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Chapter Text

A car could be seen driving down a dark back road; The car bounced up and down as the car ran over the small cracks in the road. The driver turned on the radio, which sparkled to life and began playing a radio show from the nearby town. “What do you think about Elijah Adler? Is he one of the best or the worst paranormal investigators out there? We will start taking callers so that you can give your opinion.” the radio host said as the driver who was listening was merely grinning as he let the radio in his car continue. “Well, because of him, my house caught on fire, and all he said was that he was fighting a water spirit and needed fire to defeat it,” a caller said. “Yeah, that’s weird; the guy is even weirder. Have you seen him? He always has a deck of blank playing cards with him at all times; there is something about that guy, something I don’t like.” the radio host said.
The driver quickly turned off the radio and deeply sighed “if they only knew what the truth was, but they will soon know when I, Elijah Adler, saves the world from destruction,” Elijah boasted while pulling out a blank playing card and turning into a cigarette. “Man, this ability is convenient,” he thought as he lit the cigarette. Still, before he could take a puff of his cigarette, he noticed that the car was starting to slow down at an exponential rate and then stopping in a matter of a minute.
“FUCK” Elijah screamed as his car started to stop in the middle of the deserted road. He got out and lifted the hood of his vehicle to assess the damage. “I might be one of the best paranormal investigators out there, but I’m no fucking mechanic,” Elijah muttered quietly to himself as he felt his anger quickly rising within him. “Alright, Elijah, calm down; there’s probably a place around here that can fix my car,” he said, instantly calming down. He looked around the road and noticed a rusted sign pole that said Handeemen Studio .5 Miles.
“Well, that is convenient; I hope somebody there can help me,” he said as he went back into his car to get all the necessities like his coat, bag, and folder holding his next case. He opened the folder making sure nothing was lost “well, it looks like this pizzeria is gonna have to wait until I can get my car back into working shape,” he muttered while putting the folder into his bag. He locked his car and started to walk.

After ten minutes of walking, Elijah noticed a large building with what looked like a puppet with a top hat and monocle that said Handeemen Studios, “I’m guessing this is my stop,” he said as he approached the door of the building. As he opened the door and went inside, the first thing he noticed was the horrible smell of the lousy quality paint that was on the walls, and a matter of fact, the walls themselves were peeling off, showing bugs that use it for nesting; Elijah shuddered with disgust and moved on.
He explored the lobby until he saw what looked like a person sitting at a table with a red cloth above them. The man was wearing a black covering on his head with a noose around his neck, making sure it didn’t come off. Still, the weirdest part about this guy’s appearance was that he seemed to have a puppet of what looked like the puppet on the building on his right hand. “hey, can you help me? My car broke down a half a mile from here, do know where a mechanic shop is?” he said while gaining no response from the man as he had his left hand on his head signify that he was bored.
“Maybe he didn’t hear me,” Elijah reasoned and started to walk towards the man and was about to repeat what he said until the puppet sprung to life. “Welcome old bean to the Handeemen Studio. I am Mortimer Handee pleasure to make your acquaintance.” The now ‘alive’ puppet said in a British accent, “This man is a good ventriloquist; I wonder if he does birthday parties,” Elijah thought to himself as he decided to play along. “Well, Mr.Handee, I was wondering if you know if there is someone who can help me fix my car,” he said, trying his best to do a British accent but failing at it.
“No, I cannot help you, sir, but you seem like you need fun in your life. So why not take a patented Handee man puppet free of charge,” he said as the floor in front of Elijah opened up to reveal five puppets that had different colors and hairstyles but ultimately looked the same in structure.

