The Strange Misadventures of Mr. Nice Guy: Mr. Nice Guy Gets Slapped In the Face By Reality, A Big Sea Danger Noodle, and Lots Of Emotions

Mr. Nice Guy floated through the depths merrily, though you could say that the thrashing of his tail and his wild way of swimming did look quite desperate. Very much desperate, in fact.

In fact, he most definitely was quite desperate.

Mr. Nice Guy tried not to let his panic show through his calm demeanor as he whirled through the deep, black ocean, glancing around awkwardly. He couldn’t see anything now, and that concerned him a lot. Like, a lot a lot. Who knows how long he’d been down here in the first place, or even where he was anymore. He could be in a completely different portal and he’d have no idea.

Water rushed around him, spinning in his ears like the sound of a washing machine, empty nothingness surroundings him in the thick water that flowed darker than black, his spines shot straight up to the air in unease. Even now, accidentally proclaimed by himself as one of the most terrifying creatures of the sea, he felt that things were…watching him, waiting for him to be caught off-guard and devoured by the menacing, merciless creatures of the Black Sea’s depths.

“Hello?” he called out into the sea, glancing around until his eyes caught a soft purple glow, far off in the distance and steadily approaching. It spun and swam like a torpedo, curling in a circle as it headed straight for Mr. Nice Guy, who waited for its approach in confusion. If he’d had an eyebrow, it would’ve already been arched in disbelief.

“Zephyr? Is that you?!” cried the eldritch creature, swimming forward with his arms out. “Oh, Zephyr, I found you! I knew you would be here! I knew it! How are you? Are you okay?!”

But that snake-like creature didn’t stop as its black hide sprouted dark blue fur with glowing pale green spots, its tail thrashing violently behind it as the creature took on an appearance familiar to Zephyr’s but…off. Quite off. There was just something about the creature that wasn’t Zephyr and probably never had been that looked strange and odd. Maybe it was the strange shape of its mouth, or the clawed spikes crossing down its back, or how it had four legs. That was a definite giveaway.

The Not-Zephyr’s mouth shot open, fangs shooting out of its gums along with some other spikey, not-friendly teeth that most definitely would hurt being bit by it, lunging at Mr. Nice Guy’s face.

Then everything disappeared.

 

Mr. Nice Guy blinked again, and suddenly, he was in a place much, much more far away than the Black Sea from the Borealis Enclave, above water, with all his limbs intact and no weird spines rushing down his back.

The ground was cracked and chipped, the reddish-gray pavement looking like it had borne quite the accident. The entirety of the walls and roof were crushed and broken, slammed into most of the floor, with little wisps of red twisting into the air and disappearing again. Sirens blared in the distance, and the sky was tinged orangey-red, the sun burning a glaring impact into what would be his eyes, if they actually existed, after all. In the physical realm, that is. He could hear faint screaming in the distance, some of fear, some of pain, his head swiveling around to stare at the city down the very, very high hill that the ruins of the building he sat in was placed, some of the buildings crumbling, screams echoing in his ears.

Mr. Nice Guy whimpered, his tail between his legs as he looked around nervously, then froze, his eyes stuck on the left, where past the building laid a very familiar trail of blood.

He didn’t like where this was going.

Slowly, Mr. Nice Guy crept over the rubble and through the long, dark green grass, until he stood before a very familiar sight.

This must’ve been a couple hours after he’d left the site of Dr. Crowell’s death.

Because there he was, Dr. Crowell himself, his rigid, dead body lying limply in the grass, looking the same as always. Other than the stark white contrast of his skin, which, although he’d always been pale, had never really quite reached the ghostly white he was now. His black hair waved limply in the air, his eyes still wide open and staring at nothing, the red splashed over his clothing so dark and dried that Mr. Nice Guy had to accept that this was real, that this was actually happening, and that he’d appeared in the past, standing over Dr. Crowell’s body.

“D-Doctor Crowell?” he stammered, reaching over and gently tapping him, quite weakly, for fear he might hurt the sleeping man. “Are you okay?”

He didn’t respond.

How is this possible? he wondered quietly, sitting perched near the body, his tail over his legs. Dr. Crowell was stored safely in his stomach! He wasn’t still here! 

Was he?

Mr. Nice Guy thought back to that day over three months ago, where he remembered lifting his limp body into the air.

And then he remembered.

He’d never taken Dr. Crowell’s entire body; he’d taken the brightly glowing impression of him.

Maybe that was why he’d never woken up.

Because he’d never had his body to wake up with.

