(TW: SrQueso is a prominent character here.)

[Synopsis: Engineer invites MrCheese to help test out his latest invention: an interdimensional portal gun! Will it work as intended? Well, if it does, strange things await them across the multiverse, that's for sure.]

[Synopsis: Multiple different universes and locations]

ALTERNATIVE TITLE: "Ginger Becomes a Shameless Sellout and Promotes Her Other Stories" 😂

____________________________________________________________

"Hmmm...That must be our location in the center, judging by what the radar looks like."

Engineer was trying his best to really focus on the map, but the concept of what he'd managed to achieve after almost a YEAR of work was perhaps beyond even his own comprehension. His heart was still racing, even an hour after he'd completed the testing; he was exhilarated!

"Ah, man...I-I'm still beside myself, I can hardly concentrate."

"Hey nerd face, what's goin' on in here?"

The violet figure turned towards the open door to see MrCheese standing there, a curious glint in his visor...And then, an idea came to him.

MrCheese is always looking for something fun to do...I don't suppose he'll mind helping me take this thing for a human test drive.

"MrCheese. Can I trust you to keep a secret?" he asked, grinning excitedly.

"Well that depends, Engineer. For how long do you expect me to not spill any beans on anything? Heh heh."

"I don't want the others to know about this JUST yet. Maybe at least until I know it can work with one of us."

"What exactly IS all this, Engineer?" the orange crewmate asked him, stepping into the room and marveling at all of the machinery. "It, uh...looks pretty fweakin' elaborate."

Aside from the wiring and box machined hooked up in almost every nook and cranny of the room, he spied a radar map depicting what looked a bit like the night sky, a new ray gun sitting on an empty table with several chords uploading data to it, several monitors along the radar's sides and, in the very center of the far wall, a large metal frame that emitted faint mechanical whirrs and glowed with streaks of neon blue running down from the safety light at its crown.

"Promise me you won't freak the heck out?"

"I'll do my best."

Engineer breathed in...He himself couldn't believe he was about to say what came out of his mouth, for a brief moment.

"MrCheese. All of what you see here is my magnum opus: a functioning interdimensional portal."

"Interdimensional portal?" the orange figure echoed back. "As in, like...a gateway to a different universe, or something like that?"

"Not just ONE different universe," Engineer told him, his voice hushed. "...ALL of them."

That was when he lead MrCheese over to the radar map, and the latter's eyes widened in amazement. Those weren't stars on the projection; they were supposed to be entire UNIVERSES!

"See that really bright one in the very center? That's us. That's our home universe. And notice how the dots get smaller and fainter the further away they are from our home dimension."

"So, uh...D-does this mean that the multiverse exists, then?"

"It does...And I was the one to truly, finally prove its existence with this very machine."

"Oh, ho HO HO, I likey...! So, uh, h-how's it work, Engineer?"

"See this ray gun right here? It's just about done having all of the programming installed into its system," the purple figure pointed out, aiming his finger at the handheld device on the table...It was at this that MrCheese's ecstatic smile started to falter.

"Uh...a ray gun, huh? Don't you kinda have a bad history with those?"

"Relax, MrCheese; it's being installed with the same data as the portal gateway, along with a map function. See the small monitor on its back? That'll display the map system, measure the environmental conditions AND show us the battery level. It's not exactly the same thing as the MGRB."

"The what???"

"The Mutative Gamma Ray Blaster. You remember, the thing that caused the whole mini crewmate incident on the Airship a while back."

"Oh, THAT'S what you call it," the orange crewmate realized. "Huh. I always just called it the Dumb-dumb gun. Heh heh."

"That'll be our means of reaching other universes from this portal gateway," Engineer further explained. "AND our way back home when everything's said and done."

"Uh, wait, wait. OUR?" MrCheese asked. "Uhh, so you're askin' me to come along on this crazy trip to who knows where?"

"I mean, have you got anything better to do?"

"Uh, well...No, not today."

"And wouldn't you like to help contribute to the scientific community?"

"Well...I guess that would be pretty cool."

"Great! Lemme boot this thing up!"

With that settled, the purple crewmate reached for a large red lever on his control panel and pushed it upwards. The neon lights along the gateway began to travel faster and flash brighter, and a strange light began to appear in the center of the mechanical gateway.

Engineer pulled his goggles down onto his face and stood his ground, the whirring of the machinery growing higher and louder.

"Cover your eyes, MrCheese; the light that comes out of this thing is intense!"

The orange figure did as told, shielding his eyes with his hands just in the nick of time; a moment later, the light emitting from the center of the gateway brightened fiercely for several long moments, and MrCheese only removed his hands from his visor, slowly and carefully, when he realized the light beyond them had subsided a bit.

...Now, standing in place of the initial white light and now covering the entire gateway, he saw a large spiral beyond it, glowing with vibrant shades of indigo, magenta and even thin streaks of shining gold.

"This is our first ride," Engineer stated, removing the chords from the portal gun and picking it up off its resting spot with an iron grip. "Good thing these suits are so well-built for the extremes; I don't think we'll be in much danger beyond our home dimension, MrCheese."

