's weird."

"It ain't easy being green, as our next contestant will tell you. Prejudice, fear, and foul odors follow Shrek the Ogre wherever he goes, and only part of that is probably because he lives in a swamp. Or maybe he lives in the swamp because of those things, it's a real chicken-egg scenario. Either way, he can probably punch your head clean off."

"And to fill the battle's quota of Sheer Manliness, meet Wolfgang! He may look buff and tough, but don't be fooled: he's even buffer and tougher than he seems. Unless, of course, he gets peckish. He's not himself when he's hungry; he should have grabbed a Snickers."

"Last, but certainly not least, the great Charles Barkley! He's not only the wielder of the forbidden Chaos Dunk, but a master of all manner of jams. Woe betide anyone who gets between this man and a game of b-ball."

The lights went out again. The voice from seemingly nowhere paused for a few moments, then continued.

"Okay, I've figured out where you'll be fighting. Well, where you'll be fighting at first. Every time one of you dies, I'll move the survivors to a new and exciting world, just to keep things interesting. Some of you may even recognize a couple of these places, if you live to see them! For now, though, welcome to Whispering Rock Psychic Summer Camp."

From the darkness a shape appeared and expanded until it replaced the void entirely. It was a beautiful place, full of trees and wildlife and rustic cabins. It was peaceful, too, or seemed so until a squirrel spontaneously combusted and was set upon by a dead-eyed cougar.

"This place is a training facility for the youngest, brightest, psychicest minds the country has to offer. Built over an enormous deposit of psitanium ore, it has a long and storied history of madness, mutation, and marshmallow-roasting. Have fun exploring it, and the lake it sits on, and even the mostly-abandoned asylum nearby! Just don't try to escape, because I've surrounded the borders with an unmatter barrier. You'll know when you've gone too far when you dissolve into nothingness."

The abductees suddenly found themselves scattered throughout the camp. It was a jarring experience, going from existence to nothingness back to a different existence, and it took several seconds for most to regather their senses. In that time, they heard one last line from their captor.

"Have fun, and remember: I'll destroy you if you don't!"

SpoilerShow

Has anybody here not played Psychonauts? Shame on you. Click around here and educate yourselves. What time of year is it? Is camp in session? Is anyone there? Do I have to do everything for you people? That's all up to you.

Happy plagiarism!

"That did not sound like the tall man. Maybe... comrade?"
Wolfgang picked himself up off of the ground. It appeared the teleportation... potato... thing did what it was supposed to. He had a few of his things, but not many. More important was where he was now. Some kind of forest, a river running through it, and some fences and bridges and the like. Somebody built things here. Maybe they'll be friendly!
Oh, and those others! The man said they would be fighting, but Wolfgang trusted him about the same as he trusted Maxwell. Maybe they could be friends! Like pigs!

Breaking a few sticks off of some nearby tree, Wolfgang set out to look for some sharp rocks. First thing to do when confronted with a new world, of course, is to gather necessary supplies. He was not having much luck finding what he was looking for, but eventually ran across something... similar enough. Strange purple pointed rocks with weird designs. There were a few of them just lying around. Eh, they would do. Quickly, the mighty man combined a few of the stones with the sticks to make an axe.

"Feels like axe. Looks like axe, though more purple. Swings like axe!"
Wolfgang gave the Psitanium Axe a test swing near a tree, and without even touching it, a large notch was placed in the bark.
"Is... ghost axe?"
A few extra swings through the air, and the tree was felled. Looking back and forth between the axe and the tree, Wolfgang realized the difference between the axe he made and the ones he usually made.
"I need more purple stone."

SpoilerShow

Oh yeah, in case it isn't clear, Wolfgang is in the Wilderness area. If he looked much further he would probably find the GPC or Ranger Ford's shack.

Rayquaza, unlike some people, could acknowledge when it was pissed, and like any mature and reasonable god-monster it Flew in a direction that was where none of this shit was going down, probably demolishing something in the blast radius.

