PPC blue timeline B

---------- "Escape" From The Infinity Room ----------
The Blue King and the Artist give up on fixing the time rules, realizing that they can avoid dealing with the problem indefinitely through the use of a fairy simple kludge. They return to the strip proper, along with a pre-wall version of Alger, who the King summoned to help find a loophole in the rules (unsuccessfully).

The King freezes TV-headed Amelia Bedelia in time.

The King wants to do a Jack and the Beanstalk parody. The artist demands they do another Pig Ports story, because, exactly as he said would happen, virtually none of the crazy architecture he drew for Pig Ports got used. The king and artist get into a fight.

The King and the Artist go visit Whit, who's in a secret summit meeting with the prime minister of the bees, trying to negotiate a ceasefire.

The artist ends up doing the next story on his own while the king sulks. With Victoria having turned into Matthew, Temperance dead, Katerimiko not existing in this timeline, and Mr. Fishpaste's daughter in indefinite detention, the only established child character of any consequence is Charity, who's too young to be in high school.

The artist retcons Pig Ports into the elementary school Guinea Pig Ports. He sends Charity the equivalent of an owl with an acceptance letter, and inserts himself into the story as lawrence the yard teacher (unlike the King, he doesn't shapeshift, he just has a fake mustache and a broom).

¯¯¯ Guinea Pig Ports ¯¯¯

Blue King: Oh look, she's late for the first day of school. Kawaii! Shouldn't she have a piece of toast in her mouth?
Artist: If you're not going to help, go play video games or something.

Artist: Hello there. I'm Lawrence the yard teacher. What seems to be the trouble?
Charity: I can't find my classroom.
Artist: Maybe I can help. Do you know your teacher's name?
Charity: Mrs. Fralb.
Artist: You're in luck. I happen to know that Mrs. Fralb's class is in sub-basement 911, at the very top of the school.
Charity: I'm confused.
Artist: Guinea Pig Ports was accidentally built upside-down, sideways, and inside-out.
Artist: Also, the last 42 floors are tied in a knot.
[pause]
Artist: The builder said he was very sorry.
Charity: [squinting] It seems like someone would've noticed at least one of those things before they got very far into the construction process—
Artist: Bell's going to ring any minute! If you don't hurry, you'll be late!
Charity: [squinting] It doesn't look safe.
Artist: It's fine, trust me!
Charity: How do you KNOW it's fine?
Artist: I have a PHD in engineering!
Charity: Why are you working as a yard teacher if you have an engineering degree?
Artist: Bad job market. You better get to class before the bell rings!

Charity quickly becomes friends with a girl named Ava Rice. Ava is actually the Blue King, who has snuck into the artist's storyline in order to wreck it. He subtly manipulates charity into investigating various things that don't make sense or haven't been drawn, forcing the artist to come up with increasingly eccentric means of railroading and increasingly haphazard excuses for the holes in his story.

Mrs. Fralb: Ava.
Ava: [eating x-stream blu] Mmphm. Here.
Mrs. Fralb: Please keep your snacks in your desk until snacktime, Ava.

Mrs. Fralb: Weren't you in my FOURTH grade class last year?
Jinx: I accidentally turned myself into a first grader.
Mrs. Fralb: I see.
Mrs. Fralb: By the way, if those of you without eyes would like to sit closer to the board, there are empty seats up front.

Mrs. Fralb: Asterisk.
Equation: Here. And it's pronounced [CENSORED].
Mrs. Fralb: Inappropriate language will not be tolerated! I'm writing your name on the board.
[long pause, Mrs. Fralb appears to be frozen]
Equation: It's not an inappropriate word, it's just an inappropriate letter.
Mrs. Fralb: I guess that's not as bad. Still, I can't call you something inappropriate. What's your last name?
Equation: *sigh*
Mrs. Fralb: Very well then. I'll call you *sigh*
Mrs. Fralb: Let's start again.
Mrs. Fralb: Ava.

Mrs. Fralb: *sigh*
Equation: Here.
Marshmallow: [simultainiously] Here.
Mrs. Fralb: Hmm. Do you have a MIDDLE name?
Equation: I have four. Dopenparen[low]thes[high]is, *siiiigh*
Equation: *siigh*
Equation: and *siiiiigh*
Mrs. Fralb: Any nicknames?
Equation: Most people call me 'Commateliazarqaoghamspacemarksemicolon'.
[pause]
Mrs. Fralb: Commateliazark-...kchwaogh-...
Equation: But some people call me 'Sinewaveleftparenthesisinternalfieldseparatorfooooooooouuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrr'.
Mrs. Fralb: Say your full name again, please.
Equation: [CENSORED] dopenparen[low]thes[high]is *siiiigh*
Equation: *siigh*
Equation: *siiiiigh*
Equation: *sigh*
Equation: *siiigh*
Equation: *siiiiiigh*
[pause]
Mrs. Fralb: Where did those extra sighs come from?
Equation: One is a title, like "esquire". The last one was just me sighing.

Hickory etc: I'm five students.

Blue King: [V/O] MUCH LATER
Mrs. Fralb: —which means one of you should be here, but isn't. Are there any of you who shouldn't be here but are?
???: Me!
Artist: Hey! Knock it off!
Blue King: [V/O] What? I'm helping.
Artist: Help somewhere else.
Blue King: [V/O] Fine. Don't come crying to me when you paint yourself into a corner.

Mrs. Fralb: Who are you? I don't remember calling your name.
Iceland: Lýðveldið Ísland!


Eventually Charity and Ava escape from the school, and then from the strip proper, into the strange void of the main strip, which has nothing in it except the strip proper, a few smaller subcomics, the king's house, and some unused props and settings the artist has drawn. Eventually charity finds the artist in the garden, watering plants, still as lawrence the yard teacher, and he reveals his true nature and apologizes to charity for letting her story go off the rails, and tells her more or less the whole truth.



Artist: Ordinarily you wouldn't even be able to CONCEIVE of a space beyond the wall. You had help from a member of the administrative cast.
Charity: The administrative caste?
Artist: In fact, the culprit is someone in this very garden.
Artist: J'accuse! [sprays Ava with the hose]
Ava: Blah!
[the green paint washes off, revealing ava is blue except her dress and hairclip]
Artist: Changing the color of your voice with X-Stream Blu was clever, I have to admit.
Blue King: Thanks. I had the idea at the paint store.
Artist: I assume the real Ava Rice is tied up in a closet somewhere?
Blue King: No, I just told her to skip school. And stole her clothes.



___ Guinea Pig Ports ___


[ Charity dreams about being abducted by Mazz. The dream terrifies her so much that she she splits into hundreds of characters in order to destroy the memory of it. These events are not shown in the comic, and only established later, during the recursion. ]


----- Jack and the beanstalk / Tower of babel arc begins -----