Part 5

Dr. Light stood at the podium on the stage at the Farnsworth Convention Center, with Nate standing quietly next to him. "Ladies and gentlemen of the international scientific community, I am honored to present to you tonight my latest groundbreaking achievement in artificial--"
Pfoof! There was a bright flash in front of him, and there was... it had to be George, but his outfit had purple gloves and boots instead of his usual blue, and his hair...! Dear God, it was bright purple and crackling with sparks! "George?" Dr. Light said hesitantly.
"Uh... hiya Dr. Light," George said. His face was turning bright red. Several of the audience members had already noticed his interesting hair, and soft titters could be heard. A few flashbulbs went off, or maybe that was just the flashing of George's hair.
Dr. Light looked at him in great confusion. "What are you here for? What's going on?"
"Er, that's sort of a long story." George glanced around nervously, then looked at his hands; he was suddenly holding a piece of paper, with something written on it. Evidently he was expected to read from it.
"Hello everyone. I'm George, but you can call me Blitz for short. As you can no doubt tell from my hair, I'm a weirdo." George sighed, gritted his teeth and continued. "An esteemed group of scientists such as yourselves will have probably..." He noticed his voice getting higher pitched. "Hey, they're using helium! No fair!"
George realized he'd have to get out of this one on his own. Let's see, get rid of helium... what's air supposed to be made of... oxygen, right? That would do. With a quick application of his Author powers, George changed the air around him to pure oxygen.
That was a mistake.
Several sparks leaped from his head onto the carpet of the stage, which promptly burst into flames; with a sinking feeling, George realized that the fire was heading for Dr. Light's delicate machine that he'd intended to present. Nate scampered off to get a fire extinguisher.
In a panic, George tried to think of something to do to prevent this situation from becoming even more of a disaster, but it was hard to remember how to use his new powers when he was scared out of his wits...

In the meantime, back in Dave's mind, the party for welcoming Helmut was in progress. Suddenly Dave felt a sharp pang of panic and anger, but couldn't figure out why... It's not coming from Helmut or Freakadave... the must mean... "Helmut? Could you change the channel to BnG News for a sec?" Helmut nodded, and turned to channel 666.
Megaman was on the screen, as usual. "Today's top story: Catastrophe at Farnsworth Convention Center! The esteemed Dr. Light was showing off his new energy adaptor when a strange, purple-haired young man showed up, reading from a piece of paper. He then proceeded to set the Convention Center on fire! We go now to our star reporter, Mike..."
Mike stood in front of the Convention Center, which now had visible flames from the outside. "Update on the Convention Center fire! It appears that the strange, purple-haired character has just fled the scene, taking Dr. Light's new invention with him! Police are advised to keep a lookout for a young, purple-haired man with purple gloves and boots, and a grey outfit."
"Damn it, George," cursed Dave under his breath.
Helmut laughed gleefully. "Way to go George! That turned out better than I could have imagined!"
"Shut up, Helmut." Dave frowned. "I'm going to go help him out. This has gone too far." He dashed out of the room, trying not to let George's panic overwhelm him.

George teleported into Dr. Light's lab, holding the machine. Carefully looking around for anyone who might be watching, he tucked it safely in a corner.
"There," he said to himself, wiping his forehead. "That's that out of the way, at least." He knew what he had to do next, even though he didn't like it. Reluctantly, George Pfoof!ed himself back to the convention center.
It wasn't in good shape. The auditorium where Dr. Light was giving his presentation was burning brightly. Ordinarily George would have suspected Bob of doing something like this, but not this time. This is all my fault, he thought ruefully.

Finally reaching the Conscious Control tower, Dave rushed up the stairs and into the main control room. A moment later his awareness was back in the real world, as he was in his incorporeal state. He didn't like leaving Helmut unsupervised, but this was a real problem, and George might not be able to handle it on his own yet. This is all my fault, he thought.

Helmut continued watching the News. The building continued to burn, and now Mike was on fire too, frantically running around. In his current state of blind panic, he was headed right for the auditorium.
This is all my fault, Helmut thought. And man, it feels good.

