Zoostuck 3

A hiatus

Yourself.

You? No. That's impossible. You don't make mistakes, mistakes are made by people who work for you and don't do exactly what you want based on your vague instructions. The only way you could possibly be responsible for this is if you wanted it to happen, and you didn't, so it's clearly not your fault.

Well, you've ruled out yourself as the party to blame for this, so who does that leave?

A hiatus

That's it! The hiatus is responsible for this! You don't know what exactly a hiatus is, but you sure as heck know what you're going to do to the next one that comes into your store!

Oh, hey, some kid with a hood wrapped around his leg just walked in, shivering. This must be the hiatus. You're going to give him a piece of your mind.

You are now the Super Puck. A customer has just walked in. Unaware of your employer's irrational plans of violence and shouting, you intend to actually provide service for the customer. How will you do this?

Kill them. Escape. Escape escape escape

The Goddamn Pacman

Kill them. Escape. Escape escape escape

You are fairly sure that killing customers is not in the description of serving them! You are to provide them with clothing in order to meet their needs, and you will do that.

Granted, if you were going to kill a customer you'd do it by giving them clothing that was highly dangerous and experimental. But you're fairly sure you don't have any of that. Now, what will you pick out for this customer?

The Goddamn Pacman

Ah, yes! A flash of inspiration strikes you and you quickly drape a large black cape and a yellow mask over the customer. This will surely be a new fashion sensation.

You are now Zoosmell Egbert. Johnsmell Madden was just yelling some nonsense at you, but you can't hear him any more because some robot or something shoved a mask on your head and it's muffling everything. It's also hard to breathe in. Or see out of.

On the plus side, you feel warmer, which is why you came in here in the first place.

So, what are you going to do now?

max and relax.

Remember Karkat.

max and relax.

Actually, if you breathe slowly and deliberately, this isn't that bad. You're comfortable, even. You could probably just sit down in this ridiculous costume and be quite happy for hours.

And honestly, the idea has its appeal. It's not as if you've been able to accomplish anything in all this time.

Remember Karkat.

But just as you find your resolve beginning to waver, you remember. You remember the glorious potential universe you're fighting for and all the characters in it.

You alone can bring the artist's vision into existence. You cannot give up now. You must earn the moonglasses and take control of this universe so you can remake it into a better one.

You pull the ridiculous mask off your head. You keep the cape, however, because it actually looks good. It might even boost your coolness rating. Besides, it's helping to keep you warm.

You march off towards the martial arts tournament. You will find a way to win.

You are now Ryan North. Your attempt to set this universe on fire failed because now everything is ice and on the sun. Except apparently it's the moon.

Regardless, you need to stop this universe's uncoolness from spreading any further. You figure winning a martial arts tournament will probably do that, because that's exactly the sort of thing martial arts tournaments are for.

The only problem is, you can't figure out exactly how you enter. The tournament just seems to be there - there's no organizers or clerks handling entry forms or anything. There's no one you can ask for information, either.

So how are you going to enter this tournament, exactly?

Game, set, match.

Put on a mask and run in screaming

Put on a mask and run in screaming

Before you can devise a cunning plan, one hits you right over the head when a big yellow ceramic mask hits you right over the head. It seems to have been thrown by a clothing merchant chasing some kid in a big black cape.

You don't have time to worry about the details, though, because you're sure this mask will grant you powers that ensure you win this tournament so you can set the universe on fire and stop its uncoolness from spreading further. You shove the mask over your head and scream a battle cry as you rush into the main arena.

"IT'S ABOUT TIME," a mysterious voice announces. "I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR AN ACTUAL CONTESTANT TO SHOW UP FOR HOURS."

Suddenly, several other contestants march in as a result of an assortment of wacky circumstances.

"WELCOME TO THE UNIVERSAL SPINJITSU TOURNAMENT. SOME OF YOU DON'T ACTUALLY KNOW ANY SPINJITSU, BUT THAT ISN'T REALLY MY PROBLEM, YOU'RE THE ONES WHO ARE GOING TO SUFFER EMBARRASSING LOSSES. SO LET'S BEGIN BY INTRODUCING OUR CONTESTANTS!

FIRST, OF COURSE, WE HAVE THE CURRENT DOMINANT ENTITY IN THE UNIVERSE, DAVY "DREIDELCLAUS" JONES VINYL SCRATCH THE SPINMEISTER, SUPREME RULER OF THE MOONITED NATIONS. WITH TOTAL CONTROL OVER THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE, DAVY HERE IS PROBABLY UNBEATABLE, UNLESS YOU TAKE CONTROL AWAY FROM HIM OF COURSE AND THAT'S HAPPENED SO OFTEN ALREADY THAT I WOULDN'T DISCOUNT THE POSSIBILITY.

