Hearts Ablaze

**"Hearts Ablaze"**is the fifteenth episode of *Justice* and the 33rd episode overall. It is the first episode of the two-part season finale.

It was published on October 28, 2018.

In the episode, the invasion of Bossbot Headquarters is launched with eight Toons disguising themselves as waiters to gain access to a formal Bossbot banquet at which both the Chairman and CEO are present. Meanwhile, Cog Nation begins to break apart and Clarabelle is imprisoned in Toontown Central.​

## The Episode

===Bossbot Headquarters===

=Present Day=

The Big Cheese was not yet accustomed to his new suit. The promotion had been abrupt. He had not been invited to tonight’s banquet, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t make an appearance.

===Toon Headquarters===

Alice pulled up a stool and sat, arms crossed, staring into the cell where Clarabelle Cow was sobbing. The cow had been silent ever since her incarceration, but Alice was fuming. Clarabelle’s treachery was completely uncalled for and reminded her too much of the wickedness in Molecule’s heart. Aleck Harding had gone upstairs to file away his paperwork and check on a few Cog battles, and so Alice was down here with the prisoner.

“You know,” Alice said, finally deciding what she wanted to say, “I understand. I can’t have children either.”

Clarabelle’s weeping was stifled, and she turned her head to cast her gaze upon the purple monkey beyond the bars. Alice gave a sympathetic smile.

“I would do a lot to have the ability to birth children,” Alice said. “It’s been a dream of mine for a long time too. And it was taken away from me by forces I cannot control. You didn’t choose to be the last cow in Toontown, just as I did not choose to be kidnapped.”

Clarabelle scratched her shoulder and looked down so she was not making eye contact with Alice anymore.

“I get the selfishness too,” Alice continued. “I was selfish for a while too. A long time, actually. I didn’t want the Toons to know that I was alive. I didn’t want to tell them anything that I knew. I knew Molecule was dead long before any of you returned from Fantasyland.”

The mention of the human plane caused Clarabelle to begin crying again. Alice tried not to roll her eyes. Clarabelle was probably able to bear children in Fantasyland since everyone was one species: Human. But that world was gone, a temporary haven long since abandoned.

“I knew so much about the Cogs, but I didn’t tell anyone in the Toon Resistance or the government. I kept these secrets for months, and finally a day came where I had to make a choice.”

Clarabelle lifted her black-and-white head, sniffling.

“I had to *choose* whether to help myself or help my town. And I chose my town. My neighbors and fellow Toons. You didn’t.”

Clarabelle scoffed. Alice seized one of the bars.

“You will be here for a long time, Clarabelle. You aren’t going anywhere. So you’ll have plenty of time to think about how you may want to *choose* another path.”

“I want to see Vidalia,” Clarabelle suddenly blurted. Alice raised her eyebrows.

“She doesn’t want to see you,” she said. “She was emphatic about that. You managed, with your actions, to lose the one person who cared about you the most.”

Clarabelle wailed.

===Bossbot Headquarters===

The eight Toons (Piggy Pie, Eileen Irenic, Constance Miller, Bradley Wolfe, Tori Dorrance, Horace Calves, Pete Ingalls, and Slate Oldman) were wearing their waiter suits and heading inside the employee entrance. The Toons from the Docks were teleporting onto the crag at the top of the cliffs. In minutes, they would descend and wreak havoc.

“Where have you been?” a Micromanager snapped when he noticed the eight Cogs not yet inside the kitchens. “Get *in there!*”

“Yes, sir,” Bradley said. Piggy Pie tried not to laugh.

The eight boarded an elevator with white linoleum floors and dark wooden walls. The micromanager sidled in beside them and jammed his finger into the “Kitchen” button. The elevator rose at an unusually slow pace.

“How many are we serving tonight?” Eileen asked. The Micromanager consulted his clipboard.

“206. Including the Chairman and CEO.”

“That’s good to…,” Slate said, but the Micromanager cut him off.

“I don’t know why you’re asking. None of you are serving anyone. You’re on cook duty.”

Unbeknownst to the Micromanager, that was anticipated. Apparently, when Mata was trying to get the suits coded, she wasn’t able to get the Cogs server access. To be a server at the banquet, a Cog needed security clearance signed by the Chairman himself. Which is why once the elevator doors opened, they were going to massacre all the Cogs in the kitchen.

“The first course is a delicate oil soup,” the Micromanager said. “The recipe cards are on the table. Chop chop!”

The doors opened and the Toons joined the fray of Cogs bustling about trying to prepare the dishes.

“Are the guests already here?” Piggy Pie asked a Downsizer, who scowled at her.

“Yes,” he hissed. “Hurry up! Get that garnish!”

Piggy Pie stared in confusion at all the ingredients in front of her. Cog food boggled the mind.

