The rest of the show went on without a hitch. No puppet attacks, no audio malfunctions, no accidents. As the group walked backstage to the sound of the audience cheering, Juniper stretched its arms.
“Whew! What a performance!” Juniper grinned.
“Yea, I see why y’all like doing this now.” Cherry chuckled. “Maybe I should get into acting.”
“We can’t have 3 theater kids in the group! 2 is more than enough!”
“We should probably take these costumes off, huh?”
“Yeah, probably. Let’s go do that.”
The group went on to the dressing room as Natalie sat on a block backstage, browsing her phone. Allie walked up & sat next to her.
“Is your arm feelin’ any better?” she asked.
“A little. Probably gonna be bruised by tomorrow morning,” Natalie chuckled.
“Well, you better rest up. Maybe skip class or something.”
“I’ll be fine. It’s not an animal bite, so risk of infection is low or something.”
“Alright, well, at least get a bandage on that or something. Looks bad.” Allie said, walking off.
The group comes back from the dressing room, in their normal clothes.
“Alright, I am starving!” Nora stretched her arms. “We should head by Arby’s or something.”
“Yea, absolutely. I could go for some curly fries.”
“Hold on,” Leslie said. “Before we go, I wanna do something.”
Leslie walked over to Natalie & sat by her.
“Hey, Nat.”
“Oh, uh, hey.”
“I just wanted to say, um.. thank you for fending off those puppets earlier. You were very brave to do that.”
“Well- They were gonna hurt you, &.. y’know, I can’t let my rival die. Y’know.”
“Yea, yea. Your ‘rival.’ If there’s, uh, anything I can do to help with the bite or anything else, I’m a text away. Alright?”
“..Alright.”
Leslie got up, waving at Natalie.
“Have a nice night!”
“You too.”
Reconvening with the group, Leslie did a little twirl. “Alright! Let’s go get some Arby’s!”
-
It was a quiet night in the puppet shop. There were barely any customers, especially at this time of night, so Alph was sweeping & cleaning the shop. He had the news up on the TV as well, so it wasn’t completely silent. As she swept, she took a glance up at the TV to see what was happening.
“A performance of Beauty & The Beast at the University of Cincinnati has been hijacked momentarily by 5 puppets. After a fight with an unknown actor, the puppets fled & their location is currently unknown. The following clip is a recording from the audience of the hijack happening.”
The clip started playing on the TV. A person stood onstage as 5 puppets climbed up onto the stage & started attacking the person. Alph recognized the puppets instantly.
“No- It can’t be..”
He continued watching the clip. Another actor ran out onto stage & started tussling with the puppets, pushing the green one off the stage. Alph could see his face clearly. It was Sotry.
“That’s not Sotry, is it?”
Dropping the broom, Alph quickly ran behind the counter & opened up the back room, flipping on the light.
The puppets were gone.
The only things in there were the usual, & a small stack of posters that Alph had never seen before, sitting on the work desk.
Alph grabbed one of the posters & ran.
-
The group was outside now, heading to Cherry’s car. It was quite dark out, but the street lamps were on, so they could see fairly well.
“Alright! Who’s ready for some Arby’s?!”
“Woohoo!!”
As they approached the car, they heard a voice yell at them.
“STOP RIGHT THERE!”
“Huh?”
The group spun around. Standing behind them was Sotry, along with 4 other puppets, which were red, yellow, blue, & gray respectively.
“Oh, you’ve gotta be kidding me,” Cherry groaned. “What do you want?”
“You’ve torn down my posters, you’ve broken my arm, you five are actively ruining my campaign.”
“What, your campaign to be ‘president of the world?” Juniper asked. “That’s not a real thing!”
“Also, we didn’t break your arm.” Kalani said. “That was Natalie.”
“Regardless, the damage you’ve done to my reputation is outrageous-”
“All we’ve done is tear down your stupid posters-”
“SILENCE!” Sotry snapped. “I’m speaking!”