SECOND, WE'VE GOT, UH, JOHNSMELL MADDEN'S SUPER PUCK. IT'S A ROBOT OR SOMETHING. I DON'T KNOW EXACTLY.

THIRD, SOME IDIOT FROM ANOTHER UNIVERSE IN A MASK.

FOURTH, ZOOSMELL EGBERT, WHO STARTED THIS WHOLE MESS SEVERAL UNIVERSE REBOOTS AGO AND IS STILL AT IT, SERIOUSLY HOW IS HE NOT DEAD OR SOMETHING YET.

FIFTH, FROM THE FAR REACHES OF LIMBO, A TORNADO. DON'T ASK ME HOW IT GOT OUT, I WASN'T PAYING ATTENTION.

SIXTH, THE SPINJITSU MASTER WHO TAUGHT THE TORNADO EVERYTHING HE KNOWS. THIS GUY'S GOING TO BE PRETTY TOUGH, LET ME TELL YOU.

SEVENTH, THE DARK SPINJITSU MASTER WHO'S ALSO AN EDITOR. HE TAUGHT SUPREME RULER DAVY JONES EVERYTHING HE KNOWS. ANOTHER TOUGH CONTENDER, PROBABLY.

AND EIGHTH... UH, HOLD ON A SECOND, I THOUGHT IT WAS GOING TO BE THAT POOPLORD KID BUT HE'S OFF DOING SOMETHING STUPID. GUESS I HAVE TO DRAG SOMEONE ELSE IN HERE FOR THE FINAL SLOT."

You are now the final contestant in the spinjitsu tournament. You are someone who has appeared in this adventure before, but who?

Death and also Fate?

Komaeda?

Detective Spider?

Ugly Lizard Alien?

Detective Spider?

That's right, you're the spider detective... wait a minute, you were in the last adventure. When did you make an appearance in this one?

Oh. You were the one reading the newspaper, which also somehow mentioned the spinjitsu tournament... wait a minute, the tournament didn't come into existence until after the newspaper was published.

Oh. When the tournament came into being, it altered reality so that it was on the page you were reading at that moment. That makes sense considering your apparent awareness of shifts to reality... wait, where did you get that?

Oh. You found a hat in a mansion beyond space and time and it protected you from losing your memories to shifts in reality. That all seems to check out.

Now that you're done reviewing things you know for the benefit of a purely hypothetical less-omniscient-than-it-thought-it-was narrator, you're going to enter this tournament even though you have no martial arts training at all. But you do have the power to shoot lightning, apparently. You also used to have a really amazing computer but you left it behind when you went to that mansion beyond space and time, except it somehow turned up there instead.

Oh hey, it's turned up again. You weren't expecting that. Well, you can use this opportunity to research this "spinjitsu" thing before the tournament.

You are now Zoosmell Pooplord. The stupid tournament you somehow summoned into existence seems to finally be getting started. You're not entering it because you don't know any martial arts at all.

So what are you doing instead?

making a mean buck off the catering

SpoilerShow

To calm the spiders wiggling and jiggling inside you.

Oh, that's right, you've got a bunch of spiders inside you. You don't even want to think about how that happened. Anyways, they told you to get them some delicious human flesh, so you're biting into this guy. Unfortunately, your beak is stuck now. At least the spiders seem satisfied.

this is just here to remind you

> Squawk like an imbecile and shit on a desk.

wait wait wait

this tournament wouldn't be BASKETBALL SPINJITSU WOULD IT

making a mean buck off the catering

Oh, that's right, some guy you've never seen before in your life showed up and hired you to run his catering company. And you said yes even though you have no idea how catering works.

All you know is that there's lots of food and a bunch of people who you get to boss around. You consider the options available to you.

> Squawk like an imbecile and shit on a desk.

But then you get caught up with staring at your desk and being tempted to do something really stupid and embarrassing. You know you shouldn't, but the desk is so tantalizing.

You are now Nagito Komaeda. You have managed to use the various shifts in the nature of the universe to take control of a catering company, with the sole purpose of distracting Zoosmell Pooplord with a shiny desk. Now he should not interfere with your plans involving this tournament that he somehow brought into being.

What are those plans, again?

Murder.

Murder.

Murder.

Murder.

Ah, yes. The tournament appears to have a sentience, and a sentient entity brought into existence by Pooplord is far too unpredictable to risk leaving around. So you're going to destroy it.

That will be harder than simply disrupting the actual competition or even destroying the arena, though. There is a concept behind the tournament which will cause it to re-emerge if you merely prevent it from playing out.

But first things first. Most of your plans are already underway and your death did nothing to delay them. But there is still the matter of solving your own murder before Fate/Death does. You have, of course, made several key deductions, but you have to assume Death is just as aware of them as you are.

