Toontown 1. Prologue

**A/N: Greetings and salutations everybody! It has been quite a while since I posted something here. I have been practicing my writing skills, and I'm planning on making this my largest story written.**

**What's going to happen to my other two fanfics? I'm cancelling them for the time being. Don't worry though, because I most likely will redo them and complete them in the future. Thank you so much for your support!**

**As to what I'm planning to do with this fanfic, it's going to be mostly a test about humor and foreshadowing. Some characters might act a little different than how they act in the game, I'm just trying to flesh them out a little bit, that's all :)**

**To those that play Toontown, some of the foreshadowed parts might be very obvious, and I'm sorry XD**

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A blue, anthropomorphic dog was resting on the park near the town hall. This was Flippy Doggenbottom, the recently elected mayor of Toontown. Toontown was (or rather, still is) the place where toons, cartoony-looking animals, lived and prospered. The whole place was bright, colorful, and cheery; thankfully not hiding any sort of dark secrets.

When Flippy got elected as mayor, he had promised that he'd be the best mayor he could be, that nothing would happen to Toontown or its citizens. But as if a challenge from the universe, something that had never happened occurred. The whole place began to get invaded by strange, robotic beings. And poor Flippy, clueless as to whether this was just some sort of mean-spirited initiation into town leadership or an actual, latent threat, began to grow paranoid about Toontown's safety.

Soon enough the first attacks by these robots were recorded. Strangely, there were no casualties. The robots seemingly didn't attack to kill, and the victims of their ambushes only grew sad for a couple of hours. However, the toons seemingly could attack to destroy.

Flippy recalled one day a very grumpy gag shopkeeper assaulted a robot with her merchandise, causing the thing to somehow literally die laughing and explode. Since that day toons learnt to counterattack the robots with all sorts of cartoony gags, from squirting flowers and fake bills to cream pies and safes.

The citizens were holding up very nicely after this discovery, but Flippy was still worried. Deep down inside he felt that everyone was in jeopardy. Everyday he'd have to put on a happy façade if his worries surged again.

"Mayor Flippy, I have news to tell you!" A tan horse called out from behind, snapping Flippy out of his trance.

"Clancy? What's got you in such a hurry?" He asked, sitting up, "Something wrong?"

"Oh, on the contrary, Mayor!" The horse huffed, "The Dimensionator successfully passed its beta testing; now the portals are stable enough for living beings to travel through!"

Flippy grinned and stood up, "Excellent news, Clancy! But keep you volume low, we don't want this to go public." He hushed, and Clancy covered his mouth in embarrassment, "Well, anyways, care to bring me along for its inauguration?" he asked, and the horse nodded.

Flippy and Clancy headed towards the town hall. Upon entering a huge machine could be seen adorning the lobby, full of wires, trinkets and strange contraptions. This, however, wasn't the invention Flippy was eager to see tested. The dog and the horse entered the sole area restricted to visitors: a door leading to the building's basement. The two walked down the stairs and reached a room with an elevator on the other end.

"Excuse me for asking, Mayor, but -"

"Please, call me Flippy. No need for formalities." The dog smiled.

"Ah, sorry. Well, uh, excuse me for asking, Flippy, but why exactly do you want the Dimensionator to remain secret?" Clancy asked as the two toons hopped onto the elevator, descending even further into the ground.

"Oh, don't get the wrong idea, Clancy. If I had the opportunity, I'd make the whole project public in a heartbeat. But with how things are recently, it's best if it remains hidden," He sighed, "We're living in a crisis of sorts right now, and I'm certain that letting everyone know about what we're doing would endanger the lives of not just us, but anyone who lives across the portals the Dimensionator makes."

Clancy gulped and just stared at the elevator's ceiling, "So… What do you plan to use the portals for, Flippy?" he asked nervously, thinking about the recent invasions in their quaint little town.

"Get as many help as we can," The doors of the elevator opened, revealing a room with a metal door and a reception desk at its side with a security guard focused on the elevator, "I know I probably shouldn't trust the Dimensionator that much but…"

"But what?" Clancy asked as the two approached the guard and showed their passes. The guard gladly pressed a button, causing the metal door to slide open.

"I- Err, have a good feeling about the outcome, that's all." Flippy assured, giving Clancy the best cheerful smile he could manage.

The toon really was putting much trust on the Dimensionator, but even though things had been going relatively good so far, he was paranoid and was looking desperately for backup before anything went awry. Just recently he was bestowed upon the title of mayor; the poor dog didn't want anyone to suffer.

'_If we don't manage to get help,_' Flippy thought, '_I hope the Dimensionator can support exiling en masse…_'

The room inside the metal door was filled with computers and scientists running back and forth checking whatever kind of information popped up in the screens. Adorning the center of the circular room was the Dimensionator itself, a moderately large contraption with a generator attached to its back, several modules connected with each other by wires and tubes and a ray beam on the other extreme, aiming at an empty space on the floor.

Flippy and Clancy greeted some of the scientists that approached them to ramble about what they found. Eventually Flippy shook his arms to motion everyone to calm down and let him speak.

"Okay guys!" Flippy chimed, "Clancy here told me about how the Dimensionator is good and ready to go," he gulped, excited yet anxious about the upcoming display, "Is everyone ready for the grand opening? Heh, get it? Opening…?" he joked, but nobody seemed to react.

A black cat in a lab coat raised her hand up to garner everyone's attention, "We have adjusted the Dimensionator to target a specific dimension, I'm pretty sure we're ready to try it out after the previous tests!" she assured proudly.

"Alright guys!" Clancy exclaimed, clapping his hands, "You heard Flippy and Shade, everyone to their stations!" he ordered, and with a collective "Woohoo!" all the toons in the room flocked to different areas. Most went towards computers and their control panels, meanwhile Flippy, Clancy and a small group of scientists gathered around the area the Dimensionator aimed for, ready for a portal to open.

Clancy gave thumbs up to a green pig in the computer team, who quickly began to input commands on a computer. The Dimensionator's generator began to light up and whir, and soon enough the connecting modules of the machine followed the same display of light and noise. As soon as the energy reached the module connecting to the ray, its structure lit up piece by piece, and its tip began to summon small electricity rays as it steadily grew brighter and brighter. Soon the tip of the ray was fully charged with energy and made a metallic noise, signaling it was ready to shoot.

With the computer command of someone, the Dimensionator's light switched from a bright white to a very pure black and shot a beam in front of its audience, creating a perfectly circular black hole with tiny purple and blue rays stirring inside of it.

With a whir, the Dimensionator slowly powered down, leaving Flippy, Clancy and the rest of the scientists staring with their mouths wide open at the portal beneath them.

"Is it…" Flippy whispered, breaking the awkward silence "Is it stable?"

"I guess- I mean… Yes, our tests said it was stable now…" Clancy muttered.

"Clancy?"

"Y-Yes?"

"…Where does the portal lead to?"

Clancy opened his mouth to reply, but closed it again in doubt. After some moments he replied:

"I have no idea."


	2. Chapter 1: Interdimensional Sludge

"We'll return in a few hours, there are some leftovers in the fridge in case you or your brother are still hungry."

"Okay, mom, goodbye!" Kelly waved, not bothering to look anywhere else but her laptop screen.

"Vincent will take care of you while we're gone, be careful dear!" Kelly's mom cooed and patted her daughter's head before leaving for the front door.

"Heh, I'm the one who's gonna end up taking care of him…" Kelly laughed while typing furiously into her laptop, most likely making stupid posts on whatever social media site she was logged in that instant that may or may not be related to her fandoms.

Truly everyone in the Peterson family had some degree of… Uniqueness, for a lack of better word, but all in all they were nice people, even though they could act stupid from time to time.

Speaking of acting stupid, it was just about that time that her brother came rushing down the stairs whenever their parents left. The guy was always busy with something when their parents bid them goodbyes and left, only to almost fall down the stairs in a hopeless attempt to catch them and bid them off as well.

Various thuds and a yelp could be heard, and Kelly looked up to see Vincent holding onto the stairway's railing for dear life.

"You know, I feel like one day falling down from high places is going to become your job or something," Kelly laughed, "You missed them again."

"I did? Crap… I'm sorry." Vincent apologized, standing up and walking down the stairs carefully.

"No need to apologize, mom left you in charge, after all." Kelly shrugged, looking back at her laptop. Vincent grinned and approached Kelly, who was lying down on the sofa and using the armrest as a pillow.

"What are you watching?" He asked, resting his chin on her head, causing Kelly to instinctively lower her laptop's lid.

"Nothing." Kelly hummed, reaching up to poke her brother's cheek.

"If you don't tell me I'll just assume you were watching some naughty crap on there."

"Haha, don't you have some sludge to toss out again, though?" Kelly laughed, snatching Vincent's eyeglasses.

Vincent stood up, "Ew, it's back?" he groaned, taking back his glasses and equipping them to his face. With a disgusted face, he headed towards the backyard door and looked outside.

For the last few months, the overall normal backyard of the Peterson's had been the designated dumpster of a strange, grey sludge. Nobody had any sort of idea as to what it was, and although it was referred to as garbage, it was odorless and seemingly non-toxic and clean, as it was safe to pick it up with your bare hand and didn't leave any sort of residue.

Knowing all of this, however, didn't stop Vincent from deeming the thing absolutely disgusting, as well as openly expressing his disgust every time it was his turn to pick it up. The fact that nobody in the house or the rest of the neighborhood knew where it came from grinded his gears even more.

Kelly resumed her Internet shenanigans as Vincent angrily slid the glass door open and stepped outside to pick up the most recent lot of sludge. Making gagging sounds, Vincent picked up the stuff and hurried over to the trashcans in the backyard, tossing the sludge from a few feet away and rushing back to the house to wash his hands.

'_Ugh… Screw whoever keeps tossing their crap in our yard- Huh?_' He rambled on in his mind, but this was cut short when he heard a faint noise come from the far end of the backyard. He turned around and glanced over to the yard.

"What was…? Never mind." Vincent huffed and went back to the house, going to the bathroom to wash his hands.

Meanwhile Kelly put her laptop down on the coffee table and sat up, stretching. Those leftovers sounded like a good snack to grab and eat. Standing up, she headed towards the kitchen, passing next to the sliding doors that lead to the backyard. Wait, hold up a minute…

Kelly stepped backwards and looked into the yard; apparently Vincent wasn't done with picking up the sludge, as she could see traces of it on the far end of their lawn. Or so it seemed. When Vincent exited the bathroom and was heading back upstairs, Kelly saw it as the chance to tug him from the back of his shirt to get his attention.

"There's still some sludge left in the yard." Kelly teased, and Vincent just slowly and kind of dramatically turned around to glare at his sister.

"Hey… Vince, bro! Don't look at me like that!" Kelly whimpered, waving her hands, "Come on, I'll help you out so you can stop looking at me funny!" she assured, grabbing her brother's hand and dragging him outside to where the bits of sludge were.

When the two siblings approached the remnants of sludge, however, they discovered something much more interesting to say the least.

"What…"

"Is…"

"That?!" The two siblings said in unison. In front of them was a perfectly circular hole, it didn't seemingly lead anywhere; it was pitch black, like a black hole.

"Vincent… What the heck is that?"

"Wha- Well, how would you want me to know? I'm just as confused about that… Thing…"

"Is that even possible?" Kelly asked.

"I thought not?"