“Alright, alright, jeez.”
“Anyways, our revenge comes now. Puppets..” Sotry pointed at the group. “ATTACK!”
The puppets started charging toward the group.
“Oh shit.”
The group quickly pulled on their necklaces, transforming into Hero Mode. As they summoned in their weapons, Leslie paused.
“Wait, I thought we agreed to not fight them!”
“We said only to fight when absolutely necessary, & they’re literally about to maul us to death.”
“But someone made these puppets! We can’t just- Ow!”
The red puppet had ran up & hit Leslie in the face.
“Leslie!”
“Oh, so that’s how you wanna play it?” Sotry chuckled. “You don’t want to hurt us? That makes my job a lot easier then!”
“But someone must have built you, yea?” Kalani asked, fending off the blue puppet.
“Well, yes, but it’s none of your business.” Sotry said. “Alph was an idiot, accidentally programming sentience into me. He never would have seen this coming.”
“Alph.. isn’t that the guy who runs the puppet shop?”
“Precisely. & that’s all I’ll say on the matter.”
It seemed like Sotry wasn’t gonna speak for much longer, so all the group could do was fend off the other puppets.
Cherry, despite the couple of weeks she’s spent working out so far, still struggled with wielding her sword a bit. They could see some improvement, though, seeing as how they were successfully using their sword as a shield against the red puppet. Nora, Juniper, & Kalani, with their range-based weapons, could whip, jab, & blast at the puppets from a far-away distance. Leslie, meanwhile, was in hands-on combat (not literally, it was using its scythes) with the gray puppet.
The gray puppet went in for a punch. Panicking, Leslie flung (again, not literally) their scythes at the gray puppet, cutting off its arm & its head. Everyone turned to look over as the now-decapitated puppet collapsed onto the concrete.
“Oops.” Leslie mumbled.
“Oh, how disappointing.” Sotry rolled his eyes. “Wyndo was easily replaceable anyway. No need to mourn.”
“Wait,” Nora started, using her whip to fend back the yellow puppet. “You said Alph programmed sentience into you, right? Why?”
“Well, it was by accident, of course, but she did program sentience into me nonetheless.” Sotry said, blatantly ignoring his earlier statement about not speaking any further. “To Alph, I’m the star of the show. Shining & elegant. He wanted to make me perfect.. but Alph’s idea of perfect is different from mine.”
“& what exactly do you mean by that?” Cherry asked, using her sword to slice the oncoming red puppet in half.
“Alph’s goals for me & my goals for me are similar: dazzle the world with my performance. Our methods, however, differ. While Alph expects me to perform & sing & entertain, my plan is purely political.”
“You.. were supposed to be a performance puppet?” Juniper asked, using xaer spear to jab at the yellow puppet’s chest.
“That was my.. intended purpose, yes. In an attempt to perfect my code, Alph had accidentally made a grave mistake: giving me sentience.”
“& he just.. never bothered to fix it?”
“Of course not. I was smart enough to make sure Alph never found out. In the dark hours of the night is when I would work, teaching myself how to code so I could give the others a false sense of sentience. I’m the only true sentient one out of all these other scraps of wood. I gave them all false sentience to follow my every command.”
Everyone paused, even the puppets that weren’t fully destroyed, to look at Sotry.
“What are you all staring at me for?”
“You just admitted to, like, some of the most fucked up shit I’ve ever heard!”
“So? Not everything is all sunshine & flowers. Sometimes to get what you want, you have to use force.” Sotry snarled.
“Well.. that’s not very nice.” Leslie mumbled.
“Kindness isn’t always the answer to all your problems, pipsqueak. Now..” he said, grasping Juniper’s spear & yanking it out of buns hands.
“Hey!”
Sotry, despite his broken arm, lifted the spear up into the air, aiming it at Juniper. “You, Juniper, were the one who started tearing down my posters. You’re the reason this is all happening.”
“How do you know my- oh, yea. The cameras. Carry on.”