Not four fifths of a second later, it grew aware of a tingling more readily associated with accidentally breaching the atmosphere, except the tingling was on its brain and on a few other parts Rayquaza hadn't ever really thought too hard about the existence of.

Now confused and slightly less cognizant of just how pissed off it was, Rayquaza launched an indiscriminate mouthful of Hyper Beam upon the landscape below, before actually examining the damn thing and seeing a tower that might not completely suck as a place to recharge. It was no Sky Pillar, but whatever. Rayquaza had experience with battles - fleeting and squishy as those capsule-toting simians were, there were enough of them that you'd occasionally (very occasionally, mind you) end up having to tag along with one for a mortal lifespan. An occupational hazard, Kyogre had told the dragon, and that pissbaby had to deal with it more often than Rayquaza did. A nine-way battle with no trainers issuing commands? A bit weird, but yeah. Whatever. Go make camp somewhere out of the way so they can't mob you at once. Seemed sensible.

Gums still stinging with the aftertaste of 150 Base Power, The lord of the Sky Pillar set off for Thorney Towers.

SpoilerShow

This game has been sitting in my steam inventory for ages. Guess I have an excuse to take a peek at it now.

The Clown materialized on a rather murky green beach, covered in murky green sand under a murky green sky... damn this place was murky and green!

Intending to bring out some non-icky colors, the clown moved over to a canoe and started drawing all over it with a crayon until the entire bow looked like someone splashed a rainbow on it. He then pushed it into the the lake and set sail in hopes that some of the canoe's glimmering fun might leak into the dreary waters below.

Lake Gloom was going to need a lot of remodeling.

Candyland! A camp? A children's camp? It was almost too good to be true, Willy Wonka surmised. He had been so short of children lately. He had missed them so. It was just so difficult to have them visit, and now here was this! He had been brought to them! Of course, of course, there was the matter of perhaps certain death; Wonka worried not. He had faced far worse terrors in the hunt for the perfect sweets, hadn't he? Besides, all he had to do was escape once he had what he needed.

And on that note... the chocolatier rummaged through his pockets. Amidst the homemade catapult, the yo-yo, the trick fried-egg made of rubber, the salami, the tooth, the stinkbomb, the packet of itching-powder and the recipe for youth, lay a singularly ordinary cube of sugar. He held this aloft gingerly. It sparkled curiously in the daytime sun as he inserted it into a curious receptacle on top of his cane. There. One hundred percent sugar power.

Finally, he needed infrastructure. Even as the thought came, he looked round (like a square sweet) over the lake, and saw, er, "Romano" making a beeline for the ominous, creaking form of Thorney Towers. Perfect. A little hollowing out, and he would be ready for business...

"Damn, and that LARP Session was just getting good."

Shadow removed his beautifully crafted Sir Lancelot Helmet and put aside his Arondight replica sword and took out his Fake Chaos Emerald.

"It's a good thing that Tails gave me one of these after I saved the world, now... about the situation... Where am I?"

Shadow looked around, noting a large amount of suspended platforms and wires and one large machine at the center of the room, "It seems I'm in some sort of laboratory, I suppose some things never change."

Shadow did a quick run around of the lab, finding the ladder leading to the exit. "Hmmm, it seems that it's sealed from this side..." Shadow fingered his emerald, "Then it looks like there's only one way out, CHAOS CONTROL!"

Shadow exploded into a burst of energy, and disappeared from the lab...

"Hey old man-"

Chef Cruller didn't turn, he simply tutted to himself and flipped a quite thoroughly burned burger back onto its slightly less burned side. "Now what kind of a way is that to talk to your elders?"

"An accurate one." Jack snapped back snidely.

Chef Cruller chuckled to himself. "Well, what can this old-timer get for you, you little rapscallion?"

"Where's the nearest place I can get my hands on a bunch of machine parts and scrap metal?" Jack asked.