“Pick one, their all the same,” Mortimer said with a slight grin. Elijah stared at the five puppets. “These look like these belong together; I think you should just keep them,” Elijah replied in a neutral tone; in reality, he did not want the puppets since they looked like they could be infested with bugs or diseases. Mortimer, on the other hand, was utterly baffled. Everyone who came in this building accepted a puppet, but pushing his thoughts aside, he decided to try to convince this man a tool, “you do not need to worry, my friend these puppets are meant to find homes with people, and one of them will be happy with you” he said.
“Look, dude, I don’t want one of your puppets. They look like they’re infested with roaches,” Elijah said with brutal honesty while looking at the man with the cloth mask and not Mortimer. But before any of them could say anything, Elijah’s phone started ringing, startling both of them. Elijah pulled out his phone and answered it while Mortimer looked like he was about to explode with anger.
“Hello,” Elijah said while walking around the room. There were a couple of seconds of silence as the person of the other end replied, “well, Mr.Smith I’m sorry, but my car broke down, it looks like my investigation is gonna have to wait until I get it fixed,” he said as he ended the call and turned back to the man and puppet. “Isn’t it rude to answer a call while you are having a conversation with someone?” Mortimer asked judgmentally while making it evident that he was livid.
Elijah sighed, “look, dude, I think we got off on the wrong foot; look, I’ll take one of those puppets. So you don’t get your panties in a twist,” he said while looking at the five puppets. He picked up the one in the middle and started showing it off to Mortimer by posing with it mockingly. “You know, there is a certain magic about Handeemen puppets; when you wear them, they really wear you,” Mortimer said with absolute glee as the man who was ‘controlling’ him fell face-first onto the table. Mortimer then started to chant something in another language. Around him, a green mist began to form around Mortimer and eventually the room, but before the spell ended, Elijah’s eyes rolled back into his head as he fainted.

Chapter Text

When Elijah woke from his slumber, he was no longer in the poorly lit lobby of the Handeemen Studio. Still, he discovered that he was standing near an all too familiar night-lit street that seemed to have stores and apartment buildings on the side of the road, which seemed to go on forever. Elijah knew this street and where he was. So he started walking down the middle of the street with no fear of being hit by any cars since he knew that there would be no cars or people to drive them here, it was just him and the old man he had to find.

Elijah didn’t know when he started getting dreams like this, but all he knew was that the Old Man controlled this realm that he was inside. Elijah kept walking down the endless street, which to him felt like 30 minutes, but it would be around 2 or 3 minutes in the outside world. He was looking for something that stuck out. It could have been something big like a sign telling him where to go or something very minuscule like a fly that would show him the way. As Elijah kept walking, he finally noticed a man sitting on a bus stop bench, reading a large book. “There you are, you bastard,” Elijah said while putting up a small smile and crossed the road to reach the man; it was always a treat to talk to the Old Man.

When Elijah finally reached the old man, he sat down on the bench next to him. “Hey, Old Man, how are you” Elijah greeted the Old Man as he picked his head up from the book he was reading, making the job of getting a look at his face a whole lot easier. The Old Man looked precisely like Elijah, from the black hair, the rough beard, and a well-built physique. Differentiating the two was that the Old Man was a lot paler than Elijah. Most likely, since Elijah came here every time, it was in complete darkness all the time. Except for the occasional street light that lit the infinite street that lay before them.

“ You got tricked and kidnapped by a sentient puppet,” the Old Man said disappointedly, as he completely ignored Elijah's greeting. He went back to reading his book, which said on the cover The Story Of Elijah Adler by Elijah Adler.“Yeah, I did, but don’t you worry, old man, when I wake up, I'm going to beat the shit out of that Mortimer guy,” Elijah said, trying to reassure the Old Man. “ Well, you're probably going to have to rethink that plan, Elijah, it seems like there's more than one of them. If you were to attack them all in a group, then you'll get overpowered quickly, but if you took them out one by one, then you’ll be fine,” the Old Man said with a turn of a page.

Elijah immediately frowned, then quickly thought over his original plan. He realized that going in guns blazing like a complete idiot without knowing anything about the enemy or a plan would be a stupid idea. Elijah deeply sighed, “ your right, like always, old man” Elijah admitted, the old man may be the same age as Elijah. Still, the Old Man seemed to have centuries worth of experience and wisdom that Elijah wanted him to share but knew he wouldn’t. “Hehe, I knew you would see reason; without me, Elijah, you would have been dead years ago,” the old man said with a boast.

