With a brilliant flash of light and a Pfoof!, George, Dave, Bob and Mega Man arrived in Dr. Light's lab. Right in front of his workbench in fact.
"We're back," George announced.
Dr. Light looked at him. "I see that."
As Dave vanished, taking Bob with him, Light asked George, "How was the multiverse?"
George shook his head. "Difficult." He pointed to Mega Man. "I'm afraid he's taken some damage. But I think you can repair him..."
"Certainly," Dr. Light said. "Get me a screwdriver."
George materialized the appropriate tool and handed it to Light.
"No, I mean the drink."
George was about to create it, when he realized he really couldn't stay. "Look, Dr. Light," he said hesitantly, "I can't actually help you fix Mega Man right now. Dave needs me to... do Author things. Important Author things. Can't you get Nate or somebody to help you with it?"
"Fine," Light grumbled, although he clearly wasn't too happy about George walking out on him. "But don't be too long. I have a number of experiments I want you to help me with..."
"To tell the truth, I don't really know how long I'll be." George shrugged. "It all depends on what Dave wants to do, really. And it's getting late, and I'm hungry, and tired... can these experiments wait till tomorrow?"
Dr. Light tried his final ploy. "But George, I don't think you should use these new abilities until we've thoroughly studied their effects on you. You don't know what they might be doing to you..." His eager grin might have given him away somewhat.
"Dave does." George was getting rather anxious about Dave, in fact... "Look, I've got to be going. Dave needs me." With that, he
Pfoof!ed away.
---------------------
George appeared in front of Dave, who was apparently trying to talk to Bob in hopes of eliciting a response from him. It didn't seem to be working.
"Well?" Dave said, noticing George's arrival.
"I think he'll be able to fix Mega Man," George said. He frowned worriedly. "I hope so."
"I'm sure he will," Dave said reassuringly. "Did he say anything else?"
"Yeah. He wants me to be in a bunch of his experiments. The usual, I guess."
"Possibly..." Dave paused. "Are you ready?"
George braced himself and nodded. "Take me in."
Dave raised his arms and with a Pfoof!, George was gone. Or rather, he was back.
Dave smiled slightly. George's presence in his mind was actually becoming rather comforting... something he needed at this point. Not looking forward to what was coming next, Dave turned back to Bob.
---------------------
"Huh?" Both Mega-Bob and Reasoning turned around.
Behind them stood another Bob, looking very confused. "Can you tell me where I am? Who I am? I can't remember anything! How did I get here? What happened?"
"Great," said Reasoning angrily, turning to Mega-Bob. "Now you've created yet another Bob! Bob must be nearly on the brink right now!"
"Well excuse me!" said Mega-Bob defensively. "I don't know how these things work! I'm stupid, okay! I don't know what's going on!"
"You too?" The other Bob perked up. "Yay, I'm not the only one!"
"Shut up, Amnesia," snapped Reasoning, finally giving the new Bob a name. Amnesia wandered off aimlessly. "This has to be stopped. Again, we need to destroy it at the source... and it seems you're the source, Mega-Bob."
Mega-Bob gulped. "But... uh... you're not going to... KILL me, are you?" He backed away a few paces.
Reasoning sighed. "Sadly, no. You're already too integrated into Bob's system, and killing you off would most likely be like brain surgery gone wrong. No, what we need to do is make sure you don't touch anything here from now on."
Mega-Bob stared blankly at Reasoning. "Not... touch... anythi- WAAAH! MY LIFE IS OVER!"
---------------------
George looked around, making sure he was in Dave's mind... ah, the familiar purple sky. Good.
He made his way over to Helmut's residence. Dave had told him to guard Helmut, and that was most likely the best place to look for him.
He opened the door, though a sense of foreboding struck him for some reason.
The first thing he noticed was Helmut, sitting on a throne constructed of beer cans, glaring menacingly at him.
"You." One single, accusatory word fell out of Helmut's mouth.
---------------------
"All right, here I go..." Dave held up his arms, and PFOOFed into Bob's mind.

Bob's mind was filled with smoke and brimstone, though the sky was, at the moment, a startling shade of purple. Dave gulped. He was pretty sure that, as an Author, he couldn't do any harm by entering his own character's mind. At least, he hoped so... the last thing he wanted was to be integrated into Bob. He took a deep breath, and continued on.
Bob's mind was much different from his own. There were torches everywhere, and half the buildings were on fire. There was no sign of plant life whatsoever. Dave's musings on the intricacies of Bob's mind were quickly interrupted by a loud yell. "MY LIFE IS OVER!"
