“Ohoho! It seems you 5 have fallen for my trap!~”
“YOU! Where the hell are we?!”
The group was in a freezing cold room, with their only source of light being a small, unreachable window. The door in front of them jiggled a little bit, & in walked The Auctioneer.
“Well, you’re in my Auction House, silly!” he smiled.
“We already said we weren’t interested in bidding on anything, dude. Take a hint.”
“The only one here who should be taking the hint is you!” The Auctioneer pointed at Cherry. “You all remember Thursday night, yea? When I said you didn’t have to bid on anything?”
“Uh.. yea?”
“See, you’re not here to bid on stuff, you’re here to be bid ON!”
“Huh?”
“What do you mean by that?”
The Auctioneer sighed. “Oh, you’re still confused? Well, y’see... this freezer that you 5 are in right now is a very special freezer!”
“Is that true?”
“Yes! In fact, it can turn people into statues!”
“Statues?!”
“Yup! Within an hour or two, you all should be 100% turned into statues, ready for the auction!”
“That’s fucked up, dude!”
“Well, if you didn’t want to be auctioned off, you shouldn’t have messed around in business that wasn’t yours.” The Auctioneer shrugged.
“What do you mean ‘business that wasn’t yours’?”
“Perhaps the name Pim rings a bell?”
The group gasped.
“You mean that fucked-up banana guy?”
“Hey! That ‘fucked-up banana guy’ is my boyfriend, thank you very much!”
“He’s your boyfriend?!”
“Yes! & he told me about the little stunt you all pulled at his restaurant, breaking his Bananainator & all!”
“He was gonna turn everyone into bananas!”
“That sounds like a you problem then. Anyways, Pim & I have some setting up to do for the auction! Ta-ta!”
With that, The Auctioneer took a bow & left the freezer, leaving the group to their own devices.
Cherry crossed their arms & leaned against the wall. “I shouldn’t have gone on that stupid scavenger hunt. It was a trick from the very beginning!”
“You went on a scavenger hunt too?”
“Yea?”
“I also went on a scavenger hunt!”
“Did we all get lured here by the same thing?”
“I guess so..”
“That motherfucker! I’ll kill him!”
“Well... how do we get outta here?” Nora questioned, looking around the room.
“What are the chances they forgot to lock the door?” Leslie asked.
“Let’s see!”
Juniper approached the door & tried to open it. It did not work. “Well, I guess that answers that.”
“Whatever. If we don’t find a way out of this place soon, we’re fucked!”
“What if we used our weapons?”
“We can’t do that! My sibling’s here!”
“Sorrel’s at the auction?”
“Yea, they saw the poster from Thursday & was interested in the auction.. so..”
“We can just.. use the weapons to knock down the door & then switch back into our normal clothes.”
“Oh. I didn’t think of that.”
“Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s do that!”
The group all pulled on their necklaces & entered Hero Mode, summoning their weapons.
“Alright!” Cherry raised her sword up. “Let’s bust out of this fucking place!”
-
Outside of the freezer room, the Auction House was actually quite elegant. A few guests were there already, waiting for the auction to start. The Auctioneer, along with the help of Pim, were setting the last few things up.
There was a table set up, with refreshments such as Arby’s chicken tenders, pizza, cupcakes, & more. Purple balloons were set in place on the table, being held down by some rocks. A clipboard was set on the table as well, with some Sharpies, for guests to sign in.
Most of the preparations were complete. All they had to do now was take the eggs into the back of the Auction House. After the auction was finished, Pim & The Auctioneer were going to celebrate by making some omelettes.
“Nice thinking on the eggs, Pim,” The Auctioneer smiled, grabbing the 3 egg cartons. “I haven’t had omelettes in a looong time!”
“& I’ve never had omelettes at all! It’ll be a nice meal to celebrate our revenge, Puck.”
“It sure will!”
As the two of them walked toward the back, however, they had no idea they were being watched.
“Hmm.. I think those were Dollar General eggs.” Natalie hummed.
“What... do Dollar General eggs have to do with anything?” Sorrel asked.
“I’ll have you know that I work at Dollar General, & a f- a customer bought THREE cartons of eggs today! Not to mention, the banana guy!”
“The... banana guy? You mean the guy in the banana costume?”
“No, no. From what I’ve heard, that’s not a costume. That’s his skin.”
“Oh, creepy.”
“Yeah. Can you believe that guy tried to take over capitalism?! Something fishy is going on at this auction, & I’m gonna solve it.”
