SMG4 Faces the Consequences of Not Buying Physical or Pirating
AKA The One Where the CCC Avatars Get Got
We start off with Jayin and Mr. L going over the plan, which goes like this; L, Reboot Saiko, Brobot and Rhythmi will each go after one of the CCC Avatars with their respective purchase key, represented by actual big goofy-looking gold key props Because Cartoon. They have to actually stick it into the Avatar in order for the Recall to take effect. When it does take effect, anyone and anything that's not meant to be in the game (memes, Code-Level beings, SMGs, visitors, etc) will be left behind, presumably to fade away into the code-dense ether if it isn't something that can survive in that. (I know the initial plan was for the Recall to just Happen all of a sudden but I've been having Ideas this whole time and it grew into an action setpiece). The only exception to non-native entities getting left behind is Tama, thanks to her recent Full Integration into the game's code.
Mr. L's going after Juliano, Saiko for Tulip, Brobot for Nimbus, and Rhythmi for Irene, and they'll also have basic Twilight enemies from CCTG as backup, and will be employing L's Anti-Admin tech to keep the USB avatars (and Emulator) trapped in their Podspace and block anyone from getting in so they can't interfere (it'll also somewhat weaken any Code-Level entities already inside so they'll only be Very Difficult to deal with instead of an instant loss).
Mr. L strolls into the Showgrounds with an army of weird shadow monsters like he owns the place and demands they hand over Juliano, who has no idea what's going on, then sends the monsters to attack without waiting for an answer. Everyone there quickly works out that something really weird is going on, because Mr. L's almost always been focused on the Mario Bros before and suddenly switching to Juliano specifically while the whole mysterious amnesia thing is going on is kinda sus. Most of the crew along with a bunch of Leggys from the Meme Factory (there were tons of them I insist that they didn't disappear when Meggy went back to normal) sticks around to fight off the monster horde and distract Mr. L while the Bros, 4, Meggy, Bob and Toad throw Juliano in Luigi's RV and book it.
Mr. L eventually gets away from them and makes chase using the tank version of Brobot L-Type. So now there's a car chase through the streets of New Donk City, which the police and army get involved in since Mr. L's an extremely wanted criminal. Luigi tells everyone to use all the modifications from the demolition derby that Mario was supposed to get rid of but totally never did, and Toad gets to use a roof-mounted machine gun turret. Mr. L actually questions why Toad is helping since last he remembers he doesn't even like the rest of the group, and Toad's response is of course to just flip him off and yell "SUCK MY DDDDDD!!!!!" Because Toad.
Eventually the chase leads them to SMG3's old Gauntlet of Gloom. The good guys run in, and L tries to follow them only to be met by Stu and Pid, who tell him that to brave the challenges of the tower he must first answer their Riddles Three. He of course asks why he can't just kill them and move on, and in response they introduce their new manager; Slenderman.
...He answers their Riddles Three.
(I should note that in an actual episode we'd be periodically switching scenes between the four capture attempts, but since this is a summary I'll not be doing that. I'm putting this note here since it's the most obvious place for a jump-cut so far.)
Anyway, after getting up to the control room he gets into a fight with the group, and has clearly prepared to exploit all their weaknesses, so eventually they're all defeated and he approaches the spot where they've stashed Juliano... only for it to actually be Old Man Hobo in a wig, a recolored outfit and Juliano's top hat (as an explanation for why his CCTG model doesn't have it). The real Juliano is with the Haltmann kids, Marcy and Saiko in the Meme Factory's Great Glass Elevator, headed towards a safehouse in the Splatlands.
Mr. L gets so pissed that he fucking snaps and starts laughing uncontrollably, Super Jumps through the ceiling to the roof, pulls out Domains Western Spaghetti Headset, summons his Circuit model around himself as a sort of Code-Level power armor, and takes off towards the Elevator. I should also note that he made an exception for Circuit in the Program Weakening Field because why wouldn't he. He actually straight-up rams through it, sending everyone inside flying and falling onto the hard desert ground, and they do their best to fight him but with their injuries from the fall are no match for a full-power Program, so he grabs Juliano, sticks the Key in him, and flees through a portal.
Tulip's being checked over by Kelsie when the attack comes due to her more volatile condition compared to the other three, and Kelsie actually manages to get out a very brief, may-or-may-not-have-even-gotten-out distress signal because Reboot Saiko was a little bit careless and only activated her anti-Admin tech right when she attacked instead of preemptively. Tulip's got no idea why a purple ninja and a robot girl with a hammer (who she can somehow understand despite not speaking Japanese) are fighting over her and would rather not stick around to find out, and Dale, 7 and 10 are inclined to agree with her (even though they do actually know who the two are), so they all try to make a break for the van...and there's a bunch of shadow monsters between them and it because of course.