Dave cautiously ambled along, turning to the direction where he'd heard the sound. He hid behind a building, and craned his head out to look.
There were two figures. The first appeared to be some sort of icy-blue Bob clone. His arms were crossed, and he appered to be lecturing the other. The second figure appeared to be a Bob sans helmet, with Megaman's color scheme and a black scarf. He wondered who they were, and if he should ask them for help. Suddenly, a voice spoke behind him.
"Excuse me. Do you know who I am?"
"I'm afraid not," Dave said. "I'm just visiting here, actually. Look, do you know where I could find..."
"I don't know anything!" Amnesia protested. He paused for a moment. "At least, I don't think I do."
Dave realized that it would probably be hopeless trying to get information out of this persona. "Fine then. I'll try someone else."
--------------------
He Pfoof!ed into the memory vault-- fortunately, since Bob was his creation, his powers worked here. Looking around, Dave noticed that one of the filing cabinets was empty, with a pile of ashes on the floor next to it. This certainly explained the memory loss thing... but who could have done something like this? Some part of Bob that enjoyed burning things... that didn't narrow it down much.
Crouching by the pile of ashes, Dave tried to reconstruct the lost memories... but since some of the events in question had happened outside his universe, while he hadn't been present, he didn't know what he was trying to restore. With a sigh, Dave left the ashes alone and went to look elsewhere.
Stepping out into the street, he looked up at the sky. It shouldn't be purple... he was carefully shielding his own thoughts and identity from Bob's, using his powers. What was going on with that?
Looking closer, Dave realized that the sky was in fact a chaotic swirl of red-orange and blue...
-----------------
"Uh, yeah, me." George waved weakly. "Hi."
Helmut stepped down from the beer can pile, looking George right in the eyes. The intensity of his bright red glare made George's head spin. "You trashed my goddamn HOUSE!!"
"I did?" George remembered going through the house looking for his communicator. "Sorry about that. I was kinda looking for something important..."
"Do you KNOW how long it's been since I've been home here?!" Helmut shouted. "I just got back yesterday, and I only just got things arranged the way I like them, when YOU come in here and wreck everything!"
"Like I said, I'm sorry. Really. I'll help you put it back..." George offered.
"No," Helmut said. "What you are going to do is SUFFER. Just as soon as we're finished with this Bob thing." He glared at George, who was still standing in front of him. "What? You're free to go. For now. I can't give you the torture I've got planned until Dave's back in the real world."
"Back in the real world?" George didn't understand. "What are you talking about? Where is he?"
"I SAID," Helmut snapped impatiently, "you're free to go. Now get out of my face." He resolutely turned away and opened a can of beer.
--------------------
George went out the door, sighing. It seemed like all he'd done during his Authorship was make a perfect mess in Dave's head. What would Dave say? He sat down on a park bench, and put his head in his hands.
"Dave-Dave?"
George looked up to see a tiny representation of the Author. Mini-Dave put up his hands expectantly, jumping up and down. George lifted him up onto the bench.
"Hey, little guy," he said, trying to smile. "What're you doing here? Are you here to cheer me up?"
"Dave-Dave!" chirped Mini-Dave happily. George patted him on the head.
"Hullo!" He looked up again, and saw the familiar figure of Freakadave. "Did Helmut wrangle your potato?" he inquired, sitting down next to George.
George sighed. "Yeah, he yelled at me. Serves me right, though. I shouldn't have screwed up his stuff."
Freakadave shrugged. "Oh, it's fishsticks. He'll saute about it by tomorrow, really."
His attempt to comfort George only confused him more. "Wha?" George looked nervously around. "He'll saute me?"
Freakadave put up his arms in frustration. He'd have to speak coherently. "I SAID, he'll forget about it by tomorrow. Now just rutabaga about it and celery out!" He summoned up three ice cream cones for himself, George, and Mini-Dave.
-----------------
Dave stared at the sky, trying to decipher what it meant. Then again... that Megaman-like Bob... that didn't seem right... His musings were once again interrupted, this time by a different voice.
"Excuse me." Reasoning's matter-of-fact tone cut through Dave's thought. "You must be the Author. Can you help me sort out this predicament?" He pointed to Mega-Bob, whose hands had been tied around his back, and whose mouth had been gagged.
Dave peered closely at them. "Um... the first thing I'd need to know is how he got here. Also... neither of you seem all that Bob-like... who's in charge here? I need to go speak to them."