Kelly put a hand under her chin, "How about we toss something into it?" she asked.

"Something? Something like what?"

Before any of the two could think of something, what seemed to be a stick or pen began to emerge from the black hole, wiggling about. The two siblings' faces showed something that could only be described as surprise, I'd put an emoticon to show you, but then it'd look slightly unprofessional, wouldn't it? (Then again, how professional could a fan fiction get, anyways…?)

"Is that a pen?" Vincent asked.

"Yeah, I think it is!" Kelly replied, kneeling down and poking the tip of the pen, making sure to not to touch the actual hole. This caused the pen to stop moving and retreat back to the mini black hole's darkness.

"Someone must be on the other side!" Kelly chimed, then cupped her hands and placed them on both ends of her mouth, "Hello?"

No response.

"Why are you getting so excited about this, though?" Vincent asked when Kelly stood up and dropped her hands in defeat.

"Why wouldn't I? This is like something out of a book or a movie!" Kelly chirped, pointing towards the hole, "You have to admit you don't get to see this kind of stuff daily, Vince."

"Well yeah, but, what if it's dangerous?" Vincent crossed his arms, "You know how everything involving this kind of things usually ends up in some sort of disaster."

Kelly pouted.

"Oh come on, don't tell me you were thinking of hopping onto that thing, were you?" Vincent laughed, patting his sister on her head.

"Maybe…" Kelly hummed, smiling.

"Well, OK, I admit it looks fun, I'd let you in but I care about what would happen to you," He explained, "The only thing we know about it is that there are pens on the other side, for all you know it could be the… I don't know, gateway to pen hell or something!" he joked.

"Pfft, that'd be a fun adventure alright." Kelly giggled.

"In your dreams," Vincent teased while pulling her sister close for a hug, "I don't want you to get hurt, OK? You mean a lot to me."

"OK Mr. Worrywart, I won't go into the gateway to pen hell," Kelly joked, returning the hug, "But you still have some sludge to pick up!"

Immediately after hearing this Vincent pulled Kelly away with a flat expression and looked down to the bits of sludge around them with disgust, "Damn it." He muttered and reached down.

Unluckily for him (and luckily for Kelly), Vincent kneeled down too fast, losing his balance and lunging forward into the black hole. With a yelp, he fell into the hole, and Kelly in shock tried to jump after him to pull him out before he was completely sucked in; this was a fruitless attempt, however, as it caused the two of them to be sucked into the portal, leaving no traces behind.


	3. Chapter 2: Welcome to Pen Hell

Clancy retreated his pen as soon as he felt someone or something push it back.

"Guys," he gasped, "I think there's someone on the other side!" he cheered. Now all the team of scientists (and a mayor) had to do was wait.

One or two minutes which felt like eternity passed without any sort of activity. This made everyone on the laboratory feel a bit disheartened, as most of them expected an immediate response. Soon enough their hopes were fulfilled, however, when two strange beings got launched from the hole, fell into the laboratory's floor with an audible slap, and caused the team of scientists in front of the Dimensionator to step back in shock.

Clancy, Flippy, Shade and the rest of the scientists couldn't take their eyes away from the two aliens that had crash-landed into their laboratory. They flinched collectively when the one with the plaid pink shirt groaned and slowly got up to his knees.

Vincent moaned as he reached up to rub his nose and rose up, his eyes closed shut due to the impact. He opened his eyelids, adjusted his glasses and looked up, only to exchange shocked looks with a group of toons.

"What…?" He gasped, looking around.

Flippy (and the other toons for that matter) was shocked to see someone so bizarre come out of the portal, but he wasn't going to judge whoever came through the thing. He was going to…!

Oh, he had to introduce himself.

Damn.

Kelly sat up and pretty much had the same reaction as Vincent, staring at Flippy.

"Who are you…?" Vincent asked.

Flippy gulped and before he was allowed to say or move anything someone shoved him forward, making him stick out of the group in front of the kids. On the good side, at least the aliens spoke a language they understood, so Flippy shouldn't have problem communicating with them, right?

"Uh… Hello! Welcome to Toontown, the tofu- TOONIEST. The tooniest place in existence! My name is Flippy Doggenbottom, mayor of Toontown…" Flippy eeked, mentally slapping himself for messing up his town's slogan. He couldn't help it, though, he wasn't sure if his demeanor was making the best impression.

"So uh… Do you fellows have a name?" He asked, rubbing his hands.

"I'm…!" Kelly started, making her brother refrain from speaking, "I'm Kelly, Kelly Peterson. This is my brother, Vincent." She said, making a hand gesture towards his brother.

"Well, pleased to meet you both!" Flippy assured, "Err, you must be confused as to why you're here, right?" he asked. Vincent and Kelly nodded rapidly in return.

"Is this a secret furry convention?" Kelly asked.

"A what-now convention?" Flippy raised an eyebrow and shook his head, "No no, you see you're in a completely different universe!" he explained, and pointed towards the Dimensionator, "We used that to open a portal, we needed to find help, you see… We're in a bit of a hurry and we needed to find help."

"What kind of hurry?" Kelly asked, standing up.

"Well, long story short, one day robots began to invade our town for seemingly no reason, we're fighting back, of course, but I just fear it might get out of hand," Flippy explained, "We hoped that we'd might find someone who was willing to help us."

Vincent stood up and dusted himself, then looked at Flippy, "Wait… So you opened a black hole in our backyard just to find someone to help you?" he raised an eyebrow, "Can we, like, go back to our house or something?"

Flippy nodded, "Oh! Of course you can go back… I mean, it'd be nice if you'd help us out, but it's not OK to force you to stay, right? The worst thing I could do is cause trouble to someone else," He assured, "Do you want to go back home right ahead…?"

"No!" Kelly almost screamed, garnering the attention of everyone in the room, oops. "I-I mean, I'd like to see what the fuzz is all about, that's all!"

Vincent twisted his lips a bit, he was still a bit skeptical about all of this, but it was something that poked his curiosity as well. And Kelly would probably explode if they left instantly, so he spoke up: "You know what? I'd like to see it, too!" he exclaimed.

The look on Flippy's face was priceless, he was so happy right now, "Alright! I can tour you around the town!" he clapped, approaching the two humans, "You're gonna like it, I'm sure! Follow me~!"

SET ME FREE. TRUST ME AND WE WILL ESCAPE- Oh wait, sorry…

Flippy and a few other toons escorted Kelly and Vincent out of the room, the rest of the scientists focusing back on the computers as the group boarded the elevator towards the town hall's basement.


	4. Chapter 3: Toontown Central

The elevator trembled lightly as it ascended towards an upper floor. With a ding, the doors slid open and a set of stairs came in the view. Flippy stepped out and motioned everyone to follow him.

"Come on guys, this way!" He chimed. Kelly and Vincent looked at their surroundings, the hall they were in looked slightly more colorful than the plain gray room they were in when they arrived. Flippy opened the door on the end of the stairs, revealing the bright and colorful sight that was the Toontown town hall.

The architecture that the place sported was wacky to say the least, everything was orderly and symmetrical in a way, of course, but the way it was decorated made it seem surreal. The inside of the town hall was very colorful and vibrant; all the decorations seemed to be placed asymmetrically: paintings, pictures, everything that hung from the walls weren't placed properly, but it wasn't unnerving; on the contrary, it looked quite amusing. Everything that wasn't a wall also seemed to be rounded; the moldings on the walls and some of the furniture were proof of that.

"Wow… Where are we?" Kelly asked, looking in all directions.

"This is the Town Hall!" Flippy replied, "All of the things that happen in Toontown are managed from here."

The blue dog motioned the group that was following him to go along with him to the exit door. Some of the toons in the building looked over at the human teens with curiosity, some looked at them bewildered, and others were too busy to stare at them.

"And this…"

Flippy grabbed the doorknobs of the double doors in front of him and twisted them, then pushed the doors open, revealing the bright landscape in front of the hall.

"Is Toontown Central!" He chimed, making his arms form a V pose. Outside the walls of the Town Hall the sky was blue and the buildings were colorful. Lots and lots of toons ran about, adorning the sight with all sorts of colors here and there. The view was so cheerful-looking; you could have probably wanted to go in yourself.

"Ohh! This is so pretty!" Kelly cheered, grabbing her brother by the shoulders and shaking him.

"Yeah! It's pretty neat!" Vincent smiled, grabbing Kelly's hands and pulling them away, "Do you… Think you can show us around?" he asked.

Flippy's muzzle then showed the biggest grin he could manage, earning him weird looks from the two siblings, "I'd be more that happy! Haha, I thought you'd never ask!" he eeked, "Come on, this way! I'll give you a tour!" he requested and began walking away from the group, Kelly and Vincent followed, but Clancy and Shade stayed behind.

"Hey Clancy…" Shade muttered and Clancy looked over at her.

"Yeah?" He asked.

"Is it me or… Do they look a lot like Cogs…?" She inquired.

Clancy looked over at the humans who were walking away and raised an eyebrow, "Yeah… They do look at lot like Cogs…" he whispered.

==MEANWHILE==

"This is the main plaza," Flippy said, motioning the setting around him and the teens, "You can find the Town Hall, the bank and the library here!" he explained. They were surrounded by the 3 buildings, with the remaining 4th direction leading to the park in the playground. The three buildings were all neatly decorated, all of them adorned with columns on the entrances and rising several (but not quite many) stories tall. Neatly crafted lamps were scattered around the plaza, and below everything was a nicely-kept cobblestone floor, ending orderly at the start of the park.

For a place as seemingly wacky as this, the town surrounding them was very pretty.

"Aw!" Kelly cooed, "This place is so cute!"

"Haha, thank you! Me and the rest of the Toon Council work hard to keep the whole town nice and clean, even more so with what's going on right now…"

Vincent tilted his head, "What is going on, though?" he asked.

Flippy looked over at Vincent in slight embarrassment, "Oh, excuse me for not telling you guys! Really, I'm sorry for not filling you in earlier," he excused himself, "Toontown is… basically being invaded right now," he explained, "Large and weird-looking robots started coming down from the sky one day and have not left us alone since…"

"Wait," Kelly said, "If they haven't let you alone, how come this place is still so nice looking with toons running about and stuff?"

"Well that's where the somewhat good news kick in!" Flippy assured, "One day, one of us discovered that those robots have one general weakness: gags!" he explained, "If you pelt them down with pies and seltzer bottles they eventually explode, but we have yet to conclude why they do that."

"So, if you pretty much got it all under control, why do you need us?" Vincent asked.

"Oh well… About that…" Flippy muttered, "I feared things would get out of hand," he explained, "I mean, they haven't, and I sure hope they don't! But just in case, you know?"

Kelly and Vincent exchanged glances and looked back at Flippy, who had a sort of forced flat expression.

"But that's enough chit-chat about that, guys!" Flippy assured, clapping his hands, "I've got to show you the rest of the playground!"

The toon urged his human friends to follow him to the rest of the hub in Toontown Central, whom promptly followed him. Some toons that were running about stopped to look at the humans with curiosity, but most didn't really seemed to mind after seeing them following around Flippy leisurely.

"Toontown Central isn't just nice-looking in its buildings! The toons here are really nice, if I do say so myself!" Flippy bragged, "Come on, let me introduce you to one of our residents!" he chimed and approached a red monkey, who was busy fishing on a dock of the pond in the middle of the playground.