Elijah merely chuckled softly, as the two sat there sitting in silence on the bus bench, like an old couple waiting for a bus that will never come. This silence lets Elijah think of what he could have done to prevent this from happening. From having his car more regularly checked to kill off Mortimer with one card, he had at his disposal. Still, he couldn't have known that puppet was alive. Now thinking of his deck of cards, Elijah started checking the pockets of his pants and jacket, and when he came up empty-handed, he realized that he left his deck of cards in his car.

“Fuck I’m so stupid,” Elijah yelled as he leaned his on the back of the bench and started banging his head on it for his stupidity. ”what's the matter,” the Old Man said. He looked at Elijah with interest as his little breakouts of anger always amused him. “I fucking forgot the cards,” he said as he started getting angry at himself for his forgetfulness.

“Calm yourself, Elijah, I have them right here,” the Old Man said as he pulled out a standard set of blank cards and handed them to Elijah. At the same time, Elijah looked dumbfounded at the fact that the Old Man can pull magic playing cards out of his ass. “How did you get these back?” Elijah asked as he opened the small box of cards and started shuffling them in various ways. “ Well, you know that I am the one who gave you those cards in the first place, so I could just bring them back to me whenever I wanted to, even if you were holding them,” the Old Man said as he laughed lightly.

Before Elijah could thank the Old Man, they both heard a female voice. “I said right hand, not left hand, fuck if they gave me another host with Lupus again, I swear to god,” the female voice said as the voice faded out before cutting out completely. Elijah knew that if they heard other people talking outside, that means it was time for Elijah to wake up and face whatever was outside.

“Well, it looks like I have to confront this voice,” Elijah said as he got up from the bench and looked at the Old Man. “Yeah, you better go, we’ll talk again soon though, old bean, so don’t you worry,” the Old Man said with an eerie smile as he closed his book to say goodbye to him. Elijah nodded and turned and saw a door with multiple arrows pointing to it and a sign saying Handeemen Studios basement. “Elijah started walking towards the door, “Elijah wait. The Old Man yelled out as Elijah turned around to face him. “Whatever you do, make sure you make it through this alive because if you die. We both die,” the Old Man said thoughtfully as he quickly removed the smile he had on previously to a more serious face.

Elijah chuckled at the Old Man's behavior. “you need not fret, my good old man, for I am the best paranormal investigator out there. Whatever they throw at me won’t be enough to kill me,” he boasted as he turned back around to head to the door. “I hope you can back up those words, Elijah, something feels wrong about this whole situation,” the Old Man thought as he went back to reading his book.

When Elijah approached the door, he started to feel a strange pain in his mouth like someone just stitched his mouth shut, and his left arm became more numb and heavier as he approached the door. Elijah pushed through these small pains and opened the door; before he could react, he was blinded by a bright light. The little problems he could manage before became unbearable, as stitches began to form on his mouth and arm. He saw a faint image of the puppet he picked earlier on his arm starting to form. From transparent and colorless to entirely tangible and stitched to his left arm.

Wanting this pain to end as soon as possible, he started forcing himself to walk into the bright door, even though he tried to throw up from the problem, but could not due to his mouth being stitched shut. When Elijah finally got into the door, he was quickly covered in bright light, and when he woke from his dream.

Chapter Text

The first thing that Elijah saw when he first woke up was white. As his eyes soon adjusted to the bright light that littered the room, he realized that he saw the world through a blank tint, like something was covering his head. He started to analyze the place he was in; there were file cabinets and a desk that seemed to see some recent use. Elijah kept looking around the room until he realized that the puppet he picked earlier was on his hand. Elijah started to freak out, and the puppet seemed to notice that he was looking at it.

“ Wait, was that eye contact just now, are you awake ?” the puppet asked as Elijah soon realized that the female voice that was in his dream just a few moments ago belonged to this puppet. Elijah tried to respond to the puppet but could not due to his mouth being stitched shut, so he just opted for a swift nod. “ No, no, no, you are supposed to be out, a zombie, Zonked, I’m supposed to control you completely,” she said worryingly. Still, before she could continue talking, a collection of small screens placed on the wall sparkled to life, showing both of them an image of what Elijah could guess was a puppet’s face that seemed way to close to the camera. This puppet appeared to be wearing a smiling face mask and had two different eye colors, one of being green and the other blue.“ I guess even puppets need to wear a face mask during this pandemic. Geez, what has this world come to?” Elijah thought to himself as he turned his body to pay full attention to the screen.