“NO!” the Micromanager screamed at Constance. “That orange spread is not until the second course!”

“Now?” Constance muttered to Eileen, who shrugged.

“Get those drinks ready!” the Micromanager called.

“Yeah,” Eileen said. “TOONS OF THE WORLD!”

“UNITE!”

The Toons shed their white uniforms and whipped out their gag pouches. The Micromanager opened his mouth to scream but was met with a face of pie. The cooks fell in line to battle.

Piggy Pie joined Horace, Tori, and Bradley for the shakedown.

“Anyone got drop?” Horace asked. Tori and Piggy shook their heads. Bradley weakly raised a hand.

“Only a safe.”

Horace shrugged and asked for the Cogs to be stunned so he could use his Toontanic.

“Stand back!” Horace called to the other group. Eileen, Constance, Pete, and Slate shuffled over so that they weren’t hit with the force of the falling boat.

The cooks were numerous in number, and more came up through the elevator, but the Bossbots outside in the banquet hall were undisturbed and unaware of the unfolding disaster.

When the smoke cleared at the end of the battle, Eileen put a lit candle in the window of the kitchen, signaling Kilo and Hyla to contaminate the oil pipes.

===Banquet Hall===

The Chairman stood next to the CEO, a little self-conscious of being only slightly taller than a Big Cheese yet standing next to the mammoth CEO body. The Creator had not endowed him with such a formidable uniform.

“My fellow Bossbots,” he said to the room, “Cog Nation is under attack.”

Murmurs of frustration rose through the crowd. The gathered Bossbots chatted with their compatriots at their tables.

“Our Cogs are fighting valiantly as we speak to maintain our hold over our HQs and our buildings. But I fear that the Toons will win this battle. In addition…”

He cleared his throat. His voice box was fading. “In addition, the Togs in Toontown Central have been turned back into Toons. I have lost two Togs here, and Operation Sever is officially a failure. Our Edict had its desired effect, but we lost the trial against Clarabelle Cow. We must devise a new plan to eliminate the Toons.”

A Big Cheese near the front got to his feet.

“Pardon me, sir, but if I may?”

“Of course.”

“Are we not going to expand our borders by heading north? I thought that was the plan once Clarabelle was acquitted?”

“It was,” the Chairman said, “but without Clarabelle, we have no Toons to send north.”

“The Togs?” the Big Cheese suggested.

“The Togs here in BBHQ,” the CEO said, “are not well and will not survive a journey north.”

“Then *we* must go!” a high-tier Corporate Raider called from the back.

“Without Toon leverage,” the Chairman said sourly, “I fear that we will be unsuccessful in the Kingdoms.”

The Cogs shook their heads in discontent. All was going awry.

“What do you then suggest?”

At that moment, the door opened and the waiters began serving drinks.

Piggy Pie stepped over to the side of the enormous banquet hall, where two conveyor belts were spitting out poisonous oil drinks. Bradley and Pete were in the kitchen pouring the gooey orange slime into thick metal cans and putting them on the belts. Piggy loaded one on her tray—all that would fit—and headed over to one of the tables. She cursed how sluggishly she had to walk, at Cog pace. All the while, she scanned the room in case Doctor was present.

Tori and Horace were sharing the conveyor belt with her. They agreed to take it one table at a time. The Cogs were eager to drink up. As the cans were placed on the table, the Big Cheeses and Corporate Raiders snatched them up and chugged voraciously.

“Is it fast-acting?” Piggy Pie whispered to Horace, who shrugged.

“We’ll find out.”

The Chairman was speaking with his Cog comrades. And the topic was dark.

“We need to eliminate the Toons,” he said in that horrible deep voice. “They are a threat to the survival of Cog Nation. Before we can expand our borders north, we must deal with the problem in the capital.”

“Eliminate the Toons?” a Big Cheese asked near the middle of the room. His voice was heavy with confusion. The Etiquette Algorithm at work; the Cogs didn’t know how to kill Toons, only make them go sad. Dr. Byte had been very successful in rewriting most of their DNA.

“Yes,” the Chairman said forcibly. “We must kill them all.”

Piggy Pie stole a glance at the Chairman. He was much smaller than the CEO and didn’t bear many differences from the rest of the Bossbot line. He was wearing a brown suit, though it lacked the tweed checkering. It was just a plain brown metal suit. His face was the most hideous of all the Cogs, with a horrific frown. But worst of all was a crack down the center of his face. As if it had been split by the gods. Deep within was a purple sort of streak. It was bizarre and unsettling. Piggy Pie turned away and kept serving.

“What’s taking so long?” Tori hissed, as by now they had served half the room.

“I don’t know,” Piggy Pie murmured and shook her head at Eileen, who was stone-faced.

Piggy Pie took another can and began toward one of the tables near the front of the room.