"Uhh...yeah? Ya think so?" he asked, still staring in awe at the gateway. "I-I hope you're right about that, smarty pants!"

"Well, if you're worried, I could attach a lifeline to you," the violet figure replied, beginning to search his supply drawers for a rope. "Once I have you secured, the you should be clear to-"

"Uh, Engineer?"

"Yes?"

"I-is it normal for this thing to have a vacuum function?"

"What do you-?"

Before he could finish his sentence, Engineer could feel it too...The portal was drawing them in, closer to its opening, and it was getting stronger by the second.

"Oh, no. No, no, NO, WHERE'S THE ROPE!?!"

He tried to open another drawer, but by then the force of the portal had grown too strong for him to even fight against it. He was swept right off his feet, along with a screaming MrCheese, right into the vortex!

"AAAAAAHHHHHHHH! WHAT'RE WE GONNA DO!?!"

Engineer was slow to answer; on one hand he was horrified of what might await them on the other side of the wormhole, but another part of him was in awe at the view of the portal around him, glowing with streaks of bright, neon hues and star-like specs zooming past them; a view reminiscent of a far off nebula, except going past them at warp speed.

"I, ah...W-well the good news is I still have the portal gun on hand!" Engineer answered him, despite his own sense of panic getting close to surfacing. "There's still a chance I can fix this when we land somewhere-!"

"Where's it takin' us!?!"

"P-probably to one of the adjacent realms from our own! Let's wait until we land somewhere, and I'll see what I can do!"

"What if we land on some uninhabitable planet or somethin' like that, huh!? Then what'll we do to stay alive!?"

"Um, y'know...Polus isn't exactly habitable, and we go there all the time."

"Oh...Yeah, that's right. Space suits, heh heh."

"I think I can see the opening!"

"You can!?" the orange crewmate hollered. "Wh-what do you see!?!"

"It looks like...I-it looks like the inside of The Skeld?"

"The Skeld? Like, OUR Skeld??"

Before Engineer could say anything else in response, the opening grew closer, and the next thing the two crewmates knew, they were being hurled into the Cafeteria of the ship, and the portal behind them closed, disappearing from view...The impact against the tile floor wasn't particularly pleasant, but the purple and orange figures were both glad they came out of the portal unharmed.

"Agh...We should probably brace for impact better next time," Engineer grumbled as he stood to his feet. "MrCheese, you okay?"

"Yeah, I think so, heh heh...So, uh, what happened? We're just on the Skeld; Doesn't look like much has changed. Think anyone we know is on board?"

"Hang on, MrCheese. This could be some alternate timeline similar to ours, so the people here could be drastically different from the ones we know," the violet figure warned him as the two headed towards the bottom end of the room. "...If anything goes awry, though, I'll have you know I managed to keep my hold on the portal gun all the way here, so I can probably get us back to where we belong quickly."

"Well, that's good to know. I just hope that thing works the way it's supposed to."

By then, the duo had exited the Cafeteria, and Engineer was now peering curiously into Admin...There were two crewmates in the room, neither of which he recognized; one was brown and wore a sleek black fedora on their head, and the other was a striking blue wearing a cozy-looking ushanka, and their backs were turned towards Engineer and MrCheese. The brown crewmate had a handful of photos in hand and splayed out across the Admin table, and Blue peered over their shoulder curiously. Ears open, Engineer listened into their conversation.

"...See the dark residue around the entry hole on Orange's helmet?" the brown figure pointed out, emitting a starkly feminine, albeit stern voice.

"Yes, I do...It does not look very red, does it?" the blue one answered, the Russian accent in his voice as thick as the wool lining his hat.

"That's because it's not blood. It's gunpowder...See how most of it is gathered around the entry wound, forming sort of a thick ring around it?"

"Uh-huh."

"That signifies that the bullet was fired within close range. Only two to three feet, it looks like...There was a decent sized group around Medbay when the lights were killed. Besides Orange and White, the two victims, there were me, Lime, Yellow and Cyan."

"But Cyan is confirmed crew. We know that much...And you say you have to clear asteroids after this, correct?"

"That's right."

At that, Engineer ducked back behind the wall.

"Looks like they're busy trying to figure out who the Impostors this round are," he told MrCheese, his voice hushed. "Let's get on out of here; if they see us and know we weren't part of the boarding crew, they might think someone's hacking or something."

"Yeah yeah, good idea."

Engineer quickly looked down at his multiverse panel, selected a realm to aim for, pushed a few buttons on the side and back of the gun and then aimed down at the floor. The ray that fired from the tip of the device a moment later hit the tile and opened up another vortex, similar in color and structure to the last one, but smaller in circumference.

"We on our way home now?" MrCheese asked.

"Should be," Engineer confirmed, taking the orange figure by the hand as they jumped into the wormhole.

As the flashing lights of the vortex enveloped them, Engineer looked down at the screen on the back of his portal gun and readied to chart their course for home.