“What is going on?!” he wailed, collapsing beside him and covering his face in his hands, shaking and crying, never mind the fact he had no tears to spill. In one shaking claw, he set it over Dr. Crowell’s body, trembling.

“C’mon, Dr. Crowell. Wake up. Wake up, please!” he croaked.

Dr. Crowell did not respond, as per the usual.

Then, upon waiting for Dr. Crowell’s response, he heard something else. Much, much different than what he’d guess was Dr. Crowell’s response, but its voice was still achingly familiar, in a way he couldn’t figure out.

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhh…” whatever it was moaned, staggering away from the rubble and over the hill, its eyes stretched wide and its mouth curled up in a pained grimace of fear and hurt. “Ow. Ow…” 

The creature staggered out of the rubble, its hands clutching its neck, where a gaping, bleeding gash stood, dripping fiery warm black blood down its back and front, its knees shaking as it tried to stand. It was dressed in a strangely glossy black suit with a bright cyan bow, shining in the light of the sun, black, fluffy hair like Dr. Crowell’s, and ghost-white skin, just like Dr. Crowell’s body at that moment. Its eyes were black with a glowing orange iris, only present in its right eye. The left eye was just dark and empty.

It had a tail, black as well and thin, with a shock of black fur at the end, dragging limply in the dirt. And its legs were backwards, sort of, like a crow’s or like a goat’s, bent backwards at the knee instead of the human’s natural bent forward leg. Its feet were a mixture between a sort of cat’s paws and bird’s feet, with hooked, serrated claws, and thick, darker scales crossing its ashy-gray feet. Its pants were a dark gray, and although fancy, they were quite baggy as well, which hid the details of their legs more than the strange way it was built.

And yet, it still looked rather familiar to him, although this was the first time he’d ever seen this thing.

Mr. Nice Guy paused his sobbing and glanced up at the creature as it staggered around, whining, until it saw Dr. Crowell’s body. Straight through him.

It gasped, then stumbled forward, falling down to its knees (well, it kind of sat on them, as its knees couldn’t bend backwards) and clutching Dr. Crowell’s stomach, then his face and the wound his limp arm still clutched. 

And it was at that moment that Mr. Nice Guy realized two things.

One, it couldn’t see him, very clearly, as it had just walked straight through him.

And two, its wound was the exact same as Dr. Crowell’s.

“No, no no no no…” it groaned, tears popping up in its eyes. “Not after all this. Dammit, dammit, dammit…”

It lunged forward, slapping a clawed hand over Dr. Crowell’s wound as well, then after sitting there for a moment, its eyes fluttering open and closed, it pressed its ear to his chest, then cried out in terror, jerking away from Dr. Crowell, standing up once more.

Then the creature staggered away, out of the rubble, its movements stiff and broken, like a beat-up doll’s, as it tried to make its way away from Dr. Crowell’s body. 

Mr. Nice Guy followed in confusion and grief, watching it as it swayed back and forth like a drunken ballerina, traipsing the edge of the hill and the long fall below it precariously, the look in its eyes desperate. Whatever rail had been there before, it most definitely wasn’t any more, as the creature soon found out, staggering a bit too far to the side and falling off the hill entirely, down towards the forest-covered darkness below.

Mr. Nice Guy tried to catch it, he really did, but his hand merely passed through it. And the eldritch creature was doomed to watch it fall, its eyes fluttering shut as it fell.

Then something caught it, right before it hit the ground, though that part was hidden from him, obscured by the forest canopy. But whatever had caught it was merely a dark blue blur, a glowing, pale green haze leaving a faint trail behind it as the creature was saved. Or not saved. He couldn’t tell. The creature clearly wasn’t awake anymore, that was for sure.

Then his surroundings blurred so much that Mr. Nice Guy startled, rubbing his eyes and wincing as he appeared in a ransacked house, tables tossed around and chairs overturned, with a man that staggered in the door, groaning.

“Oh God.” he muttered, rubbing his head. “What happened?”

Yawning, he stepped over to the TV and put it back up on the floor, then grabbed the remote beside it and turned it onto the news channel, he guessed, based on the words BREAKING NEWS broadcasted against the top of the TV.

It showed a picture of a woman sweating, glancing around nervously as people watched in the crowd, screaming and yelling, a microphone placed below her chin that she spoke into, answering the questions that the reporters shrieked at her.

“What do you have to say after the minor earthquake that your company somehow caused, killing six people?”

“How in the world would my company have caused an earthquake?!” the woman exclaimed, waving around her. “Nothing that went on this evening was even remotely strong enough to shift a tectonic plate as much as it did!”

“How did this catastrophe even happen?!” another yelled.

