Fraz and the Conservators

Fraz Jones and the Conservators, also called The Forbidden Ones and "the bus", are a mobile collection of 63 penguins that travel Antarctica with their unlicensed, fugitive father behind the wheel of a large bus, formerly used for public transport. Being the son of TSGGG, it makes perfect sense for something to be horribly wrong with Fraz. TurtleShroom's father died before he could join the rest of his brothers and sisters on the whirlwind trip his father provided.

The Bureau of Fiction entertains themselves at the Jones family's expense by using Fraz's mentally detached antics to transport protagonists (and antagonists) to assorted destinations, in some sort of maniacal, untested attempt to cure Writers' Block.

The Beginnings
Fraz is the son of Baldurshroom and his long-deceased wife, some time after the fall of the Snowman Empire. Apparently, crazy ran in the family, because Fraz is, to say the least, crazy. For most of Fraz's chickhood, Baldurshroom was far too occupied with trying to unravel the mysteries of "The Secret". It was a quest which would eventually cost him his very being and almost destroy the BOF and the universe along with it, though that's another story altogether.

Fraz's mother died before he could consciously recall her, and the sadness that his father felt was channeled into his incessant quest to unlock what no mortal was to know. The more Baldurshroom learned of the Secret, the more he hated it. When Fraz was an adolescent- and already showing signs of mental decay -Baldurshroom one day returned with a strange ID necklace and told his son that he was "this close" to "liberating the world", a quest that would, as said, eventually take him down. Fraz's fragile state was failing, mainly because Baldurshroom saw to it that Fraz maintained very little in a social life. (He thought that the Secret was after him, and he later found out that he was right.)

The Quest
Failing to see that his son was losing it, Baldurshroom took Fraz along with him on his quests to find "portals of evil" (secondary BOF Entrances) that appeared and disappeared at random. Interestingly, Fraz's father did this because he feared his son would go crazy from neglect. TSGGG loved Fraz very much, and wanted to help him. Little did he know that this would be the very undoing of the already delicate penguin.

For most of his adolescence, Fraz and TSGGG were on the unpaved paths of unexplored Antarctica in search of "the evil". Long before anyone else, the duo made tracks in places not to be found again for decades. TSGGG was also losing it, and he eventually handed the duties of driving the vehicle to Fraz, who loved it.

TSGGG would work in the back of the RV-like lab-on-wheels, and Fraz would drive. TSGGG never did teach him how to do it, so Fraz never really did get the whole "rules of the road" idea. He didn't need it, because back then, roads were scarce and they were mainly in pure frontier lands.

Years passed and the two came close to getting in the BOF several times. They would run into- or over -BOF employees in the middle of nowhere and interrogate them to the best of their abilities. Baldurshroom, who was Level One on the Fourth Wall Scale, began to learn FW-manipulation techniques from these kidnapped employees: power such as this was not meant for a low Wall level as he, and his body showed rapid signs of physical decay because of it. Prematurely, TSGGG was graying and weakening at an alarming rate. Fraz was deeply concerned, but was convinced by his father that the only way to cure him was to solve the Secret. (TSGGG had long lost it.)

Hamming it Up
They pressed on, and it was when Fraz was eighteen- having lost most of his sanity and having been driving for five years -that TSGGG met Porkchop, some deranged and evil cultist (from the future) that hated the Skybound crew but had an unhealthy obsession with peanut butter. Porkchop explained to Baldurshroom that he was a "Fourth Wall Insider" (lies) and illegal time traveler that knew of the Wall (truth), that he could get TSGGG into the BOF (more lies), and that he possessed a weird BOF contraption that could slash a rip in time and space, into the BOF's office, for him (white lie if you're Porkchop), provided he cooperate (dun dun dun).

TSGGG fell for Porkchop hook line and sinker. Fraz was suspicious but too determined to cure his father to care. Porkchop suggested that Fraz try varying his wardrobe from the usual black cloak he and his father wore, and Fraz embraced the idea. Agreeing, Fraz took the hood off his cloak for the first time in nearly fourteen years. He had brutal hat hair. It turns out that this actually saved him from going truly crazy down the road.