"We are." Two more voices said the last sentence from behind Dave's back. Dave slapped his forehead. All those behind-the-back jokes were finally coming back to get him. "And you are?" he countered.
Conscience began. "I am Bob's Conscience, the little voice that nags Bob whenever George is in danger." He pointed at Dark Bob. "This is Dark Bob. He's Bob's eviler side."
Dark Bob grinned. "Oh yeah," he said. "We're holding Bob prisoner, and he's not coming back."
Dave tried to comprehend what Dark Bob was saying. This didn't make much sense coming from an aspect of Bob... "What do you mean, he's not coming back?"
"I mean," Dark Bob said, "that Bob's self-awareness is not gonna return to control until certain demands are met." He and Conscience pulled out pieces of paper. "We want: Bob to have a more important role in the comic--"
Conscience chimed in. "His fair share of ice cream bonuses--"
"Less of this damn dimension-hopping--"
"A more sympathetic portrayal--"
Dark Bob shot Conscience a look. "Being an actual main villain again--"
Conscience shot Dark Bob an even stronger look. "More opportunities to heroically save the day--"
"And NO MORE MEGA-BOB!" they finished together.
Dave decided not to argue with them right now. "We'll see. Look, I need to find Bob as soon as I can. If you don't tell me where he is, I'll have to find him myself."
-------------
"Gee, thanks," George said, licking his ice cream cone. "But still... I sorta feel bad about the whole thing. I mean, Dave wanted me to help him and watch Helmut... and all I've done is cause trouble for him."
"You're still new!" Freakadave protested. "Of course your jeep isn't completely orange yet. But you're doing fine! You helped save Bob from the mutant blowfish of the planet Xeebox..."
"But I made him go there in the first place!" George said.
"George," Freakadave said firmly, "that's nonsense. Stop it."
George looked at Freakadave, who was holding his ice cream cone upside down and licking at the cone part while holding the actual ice cream... and thought about what Freakadave had just said... and laughed.
Glad to see George in better spirits, Mini-Dave started Pfoof!ing from one arm of the bench to the other. "Dave! Dave! Dave!"
Suddenly, he and Freakadave became very quiet and hid behind the bench. George followed their example, not sure what he was hiding from... until he saw Helmut walking in their direction. Realizing that this would be the perfect opportunity to keep watch over Helmut, George crouched in the bushes and watched...
-------------
Conscience shot a meaningful glance at Dark Bob. "You tell him."
Dark Bob rolled his eyes. "Fine, fine. Here are the directions to where Bob's consciousness is." He POPed a piece of paper into his hands and handed it to Dave. "We'll see you later," he said, and in a blinding flash of dark, he vanished.
Conscience saluted Dave. "Best of luck to you, Author. And we'll be back to you later about our... demands..." In a flash of light, he too was gone.
Dave took a deep breath. Finally, they were gone... He unfolded the paper, which read as follows:

1. Take a right turn at the big grey building. There will be a large alleyway with several doors.
2. If you walk over to the correct door, you'll notice a red switch. Pull it and go in.
3. There'll be a key to the next door somewhere in that room. Too bad I forgot where it was...
4. The next room will be full of Fire Mets. Defeat them, then solve the puzzle to unlock the next door.
5. There will be a giant chess board...

A few hours later...

157. Defeat the giant seven-head dog, and you'll find Bob behind his corpse. Congratulations!

This has been a Conscience/Dark Bob Production.

Dave refolded the note, sighing heavily. "Jesus. They have way too much time on their hands..."
-------------
Helmut crumpled his beer can in his fist and threw it into the bushes, missing George's head by a few inches. He began to pace back and forth agitatedly, talking as he did so.
"Oh yes, I'm gonna make George pay... I'm going to find some way to make him trip up, oh yes. I'm going to get rid of him once and for all... who does he think he is, anyways? He needs to be cut down to size..." Helmut approached the bench.
Please don't sit down, please don't sit down... George's prayer was in vain. Helmut sat down on the bench, precariously close to Freakadave and Mini-Dave. George held his breath, his heart beating very, very fast.
Helmut started laughing insanely as he thought over and over of his plan. "Yes... I'll gain Dave's trust again, and expel George forever from the Authorship... he'll be broken down like so much glass... I'll frame him for som-" It was just then that Helmut caught a glance, out of the corner of his eye, the top of Freakadave's hair.