“Welcome to Puppet, Host Orientation, our purpose is to measure your host control and manipulation,'' the new puppet said as Elijah noticed the rhyme she put in there. “ Wait a minute, I think there’s something wrong with my host,” the puppet on his arm said as the puppet on the screen was getting agitated for some reason. “Rhyme Scout!” the puppet said. “ Oh shit,” Scout said as she tried to think of rhyme as quickly as possible. “What if my host is not working? Could I get one without any jerking…… around?” Scout said as Elijah was starting to get impatient with these two’s antics. “ You had two failed tests in the past, the third one will be your last,” the puppet on the screen said threateningly. Scout looked back towards Elijah “ dammit, look, you are not supposed to be awake right now, so you're just going to have to pretend that I have total control over you, or we are both dead. Elijah only responded with a low guttural affirmative growl. “ Oh right, I forgot Riley stitched your mouth shut, so just keep making those noises, until we find a better way for you to communicate,” Scout said.

“ Did you say something?” the puppet on the screen said as both Elijah and Scout forgot she was there. “ No, no, just talking to myself, I didn't mean to spread the wealth,” Scout rhymed. “ Surprisingly coherent rhyme scout, maybe your future is no longer in doubt,” the puppet replied as the screens turned off, signally to Elijah that she was not watching them, or hopefully not. Elijah used his right hand to feel around his mask on and soon felt what seemed to be a rope tied around his neck. Elijah did quick work of the rope as he untied it and pulled off his mask for him to see the world a bit better than before. Scout saw him do this “ what are you doing? We’re going to get caught,” she said as Elijah swoon focused his attention on the stitches shutting his mouth shut.

Elijah rummaged through his pockets until he pulled out a playing card “ what are you going to do with that” Scout said questioningly. Scout could only hear a slight chuckle from Elijah’s mouth as the playing card slowly morphed into a serrated combat knife. After the card completely transformed, Elijah began cutting away at the stitches on his mouth. One by one, they slowly fell out as Elijah started to breathe through his mouth again. Once he was done with the stitches, he took a deep breath in and out as the small wounds that were on his face slowly healed and soon there were no visible wounds or scars on his mouth telling that there once was stitches, the only thing left on his mouth was the blood that seemed to be dried up.

Scout looked in absolute bafflement at the events that just happened, she knew that magic did exist in the form of voodoo since they were born from it, but she never knew stuff like this existed. “ What the hell was that” she half yelled since she did not want Riley to notice. “It's magic. Have you never seen it before,” he said. “No, I have seen magic but not that, that’s something completely different,” she said. “ Hmm, well whatever floats your boat, miss,” he said as he raised his left arm so they could look at each other eye to eye. “Alright, the look, can you just put the cloth back on and pretend?” she asked as Elijah quickly turned the knife he had back into a playing card and put it back into his right pocket. “Sure, I’ll play along for now, but if I see anything fishy from you, you’re going to be in big trouble,” he said. Elijah quickly put the piece of cloth back on and put the rope around his neck, loosely tightening it. After that, he gave Scout a thumbs up and walked towards the door in front of them.

“ Hey, see that door with the screen next to it get closer to it so that I can open it,” Scout said as Elijah just nodded and obliged. The door opened to reveal a small room with a gadget in the middle and a camera in the corner of the room with its light on, signifying that they were being watched. “Lets the testing begin,” the voice said as Elijah got closer to the machine seeing two buttons, one of them was smaller than the other. “ Ok, Magic Man, listen up here’s the deal we are supposed to press these buttons at the same time, ok got it?” she whispered. In contrast, Elijah already pressed his button, which resulted in a loud beep, which meant that he messed up. “ what are you doing, host? We’re supposed to press them at the same time, are you trying to get us killed?” she whispered angrily, as they tried again, resulting in them pressing the button together and completing the test. “ That was surprisingly well done; continue forward, let’s see how you fare against the next one,” the puppet said, ignoring their first try. The door in front of them opened, revealing the same room but without the machine before. “Please wait here and do not tread, another test subject is just finishing up in the room ahead,” the puppet said as both Elijah and Scout heard a blood-curdling scream and what seemed to be some growling echoing from the room in the front. “ I’m going to be sick,” Scout said, but Elijah only weakly whispered, “gimme a break.”

