Zoostuck 3

say you'll give him hawaii

Hawaii? What's that? Oh, wait, is that one of those dang island territories, you can never remember those. Honestly, you probably could give it away to him, it's not like you'd miss it... but on the other hand, you can't pass up the opportunity to put one over on an unsuspecting foreigner.

So you head over to the stand and offer the guy Hawaii in exchange for all his guns and balloons. He stares at you and asks what a Hawaii is. Confound it, he knows even less about American territories than you do, and you'd probably just confuse him if you tried to explain it.

Well, you are trying to pull the wool over his eyes, so maybe you can just make something up.

hawaii is a secret spice

You tell him that Hawaii is a potent spice that's a well-kept American secret, but you can hook him up with a supply of it. And all you're asking in return is his entire stock. How can he pass up a once-in-a-lifetime offer like that?

He stares at you and asks why you can't just buy the guns and balloons like a normal customer. They're on sale, even!

But you don't have any Panamanian dollars. Of course they use dollars because everyone does in this uncreative universe. It's just that they use different dollars in each country. And since this guy doesn't seem to be falling for your brilliant con job somehow, you may need to get some actual money to pay him in.

How are you going to do that?

write PANAMA on your dollars

ask the devil about his dollar collection

write PANAMA on your dollars

That would be a waste of perfectly good American dollars! Now, if you had someone else's perfectly good American dollars, that would be another matter, but you're not going to deface your own hard-earned currency for this. Maybe if there was a bank, but you're having enough trouble finding businesses as it is. You can barely remember what you even wanted them for in the first place, although you're sure it was important to the future of America.

ask the devil about his dollar collection

Wait, of course! You'll do what any great American president would do, and ask the Devil for help!

Except, how are you going to contact him? Jogh Edgebert isn't allowing telephones until 1920, and without them you can't dial the number 6 666 times.

use culturally appropriated smoke signals

telegram

Empty a revolver's entire clip 666 times.

time travel

Empty a revolver's entire clip 666 times.

That's a lot of bullets! In the time it would take you to load and fire that many times, you could dig a canal clear to the other side of the continent... oh, right, that's what you were trying to do.

Well, you don't have the time you need to either dig a canal or attempt to contact the Devil with 3996 bullets. You're going to need something faster, and you're all out of carrier pigeons!

time travel

You don't have access to time travel, either! If you did, you'd just bring the canal here from the future after you finished digging it so you wouldn't have to bother with digging it. You're pretty sure that's how time travel works.

use culturally appropriated smoke signals

Well, you could make smoke signals, but you don't actually know anything about them. And how's the devil going to see them all the way in Hell, anyways?

telegram

A telegram! Yes, those were invented in 1800, so you should have access to them. You're sure that if you can find a telegraph operator they can contact Satan. You ask Alejandro where the nearest telegraph office is.

He informs you that the only telegraph office in the entire country was blown up during the revolution that you aided because you wanted to dig this canal. Well, that's just great. He helpfully points out the general direction you can find the rubble in if you want to take a look.

What are you going to do now?

well telegrams just work on wires right? so just scream into the wires

well telegrams just work on wires right? so just scream into the wires

no no, send a singing telegram

Ask Alejandro if he knows of a way to talk to Satan.

Ask Alejandro if he knows of a way to talk to Satan.

The guy runs a guns-and-balloons stand. You're pretty sure if he had a direct line to Satan he'd have a lot more money and power and all that other cool stuff you can get from making deals with the Devil.

well telegrams just work on wires right? so just scream into the wires

no no, send a singing telegram

Instead, your vague understanding of telegraph technology gives you an idea. You march on over to the ruins of the telegraph office and start singing through some wires sticking out of the wall.

However, three verses into The Star-Spangled Banner, it occurs to you that it's not a song that really conveys your intentions, namely for Satan to dig this canal for you. Unfortunately, you're not very creative thanks to Jogh Edgebert, so you're not having any luck composing a song of your own.

However, at that moment one of your workers comes in and informs you that some people have shown up at the canal site, saying something about a carrier pigeon and spinjitsu. He wants to know what he should tell them.

Oh, right, you sent out that carrier pigeon a while ago. That's some quick results!