"Well now let me think." Ford paused thoughtfully while scratching his forehead with his spatula. "That would probably be Agent Nein's secret lab. You just head out of here, take a left and then follow the signs for the Secret Lab. You can't miss it."

There was a pause as Jack tried to determine whether or not the chef was being sarcastic. "You have signs pointing the way to a Secret Lab?" he asked incredulously.

"Sure do." Chef Cruller replied chipperly. "How would anyone find it otherwise?"

Of course, why didn't I think of that?

"Hey sonny, can I interest you in a burger?" Chef Cruller flipped the charred patty onto a bun and turned to offer it, only to find the kid had his hands full carrying the television from the TV room.

"I, um, hope you don't mind if I borrow this." Jack grinned sheepishly. "I need it for... a project...?"

"Alright, just make sure to put it back when you're done with it." Chef Cruller turned back to the grill, immediately throwing another burger onto the coals. When he turned back to the counter he found the overcooked burger still sitting there pristine, untouched. "Kids nowadays." He muttered to himself, as he threw it back on the grill. "Wouldn't know fine cuisine if it came along and gave them food poisoning."

Starscream flew circles in the air above Whistling Rock as if he thought he was in disguise.

He had suffered setbacks before, oh yes. No one could say he wasn't used to twists of fate overturning his careful plans--but THIS?! It was as if the universe had specifically decided that merely messing with him wasn't enough, it had to do it in the most ridiculous and demeaning way possible.

Throw him into another universe to fight a bunch of humans, the insects he thought he had seen the last of when he left Earth for good. They couldn't possibly challenge him, this 'battle' would be an embarrassment at best. Even that 'rayquaza' was just some overpowered wildlife. And all this at the behest of some loser with a god complex. Why didn't this ever happen to someone else, someone who deserved it?

Starscream was continuing in this vein of self-pity and considering razing this entire camp and calling it a day when something crackled over his radio frequency.

"-dentification."

"What?"

"Finally! This is Whispering Rock Psychic Summer Camp-"

"Yes, I know." Starscream sighed.

"-and I'm Coach Oleander! State your purpose and identification, or face psychic annihilation at the hands of my agents!"

"Hah. Well, Coach Oleander, I'm Starscream, head of the Seekers and future leader of the Decepticons, and I think I'm going to blow your petty camp to bits and then move on with my life."

"The enemy has declared hostile intent! Ready your psi-blasts and confusion grenades and prepare to FIRE!"

Starscream started to inform Oleander exactly how over his head he was when he was cut short by a psi-blast clipping his wing. While emitting some light across the visible spectrum, blasts of psychic energy don't show up on radar designed to detect physical objects. He was about to take evasive action when a confusion grenade hit him front and center.

Murmuring dazedly, he transformed into robot mode and immediately plummeted, colliding with forest in the most ungraceful manner imaginable.

"The target has fallen! His vehicle appears to be able to transform into some kind of giant robot. Surround his position immediately and attempt to detain the pilot for questioning! Go go go!"

Rayquaza coiled its ample length(? height? they're all just human abstractions anyway, not even they seem to know what they're talking about) about the asylum's highest tower, ignoring whoever was yelling somewhere in the interior. The dragon hadn't even made up its mind that it'd make this sad stack of concrete its perch, this was only window-shopping. No need to be unreasonable, Rayquaza was sure the two could talk things through.

A couple dull booms drifted back from across the lake, that big, metal, Lati-looking thing coming crashing down, like, well. A big, metal, Lati-looking thing of shoddy human construction. Like this tower! Not that Rayquaza could charitably call it that. Too short, and all the wrong materials to let a god-serpent perch without setting the whole thing creaking. Still. Winged things seemed the only fellow fighters who could realistically harm Rayquaza, so a bunch of terrestrials being able to take it down meant the godsnake had little to worry about.

Dr. Caligosto Loboto, meanwhile, could hear something on his roof. He was just about to bid Sheegor go outside and throw something at it, when the very large head of a very large snake drooped on down and stared pointedly into his laboratory.

