"Well, we gotta stay outta that tunnel!" Mr. Clayton shook in an exaggerated pantomime of fear. Shawn, for his part, had a feeling he knew where the biggest tunnel led, but it would take too long to explain to the others. "How does the Robot hypnotize people? We need to make sure it doesn't happen to us."

Leonard craned his neck to look upward at Mr. Clayton and then he sighed. "That's just it." He explained. "It's the worst thing ever. All he does is look at you." Then Leonard corrected himself. "All she does..." Then thinking better of that he said again.

"All IT does is look at you. That means that Ralph's Mom is a robot. No.. a King Robot." Leonard pronounced. His jaw dropped, mouth open with the implications of what he just said. Then he said in a small voice.

"that's why more people will be disappearing."

This time, it was Shawn's turn to look openly worried, and it was only at the last minute he realized Mr. Clayton should emote as well, since Leonard was looking at him. Mr. Clayton's jaw dropped just like Leonard's. "Is it just her looking at you? Or maybe you have to see her looking at you?" That was what all the hypnotists in cartoons did, right? 'Look into my eyes' and so on? "We can figure this out. There's gotta be a weakness - robots always have a weakness in the movies."
This message was last edited by the player at 20:37, Sat 21 Nov 2020.

"Yes." Leonard confirmed. So there was a weakness to Robot King. But judging by Leonard's mood and body language he seemed anything but happy about it. His shoulders had slumped and his voice took on a hopeless tone.

"Fire."

"Getting burned would wake up any of the Robots. That's what happened in my dream. And also, the Robot King hates fire. Because its in a fake body. A fake woman's body that looks like and old, fake, Ralph-Mom."

"But we can't use fire." Leonard lamented, as if all hope had been lost.

"We can't play with fire! I'll get my suit all toasty!" Mr. Clayton agreed with Leonard exaggeratedly, though understatedly Shawn knew that they couldn't exactly go around burning people in case they were robots. They'd get in big trouble for that. He wracked his brains for other options. "Yeah, we can't use fire unless we're sure no one else would be hurt. Hmm...what about fighting fire with fire? You said that the Robot King just has to look at people, right? Can we learn how to look at people like that? Look at the Robots and tell them not to go into the basement?"

Leonard said "I dunno." And then shrugged. "I'm not really sure. I mean, I once ran into a dog and gave it a look. But then it growled at me. I don't think they like that. If you look at dogs to long in the eyes." He stretched is arms and seemed to notice that his costume was ripped.

"Oh no. Look at that. A big gash in my costume." Leonard fretted. "Well, at least we know that the Robots have a weakness. That's something." He said. Though by the tone of his voice, Shawn could tell that he didn't believe it really was something that they could work with.

"Well hang on, lemme try! Look me in the eyes, Leonard." Mr. Clayton waved his arms around. Shawn didn't have much else in the way of ideas, but if a robot could hypnotize someone with a look, maybe Mr. Clayton could too. He tried to picture Mr. Clayton's eyes getting all swirly like on TV. It was a long shot, though no worse than starting a fire.

Leonard looked up and smiled a dewy smile at Mr. Clayton. His eyes, just seconds ago filled with the disappointment of having a ruined costume on Halloween, now were filled with the excitement of what the Puppet might say.

"Oh, boy, you bet I will!" Leonard said, looking into Mr. Clayton's eyes, his whole body now charged with the energy of a kid that was about to go on a roller coaster.

Shawn abruptly realized he had no idea what he was doing, and now Leonard was expecting something to happen. He had Mr. Clayton vamp a little while he tried to think of something that might work. "That's right, look into my eyes! You're getting sleeeeepy."

Shawn thought back to all his lessons with Mr. Clayton, and recalled some stuff that even if it didn't work, at least sounded spooky and entertaining. "Imagine you're a puppet, just like me! Except instead of some dummy sticking his hand up your back, you've got all sorts of invisible strings moving you around. Those strings are all the stuff that you think is important." Shawn moved Mr. Clayton so it looked like he was holding his arm out. "I've got an invisible string here in my hand. It's not attached to anything right now, but it's a robot string! I'm the only one who can pull it, and if you attached the string to someone, they'd turn into a robot. It's 'cause the string is bigger and stronger than any other string a person can have. Now, Leonard, can you lean in nice and close?"
This message was last edited by the player at 14:47, Sun 29 Nov 2020.

Leonard leaned in with a big, expectant smile on his face.

"Alright. I'm ready to play!" He said with excitement. "What am I supposed to do again?"

Mr. Clayton looked at Leonard with his empty eyes, seeming to meet his gaze, though of course he was just a dummy that couldn't see anything. Then in a sudden flash of movement, he poked Leonard lightly on the forehead. "Boop! The robot string's attached to you - you're hypnotized now like the robots!"

Shawn cut in like he was an exasperated babysitter. "Stop being silly, Mr. Clayton. That's not how it works. Right, Leonard?" He looked at Leonard, gauging his reaction to the rather silly way Mr. Clayton was acting. He didn't think it was likely it would work the way Mr. Clayton said, but Ventriloquism was weird, and he couldn't completely rule it out.

Leonard's head moved backward as Mr. Clayton's puppet-hand touched his forehead. With the word 'Boop', Leonard's face lit up in a beaming smile.

"I'm all attached now!" he said, moving his hands out with a flourish. "Now I'm ready!" eager to see what Shawn and Mr. Clayton might have in store.

Shawn and Mr. Clayton looked at each other as Shawn switched into a more conversational mode. "I don't think it worked, Leonard said people acted like robots." Mr. Clayton shook his head. "Well, I haven't pulled on the string yet. I gotta pull the string first, so all the other strings fall out." His tone made it sound like the most obvious thing in the world, despite Shawn just sort of improvising it.

