Chapter Text
If pushed to describe it, Rudie would’ve said Toon.Town was an online game where kids could play as their own toon characters and hang out with each other. But of course, that wasn’t what it was used for anymore.
Sure, that’s what it was like in the before times, but after Gardenview shut down, so did the servers the game ran on. It stayed like that up until a few years ago, when a team on an expedition found the server room, and Vee and Shelly managed to restore the game.
Well, they restored the servers, which provided various essential functions and important documents to analyze, but also games! They weren’t open to the public anymore, but that didn’t matter. Every computer hooked up to the Gardenview network was able to play Toon.Town now.
And play it Rudie did. He was holed up in his room, on the silent and dark Holiday floor, a couple months after their Christmas season. Holiday toons had the ability to sleep longer and eat less whenever it wasn’t their time of year, but Rudie didn’t partake in that. You’d never notice, he spent his time in his room anyway, but he enjoyed getting to play games, uninterrupted, for so long.
Not like he didn’t love Christmas. Rudie loved Christmas, but it wasn’t his only character trait!
‘I like other things!’, Rudie would say to himself, ‘Liking Christmas isn’t my only character trait!’
His character was pretending to only like Christmas. He did like Christmas, but each year, he found himself playing a character more and more.
One of the other things he liked was Toon.Town.
‘It has a really robust character creator,’ he thought to himself, imagining one day getting to explain the game to sometoon. ‘It’s designed for people to make their own Toon OCs, but all the tools to make real toons are already there! It’s like an easter egg putting the pieces together…’, Rudie was also moving his hooves while practicing his lines, and pushing himself around his room on his rolly chair for dramatic effect. ‘Although a lot of toons have to share the same elements, like how Tisha, Boxten, Vee and Goob all have to use the same rectangle headshape. It’s limited, but also with infinite possibilities!’
Designing characters was Rudie’s favorite part. He liked building his own original toons, and coming up with stories behind them. When he did join the actual server, he never expected to see anytoon. There were a couple of servers, and so few toons ever logged on in the first place. Still, there were various NPTs to talk to, minigames to play, and slides to go down to be satisfying anyway. But mostly, Rudie would join a server, find a nice cozy place to sit, and design toons for the whole day.
But then, something happened.
He was midway through redesigning his Astro, sitting on a picnic blanket on Server #3, when he saw something move in the corner of his screen. There were a few things it could’ve been, but it most likely meant another player was there. Rudie wasn’t especially interested in talking to anytoon else today, but he saved his current work and closed the menu. He saw his toon morph into a semi-decent Astro, unsure of what he had even been a moment ago, as his eyes shifted to the other entity on screen.
There, he saw a replica of himself. Another player, dressed as Rudie, titled above his head, simply, ‘Rudie’.
The real Rudie stared at his computer screen in awe. This Rudie was… beautiful. It was designed to perfection, to the point individual parts could barely be identified, and which obviously had taken hours to create. The colors looked beautiful. His fur looked soft and fluffy, somehow. They had even replicated the spots on his backside exactly. And then, Rudie saw it run away at full speed.
Rudie rushed to his keyboard, shifting his hooves from covering his mouth to their station. Yet, it was like he had suddenly forgotten what all the buttons did. He tried to move, but he realized his character was sitting, meaning he had to hit the ‘stand’ button first. In that time, the Rudie had escaped off-screen. Rudie tried to hit the zoom out button, but zoomed in instead. He desperately started running in the direction of the other player, spamming the zoom out button as much as he could, as he was met with a message in the bottom left of his screen.
[Rudie] has left the server.
He stopped, staring at his computer screen for a while, in silence. A million questions ran though his mind, like ‘what just happened,’ ‘why was it me,’ ‘why did it look so good,’ but one stood out above the rest.
Who was that?
Rudie got up from his chair, not even bothering to leave the game, and grabbed a notebook. He flipped through various pages, past character info sheets, unfinished attempts at written fiction, and even amateur art attempts, until he found a blank page. He started by writing down everytoon’s names.