George ran into the auditorium, hoping his plastic wrap shielding would protect him from the fire. He headed in the direction of the podium, barely able to see through the smoke. "Dr. Light! Dr. Light, are you here?"
"Not now, George!" said Dr. Light's voice from nearby. "I'm in the middle of a presentation! Now, as I was saying, the V-51 energy converter relies on layered baryonic shielding to filter the croutonium particles into..."
He was still giving his talk! Realizing that it would be pointless to reason with him, George simply teleported himself and Dr. Light back to the lab.
"...the reaction chamber, where... George, what's the meaning of this? Why can't you let me give my presentation in peace?"
"Like I said, Dr. Light, it's a long story. Look, can I get back to you on this? I'm really kinda busy right now..."
"Fine. Whatever. I don't care anymore." Light brushed the soot off his coat. "But I expect to see you in my office first thing tomorrow morning. And I want a full explanation for your behavior tonight."
George groaned. "Tomorrow morning. Gotcha. Look, I really have to be going now..." He raised his arms and vanished with a Pfoof!.
Dr. Light rubbed his beard. "Hmm. George is certainly acting strangely tonight."
Nate, who was standing beside him, nodded in silent agreement.

Standing in the burning auditorium, George took a deep breath. He immediately started coughing; there was quite a bit of smoke in here.
Wait a second, he thought. I don't need to know what air is made of; I can create ice cream just fine without knowing its atomic structure.
Oh, now you tell me, he replied, not sure which aspect of Dave he was answering-- maybe just himself. After all, he'd had that thought in the first place, hadn't he? Or maybe it was somebody else's... except that the Daves weren't really "somebody else"...
Anyway, that was all nicely confusing, but George had more immediate things to deal with. First he needed air; a quick act of will and presto, fresh air. So far so good.
Taking a deep breath, successfully this time, George closed his eyes and tried to focus on putting the fire out. Dave, he thought urgently, if you can hear me, help me out on this one.

Dave looked up sharply. My George sense is tingling... He teleported to the burning auditorium. "George!" He said, shocked. "Get out of here! It's too dangerous to stand in the middle of a fire..."
"I'm trying to *cough* put the fire out..." mumbled George, the carbon monoxide starting to get to him. Dave held up his arms, and, with a PFOOF, teleported himself and George back into Helmut's kitchen.

"Ugh..." said George, taking in the fresh air. "I failed miserably, didn't I?"
Dave shook his head, trying to keep his tone as light as possible. "Of course not, George! You handled the situation better than Freakdave or Helmut would have, and that is something to be proud of. Now, let's go back out a see what Helmut and Freakadave are doing..." They both exited the kitchen.

Helmut and Freakdave were playing Monopoly, and the board was littered with Helmut's hotels. They both looked up as the door shut.
"George, my man!" said Helmut amicably, patting George on the back. "You ruined Dr. Light's presentation AND set a building on fire! That's awesome!"
Freakadave nodded. "The gerbils at home would be so proud..."
George nodded, trying to look happy. He wondered if being an Author was more than he could handle...
"All right," Dave said, "now that that situation's taken care of, I think it's time to give George a proper welcome. We'll do the initiation process, and then we should see about finding him someplace to crash for the night... it's getting sorta late."
George became somewhat worried at this. "Initiation process? What's that? Will it hurt?"
Dave frowned. "I doubt it. But I don't really know; I've never had to do it before. I mean, Helmut and Freakadave have always been with me... but since you can't seem to fully control your powers yet, I guess you must not be integrated into me enough. Once we get this out of the way, you should find it a lot easier... I think. I'm basically playing this by ear."
George nodded. Being able to control his Author powers better would definitely be a good thing. He closed his eyes and braced himself for whatever was going to happen next. "OK, I'm ready. Now hurry up and initiate me before I lose my nerve..."
"All right," said Dave. He motioned to Helmut. "Bring over the paper crown," he intoned solemnly.
Helmut nodded. "Right-o, Dave." He brought over the crown slowly, while Freakadave started to chant, getting louder with each repetition.
"Su ot gnoleb era esab ruoy lla... Su ot gnoleb era esab ruoy lla..."
George tensed. With all of Freakadave's mumbling, he was sure now that this would be painful...
"Su ot gnoleb era esab ruoy lla! SU OT GNOLEB ERA ESAB RUOY LLA!" And with that...