"How can ya tell which is which, Engineer?" MrCheese asked, holding tightly onto the purple crewmate's hand to ensure they weren't separated somehow.

"See the red one just to the left of the center point? That's our home universe. I made it stand out during the programming phase, so-"

All of a sudden, the screen on the portal gun began to shudder, and the display of universes broke up into a glitchy mess.

"What's that? I-is something wrong!?"

"Uh...I-I can't see where my selector is aiming anymore."

"WHAT DOES THAT MEAN!?!"

"Calm down, MrCheese! I-it could just be a result of us being inside the wormhole, making the readings harder to determine."

"I didn't see it do that the first time we went in!"

"Well there's gotta be a reason behind that!" Engineer snapped back, not at all in the mood to argue. "Good news is I can see another opening ahead, so we'll be able to reconfigure the screen from there!"

"I sure hope so! What do you see up ahead!?"

"Um...I-it looks like an aerial view of a highway! Don't see many cars, though...Hang onto me, MrCheese, we might be in for a crash landing."

"Uh-oh..."

The moment the two of them exited the portal, they could feel the force of gravity pulling them down towards the earth, and they shot down towards it at an alarming rate.

"If we can aim for the grass along the roadside, we should be able to soften the impact just a bit!" the violet figure told his comrade. "Hurry and adjust the settings on your oxygen tank so we can propel-"

"THERE'S A CAR COMING!"

Before Engineer even had a chance to respond, the dark blue sedan heading down the highway in the opposite direction as the two travelers suddenly caught the purple crewmate's eye, and by the time he saw it, there was no time to avoid the collision.

SPLAT

They landed right up against the windshield, and right after the impact, they heard the panicked voice of the driver inside.

"HO, JEEZUS!!"

The vehicle swerved to the left, then to the right as the breaks screeched before finally skidding to a halt, and the driver stepped out to inspect the damage...as well as the two brightly colored bean-like figures that'd landed on the car.

When Engineer and MrCheese pushed themselves off the windshield, it was revealed that no damage had been dealt to it, save for a pair of massive smudges left by the two crewmates.

"Oh, oh man," the purple figure began, pushing himself onto the grass alongside the road. "Uh, w-we're terribly sorry, Miss, we just...Th-there was a technical mishap with this thing, and we ended up over the road."

"Uh, you better hope we don't get into trouble for this, dum-dum," MrCheese said to him. "Looks like she's in uniform, heh."

"What?"

Engineer looked up at the comparatively tall figure above him. She did indeed look like an officer of some sort, peaked cap, utility belt and all.

But as shaken and confused as she was, the young, olive-toned woman was quick to put their fears to rest.

"Oh, um...Y-yeah, no, no no no, I'm not a cop, I'm a prison guard. And I'm...on my way home right now. From the prison...where I work."

"Oh..." Engineer answered flatly. "Well, um...I mean, you're not gonna arrest us for this little mishap, are you? W-we're in kind of a predicament, and all we're doing is trying to get home."

"Yeah, his portal gun went completely haywire," MrCheese chimed in, still sitting on the front end of the car. "Judgin' by the looks of you, we're in a whole separate realm, heh heh. People don't exactly look like that around our neck o' the multiverse."

The person in uniform blinked confusedly.

"I...I'm sorry, what? Wormholes? Multiverse? What're you talking about?"

"Just...excuse me for a second," Engineer replied. "Lemme try this thing again and see if I can demonstrate."

He aimed the portal gun down at the ground and fired a shot, opening up another glowing gateway upon impact with the dry ground.

The coordinate readings are still unstable; screen's still a bit messed up," Engineer remarked. "But we shouldn't be taken very far from home, even if we end up somewhere different. The default setting will only take us to adjacent realms."

"Well, that's good," MrCheese nodded, hopping down onto the ground. "Hey, officer lady. Thanks for not fweakin' out; we understand this probably came as a bit of a shock, so we cool?"

"Uh...Y-yeah? I guess..."

"Cool beans. Welp, I'm goin' in first. Catch ya later. Or...never, probably. Heh heh."

The orange bean hopped in first, followed by a more cautious Engineer, and the portal closed back up...leaving the human still in a daze over what'd just happened.

"...Did someone slip something into my beans this evening?" she wondered aloud, in disbelief that what'd just happened had happened at all...But the smudge marks from the two strange, short figures landing on the car's windshield were proof that it had, and since she'd sat alone in the inmate cafeteria that evening, no one could have gotten the chance to perk anything.

"...Whatever, I've had a crazy day. Probably just the adrenaline," Genine finally figured as she hopped back in and started the car back up, hoping that no one would think too hard about the marks on the windshield...She could clean them off at a gas station before she got to a hotel, anyways.

____________________________________________________________

...

____________________________________________________________

"Wait. Engineer, you didn't fix the portal gun back there!"

"Yes, well I didn't want us to get in trouble; the last thing I'd want is for it to be confiscated," the purple crewmate replied as they made their way through the wormhole. "Preferably, I'd like to set it up somewhere without a bunch of people."