“I suggest,” the Chairman shouted, “that we burn them!”

Piggy Pie nearly dropped the can. *Burn?*

“Why?” the CEO asked, earning a glare from the Chairman.

“We know the Toons burn easily. We have incinerated many of their corpses. We can launch fireballs from the HQs into their streets. The towers in Lawbot HQ would reach into many of their neighborhoods. We can destroy them that way.”

“It could work,” the CEO said to the nods of many Cogs. And Piggy Pie was sure he was right. They didn’t know how devastating widespread fires would be, but she knew they would be cataclysmic.

The first Cog coughed. An odd, hollow sound emanating from the voice box of a nearby Big Cheese. Piggy Pie forced a can down the throat of one last Cog before stepping away. Horace was already at the conveyor belt and knocked twice on the wall that divided the banquet hall from the kitchen. Instantly, the conveyor belts stopped. The Toons conglomerated at the back of the room and watched as the Bossbots imploded.

The Chairman and CEO watched in shock and horror as their Cogs coughed, leapt to their feet, climbed onto the tables and chairs as a way of saving themselves, before dying. Gears and parts flew all over the room. The Cogs that had not yet been served could only look on as their brethren were destroyed.

“What…” the CEO began, his tiny head whizzing left and right. The Chairman remained stolid and silent, staring through the carnage to the back of the room. To the six Cogs in waiter costumes who he must now know were Toons. His eyes bore into them, sharp glares that cut through the smoke and debris like lasers.

In less than a minute, over half of the Cogs in the room had been destroyed. The other half, mostly at the front of the room, were standing and facing the Toons. Pete and Bradley entered through the doors, still wearing their waiter suits. Silence hung in the room as if another chandelier.

The Chairman cleared his throat and turned to the CEO.

“Attack.”

The CEO roared and the Bossbots fell into flanks. Piggy Pie joined Eileen, Slate, and Tori for her battle group. As the Cogs charged forward, Piggy saw the Chairman slip out through a passage in the fireplace.

Coward.

The Chairman hurried down the hallway back to his chambers. The Toons! How did they get in? As waiters? His mind was spinning wildly. He couldn’t comprehend how the tables had turned so quickly. Everything had been going so smoothly…and….

Something slammed in his head. What was that? It was like a pounding, an agitating knock on his skull. He pushed it back, willing it into submission. As quickly as it came, it stopped. The Chairman plowed on toward his chamber. He needed to summon every Bossbot to the island.

No.

Every Cog.

Ash Ingalls felt himself get knocked back. The Chairman had overpowered him again. He tried to slow his breathing, but he once again felt it to the pace of the Chairman’s battery. Palpitating like a dying organ. It hurt, but it didn’t matter.

Ash had seen his father.

===The Final Battle===

=One Year Ago=

Ash Ingalls was flying with the Cogs, leaving the din of the battle behind. His mother was down there somewhere. Was she dead? Would she die? Would the Toons be successful? Without a victory here, the Toons in Fantasyland would never be able to return. Ash would never see his father again.

Ash kicked against the hold of the Bossbots, but they held fast. They were taking him over water now, leaving the forests of Chipper Acres in the distance. Fog poured off the cliffs into the Bay.

Where were they going?

Ash tried to turn his body to look over his shoulder, but even that motion was limited. He felt despair rising in him like a black tide. What were the Cogs going to do to him? He had watched many of his friends, his companions, get injected in their hearts with green liquid by the diabolical Adam Molecule. What was going to happen to them?

The Cogs yanked downward and began to descend. The Bay of Toontown was now all that was visible in most directions. Somewhere far in the distance, the Docks were shrouded by fog. The empty Toontown silent on the horizon.

Ash slammed onto the ground, which was he wasn’t expecting. He thought the Cogs were going to drop him in the Bay and watch him drown. But no, he had hit grass. Faux grass. Turf? Like a golf course?

Ash got to his paws, shaky as they were, and took in his surroundings. They were on a golf course indeed under a dark grey cloud. Black towers rose around him in all directions. A Cog city. He had never seen anything like it. And it was in the Bay of Toontown? Was it floating like a ship or was there an island no one knew about?

“Move,” a Head Hunter growled and kicked Ash in the direction of the biggest tower of all. Gates in front of it read “The Bossbot Clubhouse.” Probably where the big boss lived. Ash tried to control his shaking.

In his three years of isolation and sadness after he was left behind in Exodus, he had grown tough. Seeing his father sent to the new world with a dead Dr. Cumulo Nimbus, leaving him alone with his mother had been extremely hard. They had lost most of their memories, though they came back bit by bit after the rain subsided and the Cogs were more or less destroyed. But those nearly two years of wandering around in sadness had matured Ash quickly. He had been 13 at the start of Exodus, and now he was a sixteen-year-old soldier for the Toon Resistance.

