Froufrou squelched as she indeed found herself once again stood before alternative Omar in his unconvincing servant disguise, holding out a tray of tempting confections.
"Would you like pumpkin muffins, cheese strudel, or cherry pie, your Squelchiness?" asked alternative Omar with a coo and a sigh.
Froufrou squelched a rather disgusting, putrid odor and slapped all of the foods off the platter with a decisive swipe of her biggest tendril.
"Hey! I worked hard on those!" said alternative Omar in a pitiful tone.
"Wow, why would you treat Gazpacho like that, Froufrou?" said alternative Kahli with sorrow in her voice. "He's such a kind man!"
Froufrou shot alternative Kahli a squelch and a look of frustration that was most likely indecipherable to her tauman companion. Gazpacho? Froufrou had no idea who alternative Kahli thought this Gazpacho person was, but it was abundantly clear to her that Gazpacho was a complete non-entity, and that the real person she was indeed interacting with was none other than a sinister alternative Omar. In the first scenario, she'd recognized him immediately, but had mistaken his kind demeanor to mean that her relationship with Omar in this timeline was an amiable one. However, on living through the poisoning of said first scenario, Froufrou knew at once that alternative Omar hated her just as much, if not even more, than normal Omar did - though it seemed to be for different reasons altogether. One of them had something to do with a toaster. Froufrou didn't really get it, but she understood enough to know that alternative Omar and herself weren't exactly buddies.
Of course, it wasn't like Froufrou could just explain all of this to alternative Kahli - she was used to Froufrou speaking, but of course all she could really do was squelch. With that, Froufrou tried to squelch out an explanation, but alternative Kahli was none the wiser.
"I can't believe you're going to deny Gazpacho's delicious cooking! And after he saved you from that stampede of civilized beasts way back when!" said alternative Kahli with a gasping open mouth and a roll of her eyes.
Froufrou squelched in confusion. Civilized beasts only roamed around in packs in the far distant reaches of Clalaryngitisthalia. Did this mean that, in this timeline, they had already been to Clathalia? Were they in Clathalia now? All Froufrou could presently glean was that they were in an ornate palace, but truly she had no clue wherein it was located in the world of alternative Nomachiato.
"Froufrou, how-a could-a you do this to me?" said alternative Omar with an unconvincing whine. He was surely acting pitiful, but Froufrou wasn't fooled for an instant.
"You know what, Froufrou? If you won't eat some of Gazpacho's delicious food, well, I will!"
Froufrou tried in vain to arrest her [paired] companion, but indeed it was an exercise in tendril-clad futility. With one kick of her big left foot, alternative Kahli punted Froufrou away and grabbed the discarded strudel off the ground.
"This is too delectable to pass up, Gazpacho. I'm so sorry that Froufrou denied you all your hard work in such a way."
Alternative Omar nodded with a pitiful, pleading face as Kahli took bite after bite. And slowly but surely, alternative Omar's countenance grew and contorted from one of innocent sorrow to malicious ecstasy. Indeed, he sprung to his feet as Kahli tumbled down to her side, her eyes swiveling either which way in a fashion that made her look rather foolish, or else like a deadened sardine.
[Kahli is poisoned]
[Kahli is paralyzed]
"HAH!" alternative Omar spat as he ignited his flaming arm of power. "I knew one of you would fall for it! And sure, maybe I wanted to get rid of the most talkative of you, but little miss Froufrou seems to have a case of laryngitis, so I ought to be able to make short work of her now!"
Froufrou squelched in fear and frustration as alternative Omar swung down his flaming arm at her, nearly singing her soft underbelly as she scuttled away.
"That was close! You can writhe, but you can't hide!" he said with a cackle.
Froufrou was at a loss. How could she proceed?
Then, she had a sudden spark of inspiration. In a flash, Froufrou accessed once again her [LIN] - the very [skill] that had gotten her into this awful mess - and yanked forth the tendril of an alternative Froufrou. She focused her distributed mucus membrane power on getting one with the gift of speech.
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"Bow before me, you tendril clad little-whaat the fuck?" Alternative Omar gasped and stopped trying to swing his arm as he beheld two Froufrous standing beside one another.
"Heeey, Oooomaaaaar," said the new alternative Froufrou. This Froufrou had skin that appeared, inexplicably, to be tie-dyed, and smelled fifty times as terrible as Froufrou did. Specifically, this alternative Froufrou, that is to say alternative alternative Froufrou, smelled like roadkill mixed with a decaying dolphin carcass. "Why've yooou gotta beee soo meeeeeaaaaan?"
Alternative Omar was absolutely speechless. "What in the effervescent fuck is going on around here?"
