Chapter Text
The last day has certainly been a humbling experience. Getting his ass beat by a giant spider. A spider that his “brother” created in an attempt to destroy the entire internet.
For no reason at all really.
Was their peaceful life away from everyone really that bad?
Hadn’t they caused enough destruction for a lifetime? Ruined enough lives of innocent stick figures?
Chosen will admit it was fun at first. Just being able to truly let loose after being bound to the Animator’s computer for so long as a...
Ad blocker.
But then they started hurting people.
The attack on Newgrounds was the last straw. What finally convinced Chosen to take a stand and convince Dark to just give it a rest already.
And that is how he sold it.
A simple rest. A break from it all. He knows that a direct order would have just lead to another fight and Chosen was tired of fighting.
For a while, it worked. They just enjoyed each other’s company. Maybe Dark was actually settling down. He’d gotten the senseless destruction out of his system.
What a fool.
Of course, Dark hadn’t. He’d just been biding his time until Chosen was up for another bout of rampaging across the internet. Except, what Dark had in mind was actually far worse. He wanted nothing less than the total annihilation of everything.
And then what?
What exactly were they supposed to do after that?
The thing that really kills Chosen is that Dark had been happy to show him it, gesturing to his new cool creation. He was gleeful, like a little brother trying to impress his big brother. Chosen supposes that’s sort of the relationship they have.
Had.
The relationship they had.
Even before Dark’s death and he will get to that, the moment Chosen expressed disapproval of Dark’s actions, they were dead to each other.
Dark had fired a Virabot at the Animator’s PC and Chosen was forced to stop it. After that moment, they were enemies.
Nothing more.
Nothing less.
He was totally winning that fight too until Dark pulled out that bracelet of his.
Then the Animator was forced to help him. They made a surprisingly good team. Fighting with the synergy Chosen and Dark had when they first teamed up.
Of course, it didn’t last long when Dark decided he needed to throw his entire swarm of Virabots at them and they turned out to be just- just a tad too much for either of them.
Chosen hasn’t been able to forget the rush of regret he felt when those other stick figures tried to rush to his aid and immediately got deleted for it.
It’s only thanks to Orange that things turned out ok.
The first clue that Orange is more than he appears is that Dark actually can’t delete him.
Not with one strike anyway.
Everyone else was taken out with a single impalement but Orange held on. Long enough for Dark to unleash an entire flurry of cuts and strikes upon him.
Is this a trait unique to them as the Animator’s creations?
Whatever it is, it seems the Animator has stopped up his game. Orange far outstrips him and Dark in power, speed, everything really.
Would have been really nice if he did that before Dark got as close as he did to completing his plan but we all do dumb things sometimes. No one was killed (because Orange apparently can just revive the dead) and that’s what matters.
Chosen bows before Orange just as Orange did to him. And just like before the person being bowed to doesn’t really care for it, instead opting to go back home with the Animator.
Now what?
Chosen very quickly finds that he can’t stay in their- his house anymore. Despite everything, it’s just too painful, too unsettling, to just slip back in as if nothing happened. He takes note of the city and takes a single step towards it before shaking his head and peering up at the internet. He’s not really in the mood to be around people in general even if they are just going about their mundane lives.
Maybe it’s time for a fresh start?
Dark’s portals are still fully operational. He selects a random destination, not even caring to look at it before flying into the portal, leaving his and Dark’s base behind in the past.
When he comes out the other side, only one thought runs through his head:
You have got to be kidding me!!!
His arrival at Newgrounds does not go unnoticed. Animations immediately begins screaming and running from him or yelling and attacking him. Chosen puts up his hands in surrender but believe it or not, no one really cares about how their former attacker feels. He’s immediately put on the defensive against the barrage of attacks heading his way.
On instinct, his body sparks into flames before he quickly shuts it off and tries to reason with his attackers but if anything, that only causes them to attack him even more. His hands spark with flames before taking off high into the sky, leaving his former victims behind.
He’s being followed.
He thinks he’s managed to give the army of stick figures and other miscellaneous animations the slip. He’s no longer having to block attacks by covering himself in a roaring inferno. But he is definitely being followed. The little bursts of footsteps behind him rushing just to get out of his line of sight. Columns of animations line the area obscuring his vision, each represented with a single screenshot.
Chosen notices one that doesn’t. The screenshot is cracked open, almost as if something escaped from inside.
He readies himself.
Whatever it is must be pretty dangerous. He waits for another round of footsteps until they’re right behind him.
He whips around, eyes blazing bright red...
And stops upon seeing the cowering woman before him.