Dave placed the paper crown on top of his head. "Open your eyes, George."

George opened his eyes, and looked around. He noticed no visible difference to himself, and he certainly didn't feel any different...
"That's it?" George quipped, skeptically. "That's all? No lightning bolts in the distance? No crackling glow?"
Dave frowned. Having never done this before, he was a bit doubtful himself... "Try to summon a Pokemon," said Dave.
George concentrated. I summon... Pikachu... To his delight, a giant Pikachu appeared in the room. Freakadave hid behind the couch, screaming. Dave and Helmut clapped. "Encore, encore!" they yelled.
Suddenly, George heard what seemed to be Bob's thoughts...Damn you, George! It's all your fault that I'm stuck in this screwed up world...
George felt a sinking feeling. A terrible possibility occurred to him... "Guys," he said worriedly, "did you hear that?"
"The orange frogs singing hits of the '80s?" Freakadave said matter-of-factly. "Yeah, I heard them."
Dave shook his head. "I didn't hear anything. What was it?"
"Bob! I didn't exactly hear him, I sort of... felt his thoughts. Y-you don't think he could be in here, do you?"
Dave turned pale. "That would explain why you set a building on fire..."
"He knew about the party," George said. "He was jealous. He wanted to find out how I got Author powers. And then at the end of the Mega Man thing, you opened that portal..."
"This could be bad. Really bad." Dave started to pace. "We've got to find him. If he stays in my mind too long, he'll become part of me too... This is serious. George, Helmut, you search the subconscious. Freakadave and I will search my conscious mind... although I'd probably already know if he was there... unless he's hiding."
"Um," George began, "I don't really know my way around here that well..."
"Helmut does. Follow him!" Dave opened the door, and he and Freakadave dashed out into the street. "Now LET'S GET GOING!"
Great, George thought. This is it, I am now officially doomed.