TSGGG worked with Porkchop, but noticed that Fraz- now wearing a different suit every day (and TSGGG liked it) -wasn't trusting Porkchop as he was. Feeling that Porkchop might be a bad influence on Fraz (and how right he was), TSGGG told him that he didn't have to work for him any more. He'd take on the Secret himself. Fraz asked why, and TSGGG explained that he needed to live his life to the fullest.

He warned his only son not to make the same mistakes he did, focusing his entire life only on the Secret. TSGGG explained to Fraz that, while he never regretted his choice, he wished that he could have lived life as well. He urged Fraz to set off on his own, and to "take chances, make mistakes, and get messy" on the way. Fraz took this to heart, and that phrase eventually became his maxim.

Valerie
TSGGG had Porkchop supply Fraz with some sort of evil spiderbot, which Fraz used to travel away from the wildernesses and the RV he had long called home. Fraz headed northeast from there and eventually came across Mattress Village, where he met a penguin named Valerie. She worked as a secretary for a small business in town. Fraz fell head over heels in love with this penguin, and the two realized how much they needed each other. Valerie was very shy and humble, while Fraz was loud and dressed extravagantly. Fraz was as crazy as Valerie sane. The two married after a mere two months' worth of dating, and they had a stable, loving relationship that gave them many, many chicks.

Fraz thought that it was a good idea for Valerie to take up the family quest for finding the Secret, and she accepted, willing to go to the ends of the earth and back for her husband (and vice-versa). Agreeing, Valerie sold her igloo and the two used it to purchase a large bus from the Ice Kingdom's underfunded Department of Transport. On their last day in Mattress Village, Fraz (spastically) waved goodbye to the denizens and turned to the bus, a rickety contraption that barely managed to hold itself together. Everyone climbed on board, and fastened their seatbelts. Cranking the keys, Fraz triumphantly shouted "WAAAAAHHOOOOOO", and drove straight through three buildings and off into the great unknown. Valerie had trouble keeping her blood pressure down for the rest of her life.

Valerie truly saved Fraz from depression and misery. For the next fifteen years, the couple and their many chicks traveled across Antarctica in TSGGG's footsteps. The family worked together, and the chicks each developed their own set of personality traits, sanctioned from the influence of other penguins and social interaction. Some say they are who they are because each had to take a role in the "family business", so to speak. One would be the researcher, another the leader, one would dive in head first, another would be reserved, and then there was just a niche for humor to lighten the situation, for example.

Valerie and Fraz had the time of their life doing what they loved, and Valerie actually found an Entrance. Fearing for her husband's safety and wanting the chicks to have a parent if she didn't make it, Valerie forced Fraz to stay behind and "guard the Entrance" as she entered.

Valerie found herself in the Bureau of Fiction. It was far greater than anything Fraz told her it was, and confirmed her longstanding suspicions that "evil" was afoot, just as Fraz's father had said. Valerie wondered the halls of the BOF and managed to snag dozens of UP-classified files. Her modest dress and shy appearance, plus the Necklace that TSGGG had given Fraz, managed to keep her under the radar for nearly a month. Valerie passed herself off as a low-level BOF employee that was trusted with maintaining files for higher employees. Taking advantage of what was, in those days, lax security, Valerie would steal information as she worked, and they were none the wiser. What was truly amazing was that, back then, much of the BOF was a manual task. She smuggled whole folders worth of data in her inventory. The Necklace allowed her inventory to remain unprobed.

Valerie resurfaced from the entrance a month later, and was overjoyed to show Fraz what she found. The two looked over the documents, but Valerie became scared, because Fraz's delicate mind couldn't grasp the idea of something controlling their every move. The thought of it, while exciting, was too much for Fraz, but he didn't know that. He pleaded with his wife to get them more and more data. Valerie decided not to, though, because she feared that the shock could kill Fraz.

Secretly, she took the UP documents and burned them in the night, and, using the skills she had learned as a secretary, forged papers that revealed the same information that they had already known- just worded differently -tricking the gullible Fraz into thinking that she wasn't able to get any more information that they could use. He was saddened, but it didn't damper his optimism. Fraz had done what Baldurshroom dreamed of: he had infiltrated the Secret and lived to tell the tale.

In the 1970s, subtle things began to come undone. TSGGG, by now, had morphed into the being he is today, and had, in the meta-space of the Fourth Wall, begun to try and attack the BOF office directly. He was still tied to the machine that Porkchop had hooked him to (to keep the powers he had aquired in check at this time), and his attacks worked quite well.