"Well, you shouldn't want to hypnotize Leonard, he's our friend. Ralph's mom's doing it to hurt people!" Shawn looked concerned, which made Mr. Clayton seem almost offended. "Well yeah, that's why I'm doing it, ya dummy! The only way we know how to wake the robot people up is fire! If I turn Leonard into a robot, you can figure out a safer way to wake him up! And then all those other people!"

"That's only if you can do it. You're not Ralph's mom, you know." Shawn was playing the voice of reason in an argument with himself. Except he didn't really know which side of the argument that actually was. All he could do was be both sides as well as he could, and be a gracious loser/winner. "Well, I guess we're gonna find out! All right, Leonard, look me deep in the eyes! Deep, deep, deep. Like you might fall in. I've got your robot string in my hands, Leonard." Shawn pictured the string as hard as he could, telling himself it was actually there. Mr. Clayton paused for a moment, seemingly for dramatic effect, but in actuality so Shawn could mutter "I give myself to Greater Ventrioquism, I give myself to Greater Ventrioquism..." a few times under his breath. Then with a dramatic flourish, Mr. Clayton yanked his arms back like he was pulling on a rope.

Leonard didn't do anything. He just stood there looking up, his eyes bright with anticipation, his mouth open slightly as if he was about to say something or respond to what Shawn or the Puppet had said.

Then, there was a rumbling sound from somewhere. Leonard's hands grabbed his stomach, as if realizing that it was the sound of his hungry belly.

Suddenly, he let out a loud burp that sounded like

"Fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiire Or ..."

Shawn leaned in close, trying to see if Leonard was going to say or do anything special. He felt an odd combination of confused, relieved, and disappointed when all he did was burp. Though it sounded a lot like words. "What was that, Leonard?"

Leonard's face scrunched up in a twisted look, half-disgusted, half embarrassed by the sound he made.

"Sorry. My stomach is grumbling." Leonard said. He rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand where Mr. Clayton had poked him in the forehead.

The skin there had a pale, reddish hue.

"I meant to say..." Leonard started, and there was a grumbling in his stomach again.

He opened up his mouth to say something, but all that came out was a loud burb again.

"Fiiiiiiiiiiiiiire.....or...b..b..BOOM" and Leonard covered his mouth after that last part, the 'BOOM' sounding very loud and particularly garish burbing sound.

"Do you mean BOOM like a loud noise? Or an explosion?" Shawn looked at the red spot on Leonard's forehead with hidden curiosity - he hadn't poked him that hard...

Leonard covered his mouth again, his eyes wide with surprise, his face suddenly glistening with sickly sweat.

"I meant..." Leonard said with sudden weakness in his voice. "Ex...explosion and fire.." Leonard said. "Or fire...I mean..."

Suddenly Leonard's stomach growled again. The red mark on his forehead looked like a sunburn, or some kind of skin rash.

"Bwaaaah!" And Leonard jerked forwards and sprayed black vomit over the dresser. It splattered against the drawings and sketches and turned the paper angry red. Leonard gurgled, fists clenched on the dresser in front of him, his body shaking, then he hunched over and poured out puke again.

"Guuurgh!" And he lurched away, red drool dangling from his lip, eyes starting from his white face, gave a strangled groan and toppled back, dragging one bloody drawing with him.

Shawn rushed forward, horrified at what was going on. "Leonard, are you okay?" He tried to guide his friend towards his bed, though while facing Leonard's head away from both him and the bed.

Shawn reacted to what was happening just in time to dive forwards and catch the Leonard's limp body before he fell. He staggered across the bed struggling to hold him up and then lower him down softly.

"Shit." Michael said in a flat tone, the curse word coming out with all of the boredom of a kid waiting for hours at the dentist's office. He started over to the bed, hurried, but not with any sympathy for Leonard or his plight. His face was emotionless, his eyes dead and flat.

"I think its because you did something with the Puppet. Maybe something magical." He said with his deep voice.

Shawn carefully lowered Leonard onto the bed and stepped back a bit, not sure what to do now. He looked over at Michael. "I think so, but I didn't mean to hurt him." His tone was a little defensive, but he wasn't just trying to justify himself - he needed to make sure that Michael understood he hadn't wanted to hurt Leonard, so Michael didn't do anything that might make things worse.

He looked down at Mr. Clayton, still hanging from his arm. "What did you do? What's happening to Leonard?" Unlike before, when he'd been making up with Mr. Clayton had said, instead he relaxed his mind to let the dummy talk 'freely'.

"I didn't do anything. What a gross, vomit boy!" Mr. Clayton said in a jovial voice, a kid watching Saturday morning cartoons instead of someone who just saw a child vomit blood everywhere and then fall over.

"It's a terrible, terrible thing! But it's not my fault. Greater Ventriloquism always works, its just maybe you took it too far." Mr. Clayton said, suggesting that it was all Shawn's fault.

"Took what too far? What is it doing?" Shawn looked from Mr. Clayton to Leonard, trying to see if anything else was happening to Leonard. Whatever he'd tried to do with ventriloquism, Greater or otherwise, it didn't have anything to do with throwing up.

"I just make sure the wheel spins and tell you what it can do. You didn't ask me what would happen if you tried...tried whatever it is you were trying." Mr. Clayton said defensively, offering his palms out with a sheepish grin.

He looked down at Leonard who was coated in slick vomit, the cardboard box now wet shades of red and dark green.  "What a gross, vomit boy!" Mr. Clayton concluded and then looked back up at Shawn.

"You can't expect to learn to ice skate without falling down sometimes." He said, as if Greater Ventriloquism was all about practice and not about Leonard in the state that he was in.