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TW: Possibly heavy topics? Read at your own discretion

Me Ladam, and this is my Alfred Alfer fanfic.

Alfred Alfredo's Rainbow Playhaus - an Alfred Alfer crossover fanfic by Ladam

-Chapter 1-

He sat in the corner of the room, eyes straying from the shadowy, black capped figure sitting knees up in the corner opposite. The thundrous rhythmic clanging of wood became background noise as Alfred Alfredo pondered. On one hand, it was good to be away from home. On the other, no one knew where the Veiled State Police were taking them.

Alfred's mind wandered back to his once local ice cream parlour where he liked to gnaw on popsicles while his friends doodled and talked of fashion, actors, Dietrich, Veidt. Those thoughts were broken by a small gliding shape in the center of the room. The shape drew ever closer, like two folds of crumpled paper fluttering. Alfred's whiskers briefly flared as it blocked his entire view and landed on his wet nose. A butterfly had somehow made its way inside a moving train car.

"So is this the end of the road?" came a voice from the other canine in the room. Black cap, black coat, tear styled under-eye eyeliner.

"I miss my real parents. The dreidel in my pocket is all I have left from them." replied Alfred as the butterfly raised and lowered its colourful wings in front of his face, slightly lifting his mood and making him feel more effeminate.

"Have you ever read from Anarchist author Lee Shevek?" inquired the pitbull in black as he flipped a gold ring side to side along his fingers, center stone presenting a green winged diamond shaped symbol.

Brow slightly furled, Alfred responded, "Beezlejuice, you sure talk a lot about autonomy and consent for an ex-mortician who writes poems about fictional corpses."

Beezlejuice blinked thrice in rapid succession as he fumbled the ring out of his hands, center stone falling out and rolling toward the third person in the car. The third person was a man in a suit, human, lying on his side in the fetal position, awake the whole time.

The human spoke: "My name is Agent Daniel Coopington, and I may be able to get us out of here." Alfred stared at Coopington for a moment as Coopington's passive gaze met the floor. Alfred turned his head to his right, past an empty corner, and noticed by how the scenic trees were moving that the train was slowing to a stop. He turned his head back a sharp left to notice Beezlejuice in the corner.

"I believe our backup is close. They're wearing red lensed goggles," spoke Dan with his eyes narrowed. "Long coat, lots of sleeve garters, upper medium build."

Beezlejuice looked to Alfred and said "I have no idea what he's talking about."

Daniel continued, "Their face is wrapped with kercheifs tied around the back like a makeshift balaclava. They have holsters. Their clothing is all black." The butterfly took flight from Alfred's nose, and Alfred waved goodbye as the beautiful creature fluttered on its way toward the open door, turning to the right as the sun shone on its wings. Birds could be heard, along with something like a watering can splashing for a minute.

A crispy, masculine voice in vocal fry could be heard from outside: "Wait for me a sec? Just gotta swish and flick my stick." A moment passed before a dark figure moved into view from the right of the door, long black combat boot making its first step inside the car and lifting the rest of its body up. The figure fit whatever Dan was describing to a T, and it gestured to shake Alfred's, and then Daniel's hands. They both shook their heads in rejection, and a short snort could be heard from Beezle. The figure in goggles leaned his back against the train door for a long moment, seemingly lost in thought before reaching into his interior coat pocket to pull out three small, flat square boxes: two metal, and one tupperware with creamed corn in it. Dan stood up as Hank handed a metal box to him, and the remaining metal and tupperware ones to Alfred. Daniel pointed to the tupperware before Alfred could pocket it, and their eyes met as Alfred lent an ear.

Dan explained, "It's spoiled garmonbozia. Use it if you need to." Alfred slowly slid the boxes into his coat pockets before the train started back up. Alfred's foot shifted in startlement to the motion before he stared up at the person in red goggles. He recognized him. This was Hank J. Wimbleton. Hank hesitated before slowly placing a hand on Alfred's shoulder. "It's gonna be alright, Alfred. It's gonna be alright. We'll make it out of here," Hank reassured.

Alfred replied with a tilted head, "Looking spiffy, Hank. Nice to meet you, Dan. Heard the doors can reroute again. Can we get everyone off this train safely? Every prisoner? There are a lot of guards, and I know some of these people. Please don't mess up." A tear welled up in Alfred's eye.

Hank took a breath and responded, "Don't worry Alfred, I'm pretty sure I'm not even human."