--------------------
"You know," a voice said from behind the seven-headed dog, "there's a reason for that."
It sounded like Bob, but then all the Bob personas sounded like Bob, so that didn't prove anything. Still, Dave's hopes rose somewhat at the sound. He tiredly Pfoof!ed the dog away; it had taken a lot of Author powers, not to mention quick thinking and insane leaps of logic, to get through the various obstacles. But sure enough, the figure in the back of the room was Bob's complete self.
He looked up at the sound; if Dave didn't know better, he'd think Bob had been crying. "Oh," Bob said with obvious disappointment. "It's you."
"Yeah," Dave said. "Me. You know, the guy who created you in the first place? The guy who just rescued you from 194X?"
"I'm rescued?" Bob looked around the rather empty room. "This doesn't look like rescued to me."
Dave sat down next to Bob. "Something's happened to you... what's the last thing you remember?"
Bob glared at him. "Sitting in this room for the last couple hours. Right behind a giant dog." He scowled. "Not exactly Acapulco."
"What about before that? How did you get here?"
"It's the weirdest thing," Bob said. "I was in 194X for some reason, I don't know how I got there or what I was doing there, but I was all ready to toast Mega Man, when I started to feel really funny. Then everything went black, and the next thing I knew, I was lying on the floor in this weird room, and there were these full-sized versions of my conscience and dark side. And they dragged me here and said they'd keep me locked here until their demands were met." He shook his head and groaned. "They never even told me their demands."
-------------------
Helmut sat up straight on the bench. "Freakadave? That you?"
"As iridescent as ever!" Freakadave said, jumping up in front of Helmut. "Don't mind me. I was just catching crawdads."
"Whatever. Why don't you go back to doing that?" Helmut said half-heartedly.
"You sounded like you could use a rectangular gopher to talk to, since you seemed pretty alphabetic." Freakadave sat on the bench next to Helmut. "Is everything XD?"
Helmut sighed. It came out as more of a growl. "NO. I've got a blond twerp stomping blindly around in Dave's, i.e. MY, mind causing whatever the hell trouble he pleases!"
Freakadave spread his arms. "But you've got your favorite flavor of pinecones! You're back now, isn't that what you wanted? Besides, George didn't mean to leave your toad in the washing machine. He wants to fit sideways..."
"I know, I know." Helmut waved his hand in Freakadave's face. "But he makes me SO GODDAMN MAD!!!" He created another can of beer, quickly drank the contents, and crushed it violently.
"But... that's a good thing, right?" Freakadave's head spun around several times in confusion. "You're negative emotions. You're SUPPOSED to be mad, because if you weren't, you'd be an elephant sundae with whipped sand on top!"
Helmut frowned into the distance for a moment. "Well, when you put it that way..."
-------------------
Dave examined Bob closely. He seemed to be in quite a fragile emotional state, and would most likely snap if he found out everything that had happened. Especially the whole thing with Mega-Bob. "Well, let's not worry about this right now," said the Author kindly. "Let's just get you out of here so you can get some rest." He held out a hand to help Bob up. Bob refused it, pulling himself up.
"Right," said Bob, composing himself. He looked at Dave suspiciously. "What're you going to do, though? Are you going to stick around and torment me some more?"
Bob's tone cut through the air violently. He doesn't trust me, noted Dave wearily.
"No," said Dave, sighing. "I don't want to bother you any more than needed... No, I'm going to take care of Conscience and Dark Bob."
-------------------
Helmut sighed. How could he explain his dark, powerful anger to such a carefree, flighty personality? Then again, he'd had enough of Freakadave's company to somewhat speak his language.
"Freakadave," he began slowly, trying to think of random words, "Imagine that Dave doesn't like you anymore, because you ate his coffee mug. Imagine that he riddles you so much, that he banishes you to live on a notebook forever. Then one day he kumquats you back, only to have an idiotic blond squiggly fish punture your lamp posts. Do you get what I'm painting?" Helmut hoped that was random enough.
Freakadave put a hand to his hair in confusion, eyebrow raised. "Helmut," he said, a worried tone in his voice, "What the Elvis are you riffing about?"
Hearing Helmut's angry, decidedly defiant voice speak absolute gibberish...George had to try very hard not to burst into hysterical laughter. Mini-Dave had to jam his tiny hands into George's mouth to stop him from giving away their position.
--------------------
To Dave's surprise, Bob actually looked worried at that last remark. "What do you mean," Bob said, "'take care' of them?"