----------
“Obviously not any of the mains,” Rudie said, aloud, to no one. “Although Bobette would enjoy making people in this game. And so would Shelly, maybe even Astro too…” Rudie balanced the notebook on one hoof, and was pressing a pencil against his face with the other. Various names were crossed out on the paper, but rewritten a moment later. “The player ran away and left the game the moment they saw me, a clear showing of fear and shame!” Rudie’s face and nose lit up for a moment, before going away again. “...of course, anytoon caught playing Toon.Town would have a motive to feel shame. This doesn’t eliminate anytoon either.”
Rudie placed the notebook back down, and made a motion back to his computer, before freezing again.
If I sit back down now, I’m never going to find out who that was.
Rudie wasn’t sure if that was true, but it stopped him from sitting down for another second.
Why does this even matter?! Sometoon just designed me, it’s not like I don’t do other people.
But therein lied something Rudie had written off as fiction.
Sometoon… cared enough to make me. Make me, and well at that. Sometoon is out there thinking about me…
Rudie turned away from his computer, toward the door.
And I’m going to figure out who it is.
He took a few steps toward the door, before turning back around.
Uhh, I need a plan. And I’m not very good at this ‘detective’ stuff, I think I’ll need…
Rudie gulped. It wasn’t going to be fun, it wasn’t a good idea, but it was his only choice.
----------
“So,” Rodger began, staring at Rudie on the other side of the desk. “You’ve arranged this meeting to discuss…?”
“Indeed,” Rudie said, placing his two hooves together, and pretending to sound smart. “There’s a matter personal to me that requires your expertise, Rodger.”
“And what’s it about?”
Rudie felt a pang of fear. He had already said it was a personal matter! Was that not enough to stop him from prying!
This whole adventure had already put him on edge. It wasn’t completely unheard of for a holiday toon to come out out-of-season, but it still felt weird for Rudie, walking down his dark and empty hall, worried Bobette might catch him. The elevator ride up to Gardenview proper felt like ages. The halls had been empty on his way here, since it was so early, but the fear sometoon might notice him was terrifying. Rodger was at least already expecting him, they had set up a time over email to have this meeting. Rudie hadn’t given him any details then, and he was determined to keep his secrets now.
“I…” He was on edge, but he pushed that feeling down. He had written down and practiced a lot of lines in preparation for this meeting. “I am looking to find sometoon I met online, anonymously. I need some way to narrow down who it was.” Rudie regained his composure, already complementing himself on how well spoken that was.
“I see…” Rodger said, looking down for a moment with his hand at his chin- er, bottom of his head. “...and what extra details can you provide about this ‘anonymous meeting’? It’s certainly hard to deduce who it was without any information.” …he was right.
“Well, there really aren’t many clues from the brief interaction we had, if you could even call it that. There’s really no need for me to tell you-”
“Well, I’m not really sure why you asked for my help with this.” Rodger said, closing his eye matter-of-factly. “If the situation’s this barren of info, there’s no way we can find the suspect. I suggest you-” Rudie was getting annoyed. He did all this work to be here with Rodger, and he was just going to give up immediately?
“Come on! Can all you do is come to the same conclusion I already did? What kind of detective work is that?!” Rodger raised an eye to that- er, nevermind. Rudie knew challenging him like that was a low blow, but he kind of wanted to hurt him anyway.
“Hmph.” It seemed to have worked. “Well, at minimum, your suspects,” I wish he would stop saying ‘suspects’, “would be limited to all those in Gardenview that own a computer.” Rudie’s face lit up.
“Oh, yeah! That’s a great idea!” A moment passed as Rudie thought about this info. “...do you, uh, have a list of toons that have a computer?”
Rodger narrowed his eye wordlessly. Rudie was starting to regret annoying him. “What game were you playing when you found this person?”
“Hmph!” Rudie said, copying Rodger as he crossed his arms and turned away. Until a moment later, when he said “Wait how do you know it’s a game-”
“You were hesitant to call this an ‘interaction’, meaning you two didn’t talk. That rules out any form of chatroom, or other more talking-centric platform. Say, you saw a comment from this person that made you wanna find out who it was. In that scenario, you could’ve just replied to them, or there would have been more clues by looking in their profile, but no. You came right to me, because you were playing a game together, with no profiles, no chat, no way to find each other. I can tell from that look on your face that I’m correct.”
Rudie wasn’t aware of what his face looked like, but he tried covering it with his hooves anyway.