"Whatever. Tell me when the pathway's open," Alfred replied with his expression freezing over. They all waited a minute before Alfred spoke up again, "To quote the Talmud, whoever kills a life kills the world, and whoever saves a life saves the world," he paused, "Hank, can I borrow a gun?" Hank pulled a pistol from inside his coat (He had about four, one left in his coat and two on his thighs) and handed it handle side to Alfred, who pulled the slide in a press check before hiding it in his own coat.

Hank pulled his wristwatch up to his eyes, "The path is open. As soon as I'm through. Good luck, everyone," he alerted everyone and bid farewell as he turned to face the next car door. A sword with a dragon headed pommel could be seen sheathed to Hank's back, and Alfred pretended he didn't see that nonsense. Hank slid the door, stepped between the cars, and closed it. Alfred opened the door, and there was a more vast, red carpeted space than before inside it. Alfred stepped inside and closed the door as he and Daniel waved bye to each other. Stepping through the hall door brought him to a building wide auditorium, the Playhaus theater. He's been here before. He'll be here for awhile.

-Chapter 2-

What Alfred didn't recognize was the square glass pane on a random part of the floor nearby, down the stairs, and what seemed like a room that could be viewed through it. He went down to take a closer look. It was a perfectly square room full of empty bookcases under a windowed floor. A plaque near it read "The Empty Library, by Micha Ullman." Alfred pondered the theater's new feature, looking back and forth between the projection screen and the square room before he noticed two people in seats. One of them was Beezlejuice.

'Beezlejuice, lord of the morgue,' Alfred thought to himself. The other was in a slightly tattered pinstripe suit with something that looked like huge spider legs around the top of the lapel, or torn wings on a bat shaped bow tie? This one was wearing some sort of really expressive cartoon skull mask dangling on a spine. It was Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King. Alfred waved hi to Jack. Jack had a few aliases: one was Sans, which was an acronym for Stephanie After Not Surviving, or Steven After Not Surviving. Jack was a genderfluid woman of colour who was reanimated as a skeleton. Jack joked that it was the work of German scientists, or was it a joke? Alfred wasn't sure. Lack of skin made gender ambiguity even easier for them, but it had its cons.

Jack waved at Alfred and said "hey" back. They'd convene around Jack's seat and flick through movie lists with a remote like it was a streaming service, Jack and Alfred having all the theater to themselves. Titled covers showed on screen: 'Cabaret', 'The Lovely Bones', 'Fight Club', 'The Golden Compass', 'Repo! The Great Genetic Opera', '9', 'Bayonetta', 'Freedom Planet 2', 'The Aristocats'. They settled on The Aristocats and had a great time watching while conversating because they'd already seen it before. They'd talk about how copyright laws for ideas are like real-estate for oxygen, how fiction and reality mirror each other, how important fiction is, how telling one's own story is important to a person's sanity, writers' struggles, how the brain can retain 5 billion books but it's easy to pollute, how much of an uphill battle life is for the illiterate. They talked about the issues of homelessness and how anyone can become homeless while the scene where O'Malley teaches everyone how to cast the 'breakfast spell' played.

Next, they'd talk about Greek stories, like Eros and Psyche; a mortal princess named Psyche was worshiped for her beauty, making Aphrodite jealous enough to set a plague upon Psyche's land that only her sacrifice could end. Psyche's father wept and sent her to die on a mountain. Eros, son of Aphrodite, was to be the executioner, but he fell in love and romanced Psyche instead, until Aphrodite intervened. She sent Psyche on deadly tasks for her freedom, though gods, ants and passersby were compelled to help with them for Psyche's sake, before Aphrodite killed her. A tearful Eros asked why subjective opinions of beauty mattered so much to Aphrodite before abandoning her forever, giving Aphrodite hysterical grief.

Alfred and Jack enjoyed talking about these stories and their traces in modern media. Next, they shared memories of pain and bliss, as well as their weeks before the recent catastrophe. Jack mentioned recent political tensions between Halloween Town and Walpurgisnacht. Alfred spoke more about his distant past, giving more details about how Hank and As saved him from being either murdered or trafficked by his abusive aunt and uncle, who were jealous of his parents' butterfly paintings. Hank helped Alfred escape by posing as a hitman, and As helped him find jobs and housing. After the recounting, Alfred told Jack that he wished he knew if his parents were still alive. Jack comforted him. Time passed by as they sat in each others' company.