"And you think we'll get lucky with the next one?"

"We'll see...Here comes the next opening."

The closer they got, the more Engineer could make out the soft, medium blue color of what was ahead. The streaks of dark indigo painted across the scape indicated that wherever they were off to next, it was either close to dawn or dusk.

The two crewmates exited the vortex, and to both of their relief, they found themselves being shot up from the ground itself, and they planted their feet on the lush, grassy ground without so much as a stumble.

"Wonder why the portals didn't work that way in all the other places..." MrCheese wondered out loud. "So, you got any idea where we are now, nerd brain?"

"Um...Not particularly," Engineer replied, scanning their surroundings...They'd ended up somewhere in the tropics, it seemed; the atmosphere was humid and warm in spite of the fading sun, and there were palm trees scattered across the terrain mixing in with the other foliage. Engineer knew this was preferable in order to recalibrate his portal gun, so he took the opportunity to look down and see what needed to be done...

...Only to scowl a moment later when he saw something else on the screen.

"Oh, jeez...," he huffed. "D-don't freak out, MrCheese, but it looks like this thing is running low on batteries."

"Low on batteries? Uh, how low, might I ask?"

"...Low as in 'not enough to open another portal out of here."

"What!? You mean we're STUCK in this fweakin' place!?" MrCheese erupted. "Good job, ya dumb dork moron! If it turns out you sent us to a place that doesn't have any working electricity, you got somethin' else comin' from me!"

"Calm down! I-I did bring the charger, and it can control the electrical output fairly easily," the purple crewmate assured him. "I just...need to find a place to plug it in at."

"And where are we gonna do that? This place looks like a fweakin' jungle! Feels like one, too."

"Come on, don't panic...Even if we can't find any signs of civilization anywhere around, I could probably find a way to generate some electricity from things we find out here. Heck, we could even wait until it rains, and I could take a page out of Ben Franklin's book if I have to."

"Yeah, but...Still. We better not be stuck here for, like, a week or more."

"Well, at least I have ways to get us back at all. Stop being so impatient-"

Rustle rustle...

Both crewmates froze stiff when they heard something moving in the foliage not far away.

"...WHAT DA HECK WAS THAT?"

"SHHH, quiet MrCheese...!" Engineer rasped. "You want to attract the attention of everything within five miles!?"

Rustle...

They froze again, barely even breathing...Engineer pulled out a long metal rod from his pack and pressed a button on it.

"What's that do...?"

"It's a mid-range taser," the purple figure replied. "...Should keep anything that comes at us at bay."

"Oh...Okay, you got somethin' to keep us safe with, good."

"Yeah...I just hope it-OW!"

Engineer whipped his head around right after his exclamation. Something had just hit him upside the head from somewhere, and he scanned the ground for a possible culprit.

"Did you see what just hit me, MrCheese!?"

"Uh, well, somethin' landed just behind you, I think," the orange crewmate pointed out. "You, uh, wanna take a looksee what it is? I'm too nervous to do it myself, heh heh."

Engineer eyed the spot his comrade had pointed down at, and lo and behold, there sat something that he was fairly certain wasn't there before. He stooped down, guard slightly raised, then fished the unidentified thrown object out of the lush grass to inspect it.

"...What the...?"

The spherical object was about the size of a baseball, and it was split into distinct red and white colored halves which were separated by a thin line and a small button in its center, indicating that the two differently colored halves could be separated.

...Engineer knew exactly what he was looking at within a matter of half a second, but at the same time, he wasn't sure whether or not to believe what he saw.

By then, MrCheese had dared to come near enough to examine the capsule himself.

"Uh...Engineer. Is that what I think it is?"

The purple figure took a minute to answer him, still dumbfounded.

"It sure looks like it...But...Why would...? Unless...MrCheese, you don't think we actually ended up in-?"

He stopped speaking when he heard what sounded like a low, trilling growl coming from one of the bushes not far from where they were standing. And it was accompanied by what sounded like...faint speech? Engineer couldn't make out any words, but along with whatever had growled, there was something else in the bushes that sounded like it was talking.

"...What do you think is in there?" the orange crewmate asked him.

"I don't know...but I'm keen on finding out. Maybe whoever it is can give us a hand."

"Um, hello? Did you not hear the snarl coming from those bushes?"

"And do you really think that some inhuman creature threw this thing in an attempt to catch me instead of pouncing the natural way?" he retorted. "I'm pretty sure that's not how it works most of the time."

"Pftsh, well, it's your funeral, I guess," MrCheese scoffed.

"Very encouraging. Wish me luck."

The moment Engineer turned and headed towards the source of the noise, MrCheese suddenly perked up and followed after him.

"What, whoa whoa, by yourself!? Uh-uh, no way. Not without me."

"I see we've reached an agreement," the purple figure smirked. "Now keep your voice down. I'm trying to listen..."

The closer the two of them inched, the more clear the speech became. Now, just over a yard's length away, Engineer could easily make out the words of the "conversation" in the bushes.

