 A Challenge (19 November -- 2/9 December 2000)
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Fanfic: A Challenge
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In Azure Version HQ, the Majestic Narrator and Azure Webmaster were in the middle of yet another
argument. "You didn't have to tip me out of my chair!" yelled MN. "Well, smashing my head with your keyboard wasn't all that nice either!" AW Lil screamed back, before suddenly becoming quiet. "What exactly were you planning to do with the hypnotised VRs and Fred, Weedle, Tim and Dragonday, anyway?" "Hadn't decided" was all MN could think of saying. Lil frowned. "What sort of stupid answer is that?" "At least I'm playing my part in Azure Version!"
"JUST WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY THAT?!" Lil was screaming again. "SOMETHING MESSED UP MY WHOLE SITE WHEN I UPDATED IT! I HAVE EVERY RIGHT TO BE UPSET!" "Oh. I forgot that." "That's it! I've had enough of all this! Miss Narrator, you are FIRED!" MN rolled her eyes at this statement. She knew her position in Azure Version was safe.
"What's going to happen to this site? There's no one else around that can be Narrator but me, and you know that! For the sake of Azure Version, you can't fire me!" "I am sick to death of watching things around here spin out of my control, and it's pretty @#$%& stupid that one part of a Webmaster, who's supposed to be the narrator, is stuck in the unexplored depths of Azure Version!" "I'm not going without a fight!" Lil's glare was replaced with a look of amusement. "Looks like we'll have a fight to the finish then. In Azure Version." "We're already her - Hey, you're not saying we actually go into Azure Version, are you?"
"If you don't come right now, I'm going to prove your keyboard still has one good smash left in it!"
EXHAUSTION wants to fight!
"At last, I've won a battle! I'm starting to feel better now!" The cloaked figure was about to start skipping with joy when it fell flat on its face. Not that you could see its face.
"You think if I take all my medication at once, I could die?" Tim, in agony from both having his head smashed through concrete and now from being pulled apart, tried in vain to retrieve his bottle of pills form his pocket. "You'll probably kill me first in a psycho craze." "I'm not a psycho! I swear, Pokémon and people and other things appear out of nowhere, and there are people out there who want me dead!" "Like who?" "Like Al Gore and George W. Bush!" "Don't start on the U.S. Presidential Election!" "But Gore wants me dead since he thinks I voted for Bush, and Bush wants me dead since he thinks I voted for Gore!" "So who did you vote for?" "I'm a citizen of Azure Version! I wasn't allowed to vote!"
"This is stupid! I can't take it anymore!" With this remark, Fred somehow managed to punch Tim in the nose. Tim collapsed on the ground, unconscious. It was a good thing Tim was on the ground to begin with, actually: had he been sitting or standing, he'd have died instantly.
"You're not telling me that this is the way we're going to fight it out? Like we're nothing but two opponents in a Poké Battle?" "That's the way it goes." 'It' promptly joined Lil's side. Lil began walking away, her last words being, "We collect all the characters we can, then we have a huge battle. By the way, it's me: one, you: nothing."
As Lil disappeared into the darkness Azure Version existed in, MN cursed herself for not practising the art of Poké
Battle-creation more often. Then once more, for not getting anyone to join her team in the previous sentence. 'Anyone' went to join Lil and 'It'. "Darn."
"Do you know what it's like back here?", answered a hyped-up voice, belonging to Azure Version's Author. "It's been @#$%& chaotic! Everything's decided to happen at once, and what's more, in the past few days so much lightning and hail's been around that my PC's almost blown itself up!"
