The Strange Case of Dr. Janobii and Mr. Hatter

[Noblejanobii]

Chapter 1

Thunder rumbles in the sky above you as you approach a house at the edge of the forums. You glance down at the envelope in your hand, the wax seal having been broken hours earlier. It had been an invitation to this secluded location, though you have no idea who invited you or why. The dry leaves crunch underneath your feet and you pause as you reach the gate to the household.

It is a Victorian household, you presume, given that it looks like all the stereotypical pictures you see in textbooks. It is old and worn, time having eroded away its chiseled features. The plants in the hard have been left unkempt and there are vines suffocating the large trees that dot the corners of the property. Thunder booms again, sending a chill up your spine. You swallow roughly and push open the iron gate.

You step carefully through the yard, able to somewhat make out a stone pathway through the thick grass. It is only a short walk to the steps up to the front door of the old house. The wooden boards creak loudly as you place your weight on them, and for a second, in your paranoia, you believe you can hear the screams of the damned coming from those boards. You quickly ascend the steps to the front door.

As you approach, you swear you see the curtains on one of the windows shift, but when you look closer, they are completely still. You write off as your imagination and continue towards the door. It towers above you, the white paint cracked revealing the dark wood underneath. There is a golden knocker on the door that tempts you to knock. Looking down at the envelope in your hand, you gather up your courage and reach up to the knocker.

Bang, bang, bang… The sound echoes through the air as you await an answer. After a few silent moments, you hear a shuffling from the other side of the door. Several locks are turned with large clunking sounds. After a moment, the door is pulled open with a loud creaking noise. On the other side is a familiar friendly face on the forum, one of the senior staff, Dr. Janobii.

“I’m so glad you came!” she says, “Please, come inside! I’ve made some snacks and lemonade for us. Then we can discuss why I called you here.”

[Pokemon Trainer Sarah]

familiar friendly face on the forum

HOW SUSPICIOUS!

[Noblejanobii]

Chapter 2

You bring the cup to your lips and take a sip of the lemonade. Reflexively, you start to gag. For a moment there, you had forgotten that Dr. Janobii was a scientist, not a cook. Setting down the glass, you are inclined to not eat any of the cookies she had set out for you.

Dr. Janobii returns a moment later, a bright smile on her face. She notices you haven’t touched the cookies and barely drank your lemonade. She laughs a little. “Not feeling too snackish today? That’s fine. More for me!” Dr. Janobii sits down in a chair across the coffee table from you. She picks up a cookie and begins to eat it. “Thank you so much, again, for coming. I know it must have been a bit weird, receiving a letter out of the blue like that. I was hoping by using the imprint on the wax that I did, maybe you would be a bit more trusting.”

You glance down at the envelope again and take a closer look at the seal. Imprinted on the wax was a Gracidea Flower. In retrospect, it was rather obvious who had sent for you based on the seal, but the thought had not occurred to you at the time. You still weren’t even sure why you had come. You snap out of your thoughts when you hear Dr. Janobii pouring herself a glass of lemonade.

“Anywho! Since you’re done snacking I suppose it’s about time I showed you why I asked you here.” Dr. Janobii downed her lemonade before standing up. She signaled for you to follow. You place the envelope into your pocket and follow her. She continues to speak as you walk. “As you may be aware, we’ve had an increasing problem with spambots lately. You-know-who isn’t relenting anytime soon, so we’ve got to come up with new countermeasures. Sarah’s done well with what she’s done, but I’ve decided to take up the fight as well.”

Dr. Janobii leads you into a large library inside the house. You’re trying to focus on what she’s saying but you are momentarily distracted by the impressiveness of the library. You don’t recall seeing a section of the house this tall or wide when you approached outside but perhaps you just hadn’t been observant enough. Dr. Janobii takes you over to a nearby bookshelf and stops.

“Now, I hope you were listening to everything I just said because you’re going to need it.” You wince a little. Oops. Dr. Janobii giggles at your expression. “Just kidding. Just step exactly where I step.” She pulled a blue book until there was a click and a wall passage opened, revealing a long spiraling staircase illuminated by torches. Spooky. Dr. Janobii entered the passageway and descended down the staircase. You quickly but carefully followed her, making sure to step exactly where she stepped.

As you reach the bottom, a checkerboarded pathway leads to a metal door at the end of the hall. Dr. Janobii is waiting on the first white square. She waves to you then continues, black, white, white, black, white, black, black, white. You frown, trying to follow and watch her at the same time. Okay, white, black, white, white, black, white… was there are second white in there? Or was it black?