"I know, I heard them too. And it looks like they're equipped with some gadgetzz of their own."

"Rrrrrrrr...*hissss* Ge-ke-kekekekeh...?"

"Another ultra wormhole? Well...I don't know. Though that might explain that weird flash of light. And if it wazzz possible with you, then I guess that could happen again."

"Gurrrr. Hrmnnn...Grough-gour?"

"Well, we can try to ask 'em. Oh, and maybe also apologize for clonking that one over the head with a Poké Ball. Hee hee..."

"Gek-heheheheh..."

It sounded like the two entities in the shrubbery were assessing the situation themselves. But what on earth kind of creature was making those noises? Of course, Engineer's first guess was that it was some sort of Pokémon, given the context of what seemed to be happening...But he swore he'd heard something that sounded like that somewhere before. Somewhere different...

By now, his visor was barely a foot's length away from the leaves, and he was wondering how he should go about making peace with whatever creatures were inside.

"You're not just gonna jump 'em, are ya dum-dum...!?" MrCheese rasped.

"No, no..." Engineer whispered. "I just...My guess is that they don't really mean any harm, so I'm just gonna make myself known, alright?"

The orange crewmate groaned softly and shook his head, anticipating the worst.

"Um, excuse me?" Engineer called out. "You, uh, still in there?"

"Huh?"

"Rrm?"

That was when someone lifted its head up out of the bush to meet the violet-colored figure eye to eye, and Engineer found himself face-to-face with a...

"HOLY CRAP!!"

"AYE!"

"Gur-AAOUGH!"

Engineer flung himself backwards into MrCheese wide-eyed and terror-struck as the Mesozoic abomination he'd met eyes with scrambled out of the bush and fell backwards, landing on its side and staring back at him with an equally horrified look on its leathery reptilian face.

"Agh, Engineer, ya backed up smack right into me, ya dumdum!"

"GET UP! GET UP, RUN AWAY, GET AWAY!!"

Engineer forgot all about the taser he had on hand, letting it drop to the grassy ground as he tried to pull both himself and his orange companion back onto their feet.

"Huh? What, wh-what is it?"

That was when MrCheese finally saw it...But when he had a moment to process the situation, he was more bewildered and confused than he was scared for his life.

"Ho, Cheese Louise. THIS must be a funny world we landed in, heh heh."

Before MrCheese could enact a conversation with the scaly, sickle-clawed being in the floral shirt and hat, Engineer finally untangled his feet, grabbed him by the hand and sprinted away as fast as his stubby legs could carry them, preservation instincts taking over completely...and thus blocking out Engineer's knowledge that the creature behind them could easily outrun them.

But the Velociraptor didn't give chase. Engineer heard it emit a few barks as they fled, and when he turned a corner around a shrub and caught sight of it from the corner of his visor, he saw that it was still standing where it'd been before, head tilted slightly off to the side as it was left in the dust...Even when the two crewmates were out of sight, the creature still stared off at the bush they'd vanished behind, eyes wide and mind baffled.

{...Do you have any idea what those two things might have been, Rotom?}

"I...I don't know, boss. They're not much like anything in my database, bzzrt."

{Well, I guess they don't want our help. Not the purple one, at least...Whatever they're trying to do, I hope they manage to find their way home.}

____________________________________________________________

"Can ya let go of my hand, maybe?" MrCheese finally asked him. "You're startin' to make it cramp."

Engineer began to huff at that point, and he slowly brought his speed down to a walk, heart still racing and eyes still darting in every direction in search for any other threats. He released his iron grip on the orange crewmate's hand so that he could use it to prop himself up on his own knees, now completely out of breath.

"I...*huff*...I think...think we lost 'em...*huff*...You...you see anything...anywhere we might be able to...*huff*...any buildings maybe...?"

MrCheese was certain that Engineer was on the verge of throwing up...or fainting, or both perhaps, but he at least answered his question in spite of his annoyed disgust.

"Uh, well...I got good news, Engineer. Looks like this place is a little more populated than we first thought."

"It is...?"

That was when Engineer finally looked down at the ground they stood on...As opposed to the dirt and grassy patches he'd seen before, he now found himself looking at paved road.

"Huh...Is...Are we close to a town?"

"Eh, looks more like a city to me," MrCheese told him. "Oooh, that looks like a mall! Maybe we can slip in and see if we can find a...um...What exactly do you need to charge that thing, Engineer?"

"Just a regular inlet. I have the cord with me."

"Ohh okay. That place might have one, then. Better lay low, though, maybe cut through some alleyways; we don't want people chuckin' balls at our heads again, heh heh."

At that, MrCheese took the lead, motioning for Engineer to follow him as the two hugged the side of the road, looking to slip away from the main part of the street and make their way along the side of a building.

"Hey Engineer?"

"Yeah?"

"You ever find it weird that we know what regular people look like? Like, we see 'em on TV and in other games and stuff like that, but...none of US look like that."

"I...um...Huh. I never thought about that."