"I don't care!" Lil continued screaming. "I'm stuck in this dimension and I can't leave until this fanfic ends! And it has to go somewhere before today's deadline!" "YES!" Lil's answer was drowned out by a lot of crackling coming from her phone. Five seconds later...silence. The phone had dropped out. Lil threw the phone back into her pocket, muttering various words not suitable for general viewing. If that wasn't bad enough... "Hey Lil, before you destroy me completely, will you at least listen to some ideas?" The strain in MN's voice sounded a lot like fingernails being dragged across a blackboard. Lil rolled her eyes in resignation, being careful to not let them slip out of her eye sockets. "We may as well get this over with." MN was surprised that her suggestion had been accepted so quickly. Still, it would only make her plan easier. "I thought that maybe we could take some ideas on board which have helped out other Network sites?" "Stop throwing in question marks and just talk already!" Lil's outburst was met with a Gary-like look on MN's face as she began reading a few items, scribbled quickly on a piece of tree-bark. "How about getting the Almighty Webmaster to intervene? It's worked for Cinnabar Version, not to mention several other highly-ranked Network sites." "Jason Ross being involved in almost every Poké Battle? I can't handle that!"
"Why not?" MN smirked slightly as she watched Lil try and figure out a decent reason. "Because you're not skilled enough?" "OW!!! Get off get off get off!!!" "Not until you shut up." "Ick..." MN could feel her lungs being squeezed to a watery pulp when she had a brainwave only possible in one's last second alive. "Hey! There's no air to breathe in Azure Version anyway! And it's unfair to get the author's outside powers involved!" Lil took her foot off MN, and gave what could almost be a small smile. "If that's the best thing you can think of when you're about to die, you're going to have really bad problems in a couple of seconds." MN immediately panicked. Nothing was going to plan. "How about a Doompuff spin-off?!" Lil shook her head as she clicked her fingers. "No chance while Azure Version exists."
"C'mon guys, hurry up and get over it!" Lil began to feel flustered as she wondered whether getting Author to install lights in her free time wasn't the greatest idea. Thankfully, within a minute Lil's allies were only blinking rapidly. However, MN and her allies had almost recovered from the shock as well. "That's it! Everyone, CHARGE!!!" Yells and shouts were heard throughout the website as thundering and shock waves came from Lil's side, heading straight towards MN's group. MN could barely scream, "RETREAT!", before the thunder-like sound drowned her voice. Now able to see, MN's side panicked and ran in whatever direction they couldn't see anyone coming towards them. Even so, a number of characters from both sides sounded as though they had disappeared under the stampede, and both Lil and MN could only hope their main characters weren't among the casualties. Within about a minute, Lil realised that despite the fact that she hated MN with a passion, she had no choice but to admit that MN and her allies were able to run very, very fast. Perhaps it was only a temporary burst of speed brought on by terror, but Lil couldn't take the risk of wearing out her own allies before things in Azure Version were reaching crisis point. Taking as deep a breath as she could whilst running at top speed, she yelled, "STOP!" Everyone on Lil's side stopped, all looking tired and frustrated as they watched their targets move further and further away from them. Some even dared to glare resentfully at the Webmaster. Luckily for them, Lil had better things to do than kill off her own allies. During this scene, MN and her allies didn't seem to have noticed that they were no longer being pursued by their enemies, and kept running. "You can run, but you can't hide! Just wait 'til you wear yourselves out!" Lil's shouts were almost welcomed by MN's side, as they slowed down for long enough for their leader to reply, "There are plenty of places to hide, so just you wait 'til you try to find us!" With that final exchange of words, both sides went to find somewhere to make an actual attack plan, and Lil could be heard saying, "I try to create some excitement and what happens? Things get boring again!" MN could also be heard speaking as she ran, although her exact words were ignored by characters still scrambling to find shelter first.
"Where's Tim gone?" Lil finally asked Fred, who was fighting with his bandages, tied in all sorts of loops and knots. Fred simply shrugged. "Don't know, but I reckon he's on MN's side." Lil frowned as Fred finished his sentence. "Great going. The two main characters are on opposite sides." Sarcasm was practically dripping from Lil's voice as she tried to figure out exactly who had disappeared in the stampede. Fred was just about to start an argument when a miming figure in a black cloak started flapping around. "Anarchy, you're trying to say...you...no, someone with a big head...no, long things on the head...oh, Silkster. What about him?" Lil translated as well as she could, but it was soon obvious that translation was not one of Lil's talents. Suddenly, Weedle wriggled to the front of the crowd, closely followed by Dragonday. Needless to say, no one tried to stop either from getting to the spotlight directly in front of Lil. Weedle was squeaking at the top of its lungs, while Dragonday resisted the temptation to squash the creature making the annoying sound.