So what should you have this French worker tell the incoming spinjitsu-trained volunteers?

spinjitsu a canal

canal a spinjitsu

spinjitsu a canal

Well, of course. You tell him that you want those students to spinjitsu the canal so it can be finished faster. You don't see why you'd tell him anything other than exactly what you wanted them to do.

You are now the French worker and you have to pass along a message from the American President in charge of this project, and, what was it again?

canal a spinjitsu

Oh, right. In a hilarious and incredibly original twist that nobody could have predicted, you garble the message and tell the new arrivals to canal a spinjitsu. You have no idea what that means, but hopefully they do. If not, well hey, you're just the messenger.

You are now the younger version of the evil Spinjitsu master. You have just heard the code phrase you implemented into the universe that would unlock all your memories from the old universe, including your evil plan to eventually kill Jogh Edgebert with Spinjitsu and then make this universe incredibly uncool and use it to infect other universes with uncoolness.

However, due to nefarious reasons, your plan can't actually be executed for more than a hundred years. So what are you going to do in the meantime?

max, relax, coax

who were you in the old universe, anyway

who were you in the old universe, anyway

Oh, you were an evil wizard or something. You remember reincarnating in a bunch of forms with your evil magic. Eventually you ended up as a high school and a bunch of stupid stuff happened in your vicinity. However, in the process of that whole mess you discovered the forbidden arts of spinjitsu and also uncovered Jogh Edgebert's nefarious plan and since he was really uncreative, you gave him some ideas that made spinjitsu supreme in this universe, since your magic would be too risky.

It also occurs to you that your arch-rival is here. One day he will become a great spinjitsu master and train a student capable of defeating you. However, you can't just kill him because his bones would eventually be dug up and reanimated and he'd become President and eradicate all evil in the world, just like what happened when you killed him in the last version of the universe. On the other hand, you've got decades before there's any chance of him messing up your plans, so you don't really have to worry about him too much.

max, relax, coax

So instead you decide to enjoy your younger years. You've got plenty of time before you become the supreme schemer of this universe, and you're totally not a pawn in someone else's scheme. You're just going to relax and... oh, right, Roosevelt probably wants you to dig a canal with spinjitsu.

Well, screw that. You didn't study the forbidden side of spinjitsu so you could be a mere lackey to the President of the United States. You're not just going to not dig this canal, you're going to utterly sabotage the project and render it impossible to complete.

How are you going to do that?

dig it upside-down

do you mind if we give you a name in case you're not a wizard or a spinjutsu master in the next universe, just in case things go south?

just tell mr. prez that the canal is dug already. Then, he'll get here and realize it's not and you'll be the one laughing.

do you mind if we give you a name in case you're not a wizard or a spinjutsu master in the next universe, just in case things go south?

You have your memories of being an evil wizard and you know exactly how much power there is in a name, so you're not giving yours away freely. Especially not to extradimensional entities attempting to drive the story.

just tell mr. prez that the canal is dug already. Then, he'll get here and realize it's not and you'll be the one laughing.

As amusing as that would be, it would do nothing to prevent Roosevelt from digging the canal. That wouldn't serve your arbitrary short-term objectives at all. No, you need something that will actively interfere with his plans.

dig it upside-down

Perfect. Since your spinjitsu is evil, clearly that makes it a form of reverse spinjitsu that you can use to dig a canal upside-down, especially with the mastery of it that you have from your previous life.

Except no, that isn't how it works at all, you'd need some sort of anti-spinjitsu to do that and such a thing couldn't possibly POW!

You are now Jogh Edgebert.

You aren't really sure how it worked, but somehow you perfected your anti-spinjitsu and were able to use it to propel yourself backwards through time, returning to the world of the living. In the process, you made a surprise attack on the guy who killed you in the first place.

He's not quite dead. However, the force of your anti-spinjitsu strike knocked out not only him, but also all these other spinjitsu users in the area. In addition, it sent a shockwave through the ground that was strong enough to dig an upside-down canal. The water of the canal is just floating in midair inexplicably, leaving a tunnel that appears to extend into an infinite downward sky beneath it.

It is now more than a century before any of the nefarious plans that involve manipulating you or manipulating the various people manipulating you can come to fruition. This is the perfect chance to solidify your grasp on the universe you created.

How are you going to do that?

wait so

ancestor story

Rumpelstiltskin