Thoth was simultaneously surprised and not surprised that the badfic existed.

After all, he knew the nooks and crannies of the Internet well. He knew that many Doom fans liked to sabotage the Wolfenstein 3D fandom by promoting the assumption that Wolf 3D fans were all a bunch of Nazis. He knew that many kids of the average badficcer age were radicalized by the Internet and had become terrible edgelords, if they hadn't outright joined the alt-right. To be honest, he didn't care which group the author of this Legendary belonged to.

That didn't mean that he wasn't still shocked.

"Of course it had to be him," muttered Thoth under his breath. "There was no better guy to get Stu'd. There was nothing that could make the fic more potent than that."

He continued walking down the hallways of Episode 3's Reichstag. "And since he brutally murdered BJ Blazkowicz, it's up to me to bring down the entirety of the regime."

Thoth rounded a corner and spied a Guard watching him. Blond hair and blue eyes like the rest. He was about to raise his gun when the Guard suddenly started as if waking up from a dream, looked around in a panic, then lifted his hands up.

"Don't shoot! Don't shoot!"

Thoth approached the enemy. "You can speak English?"

"Yeah! Listen... I'm not going to hurt you."

"Why should I believe that?"

"I- I know you. You're Thoth. I've seen you on the Board."

"What the hell...?" Thoth looked at the Guard in confusion.

He extended his hand. "I'm Tom. The guy who got sent on this mission last time."

"I never heard about anyone going on this mission before, but okay." He shook Tom's hand.

"Huh, hS never told you? Weird, I wonder what incentives he has to do that. Anyway, this is what happened. I was about to engage the Stu in combat when he looked at me with this hypnotizing stare... and then... I don't know what happened. I think I was brainwashed into working as a Guard this whole time, but for some reason, looking at you made me suddenly recover."

Thoth nodded. "What about me would cause you to suddenly gain consciousness again?"

"I have no idea..." A bead of sweat rolled down his face.

Thoth smiled a bit while he took note of that. Then he stopped. "Wait. I think I killed a decoy that looked like someone I knew. That's bad."

Tom shook his head. "There's been another? Wow. Huinesoron just won't rest until this mission is complete. Anyway, is there a way I can be of any help to you here?"

"Come with me. If we work together, it'll be easier to find and defeat the guy."

"Alright."

They continued walking, conversing, and laughing, pausing every so often to shoot other enemies, until they came to Floor 9. As they opened the elevator door, a chill went down Tom's spine.

"Oohhh... I'm terrified. This place just brings back so many memories."

"Don't worry, babe," Freudian-slipped Thoth, "I'll protect you."

"...babe?"

"Er... I'm gay, so..."

"Oh phew! That's great! My feelings aren't invalid after all."

"That's what made you wake up. My hotness." He hair flipped.

They both doubled over laughing. Then Tom wiped his eyes and stood up. "Listen, I know a good pushwall that we can hide behind and recuperate." He walked across to the end of the hallway and leaned on a painting. Thoth noted that the decoy that should've been in the middle of the room was absent - it must have been the one he'd killed.

In a nice clean manner that definitely isn't more substitution for the building of romantic chemistry, Thoth and Tom did nothing but talk and embrace as they sat by rows upon rows of health packs and ammo... when a figure walked in with swaying hips.

Tom was the first to spot her. "That is one sultry decoy."

Thoth whipped around. "Oh, she's not dead! Joy!"

"What a shame," purred the girl, light shining off her glasses. "Someone's gotten into my storage. Could it be that you're the one who murdered all my boys?" She took out a tube of black lipstick and began reapplying it, analagous to a certain feature of the male decoys and no doubt meant to evoke a similar state of fear.

"Oh dear," whispered Tom.

"Look, it is. It's Thoth! Do you need healing, boy?" Then she turned to Tom and regained her smile. "But you... I like you."

Thoth grabbed Tom's arm, eyes narrowed. "Don't listen to her. It's Twistey, but she's fallen under the same spell you had."

"Do we want to kill her? I mean, it's thanks to her that we know all about this place that we do."

"We're not going to kill her unless we absolutely have to." At that moment, the Twisteycoy put her hand on his shoulder.

"Alright."

"Be careful!" Thoth clenched his teeth, pointing to what was going on.

"Don't worry, babe, I've got this handled." He turned to the Twisteycoy. "If your heart was true, you would not be acting this way. Besides, no way I'm not going to be faithful to Thoth."

She took her hand off and grinned maniacally. "You're right. I'm faithful too. Don't take it personally, they kill gay people here, and while I don't really subscribe to that, I know I'll be greatly rewarded if I finish you off."

"You dirty, dirty girl," muttered Thoth, "you're breaking your own rules."

