Max didn't really like the Ruby Wings.
In addition to being bright red and extremely glamorous, they had a sort of sash that went around your waist when you put them on and then disappeared. The feeling was weird and Max really didn't like it.
Did that stop him from using said wings for the coolest halfpipe tricks ever created? No, absolutely it did not.
But it was the principle of the thing.
As Max completed his second 7200 of the evening to the oohs and ahhs of an at least somewhat attentive crowd, he felt an uncomfortable tingle rising from the base of his neck. It could only mean one thing.
A punchline was coming.
"Max!"
Max jolted in surprise, and looked down to see a man in a three-piece suit standing inside of the indoor skatepark without an ounce of self-doubt. Agent Russ. Right. Class was today.
Max was just about to fly down and greet him when he realized his skateboard, previously in the vicinity of his left ear, had gone missing. Concern immediately rose within him. He had to do something. It was going to hit him on the head, or smack a nearby construction worker, or-
With intense effort, he calmed himself down and stopped trying to dam a river. Don't think. Feel it. Watch for the spot you can change the flow.
Max landed on the ground, or rather, on the skateboard he had just dropped, the buffeting of the Ruby Wings sending him off balance and flailing out of control. It was a matter of seconds before he would slam into the ground.
Max instead slammed his heel into the rear of the Skateboard.
Rising onto its front wheels, the skateboard transferred all momentum into a rapid spin that turned Max into a blur of smear frames. For a few seconds the twister continued until Max came to a slow stop, head overwhelmed with nausea, and absolutely refusing to show it.
Neutral. Response.
Another stomp sent the skateboard flying upwards again. Max caught it.
"Not bad." Russ said, adjusting his glasses. "My apologies for being late, an appointment ran long. Ready to get started?"
"No problem", replied Max, who had completely forgotten. "Lemme just get these… ugh… things off…"
Max fiddled with the wings for a moment, struggling to even make the harness appear, let alone get it off. "I still don't understand why Doof gave me these things…"
"It was probably because he expected me to bring you along to fight the Blot."
"WHAT?!?!?" Max screamed, his entire face stretching into an exaggerated shriek. "Y-you're not going to-"
"Of course not, don't be ridiculous." Russ replied, turning and beginning to walk back towards DEI. "You're not ready to fight the Blot. No, I just finished. Class today will be reviewing the record, and getting your thoughts on the matter."
"Record?" Max asked.
"Yes, I recorded a VHS."
"What's a VHS?"
Russ sighed. "It's what we used before we invented the Cloud."
"Dude, I graduated high school three years after DVDs came out. I know what a VHS is."
Russ stopped walking. "You're joking."
"No, look, I know Toon time can be confusing, but I really-"
"No. I mean you're literally joking."
"Oh." Max said. "Uh, yeah. I am."
Russ nodded.
"You're ready. This is now a test."
===
Russ' chosen classroom was an otherwise empty lab in the depths of DEI Headquarters. An old-fashioned CRT television had been wheeled in on a cart and was now playing the very recently recorded footage of Russ' encounter with the Blot.
"I want at least 3 prop gags I could have used here."
"Pull the flagpole and send it springing back, hide by pretending to be a gargoyle, and… uhhhhh…" Max hemmed. "Oh c'mon man, you're climbing up a sheer stone wall, there's not much to pick from."
"Yes, I was climbing up a stone wall, and this is what I had to pick from." Russ replied sternly. "Think of something. Subvert expectations."
"Okay, fine. Uhhh… oh! Oh! The Blot's using those weird, sticky chameleon gloves, right? Try and find a loose stone and line it up so he pulls it out when he goes climbing, ends up with a boulder stuck to his fingers."
"Not bad." Russ replied. "I was considering it myself, before an opportunity arose."
Russ hit play. On tape, Malifishmertz phased through the wall of his own castle, leaving a trail of gross ectoplasm behind him. "Oh, come on! Stop using my castle as your dramatic setpiece!"
Russ paused for a moment, clinging onto the rough stonework, and then gathered a large glob of the ectoplasm up before flinging it at the Blot.
"And now you're using me as an incidental prop? Rude man. Rude."
"Ugh!" The Blot bemoaned on-screen. "That is going to stain!"
"I would assume you're used to it!" Russ replied. "Isn't that why you wear black?"
"Banter, important to keep the tenor of the combat in your favor." Russ noted. "Give me a different line."
"You'll be… washed up soon enough?" Max hazarded.
"Eight out of ten, I'd pass you. Now, you can't expect everything to go your way. How do you react to this?"
The Blot frowned. "Well then. I suppose I can't keep working in these conditions." With that, the Blot began to disrobe.