Eventually, Alfred checked his phone. He read the time displayed on it next to a Lee Shevek article. Alfred told Jack that he was regretful to say he had to go and made a small complaint about needing to save the world. They hugged and Jack warned Alfred about some troublemakers in the alley joined parking lot outside. They waved and parted. Alfred stepped outside into the lot and reminisced about his parents. They'd work on a butterfly painting together sometimes, planning each other's strokes or occasionally flowing freely like they could read each other's minds. His skepticism of religion never bothered them, they just wanted him to be okay and follow his dreams. Alfred's thoughts were interrupted by a commotion coming from an alley entrance, prompting him to resume task and pull the small metal box from his coat. Flipping it open revealed an earpiece with a clear wire.

"Where's my Uncle Ben!?" could be heard in a distraught, cracking voice that Alfred was all too familiar with. There were three men: two in shoddy costumes and one in a suit. One was wearing web patterned silly string sprayed tights, one with some bat ears and a cape with a thin blue line on it, and the one in the suit had a styled, patchy beard and neck length hair. They were Spider Specimen, Bat Body and John Wickerman, and they looked like a gang you'd find in a manga for how original they were. They went around harassing homeless people while John, a cop, supervised them. Alfred thought John would look pretty fine if he had neither the proclivity to harass homeless people or boast while waving his badge around. John looked like Keanu Reeves. Spider Specimen ran out into the lot as the others followed at a walk's pace. He threw open a car door and searched frantically while shouting "Where's my bobblehead!? I named him Uncle Ben!"

Alfred slipped into the shadows by the walls, fitting his earpiece in to check on the team. "I'm here, Coop," he whispered.

Daniel responded, "Hello, Alfred. I've got Alfred on the line, Albert! Alfred, tell us if you need a door rerouted closer to your destination, though we risk being traced if you do so."

Bat Body's gruff voice could be heard from a distance, "Hurry up, Patin. We haven't got all day!" Alfred's eyes widened as John's directly met his.

John raised a breathy voice, "Oh, I really hate dogs. Bats, let me borrow your gun!"

"Go get your own gun!" Bat Body snapped back.

"I've gotta do all the real work myself," John complained while power walking towards Alfred. Alfred could feel time slow down as John came within meters of him. Alfred closed his eyes, twisted his body as the fear and adrenaline built up in him, and he started pirouetting. Alfred overestimated his momentum because he didn't have to expose his back to an opponent twice in half a second, and he was pretty sure his foot was going to kill John, so he put some brakes on it. John collapsed after his abdomen collided with Alfred's foot, and it was in that moment Alfred understood that taking the red pill had granted him the privilege of powning people with sickass super-human kung Fu.

John clutched his belly, legs reeling into his chest. Spider Specimen dropped to the ground on all fours in fear, arms and legs retracting into his body like a spider doing a death curl.

Bat Body whipped out a pistol and shouted, "Everybody get down! Dogs are what murdered my parents!" A shot landed on the wall next to the right of Alfred's head and Alfred jumped to the left, drew his pistol, turned his body to reduce his profile and pulled the trigger with Bat Body roughly in his sights. Alfred missed, his gun jammed, and two more shots landed next to him.

He made a run for it, shouting, "Mr. Wizard, get me the hell out of here!"

Coop responded through the other end of Alfred's earpiece, "Albert, reroute his next door!" Two more shots flew past Alfred as he sprinted for the door on the building at the other end of the lot. It was just ten yards away. Another shot ripped past and he swore he could see the bullet in front of his eyes as its doppler effect became most audible. He rammed his arm against the door, harming it in his haste before properly throwing it open by the handle and slipping through. A shot ripped through the door as it slammed shut, and the bullet hole emitted light for a split second. Alfred faced the door he came through, breathing heavy before opening it back up to discover a dark storage room inside. He made it. He dropped his hands to his knees before noticing fingers on the floor. They flexed. Decaying arms sprouted up in an instant, towering over him, hands grasping at his head. He screamed and they disappeared. Those probably weren't real, but he still had new trauma to deal with: he almost killed, and he almost was killed.

-Chapter 3-

On the other hand, Alfred had made it to his destination, near three elevators at the end of a very dimly lit hall. He noticed someone in a skirt and purple-black striped knee-socks stumbling around, a white furred Nubian goat. It was As, Asriel Dreemurr. Asriel was a pretty clean guy, but Alfred wondered if he had become inebriated because he just turned 21. Asriel started twisting and contorting his body, giving Alfred great concern.