“Now, I’m not very educated on the games we have at Gardenview, but I can make a few guesses. That, and I’ll be talking to Toodles later to get a better understanding. Although, I do know a few other games beyond her age range that you might’ve-”
“IT WAS TOON TOWN!” Rudie blurted out. He couldn’t stand to hear another moment of Rodger’s speech. “It’s Toon Town, the one where you dress up as other toons. I saw sometoon, and they left, that’s all I have to go on. And there is a chat, it’s just that I, didn’t, do any…”
Things were quiet for a bit, with Rodger looking intently at Rudie, and Rudie avoiding all eye contact. “I believe I know of that one. Who was the suspect dressed as?”
Rudie’s nose turned red, and so did his cheeks. He tried to hide it with his hooves. “Oh. I see.” Rodger said, much to Rudie’s dismay.
Rodger then leaned down to one of his drawers, as Rudie took this moment to compose himself as much as possible. He came back up with a notebook, preopened to a page. He slid it over to Rudie. Immediately, it became obvious what this page was.
“There’s everytoon who owns a computer in Gardenview. That alone halves your suspect list, but the info you gave me could certainly narrow it down even more. Although, I think you’re best bet is to find your toon in the same place you did last time.”
Rudie was furiously copying down the list from Rodger’s notebook to his own. “Like… a stakeout? But in a video game?”
“The biggest thing we know is that your suspect plays Toon Town. Therefore, we can be certain the best place to find them again is in-game. Just try to get some more info out of them, next time. And do be sure they actually want to be found.” Rodger tried his best to raise one eyebrow as he said that. The look kind of translated.
Rudie closed his notebook triumphantly, and at the moment, happy. Rodger had given him a lot of good advice, and he knew what to do now. He stood up, and began walking towards the door. “Thanks, Rodger!” he said.
“Thank you for the new case,” he replied, just as Rudie closed the door behind him. He was outside of Rodger’s office now, but he stood still for a moment, lost in what Rodger had said.
‘New case’? Surely he isn’t implying…
Rudie’s thoughts kept him in place, until he was hit with the realization of his precarious position. By now, Toons were surely starting to wake up, and at any moment, they could spill out into the hall and spot him. What would he even say? What would he do if sometoon just-
“RUDIE!!” sometoon shouted from down the hall. Rudie turned towards the source of the sound, a mistake he instantly regretted. He locked eyes with Poppy, and he could do nothing but watch as she bolted all the way over to him. Her legs were moving at incredible speeds, her arms moving in sync too, all while she kept the same enormous smile on her face. Rudie had never seen a more terrifying thing running at him in his life.
She stopped on a dime, almost right in front of him. Just as quickly, she began to say “Oh my god, Rudie, hi! Why are you here?” She stopped, looking him directly in the eyes.
“Ummm… reasons! Good ones at that!” Rudie said, failing to mimic her smile.
Poppy looked at him silently for a second. “Cool!”
Huh. That worked.
“So how have you been, Rudie?”
“Uh, good, actually! I’ve been enjoying my… hibernation time a lot!” He tried to avoid outright lying, but also telling the exact truth. “How… have you been?”
“Spectacular!” She said, managing to smile even more than her neutral smile. “Oh actually, just the other day Sprout and Cosmo released this new cinnamon roll thing, They’ve been serving it every other day since then, and it’s amazing! You should really try it!”
“Haha, yeah.” Rudie said, absently responding so he could escape the conversation. “Wait, what?” He then said, after really hearing what she said. “You want me to come back? Like I’m allowed to just… be here?”
Poppy tilted her head with a weird look on her face. “Yeah? Why wouldn’t we?”
‘We’, she said… there’s no way she could be speaking for everytoon! But, it’s not like I really know them…
“Um, I guess… I maybe could! Every other day, you said?”
“Yeah! They’re serving it tomorrow!” Rudie felt himself smile, a genuine one, full of certainty and confidence. He noticed behind Poppy, a few doors were starting to open, and other Toons were walking out. He tried his best not to look directly at any of them, but it seemed no toon really noticed him either. Not like he didn’t matter, but like it was normal.
“Well, I guess I should get going, but I’ll see you tomorrow! Probably!” Rudie waved bye while walking backwards, clutching his notebook with his other arm.
“See ya!” Poppy waved back, with a big smile.