The door soon opened to reveal the room ahead was a bloody mess on the walls and floors; as Elijah walked more into the room, a body popped from the ceiling, scaring Scout but not Elijah, who was shaking slightly from anger “ what a waste of human life….. A dead body, made into a prop, makes me sick to my stomach,” Elijah thought as he envisioned ways of mutilating the puppet on the voice com. “ That was a test of reflex and reaction, which you barely passed to the satisfaction,” the voice said. “ Test my reflexes when I kick Your ass, Riley! '' Scout muttered under her breath, but loud enough for Elijah to hear it, which put a smile on his face since they had a mutual goal to kick the shit out of this puppet named Riley.

Elijah walked past the body hanging on the wall while muttering some prayers about wishing the man’s soul peace. At the end of the room, there was a machine similar to the one before, but instead of buttons, they had two gears and a grip on the top of it. “ Ok, this time we got to twist these in the same direction, so please don’t fucked this up,” she pleaded to him. Elijah merely nodded here as they both twisted in the right direction resulting in the door ahead to open. “Huh, another test past, which I can suspect is your last'' Riley said with a tone of disappointment. “Hmm, I guess she doesn't like you a lot, right?” Elijah asked as Scout nodded sadly towards him. Like the others, the room ahead was the same, except bookcases filled the room, and the door was one of the touches locks Scout did before.

“Please hold steady, the next chamber isn’t quite ready,” Riley said in a bored tone. Scout looked at Elijah `` Host, you are killing ourselves out there; you are not passing for a mindless zombie slave at all, and you’re dragging me down with you,” Scout said berating Elijah. “Hey, I think I’m doing pretty good. I think you're just paranoid; we’ll be fine, calm down,” Elijah said. “Yeah, you’re right. I’m just paranoid since we are in a warehouse full of sentient murderous puppets that want to restart their old t.v show and take over the world,” she said sneeringly. “ Yeah, you just paranoid, my friend,” he told her, utterly oblivious to the sarcasm. “Are you serious right now? I don’t think you understand what the consequences are if they find out that you are awake,” Scout said worryingly, as she started to breathe heavily. “Don’t worry, puppet, you’re attached to me, not some pushover who’ll get scared by some haunted toys,” he said confidently. “Look, if we’re gonna get out of here, we need to be a team, so what do you say, teammate?” Scout said as she held out her hand, looking for a handshake. “ Sure, and when we make it out of here, I’ll treat you to lunch,” he said as he shook Scout’s hand with his thumb and index finger. “I always wanted to try host food, now I cannot wait to get out here,” Scout said excitedly as the door ahead of them opened up.

Elijah looked through the door and discovered no light in the hallway, just pitch black. “Hey, host its fucking dark in here; hit me on my head to turn on my light,” she said. “That’s a weird but convenient thing to have, but I’ll take it,” Elijah thought as he hit Scout and her head soon illuminated the hallway in front of them. He walked through the hallway and soon discovered a room with two blue screened monitors sitting on a desk. There was a cassette player on the desk and a tape already inside it; there was also a picture of what looked like Riley dissecting a sock puppet for some reason. Elijah looked at Scout, “ do you want to hear what’s on this tape?” Elijah asked Scout. “ Yeah, sure, what’s the worst that can happen” she replied as Elijah pressed play on the cassette player and let it play its message.

“This is Anthony Pierson; I have to keep my voice down. I think there are puppets nearby…… this is a real fucking supernatural phenomenon, you know the one I’ve been looking for my whole life, and it was hiding here in a run-down warehouse. I can’t believe I almost baled in this place… I got to get pictures of everything, not just for the website, for the world. I must keep my research, so I’ll hide it in hidden compartments around the warehouse with the Vox Veritas symbol nearby; it’s a pyramid with an eye, so it won’t be hard to find. What was that shit!”