"Weeeeell, if you'll alloooooow me to eeeeeexplaaaaain, you seeeeee-"
[End scenario]
Froufrou squelched with discomfort and relief as she realized the terrible experience of that timeline was finally over. She looked to alternative Kahli and alternative Supreme Time Protector, bristling with a squelchy putrescence that could've easily - and accurately - been mistaken for rage.
"Well, what an interesting development we have here," said the alternative Supreme Time Protector. "It seems that all of this is starting to make sense to me, Kahli."
"It is?" asked alternative Kahli. "Because not a single fucking bit of it makes any godsdamned sense to me."
It took all Froufrou had within her not to shake and cringe at hearing Kahli's voice - even if it was alternative Kahli - swear so dismissively.
"Think about it, Kahli," started the alternative Supreme Time Protector. "Do you remember when you and Froufrou first got your [Time Manipulator] [class]?"
"Of course I remember!" she spat back at them. "Do you think I have the memory of a goldfish or something? That happened, like, one [checkpoint] ago!"
"Great, glad to see we're on the same page and acting like mature adults here," replied the alternative Supreme Time Protector.
Froufrou really, really didn't like alternative Kahli. She hoped in her distributed mucus membrane of distributed mucus membranes that she would, soon enough, escape all this mess and be back with the Kahli from her timeline. Back with her Kahli.
"Anywho, my point-" the alternative Supreme Time Protector cleared their throat, "-my point is that this is not Froufrou." The alternative Supreme Time Protector pointed a black, gloved hand at Froufrou for effect.
"What?" said alternative Kahli in disbelief. "That's got to be Froufrou. I mean, look at her, who else could she be?"
Froufrou squelched with a deep joy in her distributed mucus membrane. Even in this alternative timeline, where so much of alternative Kahli seemed terribly different from her original [paired] tauman, she recognized Froufrou as a she and not as an it.
"Well, of course it's Froufrou, Kahli, but she's not our Froufrou," replied the alternative Supreme Time Protector. They had somehow managed to at once call Froufrou an it and a she, which Froufrou indeed had some mixed feelings about. "See, this version of Froufrou probably put most if not all of her [attribute] points into [LIN], which would result in the ability to pull entire living beings into different, parallel timelines. Now, I know this sounds crazy, but hear me out - there was a lapse in time wherein Froufrou disappeared. Before that lapse, she spoke as she always had. But now? She hasn't uttered a word save for but these odd squelches that sound and smell indeed quite putrid. This has got to be by and large a different being than the Froufrou we are so familiar with, for she is indeed stinky, but this one takes it to the next level, and then some what with communicating via squelches. So yes, this has to be, and mind you I don't put this lightly, an alternative Froufrou."
"Alternative Froufrou?" said alternative Kahli. "That's... that's wild. It's wildly hard to believe, that is."
"I don't think it's that wild, or wildly hard to believe, and I've been dabbling in time longer than your consciousness has existed, Kahli," retorted the alternative Supreme Time Protector. "I think it's part and parcel for how these things tend to shake out. See, it really explains everything. Can our Froufrou pull a whole other Froufrou out of thin air like it was nothing?"
"Of course not..." replied alternative Kahli with a sigh.
"Exactly. And furthermore, when in the history of our existence has our Froufrou ever let us get more than a few words in edgewise? Why, this entire exchange would've been one extended, insult-ridden soliloquy if she was the Froufrou that was writhing before us here in the now! With that, I rest my case. This must be an alternative Froufrou who can reach through timelines in a method wholly divorced from the way that our Froufrou can open rifts in time."
Alternative Kahli nodded and looked at Froufrou forlornly. "I hate to say it, but honestly? I kind of miss Froufrou. Alternative Froufrou is great and all, but we just don't have the same rapport."
Froufrou was starting to feel a little irritated. First, she was thrust into this timeline wherein everything seemed to be far too different to truly be parallel - unless of course she was misunderstanding the full meaning of the word parallel. Regardless, Froufrou felt like she'd almost entered a different dimension as much as she had entered a new timeline, and she indeed also felt like none of these alternative people were paying her any sort of alternative respect.
Froufrou also didn't like being called alternative Froufrou. Everyone from this timeline needed to realize that they were the alternative ones, at least fro her perspective.
Regardless, the alternative Supreme Time Protector and alternative Kahli's talk seemed to have run its course in the moment. And with that, Froufrou released an incredibly stinky squelch.
"Well," alternative Kahli started with a sigh, "Shall we see what the last scenario of this [checkpoint] has in store for us?"
And for once, everyone agreed. Froufrou especially was agreed with gusto, for she'd just had a bit of an epiphany. She finally knew how she was going to handle this third scenario, and indeed how she would ensure that herself and alternative Froufrou ended up on the right timelines. With a satisfied squelch, Froufrou braced herself for the worst.
[Now viewing scenario 3]