Gianni and Solange stare at the wooden ceiling as they lay on the floor at the opposite ends of the small dusty room inside the abandoned puppet factory.
Gianni: "To be honest... I don't care 'bout no giraffe guy or centipede bitch. There can be a frickin' walrus pirate therapist toucan stripper OR EVEN A DILDO TARANTULA! Even if there's a frickin' dildo tarantula, I have no fucks to give! I'm fuckless! Lacking of the 'fuck' as one might say! That's how little it matters to me! That phantom guy can pull a muppet out of his asshole for all I care! I'LL JUST STICK IT RIGHT BACK IN THERE! Even if all of Circopia comes to hunt me down, I'll bitch slap their cats, French kiss their moms and spit on their uncle's moustache! Cuz nobody's stopping me from makin' it to the outside world and seeing the electric eels with Milano and Blanca! So all's I gotz to say is... The show must go on!"
Solange squishes her pillow as she keeps her jovial smile to the ceiling.
She then turns her head to Gianni.
Solange: "And if your curtains close before this grand final act you have in mind with Blanca, Milano and your beloved electric eels?"
Gianni's smirk is replaced with a serious face. He turns his head to Solange.
Gianni: "Then I'll tear the curtains down."
Gianni and Solange continue staring at each other silently as they lay in opposite ends of the room, Solange with her jovial smirk and Gianni with his grim expression.
Milano opens the door next to them.
Gianni springs up: "Oh. Hey man, you're bac- Woah. What the hell happened to you?"
Milano holds the door open and looks at them with his bruised up face: "Wooden fists hurt more than flesh fists."
Solange excitedly blushes: "Hehehe, you always look so much cuter when you're all messed up and bloody. <3 So did ya convince the puppet girl or should I go in there and chop us up some firewood, it's gettin' kinda chilly in here."
Milano: "She's gonna help us earn points by hunting down the 3 myths."
Gianni: "OOH YEAA! I never thought you'd be able to convince that wooden bitch! YOU DID IT MAN! C'MERE, LEMME LICK YOUR MAN-BUN!"
Gianni pounces on Milano.
Milano: "What? No, please don't do that. And don't call women 'bitch', it's not nice."
Milano tries keeping Gianni away from him with his arms.
Gianni with his tongue out and sharp teeth exposed: "C'mon man! Your man-bun deserves a nice lick!"
Milano sweats as he struggles to keep him away: "This is not a normal way of congratulating a friend."
Solange stands up and begins talking with a serious tone: "Whad'yu mean 3 myths? I thought I said we could only go after 2 of 'em."
Milano and Gianni stop and look at Solange.
Gianni with his tongue still drooping out his mouth: "Eh!?"
Milano looks at her with a monotone face.
Solange: "Our plan was to go after the Phantom Muppeteer and Centipede Witch. Killin' those 2 will give us more than enough points to buy the equipment we need and make a deal with the head of the Circus Purge."
Milano, blankly: "Yes. I misspoke."
Gianni's eyeballs look back up to Milano.
Gianni: "Ain't the Centipede Witch the strongest one? Why don't we jus' go after the Muppeteer and Giraffe Pirate guy?"
Solange tilts her head trying to read Milano's single eye.
Solange: "Cuz I know things about the 2nd layer and the Circus Purge that you 2 don't."
Milano, sternly: "Maybe it's time you told us then. Why you won't allow us to go after the Giraffe Pirate, why Gianni got a prize on his head, why's everyone in here hunting him down, and what happened the last time you and I were in the 2nd layer?"
Solange smiles warmly: "Can't tell ya that, you'll just go n' try ta' kill yourself again. And honestly, even I don't know why everyone's so obsessed with Gianni."
Gianni, confused: "Ain't it cuz I burned the 17th grand theater down?"
Solange bursts out in laughter: "HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
Milano blinks.
Gianni: -_- "What's so funny, you sociopath lady?"