He screamed. Rayquaza began with "excuse me." It sounded like GRAAAARARKRAAAAA. Loboto threw a turtle at the window- "no, ugh, stop-" RAAAAAARGRRRKRAAAA

Rayquaza considered busting the window open and physically demonstrating that it was only here to be an inconvenience, not a murderer, but its arms were about two meters away from the window as it stood, one was clutching its Life Orb while the other was clasped around a sturdy bit of drainage, and they were probably too short to reach in and non-lethally grab the idiot anyway.

"Look, forget it," Rayquaza roared, rolling its eyes and slithering back to the roof proper. "I'll be up here when you feel like being civil."

Evil Boy Genius Jack Spicer stepped out of the lodge into the warm night air. It was silent, kind of eerie out of here actually. Maybe, he considered, he didn't even need to go to this secret lab. He could probably make a passable robot out of what he found in the lodge and send that out into the creepy campgrounds instead. But such thoughts are quickly cast aside, the allure of a secret lab too much to resist. Jack adjusted his grip on the borrowed television as he went to activate his heli-pack. The blades extended and quickly whirred into motion, however with the extra weight of the TV Jack found he could only hover a couple of feet above the ground. But he was committed to this course of action now, and determined to make the best of it he floated lazily along the path.

He hadn't thought much about what the 'grandmaster' had told him to do, if only because he rarely thought anything that far through. The part that had stuck with him was the promise of something great for the winner. He thought it was bit rude spiriting him away in the middle of a showdown (and now who was going to stop those Xiaolin twerps from getting their hands on all the wu?) but if the prize was good enough he could beat up some of these other guys for a while. He had no problem with that.

"Wow is it just me or is it hot out here?" Jack mused to himself, and wished he had a hand free to loosen his jacket.

Behind him a hungry cougar stalked its noisy prey.

Charles Barkley wasn't particularly okay with this situation. When he first felt the pull of the Copycat's summons, he'd thought it was the B-Ball Dimension calling him home. But there was no Sweet Georgia Brown playing, and the bballjoules were all wrong. While the eternal darkness of the Copycat's dimension was probably better than suffocating in the vacuum of space, that didn't mean Barkley approved of whatever shit this Cat was pulling.

Barkley appeared in the middle of the campground parking lot, thoroughly annoyed.

"When's this god damn bonkers shit going to stop? Haven't I been through enough? Haven't I done enough?"

Noticing a basketball hoop set up on the near end the lot, he instinctively slammed down a dunk in order to keep his cool before turning towards the main lodge.

The smoldering wreckage of the streetlight-hoop behind him, Barkley took stock.

At least... at least Hoopz'll be alright. Now I just gotta find my way back to him.

If only I hadn't lost the Hell B-Ball and Shimmerglobe to the Chaos Dunk... But I've got this b-ball, and that'll have to be enough.

He set off for the nearby lodge, musing over whatever... 'competition' he'd been entered in.

It's almost like the Space Jam... like when I was trapped in some dimensional shit with my fellow B-Ballers.

Except instead of B-Ballers, he was in here with some punk-ass kid, a Clown, a Strongman, some sorta Diabetes tycoon, a snake-jet and jet-robot, Shrek the Duergar Muse and... one of them god damn animal people. As if he hadn't seen enough of those in the sewers.

Lost in thought, Barkley didn't notice the hollowed-out tree stump looming in front of him until it was too late.

----

"Welcome to the Whispering Rocket Underground Rapid Transit System. Would you like to go back to your private sanctuary now, Agent Cruller? Or... somewhere else?"

Wolfgang got up from leaning against the Science Machine. He could not claim to understand how it worked, but it certainly helped to give him ideas. After making a Psitanium Spear and Shovel with the help of the machine, he was completely out of the purple stone. Now, as far as he could tell, the shovel could dig very deep underground, and if there were more of them deeper down, he could get them with ease! He thought to the Divining Rod he built a while back. A stick, a gear, and some Nightmare Fuel. Presumably it was the fuel that attracted it to the strange things he was looking for, so if he were to replace that with the purple stones... he could create a detector for it!

