War of the Snakes
Immediately following the ending of last episode, Adminspace is scrambling to figure out what the hell just happened, keep the merged servers from fully destabilizing for as long as possible, and find a way to get the two Avatars and Anchor the hell out of there. Lag, of course, is in charge of the operation, and he (somewhat reluctantly) calls in the one person who's arguably better at SMG Code than he is; the SMG4 Server's Susie Haltmann. They also manage to open communication lines with Tulip and Irene so the main group and Ranma 1/2 characters (since they were at the Tendo Dojo getting ready to go after Ranma and the idiot parents when things went down) can keep informed, and can catch the NecroDancer characters and Rosin's friends up on things when they find them.
Meanwhile, Leto and Ozymandias recover from being at the epicenter of the collision, realize what just happened, and deploy their troops (Lumi, Rahzar, Stockman and Stockman's Web-Mousers for Leto, Garyboy and some Snake Cultists that were in the Server as a contingency plan for Ozzy) to find the dormant Pods and their respective Avatar Candidate... and then proceed to more-or-less ignore all that for now and try to kill each other. Obviously neither of them really gives a shit about collateral damage so the already bizarrely fused area (which is mostly Nerima with stuff from the Crypt and Rosin's world mixed in since it's the most well-established location of the three) is quickly both on fire and full of writhing tendrils of Temporary Curse Water, which complicates the search for everybody. Even worse, the NecroDancer himself has no idea what's going on but decides to throw his own hat in the ring so now there's CotN monsters attacking everybody for no real reason.
Speaking of the Avatar Candidates, Ranma actually gets found by Cadence, Dove, and one of Rosin's actual canon companions (note to self, must actually create said companions at some point), and between the four of them (and interrogating a Snake Cultist) they manage to work out what exactly they need to do to save their worlds from both the Snakes taking over and the whole destabilizing thing. Meanwhile Rosin is found by Irene and Timmy, who explain what's going on (and who and what Ozymandias actually is).
Daffy and Lulu find one of the Pods, Lumi finds the other but quickly loses it to Vicky due to mistaking her for Ranma (she is still in that costume, technically all of this is happening on Halloween night), and we end up with some chaotic and silly chase scenes that, of course, involve a lot of transformations due to the water tendrils. Daffy eventually gets the idea to plug his Pod into his laptop (it is a flash drive after all) and see if he can do anything with it. This results in the laptop being able to use Guardian Commands, which adds even more chaos to the situation and catches the NecroDancer's attention, so now the two of them are fighting over that.
With everything going so crazy something's got to give, and eventually Daffy's laptop gets damaged while running some particularly powerful commands and goes nuts, not stopping even when the Pod is taken out, which causes Daffy to drop it and the NecroDancer to drop the Golden Lute, and the two artifacts' energies start resonating. Kasumi, of all people, ends up caught in the crossfire, and is possessed by the Guardian System's Security Protocol like Carbuncle did that one time. This includes the Byte Text Color Jumpscare.
The Protocol's already considerable power is boosted by Kasumi's surprisingly great Ki affinity and the magic of the Lute, and it uses that power to halt everyone on the battlefield, even the Serpents, and retrieve the Pods. It determines that the most Efficient way to restore the Server's Stability is to actually choose between the Avatar candidates, and that the optimal method of choosing is the Emergency Meme Challenge Protocol. Nobody, not even Lag, is sure what this means until they see it set the Protocol into motion.
The signs of a new War of the Fat Italians are pretty hard to miss when you know what they are after all.