"What, you need to fix the front door?" Everyone burst out laughing at this pathetic translation by Lil, until she pulled out a giant...feather duster? "So guys, Weedle was saying...MN's side can't hide from us for much longer." Lil grinned evilly as she considered the idea. "Why not?" Officer Jennifer #1 asked, messing with her handcuffs and accidently locking them on her own hands. She struggled to reach the key in her pocket until she remembered that the key was back inside Azure Version Prison. Swearing loudly, she turned away from the rest of Lil's allies and their leader to hide her red face. A flash of azure swept past, and Officer Jennifer stared in shock as she found her handcuffs on the ground, unlocked. Everybody else stared, even Lil. "I wonder what's going on here... Anyway Jennifer, let's just say that MN may have some slightly stronger characters on her side than I do, but some of them are bound to become rather...difficult. And", Lil grinned again, "you might remember that I am the Webmaster of Azure Version." With her final statement, Lil started walking straight ahead, and although most of her allies were sure that being Webmaster meant nothing once you were a character, nobody argued that Lil had no idea where she was leading them.
"All right!" MN yelled at the top of her voice. "Firstly, anyone want to say anything before I take over?" "We have to change our you-know-what every single day..." chanted all the VRs, staring at each other strangely, as though they thought their neighbours had spare you-know-what which they were keeping secret. MN sighed. She had managed to forget that Silkster still had them under his control. "Hey Silkster, you'd better get these idiots back to normal background characters!" "Not until you give me a better name!" shouted the psycho rabbit, playing with a gun he had managed to get from one Officer Jennifer with a bribe of two dollars. "Forget it!" snarled MN, before abrubtly changing her tone. "I mean, if you're cooperative, when I take over Azure Version I'll give you a better name." "But I want to take over Azure Version!" With that, Silkster aimed the gun at MN. MN's eyes grew to almost three times their normal size. "JUST MAKE THE VRs SNAP OUT OF HYPNOSIS!" MN screamed, remembering Silkster's physical build made it difficult for the rabbit to fire a gun very well. Silkster happened to be reading MN's thoughts at that moment, and turned...to fire at a poor VR. The person collapsed on the ground, dead. All the other VRs screamed and tried to hide behind MN, who stared, completely stunned. Silkster calmly put his gun down and looked at MN with his blood-red, expressionless eyes. "I can aim and fire quite well, actually." No later had Silkster's words slipped out of his mouth, Professor Oak shuffled forward quickly, clutching his back in pain. "That's not the time to use that!" Oak's voice stirred up something within Silkster, and the rabbit screamed before falling to the ground, clutching at his ears and trembling. "DON'T SAY THAT! DON'T SAY THAT!" Silkster pleaded with MN, "MAKE HIM SHUT UP AND I'LL DO WHATEVER YOU WANT!" MN didn't seem to understand what was happening, but once she understood, she smiled secretly at the old, confused Professor and looked at Silkster sternly."You promise?" "YOU CAN TAKE MY TAIL IF I'M LYING!" MN was slightly unconvinced, but had no other choice. She jammed a gag into Oak's mouth and looked back to Silkster in time to see him try to jump on top of her. "Thank you so much, O great Majestic Narrator! I will forever be in your debt!" shouted the rabbit joyfully. "EW! Just do what I say and get off me!" MN brushed fur off her clothes, while Silkster sat down obediently. MN took the opportunity to look at what the rest of her allies were doing: both Officer Jennifers were examining how much money they had gotten since their debut in Azure Version, Professor Oak was weakly trying to get his gag off, all VRs were talking about the latest gossip, and... "Isn't it a nice day today?" said Janice unusually quietly, leaning on her axe and staring at Tim. "LEAVE ME ALONE!" shouted Tim. "You're going to kill me the second I try and run away!" "I wouldn't do that!" "That's what all you murderers always say!" "Why won't you believe anything I say?!" Janice's face looked pained, and before MN could break into the situation, Janice burst into tears. Tim looked quickly for a way to escape from Janice, and all other characters froze, glancing at Janice's out-of-character behaviour. "What's going on between you two -" "That stupid girl is trying to murder me!"