Solange wipes her tears of laughter: "Is that seriously what you thought? There are performers who've done way worse than that, y'know? Especially in this layer. There must be somethin' else 'bout you, probably 'bout your past, that arouses the fear of the higher ups of Circopia. I ain't the only one wit' secrets. What kinda skeletons ya got in your closet, clown boy?"
Gianni: "Hah? I don't got a closet, I'm too broke and ma house didn't have no space. Plus if I had one why the heck would I put skeletons in it? That makes no sense."
Milano puts his hand on Gianni's shoulder, supportively.
Milano: "It's an analogy, my friend. Like the one you made about the show and curtains."
Gianni with an educated expression: "Oooh!"
Solange: "Oh that reminds me... Milano, what did you see in the dream you had earlier? You never told us. You said you remembered something from the last time me and you were in the 2nd layer. Can't have ya rememberin' anythin' ya know."
Milano looks at Solange and pauses for a moment.
Milano: "I forgot."
Solange lifts an eyebrow.
A portion of the wooden ceiling above them starts cracking and a fog of wood dust fills the room.
Gianni looks up with a clenched face: "What the heck!?"
Solange nonchalantly: "Hehe, the spoiled brat finally leaves her room."
Milano calmly observes.
A part of the ceiling breaks open and wood tiles plummet onto the floor.
Juno's puppet drops through the hole in the ceiling and lands in front of Gianni.
Juno's strings, dangling from the ceiling, pull her up into an upright position and she stares at Gianni with her indigo and violet curly hair, wooden skin and swirling carousel eyes.
Gianni looks up at her: "PUPPET BITCH!!"
Milano eyes Gianni from behind Juno.
Gianni: "I mean- puppet lady."
Juno connects a powerful wooden kick onto Gianni's chin, sending him flying into the wall, breaking a shelf filled with small wooden puppet body parts.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
Gianni: "AARGH!!?"
Solange: "Ouch."
Juno: "I know where the Phantom Muppeteer is. But it's also the location of one of the 6 Prize Dispensers within the Circus Purge, meaning it'll be infested with other performers as well."
Milano: "That's alright, it works to our advantage to be close to a prize dispenser. After we take down the Muppeteer, we'll use his points to buy the necessary equipment we need from the dispenser to stand a chance against the Centipede Witch."
Milano and Juno glance at each other for a moment.
Juno: "Right. Centipede Witch."
Solange squints as she notices Milano's zipper on his pants is slightly unzipped.
Juno: "We'll start with the Muppeteer then. His location is the surrounding area of Prize Dispenser 3, Liminal Land Amusement Park."
Solange: "Amusement park?"
Gianni stands up with a bloody chin.
Everyone turns to Gianni.
Gianni: "BUMPKIN! COME HERE YA USELESS FLYING MONKEY!"
Bumpkin the bat dives into the room through a broken window and lands on Gianni's arm.
Bumpkin: "EEEH!" /＼ ^-_-^ ／\
Gianni smiles at him: "Lookout duty's over buddy! We're leavin' this shithole! We going to a theme park!"
Gianni's smile wobbles a little: "Jus' like we used to wit' Blanca and Goma-Chan!"
Bumpkin, determinedly: "EH!" /＼^Ò ‸ Ó^ ／\
Milano smiles.
His smile then fades.
Milano: "Gianni. Out of all of us here, you need to be the most careful."
Gianni: "Hah?"
Milano: "If the performers at the theme park realize that you're in there with them, I'm sure the mission will quickly turn from trying to kill the Phantom Muppeteer to trying to get you out of there alive."
Gianni blinks.
Unlike when he heard it from Solange, when Gianni heard that from Milano, he finally understood the severity of his situation.
Gianni looks at Milano with a monotone expression.
Solange giggles: "Hehehe... Whoopsie daisy! It finally clicked in your brain, didn't it?"
Juno eyes Gianni.
Juno: "Entering that theme park for you will be like jumping into a pool of hungry sharks."
Solange: "Hungry for clown meat! Hehe! CHOMP CHOMP!"
Juno: "Ew... clown meat? What's the sauce? Teriyaki Makeup?"