“Hey!” You look up as Dr. Janobii calls to you. “The black tile on your left!” It comes to you right as she says it. Ah right! Black, black, white. You land right next to Dr. Janobii and she smiles broadly. “Nice job! Sorry, gotta be extra protective of this. Don’t want it falling into the wrong hands.”

Dr. Janobii turned to the metal door and placed her hand against it. The door lit up and then lifted into the ceiling. Dr. Janobii walked inside with you close behind. Inside was a giant laboratory filled to the brim with beakers, chemicals, clipboards, and more. It seemed exactly like something Dr. Janobii would have in the basement of her creepy house.

That is… until you saw the giant tube with the body of a man suspended inside of it.

[Pokemon Trainer Sarah]

That is… until you saw the giant tube with the body of a man suspended inside of it.

My word! He is fully dressed right?

[Noblejanobii]

My word! He is fully dressed right?

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

[Noblejanobii]

Chapter 3

You continue to stare at the suspended body before Dr. Janobii notices where you attention is directed. She glances at the tube before bursting into laughter. “Oh no no no! Don’t worry about that, it’s just my attempts at making the perfect boyfriend. One day I will achieve the perfect Dylan Thomas.” You aren’t sure what to think about that but decide to let it go for now.

Dr. Janobii resumes shuffling through some drawers and you try to see what she is doing but she’s moving a bit too quickly for you to follow. You don’t have to wait long to find out the results of all the searching though. After a few minutes, Dr. Janobii produces a syringe and a beaker of green liquid. She grins at you.

“This is what I came to show you.” You give Dr. Janobii and unimpressed expression. “Now now! Don’t look at me like that. I promise this is better than the suspended body.” Dr. Janobii puts down the beaker and syringe and summons her banhammer. “So as you know, those of us in the senior staff can use banhammers. But recently we’ve had some very well disguised spambots coming in that appear as normal users. This makes them more difficult to detect and more easily able to advertise on the forums. Well, I’ve decided to take it upon myself to find out a way to detect them. The contents of this beaker are the culmination of my work. You see, the past few nights I’ve been injecting myself with it and while I don’t remember much, the amount of undercover spambots I’ve been able to catch is astounding! I’m going to present it all to the senior staff later, but my curiosity has been peaked. That’s the reason I asked you here.”

Dr. Janobii grins at you, a glimmer in her eyes as she moves the banhammer to her shoulder. “I need you to tell me what happens while I’m unconscious.”

[Noblejanobii]

Chapter 4

You stumble back a little and quickly shake your head. The doctor’s smile wavers and she tilts her head at you, as if trying to figure out why you wouldn’t want to participate in her little experiment. “Huh? You don’t want to help? I promise, it won’t hurt you. I won’t hurt you. I just want you to observe. You can do that, can’t you?”

You feel backed into a corner here. You think about fleeing before remembering the checkered board outside, the combination path to get out escaping you in your panic. There weren’t any other visible paths of escape, which meant you were out of options. Slowly, you nod your head.

A wide grin splits across Dr. Janobii’s face and she leaps up in excitement. “Oh goodie! I’m so glad you agreed!” You feel a chill run up your spin, already regretting your decision as you watch her prep the syringe. She rolls up her sleeve, disinfects her arm, then winks at you. “Ready? I’ll see you again soon!”

You wince as she injects herself without even flinching, depressing the green liquid into her body. You quickly look away, unable to force yourself to watch after her veins in her arm started to pulsate. After a moment, Dr. Janobii stumbles back, collapsing into a chair with a relaxed sigh. You glance back just in time to see her lazily place the syringe on the table and close her eyes. She stops breathing. That isn’t good.

You approach her and lean closer, trying to see if maybe you were mistaken and she hadn’t actually stopped breathing. You hold your hand over her mouth, but feel no breath. You start to panic when suddenly her eyes open, but they are not the eyes you recognize as hers.

The brown eyes watch your every movement as you stand there, frozen. A killer’s smile spreads across Dr. Janobii’s face, and a deep chuckle emits from her throat. “Well well, it seems the shaymin brought someone to observe this time. Did she try to cook you anything? Perhaps that is why you are so pale. Hm… would you mind stepping away for a moment? I need to reach the computer. The shaymin never changes her avatar before awakening me. I would rather not remain with this appearance if you do not mind.”