“You’re asking me! I was out on vacation, and I just returned two hours ago! The only person who would’ve known the exact happenings of this day was the head of the laboratory!” she cried.

“And who exactly is the head of the laboratory?!” demanded another.

“Dr. Crowell! And today, he was supposed to be taking a day off, so I have no clue-”

“What do you mean by ‘he was supposed to be taking a day off?’” barked a reporter, crowding around the woman quite unkindly, which made Mr. Nice Guy scowl through his sadness.

The man sitting before the TV frowned, then glanced around nervously.

“I mean that he was supposed to be at home the whole day!” she yelled back.

“He went to work today!” the man cried, just as another person confirmed the same thing.

“Dr. Crowell indeed did go to work today.” snapped a reporter. “His body was one of the six recovered from the disaster that your company caused.”

The dark-skinned man stared at the TV, then turned it off and sprinted out the door again, broken cries escaping his throat.

“No, no, God please tell me that he didn’t-” he cried, before the door slammed shut and he was back underwater again.

Mr. Nice Guy’s chest felt tight as he sat there, hard to breathe through the choking grief and sadness he felt. Those things were real. Awfully, horribly real. He knew it deep, deep within him. That creature, whatever it was, had shown him memories, flashes of happenings after Dr. Crowell’s death. And he couldn’t forget them. Those memories were burnt into his head like the mark of a burning iron, unable to leave. Picking at the wound would only make it bleed more, but yet Mr. Nice Guy couldn’t help but dive deep into the memories he saw, staring off into the empty, thick black water.

And then he glanced down at the weird snake-like thing that had been attempting to choke him out this entire time and startled, swiping wildly at its skin and marking a long gash down it, straight through three of the eyes that covered its strange body.

The thing screamed and wailed, then spun around and darted back into the depths, its purple glow disappearing almost instantly. Mr. Nice Guy would’ve apologized, had a strange feeling not just come over him then and cause him to float there, clenching his fists and if it was possible, gritting his teeth.

It had tricked him.

It had caused him to see things that weren’t true. 

Dr. Crowell was safe inside him right now, and whoever that strange bird-person had been, they were fine. Or they never existed in the first place. It was just fine. He was fine.

Mr. Nice Guy shot a murderous glare at the distance where the snake had disappeared into, then froze, staring at the distance, where a familiar soft green glow sat, thrashing in panic.

Zephyr.

Mr. Nice Guy darted away, his claws held forward, reaching for Zephyr, who he accidentally collided into, clutching tightly in his paws.

“Zephyr!” he cried, staring at the furry creature. “I found you!”

Then he frowned as the light grew brighter and brighter, blinding him for a moment as the light then faded and the illicium retracted, leaving him in the middle of a glowing, blue giant sea-creature’s grasp.

The giant sea creature appeared to be something like a sea serpent, with what seemed like miles of pure tail length, coiled around the bottom of the sea floor, which Mr. Nice Guy just realized he was at, due to the crushing pressure from above. It had dark blue scales that were impossibly sharp at every crevice, little wispy whiskers like, if it had been on Earth, had been the favorite of the artists who drew European dragons. It had a illicium that was drawn backwards now, the creature’s large, empty void-like eyes staring straight at Mr. Nice Guy and making him shiver.

“W-who are you?!” Mr. Nice Guy demanded, anger prickling at his skin.

“I am a prophet.” they answered.

“Okay, Mx. Prophet, why’d you-” he began, before he paused, letting the sea-creature speak.

“Your destiny is not one many should seek. You thrive at both the beginning and the end, the One Who Dwells Below, and you are anything but meek. You do not yet remember of the power you wield, but soon enough, you shall bear the power of the breaker of shields.”

Mr. Nice Guy frowned, crossing his arms and tapping his mouth-ring.

“How long have you had to think of those rhymes?” he wondered. “Those seem a bit forced. Do you need a hug?”

“No.” the Prophet snapped icily. “I do not.”

“You sure? You seem a bit grumpy.” Mr. Nice Guy countered.

“No.” they hissed.

“I’ll take your word for it.” Mr. Nice Guy said innocently, shaking his head.

Then suddenly, the Prophet burst out into prophecy, their eyes glowing white and almost blinding him again.

“Once the mark is revealed, shadows unchain,

The Banished One shall rise, gods’ reign to wane,

Beware the Crimson Moon’s eerie glow, for it heralds an end for those both high and low,

What began at the end shall always disappear at the end,

But beware of the one who causes death itself to bend.”

With those words, the Prophet settled back into its little coil, watching him menacingly from above.