Back in 194X...
"Let me guess," Bob said. "Knut got launched into the air along with you. Right?"
Pleb nodded. "Well, yeah. How did you know?"
"I figure, what are the odds of two people getting thrown around like that in DIFFERENT situations? It's not that common of a thing, you know."
"You'd be surprised," Pleb said.
"Anyway. That means he'd be headed in the same direction as you... Mega Man, did you notice which direction Pleb fell from?"
"Huh?" Mega Man trotted over to Bob. "I didn't quite catch that."
"WHAT?! Why weren't you paying attention to me?"
"Sorry. I was talking to this guy." Mega Man indicated a young man with goggles and ruffled black hair. He looked rather bruised. "He says his name's Knut and he's from the future! Isn't that cool?"
"Bob? BOB?"
Bob stood still. Behind his shades, his right eye had begun to twitch. His blaster hand started shaking convulsively.
"What's wrong with your friend?" asked Knut curiously.
Megaman turned pale... idiot that he was, he knew the familiar "I-want-to-set-you-idiots-on-fire" Bob berserker mode. "Run!" he yelled.
Knut huddled behind the trebuchet. Pleb held his hat on and shut his eyes tightly, running off into the woods. Megaman began to run.
"Megaman... idiot... must burn... FIRE..."
-----------------
Meanwhile, George, Dave, Freakadave, and Helmut had returned to Helmut's place.
"Nothing," said Dave, wearily.
"Me either."
"Nope," said George, slightly relieved.
"Frogs!" yelled Freakadave.
Dave frowned. "Hmm... what could have possibly... wait!" He snapped his fingers. "So simple," he muttered.
George was impatient. "What's simple?"
Dave looked up, eyes lit up. "I know the reason you heard Bob in your head..." He began to pace back and forth. "You and Bob are brothers. As brothers, you already have a bit of a psychic bond, strengthened further by both sharing heat-element powers. Also, psychic energy tends to reach peak levels whenever someone is in distress... which means Bob is in serious trouble!"
George nodded slowly. "Yeah... or it could be the interdimensional communicatory device that Mom always makes us wear." He took out the earpiece and placed it on the table.
Freakadave jumped for it. "My precious!" he screeched.
George shrugged. "Sure. YOU want to put yourself in psychic contact with Bob, be my guest."
While Freakadave toyed with the earpiece, George turned back to Dave. "You were saying about Bob being in trouble?"
"It's very possible. Even with your boosted sensitivity due to my powers, it would take a lot of psychic energy for him to get through to you with that communicator. It doesn't have a very powerful reciever..."
"It does now!" Freakadave said proudly. He held out the earpiece, which now had an ear trumpet and an assortment of antennae stuck into it. "I've fixed it up!"
"Wha-- Give me that!" George snatched the device from Freakadave. "It's good to know that Bob isn't in here... but in that case, where is he? Maybe we should go look for him, if he's in that much trouble..."
"I don't know where he is. I thought he and Mega Man went back to the lab... but I've been so wrapped up in what's happening here that I haven't really been keeping tabs on the real world. What did he 'say' to you when you heard him?"
George paused, trying to remember. "Something about being stuck in this screwed-up world and how it was all my fault. I guess I did lead him through that portal from the hand-drawn universe way back when..."
"Maybe you should try the earpiece again," Dave suggested. "It might give you more of an idea where he is."
"Okay..." George reluctantly picked up the modified communicator and stuck it in his ear. It wasn't very comfortable, due to Freakadave's tampering, but it should still work...
KILL! BURN! THEY MUST DIE! I'LL REDUCE THIS STUPID DIMENSION TO A CHARRED WASTELAND! MEGA MAN WILL DIE BY MY--
George hastily yanked the earpiece out. A glance at the shocked faces around the table told him that this time, they'd 'heard' Bob's thoughts too.
"Hey!" Helmut said. "Why'd you have to turn it off? I was enjoying that!"
George shuddered. "It seems like he's in some alternate dimension again, and he's trying to destroy it. We've got to go find him!"
"Can we do it in the morning?" Dave yawned. "I'm really tired, I've had quite a day, and it's a bit late to go dimension-hopping."
"Then I'll go by myself!" George said. He was pretty tired too, but he wasn't going to admit it.
"No, you won't." Dave shook his head. "For one thing, you still don't have much experience using Author powers, and there are a lot of universes out there that aren't mine. The only thing my powers could do for you there would be getting you there and back, along with Bob if you found him. For another thing, we're the same person now, remember? You are an aspect of me. We can't exist in different universes; we have to stay together. We'll go look for him, TOGETHER, tomorrow." Dave took a deep breath. "And lastly, don't think you can go off and do things while I'm asleep. Your consciousness has been absorbed into my own, which is seriously running low this time of night. When I sleep, so do you. Which reminds me-- we've got to find you someplace to spend the night."
"But I've got a room," George protested, "in Light's lab..."
"That means physically manifesting you." Dave shook his head. "That takes a lot out of me-- metaphorically and literally. It's not a problem most of the time," he added upon seeing George's crestfallen expression, "but it's not something I can do in my sleep. I'm afraid you'll have to spend the night here."
"I've got a guest room over there," Helmut said.
George looked where he was pointing. "But that's the TV room!"
"Right. You can sleep on the couch. If you don't like it, there's always the carpet. Just try to ignore the crumbs and beer stains..."
"Or you can stay at my house!" Freakadave offered. "I've got a swimming pool in the kitchen, and a flock of pink flamingos in the living room, and a garage in the bathroom... or was that a bathroom in the garage?..."
George put his head in his hands and sighed. Being the new guy was never easy.
"At any rate," said Dave, "I'd best remanifest myself and get some sleep. Can't get too wrapped up in my own head, you know." He waved to everyone else. "See ya." With a PFOOF, he was gone.
George pondered a bit. He was still worried about getting turned evil by Helmut, and at least Freakadave wasn't sneaky...
Helmut glared at George impatiently. "I can hear your thoughts, you know. Who'll it be?"
Freakadave looked up. "Give me the earwig!" he yelled hopefully.
"Well..." George turned to Freakadave. "What did you say was in your bedroom again?"
"The world's largest sweet potato," beamed Freakadave proudly. "It smells of hats and shoe leather!"
George sighed. Weariness was quickly overtaking him, and he'd need his full strength to retrieve Bob. "Freakadave it is," said George, finally.
-------------
Knut, Plebian, and Megaman were huddled in the woods, passing food around. "I wonder what's taking your friend so long to burn this part of the woods?" asked Knut curiously.
Megaman shrugged. "Hey, I dunno. Want some ice cream?" He opened up a compartment in his blaster arm and took out a small ice cream cone. "It's from my emergency supply."
Plebian looked at it curiously. "Is... crem? Is that some sort of secret weapon?"
-------------
Earlier that day...

