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Fire erupted from the kitchen, so much so that the crowd of Toons gathering around the kitchen couldn’t see inside. Sprout stared into the fire with a horrified face, knowing that Cosmo was in there.
Two others, Vee and Tisha, were already inside. When Shelly heard nothing of their return, no approaching footsteps or voices, she followed suit.The room felt so much bigger in a blaze, but the smoke crowding her breathing and the intense searing, sharp sensations on her skin kept her focus away from that fact. She just hoped she could remember which way was back.Vee was shockingly still functional, but with multiple overheating warnings on her screen, as well as parts of her outer shell melting off, anyone could assume that she wouldn’t last forever.
Vee was dragging fallen fragments off of and away from Tisha, who was presumably trapped. That may be the first time they didn’t look at each other with bitter expressions.Cosmo is unconscious, but alive, when Shelly finds him. She drags his limp body away towards the exit of the room.
Vee is hauling Tisha with her, the two of them finally being able to drag and carry their fellow toons out.
As the danger around her fades, Shelly can feel the stinging sensations intensify. Burns have scattered their way across her body, feeling like a painful critique for every small movement she makes.
Tisha is trying and failing to stand back up, Vee is desperately searching for a cool surface to put her head, (where most of her data and important stuff was stored) and Sprout is hugging Cosmo like there’s no tomorrow.
Shelly furthers herself from the fire, coughing into her arm, telling herself in her mind that she could’ve been worse off. A thump can be heard from behind most of the toons.
“Shelly!?”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
It had only been a handful of minutes where she was patterned with burns, but the relief that an unwilling sleep brought her was indescribable.Shelly traverses a spacey area, surrounded by stars and different shades of blue. A calming yet familiar ambience.“You’re dreaming.” Astro mutters.“I noticed.” Shelly sits down in front of Astro. “The fire uncovered something interesting.” Astro tells. “It seems to be a sudden thief of free time for Rodger.” Shelly raises an eyebrow. “A room.” Astro clarifies. “Brightney and Rodger have been searching it.”Shelly hums before looking to her left. A void of mixing blues, comets, and stars expands seemingly endlessly.”…Will I wake up soon?” Shelly asks quietly. “When this dream is over…” Astro replies in a mumble.Shelly groans internally, not looking forward to going back to being burnt and hurt. Clear, non-injured skin felt much better anyway.”Vee is waiting too.” “Hm?””Vee seems eager to talk to you.” Astro recalls.”Well, there’s a first for everything…” Shelly sighs.She stares into the array of shades, space, and stars for a little longer before everything is gone in an instant.Shelly’s eyes fight themselves open, to be greeted to the sight of Vee, who has only partially fixed the damage done to her body. Vee’s screen shifts to surprised in an instant. Shelly couldn’t tell what face she had before.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Shelly follows behind Vee, who explains the situation as they travel towards the kitchen.“The room’s destruction led to the discovery of a new room.” Vee says. “I haven’t been there myself yet, but we wanted to wait until everyone involved was able to get to the kitchen.” Vee turns around, looking at Shelly. “The sudden flame has sparked a lot of questions. Like…What started the fire?”Shelly listened, nodding along. After a moment, the silence between the two was broken.”Why were you in there?” Shelly asks with a tilted head. “You…You’re someone who only does things based off of what’s logically correct.” Shelly catches up to stand at Vee’s side, silently cursing every distracting burn on her body.
Vee looks at Shelly again. “While it wouldn’t be logical to be destroyed in a fire,” Vee puts a hand up to the bottom of her screen. “I’m not programmed to watch my colleagues die in a kitchen fire.”Shelly makes a hum of acknowledgement, looking back ahead.In front of them, the charred remains of what was once a good kitchen is being explored by Rodger and Brightney. Tisha and Cosmo were inspecting an area crowded with fragments of the room. Tisha turns around, waving and smiling at Shelly. Vee glances to the side, guessing that she would at least get a bitter look from Tisha, or at most the middle finger. For once, Tisha’s expression was neutral with Vee. She owed too much to Vee to give her a petty look.
Rodger hears the footsteps from further away, looking up quickly in a jolt.
“That’s the last of them.” He stands back up, brushing off his coat. Brightney looks up as well, as the group meets in the middle of the wreckage. “Are you all ready?” After the collection of nods and quiet “yes” responses, he leads the group over to a hole in the wall, like a blast had occurred right there. Inside of said hole, there was a dark room with shelves holding a variety of things inside. The group steps over the rubble in front of the hole, looking around. The room wasn’t huge, but enough to fit plenty of people in it. It was colder than expected inside, Vee being the first to venture inside. Shelly follows close behind.