He wasn't quite sure how this made sense, but a lot of things made more sense next to the Science Machine. In any case, he needed a gear. Exploring more he could potentially find some more purple stones, but he would need existing machinery for the gear. Spear in hand, he walked along the path to maybe find a Chess Biome? Would one of those be here? This place was a little bit different than the last worlds he was in.

"Hey, you should be careful with that thing. You could poke an eye out!"

The strongman was caught by surprise by the voice calling out to him. Looking around, he saw a tall man, raking leaves. Was he, too, in league with Maxwell? No, he seemed to care about preventing injury.

"Oh hold up there, you made that with the Psitanium Arrowheads lying around, didja? Very resourceful! You know, we could use a new Arts and Crafts Supervisor around here! But maybe you should consider more kid-friendly projects, like basket weaving."

Basket weaving? Reminded Wolfgang of summer camp. ...actually, didn't that man say something about that? Hm, in any case he seemed knowledgable, and not hostile.
"Yes. I am... looking for gear. You know where I find this?"
"Ah, you must be related to that Mikhail kid. You probably should have sent camping gear with him if that's what you're set to do!"
Wolfgang knew no 'Mikhail' child. This man seemed to misunderstand him. "No, no. Gear. Like... cog?"
"Oh, why didn't you say so? Well if you're lookin' for machinery, I bet Sasha Nein will be able to help you," Ranger Cruller pointed along the forest path, "Just head that way and you'll find some signs leading to his secret lab, where you can probably find him!"

Secret lab? Sounded like more science than Wolfgang was comfortable with, but if it would help him get more purple stones... Psitanium, the man said? In any case, it seemed like a good idea to head that way.

"Thank you," he said to the Ranger as he trotted off towards Sasha Nein's Secret Underground Lab.

"Watch out for cougars!" Cruller tried to warn, but it seemed that Wolfgang was already out of earshot.

Shadow materialized in the area outside of Sasha's Lab, ever more confused by the architecture surrounding him. "How are you supposed to know where to run in a place like this?"

Taking a pace slower than usual, the hedgehog wandered about, opting to leave the odd structures around him, and then hearing various growlings that were almost drowned out by a whirring noise. Shadow sped to the source of the odd sound and was somewhat disappointed to find the pale, red headed child that called himself a boy genius.

"Hmm..." Shadow looked at the scene, the boy oblivious to the hungry animals behind him, one of his competitors in this battle to the death or whatever it was. Did he want to aid him? Shadow tossed any doubts to the wayside, Maria wouldn't forgive him if he allowed a child to die, and besides, if he really was a genius, maybe he could help him...

The heli-pack sputtered loudly, wanting to stop desperately, but they kept on, the drop in speed was the moment the cougar had been waiting for, and it pounced! Jack turned around just in time to see a black and red blur dive kick the cougar out of the way.

He screamed, his shrill voice causing Shadow to miss the landing and land on his side. Jack, laughed at the botched landing, forgetting that he had almost died, and was also saved by a weird anthropomorphic hedgehog, a creature notably different from the anthropomorphic bean or dragon. "Are you wearing sneakers?"

As Shadow got up, he turned to Jack and frowned "Is that really the most questionable thing here?"

"Why are you only wearing sneakers?"

Shadow rolled his eyes and stopped looking up at Jack, "That doesn't matter, what does matter is that we should work on getting out of this situation."

"Um... excuse me? Evil Boy Genius Jack Spicer does not take orders from a talking humanoid hedgehog wearing sneakers." Jack neglected to mention that he'd on at least one occasion taken orders from a bean, shape shifting lizard, and a flower.

Shadow rolled his eyes, "Oh great, an evil boy genius, couldn't be a normal one."