Flippy tapped the toon's shoulder, and the monkey turned around with (a somewhat cute) confused expression. The monkey looked at Flippy, and then looked at the humans in surprise.

"Um… Hello!" Vincent managed to spit out, waving a hand awkwardly at the monkey, "We're… Friends!"

The monkey's face then shifted from a mildly confused expression to a dead-serious face, staring at Kelly and Vincent like they were untrustworthy criminals.

"I know you," The monkey said, "You appeared in a dream of mine." he hissed.

Vincent immediately pulled Kelly close in an awkward, protective hug, "Yeah? W-Was the dream nice?" he blurted out. The two humans and Flippy had a mixture of confusion and fear in their faces.

"7 of you entered," The red toon explained, "Only 3 of you came out," he spat somewhat angrily, "You're going to doom your sister, mister Parker!"

The two siblings stayed close to one another, staring at the monkey who was still glaring at them. Flippy side-stepped and put his hands on Vincent's back, then began to push in order to get them away from the awkward moment.

"You know, err…? Let's ignore our residents, guys," Flippy eeked, pushing the humans away from the pond, which they gladly went along with, "Let's show you the HQ instead!" he ushered.

"Mark my words, Parker!" The monkey shouted out as soon as the trio walked away, "Mark them!"

"My last name is Peterson!" Vincent replied.

==A LITTLE WHILE LATER==

The trio stood in front of a small, cubical building with a gigantic firefighter hat that served as its roof. From said roof a radio tower came out, which had multiple alarm sirens attached to it. The building had light blue double doors, and above them was a cloth sign that read "Head Quarters" which was placed asymmetrically.

"This is the Toon HQ," Flippy explained, motioning at the building, "Each major location on Toontown has one of these, where everything that happens in our town is recorded and compiled."

Flippy pulled down the doorknob of one of the doors and opened it, stepping inside. Vincent and Kelly followed along. The inside was decorated with wood, one of the walls had a blackboard, and the other parallel to it had glass panels that protected, what the siblings assumed, was a laboratory. In the center of the building several stairs led to a reception desk where 4 toons were working, and in the center of the square said reception desk made was a tube with megaphones that seemingly connected to the radio tower from earlier.

Flippy turned around, "Would you guys really want to help us out?" he asked, "You don't have to stay here, I can promise you that."

Kelly looked at Vincent with pleading eyes, "Could we?" she asked, biting her lower lip.

Vincent scratched his head, but ultimately nodded, "Yeah!" he exclaimed, looking back at Flippy, "We could!"

Flippy grinned and clapped his hands, "Alright! Follow me, I think I know what you can help us with!" he said and turned around to walk down the stairs, with his new friends following after him.

A brown dog waved at Flippy, motioning to go with him since his co-workers were busy. "Hello, mayor! What can I… Do…" The dog trailed off as soon as he saw the two humans that were with Flippy.

"…Flippy what the heck." The dog said flatly, staring at Vincent and Kelly, whom looked embarrassed.

Flippy smiled in embarrassment, "No, Harry, I can explain!" he assured, which caused the brown dog, which was apparently named Harry, to raise an eyebrow in disbelief, "These are Kelly and Vincent, they're something called humans!" the mayor toon explained.

Harry looked over at the two teens behind Flippy, who waved awkwardly at him, then looked back at the mayor, "They kind of look like Cogs if you ask me." he said.

Vincent and Kelly exchanged confused looks.

"Cogs?" Kelly asked, "What's a Cog?"

Harry raised both of his eyebrows in slight surprise. To him they looked slightly like Cogs, but they didn't seem to act or talk like one.

"Cogs," Flippy began, "Are the robots I told you about earlier. Sorry for not telling you their name." he said, and then looked at Harry, "Anyways! Kelly and Vincent here are willing to help us with the Cog problem, do you think you can give them a hand?" he asked.

Harry smiled slightly; recruiting new people was something he really liked to do, "I guess I could! But I'm not really the one to introduce new toons… or humans… to the ways of fighting Cogs," he excused, looking at Kelly and Vincent, "For that you'll have to go to Tutorial Tom's office."

"…Tutorial Tom?" Vincent asked.

"Yes, Tutorial Tom!" Harry assured, "He can teach you all the basics you need to know, I'm pretty sure that Flippy can lead you to his building here on Toontown Central." he smiled.

"Oowooo!" Flippy cheered, "I sure can! Come on guys, Tom's building is near this playground at Punchline Place" he said.

"Punchline Place you say?" Kelly asked.

"It's the name of one of the streets in Toontown Central." Harry added.

"Come on guys!" Flippy smiled.

==A LITTLE WHILE LATER AGAIN==

The trio of two humans and a toon had entered one of the big tunnels that were in the playground of Toontown Central, leading to its connecting streets. When they reached the other end they were in Punchline Place, one of the 3 streets that linked the playground with other areas of Toontown.

The streets had the same delightful set of cobblestone that the plaza in the playground had, and all the buildings were brimming with color, with wacky-looking windows and names.

Flippy led Kelly and Vincent to a small alleyway near the tunnel, which led to a small plaza surrounded by even more buildings and green-leafed trees. In the other side of the plaza was the office of Tutorial Tom, a comparatively small building (to the others in the street) which didn't have a sign on the front wall.

"Over there, guys!" The toon assured, leading his friends to the office and opening the door. Flippy peeked in, and inside was a tan dog signing a big pile of papers with a bored expression.

"Psst," Flippy whispered, "What are you doing there, Tom?" he asked teasingly.

Tom got out of his trance and stared at Flippy, then grinned, "Hello, Flippy! Do you need anything?" he asked.

"Yep!" Flippy replied, opening the door fully, "I got two new recruits right here that'd like to fight Cogs!"

"FINALLY- I mean, fantastic!" Tom exclaimed, staring at Flippy with a huge grin while shoving aside the huge pile of papers with an unexplainable audible crash, "Where are they?" he asked, and on the cue Kelly and Vincent stepped into the office.

Tom raised an eyebrow, "Uh, those are very funny looking toons."

Flippy sighed, "They're humans, not toons, and certainly not Cogs." he explained.

"We come from another dimension!" Kelly waved.

Tom pouted in confusion, "Okay, I guess I can buy that," he shrugged, and motioned everyone to come closer to his desk, "So… What's your name guys?"

"I'm Vincent, and this is Kelly," Vincent replied, motioning to his sister, "Our last name is Peterson, by the way."

"Alright guys, do you know what a Cog is?" Tom asked, putting his hands on his hips. The two siblings shook their heads. The tan toon then reached from below his desk and pulled out some slides made of cardboard.

The first slide that he showed to the teens was of several drawings of humanoid robots in business suits. All of them had very plain expressions and color.

"These are the Cogs," Tom began, "They, as you might have already heard, are robots that are trying to take over Toontown." he said, sure that Flippy might have explained that to them before.

"There are many types of Cogs and…" He continued, dropping the first slide, revealing the next one, which had a bunch of colorful toon buildings, "… they turn happy toon buildings…" he dropped the second slide, revealing monotone, tall and grey buildings with angry eyes painted on the upper floors, "… into ugly Cog buildings!" he whimpered with a sad face.

Flippy himself also cringed a little bit seeing the Cog buildings, Kelly and Vincent, however, didn't seemed fazed at all, you could even say that they looked slightly content with the design.

Tom dropped the slide and revealed the next one, which had an image of a Cog and a toon, seemingly in battle, "But the Cogs can't take a joke!" he explained and dropped the slide, the next one had more or less the same image, but the gag that the toon was holding was shot at the Cog's face, "And so a good gag will stop them." he finished, dropping the last slide and smiling.

"Wait, what's a gag?" Vincent asked, tilting his head.

Tom reached under his desk again and pulled out a large tray which was filled with undecorated cupcakes, yellow flowers and several blue boxes with a huge red button on them, "These are just some of them." he laughed.

Vincent looked at the cupcakes with wide eyes, and tried to reach for one of them hungrily.

"The cupcakes are poisonous, by the way." Tom added casually.

Vincent immediately retracted his hand in horror.

The tan dog guffawed, "Haha, just kidding! But if you could restrain yourself from eating them, that'd be appreciated." he assured, Vincent just stared at him with a "how dare you deny me of cupcakes" kind of look (why yes, there's a specific expression just for that).

Kelly picked up one of the flowers and studied it, "I don't get it, how does this one work?" she asked, to which Flippy handed her one of the buttons in the box, "Here," he said, "Just press the button and the flower will squirt!"

Tom picked up two cupcakes and another flower from the tray and then put it away, "For now, this is all you both need, because I'm about to assign you your very first mission, you guys!"

Vincent and Kelly looked at Tom eagerly, but something over on the window caught Kelly's attention. She turned around and almost had a heart attack.

"WHAT THE HECK IS THAT?!" She shrieked, pointing at the window and gathering everyone's attention.

Tom immediately panicked and pointed at the window as well, "A Cog! A Cog is outside my building!" he screamed.


	5. Chapter 4: Flunking the Battle

Outside the window of Tutorial Tom's office was a strange being that took Kelly and Vincent by surprise and Tom by horror.

A seemingly humanoid robot was peeking into the building. Its head was bald and cream-colored and it had what appeared to be two bulging eyes which stared at everyone inside the office, but on closer inspection the "eyes" appeared to be just glasses. The robot was wearing a dark drown striped suit with a white shirt and black tie underneath. And to add to the tie count it had an insignia of a rust-colored tie on its chest.

Kelly and Tom were stricken to the core with pure shock, Flippy was stricken with confusion, and Vincent was stricken with the need for cupcakes (no no I am just kidding, along with Kelly and Tom he was shocked as well).

"W-What is that?" Vincent stuttered, not taking his eyes off the robot.

"It's a Cog -" Flippy muttered, "A Flunky actually." he relaxed his tense body and Tom did the same, because they realized it didn't pose much of a threat… To them.

Tom looked over to the frozen human siblings with resolution, "You guys!" he called, snapping them out of their trance, "I guess your first mission came to you! Use the gags I gave you to make that Flunky explode!" he ordered, pointing at the cupcakes and flowers on the desktop.

"But – But, how can pastries and pretty flowers beat that thing?" Kelly whimpered, grabbing a cupcake hastily, "It's made of pure metal!"

Flippy grabbed the remaining two gags and shoved them into Vincent's hands, then like that time they met the angry red monkey, he went behind them and began to push the two teens towards the door.

"Just do like I tell you guys!" Flippy stated, "You'll be fine!" he said hastily, and in the span of seconds he had opened the door, shoved Kelly and Vincent out, launched himself out as well, and closed the door with a thud.

Tom blinked, all of this commotion made him realize he forgot to tell the humans something, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it…

==MEANWHILE==

Kelly and Vincent scrambled about in order to get away from the Flunky as far away as possible, with Flippy following after them. The Flunky, however, didn't seem to chase after them, and just stared at them in confusion after seeing the whole show they put up inside Tom's office.

"What do we do now?!" Vincent squealed.

"Approach him!" Flippy said, pointing at the shocked Cog, "He'll engage into battle automatically!"

"What?" Kelly eeked, "I'm not approaching that! What if it tries to crush me or something?"

"He won't do that!" Vincent screeched and charged at the Flunky, who tensed up immediately. Before the Flunky could even react Vincent had already hurled his squirting flower at him, but being like any sort of flower, its momentum stopped like a piece of paper and glided gracefully to the ground in front of the Flunky, much to Vincent's dismay.