"Yeah. I mean, we're still human. But we're not human beings. We're...we're human BEANS. Yeah, that's what we are, heh heh."

Engineer sighed. As much as he thought the topic was interesting, they had to find a way to get back to their own universe before anything else bad happened.

By now, they were approaching the entrance to the mall...No one had noticed them yet, but the purple crewmate knew they'd be seen if they went in; the traffic in and out of the building was pretty heavy.

"Hmmmm..."

He scanned around the building for anything else he could make use of, and lo and behold, his eyes fell upon a large breaker box along its side. He motioned for MrCheese to follow him to it, and the two hopped the fence and sprinted over to it...A large flat-head screw kept the breaker box shut, so Engineer wasted no time pulling out a screw driver from his pocket and making work of the makeshift lock.

"Odd they don't have something like a padlock on this thing, it's so easy to access..." the purple crewmate wondered aloud. "...Maybe this is a low crime area?"

"I dunno, but I think you better hurry before someone sees us and decides to change their mind," MrCheese remarked. "I think we're gettin' a few side glances from the other peeps."

"Don't worry, I've got the first step done," Engineer assured him, flipping up the lid and beholding an array of wires, plugs and switches underneath...To his good fortune, one of the sockets on the side of the switch panel was empty, so he quickly plugged the power cord to the portal gun into it and took a peek at the screen...A smile spread across his face when he saw the charging icon appear on the device's monitor.

"Ha ha, yes! We should be out of here in no less than a couple minutes! Keep watch, MrCheese; we can' have anything else happen right now."

The orange crewmate did as instructed, and kept his eyes peeled for anything alarming while also being as careful as he could to avoid eye contact with anyone passing by...A minute passed by, and still nothing happened.

"That thing almost done charging?"

"Just about. It's already got enough to open another two portals, but I'd like for it to fully charge before-"

"And you said you saw them disappear into the bushes up along Route 2?"

"Rrrmf."

MrCheese froze, then took a gander out towards the road they'd come from. He instantly recognized that scaly figure strutting down the road, nose in the air as it searched for their scent.

"Uh-oh. Uh, Engineer? The raptor's comin' back, and she'd got some guy with her."

Engineer tensed where he stood.

"That's not good...Does it look like a police officer or something?"

"Uh, no. It's a guy in a lab coat, and...no shirt? Hubba hubba. Watch out TheGentleman, you got some competition~! Heh heh."

"Ugh, spare me the details," the violet figure replied as he finally unplugged the portal gun from the breaker and rolled the cord back up. "You better be done gawking, MrCheese, because we're ready to skedaddle."

"Aww man," MrCheese pouted lightly as he watched his companion open up another wormhole in the ground. "This was just startin' to get fun."

"Consider yourself lucky if I decide NOT to tell TheGentleman about this! Now grab on and let's scram!"

MrCheese shrugged, figuring it might as well be for the best, and he took Engineer by the hand as he lead them into the wormhole with a starting leap.

"So where are we headed now, big brains?"

"Let me take a look and see. I'm going to try and get us to a place where I can chart a course back home, so if I can find a wasteland or-"

ERROR

ERROR

ERROR

The word flashed across the monitor's screen and blasted from its speakers over and over again...Engineer felt his heart stop.

"Oh, no..."

In an act of desperation, he gave the portal gun a solid whack with his palm to try and get it to fire up the map again, but all it displayed next was a jumble of mismatched pixels.

"MrCheese, I don't mean to alarm you, but...There's something wrong...!"

"What's happening!?!"

The illusionary walls of the wormhole began to flicker all of a sudden, and the two crewmates flickered along with it.

"The portal is collapsing! I-if we don't get out of here soon, it'll cave in right on top of us, and-!"

"THERE'S AN OPENING! Come on Engineer, LET'S GO!!"

As soon as MrCheese spied their saving grace, he ducked his hands and feet backwards and dove towards the end of the collapsing portal, Engineer in tow not far behind him...The walls darkened, and when MrCheese looked behind him, he could see both Engineer and himself begin to look more transparent.

"Come on, COME ON!"

He braced for the impact of the ground he saw just ahead, visor shutting tightly.

SMACK

"Oughf-!"

The sound of Engineer exclaiming as they collided with the cement floor was all MrCheese needed to know that they'd made it out alive.

"Oooooh, owie. That kinds smarts, doesn't it...?"

"Yeah..."

"But...Hey. We made it! We're alive, ain't we, Engineer?"

"Ha...Yeah. We are...Nice save there, MrCheese," the purple crewmate told him. "Ah...but...Where are we, exactly?"

Engineer was thankful to find that his portal gun had survived the impact with the hard, cement ground...or floor, as it was, seeing that they were in a room of some sort. They looked up right in front of them, and there, sitting just a few feet away from them with their back turned was...

...A person in an office chair...typing something out on a...computer? Wait a minute. What the...?

"Well, at least this one seems a little more normal, am I right Engineer?"

Whoa, whoa, hold the phone. How the heck did you two get in HERE?