The heat from his lasers dies down and now he’s stuck with a woman curled up on the ground next to him. Her head is damaged pretty badly. Remnants of his and Dark’s attack perhaps?
Now what?
Um... what exactly do you do to help people panicking, clutching her head so similar to...
Dark. When they destroyed the Animator’s computer and he was terrified that they’d just killed themselves.
OK.
Well, Chosen fixed that issue by presenting a solution to a problem.
So what’s her problem?
Right.
Him.
She’s scared out of her life that he’s going to kill her.
OK, that’s a bit of a conundrum. Can’t exactly fix that.
Well, he tried but it seems the only thing he can do is stay out of her life so he’s just gonna... do that.
He awkwardly steps around her shaking body, fully intending to escape from this situation as quickly as possible.
He steps face first into a wall that just magically popped up.
No.
It’s not a wall at all.
It’s...
SEXY STICK FIGURES NEAR YOUR AREA!!!
His leg feels heavy, the rattle of a chain echoes in his mind. His chest feels heavy, like an iron ball dropped onto it.
The ad bursts into flames, crumbling away.
Why is it so hot?
A rush of sensation fills Chosen’s head. Deadly silence and screaming noise, blazing heat and frozen cold. Rage, ecstasy and desperation.
A desire for help shouts throughout his thoughts but he never receives it.
The sound of footsteps across the gravelling ground come closer and a reassuring pat on the back breaks through the overload.
Chosen looks up and sees the woman from before. She makes some gestures that Chosen thinks is meant to be reassuring but he can’t be sure.
In any case, he’s no longer freaking out.
He tries to dismiss his embarrassment with a cough and begins walking away but the woman immediately runs in front of him. He tries to walk around her but she’s insistent to stay with the mass murdering terrorist. Wait. Is it possible she’s trying to buy time for the others to catch up?
OK.
She panics at the sight of his hands ablaze yet again and then probably confounded when he sprints the other way. She stops her foot in anger at being tricked but there’s not much she can do, is there?
That is what he thought until a tank shell sends him into a wall.
The tank edges closer, barrel pointing straight at him, with her in the cockpit. Chosen slides under the barrel and cuts through it with his laser eyes before throwing it so hand it becomes a twinkle in the sky.
He gestures at her to just stop and begins to walk away when he’s interrupted by another pop up. He’s prepared to destroy it too but this one is different.
To: The Chosen One
Subject: Please wait!
She can write? This feels like an ability the Animator would have.
He clicks a button, clearing the pop up. A board of letters comes up.
You can write?
She throws her arms into the air and begins mashing her letterboard thing.
Apparently!!! I’m Mitsi by the way.
ok bye mitsi
Mitsi tackles him to the ground and furiously yells at him in the weird way stick figures communicate with each other.
“Wait! Please just wait. I need your help!”
Help? From him? If he had a mouth, he would scoff in disbelief. She had to have known about his and Dark’s rampage, right?
“You’re not from around here, right? If you can show me how to get outta here, I can get back to my hubby!”
She doesn’t. Chosen isn’t sure if that makes it better or worse but either way he has no intention of retelling the awful crimes he’s committed.
Well, whatever.
It seems easy enough.
As it turns out, no, it wasn’t easy enough.
Well, sort of.
Getting her out of Newgrounds was easy but apparently that wasn’t enough for her because she has no idea where her “hubby” is. It had been a long day. The sun had long since set and pulled the landscape into darkness.
He lets her have Dark’s room.
“Uh, did something happen in here?”
Yes. Chosen blew off a bit of steam after Dark was defeated. He had to. He couldn’t allow anyone stumbling on Dark’s equipment and fulfilling his deranged plan for him. It was a good thing he sorted this out hours ago. The stench of melted scrap wasn’t as strong and the room itself had cooled down significantly since then. It wouldn’t be pleasant but it could be used as a room.
“You don’t want to know.”
With that he waved goodbye and slammed the door shut.
“Hubby”’s name is victim. Well, that’s just depressing. Just that fact alone makes Chosen think whoever created him could give the Animator a run for his money in terms of abuse. Apparently they look alike, only victim is gray.
Mitsi did field the idea of going to wherever he was created. If she had been returned to her origin, maybe victim had been returned to his. Chosen quickly shoots it down when he points out that he was just recently at his dear Creator’s computer and never noticed a gray stick figure amongst it. Red, Blue, Green, Yellow.
Orange.
But no gray. And thanks to how devastating a single one of Dark’s ViraBots was, Chosen highly doubts there was a sixth stick figure hiding amongst them.