“There’s something familiar about this place.” Vee’s head tilts. “Like I have some innate recognition of what this place is.”Shelly looks around, raising an eyebrow. “Was this room used before everyone else came along? I mean…The only person who’s been here longer is Dandy himself.” “I think so…” Vee picks up a plushy of herself off of the shelf next to her, staring at the signature smug smile plastered on the plushy’s face. “Was it a storage room?” Brightney suggests from across the room, looking at what was held on the shelves. “It seems like a lot of on-brand stuff is in here.”
Rodger looks around as well. “A staff-only room wouldn’t be this decorated. It seems like a room that guests went into.”Vee looks down at the plushy again, her digital eyes narrowing. “There’s a few tapes in here.” Tisha points out, picking them up. “‘Play for attendees’.” She reads off of the tape’s label. Rodger thinks for a second, before walking over and taking the tapes. “We’ll review these later.” He stashes them in his coat pocket, looking around.2 hours passed of exploration and discoveries inside of that room. Shelly had to admit, the cold air of that room felt like a massive relief on the sting of her burns. “We’ve been here a long time and circled around the room 5 times without anything new.” Cosmo points out. “I think we’ve found…everything.” “Everything worth discovering, at least.” Rodger sighs. “Alright. We can head out of here for now, and I’ll go over what we have.”Brightney looks at Rodger. “Couldn’t we just ask Dandy? I mean, if Vee partially remembers it then maybe Dandy remembers something too.””I didn’t have that conversation with the intention of being overheard.” Vee specifies. “But it’s not a bad idea.”Rodger sighs again. “Later. Right now, my plate is already full of things to look into.”As Tisha, Cosmo, Vee, and Shelly wander away from the kitchen, Cosmo looks back at Brightney and Rodger inaudibly conversing. “Poor Rodger. I don’t think I could live a life being bombarded with so many mysteries.” Cosmo speaks in a sympathetic tone. “Well, if you’re good at your job, they don’t stay mysteries for long.” Vee’s cracked screen displays a smug grin as she says that. Shelly and Cosmo chuckle, while Tisha lightheartedly rolls her eyes. “So…What’s the next order of business?” Tisha crosses her arms.”Recover I guess?” Shelly shrugs. “Or talk to Dandy.”The group is silent after that, with Tisha and Cosmo heading back to their rooms.”You know…I think it’s nice to participate in a mystery with people you know.” Shelly smiles, looking at Vee.Vee looks back at Shelly, smiling.”…Yeah. It is.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Rodger hunched over the fragments of evidence he had at his wooden desk at home, the only light in the house coming from the small lamp next to him.He prioritized investigating why the kitchen exploded before he would get to what that new room really was. Something like that was dangerous, after all.Vee’s ability to run tapes had been damaged anyway, so he wouldn’t be able to utilize his biggest piece of evidence for a bit.Rodger felt…dumbfounded. Silently humiliated. None of this added up…and he was supposed to be smart!Rodger tapped his pencil above his only eye, groaning quietly. The house was quiet and darkened, a time when Rodger could sit in reassurance without worrying about noise and danger. Even with his fears of the unknown, he found the dark bringing a sense of peace to his mind…as long as it was mostly quiet.Rodger’s grip on the desk tightened when he heard the creaking of floorboards.He told himself Toodles was awake in his head, the line repeating over and over, but it was of little reassurance. He could’ve sworn he saw movement in his peripheral vision, but it was always just shy of being located.His grip on his pencil was tight, white-knuckled even, hoping that the sharpened lead would be enough to defend himself against whatever posed a threat.He felt more drawn to the light again. The innate feeling of peace in the darkness never lasted forever. He spins his chair around when he hears the creaking only a few feet away from him, to see Toodles’ small silhouette. Rodger sighs with relief, his grip on his pencil loosening again. “You should be asleep, Toodles.” Rodger’s head tilts a little.”I wanna know what you’re working on.” Toodles steps closer, her face coming into vision from the light the small lamp emitted. “Nothing too big.” Rodger mumbles, standing up. “Though I’m sure once I’m finished, we can talk all about it.”Toodles looks up at him in admiration, nodding. “But,” Rodger kneels down and lightly pokes Toodles on the forehead. “I can only tell you if you’re well rested. Which means it’s time you and I both go to bed.” Toodles runs off back to her room, while Rodger turns off the lamp and travels to his room as well.All that was was his drowsiness getting to him, or that’s what he told himself. At least he wouldn’t have to defend himself against, in his words, “unjustifiably concerned” toons. At least not right now, for all he knew.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Dandy leans on the counter of his shop in the lobby, his eyebrows raising.
“So
that’s
where it was!” Dandy gasps.
”So you know what it was?” Shelly asks hopefully.