"I-it's my portal gun, it's malfunctioning. According to my coordinates, this wormhole has taken us...out of our the cluster altogether. Wait...hold on, let me zoom out on this thing..."

What does it say? There's definitely SOMETHING wrong if you two ended up here.

"The readings are depicting us as...completely outside the multiverse cluster. A-apart from the multiverse as a whole...!"

Oh...Well I guess that does kind of make sense. I didn't expect it to get this bad, though.

"Whoa whoa, WAIT A FWEAKIN' MINUTE. Now it's YOUR turn to hold the phone, weirdo."

"MrCheese, stop acting like-"

"You seem to know a lot about what's goin' on with us. Why is that, huh?"

Um...well...I honestly think it's best you don't know, MrCheese. Same goes for Engineer.

"W-wait a minute...how does she know our names, MrCheese?"

It's complicated, fellas. And I seriously doubt you'd want to know anything beyond the fact I know who you are.

"Ohhhhh no, you ain't gonna keep any secwets from us! You're gonna tell us what the deal is right now, ya dumb dork!"

Alright, then. But don't say I didn't warn you...Have you two ever seen The Matrix?

"Duh, yeah, how WOULDN'T we have, dummy...?"

Well, I guess you would have, considering I deliberately made it a part of your personal history, MrCheese. Same for you, Engineer.

"Wait, huh...? Me?"

Yeah. And I could've just as easily made both of you not have any idea what The Matrix even is, if I wanted to. Essentially, I write the rules...or more accurately, I type them out on a keyboard.

"Wait. So...You mean to tell us we're...Cheese Louise, is this all actually happening?"

"You...you mean we're...We're all just living in a simulation?"

Not exactly a simulation...More like a book. A story book. Of which I am the author. And the other dimensions you've visited just now are nothing more than the other books I've written.

"Wait, but then...That would have to mean...This...Y-you mean...Everything I've ever done, all the things I worked on, my...M-my discovery of the multiverse, my...My life, my family, my friends...Gnome, even Gnome, it's...It's all...fake...?"

Well, I wouldn't exactly call it all "fake." It's real to you. Your memories, experiences, the people you know...And especially now, considering that you're standing right here in my work space, I guess that proves you had a little more freedom than I thought you did.

"I...I, wait, so then...Ah, I don't know what's happening anymore. I feel like my entire life, everything's turned upside-down..."

"Eh, it's not that bad, Engineer. Hey, if this place is the real world, then maybe we can cement ourselves in it! Hey writer lady, you mind if I stick around here a while?"

Sure. There are lots of people in this world who'd like to punt you off a cliff. Myself included.

"Nevermind, we gotta go, Engineer."

"No...No, I...I couldn't...I don't know if I can go back knowing what I know now...I can't...She was right. We know too much...I...I don't know what to do..."

Well...if it'd improve the situation, I COULD erase this part of your trip from each of your memories and rewrite the story from the point at which you left the last universe.

"Whoa dang, you have the power to do THAT, writer lady?"

It's all right here at my fingertips...And my keyboard.

"Sounds good to me. Engineer, you game on that?"

"Ah...My life is a lie, written out onto digital paper...My existence means nothing..."

"...Yeah, just go ahead and do it. If ya don't he'll be having an existential crisis for hours. Also I don't wanna be punted off a cliff, heh heh. Eh..."

Welp, that's all I needed to hear. See you in the pages, fellas.

"Yeah, come on, Engineer...Hey, cool hat by the way."

Thanks. Gets me a lot of compliments in public...A'ight, back in the story you two go. I've got something funny in mind.

____________________________________________________________

...

____________________________________________________________

"So where are we headed now, big brains?"

"Let me take a look and see. I'm going to try and get us to a place where I can chart a course back home, so if I can find a wasteland or at least some kind of quiet spot indoors, that'll be great."

In spite of the problems the wormhole was causing for the monitor controls, Engineer could at least still tell where their home realm was located on it; the red dot hardly budged at all while the rest of the map glitched out.

"See the end yet, MrCheese?"

"I think so! Can't tell what's there, though."

"Well, we're about to find out!"

They approached the exit, and they landed on a hard, barren ground...When the two stood up, they beheld a somewhat familiar landscape.

...And from their barren location, out in the distance, they could see what was very obviously some version of earth.

"Huh...It looks like we're on the moon, MrCheese," Engineer remarked. "Huh...I don't remember it looking this yellow, though."

"Yeah, me neither," the orange crewmate agreed, picking up a rock on the ground to inspect it...and immediately realizing that what he was holding didn't feel like a rock at all.

"Hey, wait just one fweakin' minute."

He sniffed the pebble, squished it a bit between his thumb and forefinger, and then, quite boldly, took a bite out of it.

"MrCheese, what're you doing?! You can't just pick stuff up off the ground and eat it!"

"Ohhh yes I can...If it's CHEESE."

"Whuh...?"

"The moon here is made of cheese!" he repeated, popping the rest of the chunk into his mouth and studying the taste. "Mm...The taste kinda reminds me of aged gouda. Maybe with just a hint of Monterey Jack. But it's super complex; not really the exact same as anything back home I've ever tasted."