Not anymore. Now he was a prisoner.

===The Banquet Hall===

=Present Day=

The Big Cheeses and Corporate Raiders were no match for the Toons. Pete, Horace, Constance, and Bradley actually finished fighting before Eileen, Piggy, Tori, and Slate. Pete was particularly proud of himself. He never had the best gag aim, but he had done well! The Cogs were defeated.

The CEO was now grimacing at them. At some point, he had picked up a humungous golf club and was wielding it like a terrifying weapon.

“If you want something done right,” he grumbled, “do it yourself.”

And he swung.

The club hit a table and it broke into a hundred pieces, the shrapnel flying across the room. Pete yelped and ducked, but a piece of wood struck his shoulder. He yelped in pain.

“Come on!” Eileen screamed. “Use seltzer bottles to blast him!”

The CEO was rolling over the tables though like they weren’t even there. He was nearly twice as large as the VP. His undercarriage had not yet opened, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t packed with Cogs.

“HEY!” Constance shrieked. “MR. CEO!”

The CEO directed one of his eyes over in Constance’s direction, but continued to barrel toward Bradley, who was pulled out of the way by Horace.

“Tell the Chairman we want to speak to him! This war ends now!”

The CEO only scoffed and swung his club at Horace, Tori, and Piggy. All three took laff hits. Pete clambered onto one of the white tablecloth tables and seized a seltzer bottle. He aimed in the direction of the CEO and fired.

For Ash.

===One Year Ago===

There were six Toons that shared Ash’s cell, with him being the seventh. The conditions were cramped. All the Toons were Ash’s age.

The Toons that were being imprisoned in Bossbot HQ were survivors of either Exodus or the attacks in the days prior. Many were from shops that had been turned into Cog buildings. Others were plucked off the street. But Ash was the one of the few taken from the Final Battle. The Cogs said that soon the Creator (the bitch Adam Molecule) would arrive to take care of them.

Ash told the others about the serum. What he saw at the Final Battle. What he knew was coming. They would all be injected and turn into Cog/Toon hybrids. Like Flim Flam. And Herb Clark. Maybe even Ash’s mother.

The future was bleak.

But days had gone by since Ash had been taken here, and there was still no sign of Adam Molecule. The Cogs seemed restless. And scared.

And one day, they finally came to Ash’s cell. And they took measurements.

They sized his head, his shoulders, his width and height. They didn’t seem to care about the others in Ash’s cell.

Days later, they returned. A Big Cheese pointed at Ash with a metal finger.

“That one.”

===Present Day===

The CEO was a beast. He shattered windows, tore up the wooden walls, flattened tables, and took no names. Every single Toon in the battle was teetering on a complete laff deficit. Bradley and Pete had retreated back into the kitchen to make cakes or something to help restore laff. But with no time and dwindling laffs themselves, the pastries were only so helpful.

When the CEO broke another window, sending glass raining down on Constance’s head, she saw to her horror that the skies were full of Cogs. They were flying, lowering, heading straight for the Clubhouse.

The Chairman had called reinforcements.

The Big Cheese saw the Chairman leave his chambers. He looked livid. The boss stormed right past the Big Cheese, who stopped walking and stood quietly in respect for the Chairman.

“Take the Togs,” the Chairman commanded. “Throw them into the Bay.”

“Sir,” the Big Cheese acquiesced. The Chairman continued stalking in an indeterminate direction.

The Big Cheese opened the door of the chambers all the way and stepped inside. Both Togs raised their heads to meet his gaze.

“Come on,” the Big Cheese said. “Your time has come.”

===One Year Ago===

Ash had no screams left in his system when the Cogs brought him to the Banquet Hall. There, the Vice President of the Sellbots, the Chief Financial Officer of the Cashbots, the Chief Justice of the Lawbots, and the Chief Executive Officer of the Bossbots were all standing together. Beasts of the bellicose garden.

In front of them was a hollow Cog suit. A head was resting on the table. And it was a horrible head, with a scowl pulled downward from the middle of the face to the corners of the jaw. A name plate fixated to the suit said “Chairman.”

Ash wriggled against the Big Cheese’s grip who was pulling him into the room, but it was of course no use.

“This one’s the perfect size,” the Big Cheese said directly to the CEO, who looked pleased. Ash stared at the suit in horror. What were they going to do to him?

“Any word from the Creator?” the CEO asked his equals, who shook their heads in unison.

“No, sir. We have been unable to locate him. We fear the worst.”

The CEO swore.

“Then we must fulfill the Creator’s work. Operation Sever will be undertaken by the Sellbots.”

“Yes, sir,” the VP said. “Is it true the Creator left no record of how to create the Tog conversion serum?”