Tom shrugged. "Brainwashed, remember?"

She blinked, and in that instant her eyes became solid black. Tom felt a burning sensation as she slowly began to conjure twin fireballs into existence in her hands.

Thoth frantically looked at his new lover. "Run!"

Hand in hand, they made a mad dash for the door.

Maniacally laughing, the strange Twistey-creature levitated into the air and began flying down the hallway after them. Floor 9 being the small floor that it was, they didn't have too many places to go, and were soon cornered inside a hallway. Twistey blocked two of the three doors, but they knew there was a far worse enemy waiting behind the third one.

Standing back to back, Thoth pulled out his chain gun and Tom pulled out his pistol.

"You sure this isn't going to kill her?" questioned Tom.

"I used this very same gun to 'kill' her the first time and she only passed out," replied Thoth. "Fire away!"

BANG, BANG, BANG went the pistol.
RATATATATATATATATATAT went the chain gun.

The pair dodged fireballs left and right, in a way that definitely isn't because I'm too lazy to write a proper action scene, and soon Twistey lay down on the floor unconscious again.

"Whew," breathed Tom, wiping his forehead with the sleeve of his uniform. "That was insane."

"I am... exhausted," said Thoth. "But... oh God. I just remembered. This isn't over yet. We're not safe yet."

As if on cue...
CLANK... CLANK... CLANK...

Tom jumped. "You're right! But what do I do, I only have my pistol!"

Thoth thought for a bit as the footsteps slowly approached. "You take Twistey back to HQ. She won't do any damage under Huinesoron's watchful eyes. I'll fight this horror alone."

"You sure you want to-"

"He's about to come through the door! GO!"

Tom took the unconscious body onto his shoulder and bolted for the elevator door. Perhaps, he thought, if Thoth broke my curse, then we can find some Lust Object for Twistey who will break hers. "Take care," he whispered under his breath.

Thoth stood ready on the opposite end of the hallway as the Gary Stu approached him. He watched it off the reflective surface of his watch to avoid looking into its eyes. It paused before the two doors that led out. Then it spoke.

"Zhoth. Don't make zis boring. I have an offer for you. You have ten seconds to get a headstart running."

Thoth said nothing, but aimed his chain gun.

"Don't even try. I am unstoppable... and I sense that somevere in your mind, you know zat."

Thoth muttered something under his breath.

"I guess I'll begin counting. Ten... Nine... Eight... Seven... Six... Five..."

Thoth squinted his eyes closed and ran forwards in a blur, screaming a battle cry and opening fire. Nothing seemed to be happening from what he was gathering with his other four senses. On instinct, he blinked open his eyes to see what was going on, and then... it was too late.

Thoth's grip on his gun began to slip. Every muscle started to freeze. He fell to the ground. Everything went black...

---

"Give me two seconds and she'll be sober." Huinesoron extended a flat hand to the girl's face.

"No! No, that's not the right way to go," yelped Tom. "I fear that's not going to work."

"Then what's your theory?"

"Okay, so my brainwashing was undone by Thoth, and he's hot, so we need to find her an LO that will make that work."

The British man brought his hands up to squeeze his face. "Are you and Thoth in love now?! Awwww!" Then he regained his composure. "This won't be too hard. She has many Lust Objects."

"Most of them are villains or antiheroes, though, and I have another hunch that that won't work either."

"Oh dear..." He sighed, then checked his watch. "Shouldn't Thoth be here by now if he killed our target?"

"Yeah, he should... oh. Oh." Tom almost dropped Twistey in despair. "This only means one thing."

"Yes, Tom. He rescued you, now it's your turn to rescue him."

Tom handed Twistey to Huinesoron, then stood up straight. "I absolutely will do that."

"Not dressed like a Nazi you won't."

Tom slapped himself. "Hey, think of it as infiltration."

"You're getting too used to that uniform."

"Huineso-"

The oldbie held up a finger leading to the Response Centers. "GO, Tom."

And so, Tom went, strategizing as he went about how to save Thoth.

---

Huinesoron brooded.

Huinesoron brooded quite a lot: every evening he brooded over what to watch on the television, what to eat for dinner, and whether he had time for a quick brooding session before bed. His preferred brooding attire was his black cloak, which he thought framed his cheekbones very nicely indeed. On this occasion, he was wearing it over a black tunic and black trousers, to achieve the proper brooding ambience.

The door to his office swung open, and Kaitlyn strolled in. She was wearing a corset - not as part of an evil-villainess-slash-dominatrix outfit or anything, she just liked corsets. "Uh-oh," she said, stopping short of the desk. "I know that look."

Huinesoron sighed deeply (an excellent addition to any brooding activity) and looked up. "Hello, my love."