"Woah." Max said. "Are we going to see the true face of the infamous Phantom-"
"Just watch." Russ cut him off. Seconds later, the Blot had removed his costume to reveal a second, pristine costume underneath. Balling the first costume up, he flung it upwards, where it slapped into Agent Russ and coated him with the slimy, disgusting substance.
"It looks good on you!" The Blot commented mirthfully as Russ' grip began to slip off the now-slimy stone. "Perhaps you should keep it. I'm feeling quite generous today."
"Here." Russ said over the commercial break in the making. "What would you do here?"
"Uhhhh…" Max replied, pressing fingers to his mouth. "Wipe off… no, you'd lose your grip and fall. Use your jacket to grip?"
Russ allowed the tape to play a bit further, showing the Blot pulling a halberd out of a nearby window and ripping Russ' jacket down the middle.
"Wait, if he destroyed your jacket, how are you wearing-?"
"Trade secret." Russ replied.
"Whatever. Ok, uh. Uh. Uhhh…."
"Come now boy, think a bit outside the box." The Blot suggested from the still-running tape.
"Hush you." Russ said.
"I was only trying to help."
Max's brow crinkled in concentration. "I… I don't know." He replied. "It doesn't look like you can do anything."
"Correct." Russ said.
"...what?" Max asked, astonished.
Russ let a few more seconds of video play out. A few seconds of desperate, panicked scrabbling, slowly loosening grip, and then wrenching, horrible vertigo as the last finger let go and Russ plummeted past the camera.
"Sayonara, Agent Russ!" The Blot laughed.
"You fell?!?" Max said.
"I did." Russ nodded. "Couldn't find a solution in time. Tempo dropped."
"So, then, what-"
And then the camera panned down, to reveal Russ clinging to a pair of cartoonish avian legs.
"Wha-"
"How did you think I got this footage?" Russ asked.
A cartoon ostrich turned the camera to its own face, and waved.
"Fair… enough." Max replied, while on screen the Blot gasped.
"And once the hero has sprung back from the edge of defeat…" Russ suggested.
"You're in perfect position to press the reversal." Max finished. And indeed, Russ pulled out his keyfob, and a moment later the spycycle hummed into view from around the castle.
"Where did that come from?" Max asked.
"Trade-"
"Yeah yeah, trade secret fine."
"It's at this point that we enter the final chase." Russ continued, as the Blot's body began to move up the castle like water flowing uphill. Russ leapt onto the cycle and pursued, racing after him as the side of the castle rocketed past. Russ gained on him slowly, closing the inches as yards of tower flew past. With Russ just a few yards away, the Blot reached the highest window on the tower, leapt in, and pulled a lever.
A great cloud of smoke erupted from the side of the tower and an enormous roar filled the air. Slowly, slowly but gaining speed, the top of the tower began to lift off from its supports on a trail of fire, the Blot cackling as it did.
"Oh, but this was a pleasant way to spend an afternoon. Come now, Agent Russ! Can't even reclaim one little book? I expect big things from you! You have a legacy to live up to, after all."
As the rocket's roar rose to a fever pitch, Russ reached out to grab the window's sill… only for the tower to accelerate and rise out of his reach.
"Now, if you'll excuse me, I have plans for the remainder of the day. A new Phantom Bob mystery has just arrived on shelves, and I had thought the series discontinued!" The Blot seemed ecstatic. "Truly, a lucky lucky day!"
With that, the tower rose faster than Russ could follow it, and disappeared into the sky.
"Hey, that was my… herb garden." Malifishmirtz said despondently, shaking a spectral fist at the departing tower. "Well, guess that's another thing that I'm never getting back. And the silphium! Guess we can say goodbye to that, too."
A bat in a fedora dropped a scroll in Malifishmirtz's hand. "What do you mean, Monobrow came by and took it earlier?! What, do people think they can just help themselves to whatever's in my castle?! I get no respect around here…"
Russ ended the tape.
"Now. This is very important, Max. I want you to identify for me the exact moment it became hopeless. The moment the narrative could no longer shift. And I want you to tell me what I could have done differently."
"Oh wow." Max replied. "Well uh, was it when you first slipped? You could have called the motorcycle right away, or-"
"No."
Max frowned. "Okay. I guess it was probably when you didn't quite reach the window in time. You could… I dunno, have put a turbo in that thing, or something?"
"Nope."
"You… this is a trick question, isn't it?"
Russ nodded. "There was no one moment where it all went wrong, no single change I could have made. Perhaps any one of those changes would have been enough, if I'd thought of them fast enough. Or of anything else. There was no moment where it all became hopeless. I just wasn't quite… good enough. It didn't end because of one action. It still hasn't. What matters is what I did about it next."