“That’s correct,” the Chief Justice said with what sounded like sorrow. “The Creator’s work is a mystery.”

Ash trembled. Operation Sever and Togs sounded deadly. The serum, though…that was from the battle! They wanted to convert Toons to Cog/Toon hybrids!

Togs…

“The Creator promised us a Chairman,” the CFO said with what sounded like indignation. “But he never said it would be a Toon.”

“A Tog,” the CEO said, the conversation continuing as if Ash was not present. “The Creator was clear that the combined knowledge of a Toon and Cog, like himself, would be the ultimate leader of Cog Nation. Without him…”

The CEO paused as if seriously emotional.

“Without the Creator,” he continued, “we must elect a new leader. This suit was specifically designed to contain a Toon to act as Chairman. Once inside, he’ll be a Cog.”

Ash tried to back away, but the Big Cheese had not relinquished his grip.

“This one is the perfect size,” the Big Cheese reiterated.

“Indeed,” the CFO said. “And this is Ash Ingalls, the son of Pete Ingalls. One of the architects of the Emergency Portal the Creator foretold. Pete Ingalls is one of the geniuses of the Toons.”

Ash hated hearing the Cogs laud his father, as if his achievements were to be used for Cog gain.

“The son of Pete Ingalls is the best possible option,” the Chief Justice said.

The CEO nodded.

“Strap him in.”

Ash hollered and kicked and screamed and pleaded and begged and moaned and cried and finally fell silent as they pushed him into the Cog suit. He did fit snugly, but as soon as he was inside and the suit closed, he felt pricks all over his body as wires dug into his flesh. He felt his Toonity leaving bit by bit.

And then they lowered the head over him.

And his brain was encapsulated.

And his memories faded.

And his eyes rolled to the back of his head.

And he died.

Ash Ingalls ceased to exist.

Replaced by the Chairman of the Cogs.

Ash felt himself grow tiny, smaller, shriveling into his brain.

But he could still see.

He could still hear.

But he was trapped inside his own mind.

Watching.

Witnessing.

Slowly going insane.

===Present Day===

Hours had past, and the battle had gone from bad to worse. The Chairman had summoned hundreds of Cogs to the Banquet Hall, and gags quickly ran out. By a stroke of luck, the Cogs stopped streaming inside through the shattered windows, probably thanks to the Toons of the Docks who were outside working tirelessly to prevent a failure of the Bossbot Headquarters invasion.

But Eileen was exhausted. They had barricaded the doors from the kitchen into the banquet to prevent Cogs from arriving that way. This meant that Bradley and Pete were unable to make pastries for toonup. And laff was still hovering just above zero.

Eileen could hardly think straight with laff so low. The CEO was no where close to being dead. He was practically indestructible. There were no safes to drop on his head, no magnets to swing things at him, and no cliffs to push him from. He was in his lair. His home turf. He had the advantage.

The seltzer bottles were doing hardly anything to stop him.

“FORE!” the CEO bellowed and swung his long club once again. It struck Slate over the head.

For the first time in Eileen’s life, she watched Slate Oldman go sad.

The Blizzard Wizard. The BioFreak. The Councillor. The patriot.

Slate Oldman doubled over his body and fell into his transport hole. Only Eileen saw it happen. The others slowly came to the realization when only seven remained in the room.

“FORE!”

Eileen stepped off the table and ducked as golf balls whizzed over her head. She tried to think of a solution, but none came to mind. They would have to flee. Even if they defeated the CEO, the Chairman was still at large. And a new CEO would take the place of the dead one in seconds. Their plan was foiled, and the Cogs would beef up security. And the whole cycle would begin anew.

That feeling of hopelessness overcame Eileen again. It would take a miracle to save them before they all went sad.

The Big Cheese finally reached the hidden passageway into the Executive Suite. Through the massive faux fireplace, he could hear the raging battle between the CEO and the Toons. Silently, the Big Cheese pressed on the wall and it slid inward, allowing the Cog to see inside. The CEO was barreling toward a table with a horse standing on top holding a seltzer bottle.

"FORE!" he screamed.

The Big Cheese counted the Toons in the room. Six--no, seven. One must have gone sad.

Looking at the scene, the Big Cheese could not determine who was winning. But that would soon change. In a matter of minutes, it would all be over.

Piggy Pie kept thinking of Doctor. That’s why she was here. To save him and bring him home. To end his Tog life and return him to the mind of a Toon. The surgery on Soggy had been a success, and a similar outcome was almost ensured for Doctor and the other three Togs.

“FORE!”

Piggy leapt back from her table as the CEO ran over Horace’s with her’s next in his line of sight. She checked her gag pouch again for toonup, knowing none would be there. Something caught her gaze and she turned toward the fireplace.

