The Agent Archives Idea: Sanitized Agents
"Wait didn't you already do this for chapters 19 and 20 of the story?" Yes but this is different I swear because this time they're ALL sanitized-
This idea I had sometime after this first idea and it kinda slightly builds on The Thing a bit more?
Something I haven't really brought up a lot (because The Thing hasn't been properly introduced into the lore yet) but when fused, Jewel, Autumn, Derek, and Monica are kept in a box, similar to the one seen here. The box grows and shrinks based on how much control The Thing wants them to have, either because the agents just had more sheer willpower to control the body or because The Thing sees it as an advantage to have them pilot it around for a while. The agents have a big control panel they can use for various actions that right now is basically the control panel from Inside Out (placeholder brain image until I think of an actual design). This is ALSO in the brain box unless The Thing wants to take control and shove the agents into the small box to contain them, thereby cutting off their access to the control panel.
I bring up the box for this concept because the box is important. The box actually protects the agents from the darker parts of their minds that The Thing will manifest to scare them out of any attempt to break out of the box and shoo them away from the box's walls/floor/ceiling. For example, if Derek comes too close to a wall, his dad might suddenly appear outside the box and angrily bang on the walls to scare him away. With Monica, it might be her mom showing up and screaming in pain. For Jewel, it might be Maya telling her off for various things (like not being a strong leader). For Autumn, it might be- WHOA SPOILERS! Haha, just kidding! She'll be haunted by the memory of her family! TLDR; box = good actually because it protects the agents from things that might harm them otherwise, even though The Thing sometimes uses it as a timeout corner.
BUT WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE BOX GOES AWAY? Well here's where the idea begins! (And before I continue there is a 50-50 chance this never actually gets written into The Agent Archives because I actually have no clue how The Thing would get captured in the first place because it's so powerful.)
So SOMEHOW The Thing gets captured by Skylar Rose or Phoenix or someone and gets fully sanitized as an experiment. Now The Thing already is partially sanitized. It's only visible in the blue ink color in its hair, and it shifts depending on what power level it's at.
(Normal The Thing vs Hyper Mode The Thing aka the "OH NO THE AGENTS HAVE ZERO CONTROL WHATSOEVER AND IT NOW HAS ACCESS TO TRIPLE SPLASHDOWN" form)
So now imagine The Thing fully sanitized:
This was my Halloween pfp a couple years ago and was not meant to be canon at all and still actually isn't
The agents have no clue what's going on because The Thing shoved them into a tiny box. They're basically trapped there, waiting until The Thing finishes whatever it's doing. Normal time being fused more or less. Until suddenly the box shatters, and Jewel, Autumn, Derek, and Monica plummet into the depths of whatever lies underneath the control panel's level. The agents recover from their fall, and aren't even sure where in The Thing's mind they are, IF they're even still inside its mind. As they're trying to figure out what happened, they suddenly find themselves self-sanitizing. Derek and Autumn have been fully sanitized before but this is entirely new to Jewel, who was partially sanitized before, and Monica, who was never sanitized. All four agents are extremely confused about: A.) why they're sanitized, and B.) why their personalities and souls are still intact. In their attempts to get back to the control panel, the four learn that the sanitization was The Thing's last ditch attempt to save itself, as its gone into unconsciousness and cannot save itself by itself anymore. And with the protection of the box gone, the agents now face the dangers of their own minds hunting them down....
