64
Even though you know it won’t last, it’s still hard to hit Greg with your Toxic Truncheon. You have to close your eyes as the bonds connecting his molecules fizzle, the electrons scattered by the intense energy of your crop. In moments, there’s only a pile of goo oozing on his Quest Bed. There’s a few strands of gorgeous blonde hair sitting atop the refuse, which kind of makes it worse.
Watching him ascend is a lot better.
Brightly colored moths flit away from the iridescent bulbs glowing on the weird machines making up the planet. They swirl around his glowing, floating hot body as it transforms.
...His god tier outfit is kind of the best.
It’s all black, which really looks good on him. The white Space symbol stands out on his chest, and the ridiculously long hood trails behind him. It has to be like twenty feet long. On somebody else, it would probably look really silly. They would trip over it, and it would completely ruin the effect. But on Greg, it’s perfect. He has the confidence to fill the whole thing, and rather than looking like he’s wearing a dumb hood that’s too big for him he looks like he finally has something that’s the right size. All of his charm and intelligence and heart fill out the outfit until he looks like he was born to wear it.
GREG: ...Woah. TIFFANY: It’s weird, isn’t it? GREG: I... GREG: I understand everything. GREG: All the mysteries of physics. Quantum motion, uncertainty, the interaction of quarks... GREG: Everything fits. GREG: It always fit.
You are so totally jealous.
TIFFANY: So, um. TIFFANY: We should totally start on those frogs.
They’ve been hopping around and ruining the mood since you got here. If they weren’t so important, you’d try to get rid of them. Croaking is only romantic if you’re riding a gondola down a sunset river surrounded by fireflies.
GREG: Right. GREG: ...I have to admit, I’m not exactly sure how to do this. GREG: I didn’t pay that much attention in biology. It’s the softest of the sciences. TIFFANY: Eww! TIFFANY: We don’t actually make them do it!
You try desperately to suppress the image of amphibians getting intimate. It’s probably the grossest thing ever.
TIFFANY: There’s a machine we have to find.
Your temporal sight leads you along one of the mechanical roads. After a short walk, you reach the Ectobiology Lab. There are six large empty vats positioned around a circular pad and a computer terminal.
TIFFANY: Okay. TIFFANY: So, we can use this to combine the frogs’ DNA. GREG: It appears to be similar to the Alchemiter. I assume it operates similarly - we combine the frogs through a game mechanic. TIFFANY: Yeah, kind of. TIFFANY: That computer lets you target one specific frog. If you try to teleport it in a way that would cause a paradox - like if you tried to send it five minutes ago even though we see it now - it’ll make a paradox clone out of its DNA. TIFFANY: We need to collect that from every frog on the planet. GREG: ...That could take weeks. Possibly even months. TIFFANY: But now that we’re god tier, I have a shortcut. TIFFANY: I can just tell you what coordinates to punch in to get the paradox slime. TIFFANY: We’ll make our alternate selves do all the work. GREG: It will still take at least a day. TIFFANY: Probably. TIFFANY: You don’t mind spending a day with me, do you? GREG: This may be forward, but I intended to spend the rest of our lives together.
!!!!!
TIFFANY: GREG! GREG: Tiffany. TIFFANY: That’s... kind of soon! TIFFANY: I mean, we just started dating! GREG: ...You’re right. We’ll wait on that.
Good. Right now you’d probably say yes.
...Is that such a bad thing?
He’s one of your best friends. You’ve known each other since middle school, and you still totally think he’s the best guy ever.
Okay, so you don’t have to decide now. You do have a long time to decide.
TIFFANY: Okay, I’ll just tell you where to point it. That still saves us a bunch of time. GREG: Then you take the reins. TIFFANY: Hee hee!