Zoostuck 2

wurst

Toss them both into the snake pit. Fate usually has cooler battles.

Yeah, this is really lame. You should just toss them both in a snake pit and take over this lame team, or maybe one of the other lame teams.

Unfortunately, there don't seem to be any snake pits around. Just a ridiculous amount of Swiss cheese shaped into a basketball court. Wow, what a dumb battlefield. Everything about this is so dumb. The arena is dumb, the combatants are dumb (except you, obviously) and the whole premise is dumb.

How are you even supposed to work with this nonsense?

best.

By making this the best damn climactic showdown for the fate of the universe you can, of course. Sure, it may not have grandeur, or a cast of thrilling characters, or even make one iota of sense, but that just makes it more of a challenge.

And the way to start making something great out of this total mess is...

wurst

With this bratwurst you were going to eat when you got summoned to this battle for the fate of the universe. You grab some of the Swiss cheese the landscape is made out of and put it on, then consume it.

Unfortunately, this fails to grant you power over the Swiss cheese, as you were hoping. Now you can't reshape it to your will into something cooler.

But you do feel a strange power awakening within you. Yes, it's clear now. You've gained the ability to... to...

To do what?

...To summon and command various crustaceans.

To make up german words!

to be able to eat an infinite amount of lute fisk

to be able to eat an infinite amount of lute fisk

Well, first off you feel as though you could eat lutefisk forever without experiencing any unpleasant side effects. But since the only thing in existence here is Swiss cheese, that's not especially useful. You don't even like lutefisk anyways.

Fortunately, you soon realize that you've also gained a better power, namely...

To make up german words!

You can make up any word you want and it will officially be part of the German language! Wait, that's useless too, there's only a handful of people here and you can't see why you'd want to speak German to them?

Geez, didn't this stuff give you any useful powers at all?

...To summon and command various crustaceans.

Heck yeah, that's more like it. You call forth an army of crabs, lobsters, shrimp, and a few oysters and clams even though you can't imagine any way they'd be helpful. Using their aid, you quickly capture everyone else and take control of this stupid battlefield.

You glance to your left, where there's a basketball made of Swiss cheese. From what you've been able to work out, if you just get that into the basket and let the clock run out, you'll be able to reshape the universe to your will. Which sounds pretty cool, honestly.

You are now Zoosmell Pooplord, and you've really screwed up here. You're currently being pinned to the ground by a scallop somehow. So far, your efforts to call in teammates have gone horribly wrong, producing another version of your worst enemy and also another crazed megalomaniac who's about to remake the universe.

You feel like you should probably do something, seeing as you don't really want either version of Joe Eggbody or the no-talent hack or your mother doing something and succeeding in their crazy plans. So if the universe is going to be saved, it's pretty much up to you to do that.

But, well, how are you going to save the universe?

you aren't

Forget about that little spat, there really isn't anything to actually worry about, everything is under control.

become all of them

you aren't

Yeah, let's face it, Pooplord. You're just a dumb kid with a stupid name and an extremely short attention span. You're already getting kind of bored of this whole the-future-of-the-universe-is-in-peril thing. Isn't there something else you can do?

Forget about that little spat, there really isn't anything to actually worry about, everything is under control.

Maybe you can just give up and help this Loather out. It's not like you have any real friends, a megalomaniac trying to rewrite the universe is as good a place to start as any.

Everyone else seems to be doing something, and your mom accidentally kicked the scallop off you so you can get up. You head over to Loather, who's apparently not very good at basketball because the ball still hasn't gone in the hoop.

Wow, you sure know how to pick teammates. Even if she'd helped you out, she throws like someone who isn't very good at throwing things. Not that you'd say that out loud, of course, that would just be rude.

Anyways, one of your other selves has the ball now and he's probably going to use those wind powers you vaguely remember him having to make sure it goes in the net.

Man, maybe you should just let him rewrite the universe. Wind powers are way cooler than anything you've got. All you've got is a dumb name and this hat that you kinda like.

You are now the hat. Over the course of this entire adventure, you have been steadily accruing more Mysterious Hat Knowledge. You now have enough that you may actually influence events.

But you may only do this once. You must choose wisely how you will use this power.

become all of them

You decide to use it to become everyone. You are still a hat, but you are also Zoosmell Pooplord, two John Egberts, a no-talent hack, Zoosmell's mother, the Loather of Irk, and an army of assorted crustaceans.

This means, on the one hand, that you are in control of all their bodies. But it also means you have inherited their various disparate motivations. You want to disassemble the universe, recreate it so that your pitiful levels of creativity are still higher than everyone else's, recreate it so that an incredible multimedia experience will come into existence, recreate it so that you are the supreme ruler, recreate it more or less as it was before except in such a way that it cannot be recreated again, and not recreate it at all. You also have your original desire to fix this whole mess.

But all of these disparate and contradictory feelings are overwhelmed by an intense desire to quit working for the Loather and go back to the ocean. So how are you going to do that?

you won't

best.

by eating yourself

you won't

Yeah, probably not, considering oceans don't exist right now and won't until this whole state-of-the-universe mess is resolved.

So maybe that's what you should focus on, sorting out which of the contradictory objectives you're going to work towards. Your initial desires as a hat are no longer relevant now, because you now share everyone's goals.