"NOBODY CARES ABOUT ME!" Through her tears, Janice still knew a tree when she saw one, and her eyes were no longer glazed over with sorrow. "Um, Janice, maybe you can do that later..." "I'M AVENGING THE SUFFERING THE WORLD HAS ENDURED UNDER A TREE DICTATORSHIP!" "HUH?!" The response was unanimous. MN and ALLIES are confused! "Don't say that -" They hurt themselves in their confusion! "OWWWWW!!!!!" Shouts of pain, triumph and tree-shopping echoed around through the world of Azure Version. Lil and her side, hearing the commotion, looked at each other and walked towards a cloud of what looked a lot like sawdust...
It was some time before MN and her side began to recover from having their minds messed with and attacking themselves. Even Janice began to slow down, but that was because she only had two trees left to destroy. Suddenly one Officer Jennifer, who had started to make sure all her money was still in her pocket, saw something through the sawdust. MN swore under her breath. "So much for asking anyone to talk before me... Everybody, kick up this sawdust and get ready to attack when the enemy arrives!" Lil looked carefully as she saw the cloud rise higher and higher above the ground. She turned to her side and yelled, "This is for Azure Version! Now, let's teach these guys a lesson!" Her yell was met with cheers as they continued to storm towards the cloud.
"What! Is! It!" shouted Lil as she spoke in between ground vibrations created by her entire side. She paused as she watched Weedle's Pokeé Ball bounce out of control along the ground, being chased in vain by Fred. "I'm not going to be able to finish this", replied a hoarse voice. "Tell me. I'm not. Hearing. THIS!!" Lil watched Weedle's Pokeé Ball slip out of Fred's grip yet again, only to be caught by Anarchy, who strangely enough was also bouncing along the ground.
"You'll never believe this, but I'm suffering *sniff* from the world's worst flu. *cough* You'll just have to improvise, but don't *cough* worry, I'm handing this fanfic over to - " The Author's call was suddenly terminated with a loud sneeze, resulting in Azure Version HQ's phone suffering a short circuit. How this looked is better off not being described. "Keep your voice down!" "SHOUTED THE AZURE WEBMASTER, NOW IN A DILEMMA AS HER SIDE APPROACHED THE ALMOST NON-EXISTANT CLOUD, IN WHICH MN AND HER ALLIES WERE READY TO WIPE THEM OUT OF EXISTANCE!" "Don't tell me Author's employed one of those cheap talking scripts, please. This is the last thing I need right now..." "AW's SIDE SLOWED DOWN IN AN ATTEMPT TO DECIDE WHAT TO DO WITH THE TALKING SCRIPT! AND CRASHED INTO EACH OTHER!"
"OW! Fred, never crash into an angry webmaster!" "AW's SIDE ARE OBVIOUSLY IN CHAOS! AND IT DOESN'T HELP WHEN MN's SIDE APPEAR IN FRONT OF THEM!" "SHUT UP AND SLOW DOWN, YOU @#$%& SCRIPT!!!" "AW SHOWED THAT DESPITE HER LOWLY CHARACTER STATUS, SHE STILL HAD GREAT POWERS AS A WEBMASTER BY MENTALLY ZPPP! changing the way the T Script was programmed to operate."
Lil breathed a great sigh of relief, and coincidently, all of MN's side (who were now trying to charge towards Lil's side) fell over backwards. MN got up first and swore. Professor Oak gave a muffled comment as he still tried to get his gag off, whilst older VRs were telling off their children, who were by now repeating every swear word they knew -- with a lot of enthusiasm.