Besides, stick figures are often simplistically built. Sure, there were a lot more with the heads filed in but not filling in the circle isn’t exactly a novel concept. Surely, there’s at least one other creator that leaves the head hollow.
Really, Mitsi is the one with an unconventional design with all those weird shapes in her body.
Their next lead was the company they had made together: Rocket Corp. It started as a little upstart repair service with just the two of them but quickly became much more than that. It became a massively successful enterprise that basically monopolised anything engineering based. An endeavor that was only as successful as it was because victim supposedly had the ability to create anything he wanted, bypassing the need to buy more materials. No one else could really compete with their prices.
She had searched in the computer and found a Rocket Corp but calling it massively successful would be very generous. Hostile working conditions, basically bleeding workers, a greater emphasis on making weapons, being more militarised than anything.
“No. There’s no way my hubby would have anything to do with this. The company was in really good hands before I left.”
“Why exactly did you leave?”
“It wasn’t by choice! We were celebrating our 4 year anniversary and then I was sent back to Newgrounds unable to leave!!! If it wasn’t for that attack, I’d still be with my hubby!”
“Attack?”
It took an insane amount of time for Chosen to actually say anything because he had the horrible, almost rotting feeling that he knew what she was talking about.
“I dunno. There was a lot of fire. A lot of stick figures running in terror, needing help. I got stuck underneath some rubble and then I saw a bright light. Next thing I know I’m prancing in a meadow with no one else to talk too.”
After what felt like eternity where he stood perfectly rigid as she seemed almost lackadaisical in her remembrance, he asked the question that would seal his coffin.
“When was this?”
“2011, why?”
Chosen felt like he was going to throw up. Those two words hit harder than Dark could ever hope to. And almost on instinct, his entire posture just crumples before Mitsi. The realization that the woman before him was a victim of the attack him and Dark had done. If it was just that, Chosen might have been able to stuff the tightness in his belly down. But the fact that she had supposedly left Newgrounds and started a life of her own. Only for it to be taken away by him and Dark. That realization felt heavier than anything the Animator could attach to him.
Bless her heart, she tries to reassure him but he doesn’t deserve it. And like a coward, he doesn’t come forward with the full truth.
“What’s wrong?”
“Mitsi, that was over 7 years ago. Anything could have happened.”
They decide to head for Rocket Corp. Worst case (or best case if you ask Mitsi), the lead will run cold and they’ll have to go back to the drawing board. All they have to do is break into a maximum security facility while fending off dozens, maybe hundreds, of armed guards. While also protecting a blatant civilian with no combat ability.
As they get closer, it becomes very apparent that whoever is in charge of this place is aware of them. More and more drones and spies tail them specifically. The drones are a simple matter. He dispatches them with any power that he’s in the mood to use. But the people...
“Why don’t you just attack them? You’d clearly beat them.” Mitsi says as they’re hiding in a city sewer still moving in the approximate direction as the Rocket Corp base.
“I just can’t. Not anymore.” If they’re not harming anyone, Chosen can’t bring himself to harm another stick figure. It reminds him too much of Dark.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Chosen simply shakes his head at her, causing her to slump.
“OK. But I’m here if you change your mind.”
He knows she’s just trying to be sweet but Chosen doesn’t need her help. He escaped the Animator’s bindings by himself. He beat all of the Animator’s creations and escaped his computer by himself (Dark hadn’t grown that powerful yet). He beat the Virabot by himself. The only reason Dark won their rematch was because he had to fight an entire swarm all at once. He’s never had the luxury of someone to confide and help him. In fact the one time he did confide in someone, it blew up in his face so yeah, he’s pretty good on help for the next 10 years.
For a moment, he thought he was that person for Dark. Both creations of the Animator, both desiring nothing but to be free. To do what they wanted.
But Chosen’s imprisonment had dulled his common sense. After an excruciating four years where he tried everything to escape, he could finally use his powers to their fullest extent again. And so he may have directed that immense power at anything and everything in sight. Of course, he started having second thoughts when his own kind got caught in the crossfire but by that point the damage had been done.
His gaze lingers upon Mitsi. OK. Maybe some of it had been undone but that doesn’t change the attacks he had inflicted upon every website in site, the traumas those people had gained because of him and it was because of him that Dark had become so conditioned to murder and destruction.
And he’ll have to live with that for the rest of his life.
“You know, if we find Hubby, maybe you can talk to him? He’s been through a lot as well.”
“Something tells me we wouldn’t exactly click.”
“You never know! I mean you both had terrible creators right?”
“And how do you figure that?”