Fortunately, it was one of Ashley's modeling days so he shows up, does a Team Rocket style quick-change-reveal (Tulip: how do you yank off a sundress and suddenly have more clothes than before!?), sends out whatever Pokemon he has on hand, then jumps into the fray himself because he has Aura Powers and can Do That Now. The Kelsie vs Saiko fight bursts through a wall into the front lawn where the Pokemon vs Twilight fight is already going on at some point, so Ash, Pikachu and Primeape switch from fighting the mooks to helping with the boss because the rest of the Pokemon have crowd control more-or-less covered.
It's very fast paced, at one point Primeape gets in enough Shadow Punches to Evolve into Annihilape, but they're fighting a Murder Drone (and one who has its normal weaknesses mostly removed no less) who has built-in Anti-Admin tech and happens to be Saiko FUCKING Bichitaru in full Hyper-Sadistic Yandere Mode, plus it's going on long enough that though there is now a path to the van every Pokemon except Pikachu Gengar and Staraptor is knocked out, so things aren't exactly going great, especially when Ash gets thrown through one of the few parts of the front wall that's still standing.
And then suddenly there's blue stiletto knives in Saiko's wing joints.
Everything stops and they look up to see Cursor of all people on the roof since apparently she was close enough to both get Kelsie's distress call and get in before the portal jammer went up. So now Saiko's up against two Admins, one of which is specifically designed for combat and is used to fighting at a disadvantage, and her quarry is getting away. So once she gets an opening she breaks off from the fight and flies after the van, and once they check on Ash (he's fine, he's actually already getting up and telling them he'll catch up) Kelsie and Cursor turn into a barn owl and a giant prehistoric dragonfly respectively and take off in hot pursuit.
Meanwhile in the van, Pikachu is doing his best to help Tulip calm down, which considering his attitude, the fact he's a giant talking rat, and the whole "Dale is breaking every traffic law in existence trying to get away from a psychotic killer robot" thing, is going about as well as you'd expect. Anyway, Saiko manages to catch up and is now having to deal with Gengar and Staraptor attacking her, and then SMG7 gets on the roof with a TF2 minigun to provide supporting fire Because Odd Number SMG, and eventually Saiko gets thoroughly sick of everything and throws her hammer at the van so hard it blasts clean through the back, the dashboard, the engine, all the way through the front and into the road causing the whole damn thing to fucking backflip.
With 7 still on top of it.
This is just about where another one of Tulip's lucid moments starts.
Meanwhile back at the mansion, Ash has apparently been chugging an obscene number of X-Speeds and fully intends to straight-up run on foot fast enough to catch up with everyone. And considering he sets off a small sonic boom when he starts running he's probably gonna manage it.
Kelsie and Cursor arrive on the scene where there is just Absolute Carnage. The van's a flaming wreck, Dale and Gengar are unconscious, 10's hysterical and clinging to 7's broken body, Tulip's seemingly in the midst of a panic attack while Pikachu and Staraptor are barely standing but still keeping themselves as a shield between her and Saiko, and everyone who can be injured is. Kelsie immediately goes Medic Mode and makes a beeline for the SMGs while Cursor hurls herself at Saiko like a bat outa hell, soon joined by a Supersonic Ash Ketchum.
Kelsie finds out that 7's broken most of her bones, including her spine, and has several ruptured organs, (also she's somehow still awake and can't feel her legs) so it's taking everything she has just to keep the poor girl's condition stable because this is bad enough that even Vitality would've had trouble and Kelsie's good but she's no Vitality yet.
Anyway, the thing about X-Speeds is that eventually they wear off (and they're not exactly safe for human consumption, especially as many as Ash just used) so the boost from them doesn't last too long, and the fight's been going on long enough that even Cursor's getting tired despite being and Admin and robots don't get tired, so soon enough all the little mistakes accumulate to the point where Saiko can get past them and finally tag Tulip with her Key.
The world starts fading away around them with some very conspicuous exceptions, and Cursor very quickly realizes what's about to happen and comes up with a plan, yelling at Ash to make a portal to anywhere but there and then once he does grabbing the edges of it and pouring everything she's got into it, with the resulting supercharge sending every non-native element on the server to the location Ash set, which was of course his own world.