"AUGGH! I'M BEING KIDNAPPED!" "SHUT UP! NO ONE WOULD WANT TO KIDNAP YOU!" "WAAH! MUMMY, EVERYONE AT SCHOOL HATES ME!" "SHUT UP! And no, Weedle and Dragonday, I don't think it's impossible for a glass bottle to fit down this nutcase's throat! Look at the size of his mouth!" T Script looked in another corner, where Lil's Officer Jennifers were trying to arrest MN's Officer Jennifers for corruption, only to realise there was no law against accepting bribes. The arguments descended into a shouting discussion as to if and how the extra money was to be divided among the six. In yet another area, T Script noticed Janice shredding Anarchy's cloak -- or at least attempting to. Anarchy proved to be a very annoying opponent, enjoying nothing more than dodging the swing of her axe and imitating everything she did in immense detail, right down to trying to hack into her with an invisible axe. Janice had sent her Staryu and Starmie out in all the chaos, but it now seemed as though they were arguing over who should get Janice's last Water Stone.
"Will you two stop trying to empty out my pockets?! Just help me out - AUGGH!" Janice ducked as she heard a swinging invisible axe pass over her head...only to get a light 'slap' on the face by part of Anarchy's cloak.
Huh? STARYU and STARMIE are evolving!
"What - OW!" screamed Janice as, once again, she was hit by part of a black cloak while watching her Pokémon. By the time she managed to hit Anarchy out of her way with her axe handle, she saw...a giant starfish-looking creature, covered in what looked like spikes emerging from tiny jewels. STARYU and STARMIE evolved into STARUS! "@#$%& EVOLUTION PROCESS!" Janice continued to scream various obscenities until she felt a tap on the shoulder. She spun around, wielding her axe, only to find herself being knocked out.
A glance at the final corner saw T Script witnessing Lil and MN in some sort of confrontation. It was hard to tell exactly what they were doing among all the fighting, until it realised MN spinning around in circles and screaming in agony, and Lil was laughing her head off, holding a hammer and nails.
In the centre of the mess, T Script found that it was looking at Professor Oak and Silkster. Professor Oak was looking both nervous and angry at his situation: being bound and gagged, with a psychopathic rabbit loading a gun, then pressing it into his forehead. Silkster twitched his nose as he looked straight at Oak, then laughed. As all the characters began to realise where the sound of a gun came from, every battle seemed to change its course. Fred screamed, "YAY!" when he saw Oak, only to be hit by a glass bottle thrown by a sane, but extremely angry Tim. Weedle squeaked at the gruesome sight. Dragonday knocked Weedle over with its tail in annoyance, only to be poisoned by the little Pokémon. All Officer Jennifers paused in the middle of fighting each other for the final dollar. Janice was still knocked out, and being poked by one of Starus' spikes. Anarchy had left its cloak, and was now involved in a tug-o'-war for it, trying to pull it off Starus' other spikes. Lil and MN simply froze. Adult VRs also froze, while their children crept towards Oak in curiosity.
"Stand back, everyone", growled Silkster. "Whoever doesn't gets shot." "From now on, chaos is strictly controlled. By me." Before anyone had time to react, Silkster had fired again. Everybody fell over in shock. One by one, characters started standing up again. Anarchy, adult VRs, their children, every Officer Jennifer, a dazed Fred, Tim, Weedle, Janice, Starus, and finally MN. Dragonday didn't move, but its eyes were spinning around, indicating that it had fainted from Weedle's poisoning at last. Which left the Webmaster. No one was quite sure what to say.
"Well, it was only worth a couple of dollars", said one Officer Jennifer resentfully, vainly trying to snatch the final dollar without 5 other of her relatives noticing. "What!", said Silkster impatiently, trying to find his new bullets. "Exactly what are you going to do after this?" By now, Silkster had finished loading his gun and pointed it at MN. "After this shot, Azure Version and all within it belongs to me.You know that." "So you're going to be Webmaster!?" "Why would I want to be that?" Silkster laughed evilly as he took one bounce towards MN. MN, realising how fast Silkster's reflexes could be, could do nothing but take one small step back. Silkster continued talking, "A Webmaster is restricted by what visitors want. I don't give a @#$%& about visitors. I want total domination, and this is where it begins." Some children were now shouting, "Don't give a @#$%& !" gleefully, but were quiet once they were frowned at by Silkster. And had the gun pointed at them and their parents.
