The Orpheus Arc/Backup File AU
With Andrew's escape, "Ashley" and Aite's secrets, Liana's desire for vengeance and the remaining wounds and adjustments from the last two arcs all hanging over everyone's heads, the air in Renata is thick with tension. Sooner or later, something's got to give.
(also, there'd be unrelated videos in between some of these so we can finally catch up to canon again)
The Snail That Wouldn't Leave
Waypoint, Overseer's accidental Offshoot, has been hanging around the mansion ever since the escape from CCC, still dead set on fulfilling his original function of observing and protecting Tulip. Thing is, he's kind of an ass about it, and everybody, Tulip especially, is absolutely sick of him.
Meanwhile, Andrew's been noticing some unusual details in the research of his home game, and Francis discovers that the formula for transformative Blue Ink that he's adapting from the spaghetti sample will take ingredients from Sora's world.
Tulip's Rescue Mission
Master Yen Sid wishes to assess Not-Technically-a-Master-Yet Sora's would-be apprentice, and assigns her (and her Porygon companion of course) what will hopefully be a simple mission; to investigate a message in a bottle that drifted its way to his tower, and lend aid as needed. He also gets her a more functional update to her training/apocalypse outfit.
The message leads her to the Devil's Bayou, where she ends up taking the form of a mouse and gets stuck in the middle of the plot of The Rescuers, because Kingdom Hearts. Along with the actual perils of the movie's plot, she also has to deal with Heartless being Heartless and Francis deliberately causing problems for her. His reasons for being there have nothing to do with Penny or the Devil's Eye, he already got what he came for by the time Tulip shows up, he's just going out of his way to be a dick.
The Thorn Will Rise Again
It's been long enough that people are no longer on high alert for the escaped Computer Hell inmates, so Francis and Lady Rose decide to get in touch with whatever remains of their respective criminal organizations. Imagine their surprise when they find that the remnants of the two have somehow merged and are in the midst of a long-running gang war. The rest of the Escape Squad tag along, apart from Andrew who's making sure his wife knows he's alright.
Day of the Living Kawaii
Sick of feeling like a useless tagalong, Marianne offers to field test Francis's new Blue Ink by going undercover at the Kid Crew's school and causing chaos with it, so of course it's up to the kids to stop her. Franky and Ted are among those who get hit, which ends up causing its own problems. In Ted's case it's just because she's a lot more trouble as a cute girl with toaster powers than he was as an inanimate object simply by virtue of having actual limbs. In Franky's case it's partly because he ended up surprisingly tall (and most of that height is in his legs) and it's messing with his balance and partly because a combination of a massive electrical surge and finding his anime girl form very attractive has locked Sage in a love-drunk stupor so they don't have access to badniks and their only option for genius-level intellect is an Avatar.
Also, it turns out that the Ink's effects are temporary on normal characters but permanent for inanimate objects, even living inanimate objects. So Ted's a humanoid toaster girl from now on. She doesn't really mind all that much, especially with the day's confirmation that Sage is bi.
One Last Shot
It's the last day of Ashley's modeling contract, and Archie finally works up the courage to actually ask her out on a date as a sendoff since she won't be around nearly as often after this. To both their surprise (and that of their ghostly audience) she accepts, with Ash figuring his scheme might as well go out with a bang. Between the secret Avatar, the vengeful ghost, and the Pokemon that are split between playing pranks and playing bodyguard, we can at least say Archie's night won't be boring.
Tulip the First
During a usual busy day as Prime Minister, Aite finds herself reminiscing about how she ended up in this position. Starting when she was still Tulip, six months into her new lonely-but-free life on the road, and the day her world was destroyed by a few misclicks and she found herself somehow sent back to the very day she was born. Her decision to go into politics instead of following either of her passions, both to make Renata a better place and to be in a position where she could look out for her other self (and to a lesser degree her brother). The discovery that she was sent to another version of her world, rather than truly back in time. Meeting her dear Chester, the one person she'd found she could trust with her true self. The recent chaos and increasing difficulty of keeping her identity hidden of these last few months. The new allies and friends who made all that extra work worth it.
Of course, as usual, her father shows up to ruin things just when she starts to be happy with her life. He reveals to her that he's learned the truth, and abducts her with the intent of having a proper family reunion...
Important: The Orpheus Family Reunion will have a lot going on and deserves it's own post. That'll probably happen at some point in the next few days.
I hope.
I'm a fic writer you know how it is...