Him, his Pokemon, the two Admins and the SMGs land in his mom's living room, since that was the first place he thought of, and as you can imagine Delia is very surprised so suddenly have a bunch of very injured people and Pokemon in her house. Once they land it's like a switch flips and he goes into full Regional Champion Ash Ketchum mode, sending Kelsie and the SMGs to Viridian Hospital with Delia so they can handle 7 (and also 10 since she was also in a massive car crash but she's not the one actively dying so it's a slightly lower concern. Delia's going to keep the poor girl from falling apart), sending Pikachu and Staraptor to Oak's Lab with the balls of the rest of the team both to get them healed and so Pikachu can tell the Professor and Ash's SMGs what's going on, has Mimey keep an eye on Cursor who's completely knocked out on the couch and will be for a while because between the fight and her crazy portal trick she's completely drained, and Ash himself needs to call basically every Major Official-Type Person he knows to get the refugees from Renata handled, starting with the other Champions, as well as call the other Avatars when he's got that squared away.
Dedede and Tune are both in town when shit goes down. Brobot shows up in his Mr. M body with Twilight monsters, and unlike with the other two it's not going his way at all, because he's got an entire army to deal with, Harmonian light magic is super-effective against creatures of pure Darkness, they have a goddamn mythical Pokemon (though the anti-portal field does apparently work on Hyperspace Hole so Hoopa doesn't have it all his way), they have an Absol so they had advanced warning that something was about to go down, they have King Goddamn Dedede and a Megaman Ripoff with a full arsenal of special weapons who fights dirty, and Canon Nimbus is very much not defenseless, nor is she going to stand idly by while whatever this thing is attacks her and her home.
They actually manage to outright destroy Brobot. Or at least, his current body.
Turns out there's now plenty more where that came from. And he can control several at once without any issues. So now instead of dealing with a near-endless swarm of mindless shadow monsters they're dealing with a near-endless highly coordinated army of Mario robots, which is significantly more of a challenge.
Especially when one of them manages to get his hands on Tama and decides to use her as a hostage.
Even when she has no memory of this kitten who's calling her "Mama," Nimbus absolutely can't let anything happen to Tama, so she actually end up turning herself over willingly. And when the world starts fading away, there's no Admin to save them. There is however the Hyperlink Gates, which gives Tune a crazy, stupid idea. The group (at least, the ones that aren't getting taken away) runs for the gate and inputs the coordinates for Dreamland, then Tune wires her arm into it and tells 8 and 9 to boost her as much as possible. The result is similar to what happened in Renata, except for two details.
Number one is that something went funky with the coordinates due to the rewire and they landed in the Anime Dreamland in the middle of Cappy Town's main square (that circular spot with the big tree).
Number two is that Tune's arm blew up and she needs some medical attention.
So, the group runs for Doctor Yabui's clinic, Dedede starts organizing Search and Rescue and temporary housing for the Harmonian refugees (both the local memes and any tourists) by barking orders at everyone in earshot (both getting some of them to actually start the search parties and getting others to send messages to the actual authority figures in the castle, including, unfortunately, his local counterpart). Cappy Town is thankfully familiar with this bigger, nicer more impressive Dedede, so they're immediately On It. He also calls Bandana Dee and finds out that about half of the refugees did get to the right Dreamland and the Star Allies already have things handled there even though they don't exactly know what's going on.
In the meantime 8 and 9 get in touch with 11 and 12 to let them know what happened to Tune, since I imagine they're kind of freaking out about sensing that their Avatar is suddenly seriously injured somewhere when she was supposed to just be checking in on Nimbus.
Also Dapple is very much freaking out because this whole situation is way too similar to her tragic backstory, and she needs something to take out her rage on that isn't breakable and/or important (there's just so many breakable and important things, you know? Cities, people, planets...). Fortunately, she landed in Cloudy Park, and Kracko is an unrepentant asshole who can't die in a way that matters.
Hello misplaced aggression.
I've unfortunately not got as much detail here as the rest of them, both because there's just not as much to work with with Irene and because this has been a very long post.
When we get our first look at the scene, Rhythmi's already got the SMGs and Comets wrapped up in her webs, and is slowly closing in on Irene, clearly having decided to drag this out and savor the poor child's fear.
And then a giant green flyswatter flattens her.
What follows is an absolutely insane, utterly hilarious fight sequence where Timmy, Cosmo and Wanda show off just how much Anti-Admin tech doesn't work on Fairly Oddparents Fairies. But one slip's all it takes and the fact they aren't allowed to kill her is a massive disadvantage considering the kind of person they're up against, so eventually Rhythmi stops playing, finds an opening, and goes in for the kill. Timmy realizes what's about to happen to all the memes and wishes that everyone was somewhere safe, and they all get Poofed to Equestria.
End Result: All CCC Avatars (and their games) captured, zero casualties, three hospitalizations, the Admins will now know who was controlling Circuit, Cursor's a hero and everyone somehow has to live with that now, and there's a 95% chance SMG7 will never be able to walk again.