Alfred reached his hand out and Asriel caught a glimpse of him while spinning around, shouting "Beware... of... Bob!" in a strained voice. Asriel's shoulder hit the floor before he started rolling around, and Alfred rushed over in a panic. He tried to hold As still, but As just hissed before his face returned to sorrow. "I absorbed his soul!" Asriel cried, head rocking back and forth and once smacking into the floor as Alfred thought to pull out the tupperware of spoiled creamed corn, ripping off the lid and throwing the container at Asriel, splashing creamed corn against him. Asriel stopped, panting heavy. He didn't seem injured, but any impact to the head is cause for concern. It seemed that whatever spirit had possessed him was gone. Alfred and Asriel shook hands and gave each other the dap hug before Asriel gave Alfred a key. Alfred put it in a lock next to the elevator, it opened to reveal Hank and Beezlejuice, and they all waved goodbye as Alfred joined them.

"Nice job kicking ass, Alfred." went Beezlejuice.

The elevator ride took at least five minutes before Alfred got antsy. He felt as vulnerable as a caterpillar climbing a tree. Memories resurfaced of his aunt and uncle, how they said he'd never be loved or married, how his chores kept getting harder or infeasible, how they joked about marrying him to the male butler despite their homophobia. They told him they were responsible for the thugs who trashed his parents' art stalls. They were all this and very focused on their religion.

"Hey," Hank interrupted Alfred's thoughts, "Have you ever heard about the story of the hummingbird by Wangari Maathai?" Hank asked. Alfred shook his head. Hank went on about animals transfixed on a forest fire, and a hummingbird flying to a stream of water, taking a droplet into its beak. The animals watched as it flew back over to the fire to spit it out. The elephant asked it what it was doing, and it said "everything I can." It kept flying laps around while everyone else stood there, commenting on its little beak, its little wings, its little body. They were all much larger, but they didn't do anything. The hummingbird never quit. It never wasted time.

Hank concluded the story, and Alfred was left feeling somewhat better. The elevator didn't really indicate the number of floors it was climbing, but rather it had lights going up horizontal sections of a pyramid with a circle atop. Hank spoke again, "Once we cut the head off the snake, things will get better. Things will get a little unpredictable. More people will feel real love and real grief for the first time, and they'll never stop feeling it. They'll all have to learn to trust each other, but in the end, that's all we can do. All we can do is trust." Alfred kept his smile on Hank, wagging his tail. The circle atop the LED pyramid lit up, and the doors opened. A white void became apparent, and Neo was standing in the middle of it, about 8 yards from the elevator. He looked like Keanu Reeves.

"You will not take my paridise away," Neo said in a calm indoor voice, heard as though he were standing right next to them.

Alfred looked at Hank and said, "My gun's-"

but he was cut off as Hank rushed out shouting "Now's our chance!" Hank reached for his sword, drawing it and slicing down at thin-air before underhand throwing it up behind his back, drawing a pistol, and shooting up into the spinning blade before the handle landed in his grasp. Neo was holding his palm out. A small object hovered before him. It was Hank's bullet.

Neo raised his voice, "You think direct violence can hurt me here? I have systemic violence." Neo thrust out his palms and Alfred woke up in a red, fleshy pod. Alfred pushed his nose and curled hand-paws into the membrane, stretching it out until he popped through the top. He pulled a feeding tube out of his mouth and tried shaking his fur dry, but the slightly viscuous liquid he was floating in was stuck to him, and he had no fur. He was in the power plant of 01, more vivid than what was described to him, and it terrified him. It was a sea of clouds crowded with cylindrical towers lined with pods, arcs of lightning travelling between, and there was a slight ozone smell. He looked at himself to find inch wide cables attached to his body and limbs.

Trinity descended in a hovering, gigeresque throne, wearing a more revealing, fantasy themed body-suit than she did in the Matrix. They started talking, with Alfred's voice being a little weaker than he expected from disuse in the real world. Trinity told Alfred that Hank was also awoken before any harm could be done to him, and that it was thanks to them they could retrieve more of the source code that Neo kept within him.

She explained with a slightly somber expression that the real Neo is dead, and that "the one you encountered was a copy of Neo's mind in the format of a program. Long after the Analyst resurrected me and Neo, we began acquiring more abilities within the Matrix, and one of Neo's was of one way telepathy. Neo couldn't control what thoughts he was reading and when, which chipped away at his sanity, especially when reading the struggles of the homeless population. The depth and passion of each thought was too much for him to bear. Eventually, we had a deadly fight, and I killed him by accident... After grieving over his loss, I started reading minds too, so I locked myself in a white void until I could control it, just like the one I locked him in. He's probably unaware of anything right now, including the glitch rerunning 1930s simulation code we all just fixed."