The Flunky took this moment of pure unadulterated fail as a chance to compose himself and put on a serious, if maybe bored, expression, "I'm gonna tell the boss about you!" he said in a monotone voice, and the insignia in his chest flipped around to reveal a green light. Looks like he had picked a fight with Vincent, after all.

The Cog edged closer to Vincent, who rose up his hands in self-defense and backed off. Eventually the Flunky had rounded up Vincent until the two were at the middle of the street, and stopped after doing so. Vincent scowled, picked up the blue box that used to go along with his flower and hurled it at the Flunky's head, this time the object hit the Cog's head with a satisfactory BONK and ricocheted off into the side of the street.

"Ow." The Flunky said, but the green light on his chest remained unchanged.

Flippy grabbed Kelly's hand and ran into the battle scene, with Kelly running after him. "He's going to attack you now!" The toon warned, releasing Kelly from his grip, "Dodge it! Dodge it! Dodge it!" he went on and on.

As if on cue, the Flunky pulled out something from his pocket, a big orange tie with green polka-dots, and looked over at Vincent with resolution.

Kelly panicked and rushed to the scene.

"You can't go out without your tie." The Flunky said in a slightly mocking voice and with a swipe of his hand, flung the tie directly towards Vincent's chest.

"Vincent! NOOOO!" Kelly screamed and launched herself in between the tie and Vincent as if she was sparing him from a bullet or something dramatic like that. The tie hit her square in her chest and latched onto her clothes with an uncomfortable sting as she fell down to the ground.

"Kelly! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Vincent screamed even louder and hurried over to Kelly's body, kneeling down and resting his hand on her head, "Kelly!" he whimpered, "What did that monster do to you?!"

Kelly immediately sat up and looked at her chest, where the ugly-looking tie was latched on perfectly into her clothes, "Oh, I'm fine," she said casually and stood up, dusting herself, "He just put an ugly tie on my clothes." she complained and unclipped the tie from her shirt, tossing it away.

Flippy, who was watching the whole poorly-acted drama act from the sidelines, was shocked, "You don't feel hurt because of it?!" he asked over to Kelly.

Kelly raised an eyebrow, "Um, no? It's just an ugly tie, I hurt myself more tossing myself on the ground." she shrugged.

Vincent, however, decided to keep up the poor-excuse-of-an-actor act and stared at the Flunky in fake determination. "How DARE you put a mismatched tie on my sister?" he growled, and raised his cupcake, ready for the kill, "That is a fashion crime and I must terminate you for it!" he screeched and launched his cupcake at the Flunky.

The flying pastry hit the Cog with an audible SPLAT, and the Flunky flinched, seemingly in pain, from the hit. Crumbs and filling were all over his chest, which he shook and swatted off in a hurry. The filling that was covering his chest also covered his light, and as soon as everything was cleared it was obvious that the light had turned from green to orange.

Flippy's eyes widened, "You're doing it guys! You're weakening him!" he chimed.

The Flunky frowned and reached out for something else from the hammerspace that was his pockets. A paper shredding machine and a piece of paper were pulled out from one of his pockets, leaving Kelly and Vincent perplexed.

The Cog raised the sheet of paper and dangled it over the slot of the shredder as menacingly as dangling over a sheet of paper over the slot of a shredder can get. "I'm going to rip that idea to shreds." he said angrily and allowed the paper to be consumed by the shredder, thus sending dozens of paper slices towards Kelly's general direction.

The flurry of white cellulose reached Kelly, who had closed her eyes tightly in anticipation, and the attack culminated with a dreadful damage of… 0? As the paper slices fell down Kelly opened one of her eyes and reached up to touch her face to look for paper cuts or the like. Nothing had happened to her, much to the Flunky's frustration.

Kelly swatted off the pieces of paper on her shoulders and reached for her gags, sure that it was her turn to attack next. She pulled out her flower and its matching blue box. The flower had a small clip on one side, and Kelly clipped it to her shirt.

She pulled the box with the button in front of her and took aim at the Flunky, who looked at her in slight panic. Kelly raised her palm and slammed down the button on her box. Immediately the flower squirted out a small stream of water at the Cog, who got completely soaked with it.

The insignia on the Flunky's chest switched from orange to a flickering red, and the robot himself began to shake.

"Guys embrace yourselves!" Flippy shouted and ducked for cover.

"What what -" Kelly got interrupted by Vincent, who tackle-hugged her to get her to safety faster.

The Flunky began to spin and twitch out of control and soon springs, gears and other parts began to fly off from his joints. With a loud BOOM, the Cog exploded, sending many parts, most of them gears, soaring in all directions.

The door to Tutorial Tom's office swung open, revealing an excited Tom.

"Guys! GUYS! Watch out for the Cog's attacks -"

BONK.

"OW!" Tom whimpered and fell down as soon as a stray gear hit him square in the head.

Flippy stood up and looked at the mess of metal parts that the Flunky had left behind after his demise, and then looked over at Kelly and Vincent, whom were on the floor, hugging each other. The toon walked over to the siblings and tapped their shoulders.

"You did it guys!" Flippy cheered, "You destroyed that Flunky!"

Vincent unwrapped his arms from around Kelly and sat up, "We did?" he asked and looked around, "Oh my gosh, we actually did!"

Kelly sprang up to her feet and looked at the aftermath; "I'm seriously starting to think those cupcakes are indeed poisonous." she laughed and helped her brother up.

Meanwhile, Tom approached the trio groggily, rubbing his forehead, "Good… Job… Guys…!" he slurred, swaying from side to side.

"Tom?" Flippy asked, "Are you OK?"

Tom shook his head rapidly, and as if on cue, his normal expression returned, "Yeah I am! A loose gear just hit me, don't worry," he assured, "Congratulations on defeating your first Cog! It truly means a lot for you guys to help our cause."

"No problem, Tom!" Kelly chimed proudly, "What do we do now…?"

"Maybe we can…" Vincent hummed, then snapped, "Oh crud, we have to go back home!"

Kelly's eyes widened, "Oh gosh! What if our parents are already back?" she gasped.

Flippy coughed, "I had forgotten about that!" he whimpered, "Come on guys, we need to take you back to the Dimensionator!" he ordered and ran towards the tunnel to the playground with Kelly and Vincent in hot pursuit.

==MEANWHILE==

While all that madness that happened was described, Clancy and Shade had been left behind in the dust, by choice, but left behind nonetheless. The horse and the cat had just sat down by the stairs of the Town Hall and chitchatted.

"Do you think that Flippy will try to get more…? Er…"

"Humans?" Shade added.

"Yeah, that," Clancy sighed, "Do you think he'll do that?"

The cat shrugged, "Two humans can't exactly take down a whole army, can they? I'm pretty sure he'll try to recruit at least some more." she said.

Clancy twisted his lip, "I have a bad feeling about this…" he muttered.

"Why? Because I said they looked like Cogs?" Shade giggled.

"No… Well, partly. But I just feel like something bad will happen!"

"You always say that for anything new that pops up, Clancy." Shade shrugged.

'_And you always say that for anything that worries me…_' Was a small thought that Clancy came up with, but didn't say out loud.

The tan horse opened his mouth to speak, but as if on cue…

"CLAAAAAAANNNCCCYYYYYYYYYYYY!" A familiar voice screeched from far away, causing Clancy and Shade to turn their heads.

Flippy, Kelly and Vincent were sprinting towards the town hall in a rush.

"Start up the Dimensionator!" Flippy screeched. Clancy and Shade stood up and entered the Town Hall, leaving the door open. The trio's sprint soon died down and turned into a jog as they entered the building as well.

The trio turned into a group of 5 as they entered the basement and rode the elevator down to the lab beneath the Town Hall. Flippy, Kelly and Vincent took this opportunity to catch their breaths.

"What did you guys do?" Clancy asked curiously.

"We fought a Cog!" Kelly exclaimed and raised her arms to make a V shape, "And we won!"

"For real?" Shade asked, "Which kind of Cog was it?"

"A Flunky," Flippy replied, "Level 1 by the looks of it."

"Wait," Vincent gasped, "What do you mean by level 1?"

"There are more types and higher-ranking Cogs than the one we met," Flippy explained, "But for now the top priority is to get you home."

The elevator doors opened with a ding, and the group walked towards the next door, which revealed the same scientists from earlier working on the computers surrounding the Dimensionator. They all collectively whipped their heads at the sound of the door sliding open.

"Okay guys!" Clancy hollered, "We need to open the Dimensionator again, same coordinates from earlier." he ordered, and everyone promptly began to activate the machine.

The Dimensionator began to whir as usual as it gathered the energy it required to open a portal. When it was fully charged a black beam shot at an empty space on the floor, opening the same inter-dimensional portal from the first time.

"So that's how the black hole appeared…" Vincent muttered.

"Okay guys," Flippy began, "All you have to do now is go through the portal, and you'll be back where you were." he smiled.

"Wait," Kelly asked, "What if we want to come back here tomorrow?" she pouted.

The three toons next to her collectively made a "Hmm" sound, and then one of them snapped their fingers after thinking up something.

"How about we open the portal tomorrow at the same time we opened it for the first time today?" Shade asked.

"That's a great idea!" Vincent replied.

"Very well, I'll make sure we're on time tomorrow, guys!" Flippy said, to which Clancy nodded in agreement.

The group walked towards the portal hole, ready to drop off Kelly and Vincent.

Kelly turned around, "Thank you guys for this experience! I can't wait until tomorrow!" she cheered.

"Neither can us!" Flippy chimed, "We'll be waiting for you!"

Vincent and Kelly bid farewell in unison, to which everyone in the room replied with another farewell. The two siblings then jumped into the hole and disappeared from view. As soon as the toons on the computers saw no one in the portal, they closed it, sealing off the link between dimensions for the time being.

==MEANWHILE==

Kelly and Vincent shot out through the portal, and just as the first time, they landed on their backyard with an audible slap.

Kelly rose up to her knees and looked around, everything was fine, and apparently the portal had closed. One thing that stood out was that Vincent was lying on the ground without moving.

"…Vincent? Are you okay?" Kelly asked and poked his head. Soon enough some coughs and gags that were obscured by the ground could be heard, and Vincent shot up to his knees, coughing up grey sludge in disgust. Apparently he had landed over it.

Kelly couldn't help but to laugh at the show her brother was putting up. She put her hand over Vincent's back and patted it repeatedly until Vincent stopped gagging.

"Eurgh…" Vincent muttered as soon as his mouth was clear, "Sludge."

Kelly giggled, "Come on Vincent, we have to check if our parents are already home." she stated and helped her brother stand up.

The two rushed towards the gate that separated their backyard from the front yard. There were no cars to be seen in the parking space.

"Phew, we made it in time, huh Kelly?" Vincent asked.

"Yeah…" Kelly sighed in relief, but then looked at Vincent slyly, "But you still have some sludge to take care of." she teased.

"OH GOD NO."

==MEANWHILE==

As soon as the portal to the human world had closed, Flippy walked towards the door to leave, but Clancy and Shade followed soon after. When the trio exited the lab and entered the elevator, Clancy and Shade took the time to interview Flippy about his plans.

"Hey Flippy," Shade began, "Are you planning to bring more humans here?" she asked.

"I guess it's something I should do," Flippy replied, "I'd just have to find some more people that'd like to come."

