Hunter Likes His Microwave A Lot, And Puzzle Likes His Too Much
TW: microwaves terrorizing the populace and people being traumatized in the name of microwaves
Come here and get your crack, everyone.
Once upon a time, there was a man named Blue, and he had a microwave.
Blue liked his microwave very much, to the point he surrounded it with crosses to protect it from his horrible ghost brother (long story). He would talk to the microwave all the time, and he called it Marvin.
Blue never told anyone about Marvin (aside from the "friends" he brought home; another long story), but that was his best friend.
One day, Blue was given a baby, whose name was Phillip (forget this name now; he never goes by it). Phillip learned from a young age that microwaves were your best friends and close confidantes. When his ghost uncle destroyed his things, he hid the most important ones inside Marvin's cross circle, where they were safe.
Fifteen years later, Phillip (who went by Puzzle now) was miserable at home. He decided to leave, and took a cat from the nearby park with him. Before long, Puzzle was settled into a warehouse in the middle of nowhere.
But Puzzle wasn't happy; he missed Marvin, and the company a microwave could bring. So he stole one, and named it Michael Wave. Michael quickly became his best friend in the same way Marvin was. Puzzle cleaned Michael every day, and the only other creature that was allowed to touch Michael was Gears the cat (because cats, as you know, do whatever the hell they want).
Slowly, Puzzle's mind was warped by living alone with only a cat and a microwave for company. He started to worship Michael, building it an altar and cleaning it even more religiously (previously considered an impossible task). His microwave mania followed him to his brief periods of sleep, and he began to write down his dreams and make a Microwave Bible.
Before long, Puzzle found a baby in a field and decided to welcome him into the warehouse. Malcolm (the child) learned about microwaves from the second he was capable of understanding it. And for a good while before. Puzzle also found another sibling of his (he has a lot of those) and brought them in.
Now three strong, the followers of Michael Wave lived in peace and harmony… if you ignored Puzzle turning lesser microwaves into robotic servants with which to enforce Michael's will.
One day, another of Puzzle's brothers found where they lived, and broke in to explore. His name was Freddy, and he liked to push people's (and microwaves') buttons.
Freddy found the altar to Michael Wave on a day when the three followers were coincidentally away, and started pushing buttons. And fussing with the wiring, because he was very interested in causing problems that day.
Unfortunately for Freddy, he was discovered tampering with the Holy Microwave, and barely escaped with his life. To this day, he never leaves Nightmare's side, terrified of Puzzle finding him and killing him for tampering with Michael. Puzzle occasionally leaves them melted and mangled plastic abominations on their doorstep, and Freddy panics every time.
Puzzle tried for days to revive the broken microwave, but it was hopeless. Michael was dead. All three of the followers spent days in misery, before Puzzle decided to go back to his old plan he hadn't touched since Michael entered his life: kill everyone in Justice Reigns, and topple his dad's (not Blue, the other guy) power over the multiverse.
And by complete chance, the first person he grabbed to put into his new death traps was a man named Michael.
As soon as Puzzle realized, he dragged Michael (who was stabbed many times and without his demon dad would have died) out of the death trap and made him as comfortable as he could. As far as Puzzle was concerned, his precious microwave was returned to him, this time in the form of a decently attractive man.
Meanwhile, back at JR, Percy was crying because his boyfriend disappeared and was probably dead. But we don't care about him right now, so he can deal with it himself.
While Puzzle was breaking into JR for some of Michael's things (he insisted on doing just about anything Michael told him to do, even if it was just a suggestion), he overheard another of his brothers, Somnus, talking to Percy. Apparently they'd gotten the details on what happened to Freddy, and Somnus was being an asshole to microwaves.
Somnus later disappeared for several days, and when he was found, he had developed an intense fear of microwaves; to the point where his first act upon returning to his apartment was to throw his own microwave out the window, where it narrowly avoided crushing Finch, who was enjoying his singular moment of peace for this decade outside in the sun. Finch decided being outside is too dangerous if microwaves were going to fall from the sky, and went back inside to continue being miserable under JR's leadership.
Michael was living the best life he could, for someone who was now confined to the warehouse because its inhabitants were convinced he was a reincarnated holy microwave. He was given good food (mostly onions, but he liked onions), and he was very quickly breaking down the barriers of Puzzle's heart. Maybe it was weird to romance the guy that thought you were his reincarnated microwave, but Puzzle clearly liked him and Michael liked him back, so he was going to let them both have this.
Meanwhile, Puzzle was making more microwave robots, who were in turn making even more of themselves. Before long, he could continue his final plans: topple Justice Reigns and every other worldly government, ushering in the new Microwavian order, with himself operating as the mouthpiece of the Great Microwaves.
When his siblings learned of this (aside from Laura, who thought letting the microwaves rule was an excellent idea), they all agreed that this was a horrible idea and immediately hid themselves away, ready to fight off the fleet of robot microwaves that sought to dominate the multiverse. Dream and Nightmare didn't agree to help until every microwave in Justice Reigns (which contained a lot of microwaves for Plot Convenience) spontaneously combusted, leaving the building and organization a smoking ruin. Somehow that was enough for them both, and they agreed that Puzzle had to be stopped before he actually tried to put microwaves in charge of the multiverse.
Finch had also braved the outside once again just before the explosion, and now he was also trying to stop the microwave takeover. He didn’t want to work with Dream again though after Somnus nearly killed him with a microwave and didn’t apologize, so he went and kicked a demon’s ass and reclaimed his boyfriend and his boyfriend’s dad friend. And some random teenager that looked an awful lot like Dream and Nightmare for definitely no reason.
