"You didn't tell me what it could do. That's why we're in this mess." Shawn looked closely at Leonard's face, trying to see if he was looking sicker or better. "What's happening to him, Mr. Clayton? You can't tell me it just made him throw up."

"Why didn't you tell me what you were planning to do!?" Mr. Clayton said, his voice rising an entire octave higher. "How am I supposed to help make things work if you're out by yourself trying to master things that you don't even know about!!...Yucka! Yucka!!!" But the 'Yuckas' lacked Mr. Clayton's sing-song mirth. They came out instead in a petulant, petty and spiteful tone.

Shawn looked down at Leonard.

Even in the half-light, it seemed obvious that he was terribly ill. His face was ashen pale and there was a sheen of sweat across his forehead. His eyes were sunken and ringed with black. His lip quivered. Shawn could see a dark stain down the front of
his costume that looked very much like blood.
This message was last edited by the player at 20:22, Sat 12 Dec 2020.

"Maybe now might not be the time to play with the Puppet." Michael interjected, observing Shawn's ventriloquism.

"We should get help or go." He intoned. Even in Michael's flat tone Shawn could detect that the boy preferred to go. To get up and leave Leonard, lest they get in trouble.

The cowardly part of Shawn was also telling him to leave, and avoid further trouble. But this whole thing was his fault, and he felt like he should at least try to fix it. "Let me try one thing to fix it, then we'll go."

He approached closer to Leonard, looking between him and Mr. Clayton. "If I make you poke his head again and say 'get better', would that work? Or how do I fix this? Now you know what I'm trying to do, you've got no excuse not to help."

Mr. Clayton folded his arms, a small child unhappy that he wasn't in charge of the game. "This is all your fault. I would have gone about it completely different. You're always trying to control everything. And now look, Leonard turned into a gross vomit-boy because of it. I swear, if you just listened to me more then none of this would have ever happened. You're always keeping secrets and trying to fix things. It's no wonder Bradford wanted you dead." Mr. Clayton said, and he shot Shawn a narrow-eyed, disapproving glare.

"What if I don't want to do it. You've stopped practicing with me as much. You're all about Leonard and Ralph and fixing and helping them. What about me? Time was, we would spend hours and hours practicing alone in front of the mirror. It seemed just like yesterday." Mr. Clayton sighed in a resigned tone, like he was recounting days long gone in the past.

In fact, it had been only the day before yesterday that Shawn had spent the entire day in his room, staring at the mirror and practicing, his Dad getting angry that Shawn's room smelled. But, it appeared that this fact was lost on Mr. Clayton, or that he wanted more than Shawn had been giving.

"So now its all about Leonard." Mr. Clayton said. "Leonard and fixing Ralph. I told you that I wanted to 'switch' with you more like we learned to do. That's what I wanted. A lot. And to kill Mr. Cherrywinks, which means killing Ralph's Mom. And to sometimes do bad things and get away with it. That's what I wanted. But you're just interested in Ralph and Leonard now. They're your new friends. New besty-besty friends!!" Mr. Clayton spat out the last words with syrupy irony, like he really didn't approve of Shawn being best friends with either kid and preferred that Shawn was his best friend instead.

Shawn didn't have time for an extended argument with Mr. Clayton, so he tried to cut to the chase. "Look, if Leonard was my best friend, I wouldn't have done this to him, right? I did this because I wanted to figure out how to kill Mr. Cherrywinks, which is what you want. So you fix Leonard right now, or we're not best friends anymore."

 "So what do we do about it." Mr. Clayton said, recasting Shawn's request.

“Use Greater Ventriloquism to...you know, make him better.” Shawn didn’t know much about health, other than that vomiting blood was bad. “You should take the lead, since you know more, and Leonard likes you better than me anyway.” He threw in that bit of flattery in hopes that it would make Mr. Clayton more cooperative.

As Shawn looked down at the pale and vomit-covered Leonard, he realized there was one thing that Greater Ventriloquism could do to fix him. "Wait, I think I know what you're talking about. Dummies don't get sick, do they? If we could..." Though as he thought about it, he came to a disturbing, if paranoid thought. "Wait...is that why you made him sick? Because he said 'no' before?"

Mr. Clayton gave a crooked smile at Shawn's last question. Not affirming it. But not denying it either. "Let's just try it the old fashion way." Mr. Clayton suggested.

"Leonard!"

"Leonard!" Mr. Clayton shrieked.

"Leonard!! Wake up!"

The Puppet jumped on top of Leonard and grabbed the boy by the shoulders. His hand wheeled back and there was a loud crack as he smacked Leonard across the face.

"Wake up! Wake up! You're going to miss the fun!!" He yelled, and he smacked Leonard again across the face, leaving a bright, red pink spot on the boy's face.

"YUCKA! YUCKA!" He screamed with delight.

Michael's eyes darted across the room to settle on Shawn.

"You are strange." He commented to Shawn in a deadpan, flat voice. "You should have been sent to the Chesnut Grove institution or whatever it was called like I was."