You quickly scramble out of the way. The stranger in Dr. Janobii’s body stands up and walks over to the computer at the desk a little way away. They grumble to themselves as they type something into the computer. After a moment, their appearance begins to pixelate and it is no longer Dr. Janobii that stands before you. The man turns to you and tips his top hat to you.

“Allow me to introduce myself, since it seems we will be spending the rest of the night together. I am Madder Hatter.”

[Noblejanobii]

Chapter 5

“Though, that will have to be Mr. Hatter to you, since we have only just met.”

You stare at the new avatar before you and a shiver runs down your spine. He taps his fingers on the desk nearby impatiently, waiting for you to reply, but you have been shocked into silence. This does not seem to amuse Mr. Hatter.

“You’re not much of a talker, are you?” he asks. When you give no reply, he shakes his head and starts to walk past you. “No matter, it’ll be easier to sneak up on the spambots that way. Now come, I have work to do and a limited amount of time to do it, so we mustn't dally.” Mr. Hatter walks over to the other side of the lab and rolls up a poster, revealing a door behind it. Go figure there was an alternate exit. Finally regaining some control over yourself, you trudge after Mr. Hatter towards the exit.

The door leads into a long tunnel that is made entirely of stone. It leads you to a staircase which takes you up to a cellar door. Mr. Hatter pushes it open with little effort, revealing the backyard of the house. He helps you out and closes the cellar doors behind him. Instead of walking out the front, Mr. Hatter walks deeper into the backyard, where a small gate is located. He unlatches it, lets you through, then closes it and summons his banhammer. You instinctively flinch, earning an unamused look from him.

“Please, as if I could ban you anyway,” Mr. Hatter grumbles, “I’m just preemptively summoning it in case there are any runts near the lab. I’ve been caught off guard here before and I’d rather not risk getting infected with whatever they have.” You raise your eyebrows in concern, not quite sure what he meant by that. Spambots were just robots sent to muck up the forums, weren’t they?

Mr. Hatter starts to lead you on patrol through the forums. You start at the top with Community Announcements and begin to make your way towards the Event Archives. For the most part it is rather quiet at first. It is not until you get to General Discussion that signs of a spambot begin to appear. “Finally!” Mr. Hatter says, picking up the pace a little as he follows the trail. He speeds off and you scramble to keep up as you both dive into the alleyway.

You see Mr. Hatter cornering a spambot and just as you thought, it looks to be more than a small, rather harmless robot. Mr. Hatter spins his hammer and glances at you. “See what I mean? The infection they carry is hideous isn’t it? Stay back, if you get to close it could infect you. I have a built in immunity so I’ll be fine.” You start to shake your head when he suddenly lunges at you. The banhammer whishes right past your ear and slams into a spambot that had been creeping up behind you. In an instant the creature is gone.

The first spambot tries to use that distraction to escape, scrambling to climb up a nearby wall. Mr. Hatter spins around and rushes it, his hat flying off in the process. You snatch it out of the air and right away the world becomes inverted. All the colors are the opposite of what they should be and all the signs are in some undecipherable language. You catch a glimpse of the spambot right before Mr. Hatter bans it and notice it looks a lot less robotic and more like a festering parasite feeding on the corpse of an old abandoned user account.

Mr. Hatter begins to rub his head and squints at you. He stops over and holds out his hand. “Hat,” he commands. You quickly hand it over and he places it on his head. “Thank you. Now I get it, you don’t see the parasites do you?” You shake your head. “Yes, that explains why the staff here is so relaxed on banning them. They don’t know the truth.”

Mr. Hatter straightens his hat then leans closer to whisper into your ear. “Those aren’t robots, they’re failed experiments at reanimated corpses. Coming in contact with one results in you slowly becoming one. He sent them, and unless the shaymin finds a curse, PXR could fall just like the others.”

[Noblejanobii]

Chapter 6

You weren’t sure how to process this, your head still reeling from the inverted world you had caught a glimpse of. Though, Mr. Hatter wasn’t giving you much of a chance to process this, as he was already on the trail of another bot.

Reanimated corpses? He sent them? What for? Why could Mr. Hatter see them? Why couldn’t anyone else? So many questions and so little time!

You turn down an alley just in time to see Mr. Hatter take down another bot. He leaves the ban message then starts to move on when you reach out and stop him.