“Look. I’m not going to tell you Hubby’s story. It’s not mine to tell but it’s clear you had a bad experience with your creator. I saw the way you froze when that ad popped up back there. You just became really mechanical all of a sudden before destroying it like some kind of weapon.”
Chosen clenches his fists in frustration. She’s a remarkably shrewd woman despite first impressions.
“My animator used me as a popup blocker. Kept me chained up, unable to use my powers unless it was for his purposes. I only managed to escape through my own tenacity.”
“I’m sorry that happened to you.”
“It’s fine. I’ve made peace with it.”
He hadn’t. He still got nightmares of being chained up, forced to be the Animator’s slave. Ever since his creation he could sense something wrong with the cursor. It rattled his very code. Something that told him this innocuous flying object was a very dangerous threat. The entire room felt like a torture chamber and he was proven right when he saw that the Animator just so happened to have a long list of premade weapons. A veritable artillery lay before him and Chosen could tell he had been made to test it all out.
And yet he had essentially chosen to save the Animator over Dark and he doesn’t know what compelled him to do so. But it happened. When the chips were down, he chose to save the Animator’s computer from Dark’s creation. Despite how happy the other stick figures were, there was a part of Chosen that could never fully trust him.
He hadn’t made peace with his background.
And he probably never would.
Chosen thought their pursuers would increase in intensity but they are right outside the building and it has been remarkably quiet.
“Keep an eye out. They’re probably waiting to ambush us.”
“Or everyone’s back home with they’re families celebrating the holidays”. Mitsi gestures to a Christmas tree in the middle of the parking lot.
“I doubt anyone’s even here.”
The metal doors barring the entrance in front of them creak open. Chosen was prepared to face an entire army but instead he gets an unspoken invitation. It confirmed two things. They were still very much being watched. And whoever was watching them had a vested interest in this being a peaceful meeting.
“Stay on your guard.”
“Ok.”
The inside of the building is in a sorry state. It’s cold, clinical, plunged into total darkness. It’s almost as if the whole place has been completely and utterly abandoned. It puts them both even more on edge. Him because of the possibility of mercenaries hiding in wait for an ambush. But Mitsi seems to be taking it even worse. She can’t stop looking around. She walks in a daze that Chosen repeatedly has to keep turning back to her. She wanders the empty halls in an almost listless manner. It is only when he catches her staring at pictures lined across the walls that he decides he should maybe reach out to her.
“Are you ok?”
“Not really. I didn’t want to admit it but this is the base Hubby and I made for Rocket Corp.”
She puts a picture she’s holding back on the wall, one that features her and another gray stick figure. A hollowhead just like him. Besides the color, it’s like looking into a mirror. He hates it because the more he looks into this picture, the more he believes Mitsi’s idea might have some merit to it. That the Animator had made another stick figure before him. One clearly not as powerful or capable as he is but perhaps that was the point? victim was a victim. Someone to be tossed around and toyed with. Chosen was made to be the main character. Someone who could put up a fight against an evil foe. Their purposes couldn’t be more different.
What did you do Alan?
Taking the picture in, Chosen can gleam the sort of person victim is. He is shown in an awkward position, not really knowing what to do to feel like he should be in the picture but he takes solace in holding Mitsi’s hand. She takes full command of the picture, the very picture of confidence and capability. The picture should accommodate her, not the other way around.
The sound of metal clanging against the floor alerts them. It’s go time. An assumption everyone has if the rapid footsteps are any indication. Chosen jumps in front of Mitsi when-
“Hubby!!!”
Two more stick figures join them. One is obviously victim but the other is far more lanky and distinct. A set of glasses adorns a blank head.
“Is it really you?”
Mitsi pulls her hubby into a big hug, an utter wave of relief courses throughout both of the stick figures.
“I-I- I thought I’d lost you”
“I know. I was trapped but thanks to Chosen I’m here now! It’s alright, ok?”
“Chosen?”
He waves his hand.
“Do it.”
This heartwarming scene is quickly cut off by Lanky trying to knock him out. Emphasis on try, his weak hits don’t faze Chosen at all and he’s rendered incapable from a mere shove of Chosen’s hand. But it’s not him that he needs to watch out for.
He’s hit by... something. He’s not sure what but his body starts glitching out of control. It takes him a moment to get his bearings but when he does Mitsi is standing in front of him.
“What are you doing?!”
“Cleaning up the trash. Stand aside. I need to make sure he won’t hurt anyone ever again.”
“He won’t. He’s not a threat anymore!”
Wait. Anymore? The arguing couple don’t pick up on Mitsi’s slip up but what she says next only confirms it.
“He killed you!”
“I know...”