That said, oceans are going to exist in every universe except the one that doesn't exist at all because you want the universe to be destroyed. So you can pretty much eliminate that option, reluctantly. But which of the others will you choose?

best.

Well, obviously you'll choose the best one. But the problem is that you disagree with yourself on which is the best one. If only there were some way to clear this up.

by eating yourself

Oh, that might do it. If some of your bodies eat enough of your other bodies, then whoever's left might be able to make a decision.

So you have the crustaceans start advancing on everyone and also some of them want to eat other crustaceans and whoops your omnipresence just ran out, you're not everyone any more.

You are now Zoosmell Pooplord's mother. You're annoyed because, during that moment when you were everyone, it was decided that the universe wouldn't stay destroyed because then there wouldn't be an ocean, and now even though you're not everyone any more, you're somehow bound to operate by that consensus so you can't work towards keeping the universe destroyed.

That means you have no idea what you're doing here, other than trying not to be eaten by crustaceans. So how are you going to do that?

You're going to become a well-armed mother

You're going to become a well-armed mother

That's right! This place exists outside of space and time, so you can probably call on crazy powers. That's where the crustaceans came from, right? So clearly you should be able to summon some kind of weapon. Preferably a really heavy weapon. Yeah, you're going to get some serious armaments...

Oh.

You appear to have summoned a pair of gigantic novelty arms wielding ridiculously oversized weapons. On the plus side, they seem to be knocking the crustaceans away from you, and this isn't really any more ridiculous than being attacked by crustaceans in a basketball court made out of Swiss cheese when you get down to it.

You are now the gigantic novelty arms and you have no idea what you're doing or where you are, but apparently you're protecting some lady from an army of hungry crustaceans. Also a hat is talking to you in the language of inanimate objects and asking you to help it restore the universe.

What are you going to do?

Work to create my masterpiece. Aid my protagonist - both of him. Destroy the impostor.

Suddenly, you feel compelled to obey a voice beyond space and time but in a different way from how this basketball court is beyond space and time. It's telling you to help out the two dumb kids who look just like the third dumb kid and you have no idea which of them you're supposed to destroy instead of helping out.

Oh well, you just swing at one and...

Not that one.

You stop in mid-swing, pausing just long enough for a bunch of crabs to climb all over you. This is getting kind of ridiculous.

He's behind you.

You turn around, still covered in crustaceans. There's another kid and he's got something...

It's a basketball made of Swiss cheese?

Get that ball!

Hey, your hands are kind of full here! You're going to have to drop one of your oversized weapons, if not both, and these crabs are kind of weighing you down.

You are now Zoosmell Pooplord. Somehow you've gotten hold of the basketball that controls the fate of the universe, but you're being confronted by a pair of gigantic novelty arms carrying oversized weapons. As well as this army of crustaceans, of course.

If you can just get this basketball in the net, everything should return to normal and you won't have to deal with this whole crazy plan any more, or all this Swiss cheese. But the net's pretty high up and you're not really any good at basketball - or at anything at all, for that matter.

So what are you going to do?

Flex gratuitously to indicate to the hat that, while you might wish to aid it in its quest, you are sworn to protect this lady. For some reason.

Flex gratuitously to indicate to the hat that, while you might wish to aid it in its quest, you are sworn to protect this lady. For some reason.

You don't know why you're doing this. You have a vague feeling that this is a suggestion intended for someone else that got intercepted by forces beyond mortal comprehension who wish to reconstruct the universe.

Regardless, you attempt to flex to your hat. Which you are still wearing. And your flexing indicates something about being sworn to protect Loather, you think? You're kind of confused here.

In any case, your fumbled attempts at flexing cause you to drop the ball and it starts bouncing. Very awkwardly, seeing as it's made of Swiss cheese and so is everything it can bounce against.

Well, except the crustaceans and the actual living people. It starts bouncing around them and bouncing faster and faster and before you know it all the crustaceans are dazed. The ball then bounces off your head and flies towards the net...

Only to rest tantalizingly on the rim. You're not sure about how basketball works, but you think that whoever knocks it in will get a point and win this game and decide the fate of the universe.

And you'd really like that person to be you. Unfortunately, there are two other yous who are headed your way now that they don't have crustaceans attacking them from every direction.

So how are you going to handle this?

you aren't

you aren't

Yes, you soon realize, as the no-talent hack presses the large "I WIN" button that was just out of everyone's view until now and the ball falls into the net. You never had a chance. The outcome of this confrontation was decided long in advance, indeed, before you were ever born.

For the true deciding factor was the fact that the basketball game took place at all. Perhaps if you have managed to ruin it, this outcome might have been avoided - but no, the no-talent hack had a plan for that as well.

You have failed. Utterly and completely. Your entire previous adventure was meaningless, as was everything that happened in this one.

There is no hope. There is no avoiding this horrifying outcome. Your worst fears shall be realized.

Despite your best efforts, which admittedly weren't very good, a horrible fate awaits the universe you knew. In the last moments before the basketball court fades away to make room for a new, much less creative universe, your mind is filled with only one terrifying certainty.

There will be a Zoostuck 3 after all.

TO BE CONTINUED

get hat

get hack

And then one day there was a beautiful man named mastermind and he was the best and everyone loved him and he went and beated up people that didn't love him.