Solange: "HAHAHAHA WITH A SIDE OF RED NOSES."
Juno: "Hehehehe! Served in a jester hat dish."
Milano gently smacks them both on the back of their heads.
Solange and Juno: "Ouw!"
Milano: "Stop bullying him."
Milano turns to Gianni.
Milano: "Gianni, are you alright?"
Gianni stares them down: "... I ain't scared. Only a clown would be scared."
Gianni gains back his smile: "Plus! I'm the one that dragged ya out of your luxurious depressing mansion prison and I made that promise to you that we'd see the electric eels together! Ya better start puttin' in some work or I might have to drag ya all the way to the outside world myself, orca boy!"
Milano smiles: "Ha! Don't worry. I made a promise to myself too! My days of looking up and seeing a giant ugly tent are numbered!"
Solange looks a little shocked as she hears Milano say that. It makes her feel explosions of rainbows and sunshine in her insides. She smiles with a small chuckle.
Gianni: "HAHAHAHA! YEAAAHAA!"
Juno laying on the floor with her arms behind her head: "By the way, Milano. Clown kid. I'm gonna need you 2 to push a cart filled with 99 puppets to the theme park, got it?"
Gianni and Milano's motivated smiles get knocked out of their faces: "Eh!?"
Gianni: "Why don't you like... levitate them with your demon powers or something."
Juno pouts: "CUZ I DON'T FEEL LIKE IT! HMPH!"
Gianni looks at her super confused.
Milano whispers into Gianni's ear: "There's no such thing as demon powers."
Gianni pulls his educated expression once more: "Ohhoo!"
Juno: "I HEARD THAT, EYEPATCH!"
-42KM Away, Liminal Land Amusement Park, Location of Prize Dispenser 3-
A colossal 666 meter tall prize dispenser resembling a gigantic gashapon toy dispenser with a tinted spherical glass frame holding mysterious contents stands tall in the dead center of a seemingly endless and empty amusement park under the flamboyant Circopian tent. It is marked with a giant "3".
Under the shadows of the infinite red and purple roller coaster tracks, a man wearing a plague doctor mask desperately swims towards the shore of a colorful plastic ball-bit.
Yes, a colorful plastic ball pit made up of exactly 666,666,666 plastic balls.
The ball pit stretches for miles and reaches unknown depths deeper than 1000 meters.
The man miserably flaps his limbs around trying to make it to the far away ball-pit beach as he struggles to not sink into the rainbow colored abyss.
The sensation of static shocks pierce his skin from the countless plastic balls and the strong smell of polythene plastic digs its way into his nostrils.
He swims by large yellow signs graffitied in spray paint as he gasps for air.
[https://img.wattpad.com/ef76285e583cbbb7a31c983b4d6cab4e6f302e95/68747470733a2f2f73332e616d617a6f6e6177732e636f6d2f776174747061642d6d656469612d736572766963652f53746f7279496d6167652f6f4e4d6e375a55373870633773773d3d2d313138333036303934362e313663636639353835306439646265633632303434363533373730302e706e67]
[https://img.wattpad.com/dfa54b108920495b1e0b8091469a488f7e4cf11b/68747470733a2f2f73332e616d617a6f6e6177732e636f6d2f776174747061642d6d656469612d736572766963652f53746f7279496d6167652f7032476e7a69477678524e622d773d3d2d313138333036303934362e313663636639356439383431616164363335393532343635343730302e706e67]
As the man keeps swimming, a section in the ball-pit begins moving in an unnatural way.
Man: "Please God, please. PEASE! Forgive me for joining the Circus Purge! I was just going to kill Gianni of Circopia to win my son a ticket to the outside world! All the other kills I made were self defense! THEY WERE SELF DEFENSE! Please forgive me for my sins!!"
An uncanny figure of a gigantic monster lurks from under the man, only parts of it visible from the gaps in the infinite plastic balls stacked on top of each other.
The man begins crying: "AAAAAAHHHH HUEEEUHAAAAAEE-"
He abruptly and violently gets pulled into the ball-pit.