Weird occurrences began to affect Antarctica in this time. Trees would vanish and reappear, buildings would collapse, only to spontaneously reappear, alongside other subtle, but noticeable to the trained eye, items would occur. Fraz's attention was peaked.

Valerie went back into the BOF, suspicious of what was happening, and resumed her disguise. The entire BOF was reciting emergency drills almost every day, because an unrealistic, severe rainstorm pelted the office- odd, because rain didn't exist in that space -and Valerie used that to snoop around the BOF, into areas she really didn't belong.

She found herself in the upper floors, where Department of Research goons were designing special chips for past and future media, ranging from punch cards to USB drives, designed to allow any vehicle to travel unrealistically fast, teleportable, and be indestructible. These were used to gear up any and all movable transport in the BOF as escape vehicles, in case whatever was out there compromised them. They were codenamed "Thingamadoodles". Valerie stole one in the chaos.

TSGGG Contacts Fraz and Valerie
A few days later, she found herself in the Department of Surveillance. The screens were mostly just static, but a few were focused on the outside. Fiddling with the controls, she managed to zoom in on a particularly dark section of the meta-space, where swirls of black and red billowed forth like an entity of their own. A few adjustments further allowed her to zoom through this. She saw a strange penguin alongside a large blue box with a weirdly shaped thing on top of it. Coming out of that thing was a creature that, if she looked at it long enough, seemed to be the wispy, shifting remnants of some sort of penguin. Whatever "it" was, she was sure that it was once dressed in black and had black hair.

"No way!" Valerie could recall herself saying.

Valerie made the connection between Fraz and the wraith outside. They both had black hair and wanted to attack "the Secret". Could that thing be Fraz's father?! If this was so, then that other thing by his machine, holding the peanut butter, must have been that creepy guy that Fraz referred to as "junk".

Her viewing was interrupted by a detached voice trying to call to her. She still recalls the conversation:

"Who's there?"

"Who?"

"You're Fraz's father?"

"You don't look like him!"

"NO WAY."

"Should I tell Fraz?"

"Maybe you should."



Fraz was contacted next.

"Dad?!"

"Where are you?"

"WAHOO! You're about to do it, Dad; keep it up!"

the wraith hissed.

"YEP! HEY KIDS! SAY HI TO YOUR GRANDDAD!"

The kids wave, one in particular is terrified.

"What's next, Dad?"

The voice faded away, as Fraz boasted about TSGGG's life to his chicks. That would be the last time Fraz saw TSGGG for about twenty years.

To see where TSGGG went, see SkyBound: the Final Chapter.

Involvement
Fraz remains on his quest to find the "Secret", and he thinks that by stopping to pick up certain predestined creatures, he can learn more. Sadly, those who ride with him have little info to share, even though they do talk a lot.

He is a tool for the BOF, designed to circumvent Writers' Block. He shows up randomly to pick up a protagonist or antagonist and drives them to their destination. While on board, said victim talks to Fraz and family, as they try to extract information on the Fourth Wall from him. They never get much, but they do have a good time talking to each other.

As I always say...

 * ...take chances, make mistakes, and get messy!
 * ...an open field is just a road that ain't paved.
 * ...a tracking bracelet is just a fashion statement.
 * ...they can't arrest what they can't catch!
 * ...it's better to learn than to... uhh, not learn.
 * ...your vehicle will go faster without those nagging safety features!
 * ...speed limits are for wusses!
 * ...that contract ain't worth what it's printed on.
 * ...live and let live!
 * ...you don't need an airbag if you don't hit anything!
 * ...when the road ends, just drive on the dirt.
 * ...you don't need to be licensed!
 * ...if they send you the wrong invitation, just find the right address anyway!
 * ...don't worry about tomorrow, tomorrow will worry about itself!
 * ...live for today!
 * ...don't call someone out for immodest dress when you too dress extravagantly.
 * ...if you have a bad hair day, convince others that you WANTED it to look like that!

