The Secret 4th McElroy Brother, Dougie

Lup: Taako, do you love Kravitz?

Taako: Of course.

Lup: What about money?

Taako: Everyone loves money.

Stolen Century still happens, probably mostly the same. The canon divergence happens when we hit Faerûn.

Barry Bluejeans, under the power of the Voidfish, loses all knowledge of his history and context… but he retains his general smarts in science & magic.

Lup works for the Bureau of Balance. Under orders from Lucretia, she goes on secret missions to prevent Barry’s plans.

Barry is self-proclaimedly “evil”. He wants to destroy and/or take over the Moon. He doesn’t remember the real reason, so he makes up a new nonsense reason to hate it each week.

Tres Horny Boys are having their own wacky, highly improbable relic-getting adventures. These occasionally intersect with Barry and Lup’s fights.

To keep from being identified as Taako’s twin, Lup wears a disguise when she goes to fight Barry. Barry’s voidfish-scrambled brain literally cannot identify her without the disguise.

I GUESS Davenport is Lucretia’s unpaid intern

anyway. as you can probably tell if you are already familiar.

ID: A digital comic. First image is of Magnus, Taako, Lup, Lucretia, and Merle resting on a mall bench with a bunch of shopping bags. Magnus and Lucretia sitting opposite their companions. They all look in various degrees of bored and tiredness. Merle, a dwarf man, is asleep. Magnus, a human man, rests his head on his arms as his hands. Taako, an elven man in a wizard hat and a hoodie, mutters, "Who's great idea was it to give the van keys to Barold and Capt'n Port? It's gonna take like, two hours to track them down." Lup, holding a cellphone in one hand, raises her other hand to her face and shouts, "BLUE!" into the air. The second image shows a zoomed-out view of the group in the center of the busy mall. The following panel shows the same view, now with a word bubble from somewhere on the second floor, a responding "JEANS!" The third image zooms back in on the crew, all looking puzzled about the shouting, save Merle, who is still asleep. End ID.

it's their version of marco polo

Barry... doesn't give it to his mom. It would feel kind of disingenuous if he can't even put a picture inside it. But he doesn't take it back either. He meant to, for sure, but instead, it sits in the second cup holder of his car for years until he finally has someone riding with him and they try to put their cup down. Then, it stays in his pocket.

Barry is fifty-two and the locket is now a keepsake, a good luck charm, a fidget toy, whatever he needs. He wears it around his neck unless he's in the lab, then he puts it in his pocket. Years ago, when his mom had died, he had held onto it until he couldn't feel his hands anymore and it had left a heart-shaped imprint on his skin. It means something now, even if he can't open it.

He doesn't want to open it anymore. At least, he didn't think he did.

Barry is fifty-two and a half when he's sitting on the steps leading up to the lab, head in his hands. His car had broken down on the way over here and he really didn't have the means to fix it anymore, which meant he was either going to have to ride the bus (a bad idea, seeing as the nearest bus stop was two and a half miles away and Barry's body already had aches and pains) or find someone to carpool with.

Barry is fifty-two and a half when someone comes to sit next to him on the steps.

"Hey," she says. Barry looks up and is confronted with perhaps the most beautiful woman he has ever seen in his life. "I like your locket."

"Oh, uhm, this?" Barry holds the locket up by the chain. He had been messing with it because that's what he does when he's nervous now. "Thanks, but it's not much."

"Where'd you get it?" she asks. The locket glints a little in the morning light.

"A thrift store that, heh, that they tore down years ago. Sorry to disappoint."

"It's cool," she says. "Does it have a picture inside of it?"

"Maybe?" Barry says, scratching the back of his head. "I don't really know, I've never been able to open it."

"Want me to take a stab at it?" she asks. Barry would usually say no here. After the first dozen people had asked him that, he started to get a little worn out of the question. Really, he has no reason to trust that this woman would be any different. Or that she wouldn't just run off with it. But...

"Sure," he says, handing it to her.

Barry is fifty-two and a half when the woman takes the locket from him and rubs her thumb over the top of it gently. There's a very, very small click! and she pops it open.

"How- how in the world did you do that?" Barry asks, amazed. The woman presses her thumb to the picture inside, smiling affectionately. When she passes it back over to him, she says,

"It used to belong to my husband."

The picture inside is definitely her, at least on one side of the locket. On the other side, there's room for a second photo. It's in black and white, but the faces that look up at him are very familiar. The woman, on the left, with her hair pinned back. She has her arm around a man and they're both smiling like there was no one in the world they could love more than each other.

But Barry's hands are shaking. Because the man next to the woman isn't just anybody.

It's him.

"I think we have a lot of catching up to do," the woman says.

"Who are you?" Barry breathes, clutching the locket to his chest.

Overall

Taako

Lup

Barry

Magnus

Lucretia

Merle

Davenport

Carey

Killian

Griffin: You find yourselves in a–

shower thoughts

ID: A gif some digitally drawn frames of Sir Fitzroy Maplecourt. He is a half elven man with short hair, wearing glasses, and a fine tunic with a cape. His hands are stretched forward while a powerful ball of lightening flashes in his hands. His eye glow and also give off a spark of lightening. He looks tensed and focused, his cape billowing from the radiant energy. End ID]