A Big Cheese was slipping through the same passage that the Chairman exited. He scanned the room, and then his eyes landed on Piggy. He cocked his head, then lifted one finger to his lips.

Piggy Pie felt an awful sense of discomfort cascade over her. The Cog looked menacing. Piggy looked desperately for Eileen, but all the others Toons were deep in battle.

“SIR!”

Now everyone noticed the Big Cheese, including the CEO. The monstrous Cog spun around to see the Big Cheese standing, arms clasped behind his back, staring up at him.

“What is it BC9925?”

“Catch.”

Piggy Pie’s heart tightened as the Big Cheese threw an orb at the CEO, who caught it in his fat palm. Whatever advantage the Big Cheese had just given the CEO, it was enough for Eileen.

“RUN!” she yelled. She pulled out her own transport hole, but the Big Cheese yelled over her.

“FIREPLACE!”

Piggy Pie looked past Eileen at the fireplace, which the Big Cheese was pulling open. There, in the dark passageway, were two green lights. But as the fireplace door slid aside, Piggy Pie could see the lights belonged to a light blue horse and a dark blue bear.

“DOCTOR!”

Piggy Pie sprinted past the confused CEO, the Big Cheese, and her Toon friends to hug Doctor. She didn’t care if this was a trap, or if this was a ploy to get her away from the battle, or if the whole thing was a mirage. If there was even a chance that this was her friend, she was going to take it. Eileen put her transport hole back in her pocket.

When Piggy Pie reached Doctor, his tired eyes staring right through her, she was surprised to find Tori and Pete right behind her. Horace crashed in behind them, and Eileen, Constance, and Bradley were not far behind. The CEO was left staring, befuddled, an orb in one hand and his golf club hanging limply in the other. The Big Cheese swiped with his arm, knocking Bradley and the others deeper into the passage.

“BC9925…” the CEO said, his voice trailing off. He began to wheel forward. The Big Cheese removed an identical golden orb from his other pocket and glanced up at his master.

“Goodbye, sir,” the Big Cheese said and twisted the top half of the orb.

Flames erupted from the CEO’s hand, the sphere within it turning into a pernicious conflagration. The CEO yelped in surprise, moving backward over a table. His tweed suit lining instantly caught on fire. Piggy Pie gaped at the scene before her. Eileen was completely openmouthed. Constance was pushing Tori and Horace behind her, as if to protect them. Piggy Pie looked at the Big Cheese, who was calmly detonating his boss. The CEO screamed as the fire spread to the rest of his body and the intense blue, orange, and red flames melted his suit.

Before the CEO’s death was final, the Big Cheese closed the fireplace door, ensconcing the group in darkness. The green lights from Doctor and Smokey Joe’s suits dimly illuminated the corridor. The Big Cheese robotically turned his head and flipped on a light switch. The hallway flooded with light.

“This way,” the Big Cheese said and started down the hall. The Togs followed him immediatley. Eileen began to sputter in consternation.

“Wait,” she said. “What?”

“Why…did you…” Constance tried to jump in.

“Hey!” Bradley called after the Cog, but the Big Cheese did not slow his pace.

“You need to get off this island,” he said, his voice mechanical and foreboding. “Time is running out. The Togs are dying.”

Piggy Pie wailed, an inescapable impulse.

“We’re not leaving without Ash,” Pete said defiantly. The Big Cheese, without stopping, turned his head 360 degrees to look directly at Pete.

“Impossible,” he scowled.

===One Year Ago===

The Chairman acclimated to his new body, feeling the adrenaline of using his metal fingers and his new Cog brain for the first time. He regaled in the new knowledge bestowed upon him. He felt nothing but veneration for the Creator and ire for the Toons who took away his chance to meet him. He was briefed extensively on all the Cog operations, on all the Cog dynamics, and the status of the nascent Cog Nation.

And the Exodus.

The Toons had safeguarded their possibility of a return in three individuals: Pete Ingalls, Patrick Prepostera, and Cumulo Nimbus. Two were dead, the third now a Tog. Exodus was a failure, and the Toons would remain abroad forever.

But the Cogs had lost the Final Battle, the one that had taken the Creator from them. The fledgling remains of the Toons of Toontown were cunning, clever, and hard to defeat. Would they remember what they saw on the battlefield? Would they know that the Togs were a threat?

The Chairman thought for a moment. Maybe the Toons *would* find a way to return. It wouldn’t surprise him. His Toon knowledge from Ash Ingalls told him that Toons could be very resourceful. And the mice named Dr. Byte and Dr. Sensitive were the most likely to bring the Toons back from hiding. Perhaps…that wouldn’t be the worst thing.

The Togs had already assimilated themselves into the group of survivors. No one knew they were actually working for the Cogs. Either way…Toons or no Toons…Cog Nation would rise.