Shawn tried to curl his free arm around Mr. Clayton to pull him back off of Leonard, but he was too late to stop the smack. "That's enough Mr. Clayton." He glanced at Michael, but didn't respond. He had to concede it looked pretty bad right now.

"We don't have time to mess around anymore, Mr. Clayton." Shawn grabbed one of Mr. Clayton's hands with his own hand and moved it towards Leonard, more gently this time. "We're gonna try again, and you're gonna make sure it works properly. I don't care if it makes him into a dummy like me, or a robot, or Superman. Just fix him." He squeezed his eyes tightly closed, muttering "I give myself to Greater Ventrioquism, I give myself to Greater Ventrioquism..." and then once again poked Leonard in the forehead with Mr. Clayton's hand.

Shawn closed his eyes. For a moment it felt like he was in the room alone. He was only dimly aware that Michael was in the room behind him. The words seemed to reverberate in his head:

"I give myself to Greater Ventrioquism..." The phrase sent echoes that bounced around the room into the nothingness. Behind his eyelids Shawn could see the glowing, three dimensional pyramid, it's layers burning bright neon and leaving streaks across his vision.

"Craa...." Leonard made a strange choking noise and coughed.

Shawn opened his eyes and saw that one of Leonard's eyes was open.

"I'm sorry." He mewed, reaching out to Shawn with one trembling hand, his voice soft and almost at a whisper.

"I don't think I can go out to Halloween." He said, sounding genuinely sorry.

"It's all my fault." He groaned. "I knew..." he stammered. "Knew I shouldn't have stolen candy from the tray. I took one. Took one that we were supposed to give out."

"I got....." he coughed, starting to recover his voice now. "Sick from it."

"It serves me right. Shoulda...listened..to...mom." He finished.

Shawn opened his eyes, but he could still see the pyramid afterimages when he blinked. He sagged with relief when Leonard opened his eyes. "I'm glad you're okay!" He watched the other boy closely, seeing if color was returning to his cheeks or other signs of actual recovery.

He felt bad that Leonard was blaming himself for this, and tried to concoct an explanation that might make him feel better. "No, Leonard, don't you see? It was the Robot King! You were getting too close to his weakness, so he made you sick from far away! You're a hero!"

A pale, pink hue had come back into Leonard's face. His voice was more steady, though he still clearly blamed himself for what had happened.

"I...it's my fault really. I took something I wasn't supposed to take and I knew it was wrong. It's just that I cou....couldn't control myself."

"I did a bad thing."

"I deserve baby Jesus' punishment."

Shawn took a half-step back from Leonard - still staying close by his side, but far enough that Mr. Clayton couldn't poke him again if he wanted to. "You look like you're starting to feel better, though. So even if it is a punishment, it isn't for long." He watched Leonard carefully - while Leonard seemed to be getting better, Shawn was still leery of side effects. He'd never healed someone before, and he didn't understand what Greater Ventriloquism had done this time any better than he understood what made Leonard sick to begin with.

"We should leave." Michael said with all of the urgency of someone bored, waiting on a long, lunch line at school.

"He's right. You should go." Leonard agreed, reaching a quivering hand out to Shawn, the fingernails caked with orange-colored vomit. Still, a great deal of color had returned to Leonard's face, even if it still looked like a wax candle.

"Get me.....a Snickers if you can...full size...not the small...ones." Leonard pleaded, his sweet-tooth somehow still there despite all that had happened.

Shawn watched Leonard for signs of recovery, especially around the eyes, but he knew Michael and Leonard were both right. "You're both right. We should go. Is there anything else important you can tell me about the Robot King before we leave? Anything at all?" He straightened up in preparation to leave.

"Yes...." Leonard said. He cleared his voice with a loud, rasping sound and then it came out  a bit stronger.

"Fire."

"Or explosions."

"That's what my dream said. That's what hurts the Robot King." And with that he turned over in his bed, and faced away from Shawn, as if giving way to exhaustion and ready to sleep.

"Get some sleep, Leonard." Shawn pulled back and started to leave the room. As he exited, he indicated that Michael should follow him. They needed to figure out what to do with all the information Leonard had given them.

Shawn followed Michael outside of the house. It appeared that the delinquents that had vandalized Leonard's house were all but gone, leaving dripping egg yokes that stained the shingles of the house and fragments of egg shells in front of the door.

"They are gone." Michael said, stating the obvious.

"Now we need to do what we were told to do." He said, a robot receiving a command at the command prompt and ready to execute the program for the user.

Shawn knew that they didn't have much time to stop the "Robot King", but they still needed a plan. "We should scout the house, first. And we'll need to get Ralph out of there." He had a couple of ideas, but one was more complicated and would need help from Mr. Clayton, while the other was more straightforward but also way more dangerous.

"Ugh." Michael grunted in what sounded like general agreement. He didn't show any other expression on his face that indicated whether he thought it was a good idea or not.

OOC: Shawn Joins Thread

Shawn: Treat or Treat At Ralph's House