"Wait a minute, this is a cliché!" shouted MN suddenly. "Can't Azure Version do without psycho characters taking over sites?" "But Azure Version needs a Webmaster, otherwise - " MN stopped in the middle of her sentence as she found herself trapped in front of what seemed to be a black wall. She didn't dare turn around, and watched with increasing terror and anger as she realised she was about to be shot by a character she created, and a rabbit at that. Silkster finally stopped a short distance in front of MN, and aimed his gun. "Yes, there are other psycho characters who want to take over sites. Yes, they sometimes kill off people in authority to take over. But it isn't every day they kill off people in authority while those people are characters." Everything went black for MN as Silkster fired his gun again.
"Anarchy!" MN said happily. "You betrayed your friend to save me! How can I ever thank you? Well, of course I have to take over as Webmaster and rescue Azure Version from being deleted, but..." MN's voice trailed off as she watched Anarchy point to another cloak behind it, except this one was azure-coloured. The person inside the cloak spoke, and the voice was all too familiar to MN. "You can start showing how grateful you are by demoting yourself to a regular Azure Version character, Miss Lecture Lady", the cloaked person said, laughing bitterly. "Well, if it isn't the Failure of a Narrator", muttered MN sulkily. "What are you doing here?" "I renamed myself Azure Lady which, in case you're wondering, happens to be a better name than Failure", replied...well, AL. "And I've been hanging around, biding my time. It's a good thing the Webmaster got Author to install lights to help me find my way out, and that she organised a fanfic to occur so early in Azure Version's existance, wasn't it? I just helped to stop Janice from wrecking Anarchy's cloak completely, and Anarchy agreed to do me a favour in return, so..." AL sounded rather smug as she watched MN glower at her. "If this Version doesn't get a Webmaster soon, we're all going to be destroyed", muttered MN so quietly that only Anarchy and AL heard. AL nudged Anarchy out of the way, which it understood to be a signal to back away with the other characters. Once MN and AL were on their own, AL responded, "I know that. That's why I'm here."
AL wants to fight! "Yeah, right", mumbled Officer Jennifer #3, though Officer Jennifer #1 and #5 noticed their relative was holding her money just a little tighter than she had been while they were all arguing over who should get the last $2 coin. AL clicked her fingers, but nothing seemed to happen. Officer Jennifer #3 was looking around to see if anything was supposed to happen when suddenly, AL had walked up to her, taken her $2 coin and slammed her gun back into her hand. "Get rid of the rabbit", repeated AL.
"Fine", Officer Jennifer #3 replied, as she tentatively picked up the fainted rabbit and threw it in the direction LL had been tossed. AL smiled, but still pocketed the $2 coin, as well as the dollar all the police were fighting over.
Meanwhile, Tim had snatched his bottle back from Fred, who had begun to recover from the hit over the head and had tried to throw the bottle at his attacker. Tim was looking around at everything and remarked, "Um, where have all the fatalities gone?" Tim's eyes widened. "THIS WHOLE VERSION IS GOING TO DISAPPEAR!" "Shut up! I'm trying to take a break here", said Janice, who had regained consciousness, but was trying to figure out why it was suddenly so hard to pick up her axe and swing it around. No one seemed to listen to her though; all the VRs panicked and ran in different directions, trying to make their way back to Viridian City and the (stable) World of Pokémon. All Officer Jennifers ran after them, screaming that all VRs were to be arrested for creating disorder. Anarchy was trying to find something to repair its cloak. Starus sat around silently arguing with itself as to whose fault it was that their evolution went wrong. Fred shoved Weedle into a Pokeé Ball before remarking, "There isn't much here to disappear anyway." Dragonday still had 'no will to fight'. AL looked around and counted the fatalities that had gone. Professor Oak (good riddance), the VR that had been shot earlier by Silkster, not to mention the characters that had died in the initial stampede and retreat Lil and LL had organised. They were probably the non-existant characters like 'It' and 'Anyone', and perhaps a few VRs... "SAVE US!" screamed Tim, shaking Fred in panic. Fred screamed back, "SOMEBODY GET THIS NUT SOME MEDICATION!" "SHUT UP AND FREEZE, ALL OF YOU!" AL yelled, and was relieved when every character froze in place. She walked right up to Lil, who was still bleeding all over the ground, and said, "Lil, it would be nice if you would get up off the ground and help us out here!!" Lil immediately sat up and frowned. "I can't even have a few minutes as a dying character without people shouting at me? That's it, I'm going back to HQ. Who won between my side and LL's, anyway?" "I think we did. But shouldn't we explain some things to the other characters?"