"...So, what did you do about it?"
"This."
Max said nothing, for a moment.
"That's all I have for you." Russ said. "I don't think we'll be pulling more insight out of this encounter. So, tell me. What are you going to do about it next?"
"About what?" Max asked.
"About what? Why are we doing this?" Russ replied rhetorically. "For years you've felt like a chew toy because of the role the narrative gives you. Now, I think, you know how to make a different one. So, if you could do anything, and get away with it, what would you want to do?"
===
"Well." Marion Moseby said. "I'll admit, I was not expecting you to apply for a transfer, Mr. Goof."
"Please." Max said. "Call me Max."
"Mmmh, very well. You've made a good impression on me so far, but I'm not clear on why you want to work the front desk at such a… chaotic establishment, given what I know of your proclivities. What do you think you bring to the table?"
A moment later, Dennis the Duck entered the room, moving far faster than was really advisable and carrying a triple decker sandwich, as was his custom. "Hey everyone! Master Maui just taught me the Drunken Fist technique! Watch!"
Dennis began stumbling across the room with the approximate velocity of a chiroptera exiting the underworld, his jerky, wild movements sending his sandwich flying across the room and directly towards Mr. Moseby's newly pressed suit.
"Please…" He begged no one in particular. "It's worsted wool…"
Before he had time to accept his loss, Mr Moseby found his applicant standing in front of him. The bread, meat, lettuce, pickle et al slapped in sequential order into Max's hand, capped off by the traditional olive on a stick. Max immediately lifted the meal upwards and, ignoring any normal requirement for skeletal integrity, swallowed it in one bite.
Max suppressed a belch. "I think I might be able to help keep things under control around here."
He smiled.
"Finally."
===
Somewhere else, in a darkened interrogation room, Agent Russ sat down across from a bound and gagged toon.
There was still more work to be done.
Do your worst, government spook. Ralph said, in sign language.
"Who bothered taping your mouth shut?" Russ asked in frustration. Ralph hadn't clocked out since they put him in lock up, and as such was still pretending to be mute. He was a consummate professional.
What first? Waterboarding? Chinese bamboo torture? The Thembrian Twist????
"I'm going to subject you to Dennis the Duck's 5-hour lecture on Donald Duck's greatest incomprehensible screams."
Russ popped a tape into the VHS.
"It all began when a young Donald tried to bring a stack of new comics to school one day…"
"Wow, this guy really knows his stuff!" Dennis said, eating popcorn from the back row.
Ralph looked at the tape, to Dennis, and back to an impassive Russ.
"I surrender."
===
[ ] Send Ralph Wolf to jail
There's a perfectly serviceable jail right here in Danville, with Toon-based cells, even. Of course, you know the Blot is still lurking around here somewhere…
[ ] Send Ralph Wolf to Impel Duck
Ralph has, in fact, committed a serious crime. It's supposed to be nigh-inescapable, so you probably won't have to worry about him breaking out again, right?
[ ] Let Ralph go
Now that you know he's there, what harm can he really do?
There is a twenty-four hour moratorium on voting.
===
Max Goof has finally, finally learned how to keep the chaos that always seems to be affecting him under control! Max has become Tooned Out!
Tooned Out has been added to Your Stuff.
Tooned Out: Max Goof has finally, finally learned how to manipulate his personal narrative away from one which treats him as a personal punching bag. Now working at your front desk in a sedate, otherwise unremarkable position, Max is in an excellent spot to gently nudge the things going on at DEI in a more sedate direction.
Each turn, you may choose an action. This action has its critical ratios flipped, as if the assigned unit had Tooned In or, if they have that trait or an equivalent, as if they did not. Any other parts of a trait aside from the flipped ratio remains unchanged, I.E. Goofy still raises both CF and CS by 10.
Max has been removed as a hero unit.
(irrelevantly to the interlude) Coyote's Super ACME Unlimited has been updated:
Super ACME Unlimited: Coyote has a platinum membership card with the ACME corporation, and can at will call in their… variably effective products. On any martial, stewardship, or intrigue national action Coyote performs, you can choose to activate [ ] ACME Unlimited. ACME Unlimited is applied after the normal roll is made but before outcome is determined. As such, bonuses and penalties to the roll from this trait do not effect Critical Success or Failure chance. If you activate it, flip a coin. On heads, the roll gains +10 and the critical success threshold is reduced by 2%, as Coyote manages to work around his supplier's limitations. On tails, it loses -5 and increases the critical failure threshold by 2% as the products inevitably backfire in a hilarious way. Hey. Coyote may have improved, but some things never change. If any National Action Wile E is on would become a crit if ACME Unlimited lands heads, it automatically lands heads!