One-liners

 * WWAAAAAAAAAAAHOOOOOO!!
 * FLOOR IT!
 * Let's get it ON!
 * For the Secret!
 * Quick kids, get out the tinfoil!
 * Let me change into my interrogation suit first.
 * I don't remember putting those bobbleheads on my dashboard...
 * HIT IT!
 * Live a little, Albert!
 * The Secret is this close to being solved!
 * Let's do it for Valerie!
 * ONWARD!
 * Ha ha ha!
 * Oh, I'll prove it all right.
 * Who said we were taking the highway?
 * FLOOR IT HARDER!
 * Well, if we're stuck, let's just GO FASTER!
 * I'm pulling into reverse and not looking backwards as I do!
 * (crashes through a wall) Sorry to barge in, but...

Dialog

 * Albert: Please don't make us leave the bus...
 * Fraz: ALL RIGHT EVERYONE, OUT OF THE BUS!


 * TS: We didn't invite you.
 * Fraz: yes you did! You just gave me the wrong address! It was your house, not 90-150!

Peggy

 * Crashing into a building? Isn't that rude?
 * Where I hail from, they NEVER picked up strangers.
 * Where I hail from, no girl ever wore pants.
 * Where I hail from, that drink is evil!
 * How could you do this to that poor, sweet puffle?
 * Eeew! Soda!

Russel

 * Am I the only one that thinks someone is using us?
 * Am I the only one that finds my hat cool?
 * Am I the only one that can hit a baseball decently?

Albert

 * Oh, I know that look in Dad's eyes...
 * Don't suggest it! YOU'LL ENCOURAGE HIM!
 * (to a would-be passenger) Turn back...
 * Quick, run before he closes the doors!
 * RUN MAN, RUN!
 * Too late...
 * I KNEW I shouldn't have signed that contract.

Clarence

 * (after crashing into a banana tree) The insurance guy will be in peels of laughter when he hears THIS claim!
 * (after crashing into a courthouse) The prosecutors are going to have a smashing time against us!
 * (seeing Veranda climb on) I don't mean to 1-up you, but...
 * (seeing Daniel Specter board the bus) You must be the life of the party!
 * (seeing Explorer 767 climb on) Hey man! You look really fly in that hat!
 * (seeing Bananaphone board the bus) This guy's 'gonna drive us all BANANAS!
 * (again with Bananaphone) You look very a-PEEL-ing in that costume!
 * (after crashing into a university) Aww... I already ran through this class!
 * (a female police officer climbs on) Dad, she seems to find your feet a-TRACK-tive!
 * (seeing Meaghan climb on) You know, diamonds are forever!
 * (seeing a TaliBEAN climb on) Wow, this guy's plan really BLOWS me away!
 * (points to a clock) A joke's all about the TIMING.
 * (after a plumber fixed a leak) Time to pay the piper!
 * (the P.O.P.E. boards the bus) Is the cable on the fritz again? I POPE not!


 * You know what's the best thing about East Pengolia's educational system? [...] It's CLASSLESS!
 * Thank you, thank you!
 * I'll be here all day!
 * You should work on the delivery.
 * The punchline really hits it home!
 * Thank you, I'll be here all night! ...-and day! ...-and night! ...-and yeah, most of the rest of my life!
 * Try the veal! Actually, don't try it. I did, and I didn't like it.
 * Knock knock!
 * So a TaliBEAN, a No Penguin, and a mango smoothie all walk into a diner...
 * The vigilantes really CREAMED that soda jerk!
 * Ah, so you were hoodwinked by the Inquisition?
 * What's a comedian's favorite method of kidnapping? [...] He bounds and gags them!
 * I'M A LAUGH RIOT!
 * So TurtleShroom walks to a doctor and says 'I think I broke my Jones'. The doctor thinks he meant bones, until his sister is wheeled in.
 * I'm CLARENCE JONES: BORN COMEDIAN.
 * Cue rimshot!

Wiona

 * Come on, ya bunch of wimps!
 * My grandma could go faster! (I think...)
 * You heard Dad! LET'S GO!
 * OH COME ON!
 * I'm an impatient penguin, okay?
 * What are we 'gonna do?
 * Move it!
 * Can we get out NOW?
 * Hurry up people!
 * Let me at 'em! Let me at 'em!
 * I'll knock his block off!

Katherine

 * CRAP.
 * Ah crud.
 * Wiona, do you REALLY think that simply jumping into that hole is a good idea?
 * Darn, so close!
 * Stop. Think about what you just said for a moment.
 * Let's not get hasty.
 * Bring up the way I dress again and you'll be walking home.