Lil sighed in exasperation. "Two questions only. Anything else can wait. HEY, T SCRIPT,
DEFROST THESE CHARACTERS!" Lil and AL screamed in unison, "WHAT STUPID QUESTIONS!" but went on to answer them anyway. "Firstly...as if we're going to take our real selves into Azure Version! We'd never have the same authority again! We just drew self-portraits of ourselves and sent them down here. It's times like this I'm glad I have no drawing talent though; if I was anything but a stick figure with clothes I'd have died from blood loss ages ago." "Secondly, AL was the original Narrator, but don't expect any special treatment from her when she gets her position of Narrator back; just because she's helped you out doesn't mean a thing", concluded Lil.
As soon as Lil had given the quick explanations, she clicked her fingers and the lights went out. When Fred's eyes managed to adjust to the dark again, he realised that both the Webmaster and AL had vanished. As the group of characters resumed their chaos again, he swore and yelled after Lil and AL, "COULDN'T YOU AT LEAST HAVE GIVEN TIM SOME MEDICATION BEFORE LEAVING?!" He swore under his breath, then pushed Tim in Janice's direction, handed Weedle over to Anarchy to help repair its cloak, and tried to ignore everything else that was going on. "Why do I have to be stuck with all this mess..." he whined as calls of "SPARE ME! I HAVE A WIFE AND THREE POKÉMON!" echoed around Azure Version.
"I've worked very hard lately!" "I'VE BEEN THROUGH A NIGHTMARE SINCE OCTOBER! Besides, you've left checking the final draft to Lil and a lot of your job to a stupid T Script!" "I had to buy that thing with my own allowance! I need to be paid back!" "Go see the @#$%& salesperson - " "Will you two cut it out?!" The Narrator pocketed the money with a truimphant smile and Author made a face, but both turned to the Webmaster, whose face was now a bright red. "I spend almost three weeks in Azure Version and this is..." Lil's voice sounded exhausted. She paused for a second, then looked straight at Narrator. "You had better get working", she finally said. "It's not going to take much to lose visitors from now on. I'm going to go and see if I can organise a marketing deal with Coca-Cola or something." Lil exited the room, leaving Narrator to murmur, "Pushy, pushy, pushy", before looking for a spare computer. Whether she liked it or not, she had to get a budget drawn up in case advertisers gave their site a few extra dollars. "What's with all the advertising? This fanfic wasn't that bad!" shrieked Author as she tried to figure out how long it would take for T Script to end its expected lifespan. "Honestly, if Lil wasn't the Webmaster, I would've let her die in Azure Version." "I heard that!" "How?!" "The Supreme Webmaster knows all!" Author stuck out her tongue at the doorway and went back to trying to short-circuit the T Script.
"Now I remember. My secret weapon, to be used as a last resort and guaranteed to take revenge for me, if nothing else. Sorry little thing, but I have to run. It's too dangerous to stick around." LL started walking away at a surprisingly fast pace, glancing back only once to look at the object. Seeing it tremble more violently than before, LL began to run. The object continued to tremble, rolling around and glowing. Finally, its shell broke into two pieces, the top piece falling away to reveal a creature's head, covered in copper-coloured marks. The creature's eyes glowed a brilliant red, and it opened its mouth to expose two sharp fangs. The creature gave a small cry as it began to toddle slowly along the ground. It was alone. But it was not to be for long.
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