“Sir,” the CEO announced, “what do we do with the Toons here on the island?”

The Chairman crossed his arms and frowned.

“Test them for Operation Sever. If they are incompatible, kill them.”

The CEO blinked.

“Kill them?”

“Yes,” the Chairman said. “Kill them.”

“I don’t understand,” the CEO said.

The Chairman tried to explain in simple terms how to kill something, but the CEO seemed perfectly incapable of understanding the concept when it applied to the Toons. He knew what death was, and he knew what killing something was, but it was almost as if killing a Toon was like killing a mockingbird; it was something you didn’t do.

Oh, clever, the Chairman realized. The Toons figured out how to rewrite Cog DNA. It was a complicated procedure but not impossible. Damn them. He had no idea how to fix that, or how he could explain to the Cogs how to fix it. That would be a problem for later.

They couldn’t kill them. Not directly. Indirectly, yes.

“Give no food to the Toons that fail in Operation Sever. They are not to eat or drink. Do you understand?”

“Sir.”

“If anyone dies,” the Chairman said, “put them in the ballroom on the garden level. It’ll henceforth be a crypt.”

===Present Day===

The Big Cheese led the team through a series of winding hallways, all of them adorned with the same gleaming polished wood and Cog portraits. It was a back-of-house sort of feel, where the banquet staff would pass through to most efficiently serve the banquet. There were several meeting spaces, the biggest of which was the Banquet Hall. The Big Cheese kept throwing glances over his shoulder, which he did by rotating his head as if on an axis. He seemed anxious that he may be followed.

“Doctor?” Piggy Pie tried again, hoping her voice would bring back her friend, but he remained stalwart, stolid, and cold.

“In here,” the Big Cheese said and pushed open a nondescript door. The team entered quickly, followed by the Togs and the Big Cheese himself. Once they were all inside, the Cog closed the door and locked it.

Looking around, Piggy Pie saw they were in a much smaller meeting room, but all the furniture had been removed. It was just a large space with horrible yellow and brown carpeting, the ceiling tall enough to house the CEO. There was only one door, and the Big Cheese was standing in front of it.

“Where are we?” Pete asked. “Where’s Ash?”

“We’re in the Judicial Room,” the Big Cheese said. “The Chief Justice prefers this meeting room the most. It’s quiet.”

Piggy Pie felt her heart tighten. Why would the Cog need them somewhere quiet? Did he really just save them from the CEO only to kill them himself? Piggy Pie was completely out of gags.

“Tell us what’s going on,” Constance demanded. “What kind of Cog are you?”

The Big Cheese stared back at them, his ugly green skin wrinkling with each move of his head.

“I’m…a friend.”

“Cogs are not our friends,” Eileen spat. “What are you going to do with us?”

The Big Cheese nodded at the Togs.

“You need to save them.”

“Where are the other two?” Constance asked. “Lucy Tires and Silly Sal. They…”

“Dead.”

The word hung in the air like an anvil. It came crashing down on them.

That could have been Doctor. They were important, they were special to someone, they mattered, but for Piggy Pie, all she could think of was how closely Doctor came to death. And how close he was now. He could drop any minute.

He couldn’t. She was here! She found him!

“Save them,” the Big Cheese repeated.

“We can’t! Not here!” Tori cried.

“We need to take them back to the mainland to save them,” Constance blurted. “And we’re not leaving until we’ve defeated the Chairman and taken back Ash Ingalls and all other survivors. Where are Ash and the others?”

The Big Cheese shook his head.

“There are no others.”

“My *son*,” Pete said angrily, standing inches from the Big Cheese’s chest. “Where is he? Where is Ash?”

The Big Cheese tilted his head to look at Pete.

“The Chairman.”

“He’s with the Chairman?”

“No.”

Piggy Pie gasped. Doctor had just spoken. One word, just one word, but he had spoken.

“Doctor?” she whispered.

Pete seized Doctor’s shoulders.

“Where is Ash, Doctor? Do you know? Where is my son?”

“The Chairman,” Doctor said, repeating what the Big Cheese said. His voice was monotonous. Coglike.

“Ash is with the Chairman?” Pete asked.

“Ash is the Chairman.”

Tori gasped. Horace let out a soft groan. Piggy Pie felt her jaw hit her neck. The impact of the statement rushed over them like a horrid wave. Eileen and Constance looked at the Big Cheese as if for confirmation, and he tipped his head. Pete didn’t move, didn’t take his hands off Doctor’s shoulders. Maybe he was thinking what Piggy Pie was. Why the Chairman’s head interior was purple. Because it was him. It was Ash.

The Cogs put Ash in the body of the Chairman. That’s why leaving with Ash and defeating the Chairman was impossible. They were one in the same.