"But Flippy," Clancy objected, "What if something happens to us?" he asked.

"Not just that, Clancy," Shade interrupted, "What if something happens to the humans?"

Flippy's eyes widened, he really hadn't thought if this would bring negative consequences to the toons.

"Well I… I don't really see how they will affect us negatively…" Flippy rubbed his neck.

"But they look like Cogs, Flippy," Clancy stated, "What if they end up siding with them?"

"They might look like Cogs," Flippy snapped, "But they act like us! Besides, I found out that they're immune to the Cogs' attacks, they can't get sad due to them!" he explained.

Clancy and Shade looked at Flippy with their eyebrows raised.

Flippy sighed, "Sorry guys, you know I'm just trying to protect the town," he excused, "Look, I know this all looks really shady, and I'm sorry about that, but for now the problem is making sure the Dimensionator isn't discovered by the Cogs."

The elevator doors slid open and revealed the stairs leading up to the Town Hall.

"Besides, humans haven't given us a reason to not to trust them, right? Let's try to make contact with more of them." Flippy mentioned as the trio walked upstairs.

"Just because they resemble Cogs it doesn't mean we shouldn't give them a chance… right?"

'_Tomorrow will be a new day,_' Flippy thought, '_I'm pretty sure Clancy and Shade are wrong… They just- Need some proof to trust me and the humans._'


	6. Chapter 5: The Hole in the Sidewalk

**A/N: Thank you for the views, faves and follows so far! They might not me many but they do mean a lot to me :) After a while procrastinating, getting ill and finally transfering the file to my desktop computer here is chapter 5!**

**This fic is separated into several "arcs", which in turn are separated into several "sub-arcs". The arcs are divided by the main focus and topics of its chapters, while the sub-arcs are divided by the focus on certain characters or events. The current arc is number 1, and chapter 5 marks the start of the 2nd sub-arc, because a new character is going to enter the squad!**

**In this site the division of arcs don't matter much, though, they are just a way to keep things a bit more organized.**

**Anyways, enjoy!**

* * *

The following day on the human world, Kelly and Vincent were at their house, practicing with their instruments. Vincent took up the drums and Kelly… the tuba.

Vincent used his drumsticks to hit the drums softly; he always did that before suddenly going crazy with them. His beat was slow and didn't make the whole house shake like the drums tend to do if you play them with energy. He was about to speed up his pace when suddenly-

OH MY GOODNESS THE LOUDEST TUBA NOISE HUMANLY POSSIBLE WAS MADE IN FRONT OF HIM THAT WAS PRETTY DAMN SCARY.

Vincent almost fell off his seat when Kelly decided to prank him and play a single, loud note on her tuba. The girl kept on the note as she scooted away slowly.

"Kelly what the heck!" Vincent sort of laughed, but it doesn't matter if he found it funny or not because I just remembered he wasn't even meant to be the focus of this chapter!

"What…?" Vincent asked, "Then who is it?"

Let me show you!

==MEANWHILE==

Some blocks away from the Petersons' were two guys walking down the street. They were walking home from school, which explained the backpacks on their shoulders.

"And then she called me a dork!" One of them complained, "I mean, if she found dorks attractive I wouldn't have minded but she never told me that!"

"Connor," The other one laughed, "You are a dork. Just accept it and let your life go on, man." he mocked.

Connor frowned, "But I'm not, David!" he complained, "After all, who's the coolest guy you've met?"

"There's me, my dad, and that guy from middle school who back flipped off the school library's roof…" David hummed, using his fingers to simulate counting, "And there are some others, but you're not one of them, dude, you're a dork." he smirked.

Connor pouted and along with David, he kept walking towards David's home. David's family's house had two windows at the front, one of which was from the living room. From that window David's little brother, Anthony, always peeked out to greet him whenever he arrived. And sure enough he was there, practically stuck to the window.

David adjusted his backpack and looked at Connor, "Well, here's where I go off, do you want to come in straight ahead?" he asked, since the two had agreed to stay at his house during the afternoon.

"Nah, let me drop off my backpack at home and I'll come back here afterwards." Connor replied and waved his friend goodbye, "See you later, man!"

David shrugged and waved goodbye to Connor as well, "See you later too, then!" he laughed and walked towards his house's front door, while Connor parted towards the sidewalk once more.

David slid his backpack off his shoulder and grabbed one of its straps with his right hand as he reached for the doorknob. He opened the door wide open and tossed his backpack to the side, before closing the door again. His little brother immediately rushed to greet him.

"Hello David!" Anthony chirped and hugged his older brother by the waist. After all, that was the highest he could reach.

"Hello!" David smiled and patted his brother's head, "Hey, Connor is coming with us today!"

"Really? Woohoo!" Anthony exclaimed and unwrapped his arms from David.

Since the two met at elementary school, David and Connor had become the best of friends, and seemingly their families had, too. It was that unexplainable acquaintance that families developed after their kids formed a friendship. Not that anyone minded.

As David went to the kitchen to greet his mom, we wondered if Connor was doing the same thing.

==SOME TIME LATER==

Connor reached his house and opened the door. After closing it he rushed upstairs and tossed his backpack on the floor of his room. Someone's head peeked out from the room next to his and smiled.

"Hello dear!" Connor's mom chimed, "How was your day?"

Connor eeked in surprise, "Oh, it was fine! I'm about to go to David's house now." he stated as he walked over to his mother and gave her a quick peck on the check. His mother doing the same.

"Take care, Connor." His mother said sternly as he walked downstairs and exited the house.

Connor sighed and walked towards David's house. He didn't feel like running, so he opted for walking instead. Albeit slowly, very slowly (ugh).

==MEANWHILE==

Back in Toontown, Flippy and the rest of the scientists were setting up the Dimensionator for its second day of work. It was time for the portal to open up at the Petersons' backyard again, and for Kelly and Vincent to return to the parallel world.

The scientists worked vigorously, saving dates and locations so they didn't have to work it out later again. However, one of the scientists that was saving the location switched things up a little bit. And instead of a 2, he inputted a 5 in the long string of numbers that was the coordinate.

The Dimensionator was ready, and the machine gleefully started up and charged energy. The same black beam of always shot out to the floor, opening another interdimensional portal.

==MEANWHILE (AGAIN)==

Connor walked towards David's house rather slowly, but he was growing impatient and decided to speed up the pace. First he walked faster, then he jogged, and then it turned into a full-blown sprint, almost as if he was running for his life.

The amount of time he spent across the blocks was shortened, and he was really close to David's house now. However, the sidewalk seemingly had other plans for him, as out of the blue a black hole appeared and extended quickly in the sidewalk, with some bits of grey goo coming out.

Connor tried to slow down before he touched the portal, but it was too late to stop abruptly, so he ended up flailing his arms wildly and screaming like a little girl as he fell feet-first into the hole.


	7. Chapter 6: Mickey Sold Separately

**A/N: Whew! Sorry about the big delay guys, I got a bit sidetracked with other stuff, both IRL and online. To compensate, this is the longest chapter yet. Enjoy, and happy holidays!**

* * *

Clancy looked attentively at the black hole in front of him, and just as the other toons in the room, he was waiting for the arrival of Kelly and Vincent. But the person that came out took everyone by surprise, and it didn't help that they were screaming at the top of their lungs before hitting the cold hard ground.

Connor muttered a little "Ow." before rising to his knees. All sorts of colorful animals were staring at him in shock. He tried to open his mouth to ask something, but all that came out was a long "Uhh…"

Clancy gulped and looked at Connor with surprise, "Who're you?" he interrogated the best stern tone he could manage.

"Who are _you_?" Connor shot back.

Clancy looked insulted, "B-But, I asked first!" he whined.

"Well I asked second – ahh!" Connor was about to say before being shoved forward by something or someone hitting him from behind. Falling on his face, he was pinned down by the weight of somebody else that had also come from the portal.

Anthony groaned and got off Connor's back, apparently he had followed him all the way to the alternate universe. Casual.

Connor shot up again and looked to his side, noticing Anthony sitting next to him, immediately kneeling down to help his friend up.

"Anthony? What are you doing here?" Connor asked as Anthony dusted his pants, "Where are we?" he inquired, this time turning to Clancy.

"You're in Toontown!" A voice called from the back of the small crowd in front of Anthony and Connor, the toons dispersed and revealed Flippy, "Oh my… Who are you guys?"

"I'm… C- Mmph!" Connor's mouth was covered by Anthony's hand, and the little kid looked at the toons around them with a funny face.

"Shh! Stranger danger!" Anthony told to Connor, and then looked at the toons again, "He looks suspicious!"

_'__Anthony, I just said your name out loud…'_ Connor thought.

"Suspicious? Absolutely not, little buddy!" Flippy assured, "We mean no harm, we just – I guess we just brought you in by accident…"

Anthony pouted, "What do you mean by accident?" he asked.

Connor moved Anthony's hand away from his mouth, "Who did you want to bring in?" he seconded.

"Somebody else," Flippy shrugged, and then looked over at the toons operating the computers, "What happened, guys?"

The scientist toons looked over at the data that was displayed on the computer, and after some moments they found the error that someone had made. The scientist that had made the mistake silently and swiftly fixed the error then looked over at Flippy, "It's all good now!" he assured.

"Oh!" Flippy hooted, then looked over at the two humans in front of him, "Guess that fixes it, you can go back home now! Sorry for the inconvenience."

"Wait a minute," Connor mused, "What do you need other humans for? In what part of the world are we, anyways?" he interrogated.

"You're not in your planet," Clancy added, and then backtracked when he realized how stupid it sounded all alone, "Well, I guess you're technically still in your planet? You're in a different dimension!" he concluded.

"Other humans agreed to help us out in an issue we have," Flippy added, "You see, we are being invaded by robots, and we have no idea where they came from…" he explained.

"Now that's stranger danger," Connor laughed, and then raised an eyebrow in confusion, "But, if you're invaded by robots what kind of people are you waiting for, soldiers?"

Anthony's eyes grew wide, "Or superheroes? Are you waiting for superheroes?" he asked in excitement at his theory.

"Not at all! Well, I'm not sure. For all I know they could be!" Flippy replied.

"Can we meet them?" Anthony asked.

"So much for the guy worried about stranger danger," Connor giggled, "But can we? I'd like to meet them, too!"

Flippy looked surprised, "You really want to?" he asked. Maybe, just maybe, the extra help he needed was coming to him via these two new humans. The dog looked over at the computer team, "Save this location, guys!" he ordered them, and after a few moments the black hole closed, the Dimensionator loading another shot.

Connor and Anthony stepped back as the Dimensionator gathered up energy again for another portal, this time – Flippy was sure – the other end of the new black hole would appear in the Petersons' backyard like it had done yesterday.

With a flurry of noises, the portal opened once more.

==MEANWHILE==

The sounds of a mediocre tuba show filled the Petersons' household. Vincent had gave up on practicing his drumming skills given how loud Kelly was playing her tuba, now just wondering how his parents and him were capable of standing such noise for too long-

"Kelly!" Mr. Peterson had to shout to get her attention, "Calm down with the tuba, please."

Kelly, lowered her tuba and pouted, freeing the house of the sounds of the instrument she was playing. With a sigh she put away her tuba and sat down on the couch next to Vincent, who was more than glad that the environment was much quieter. Their father, relieved as well, went back to his office room.