”Oh, yeah. Back in the day, it was used as a…reprimanding room, is what someone called it.” Dandy starts.
”How bad of a person were you that you had to get your own room to be reprimanded in?” Vee raises an eyebrow. “Because
I
have no memory of being in there.”
”Let me finish.” Dandy orders. “Primarily, it was used for a certain TV here. Long story short, the others found the room, sent your handler on their merry way and replaced them with a new one. The things your pre-Veronica handler did to you, my friend, made the already unethical punishment room even more unethical.” Dandy chuckles. “I mean, they walled off the room ‘cus even after they repurposed the room,
you
had a freakout every time you went in there.”
“What did they do!?” Vee demands, hitting Dandy’s counter with a metal fist.
”Vee, the others wiped your memory for a reason!” Dandy insists. “Believe me when I say that it’s in
your
best interest that I say
no
.”
Shelly watches them with internal fear. It had all happened before Shelly had joined the other toons, before anyone else had. It just left her with more curiosity, and worry, for what happened in there.
Vee storms off, growling.
Bolts scattered across the worktable as Vee repaired the tape player in her torso.
Vee entered in a testing tape. It functioned…perfectly.
Rodger sat at his home desk, staring at the tapes with wonder. He jumps when someone knocks on his door.
“Vee?” Rodger’s head tilts when he opens the door.
“Give me the tapes. We’re doing this. Now.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Light seeps in through the gaps in the closed windows, with nothing else to illuminate his house with other than Vee.The door knocks a few times, with Rodger opening the door to see Shelly.”…Is Vee here?”Shelly and Rodger sat next to each other in front of VeeTapes show videos of multiple evenings of Vee shutting down or malfunctioning in front of guests, while handlers dragged her out.Time spent in that room after the fact was the closest she got to real tears. Vee knows that for sure.Rodger wanted to say so much, as did Shelly. But none could muster words that would truly make someone feel better after that.Vee silently reaches her hand out, signaling a request for the rest of the tapes. her expression slightly annoyed yet saddened.The two stared into Vee as video recordings of reprogramming and bodily destruction played.The odd sense of familiarity it had, rewatching those times again, grew stronger and stronger. It was no sense of warmth, only of dread, an emotions so human-like that she tried to lead herself to doubt it.Angered mutters and yells meld together in the audio, along with the sounds of mechanical tinkering and and crushing metal.It felt so much more memorable upon rewatching it, like a lost part of her non-existent brain being dug up.The tapes come to a stop, with Vee’s screen shutting off momentarily.Vee’s face returns with wide-eyes and a frown.Shelly places her hand over Vee’s, giving it a small squeeze. “It’ll be okay.” Shelly muttered.Vee’s frown seemed to lessen at that.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
What Vee was doing wasn’t logical, like she was programmed to be, but she didn’t really care.
She hid in her room, avoiding any noise, light, or toon.
Shelly knocked on Vee’s door with a concerned expression. Vee opens the door with a tired digital expression, and a low battery warning in the corner of her screen. She jolts into a straightened posture when she sees Shelly, leaning on her doorway.
”Ah- Hi- Hello, Shelly. What’re you doing here?”
Shelly’s expression changes into a face that says ‘it’s pretty obvious’. “You’ve been in your room for 4 days.”
”Why is that an issue?” Vee’s screen tilts. “I have no need to eat or get sunlight.”
”Because you’re usually out and about. Rodger is still theorizing that you’re completely dysfunctional.” Shelly pokes Vee’s chest, narrowing her eyes.
Vee scoffs, crossing her arms. “Well maybe Rodger needs to keep his detective skills focussed on why the damn kitchen exploded.” Vee steps back, grabbing the door. “I can handle myself.”
As she begins to close it, Shelly grabs it and pries it back open. “Nope.”
Vee frowns angrily. “What else is there to talk about?”
”How do I get you out of your room?” Shelly holds the door open, while Vee continues trying to close it.
”By leaving me alone!” Vee snaps.
”We tried that for four days, look where it got you!” Shelly counters, worried but angry.
Vee increased the force she was using on the door, insistent on being left alone. “You’re making it worse!”
Shelly groans a little. “Sometimes thing get worse before they get better…!”
”Why are you so focussed on trying to pry me out of here!?” Vee snaps, pulling the door harder. “Go do something useful with your time!”
”And you call me illogical?” Shelly’s hold on the door falters, trying to hold it open despite the increasing pressure. “I’m doing this because it’s useful for you!”
Vee growls, snapping even louder. “I don’t want something useful!”
The door slams closed, Shelly stepping back.
Vee sighs, turning around after locking the door. The low battery warning grows more prominent, her screen flickering.
Her screen cracks a little when her face hits the floor, her face flickering into black.