Silence.
The ball-pit stops moving.
Not far from there, the Phantom Muppeteer is sitting inside an operating ferris wheel, slouched on his seat as he stares at himself in the reflection of the pod window.
Sitting across him is a large 2 meter tall sloth muppet who barely fits in a crouched position inside the ferris wheel pod. It fiddles with its cloth hands.
Phantom Muppeteer looks at the stitch marks on his eyelids left from the meeting he had earlier with the head of the Circus Purge.
Phantom Muppeteer: "And here I was, thinking I couldn't get any uglier."
The sloth muppet talks: "You are very handsome, dad. I'm sure you will find a lucky woman for you some day."
Phantom Muppeteer fixes his tie: "You're forgetting I have a wife. She's my one and only."
Sloth Muppet: "But isn't she-"
Phantom Muppeteer, coldly: "Just because she's dead don't mean I don't have her."
The pod goes silent.
Sloth Muppet stays quiet.
Sloth Muppet awkwardly taps his fluffy toes on the floor to cope with the daunting silence.
A device in Phantom Muppeteer's pocket beeps and begins speaking.
Device: "Phantom Muppeteer, you have killed performer 'Plague Doctor'. Circus Purge Points earned, 17."
Sloth Muppet looks out the window like a child: "Ooh! Pollywog got another one. I'm super jealous!"
Phantom Muppeteer: "Oi. What did I say about being jealous of your siblings, Sloth."
Sloth frowns with his chunky lips: "Yes. Sorry, dad."
Phantom Muppeteer leans his head on the window: "Although, I am exceptionally proud of Pollywog. She's not the talkative type but she's been doing great lately. I think I'll have her be the one to finish off Gianni of Circopia after I'm done with him of course."
Sloth silently clenches his cloth fist.
Sloth: "Oh yea. Shouldn't we be going after Gianni of Circopia, dad?"
Phantom Muppeteer rests his cheek on his palm: "Nah, no need for that anymore. He's comin' to us."
Sloth scratches his head inquisitively: "How do we know that?"
Phantom Muppeteer smirks: "Let's just say I made a little deal with somebody. She's bringin' Gianni of Circopia right to us."
Sloth: "WHOAAH! YOU'RE FREAKIN' SUPER AWESOME, DAD!"
Phantom Muppeteer chuckles: "Hahaha... You're freakin' super awesome too, ya little rascal!"
Phantom Muppeteer playfully pinches Sloth's cheek.
Sloth: "HEHEHE! Stop! It tickles!"
Phantom Muppeteer: "It tickles aye? How about... THIS!"
Phantom Muppeteer tickles Sloth's large cloth armpits and knitted belly.
Sloth laughs out loud as he rolls around on his seat: "HAHAHAHEEHEEHE!!"
Phantom Muppeteer then lays back on his seat and looks up at the ceiling of the pod with his arms behind his head: "But you know, Sloth. If I was really that awesome, your mother would still be alive."
Sloth is caught by surprise and begins to fiddle around with his hands, not knowing what to say.
Phantom Muppeteer with his tired eyes: "I really need a smoke right now."
Sloth's face suddenly fills with a cheeky smile.
Phantom Muppeteer looks strangely: "Hm? What you smilin' at?"
Sloth opens his mouth unnaturally wide: "BLECH!!"
Inside his mouth-hole is a stockpile mountain of a hundred cigarettes.
Phantom Muppeteer's eyes slightly widen and he picks a cigarette from the pile.
Phantom Muppeteer looks at the cigarette in his hand: "You're a lifesaver, kid."
He lights his cigarette as Sloth wholesomely smiles, watching his father smoke.
[https://img.wattpad.com/7fc1e586894f9264e260e70f3c6adb91e3962c65/68747470733a2f2f73332e616d617a6f6e6177732e636f6d2f776174747061642d6d656469612d736572766963652f53746f7279496d6167652f33783468364d52534b42655162673d3d2d313138333036303934362e313663636639363436343138373935353833343135323331353034332e706e67]