"How much longer do we have to wait until the portal opens?" Kelly whined, resting her head on Vincent's shoulder. On cue, the two heard a small sound coming from the backyard – that had to be Flippy and the rest!

"Nevermind!" Kelly chimed and sprang up, trotting towards the backyard, not before asking Vincent "Did you tell our parents?"

Vincent nodded and went after her. The two had agreed to make an excuse for being absent for a few hours – they were waiting for an event in the park near their house. Thankfully neither Mr. nor Mrs. Peterson noticed the duo exiting the house through the back door rather than the front door.

With a (very ungraceful) leap, Kelly and Vincent hopped into the black hole, ready to resume their Toontown shenanigans.

==MEANWHILE==

Connor and Anthony didn't really know what to expect from the portal. Would the persons that came out of the black hole be actually average? How old were they? Would they be nice to them? Those were some questions that Connor pondered about; Anthony was just excited about finding out if these people were soldiers or the like.

And then in a flash two bodies launched into the room and fell on the floor face-first with a slapping sound. So much for superheroes, huh?

Flippy and Clancy rushed to help Kelly and Vincent up. The two siblings looked around, before locking their sight on the newcomers.

"…Flippy what the heck." Vincent said flatly, studying the two kids in front of him. One of them looked familiar.

"Hey, I've seen you at school!" Kelly said to Connor, who pointed at himself in confusion. Kelly nodded at the gesture, "Yeah! We've never talked, though…"

Connor blinked at a loss of words. Was he confused, or…?

Flippy, however, took this chance to speak up, "So, I'm assuming you guys live close together?" he asked, the replies he got were shrugs and nods, "Well… I guess that's it guys!"

Anthony pouted, "That's it?" he asked, "But- But- We haven't seen them do some cool robot fighting stuff! We don't even know their names!"

Kelly held back a giggle, "Aww, so you have told them about us, Flippy?" she asked the blue dog, then looked over at Anthony, "My name is Kelly! Kelly Peterson, and this," she introduced herself and pulled Vincent into a sideway hug, "Is my brother Vincent!"

Vincent looked at the duo in front of him with a goofy grin, "Hi guys! What are your names?" he asked, waving hello at them.

"I'm Anthony!" Anthony puffed out with pride, Connor on the other hand shrugged. "I'm Connor, Connor Olmos!" Connor greeted.

"Can we see some cool robot fighting?" Anthony turned to Flippy, putting on his best puppy eyes, "Please, just this once!"

"Well I…" Flippy mumbled, glancing at the other toons, who all gave him a "why not?" sort of shrug, "Suppose you can! But we have to stock you guys up with some gags first!" he finally decided, which caused Anthony to give off a very excited squeal, "Come on guys, this way." the toon urged and led the group of four towards the upper floors of the Town Hall.

==A LITTLE WHILE LATER==

Flippy swung open the double doors of the Town Hall and trotted down the stairs with Kelly, Vincent, Connor and Anthony following after him. Connor and Anthony were spinning around, taking in every single detail of the new world around them.

"Hey!" Connor shouted, pointing at the top of the Town Hall, "Is that Mickey?!"

Instantly the others whipped their heads and stared up at the sign that adorned the Town Hall. Flippy's jaw dropped open in surprise.

"You know Mickey?!" The dog asked in shock.

"Yeah! He's a cartoon in our world," Kelly added, before her mind clicked together, "Wait a minute – Does this mean other characters like Donald or Pluto live here?!" she asked.

"Can we meet them instead of fighting robots?" Anthony begged.

Flippy tugged at the neck of his shirt, "Erm, sorry guys, but I'm afraid not," he stated, which caused the rest of the group to sag, "Donald and the others have long since moved into other towns. And as for Mickey and Pluto, well…"

==MEANWHILE, IN A PLACE FAR, FAR AWAY FROM OUR MAIN STORY==

"Oh boy!" Mickey chimed, hopping onto a tanning chair next to his dog, Pluto, "This cruiser will sure be fun! I hope no big changes occur in Toontown while we're gone, because we're going to be on this vacation for a long, long time!" he chimed and gave Pluto a piña colada, to which Pluto replied with a happy bark and began to drink the beverage.

==BACK TO THE STORY==

"…He's out of town as of now." Flippy shrugged.

"Aw, bummer…" Anthony mumbled, "Can we still fight robots, though?"

"You sure can, buddy!" Flippy assured, "Come along with me, guys!"

The toon leaded the group of humans all across the other side of the playground. They approached a small area with a trolley leading into a pitch-black tunnel seemingly powered by a wind-up key.

"This is the game trolley," Flippy explained, "You can play games and you win jellybeans in return."

"Jellybeans?" Vincent asked, "What are we supposed to do with them?"

"Well, jellybeans are our form of currency; you're going to need them to buy some gags over there." Flippy explained, pointing at a shop next to the trolley.

"Alright…" Connor hummed, "What are we supposed to do in the games? How does the trolley even work?" he asked.

"The games are very simple, trust me!" Flippy assured, "Once you all hop into the trolley it will automatically bring you to a game, and as soon as you're done you'll be brought to the gag shop."

"Wait, you're not coming with us?" Kelly whimpered.

"No, the trolley only manages up to four players," Flippy shrugged, "But don't worry, if you ever get stuck the trolley allows you to exit the minigame. Oh! I almost forgot! You'll need a place to store your jellybeans -"

"Eh, I'm sure we can just store them in our pockets." Vincent added.

"Come on!" Anthony interrupted the explanation, "I want to battle robots!" he begged, tugging Connor's shirt.

"OK guys, guess we've got to get going!" Kelly added, and the four kids (well, more along the lines of 3 teens and one kid) hopped onto the trolley. Connor and Kelly were in between Anthony and Vincent, and while Connor was more or less pleased with the result, his face made him look as if he was uncomfortable. The wind-up key on top of the trolley made a jingle and began spinning slowly, and soon the trolley itself began to move into the black tunnel opposite to the gag shop.

For a while all the four kids could see was darkness, but soon the trolley approached a light source and eventually stopped moving when it reached the inside of a large room with a series of blue squares on the floor. The group jumped out of the trolley and into the room, bemused at all the plates on the floor.

"What are these?" Vincent asked and approached a square in the corner, as soon as his foot touched the tile, it flipped around rapidly, causing Vincent to scream and fall on his back. The tile now had the picture of a squirting flower.

"It's a memory game!" Kelly exclaimed and poked another tile with the tip of her foot. This tile now had a pink background and the photo of a cupcake, "Aw shoot…"

Anthony rushed into the middle tiles, carefully avoiding stepping into other ones, and tapped another tile. The two revealed tiles went back to their unrevealed state as the new one showed to be another cupcake. On cue Kelly tapped her tile again, and as soon as the picture of the cupcake came into place the two tiles disappeared with a satisfactory jingle.

"Wow, that's a bit freaky…" Connor muttered and began tapping tiles as well, Vincent following soon after he stood up.

The group managed to get a few pairs of pictures to disappear, but this was hard considering most of the time they opened tiles in a rush or accidentally stepped into another one. In frustration, Anthony looked over to where the trolley was parked and noticed a clock that was counting down to something.

"Guys, look!" Anthony shouted and pointed at the timer, the others making faces in disgust.

"We're on a timer?!" Connor whined, and then looked at their insignificant progress, "At this pace we'll never finish in time!"

Anthony, Kelly, Connor and Vincent stood there for a couple of seconds figuring out what to do. They had 30 seconds left, and a lot of tiles that still needed to be uncovered.

"You know what?!" Vincent screeched, "Screw this! Nobody's got the time for the memory game!" and as soon as he said that, he sprinted across a row of tiles, uncovering each after the other. The others took cue and took rows of their own to run across. The room soon was filled with the abundant noises of tiles flapping and victory jingles as soon as pairs were found.

Amongst all the chaos that the kids were stirring up pair after pair of tiles was found and wiped off the room. 10 seconds were left and the group had reached the end of the room, they all turned around, and to their horror, the final pair was at the other end of the room. Vincent however didn't waste time and sprinted towards the tiles, with Connor following soon after as soon as he realized what was going on.

7… 6… 5… The sprint towards the tiles seemed like an eternity.

4… 3… 2… The duo was so close, yet so far. In an act of desperation, Connor and Vincent launched themselves towards the tiles at the same time.

1… As soon as their bodies hit the blue squares they were mercilessly shot out into the air as the tiles swapped to reveal the last pair.

The pair of bike horn pictures disappeared from view as soon as the timer hit 0. Vincent and Connor faceplanted the floor with a thud as the room blared a much longer victory jingle. Seems as they won apparently.

Kelly and Anthony rushed to help the two while laughing about it. Kelly helped up her brother and adjusted his glasses.

"Did we win?" Vincent asked, rubbing his nose.

"We sure did!" Kelly chimed, putting her hands on her hips as soon as Vincent regained balance, "Now come on you most valuable players, we've got to see how we're going to get jellybeans."

The group hopped onto the trolley in between giggles, and as soon as the last person boarded the trolley began to move towards another black tunnel. Soon another place came into view; it seemed to be the back of the gag shop, as it was an open place with a table and four empty plates and small screens in front of them, to the right was the back entrance to the gag shop. As soon as the kids stepped out of the trolley the screens all flashed the number 40, and with a puff of smoke a pile of exactly 40 jellybeans appeared in each plate.

"Woah, we're loaded!" Connor joked and approached his plate, picking up his jellybeans with both hands, "Oh, oh crap," he eeked, "How are we going to open the door now?"

Vincent rolled his eyes and headed to the door, opening it before reaching into his pile of jellybeans.

==MEANWHILE==

Flippy was talking on and on about the humans that had just entered the trolley to a red rabbit that worked on the gag shop: Clara.

"So… When are they returning?" Clara asked.

"Well, I suppose they should be here at any moment -"

The door that led to the back of the store flung open and after a while the 4 humans rushed inside, all their hands cupped to support all the jellybeans they had won.

"Wow, you guys did great!" Flippy congratulated.

Vincent rushed to where Clara was sitting and spilled all his jellybeans into the table, "GAG SELLER, I DEMAND YOUR FINEST GAGS!" he stated, putting his hands on his hips.

Clara just stared at him dumbfounded.

Vincent laughed nervously and adjusted his glasses, "Haha, sorry about that, I couldn't help it," he giggled, "What can I buy with this, for real this time?"

"Oh! Well, I think for the moment you can only buy cupcakes and squirting flowers," Clara said and reached for the giant shelves behind her, looking for the gags she was about to sell the group. After a bit, she stopped and turned her head to look at the kids, "Hold on, do you guys have gag pouches?" she asked.

"A gag pouch?" Vincent asked.

"Yes, it allows you to store your gags easily," Clara explained, "Err, you don't have one, do you?" she asked, and the group shook their heads in unison, "Alright then, give me a second!"

==SOMETIME LATER==

Kelly, Anthony, Connor and Vincent had all received small gag pouches from Clara for free, the hammerspace inside them let the kids carry 20 gags each, spread evenly in cupcakes and squirting flowers. The group then rushed towards the nearest tunnel to a street, Loopy Lane, in order to fight a cog, with Flippy tagging along with them.

The group looked around for any sort of robot that could have been roaming the streets, but aside from the few toons running about, there was no activity on Loopy Lane. Until…

"What the heck is that?!" Connor shrieked, pointing at a slender robot in the distance.

"Is a Cog!" Vincent replied and ran towards it, Kelly, Anthony, Connor and Flippy following soon after.