"Uhm, I think that you will find that I am exceptional among the evil boy genius community, you see-"

"You build robots and you go look for magical objects and sometimes the robots defect, there's a surprisingly small amount of variance in your types."

Jack opened his mouth to respond to Shadow's spot-on accusation, and then continued on his way, deciding to ignore the furry freak.

"Oh, deciding to ignore me now? Was I a bit too spot on? Oh well, guess you don't want to get into the secret lab."

Jack Spicer kept going, but couldn't help but take the bait, "Look at me, I'm a hedgehog, I know all about these evil science guys, I bet he wants to go to a lab! Well, I don't need your help, these helpful signs will point the way."

"But they won't let you in, I couldn't open it from the inside or from the outside, I think you need some sort of key. However..." Shadow took out his emerald and teleported in front of Jack, "There aren't a lot of places I can't get into."

Jack's heli-pad sputtered once more, as if begging for the boy genius to just get on with it. "What do you want."

"I want you to help me get out of this, instead of fighting."

With as little enthusiasm as possible, Jack said, "Okay, sure, whatever, lets got to the lab."

"Good," Shadow grabbed Jack's hand, "Chaos Control!"

After a flash, Shadow and Jack ended up back in Sasha's Lab, "Now, the first thing-"

"Woozy Shooter!"

"WhaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-"

Shadow was engulfed by a purple haze and suddenly the world changed... he heard something... the walls being replaced by rings and stars... there was an arrangement of multicolored spheres all around him... there were beach balls and swirls... the room was moving in circles turning around and around... he could see a hexagonal technicolor road in front of him... he needed to see... he needed to find...

Jack Spicer, Evil Boy Genius, A Cut Above All Others, smiled at black hedgehog, now on all fours and crawling around Sasha's Lab, "Well, that'll take care of him for a while, now to make some robots."

Meanwhile, those who had interest in the Psycho Ward of the Lake were taking the most obvious route; over the lake. Several boats had been checked out already, much to the displeasure of a certain boatkeeper. However, the encounter that happened next did not involve him.

Instead it involved a candy manufactures, tossed out of his wonderland and into a land of wonder! For in his travels to reach his new potential child endangerment facility, he came across another who made his business in children. Riding across the gloomy lake, followed by a trail of glittering paints, was the clown.

From the looks of things, he had rigged his boat to spread (probably) nontoxic paint dyes through the water, staining the surface of the lake with wonderfully colorful graffiti. A bulk of it was smiley faces and banana drawings, but a rather crudely-drawn section depicted none other than Willy Wonka eating a candy-wrapped child. Underwrit was a note saying “Do not trust the childmuncher and his Kiddy Karamel Khocolate”.

Pleased with his work, the clown turned back to the docks only to find the “childmuncher” staring back at him. What followed suit was a bit of awkward silence.

…

……..

“Honk.”

And then the clown immediately started paddling as fast as he could away from the chocotier, eager to not be ore gored for the slanderous comments.

"Holy hell," screamed Rayquaza, internally a lot calmer than high-decibel appearances would lead you to believe. "No. Stop that. One of you is probably going to fall out and drown. I've seen you lot trying to swim, and I know Rock types who do a better job at not drowning than you."

The serpent slithered off the tower roof, giving the derelict the small dignity of not being smashed into matchwood as it sprung off and into airspace again. Boyd Cooper, asylum guard extraordinaire, watched all this from not an errant tail-smack away, before shrugging. No rules against leaving the asylum grounds, though he'd need to have words to the snake if it tried coming back.

The clown and the confectioner, meanwhile, were doing inexpert laps around the lake. Mr. Wonka, pedalling furiously and making some heavily underlined mental notes to amass some lovable minions posthaste for this kind of thing, wasn't seeking litigation. He'd downed a cautious sample of whatever the clown was using to paint the lake surface, and just knew from the taste he could use this stuff in, I dunno, a Wonka brand variant of a Twizzler that tasted oof something other than leathery disappointment.

