Chapter Text
This story takes place during the events of Odyssey, starting from the part where they’re in Morgan’s tomb, about to figure out the clues to access the gateway to Avalon. And… Here we go.
“LILITH LEFAY!” A group of bitchfaced men wearing business suits and carrying briefcases suddenly materialized inside Morgan’s tomb. They were also wearing sunglasses. “We are lawyers representing Disney/Pixar. You are hereby guilty of committing copyright infringement so we are here to take you to court!” To say that the mood suddenly shifted was a huge understatement.
‘EXCUSE ME?!” Lily begrudgingly broke her focus away from solving that one puzzle.
“Did I stutter? Anytime anyone ever feels an emotion, we consider that to be copyright infringement. When Pixar made Inside Out and Inside Out 2, they copyrighted emotions, so anytime anyone feels happy, sad, disgusted, afraid, angry, anxious, envious, embarrassed, nostalgic, or bored, they will feel our wrath in court.”
“Okay but… I’ve felt all those emotions lots of times. How come you’re only coming after me now?”
“Because we only just now found our way out of the Twilight Realm. The fae that was transporting us just, without our consent, put us in the Twilight realm and dropped us off in the oppressive darkness where it's too easy to get lost and so we were lost for ages until we came across an exit just by random chance. Statistically the least likely thing to have ever happened! It’s a bit like the real world equivalent of doing the void glitch in Pokemon Diamond and Pearl and just randomly coming across Arceus.”
“I told you that you should be using your focus spell at all times!” John Faust said sternly. “They went after me way back in my youth because I dared to feel any emotions anytime after Inside Out was released in theaters, so I had to invent and apply a focus spell to keep the Pixar lawyers from coming after me! They let me off with a brutal warning when I told them that I found a way to suppress my emotions for the foreseeable future. And then of course the rest is history with my prioritizing duty over all else.”
Lily fiercely turned her head toward the bitch-faced Pixar lawyers.
“Can you like, not? We’re on an urgent mission, the details of which are on a need-to-know basis.” Lily moved a series of air molecules out of her mouth while it was moving in many shapes corresponding to the letters.
“We don’t care. You’re all getting sued. Except you, John Faust LeFay. Whosa good boy for keeping up your emotion suppressing focus spell?”
Inside John Faust’s mindscape, his Joy, Sadness, Disgust, Fear, Anger, Embarrassment, Anxiety, Ennui, Nostalgia, and Envy emotions were all stuck inside a glass jar while a new emotion, Duty, was taking over HQ.
“Do you f*ckers have a death wish? Are you not aware how emo I am most of the time? I’m too emo to even feel much of anything most of the time” Mallory gave the Pixar lawyers her deathiest death glare ever.
“I see a lot of anger in you, and anger is an emotion, so yeah, you’re committing copyright infringement too. You are so sued.”
“And you are so dead! HIYAAAH!” Mallory roundhouse kicked a couple lawyers in their crotches. All the emotions inside Mallory’s HQ in her mindscape were Anger and Envy clones, except for a single Ennui.
“Just for that you are soooo sued extra hard!” One of them said in between cries of diminished manhood. “Assuming we can ever get out of this cave first!”
“Mallory, stop. Do you wanna get sued extra hard?” Madam Barrington scolded her with her resting bitchface.
“What the f*ck, woman? Are you siding with them?” Mallory felt alarmed.
“No. But you’re not helping anyone by roundhouse kicking them in the groin. I don’t think you wanna get sued extra harder than you have to be.”
“What are they even gonna do? They can’t take us to court as long as they don’t know how to get out of this cave.”
Sir Kipling leapt at the face of one of the Pixar lawyers and activated his floofy buzzsaw mode. The lawyer threw him off his bloody face.
“And you are also getting sued extra hard for your littte stunt!”
I AM A CAT! I GET PAID IN CHIN SCRITCHES AND BELLY RUBS, NOT MONEY! ALSO GOOD LUCK SUING US WHILE YOU'RE STILL STUCKNIN MORGAN'S CAVE CUZ WE WON'T SHOW YOU THUGS THE WAY OUT! Sir Kipling shouted in magical floating letters.
“What gives you the right to think you can copyright the concept of emotions?” Madam Barrington loudly made sound waves project from the hole at the bottom of her face while making her bitchiest bitchface.
“Because we have anything at all to do with Disney!” One of the Pixar lawyers said matter of factly. “And Disney can copyright literally anything.” And then he demanded, “Now how do we get out of here?”
“I dunno,” Lily lied. “Gee, I guess you guys are stuck here! Too bad! Guess you’ll have to use the Twilight Realm!” She added condescendingly.
“We’re too scared to go back through the Twilight Realm, and even if we weren’t, I don’t think we’re in the good graces of the fae.” One of the lawyers admitted.
“What, did you try to sue the fae too?” Sebastian asked mockingly.