“What?” he snarls. He notices your expression and pauses. “You have questions. Look, I can’t explain now, I detect two more active spambots and I need to deal with them first. I can answer you after that. Deal?”

You begrudgingly nod and follow after Mr. Hatter as he pursues the other spambots. Before long two hours have past and you’re starting to get a bit tired. Keeping up with someone who is effectively a superhuman is much more difficult than it looks in the movies. Finally, you catch up to Mr. Hatter as he deals with the last spambot. He leans up against a nearby wall and watches you as you approach.

“Ready?” he asks quietly. You nod. He taps the wall with his foot, causing the wall to slide open beside him. He gestures for you to follow him inside. You glance around as you enter.

There is a neon sign just inside the door that reads “Prism Pub”. You quickly realize you’ve entered the exclusive Pokémon Prism club. Dr. Janobii was well known as a member, so it makes sense Mr. Hatter would be able to enter too. He leads you to a table and signals for a waiter. “A Sipsmith,” he says to the waiter. Mr. Hatter glances at you and then adds, “and a water for my guest.” The waiter scurries off to fetch the drinks. Mr. Hatter watches you silently until your waiter returns with the drinks. He takes a drink from his, then asks again, “Are you ready?” You nod again in response.

“Alright, here’s the deal.” Mr. Hatter pulls a deck of cards out of his sleeve and spreads them across the table. He picks up three and turns them over, revealing three images. The first is a picture of the original staff team for PXR, long before Dr. Janobii was ever a member. The second is of a young boy, innocent and child-like with a goofy grin, and the final is of an oily figure in the shape of something that resembles a man.

“Once upon a time, a group of people from a site known as PE2K sought refuge here. They thought they were safe until a malevolent face showed up on the forum.” Mr. Hatter glanced around before whispering, “MichaelXD.” You can practically hear the record scratch on the turntable when everyone in the bar glances towards your table. “At first he appears like this really kind kid and all, but it turns out he’s not and begins to attack the forum. But you know this story already. That’s not what I’m here to tell you.”

Mr. Hatter folds the cards together, shuffles them, then sets them as a deck in front of you. He gestures for you to take one. You pick it up and hand it back to him. Mr. Hatter waves his hand over it and an image appears in the air above it. “You want to know how spambots are really created? Here’s how.” A scene begins to play showing a graveyard containing all the inactive accounts on PXR. You knew there had been a few cases of the dead returning to life but the scene before you was definitely strange.

You watch as a figure walks through the darkness of the graveyard and stops by a grave. They begin to dig and unearth the body of a dead user. After digging up several more, the figure starts to carry them off. The image fades and is replaced with several of the bodies now on tables, obviously being experimented on. The background and figure are still obscured, but you watch as the corpses are reanimated and at first everything appears fine. However, a quick timelapse shows them deteriorating and devolving into spambots. Then, they escape into PXR.

At first, you believe it to be an accident, until you see the figure observing their escape. It had been on purpose! You squint at the image of the figure, attempting to figure out who they are. After a moment, you realize you recognize that avatar.

“Dr. Janobii,” you whisper by accident. You glance up at Mr. Hatter very quickly and are disturbed to see a wild grin on his face.

He winks at you and says, “Nothing personal, love, just business.” Pain explodes against your skull as you suddenly meet the floor. You see the bottom of a cane land in front of your face before taking another hit and slipping into darkness.

[Noblejanobii]

Chapter 7

When you come to, you blink a few times and try to become aware of your surroundings. You realize you’re inside a suspension tube, and you are not alone. Outside of your tube you can see several others floating, unconscious.

“Ah! Our latest guest is awake!” You look down to see Dr. Janobii, only she’s glitching out, her avatar appearing to be Mr. Hatter in certain places for split seconds. “Sorry, not really, but you know how it goes. I have orders. Mr. Hatter wasn’t lying. Someone on this forum is infected. An[/i]d[/i] it’s me!” She begins to cackle before pushing a button on a remote she’s holding.

The tank begins to fill with liquid and you start to panic. You can feel the voices inside your head growing more amplified with each passing second but you can do nothing to fight the flooding as you are soon submerged in the liquid. You fall unconscious again and when you awaken, you are in the center of PXR.

You look around and spot a nearby user. However, instead of greeting them per usual, a gut instinct kicks in and you lunge towards them, biting their shoulder. Their body contorts and they slowly change in shape, becoming more like you.

Nike coach spread contaminate. These are your only priorities now. Hopefully he will be proud.