Chapter X


They stood in his house for a solid minute, dumbfounded on what to do next. Anatoly fiddled with his hands, realizing that he hadn't thought this through and just reacted on impulse. Still, he refuses to regret shooing Nightmore away for Peace's sake.

Peace also had no clue what they should be doing, and stood around in silence hoping that Anatoly would say something.

Anatoly finally decided to try and break the ice. - "Alright, let's try to address the elephant in the room. I have no materials or tools to make a dress with. None."

Peace nodded in agreement, but after a second she got a brilliant idea. She smiled and turned towards Anatoly. "hey i think i might have those! theyre at my house." She proclaimed.

"Oh that's... Convenient... But also great!" - Anatoly replied. - "You can grab them from your house and return here. In the meantime, I'll brainstorm a couple of ideas for the dress."

"good idea anatoly!" - She said as she grabbed her shoes and put them on. She gave him another quick hug before leaving. - "thanks for the help"

Peace left Anatoly's house and rushed to her own. Provided that she doesn't get distracted, she should return in about an hour. Anatoly looked at his wristwatch. It was 11 o' clock at the moment.

He took a deep breath and sat in front of his computer, still having no clue how to make a dress. But then a sudden realization got into his head. He hasn't read the daily forum news!

"Eh, I have no ideas, and plenty of time anyway, so I should just browse the forums for a while and an idea might pop in to say 'Hello!'" - He justified to himself.

...

The first topic to catch his attention is titled "Local citizen dies from seizure"

'A child presumed to be age 13 has just recently died in the town square from a severe seizure. The people that witnessed this unfortunate incident report that the child screamed Roblox memes and other random garble at the top of his lungs before falling to the ground and twitching uncontrollably. Most people chose to ignore him and leave him there, and he was found alone by emergency services. He was found clutching a Kirby plush that was stuffed with a ton of cream. He was named 'Kirby boi' by the populus.'

Anatoly felt bad for a second before completely shrugging it off. He clicked on the next forum topic to tickle his fancy. "Citizen changes gender 10 times this week"

'"I just keep questioning my gender" They told reporters upon being asked. Psychiatrists are currently studying this phenomenon, saying that it was fascinating to see someone like that. Video footage of the person's house shows a couple of fascinating decoration choices. Multiple copies of the Bible in each room coupled with Kirby plushies next to them. Authorities are investigating the relation between this individual and 'Kirby boi'. So far no correlation has been found.'

Anatoly's face was fairly neutral and detached, so he decided to look at the last topic that he found amusing. "Little girl arrested for wire fraud"

'Do not be fooled by her cute appearance, this girl is stone-cold. It has been recently discovered that she is on the FBI's top 10 wanted criminals list. It doesn't stop there. She actually has the top 5 spots on the list, all which belonged to her alternate accounts. Her real name is unknown, but when the police busted down her door they found her wearing a winx costume, dancing to the transformation music. She's being charged for scamming people for thousands of dollars of their money, and it's believed she's done much worse than that.'

Anatoly felt a relieved that such a dangerous criminal has been put behind bars. He looked at his watch again and realized that he had wasted half an hour just looking at stupid news articles. He had to get back on track, otherwise he'll end up disappointing his dear friend.

He closed the forums and went to a new site, fairly begrudgingly as it was a site that only girls would visit. He shoved his pride aside and typed into the address bar:

http://DressUpGames.com


Chapter XI


He was desperate and he knew it. No one had to know of his shame, he just needed ideas for a dress. He suppressed the urge to gag and he clicked on the first game on the site with a 4.9 average. He looked at the dress options, and realized he had a lot to go through.

"This dress is too plain." - He thought, and clicked to the next one.
"The color palette is all off in this one." - He grumbled.
"This one is too revealing."
"This one would be impossible to make in real life."
"Does this even qualify as a dress?"

Anatoly cycled through the dresses, none of which he felt would look good on his lady. He spent almost 20 minutes looking through all the subpar dresses and finding a flaw in each one.