“Since the fae feel emotions too, they were infringing on our copyright so we tried to sue them too. But Thiriel got mad and before we could threaten her with legal action, she made us fall off the fae transport system and into the Twilight where it’s easy to get lost. Sometime while we were wandering aimlessly we caught a glimpse of a weird man in a blue suit carrying a briefcase. We wondered if he was a lawyer too, possibly also seeking to try to sue Thiriel for expressing anger but no, we couldn’t get any read of emotion in this guy. So we asked him and get this. He just said something about preparing for unforeseen consequences, and also that he doesn't remember putting us in stasis. Come to think of it, I wonder if this mysterious man showed us the way out.” One of the lawyers grabbed Sebastian's sidearm and pointed it at the party. Another one also attempted to take Mallory’s daggers but Mallory easily sidestepped him.”
“Show us the way out or you’re gonna be filled with lead.”
“EXPELLIARMUS!” Lily yowled, causing the firearm to fling itself out of the lawyer's grip.
“How did you do that, Lily?” Madam Barrington asked, bewildered, followed by applause. “Expelliarmus isn't even Enkinim! In fact, it's not even in this franchise!”
“Same way English has literal French words. Like ennui.”
“Fine. Don’t show us the way out of this cave. But you do know that you’re gonna have to eat sometime, right? You’re gonna need to leave before you get hangry because feeling hangry is copyright infringement, ya know.”
“Ooof, he’s right,” Sebastian lamented. Being hungry was the last thing in the world that he wanted since the longer time he spent being hungry the more he worried that it might interfere with his ability to bench press 225 lbs twice, and he knew Lily thought he was an absolute Chad, and being able to bench press 225 lbs at least twice was an element of being an absolute Chad. Also, Mallory was his spotter.
Lily, John Faust, and the rest of company begrudgingly led the Pixar lawyers out of Morgan’s tomb and eventually to the outside.
“Thank you guys. Just for that we might just be willing to lower your litigation fees by about $3.” Just outside the cavern entrance was a mysterious black van. Lily didn't have a bad feeling about this because having feelings was illegal.
“Get inside the van!” The Pixar lawyers demanded. “We’ll take you to court and then we’ll take you to McDonald’s as a reward for being taken to trial. How’s that?”
“McDonald’s sucks!” Sebastian spat. “They are unhealthy as sh*t! Ultra-processed junk is what it is. Not even the germs want it. I binge-watch videos from Dr. Suneel Dhand’s YouTube channel and he’s very emphatic about being against ultra-processed junk.”
“What he said,” Mallory agreed.
“Well fine, be that way you ungrateful bitches. It’s either McDonald’s or feeling hangry.”
“Oh alright,” Sebastian and Mallory conceded.
The Pixar lawyers all crammed into the mysterious black van like clowns in a clown car and drove them to the nearest courthouse.
Little did they know, a demonic entity was silently observing the mysterious black van.
“Drat! They took my quarry!” Nergal hissed angrily. “I was hoping to strike them down while they were attempting to solve their Calculus puzzle to open the gateway to Avalon but those stupid business suits had to ruin my plan! ARGH! Guess I have a court trial to show up to!”
At the courthouse, the judge banged his gavel on his podium. “We are here for the trial between Lily Singer, Sebastian Blackwell, Ethel Barrington, Mallory, John Faust LeFay, and the cat Sir Kipling who communicates by summoning floating letters. John and the rest of them are defending themselves and they are guilty of feeling emotions, which are all copyrighted characters by Pixar, who have copyrighted the concept of emotions,” the judge said in a monotone voice.
“Hey, why am I on trial here with everyone else? I’ve been using my focus spell, which suppresses my emotions!” Lily cried.
“Yeah, what my favorite daughter said!” John Faust shouted. Mallory responded by stomping John Faust’s balls with her athletic shoes.
“Don’t you DARE openly declare her your favorite daughter in front of me!” Mallory said through clenched teeth.
“Mallory, please refrain from any more violent acts in the courtroom. This is a courtroom and violent acts will not be tolerated!” The judge said harshly while showing his bitchiest bitchface.
“You two are here because we’re already working on Inside Out 3, which will introduce such new emotions as Hangry and Duty. Sorry John Faust but it turns out you’ve actually been committing copyright infringement all these years too by feeling Duty, who we’ve decided is going to appear in Inside Out 3,” the prosecution explained.
“So I’ve been using my focus spell for nothing then!” John Faust realized. “All my ambitions, plans for a greater future, now going to waste because you guys love sequels more than you love your wives.”
“That’s pretty much the long and short of it,” sound waves traveled out of one of the Pixar lawyers’ facial apertures in a matter of fact manner.
“OBJECTION! How do you expect to enforce this anyway? Do you really expect to be able to go everywhere in the world and sue the entire human race just because every human ever has at some point felt some sort of emotion?“ Lily shouted while pointing her finger.