"I'd like to discuss a patent!" yelled Wonka, pretty out of breath at this point. Then he and his boat were eclipsed by a very long shadow, and the whole thing nearly capsized when Rayquaza lowered altitude, fins skimming the lake surface and sending technicolor waves smacking into Wonka's boat.

"Leave him alone," scolded the serpent, nubby arms trying and failing to wipe off paint. "This is SO typical of you humans, some voice on high tells you 'kill each other' and tharrgh raaaark skraaaaa GRAARGH-"

-was approximately what Wonka was getting out of this. The dragon eventually stopped ranting and affixed him with a look that beget some kind of response. "Good gracious," he said.

"You dense fucking biped," groaned Rayquaza, a roll of the eyes carried from nose to tail in an exasperated barrel roll. "I know 700-odd species I could communicate with just fine, but your one has to invent a thousand different languages so you can't even talk to your damn selves. You're a disgrace."

Willy Wonka still had no way to respond to this, mostly because it still sounded to him like a jet engine having a tantrum.

"Screw this, I'm going to find someone to translate. Don't kill anyone, yourself included. Seriously, please."

With a final orbit and presumably-disparaging roar around Wonka's boat, Rayquaza rocketed off for the mainland again.

Little did the giant serpent realize, but the immense force of screaming had caused the Clown to jump into the lake's waters in fear of being eaten by a jet plane. He figured that overturning his kayak and hiding underneath would be a safer tactic than facing the beast head on. That was until he tried desperately climbing back onto the overturned bow, arms of magical water clinging to his legs. The panicked harlequin made a few honking cries of fear before being pulled back fully under the lake's surface.

After a few moments, some bubbles rose to the surface. And nothing more. The clown's fate, to an observer, was essentially sealed.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

About an hour or two after the supposed drowning, however, something much bigger emerged. Rising onto the beach at the campground was what could be described as a truck-sized Frankenstein made of dead Aquaman parts. The creature made a loud shriek before spitting the Clown out of its maw and onto the sandy beaches.

As it turns out, the clown was rather terrible with technology; guns, grenades, complex machinery devices and military-grade equipment. So when this particular hulking Lungfish passed by and ate the drowning entertainer under the canoe, a particularly subtle mind control implant decided to short circuit. This freed the creature from its mental prison, and in turn bought the clown a new friend.

At least until the giant spit out her human-shaped EMP. Upon relinquishing her savior to the campground, the implant quickly took hold once again. The fish would go back to its quest of kidnapping Willy Wonka’s children, and Klepto would go back to his battle. He stuffed a badge into his pocked; a gift from the hulking lungfish, and headed for the deeper camp. For food, for supplies, for new crayons.

The only response the Rapid Transit system received was a series of muffled curses, courtesy of Barkley's face-first landing in a Transit Cart far too small for his lanky b-ballin' frame.

"Yes noble Psychomaster..."

His sultry cab zipped off through Whispering Rock's extensive tunnels at a speed far beyond regulatory limits. While unthreatening to the members of the Psychonaut program, Barkley's impressive height forced the B-Baller into some fancy footwork around a variety of ceiling-based obstacles lest he suffer an involuntary foot amputation.

Barkley's stream of invective came to a crescendo as he was dumped out of his transport to land on a raised platform, smacking his head against a monitor on the way down. It didn't take long for him to get his bearings, and soon he found himself staring at a panoply of monitors, most of them strangely green and... immaterial?

The images flashing across them ranged from an aquatic abomination coughing up a Clown to a serpentine jet-beast booming through the stratosphere to a boy cackling around a variety of robo-chassis, some sort of hedgehog unconcious in the foreground.

"Damn, just like one'a Hoopz's vidcons..."

Hoopz.

Barkley hardened in his resolve. He'd defeated many challenges in his quest to see his son healthy and safe, and this one would be no different. After all, what was to say this wasn't just one of the dread Cuchulainn's tests? He didn't have feelings to spare for these strangers when they were standing in the way of his return home.

They'd slam with the best... or jam with the rest.