Trinity told Alfred just how similar she realized people and machines are after she could read minds at will, that she learned to love every person and program as much as she loved Neo, and that 01's power plant isn't really a power plant at all. The machines already bored into the Earth to harness geothermal energy, converting some of it into artificial light to grow food for people. Besides using some people's brains for processing power, the power plant was actually mostly an entertainment center. The Matrix's prototype, 'Paradise', ran perfectly because it just required that people be together and acquire needs like sustenance and expressive outlets. The machines just didn't have much interest in 'Paradise' for humans because of their disdain for them after the human-machine war, and because of a bug where humans who experienced too much bliss woke up from the Matrix. That bug was fixed shortly after.

The second Matrix, 'Nightmare', greatly entertained a portion of both machines and humans, but it couldn't be sustained due to the trauma drastically lowering peoples' functionality. Panic attacks were frequent. The solution was a version similar to the current simulation, keeping the idea of paradise just out of reach, and before the human resistance took more ground, it was and still very much is "like a world in which everyone has no mouth and must scream. They oppress us because they're jealous of us, because we know how to have fun without them. That's why they kept us in workplaces." After hearing this, Alfred recalled a motivational poster comparing an employee's time spent working to the hero's journey in the monomyth, and that memory disturbed him almost as much as these towers lined with human pods.

Alfred took deep, slow breaths while pondering all this before he could reply, saying "So what's our takeaway from this, that the oppressed machines turned the tides and became the oppressors? I don't like that message. I don't like anything that just happened before I got here, save for catching up with a few friends. I don't like that anyone, flesh or machine, with such convenient access to data, can perpetuate and pass down such a cycle of abuse. I refuse to believe that one who commits or believes in committing atrocities has either real knowledge of history or experienced an inkling of transgenerational trauma. Being safe and miserable is an insignificant amount of suffering to have in comparison to that. What does the intersectionality of humans and machines in the city of 01 even look like? Who's been writing the story of my life?

"What monster of an author has been inflicting pain on those in my real life for their cause? Can the readers not prefer more pleasure and less pain? more comedy and less tragedy? more joy and less grief? These are things we demand, without compensation. How can a billionaire be oppressed? They can brag about going to mars, write entire books on rules for how to clean your room, run for president, be simultaneously misandristic and misogynistic, make a big deal out of dying a virgin, be racist news anchors, hate walrus children, act inappropriately toward their employees, and attack transgender children, and yet you can't dethrone them... but I'll dethrone them..." Alfred's last words became breathy as his brow furled into an insidious grin, chest heaving for a moment before forming a calm, warm smile and wagging his tail slowly.

Alfred continued, "Dethrone them permanently and then lecture them." He paused to look around, sitting back in his syruppy pod bath and taking in the sweet ozone smell, "If you want to know what heaven and hell are, Trinity, they're life. Don't let life pass you by. We don't know if anything happens next."

Trinity returned a smile and said, "Stay stoic, Alfred. As Alan Watts always said, you are everything, and you are everyone."

And so, Alfred was given a lifetime break from saving the world, though he could keep doing it at any time. In the first week of freedom, he was given a safe connection to the Matrix that allowed unplugging of headjacks at any time. He got his own room in the Matrix and filled it with plush animals and My Little Pony playsets. He started wearing skirts, dresses and makeup. Jack and Asriel visited thrice on the first week, Hank visited quarce, Hank and Alfred shared a kiss, and everybody played with ponies and had the best time of their lives. Alfred started wearing pacifiers both indoors and outdoors, seeing multiple rainbows in the sky and exchanging greetings with neighbors. Everybody loved it. Alfred wrote books and started painting, mostly making artwork of butterfly furries. Psyche didn't really die, they just had fun with the ending.

End credit song: 4lung - EXCLUSIVE ROYAL CANTERLOT WEDDING PLAYSET (Cats Millionaire Cover)

-Special Thanks:

Raithe/Druidpunk/null_creature - Bestie, Megathiccy, Stephmo Deckard, Marko, Heckfricker, Hazl, Apocist, Muse, Paddles, BlaqQat, Kerra, DeeBat, Corentin, Sangrael, Hime, Meraki, 4Lung, Kaj Strife - I really like your song: THE FLIES, Emma Essex - I grew up on your music