"BURN! BURN!" Bob was chuckling insanely, watching a tree ignite into flames. General Lada looked on, impressed.
"Kalisa?"
The blue-haired girl next to him looked up. "Yes Papa?"
The general grinned. "I believe... we have just found our new secret weapon."

George sat tightly in the passenger's seat of Freakadave's pink-fun-fur-upholstered car, closing his eyes and trying not to notice the rather unusual style of driving employed by his blue-skinned companion.
"Woohoo!" Freakadave shouted as the car went spinning in mid-air. "Hey George, you're missing all the fun!"
"I know," George said thinly. "Let me die in peace."
"What do you mean, die in peace?" Freakadave pushed a large red button on the dashboard, causing the car to do a somersault. "You know, George, sometimes you say the weirdest things..."
George tried to calm himself down. After all, he didn't want Dave to feel his anger and fear while he was trying to get to sleep... Breathe in, breathe out. Deep breaths.
Suddenly, George felt himself being tossed forward as the car came to a screeching halt. "We're here!" Freakadave announced.

Dave tossed and turned in his bed. He couldn't seem to calm down... he was too nervous. Trying to relax, he grabbed a "Spriting Today" magazine off the nearby desk. He flipped through the sections, looking for the article he was interested in.
"Ah, here we go..." Dave summoned a bowl of chocolate chip mint ice cream and started to read. It was working; he was feeling less anxious already.

George and Freakadave yawned as they stepped out of the Freakmobile, which was parked in the driveway in front of the garage. George looked across the lawn, which featured garden gnomes painted to resemble various Robot Masters, and saw Freakadave's house. It was painted a particularly bright shade of purple, but otherwise didn't seem too strange.
"I'll show you where you'll be staying in just a moment," Freakadave said, opening the trunk. "Let me help you with your luggage..."
"My luggage? But I don't have any..." George trailed off as Freakadave grunted and seemed to lift an invisible suitcase out of the trunk.
"So," Freakadave said amicably, "how was your flight? It must have been a long day, I hear the weather was awful all the way from Hawaii." He led George to the front door of the house, staggering under the 'weight.'
George sighed, deciding that it was too late at night to argue the issue. "It was fine, I guess."
"Good, good... did you get a chance to see Uncle Waldo while you were there?" Freakadave opened the door...
George almost fell over at the sight of Freakadave's decor scheme. Psychedelic record covers, inflatable pool toys, paintings of things no one in his right mind would ever want to paint, furniture that looked like it would eat anyone who tried to sit on it...
"You're impressed," Freakadave said, obviously feeling some of George's reaction. "Some of this stuff was pretty hard to find, you know..."
"I can believe it," George said as he followed Freakadave down a zig-zagging hallway.
"Here we are!" Freakadave said, opening a door. "This is your room. It used to be for my invisible shih-tzu Poochie, but he ran away..."
George kept an absolutely straight face. "I'm sorry to hear that."
"Anyway, it's getting late and you must be tired. See ya!" Freakadave abruptly ran off.

George surveyed his surroundings. The room wasn't that bad, come to think of it; there was a comfortable bed, a bookshelf, and a desk in a corner. True, the wallpaper and carpet were so brightly colored that the Las Vegas Neon Light Company would call them "overly garish", but Dr. Light's lab had some oddly-colored walls too, didn't it?
Now, if only that luggage Freakadave had carried was real... then George remembered that he now had certain advantages in that department. He grinned, and with a Pfoof!, he was wearing his pyjamas. They were purple, of course, but he'd come to expect that.
"I love doing that." George turned off the light-- too bad several of the room's colorful decorations glowed in the dark-- and crawled sleepily into bed.
Moments later, he and the rest of Dave were falling asleep...