On a closer look, the Cog was thin and had white skin, err, metal plates. It had a navy blue suit with a red bowtie. But what stood out most about it were its huge, pointy fangs sticking out of his mouth.

"That's a Bloodsucker!" Flippy added.

Kelly snatched a cupcake from her pouch and readied it to throw it at the Cog, "Hey! Suck on this!" she taunted, and before the Bloodsucker got a chance to react, the cupcake had already hit it square in the face, dealing a considerable amount of damage.

The Cog quickly shook off the cream out of his face and looked at his attacker. What on Cog Nation was that?! And there were 4 of them, all ready to pelt him with more of those insufferable gags! The rules he was given included never backing down from a fight with a toon, but these… things, whatever they were, were clearly not toons at all. Surely the boss could make an exception –

SPLAT!

Anthony hurled another cupcake, and this time the Bloodsucker didn't hesitate to pull out a propeller from the top of his head and start it up, lifting his feet from the ground.

"The Chairman must know about you!" The Bloodsucker shrieked as his propeller raised him to the skies. The kids all tried to pelt him with more gags before he got away, but he was just simply too fast, and soon enough the Cog was nothing but a speck on the sky.

"Hey! Come back and fight you coward!" Anthony shouted and shook a cupcake furiously in his hand. All of the others just stared in awe at the reaction the Cog had made.

"Are those things meant to do that?" Connor asked to Flippy.

The toon shook his head, not taking his eyes off the sky, "I've never seen a Cog retreat like that…" he admitted, and looked at the kids with a hint of worry in his face, "Um, guys? I'm sorry to say this but, I think I'm going to have to cut the guide trip short, something important just came up." he said, dead serious.

==EVEN LATER THAT NIGHT==

All the kids had returned back to Earth, they all agreed that tomorrow they couldn't make it, they had important stuff to attend to, but they could go back to Toontown the day after.

The playground in Toontown Central had no one in it, most of the toons had gone back home or to the streets for some shopping, and the ones who remained were just the night shift clerks of the buildings in the area.

Inside the Toon Hall, however, everything was lonely except for Flippy's office. The blue dog was pacing around the room as another red dog looked at him intrigued.

"Who the heck is the Chairman?" The red dog asked, tapping his foot.

"I don't know, Lowden!" Flippy wheezed, "That Bloodsucker just said his name, maybe the Chairman's his – I don't know, boss or something!"

"Well, if it is their boss, then we might be into something big," The red dog, named Lowden, added, "But if said Chairman actually finds out about the… humans that you're bringing here, you're putting them in jeopardy, don't you think?"

"Not as long as they don't find out where the Dimensionator is hidden…" Flippy hissed.

"And if they do?" Lowden dared to ask, "You know how Cogs are, trying to pry their hands into anything they consider profitable. You just gave them a clue that we're onto something."

Flippy sagged, "I know…" he muttered.

Lowden stood up, easily taller than Flippy, and put a hand on his shoulder, "Look Flippy, I know why you wanted to get help from the humans, and that Bloodsucker running away wasn't your fault, but we need to keep this hidden from the Cogs as best as possible." he stated.

"But then how will we get help?" Flippy asked.

"Well, we'll have to think on that," Lowden shrugged, "But for now, putting some kids from another dimension in peril isn't worth it. I mean, if they were older…"

The two dogs looked surprised as their minds clicked on the same idea.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Flippy asked, his spirits lifted up after the idea popping up.

"I think I am," Lowden chimed, "But this time, let me help you out, OK?"


	8. Chapter 7: Who Is Watching?

**A/N: Hey there everyone! Happy (late) New Year! This chapter is slightly smaller than the rest (and very tiny compared to the 4000+ words monstrosity that was Chapter 6), but don't worry, it introduces some new things, and maybe even a new character?**

* * *

Miles away from Toontown's city limits metal feet walked up hurriedly through a dimly lit corridor. At the end of the hall a gigantic door stood tall. The owner of the metallic feet stood in front of the door and clicked a comparatively small button to make a bell ring. For a while nothing could be heard from the other side, but soon enough someone disrupted the silence.

"Who is there and what do you need?" boomed a very deep voice behind the door.

"I am 025-SC; boss," replied the Cog standing in front of the door, instead of wearing a suit and having facial features, he was just the inner skeleton of a normal Cog, a Skelecog, "I have urgent news to share with you."

"Come in." the voice behind the doors said, and 025-SC grabbed a small handle in the otherwise gigantic door and pulled it open, entering a large, even darker room quietly. The Skelecog approached the middle of the room, where a lamp was illuminating a small spot on the otherwise dark room, taking the role of a spotlight.

"What is it that you needed to tell me?" The deep voice asked.

"Sir, we have reports of strange creatures roaming about the streets of Toontown Central, the toons are up to something." 025-SC explained.

"Strange creatures have always been roaming around wherever toons live, 025," His boss scoffed, "What makes this encounter any different? It was probably just a pathetic Cog getting scared over butterflies."

The Skelecog shook his head, "No boss, this time it's different. The new creatures are sentient, and according to the witness, they looked like Cogs."

025-SC couldn't see his boss' face, but he could tell by his silence that he was intrigued about the news.

"I've sent the video files to your computer, boss." 025-SC assured, and a few cranking noises could be heard, and then with a click a very big light illuminated his boss' face. Or should I say the Chairman's face.

The Chairman was an intimidating figure, his face was a dark gray, and unlike other Cogs, he didn't have a mouth, but instead had a metal plate emulating teeth, making him look like his teeth were always gritted. But what stood out the most were his eyes. Whereas most Cogs would have beady round eyes, which for some reason were more than enough to scare young toons, the Chairman had cold, pitch-black eyes with red glowing pupils that one could describe as being able to stare into your soul. Even his more trusted workers feared having to gaze into his eyes whenever he was angry.

On the computer some videos recorded from the Cog that had witnessed the strange beings was being played. The Chairman stared attentively at everything that he was watching at the screen. When the video stopped, he went back to points where the humans were in full view and analyzed them. As much as they looked like Cogs, they appeared to be really young, and all of them had a sort of toony appeal to them.

"Hmm…" The Chairman hummed, glancing back at 025-SC, "This is certainly very interesting. Is there anything else I should be informed about regarding this?" he asked.

"Our intelligence team theorizes that due to being living beings, they might be resistant to gags," 025-SC added matter-of-factly, "But so far we'd need more knowledge about them."

"That's exactly what I wanted to hear," The Chairman hummed, "If we find out how those beings work, and where do they come from, I'm certain we'll finally get an edge over those blasted toons."

The Skelecog in front of the Chairman nodded, "Yes sir, that's what I've been thinking, too," he assured, "What do you want us to do?" he asked, raising a finger in the air.

The Chairman's eyes darted off to look at another direction for a while, and then returned to gaze at his worker, "Tell your most trusted co-workers to roam around Toontown Central and keep their eyes open, if they do see those beings again, tell them to register as much as they can without getting caught, then come back directly to my headquarters to analyze their memory recordings."

"You don't want us to capture any of them?" 025-SC asked.

The Chairman shook his head in disagreement, "No. That would bring unwarranted attention to us and my headquarters," he stated, "Besides; it's dangerous to bring someone whom we don't know anything about to this place."

The Skelecog nodded, "Understood, boss. I'll tell my fellow workers right ahead. Thank you for letting me in." he thanked.

The Chairman nodded, "The pleasure was all mine, now you can leave." he stated, and 025-SC walked back to where the door was and exited, closing it as he left. The Chairman looked back at the computer screen. Just what in the world were those beings? They looked like Cogs, yet at the same time behaved like a toon would.

Perhaps they only acted like toons because they were exposed to those sickenly-sweet critters. Perhaps if they were persuaded into working for him and the rest of cogkind they would have been more than willing to. All of these speculations running across his hard drive were just that – speculations. All the Chairman could do now was sit and wait until he had the knowledge about what they were and how they acted.

However he had his hopes up, there was a chance that some of them could be worked with. Maybe – Just maybe, he could use them to his advantage. The Chairman just knew the toons had brought them from some place to try and get an advantage over them, it was pretty obvious.

And he'd be more than willing and able to flip the tables on them.


	9. Chapter 8: Too Much Coffee For Today

**A/N: Hello everyone! Super sorry for the long wait! I've got no excuse for this one, really, I've just been very lazy and procrastinated a lot. But anyways, thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoy! Criticism is appreciated :)**

* * *

Inside a café a young man sipped his cup of coffee as he read one of his favorite books. He was taking a well-deserved rest after a whole busy week in college. He had just entered, being 18. Maybe the career he opted for was just too heavy-handed compared to others, but he liked it nonetheless.

Charles scratched his head and looked around the café. He always sat in a booth that was next to the window, as he loved to see the cars drive past. There wasn't anyone to talk with now, given how everyone was either busy or just not in the mood for coffee. Yet he always noticed how there was a young woman who sat in the same table next to him every now and then. They never talked, just sort of waved at each other whenever their gazes met.

This time she was not in the café. Maybe she was busy, too.

Taking his last sip of coffee, Charles stood up, threw the empty cup in the trash, and left the café. Reading a book and looking at cars could only entertain you so far before you felt bored.

The young man walked down the street towards his house, which was some blocks away. On his way he heard a loud, bizarre noise coming from an alleyway. The sound caught his attention and Charles peeked back into the alley. A large, strange hole lay amidst a bunch of gray goo. It caught his attention, so he inched towards it slowly and took a peek. It was pitch-black, which made him a bit anxious.

Just then, the phone in his pocket ringed, and Charles stepped back, snatching up his phone. "Hello?" he asked.

"Hello dear! This is your mom," His mother's sound laughed through the speaker, "I just wanted to see how your first week at college was!"

"Oh- It was fine, really!" Charles assured, "It's been smooth so far…"

"Has my baby boy made some friends there?" His mom asked, causing Charles to blush in embarrassment; good thing no one was looking.

"Mom for goodness sake-" Charles stuttered, "I'm 18 now, I'm not a boy anymore…"

"To me you'll always be one," His mom giggled, "Seeing you in college gives me so much nostalgia. It's almost as if just yesterday you headed for your first day of school…" she sighed.

"Mom seriously- I'm busy," Charles lied, wanting to cut the uncomfortable chit-chat for later at home, "I'll talk to you later."

"Oh, sorry! I didn't know you were occupied," His mom gasped, "Alright Charlie, I'll catch up with you later when you get home," she agreed, "I love you my dear, never forget that."

"Yeah I love you to mom," Charles eeked, "See you later," he stated and hung up.

When he was about to put his phone away, it slipped out of his hands and fell out. "OH HECK H-ECK-" he choked as he flailed his arms and stumbled on his feet, but this caused his phone to fall in the black hole instead of the ground.

With a gasp Charles covered his mouth with his hands and looked down at the hole in front of him. Did his eyes deceive him, or was his phone engulfed by the hole? Incredulous about the whole thing, Charles carefully reached into the hole with his foot and dipped it in. It was also threatened to be engulfed by the hole.

The young man stood there for a few moments, deciding whether or not to dive into the hole to see what lied on the other side. Charles clenched his fists and breathed in deeply. He'd probably regret it, but he chose to jump in.

Fearful there was going to be lots of water on the other side, Charles squeezed his nostrils shut and closed his eyes, cannonballing into the hole.