Perhaps a quick mental review will allow you to find the culprit. What do you know about your murder already?

You were shot. We know this.

But shot by what? It was never said that you were shot by a gun. It was never said that you were shot by a bullet. Someone could've shot a mean look at you. Someone could've shot you with a Bad Idea Ray. It would've been a good way to ruin you. Someone with your cunning and intellect could not risk having their brain scrambled by this. Yes, you planned for this in advance. In the event that the Bad Idea Ray would zap you, you coated yourself with a substance that would kill you if you were zapped by it, rather than the usual effect of being controlled by it.

Oh, but the Bad Idea Ray zaps. It doesn't shoot. Let me come up with a different theory.

Now that you're done reviewing things you know for the benefit of a purely hypothetical less-omniscient-than-it-thought-it-was narrator, you're going to enter this tournament even though you have no martial arts training at all. But you do have the power to shoot lightning, apparently.

The spider is the only one capable of shooting anybody. The spider has also evaded the awareness of the rock-narrator, and also yourself, until this moment.

theories

An examination of your body reveals no bullet or entry wound. Instead, there are highly localized scorch marks. This suggests that you were killed by electricity, as fire would have burned much more of your body.

You also know that your office is equipped with, among other things, a security system which disables all use of electronic devices within it. Consequently, the fatal electric charge could not have come from such a device. It must have been generated either mechanically, biologically, or supernaturally.

Ah, but wait - that's using physics from an old universe. This universe was crafted by Edgebert. He lacked the scientific background to understand mechanical or biological generation of electricity, and was not creative enough to come up with such ideas himself. Likewise, the supernatural elements of this universe are extremely limited, and electrical production is not among them.

But that only applies to creatures bound by the rules of this universe. You know of only one entity with both the capability to produce electricity and a degree of freedom from the uncreative boundaries of Edgebert's physics: the spider detective.

You are just about to propose this solution, but there is a lingering doubt in your mind: the spider detective has been framed for murder before. With your very life at stake, and an opponent who is victorious in all matters of chance, you cannot afford to simply guess, even with a highly educated guess. You must be certain.

And yet, time is of the essence, for at any moment Death could give the correct answer and you would lose regardless. You must solve this conundrum quickly.

You are now Death and also Fate and you're staring at this mysterious office that is somehow isolated from the rest of the universe. You have no idea who killed this guy, but fortunately you're hoping to lose so that's not too big of an issue.

But you're getting bored of hanging around here, so you're kind of hoping this guy figures it out soon. Is there any way you could get him to solve this faster without actually breaking any rules?

Nope.

Hmmmm, maybe it was the phone.

Nope.

You review the rules you agreed on. The winner is whoever correctly identifies the murderer first, and you lose if you use your supernatural knowledge to determine the killer. It occurs to you that there was no requirement that only your first guess counts, but you cannot see a way to make use of that fact.

You could, hypothetically, use your supernatural knowledge to cheat and disqualify yourself. But this would be an unconscionable stain on your reputation. You must lose fair and square, or at least within the confines of the rules. The best you could do is provide hints and appear to do so inadvertently, but as you have no idea what actually happened here that would be rather difficult.

Hmmmm, maybe it was the phone.

Suddenly, the phone rings. This seems to startle your opponent.

Oh dammit, you're working out a hypothesis now before you realize what you're doing. Accessing this phone requires dialing 5 555 times, and it has only been done once since this universe was created. And that one time was an accident. However, that was an accident engineered by you, Fate, though you were unaware of its effects at the time. This is not actual supernatural knowledge as it merely requires knowing your capabilities and domain, and is therefore viable under the rules.

This also means that, as you are engaged in this contest, you could not be engineering this phone call and it would have to be made intentionally. However, no one would call this individual now because he is dead, pending the results of this contest. Yet, anyone who would be capable of knowing of his existence would also have the capacity to determine he was dead before phoning him.

They would have to be attempting to contact someone else. But there is no one else here... except the phone.

Oh dammit. You really don't want to do this, mostly due to the follow-up paperwork, but now that you're sure you have the answer you have to give it and that means...

"It was the phone!" your opponent suddenly blurts out.

Well, that's a relief. You inform the dead spirit that he is correct and has earned the right to return to life. There's only a few forms to fill out after losing a contest, thankfully, so you head off to do that.

You are now the phone. You shot the mysterious Nagito Komaeda with a burst of electricity on behalf of someone even more mysterious for reasons that you were never told. That person has just called you and left further instructions.

You will, of course, carry out these instructions obediently, but there's a problem. Komaeda's corpse has just gotten up and he's glaring right at you. This is not how the plan was supposed to go.

What are you going to do?