"Wait, so, you're not joking? This is actual cheese we're standing on?"

"Yup. Try some if you're not too wimpy."

Engineer begrudgingly complied, picking up another lump off the ground and tasting it.

"...Hm. It is cheese, isn't it?" he confirmed. "For a minute there, I thought you were pulling some kind of weird prank on me."

"Nope, heh heh."

"Hm. Not bad, really," Engineer shrugged. "But we can't stay here for long. I gotta chart the course back home."

"Well while you're doin' that, Imma collect some of this moon cheese so we can take it back and see how to replicate it! This stuff could be a HIT over at Cheese Louise!"

While the orange crewmate went about picking up cheese stones and pulling hunks off of lumps on the ground, Engineer finally got the chance to look at the multiverse map again...Their home was a decent distance from them, so he wasn't sure whether or not the portal gun could withstand the trip...But he wasn't about to get stuck somewhere else by mistake, so it was their best bet. He charted the course back to their home realm and confirmed his settings.

"I've got everything set, MrCheese. You ready to head back home?"

"Imma comin'!"

The orange figure came running back to Engineer with a MASSIVE load of moon cheese in his hands. It was almost half as tall as the crewmates themselves!"

"Wow. Think you have enough there?" the violet figure asked as he opened up the wormhole in the ground.

"I hope so, heh heh," MrCheese chortled, opening up the back hatch in his oxygen tank and stuffing his load inside through the top.

"Wait, since when did could you do THAT?"

"I modified my tank a bit," the orange crewmate answered as he took Engineer by the hand. "It's got a backpack feature now, heh heh."

"Huh...Well, as long as it still holds air in there."

With that, the two hopped into the wormhole and left the cheesy moon behind.

"Hey, Engineer? Is there any way we might be able to go back there someday?"

"Well, there's a history function on this monitor that tells you which realms you went to last. I could probably mark it on my map."

"Kinda like how you'd favorite a page on a website or somethin' like that?"

"Yeah, kind of," Engineer confirmed. "Besides moon cheese, this thing would probably come in handy for collecting resources. If I modify this a bit, I might be able to take us to different places in our OWN universe, like to asteroids loaded with precious metals."

"Oh, smart thinkin' smart guy, heh heh. Eh...Uh, you're lookin' kinda transparent, Engineer. What's up with that?"

Engineer looked at his hand to find that it was indeed somewhat transluscent.

"Uh-oh..."

He looked ahead; it was only a tiny spec, but he could see what looked like the end of the wormhole.

"We're almost to the end, MrCheese, we should be fine!"

That was what he thought...until the portal around the two began to flicker, and its tube-like shape began to collapse.

"Oh no, oh no, it's not going to hold!" MrCheese panicked.

"It will if we do THIS!"

Engineer tightened his grip on MrCheese's hand, ducked back his hands and feet and dove towards the opening. It grew closer and closer by the minute, but at the same time, the two crewmates continued to fade in and out along with the light of the wormhole.

"We're almost there...! Brace yourself!"

Just up ahead, Engineer could see it...His room, and the controls for the portal! They got clearer, and bigger, until..."

"YIKE!"

Still holding onto one another's hand for dear life, they were thrown out of the wormhole JUST the moment before it flickered one last time and faded away completely, and the two crewmates were hurled right out the still open door to Engineer's room and landed right up against the hallway wall outside before tumbling to the ground.

"Ah...we...We made it!" Engineer cheered, pumping his fists into the air. "Ho my gosh, that was incredible!"

"Ha...yeah! I guess we did!" MrCheese huffed, a mixture of relief and amusement washing over him. "Ah...H-hang on, lemme check something real quick..."

He reached back and felt around the upper part of his oxygen tank, then puffed out another laugh again.

"Ha! My moon cheese! I still got it...!"

"Ahh, man...This thing. This is going to change the world as we know it. Maybe even the whole multiverse!" the violet crewmate said as he and MrCheese both stood to their feet. "Wait until the others hear about all this. And maybe even go on some more trips! Ha...I, uh, might want to develop a reading system for separate realms, though. S-so we know where we're going ahead of time."

"Ah, yeah. Sounds like a good idea. Then we won't get run over by prison guards anymore."

"Or hunted down by scientifically inaccurate Velociraptors."

"Or get punted off a cliff!"

"Yeah, and...Wait, huh? I don't remember anything like that."

Wait, I thought I wiped that from your memory, MrCheese.

"Yeah, you did. But my fourth wall breaking powers are stronger than you think."

"Wait, who said that, MrCheese?"

"Ohhhh, no one in particular. Heh heh."

____________________________________________________________

...Remind me to never try breaking the fourth wall to that extent again.

Anyways, that was the big story I've been hinting at for a while(sorry it took so long, though. TvT) I've been kinda busy over the past couple days since we just got hit by a cold spell, but I'll try to work on the next art dump whenever I get the chance.

That's all for now. See you guys in the next one! ^v^