==MEANWHILE==

Lowden inspected the phone that had just exited from the hole. Not really paying attention to the hole, which had the tip of a shoe poke in for a second or two.

Hearing a thud and a groan snapped him out of his trance and made him whip his head to the noise. A white-haired human had just entered, rubbing his lower back.

Flippy stepped forward and kneeled down a bit too close to Charles, waiting for him to open his eyes, "Hey there!" he greeted.

Charles shook his head and opened his eyes, only to be greeted by the snout of a toon dog almost all over his face. He jumped back with a yelp and landed on his butt again.

"What the heck?" Charles eeked, looking left and right, "W-Where am I? What is this?! Where's my phone?!" he rambled, standing up immediately.

"Oh, you mean this?" Lowden asked, pointing to Charles' phone in the palm of his hand, "We had no idea it was a phone, here," he explained, and handed the device to Charles.

Charles reluctantly grabbed it and stuffed it in his pockets, "Uhh, thank you?" he shrugged, "Where am I? And why are all you animals?"

"We're not animals, we're toons!" Flippy chimed, "And you're currently at Toontown, our Dimensionator brought you here…" he pointed at the large contraption behind Charles.

"We needed to find some help," Lowden stated, "You see, our town has been stricken with a crisis. We've used the Dimensionator to get other humans to help us out, but recently we've decided that if anyone else decided to get in, they'd have to have a small prior training… Bla bla bla…" he rambled, explaining a lot of details.

During all of this Charles stared at the red dog with a confused expression. Something about this just felt unreal, it was all just very weird. Had he begun hallucinating from too much coffee or something? Had he hit his head and this was all a dream?

"…And that's why we were wondering if you wanted to help our cause, young man!" Lowden gasped.

Charles stared at him with a dumbfounded expression, "Uhh… You want me to fight for you or something?" he asked, it was the only thing he got from Lowden's sermon.

Lowden nodded at him with a straight face, he had gotten carried away yet again, and he was used to the reaction Charles gave him.

Charles got up and looked back at Lowden, "Well uh… I'd love to fight your… whatever, but I'm afraid I don't have the time or option to be here 24/7."

Lowden pouted, "I was actually talking about that; you see, with the Dimensionator you don't need to do such thing, you can just easily go back home whenever you feel like it!"

Charles' mouth curled a little, he was just too curious about all of this, but he didn't want to make more compromises than the ones he already had. It all sounded like a fun way to relieve stress. Although…

'Maybe instead of coffee I can do this?'

"You know what? That sounds interesting, I could do… Whatever you want me to do," Charles chimed.

"Really?" Flippy gasped.

"Yeah, but no sermons, please!" Charles stated.

Lowden hung his head down in shame.

==SOMETIME LATER==

Charles played with the little blue box that a tan dog, Tutorial Tom, had given him. Next to him were Flippy and Lowden, explaining what he had to do with the gags. All that blabber about the Cogs that had been shared with him seemed scary, given how he hadn't seen an actual Cog yet.

"What's the point in pelting those robots with these things?" Charles asked, looking at the three dog Toons in confusion, "Wouldn't something like a gun or a tank be more effective?"

"They're weak to the jokes that gags convey," Tom stated, "They can't take a joke!"

"…O-kay?" Charles asked, "So all I have to do is toss these pastries and then press buttons, right? Will that take them down?"

"That's right, just be sure to aim carefully," Tom nodded, and looked at the window in his office, "Now, before any of those bags of bolts shows up outside my office _again_, I give to you your first mission!" he chimed, handing Charles a small piece of paper. Tom really didn't want any sort of Cog approaching, the nighttime was close, after all.

Charles read the paper. It was signaling him to go and defeat a Cog anywhere in Toontown Central; much to his dismay, however, the picture printed in it just had the picture of a gear and not of an actual Cog.

"Defeat one Cog- Okay, I can deal with that, right?" Charles asked the dogs next to him, all of which nodded vigorously in return.

"We'll help you out on the first battle!" Flippy added, correcting his past mistake of letting the humans work it out on their own, "Don't worry friend!"

"When you're done, just go to any HQ for your reward! …Assuming you can receive it, that is," Tom shrugged.

Charles nodded, "OK, but are these Cogs… Are they extremely dangerous? You all seem to refer to them as scary things…"

"Well, to us Toons they are dangerous, but so far it seems their attacks don't have an effect on humans," Lowden explained, "We'll get you covered, don't worry."

Charles gulped and walked out of the office, with Lowden and Flippy following after him.

==SOON AFTER==

Punchline Place was awfully deserted today, which didn't help to the anxiety Charles was feeling. This subsided, however, when he saw a bunch of figures on the far end of the roads, walking aimlessly. When he and the two Toons that escorted him got closer, he could see they were obviously the robots everyone was making a fuss about.

They were… Ridiculous, to say the least, but all of them unnerved Charles due to how uncannily human they looked.

_'__I wonder if my "predecessors" got mistaken as these things once…'_ was a small thought Charles pushed aside.

"Just get close to one of them," Lowden assured Charles, "They won't attack you straight ahead, don't worry."

Charles carefully edged his way towards a Flunky, and upon being about one meter next to the bot, it started up the battle, rounding up Charles until they both were in the corner of the street.

"G-Guys," Charles eeked as the Flunky forced him to back away, "What's this thing doing?"

Flippy and Lowden didn't say anything and instead joined the battle when the Flunky stopped moving, much to Charles' relief.

The Flunky didn't move, it just stood there, which gave Charles the cue to throw a cupcake at it. The Flunky flinched and its meter turned to orange. All was fine and dandy.

Until a Cog with two faces walked near the battle; Flippy assumed it'd fly away like it always did, but this time it shifted its insignia into green and walked into the battle to the Flunky's aid.

"Guys what the heck is that?!" Charles shirked, "Is it me or does that thing have two faces?!"

"It's a Double Talker!" Flippy eeked, realizing that the cupcake and flower Charles had at hand wouldn't be enough.

The two-faced Cog stood behind the Flunky, patiently waiting as the bug-eyed Cog took out a paper shredder and shoved a document into it, hurling pieces of paper at Charles who was swatting them away ungracefully.

"Are you hurt?" Lowden asked.

"No worries, I'm fine," Charles gasped, "But that was ridiculous!" he groaned. Now the only thing that was scary from these robots was how it seemed that they were ganging up on him.

And on a second take, it seemed like it, as two more Cogs walked over to the battle scene, one of them was a Bloodsucker, the other was wearing a burgundy suit and had a frustrated expression.

"Guuuys," Charles eeked, "Is it normal for all of these deformed humanoid robots to gang up on me? For that matter, why don't you help me?!"

"Don't worry, we're on it," Lowden stated, and patted himself to reach for his gag bag, but his eyes widened like plates when he realized he hadn't brought it with him. Flippy had more or less the same experience. "Oops…" Lowden whined.

"Wh-What's wrong…?" Charles asked, looking at all the Cogs facing them. To him, they looked positively ugly, since they were the most "human" thing about Toontown he had seen so far.

"Well uh… We didn't bring gags," Lowden murmured.

"Oops…" Flippy added.

"Oops?" Charles snapped, "OOPS?! We're about to get attacked by these business robots because we're all out of gags, and all you can say is OOPS?!" he squealed, but before he got the chance to complain some more, all of the Cogs collectively threw papers, cards, and other business objects at him. Charles overdramatically fell and landed on his back, flailing his arms wildly trying to shake off the papers.

"Next time we've got to bring gags," Lowden whispered to Flippy, who nodded in agreement.

"Retreat!" Lowden shouted, and before Charles had the opportunity to complain, the two dog toons dragged him by the shoulders and ran away into the street, back to the safety of the playground. Charles was cursing under his breath as he was dragged along the pavement.

The cogs left behind didn't try and chase them, they just stared at the trio that had run off, focusing on the human.

"Was that a… What did the Skelecogs call it?" the Flunky asked his fellow robots.

"I don't know," one of the Double Talker's faces replied, "But if it was, you know the orders, we must let the Chairman know…"

The other Cogs nodded and all of them popped out their propellers, rising into the air and far away from Toontown Central.

==BACK IN THE SAFETY OF THE TOON HALL==

Charles was lying on the ground, Lowden and Flippy didn't stop dragging him until they were inside the building.

"You know, you could have told me Cogs ganged up on you whenever you fought them," Charles hummed, "Or at least given me more cupcakes."

"Sorry about that!" Flippy apologized, "I'm definitely going to keep that in mind next battles," he assured, then pondered, "I guess it'll have to be a norm, Cogs act very strange when you humans are around…"

"Wait," Charles interrupted, sitting up, "You mentioned other people came in to help, too, right?" he asked, to which Flippy and Lowden nodded, "How about next battle you bring other humans apart from me?"

"Well, we could do that!" Flippy assured, then pouted, "Do… Do you want it to be right now?"

Charles stood up, dusted himself, and checked his phone for the hour, he quickly looked back at Flippy and shook his head in denial, "No can't do, bud, I've got to go back home," he said, "Unless those other humans had some sort of schedule that I could catch tomorrow."

"Actually they do!" Flippy chimed.

As Flippy and Lowden led Charles back to the Dimensionator, they told him of the set time that the others had proposed, but Charles quickly deduced that the humans were from another time zone.

"Wait, hold on, at that time it's around like- God, 5am where I live," Charles whined, "I can't do that."

Flippy sagged, he'd have to think of another thing, "Well we..." he trailed off, and got an idea, "We could get people from your same time zone! Would that be OK with you?"

Charles smiled and nodded, "Yeah, it's fine, don't worry!"

After goodbyes being bid Flippy opened the Dimensionator and Charles hopped inside. The toon wrote down all the set times for each of the humans after the portal closed.

==SOMETIME LATER IN SOME OTHER PLACE FAR AWAY FROM THE SAFETY OF THE TOON HALL==

025-SC walked up to the Chairman's office once more, ready to inform his boss of the acquired information.

"Come in, 025-SC," the Chairman's booming voice echoed from behind the large doors that led to his office, and the Skelecog promptly walked in.

"I've got more information for you, sir," the Skelecog assured, motioning at the Chairman's computer, "Apparently, these new creatures are immune to our attacks, and they don't seem affected by gags, either, but that is yet to be confirmed."

The Chairman looked at the new video records and gave off a harsh, quick noise when he saw Charles fall over all the papers the Cogs were hurling at him. Despite the exaggerated reaction, he could see where 025-SC had made his claim; there was nothing on Charles' body or face that showed signs of him getting weaker.

025-SC shifted his feet in fear of what his boss was going to say.

The Chairman leaned back and looked at his worker, "Well, this is not useful to us," he sighed, "But with these things popping in and out of Toontown, this research is going to end in failure."

"Failure?" 025-SC asked, "How exactly, sir? The research is going perfectly fine…"

"It is going too slow," the Chairman interrupted, "The moment we discover what the toons are doing with those things it's going to be too late," he explained, "We've got to learn where they're coming from and how to trap them here."

The Skelecog reluctantly nodded, "Do- Do you want me to up the numbers of my scout team?"

"Yes, indeed," the Chairman replied, "For now, don't care about whether or not those things destroy a sole, pathetic Cog, just focus on where they're coming from…"

'_And on the meantime, I'll think about ways to exploit their resistance to everything on this annoyingly bright land,_' the Chairman thought as his worker exited his office.


End file.

Toontown, Adventure, Humor