“You’re acting way too nonchalant for this, Juni-”
“MAY I FINISH?”
“Sorry, jeez.”
“Anyways.. if you & your little friends never started tearing down my posters, we would have left you alone. You just had to go & meddle around in business that wasn’t yours. Prepare to-”
“SOTRY!”
A familiar voice rang out in the parking lot. Sotry immediately froze as everyone glanced to see who was there.
It was Alph.
Alph stormed up to Sotry, holding a poster in her hand. Juniper & the others instantly recognized it. It was one of Sotry’s posters.
“What is the meaning of this, Sotry?” Alph asked, holding the poster up to Sotry’s face.
“Um.”
Instead of the bold & brash Sotry that the group had been dealing with, he seemed more.. timid, perhaps, now that Alph was here.
“Uhh..” Juniper said. “Your puppet is trying to become president of the world. Also he’s sentient.”
“Is that true?” Alph asked, looking straight at Sotry.
Dropping the spear in its hands, Sotry replied, “...yes.”
“We’re discussing this later.” Alph said. “Sotry, bring the other puppets back to the shop. Now.”
Without missing a beat, Sotry left, dragging the other puppets along with him.
Sighing with relief, Alph turned to face the group. “I’m so sorry y’all got wrapped up in that-”
“WE’RE SORRY FOR DESTROYING YOUR PUPPETS!” Leslie wailed.
“In our defense, they were trying to kill us.”
“They shouldn’t have been tryin’ to kill ya. Either way, it was all in self defense, & I can fix ‘em up!”
“Oh, ok! So you’re not mad at us!”
“No! Why would I be mad? Sotry’s the one in trouble here.” Alph chuckled. “Y’all did a good service today, preventing this ‘president of the world’ thing & all. I respect y’all for that.”
“It’s the least we could do. We are heroes, after all.”
Alph nodded. “Well, I’ll be on my way to give Sotry a stern talkin’ to. Hope to see y’all by the shop again!”
“Goodbye!!”
With that, Alph walked back to her car. The group sighed, tugging on their ties & transforming back into their normal clothes.
“Thank god that’s over with. A fight right after a theatrical performance? Really?”
“Yea! We should be getting paid for this, at least!”
“We gotta pay rent somehow. These so-called ‘Celestials’ should be giving us, like, a grand each.”
“Last time I saw, there wasn’t a finance Celestial.”
“Oh, whatever! Let’s just go get some Arby’s!”
“Woohoo!! Arby’s!”
-
“So you LIED to us?!”
Three Celestials stood in a room. One stood at around 10 feet tall, while the other 2 were around 5 feet. They seemed to be in the middle of an argument of some sort.
“I didn’t lie to you!” the tall one said. “I- I was just protecting you!”
“Protecting us from WHAT? The TRUTH?!” one of the shorter ones yelled back.
“Storm-”
“Our mom has been gone for over 2000 years & you only bothered to tell us where ae are NOW?! Why would you not tell us when ae LEFT?!”
“You have to understand, Storm, it was for your own good-”
“My own good? My own good?! You know what would be for my own good?! If ANYBODY had told us what happened to our mom after Juno shot them!”
“I’m sorry, Storm.. please, let me make up for it-”
“STAY BACK!”
The taller Celestial tried to approach Storm, but she pushed them away, making them stumble for a moment. She sighed, trying to hold back tears.
“I’m going to Earth.” Storm mumbled. “Goodbye.”
“To Earth- Storm, wait!!”
Before nov could do anything, Storm had already flown out of the room.
The taller Celestial turned to the other shorter Celestial that was still in the room.
“Spring.. please tell me you won’t leave too..” “Sorry, Dad, but.. I have to go comfort Storm.”
Spring went to leave the room as well. “We’ll be back, though!” she waved.
“But Juno- wait! Spring, wait!”
Before they knew it, Spring was also on her merry way to Earth. Mr. Moon fell to novs knees, sobbing.