“Yes. We realized going through the Twilight Realm was a convenient mode of teleportation and with that we can instantly appear anywhere anytime, making the issue of summoning the entire human race a non-issue since the world is a big place. We made the aspects of raven do our bidding for us until we ended up pissing off Thiriel, so she made us get lost but that didn’t deter us since suing even just this small group of individuals is a small victory in our eyes, and the rest of the fae are none too pleased with us either. Man, that silver fox really hates our guts. It tried to give us rabies.”
"DO YOU GUYS NEED ANOTHER FLOOFY BUZZSAW?" Sir Kipling said.
"No floofy buzzsaws allowed in the court room," the judge said exasperatedly.
“OBJECTION! Stop being angry! Anger is also copyright infringement!” This made Sir Kipling even more angry, and Mallory’s urge to roundhouse kick the Pixar lawyers shot up into the stratosphere.
“How do you even have access to the fae transport network anyway?” Sebastian inquired.
“You see, one of us is a witch, just like Sebastian Blackwell here. We have even tried to send Thiriel a cease and desist for her display of anger when we tried to send her a cease and desist for violating copyright by feeling angry but she got angry and was having none of it. She may be an Eldritch abomination but she’s still not above the law, so she deserves a good suing.”
“While we’re here, can we also charge John Faust for the murder of my mom and dad?” Sebastian suddenly went into serious mode. “I was a wee little teenager when it happened and it’s been heavy baggage in my mind ever since.” Inside Sebastian’s mind Sadness was hogging the console and the majority of the memory spheres on the shelves were all blue. But the judge quickly put the kebosh on that with some brutal honesty.
“Dude, the statute of limitations has already run out. Many times over in fact. If a murder occurred over 5 days ago the murderer can no longer be charged for the crime, and I’m pretty sure it's been well over 5 days since you were 16.”
A massive black demon with white hair burst through the wall of the court room.
“OH YEAH!” it shouted.
“Nergal!” Lily gasped.
“Yeah it's me. And I have a score to settle."
“Stop right there Nergal! You are so sued too!” One of the Pixar lawyers said threateningly while pointing his index finger at the demon. But Nergal just laughed.
“Oh I’m so scared of being taken to court by a mere human just for feeling copyrighted emotions.” Nergal said mockingly. “You know I’m a demon, right?”
“We don't care,” the prosecution said defiantly. “Eldritch abomination or not, you're not above the law, so you gotta follow copyright laws like everyone else.”
“I don't care about any of your pathetic mundane laws, and I don't have to take any sh*t from you.” Nergal responded by extending tendrils of pure evil toward the Pixar lawyers and casually ate them.
“I never thought I'd say this but thank you Nergal,” Lily said, her mind finally at peace that the lawyers would no longer be trying desperately to sue the human race for daring to feel any kind of emotion.
“Since the prosecution has all been eaten by a demon, this trial is by definition over,” the judge said matter of factly before banging his gavel to signal the end of the trial.
The gang cheered and then immediately groaned in frustration that they had to fight Nergal now.
Mallory and Sebastian pulled out their handguns and pointed them at Nergal, firing several shots at him. Nergal squealed in hellish anger. His eyes reddened so intensely they became lasers.
“NO FIREARMS ALLOWED IN THE COURTROOM!” The judge hollered.
“But he’s trying to kill us!” Sebastian pleaded.
“No, he can't be he's not because that's not allowed,” the judge emphatically insisted.
“His evil black ooze is eating up the floor,” Mallory panicked.
“No evil tendrils of black ooze are allowed in the courtroom!” The judge boldly said to Nergal.
“Don't tell me what to do,” Nergal said rebelliously. The demon ate the judge followed by a thunderous “BUUUURRRRP!"
Lily, John Faust, and Madam Barrington each cast a shield spell over their entire party, which the tendrils had no choice but to go around. Sebastian and Mallory continued firing their sidearms. Good thing having signs prohibiting firearms didn’t stop them. Eventually Nergal’s body started being covered in mini-explosions like when a video game boss is defeated.
“YES!” Sebastian and Mallory high-fived each other.
Using the aspect of Raven, the gang all rode through the Twilight realm back to Morgan’s tomb where Morgan lay presumably dead in a Peter Griffin death pose.
"Let's just ignore that for now," Lily suggested.
With the lawyers and demon out of the way, now she could concentrate on deciphering the puzzle to access the gateway to Avalon.
She wrote it down in her eduba. Looking at it closer, she noticed that this final clue was really a multivariable differential equation written in Enkinim. Thankfully she knew a transference spell that she could use to implant knowledge into her brain on how to solve it. Integrate both sides, apply a few substitutions, and viola! She had no idea how she would have been able to do this without her focus spell but anyone else would have lost track of the original problem due to the sheer number of substitutions. The gateway opened. Barrington, Lily, Sebastian, John Faust all joined hands.
“Come on, let's step through this gateway,” Lily commanded. Everyone else nodded in affirmation and stepped through the gateway into the unknown.