“Wait- hold on..” Sorrel paused. “Did you say.. take over capitalism?”
“Uh- yeah?”
“My sister was telling me a guy was trying to take over capitalism when I landed from my flight here. She never mentioned he was a banana.”
“Some things are better left not being mentioned, I suppose.” Natalie shrugged, pulling out her squeaky hammer. “Enough waiting around, now. I’m gonna investigate.”
“Um.. ok. Good l-”
All of a sudden, the building started to rumble. It wasn’t an earthquake, because it was only for a second or two. The Auctioneer nearly dropped the eggs.
“What was THAT?”
The Auctioneer & Pim turned to look at each other. The Auctioneer handed the eggs over to Pim. “Bring these to the kitchen, babe. I’m gonna go check on something.”
“Ok, love you!”
“Love you too!”
Natalie & Sorrel watched as The Auctioneer speed-walked across the Auction House & into a door. Natalie glanced around for a couple seconds.
“I’m following them.”
“Isn’t that illegal?”
“I’ve done worse.”
& so, Natalie snuck over & followed The Auctioneer to his destination.
-
“Hi-YAH!”
After what felt like an eternity, Cherry finally got the door knocked down.
“Woohoo!” Leslie cheered. “We’re free!”
“Finally,” Cherry stretched her arms. “Now we can-”
Before Cherry could finish their sentence, the ground started rumbling.
“Oh, great. An earthquake.”
After a second or two, the rumbling stopped.
“Huh. Earthquakes usually last longer than that.”
“I don’t think that was an earthquake.”
“Let’s just focus on trying to get outta here.”
The group started walking down the hall, looking around for anything that could help them.
“Hey, I see a flight of stairs!” Juniper said, pointing toward a flight of stairs.
“Huh! That must mean we’re underground.”
“Why would an auction house have a basement with a human freezer that turns people into statues?”
“Beats me.”
“I guess we should go up the stairs then, huh?”
“I guess. If it’s the way out.”
The group pulled on their ties, reverting back into their normal clothes, & started heading up the stairs in a straight line (Kalani was in front). They hadn’t even made it 10 steps before they heard footsteps rapidly approaching them.
“Ah. Footsteps. Never a good thing to hear when you’re trying to escape something.”
After a few moments, The Auctioneer came to a sudden stop in front of the group, with a cane in his hand.
“Oh! You’ve escaped!” The Auctioneer grinned.
“Yea, yea, now can you get out of our way please?” Kalani tried to shoo him off. “We kind of don’t want to be statues.”
“Who said you had a choice in the matter?” The Auctioneer poked Kalani with the cane, & one by one the group tumbled down the stairs.
“OW!”
As they all landed on the ground, The Auctioneer walked down the stairs, approaching them.
“Now, for your safety, I highly recommend you get back in the freezer.”
“Absolutely fuckin’ not, buddy.”
The group hopped up & tugged on their necklaces, entering Hero Mode once more with their weapons in hands.
“Oh, you wanna play it like that, do you now?” The Auctioneer tossed his cane aside. “Then I’d be happy to oblige.”
Nora flung her whip at The Auctioneer a couple of times, but they moved out of the way before it hit them. Cherry tried to swing her sword at The Auctioneer, however, he just grabbed the blade with his hands before it hit him.
“Feelin’ a little feisty now, are we?”
“Wh- How are your hands not bleeding?!”
“That’s none of your business!”
Cherry tried to yank their sword out of The Auctioneer’s hands, but either they were too weak or The Auctioneer was too strong, because it wasn’t working.
“Let go of my sword, asshole!”
“No thanks!”
“Don’t worry, Cherry-pop!” Kalani said, aiming her wand at The Auctioneer. “I’ve got this!”
Kalani shot a magic blast from his wand at The Auctioneer. They maneuvered the sword in such a way that it reflected the magic blast, making it bounce back at the group. They all dodged the blast & it hit the wall.
“Ooookay. Guess I don’t got this.”
The Auctioneer grinned. “Now, clearly we’ve entered a standstill. It would be smart of you to enter the freezer again. Delaying the inevitable will only cause further problems.”
“Do you think we’re dumb enough to go back in there?”
“You’re certainly dumb enough to go on my scavenger hunt.”
“HOW were we supposed to know that was a trap?”
“How weren’t you supposed to know? It was written all over the poster, in purple, cursive font-”
Before The Auctioneer could finish their sentence, they collapsed to the ground, with a squeaky noise accompanying his fall. The group looked up.
It was Natalie.