Dave shrugged. "I, uh, don't exactly know yet. Why?"
"Well..." Bob tried to find the right words. "If you kill them, wouldn't that mess me up somehow?"
"I'm not going to kill them!" Dave tried to keep from laughing; this was serious. "They, well, they have a problem they need dealt with." He Pfoof!ed up a tiger-striped ice cream cone and handed it to Bob. "Now try to relax; you need to concentrate on staying as calm and controlled as possible..."
"No dice." Bob stepped forward determinedly. "I know those guys better than you do. I'm going with you to make sure you don't screw this up."
------------------
George continued to crouch behind the bench, trying not to make any noise. Listening to Helmut explain his feelings, George realized that he had a point. Maybe rooting through Helmut's house without even telling him about it hadn't been a very good idea...
It was really no wonder Helmut's feelings had been hurt. George wondered if maybe he should take a moment later on and tell Helmut he was sorry... he didn't want to face Helmut's anger again, but on the other hand, he and Helmut were stuck with one another now, and it would probably be best to be as nice to Helmut as possible... Dave didn't need yet another internal conflict, especially since he was hoping that George could help with some of those problems...
And come to think of it, George thought, he should probably have been more considerate of Helmut's feelings. After all the poor guy had been through... and especially considering that they shared emotions now... yes, apologizing was clearly the right thing to do here. George decided to do just that, after everything else was sorted out...
"Apology accepted," said an acidic voice from behind him.
George quickly turned around and looked up, to see Helmut leaning over the top of the bench, looking at him with a subtle smirk. Groaning, George slapped his forehead; he'd forgotten all about the whole shared thoughts thing. "How long have you been..."
"About five minutes." Helmut folded his arms under his chin. "But as I said, I accept your apology. You're right, now that we're both parts of Dave, it won't do to hold grudges. In fact--" Helmut grinned widely. "I'd like to treat you to a movie."
"Really?" said George, eyes lighting up hopefully. Maybe this was the chance to apologize and redeem himself!
"Well, a good way of redeeming yourself would be to buy all of our food for us," said Helmut, grinning widely. "The rest of us'll chip in for the tickets..." He laughed to himself. Oooh yes... he'd make that blond runt pay, in a way that Dave would never have foreseen...
--------------------
George, Helmut, Freakadave, and Mini-Dave all headed towards the movie theater. Everything in this section of Dave's mind was fairly close together, so they had almost no trouble finding it.
The Ampitheater of Dave's Memory only showed one genre of cinema... nay, one series. Posters of Back to the Future, parts 1, 2, and 3 lined the walls like so much wallpaper... fortunately for Helmut's dastardly scheme, George was preoccupied with staring at the mini-arcade, which was filled with Megaman arcade machines.
"Wow..." George struggled to snap out of it. After all, he could always use the arcade later. "So, what movie are we going to see?"
"Ummm..." It would be very counter-productive to Helmut's plan if George were to know what torture was in store for him. "Err... it's a surprise," said Helmut, trying not to lose his step. "Not go over to the concessions stand and buy us food."
"I want jelly popcorn!" said Freakadave happily, hands up in the air.
"Dave dave, dave!"
------------------
Reasoning sat on a bench, attempting to reason things through. Mega-Bob sat next to him, protesting quite adamantly about having his mouth gagged. "Mmph, mmph mmmmpphhhh!"
Reasoning couldn't think with so much noise in the back of Bob's thoughts. "Fine, fine, I'll let you free. Just stop interrupting my thought processes!"
Mega-Bob nodded. As soon as his mouth could open, he said "Yay!"
Now that that was out of the way, Reasoning pondered a way he could get rid of Mega-Bob, without permanently damaging Bob's brain. Mega-Bob was a horrible nuisance... he was stupid, and childish, and was so completely unlike Bob that...
That's it, he realized, looking up. Bob needs more balance in his personality, and what better balance could there be?
"What's this about balance?"
"I thought I told you to SHUT UP!"
------------------
Dave shook his head. "No, Bob. If they could incapacitate you before, what's to stop them from doing it again? I can't take the risk."
Bob took defiant licks of his ice cream cone, eyes blazing. "Well, (lick) I don't (lick) care! I'm coming with you, and that's (lick) final." He began to eat the tip of his cone, continuing to stand in Dave's way.
Dave sighed, rolling his purple eyes. He'd never seen someone so stubborn in his life... "Fine," he said finally. "You can come... just try to stay out of trouble."