“Hey, that seemed a bit menacing.” Mr. Nice Guy mused, tapping his ring. “Did you get that off Microsoft Bing’s Copilot?”

“What-NO!” the Prophet snarled. “Take this seriously! Your very life is at stake!”

“Someone has a life stake?” Mr. Nice Guy exclaimed.

“I hate you.” they muttered, then sighed, glaring at him with fuzzy, staticy white eyes.

“Seek these verses, unravel their rhyme, for within lies truth that shows the pattern of space and time.” the Prophet echoed ominously, and with that, they disappeared into the water, leaving Mr. Nice Guy in the dark, inky blackness.

“Huh. Weird.” he muttered, the memory of the snake’s fake—or maybe not so fake—memories nearly gone from his mind already.

And then, once more, he disappeared.

 

He awoke, again, on the fluffy, oddly soft flat surface of something that was blindingly white, staring at its fuzzy, blurry surface, then rose to his feet, groaning in confusion and staring at the pitch-black walls that crossed in all directions.

“Okay,” he muttered, glancing around. “No more eating strange blenders for me.”

Then he frowned, staring off into the distance, where he could clearly see something dressed in all-black, its formerly glossy, fancy surface dirtied with a bit of blood and dirt. It wore a dull red bandanna around its neck, hiding most of a soft gauze strip that was taped over its neck, its tail tucked between its legs in terror.

Even though it must’ve been at least a hundred feet away, Mr. Nice Guy could hear its oddly familiar voice as though it was speaking into his ears.

“Did it work?” they murmured, glancing around and missing Mr. Nice Guy, walking around tenderly on its crowlike/catlike scaled feet. “Frank? Frank, it-oh, it worked!” they cried, pumping a fist in the air, a confident, cocky grin spreading across their face. “I knew I could do it! I did it!”

Then they flinched and glanced around again, creeping forward and staring at the ground.

“Doctor Crowell?” they called softly, their strange orange iris scanning the ground.

Until they froze, staring at a faint, light blue person that glowed, lying limply on the ground. His eyes stared emptily up at the sky, like normal. 

This was Doctor Crowell.

But this time, he was-he was blue.

His ghost, maybe? he murmured silently to himself as the creature whimpered and knelt next to him, reaching over for his neck and flinching when his hand went straight through the bloody wound.

“He’s dead.” they whispered, glancing up at the sky. “So how am I still alive?” cried the creature, digging its pitch-black hair and shaking, its tail thrashing back and forth. “He died three months ago!! He should’ve ascended forever ago!!! And-where even are we?! This isn’t-I know this isn’t-” it stammered, then paused as it listened to the sound of Mr. Nice Guy’s footsteps steadily growing closer and closer, rising to its feet and trembling.

Then it turned around to face Mr. Nice Guy, who stared down at it, a bit confused and sorrowful. Dr. Crowell wasn’t dead. He was still alive! He was going to wake up soon, for sure!

“You.” the creature choked out, staggering backwards through the dead scientist’s body like it was nothing but fog (he pretty much was fog at this point) and staring up at Mr. Nice Guy, its lower lip trembling. “I know you. You-you got up and you tried to-”

Then, as it paused, its eyes widening, Mr. Nice Guy tilted his head at it.

“I know you. You were that fog-thing, in that cube that Dr. Crowell was looking at. The one who told him something that made him even more upset. The one surrounded by the red fog.” 

With every word he said, Mr. Nice Guy grew angrier and angrier. This was the creature who had hurt Dr. Crowell so much in his final moments. This was the reason why he was sleeping for so long right now.

He’d never felt so angry before in his short life.

“I-I-” they stammered, staggering backwards. “Yes, I was, so what, but you-you killed him, didn’t you? That’s why he’s been separated from his body. And you did something else to him, too. That’s why he hasn’t ascended yet. That’s why he hasn’t passed on. Because you did-you did something to him! Do you know-do you even fathom exactly what you did?!” they shrieked. “You’re wearing his-” they said a very bad word that made him even angrier- “coat!” 

“You killed Crowell.” Mr. Nice Guy snarled, stepping forward and making it flinch.

“N-no, that was-that was you-” they began, before Mr. Nice Guy snorted, glaring at the creature’s face.

“I guess I’ll be seeing you later.” the eldritch creature hissed, severing whatever connection had been created for that to happen, and in a few short moments Mr. Nice Guy swim-staggered over to a rock and rested his head on it, such emotions flying through his head that he couldn’t possibly comprehend.

“Oh dear,” he muttered, tapping his head and groaning, right before he accidentally slapped that weird underwater TV and disappeared once more.