"Hi yourself." Kaitlyn crossed the remaining space and perched on the edge of the desk. "What'cha brooding about?"

The British elf sighed again and waved a hand at the sofa. "Her."

Kaitlyn scrutinized the unconscious form of Twistey. "Hmm. Another one of your failed missions?"

Huinesoron quirked an eyebrow. "I assumed you'd make some kind of joke about her being passed out on my settee."

Kaitlyn snorted and rolled her eyes. "That would hardly be an appropriate joke... so what's the problem with this one? There must be a problem; you don't normally sulk at work."

"I'm not sulki-" Huinesoron cut himself off. "Apparently she won't snap out of her brainwashing - oh, yeah, she's been magically brainwashed - until we find a Lust Object for her."

"What, that's it?" Kaitlyn rubbed her hands together briskly. "Shouldn't be too hard. What about Zingenmir?"

"I think she's gone on a trip with Novastorme."

"Delta, then?" Kaitlyn frowned. "Or Juliette; I've never been sure which-"

"She and Tomash were going to 'work on the network permissions'." Huinesoron glanced at his computer. "Since we don't have a network right now, I figure they'll be a while."

"Heh." Kaitlyn pursed her lips. "Alleb, then? I know she's free."

"Have you met Alleb? She'd never go for it. And anyway, I think-"

"Well, Nesh certainly will-"

"-that Twistey's actually straight."

Kaitlyn stopped staring at him. "Well, what's the point of that, then?"

"You see my problem," the elf murmured. "I've been scouring my board for a solution..." He waved at the cork-board behind him, which was covered in photographs, pieces of string, and random scraps of paper.

Kaitlyn eyed the setup. "You're about to explain this all to me, aren't you?"

Huinesoron beamed. "Well, red string links people I know have been in a relationship at some point; blue is people I'm pretty sure won't ever hook up. Then the pin colour says what sort of relationship they had, so pink is romantic, yellow is love/hate, black is-"

"Yes, yes, all right." Kaitlyn hopped down from the desk and walked round to study the board. "So... looking at this, it seems she's already got a bit of a thing going with Voyd, right? Why not just get them back together?"

"Ah. About that." Huinesoron turned to the unpowered computer, caught himself halfway. "Perhaps it's best if I just show you... come on, give me a hand with her."

---

Twistey (not that she knew she was Twistey at that moment) came to in a brick-lined, grey-floored, and extremely rectangular corridor. She got to her feet with a jerky motion, like a puppet with one too few strings, and looked around. There was nothing of note nearby, so - without even a shrug - she set off down the hallway.

A few corners later, she came to something that was definitely of note. The wall in front of her simply did not fit with the rest of her surroundings: it cut the corridor at an angle, was shot through with glowing green lights, and most alarmingly of all, appeared to be rendered in realistic graphics.

Deep in Twistey's brain, the small part of her that was still her realised that this wall could not be dealt with by the standard NPC interactions (being: A, shoot it, or B, ignore it). She was going to have to do something... different.

She stepped closer. "... hello?"

"Hello?" The voice that came back was extremely faint, almost blocked by the wall. "Is someone there?"

"Well, hi there..." But that was the decoy talking, turning her voice into a low purr. Twistey shook herself and tried again. "Hi! Are you... I mean, who's that?"

"It's... is that you, Twistey?" The voice was stronger now, recognisable as Voyd despite the distortion of the wall. "What's going on? I was... hS sent me on a mission, and then I got trapped behind this... this massive red firewall."

"Huh." Twistey looked closer at the wall in front of her. It was most definitely green. "I think there might be two of them between us. It feels..." She frowned, rubbing at her eyes with one hand. "Familiar, somehow."

"Can you get me out?" Voyd pleaded. "There must be some sort of control - a button or a lever or, I don't know, anything."

"I'll see..." But the moment was passing. Now that she knew there was nothing behind the wall that she needed to shoot, the decoy was quite willing to file it under category B, 'ignore'. Twistey's mind slipped away, and the brainwashing was back in control. "... you some other time, lover," she purred, and strolled away, leaving Voyd to hammer helplessly at the wall.

Behind her, Huinesoron slipped off the invisibility cloak that had been covering him and Kaitlyn. "You see?" he said. "The Fun Control Walls don't bring them together - they divide them. And without the physical proximity to her lust object..."

"Yeah, I saw." Kaitlyn pushed her hair back from her face. "Back to the office, then? I'm sure there'll be something on the board to help."

"Yeah." Huinesoron gazed after Twistey's departing form. "Uh... do you think she'll be okay here? I don't much fancy trying to knock her out myself."

"I'm sure she'll be fine." Kaitlyn slipped her hand through the crook of his elbow. "Come on - the sooner we sort this, the sooner we can head home..."