Spin-off: Four Demonly Kings
Mission canon(s): Disney Fairies | Tinker Bell
Part 3 of: Arare arc
Arare has his first brush with the horrors of badfic.
The fic was generated using the Creative mode of Bing Chat.
Stretches of ripe cotton bolls gently swayed in the fresh breeze, like an endless sea of cloud. A pond, clear as a mirror, laid amidst the meadow like a shard of the sky upon the grass – until a leaf landed, sending gentle ripples across the water. As always, Pixie Hollow was beautiful – just enough to fool any unsuspecting PPC agent into forgetting they were in a badfic.
On such a lovely morning, a brown-haired agent disguised as a Sparrow Man lay down on the grass. "Welcome to Pixie Hollow," Inasuke said. "Isn't this place beautiful or what?"
He reached out to stroke the fur of the normal-sized white rabbit next to him, but the rabbit just returned a seething glare. Inasuke immediately withdrew his hand as soon as he touched the fur. "Ugh, why is your fur so cold?" he whined.
"Of course it's cold. Part of our energy is always expended unconsciously to keep ourselves cold," Arare said. "Seriously, how do I get you filthy humans to fear us again? Insolent scum, stroking me like I'm a mere animal. What do you fear, anyway?"
The cotton plants swayed, leaves rustled, a flurry of dandelion seeds flew past above the two. Inasuke said, "That things like this no longer exist."
Arare stared at him quizzically, while he stood up and walked over to an acorn in the grass. He cradled the acorn as if it was a plush he made, then said as if conversing with it rather than with Arare, "Some people have told me I'm too old to be into movies like this. Of course, I don't really pay much attention to that assertion; I've never understood the popular notion that adulthood means permanently alternating between stressed and bored, or that adults into kids' stuff are perverts. Life is chaotic and full of suffering enough as it is; why shouldn't I be allowed to enjoy beauty and light-hearted childhood magic above a certain age?
"That is why I'm in the PPC – to protect joy and light-heartedness. You see, it's disturbingly common for badfics to take clean, fun kids' movies and distort them into something ugly and disgusting. Just look at what happened to the My Little Pony fandom in the West. We can't even leave comments on clips of kids' cartoons on YouTube anymore because of all this nonsense. How long will it take before beautiful, joyful, clean children's media are no longer made due to this kind of reputational damage? Then what do I have left to enjoy?"
Arare stared blankly at him, then quipped, "Human fears are increasingly strange."
Tinker Bell was feeling bored and lonely in Pixie Hollow. She had no friends, no adventures, and no purpose. She decided to fly away and find a new home. She packed her tiny suitcase and left a note for the other fairies.
"Goodbye, losers. I'm off to see the world. Don't try to find me. Tink."
"Oh, why does this keep happening?" Inasuke cried as the badfic began and his CAD already dissolved into ashes. "Charge for stupid mean-spiritedness and OOC-ness right out the gate! We need to go after her, quickly!"
But before he could even take off, the scene changed, knocking both him and Arare off their feet.
Streets of cold grey stone, houses of smoke-stained brown bricks. Horse-drawn carriages and steam cars mingled with throngs of walkers. Gas lights glowed gold on wrought-iron lamp posts, while slivers of moonlight shone silver through thick clouds. In the midst of such a drearily poetic sight walked a brown-haired boy in a wool tweed coat, trying in vain to kick a shuddering white rabbit off his leg.
"What is this nightmare? Am I in hell?" Arare said, refusing to let go of Inasuke's ankle. "Get me out of here before something runs me over! This is the scariest place I've ever been to; why aren't you scared?"
"Welcome to Edwardian London," Inasuke said. "I've always wanted to visit a Western country. Hey, let go of my leg! You're so cold you're giving me frostbite!"
The exchange was quickly cut short, as Inasuke ducked into a narrow alley to avoid an oncoming horse-drawn carriage. Arare finally detached himself and collected his breath. "You're weird, kid," he said. "Whatever story this is created that absolutely horrifying war zone out there, yet you're afraid of some nonsense about not having children's things to like instead. How am I supposed to imitate that?"
Inasuke chuckled… for all of two seconds before the badfic resumed its horror.
She saw a big city with bright lights and tall buildings. She thought it looked exciting and fun. She flew towards it, hoping to find some new friends.
It only took one short paragraph for total calamity to commence. An intense quake shook the city; Inasuke barely crawled back up on his feet before falling flat again. The brick buildings, steam cars and carriages bent and twisted like a horde of monsters in agony; all the generic Londoners screamed but couldn't flee before they too warped and morphed like masses of clay. When the quaking stopped, Edwardian London also disappeared; it had been replaced by a generic metropolis with brightly lit skyscrapers and inhabitants in modern clothes.
"Now this is scary," Inasuke remarked, wincing from pain.
She landed on a window sill of a skyscraper. She saw a man sitting at a desk, typing on a computer. […] She flew into his office and sprinkled some pixie dust on him. She expected him to smile and fly with her, but instead he sneezed and swatted at her.
Upon the roof of a shorter building nearby, Inasuke had just finished noting down charges for anachronism and Tinker Bell's revealing herself to humans outside Neverland when Arare said, "I understand now. In order to scare you, I must transform an entire city. That seems quite energy-consuming, especially in my weakened state where I need energy in the first place… but I think I'll somehow manage it."
"I told you, I'm not scared of that," Inasuke replied. "Humans aren't simple creatures like you think. We're not as afraid of cold weather and monsters as humans of centuries past. We have more complex things to be afraid of – like that idiocy over there." He pointed at Tinker Bell sprinkling Pixie Dust on a woman walking on the street, carrying a lot of shopping bags, only for the woman to run away. "Tink might be headstrong, but she's not a total idiot! Charge for making her OOC!"
Arare was indignant. "Insolent human. Just you wait, I'll become part of the Seven Wonders of PPC HQ (PPC本部ノ七不思議); then you'll fear me like I deserve and I'll regain my powers."
"The what?" Inasuke asked.
"The Seven Wonders of HQ. I heard rumours among some yōkai inhabitants of six especially powerful yōkai individuals; my friend Oshimo is among them. Once I join them and complete the ensemble, I'll become renowned and feared."
"I've never heard of them," Inasuke said, activating his RA. "Now, let's go and put an end to this. This boring fic has gone on long enough."
The very OOC Tinker Bell was about to sprinkle Pixie Dust on an unsuspecting stranger for the third time when she was hit by a flying DVD case of the first Tinker Bell film. She free-fell unconscious, but was quickly caught by a human boy in Edwardian attire. Smoke rose from her mouth and gathered into something resembling a palm-sized bedsheet ghost. "Badfic spirit, you are convicted of crimes against Tinker Bell canon," the boy said. "Your crimes include turning Tinker Bell into an OOC idiot, namely making her leave her friends and reveal herself to humans outside of Neverland for no reason; boring, repetitive storytelling; too many anachronisms in a supposedly Edwardian setting; and just creating a mean-spirited, idiotic story in general. With that, I banish badfic spirit!"
While Inasuke waved the ghost away with his DVD then sent Tink back into her canon, Arare just stood back, not saying a word.
