Zoostuck 3

error: this isn't "continuity", it's zoostuck 3

fart.

fart.

What.

You are a very dignified buttcycle and you would never sully yourself in such a way. At least not in a public forum adventure.

Honestly, some extrauniversal forces have such filthy minds.


Yeah, screw this. Whatever disaster this barber zombie is going to cause, you don't want to be around for it. You drive off to find the kid you're supposed to be helping, even though he already beat the guy he was trying to beat.

You are now the Delorean and you have just realized that you're caught in a time loop.

You are destined to keep going through time to be found by a car collector and stolen again and sent back in time and so on.

You need to figure out some way to break this loop so you can help that stupid kid out. But what can you do?

age into dust

scratch yourself

age into dust

That would be one way out of the loop, if not an ideal one, but it's not an option anyway. Jogh Edgebert's uncreative physics mean that you don't wear down at all. Instead, you're supposed to just vanish from existence one day when you're suddenly technologically obsolete.

scratch yourself

On the other hand, you are capable of inflicting cosmetic damage on yourself, which might change the behavior of someone you interact with. However, you have limited capacity to move yourself without a human operator. So how are you going to cause this scratch?

ruin the alignment so you're always drifting way off to the left

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the scratch has always been there

/me sees herself out

ruin the alignment so you're always drifting way off to the left

You attempt to mess with your internal mechanisms. This is harder than it sounds, because your internal mechanisms are much simpler than they should be and once again it's Edgebert's fault. The problem is, all your knowledge of your own parts is inherited from the previous universe somehow, so you can't tell what anything is.

So you just kind of move things around and hope that messes something up. Which is probably a safe assumption in Edgebert-world.


It seems your self-sabotage is a success, because as soon as your human operator gets in, you flip around. You don't even know how that works. Or how it is that you're managing to drive upside-down.

Still, this should get you scratched and... hey, where's your operator taking you? Is that the mechanic? Dang it, he'll ruin everything by fixing it!

On the bright side, you have a big scratch on your hood, which should help you break out of this time loop. Somehow.

the scratch has always been there

Except, you overhear your operator ask the mechanic if he can do something about "that scratch that's been on there since I got the car".

It's been there this entire time. Possibly even in the previous universe. You just never noticed it until you flipped yourself upside-down.

What could this possibly mean?

It means something's messing with history, duh.

And it's chwoka

It means something's messing with history, duh.

Yes, this can only mean someone else is meddling with the timeline you're trying to meddle with. But that doesn't make sense, because you're the only reliable means of time travel in this universe. You weren't even supposed to be in it, it's just that somebody protected you when the universe was rewritten...

Wait. Of course. Any other time traveler would have to be from a previous universe. But who...

And it's chwoka

You suddenly notice a sign indicating that this mechanic is a subsidiary of the Chwoka Has Won Officially, Kid, Ahahahahahahahahahaha corporation, also known as ☆ C.H.W.O.K.A ☆. You recall that in a previous universe, this was a shell corporation managed by, somebody, and that it was used in a briefly-successful plot to take over the universe.

This probably isn't good. For one thing, it's going to make the plot even more needlessly convoluted.

So you'd better thwart this nefarious time-travel plot before it gets any worse. How are you going to do that?

give me all of your money

no, give ME all your money

give me all of your money

Of course. If you give the Chwoka Has Won Officially, Kid, Ahahahahahahahahahaha corporation all your money... wait a minute, how would that help to stop them in any way? That doesn't make any sense.

no, give ME all your money

So clearly you should give your money to the Grumpy Agen Memorial Hospital Wing of the political prison... wait, has that even been built yet, and how would that help... and come to think of it, you don't even have any money! You're a car!

You are now Loather, the real power behind the Chwoka Has Won Officially, Kid, Ahahahahahahahahahaha corporation. You previously took control of the universe before a bunch of stupid stuff happened that messed it all up.

So you have this new plan that involves time travel but a time-traveling car is trying to mess it up. You've just worked out that you scratched the car at some time in the past, but you can't see how that helped you in any way.

Why did you do that, again?

it's like the dimples on a golf ball

no, it's like the dimples on an adorable child

it's like the dimples on a golf ball

no, it's like the dimples on an adorable child

Oh, right, your plan was to turn this time-traveling car into your golf ball child or something. Now that you actually give it a second thought, this feels like the kind of plan you'd come up with after a run-in with a bad idea ray.

Oh, yeah, now you remember, you banished some loser to limbo because he was zapping everyone with a bad idea ray and it was getting in the way of your plans. He must have hit you while you were banishing him, because that was clearly a good idea.

Even brief exposure to a bad idea ray can lead to a lot of trouble, though. You could have dozens of bad ideas you haven't realized are bad yet. You might even be basing your master plan on them!

Oh well, that's how it goes. Might as well keep going with what you were doing.

What were you doing, again?

Nothing

Oh, that's right. Your nefarious plan is to amass all this money and power and then do nothing at all with it.

And it seems to be proceeding perfectly so far. A little too perfectly, now that you think about it. Could it be that your master plan is nothing more than a small step in the ultimate scheme of some greater mastermind?

Nah, couldn't be. You're probably just that good at scheming. Time to keep doing nothing!

You are now an accountant looking over the finances of the Chwoka Has Won Officially, Kid, Ahahahahahahahahahaha corporation and you've noticed a problem. The company has stopped actually producing anything or providing any services or, well, doing anything other than generating expenses. Despite this, it's somehow gaining money, which it is using to buy up other companies and gradually halt all of their operations.

You have no idea how that works, but you do know one thing: if the company is making money, they can afford to give you a raise.

So how are you going to work up the nerve to ask your boss for one?

Just sneak it into the daily expense report and send the whole thing up for the boss' signature. No confrontation required!

ask the corporation directly, since it's clearly gained sentience

move into head office and start sleeping therw

Just sneak it into the daily expense report and send the whole thing up for the boss' signature. No confrontation required!

You stare at the forms in front of you and realize that your salary is listed on there. And among all the thousands of items, would anyone really notice if it was about ten to twenty thousand higher?

You move your hand to edit the spreadsheet when you hear a booming voice in your head.

What exactly are you doing?

ask the corporation directly, since it's clearly gained sentience

Oh no. That cold, unfeeling voice... now it all makes sense. Well, no, it doesn't really, but at least there's an explanation for this mysteriously appearing money.

The corporation has become self-aware. It's watching your every move, and it's somehow spontaneously generating money.

You figure there's about an eighty-five percent chance it's more approachable than your boss, though. So you mention that profits have been going up lately and you feel that, with all the hard work you've done, you should be getting paid a little more.

You were trying to take our money through dishonest means
We cannot tolerate that behavior in our accountants
There is only one reasonable course of action for such underhanded, self-serving greed

move into head office and start sleeping therw

You must be promoted to management at once

Before you fully grasp what's happening, you find yourself in the head office. With your own desk. Which you are chained to. There's also a pillow attached to the chair for those brief moments when you're allowed to sleep.

You are now Loather again and you want to know who the hell this guy is who just showed up in your office. Actually, no, you don't really want to know who the hell he is. You just want to do something horrible to him.

So what's it going to be?

pedicure

Send him a passive aggressive memo and then eat his lunch from the breakroom fridge