He had no idea what he was going to tell Peace. - "Hi Peace! Thank you for all of the materials, I did absolutely nothing!" - He thought. If he had told her that, he wouldn't be able to down her disappointment.

There has to be something he could do. Suddenly, a light bulb turned on in his head.

"Maybe if I..." - He thought

He took a screenshot of the first dress in the game and pasted it in MS paint. He grabbed the pencil and paint bucket tool and started coloring over the dress. His eyes focused solely on his work, he had no time to waste.

...

He was finally done. Phew. He took a deep breath as he relaxed in his chair. And just as he did that, he heard the front door swing open and he turned his head to look. He saw Peace carrying 4 identical looking stuffed backpacks. Sweat covered her entire body and it even managed to stain every part of the dress she was wearing. She dropped the all of the bags and a loud thud echoed in Anatoly's hallway.

"Peace? You didn't have to run so much, especially when you're carrying so many things!" - He loudly exclaimed with a concerned look on his face.

"i know its just that i didnt want to let you down" - She said as she looked to the floor. - "by the way do you have a towel? i need a shower so badly"

"Yeah uh... lemme go grab a clean one for you." - He walked to his closet, grabbed a towel and threw it to her. "Here you go Peace"

"thanks anatoly" - She spoke as she rushed to the bathroom with the towel.

He heard Peace lock the door. He walked over to the backpacks to inspect their contents. One of them contained the tools needed for cutting, sewing and tying fabric together, while the other 3 backpacks just contained a large variety of Peace's clothes. They all differed in color, size and style. There was no clean fabric in sight, just attire.

Anatoly searched all of the backpacks, but he couldn't find any material. He yelled to Peace from behind the bathroom door. - "Peace! There's no fabric here!"

"what!? yes there is! i brought 3 backpacks of them!" - She yelled back.

Anatoly turned his attention back to the clothes. - "Does... Does she seriously want me to cut her clothes to use as fabric!?" - He thought to himself.

"cut the clothes and use them as fabric!" - Peace yelled again.

Anatoly stood there for a minute, before sighing and picking up the clothes.

"All right, let's see what we have here"


Chapter XII


Anatoly looked at his computer screen again to gaze at the dress he designed in MS paint. He turned to the clothes again and realized that he had more than enough material to make his creation a reality. He felt excited. He grabbed all of the tools and clothes he would need and started to work.

He took one of the dresses from Peace's backpack and measured its size to know how large his dress needed to be. He measured the size of the decorations he'd add to the dress to calculate how many of them could be placed on.

He grabbed most of the single colored dresses and cut them in individual squares, and tied them together in the shape of cubes. He took his base dress and stuck the cubes on top of the shoulders, cutting off any excess fabric.

Peace had a lot of yellow dresses, so Anatoly cut them out in the shape of numerous smileys, and plastered them across the dress. Finally, he cut an elegant white dress into the peace symbol, and tied it to the chest area of the dress.

The dress was finished. He grabbed the shoulders and started turning the dress around, admiring his own creation. As his focus was fixated solely on the dress, he felt someone grab his shoulders from behind and whisper to him.

"that dress is amazing!"

Anatoly was startled and spun around, only to find Peace standing behind him with only a towel to cover her body. Anatoly blushed deeply.

"Ah! P-Peace! Don't scare me l-like that again!" - He spoke in a commanding voice.

"sorry its just that i had nothing to wear lol" - She responded.

"It's f-fine" - Anatoly spoke, still flustered. - "I f-finished your dress, so go tr-try it on!"

Peace smirked and grabbed the dress, and walked back to the bathroom to put it on. Anatoly looked at his watch once more, it was 1 o'clock currently. Carrie Dover's contest was supposed to start in 6 hours from now. They had more than enough time for Peace to practice everything she was meant to do at the contest.

Peace walked back, wearing the dress.

"how do i look" - She spoke with confidence beaming in her eyes.

Anatoly paused for a second, he couldn't believe what an amazing job he's done. The dress suits her perfectly, nothing could compare.

"You look stunning, Peace.