Pete was destroyed. He had slunk all the way to the ground and was leaning against Horace’s legs, wheezing. Tori knelt and wrapped her arms around him, trying to soothe him. But he looked absolutely devastated.

Eileen rounded on the Big Cheese.

“None of this,” she hissed, “explains you. Why are you helping us? Why would you blow up the CEO and tell us about Ash? Why take us to a quiet room away from everywhere else? *Who are you*?”

The Big Cheese smiled.

Smiled.

Piggy Pie felt most unnerved by that. Watching a Cog don a sincere smile.

Smiling Cog. That was an oxymoron.

“I’ve been waiting a long time for this, Madam Mayor,” the Cog said. “I’ve dreamt of it. It took me a while to get here but I did what I had to do. What I knew I must do. I don’t think there’s ever been a Cog promoted this fast. Through the ranks of the Sellbots and Cashbots, to the Towers of the Lawbots. To the Office of the District Attorney.”

He looked at both Eileen and Piggy Pie, but she didn’t understand what he was talking about. A Bossbot couldn’t be a former Lawbot. It’s either one or the other. He seemed delusional. Something definitely off about him.

“I’ve been with you every step of the way,” the Big Cheese continued, his voice…nostalgic? “I saw this as an opportunity we would have to take in order to save Toontown and prevent a total Cog takeover.”

“Is there something wrong with your wiring?” Constance exclaimed. The Big Cheese ignored her.

“I wanted so much to reveal myself to you in the Clerk’s office…at the trial too. But I couldn’t. I didn’t dare risk it. Because I knew that you would be led here, and that here you would make your stand. And you’d need my help. In my life I gave everything…Everything I did, I did for Toontown. Even my death. And I was given a second chance. I didn’t die after all.”

“What?” Constance said, her face wrinkled in confusion.

“Who are you?” Eileen demanded.

“It’s me,” the Big Cheese said, looking at Eileen and Piggy Pie in turn. “It’s Flippy.”

## Production

### Promotion

   The trailer for the finale was published on October 27, 2018, on the day before both episodes of the finale aired (October 28). The trailer is short, and only foreshadows the Toon attack on Cog Nation. The images shown are exclusively of Bossbot Headquarters. Doctor is the only character to appear in the trailer, though footage of Kilo and Eileen were shot but unused. The music used is "Dauntless" by Audiomachine. Several other tunes were tested for the film, but ultimately not used ("Mob Song" from *Beauty and the Beast*, "Rise Up" by Andra Day). To date, this is the only trailer for Storytime not to use a song previously seen in another real-life TV series trailer.

### Continuity and Story Arcs

Alice spoke with Clarabelle about their shared inability to bear children, though Alice is barren due to Molecule’s experiments whereas Clarabelle is barren by circumstance. They also speak of Fantasyland and how returning to that plane is impossible.

The CEO is first battled, mirroring the in-game boss battle.

Flashbacks to the Final Battle and Ash’s conversion to the Chairman are depicted from one year prior including scenes from life in captivity in BBHQ before the Cogs killed all the Toons they held.

The scene in which the Big Cheese reaches the hidden passageway is verbatim from the very first scene of the first episode of this season, which was prewritten to foreshadow this conclusion.

The Toons learn the fate of Ash Ingalls, and how he and the Chairman were the same person.

The biggest revelation of the episode was that the Big Cheese depicted in so many scenes, as well as many of the Cogs the Toons had encountered over the course of the season, was Flippy Flopper all along, having not actually died in the first season finale.

### References

The pastries in the CEO battle being only so helpful is a reference to how the laff offerings in the game’s boss battle only gives 1-3 laff points, which is not a lot.

The line “beasts of the bellicose garden” is a reference to the book *In the Garden of Beasts* by Erik Larsen.

## Trivia

* The title of this episode and its successor is derived from a line in "The Mob Song" from *Beauty and the Beast*: "Hearts ablaze, banners high / we go marching into battle / unafraid although the danger's just increased."
* The idea for Flippy's resurrection began as a pondering for what a Tog's opposite would be. Togs are Toons with minds like Cogs, but what if there was a Cog that thought like a Toon? The author realized that Flippy's death could be used to explain how a Cog would have such a mindset, which otherwise would be impossible.
* The line “the recipe cards are on the table” seems really insignificant, but the author had no idea what recipe cards were, but on the same day that scene was written, the author overheard his colleagues at work discussing a lack of recipe cards in the kitchen.
* The back hallways of the Clubhouse were designed after hotel meeting spaces.
* The horrible yellow and brown carpeting in the meeting room was inspired by awful carpet at a temporary tent space at a hotel in San Francisco.
* The meeting room, the Judicial Room, is an inside joke for the author, who once worked at a hotel where he and a coworker advocated for a suite called the Judicial.
* This episode is half the length of its first season counterpart, "Heaven Found"