The recording stopped as Scout looked at Elijah. “That guy sounds crazy, and that’s coming from a talking hand puppet, what do you think?” Scout asked while Elijah was looking at the picture next to the tape. “He is not crazy Scout, he just wants to prove to the world that the paranormal exists in our world,” Elijah said as he put the picture and cassette into his jacket pocket and left the room. Elijah continued walking down the darkroom, now illuminated thanks to Scout. Elijah saw a big glass window that showed nothing behind but darkness. Trying to get a better look in, Elijah walked towards the window. When he was mere inches from it, a giant dog-like creature on the other side of the window suddenly popped out and banged its head against the window, instantly startling both Scout and Elijah, but Scout was more vocal about it and screamed.

“ Rosco, bad dog! Sit my pet, don’t attack them yet,” Riley said. Elijah was starting to hate Riley more and more by the second but took some deep breaths and started to calm down. They both heard a door open as they walked through the dark searching for it, and when they finally found it, they found themselves in a more well-lit room with some game that was playing carnival music. “ Welcome to visual hand coordination; this custom design handy big ball drop and search device will test your ability to verbally relay information,” Riley droned on as she sounded like she wanted to be somewhere else right now. “ Rhyme Riley,” Scout said smugly, as Elijah looked at Scout weirdly. “INFORMATION RHYMES WITH COORDINATION, DO NOT QUESTION MY RHYME PARTICIPATION,” Riley yelled over the microphone distorting the audio and making it almost impossible to understand.

“ She's just mad because she knew that was a stretch,” Scout said as Elijah responded, “well, I’m no expert on rhyming…. Buuut I think she's right on this one, Scout,” he said honestly. “Are you taking her side? Oh my god, you are such an asshole?” Scout said with bitterness, but Elijah just laughed off the insult she threw at him. They both focused on the gadget ahead of them. “Okay, teammate, I think I remember this one, stick me in that slot, so I can see the balls coming and then press the buttons that correspond to what I say,” she said as Elijah replied with a nod. Elijah put Scout into the small slot, and she turned on the machine “ okay, it’s starting, three two on,e Yellow” she said. Elijah quickly pressed the yellow button, and soon a ball fell where the switch was located. “Red,” she said as Elijah pressed the red button; this continued for a couple of rounds.

“ Wait a minute, it’s changing, now I see nouns instead of colors Cardinal,” she said, and Elijah responded with a push of the red button and a grunt of accomplishment. This continued until suddenly a string of confetti came out, signaling that they passed the test. “Oh, shit, we did it,” Scout said as the voice came back on. “Hmm, you passed the test you always failed somehow; I’m skeptical but continue for now,” Riley said. Elijah softly chuckled at the voice before becoming serious at her statement, “ I don’t think she thinks I’m awake, but we have to careful just in case,” Elijah thought.

A door across the room opened up, so Elijah walked towards it, in the hope to be done with the tests. When he walked through the door, he was greeted by the same darkness form earlier, but thanks to scouts light, he did not have to worry about tripping over anything. When he was about to turn the corner in the ay they were in, they both heard loud footsteps and a growl that was pretty generic by Elijah standards, but he did not have time to dwell on that. “Quick turn off my light so it can’t see us,” Scout said with fear in her voice. Right after Elijah turned off her light, they saw a shadowy figure walk past them. The only sign that they could identify was the white eyes of the puppet controlling the person. As soon as Elijah could not hear any more footsteps, he slowly walked towards the lit room ahead of them.

When they entered the room, they could see many washers and dryers littering the place. The only thing that interested Elijah was a triangle with an eye on a wall near them. He immediately recognized it as the Vox Veritas symbol, the guy on the cassette was talking about. He approached the mark, and Scout recognized it too but decided to say nothing about it. Elijah looked around the room to find another cassette player lying on the table. Elijah looked at Scout for a brief second, who just gave him a nod. He then turned his head and pressed play.

“Testing, testing uhh it’s March 4th, 11:30 pm. Okay, start here, uhh, this is Anthony Pierson, co-founder of Vox Veritas. We’re an independent journalist blog. We investigate paranormal phenomena and shine a light where the government and Illuminati don’t want light shown. We’re here at the abandoned Handeemen warehouse, a place that local homeless populations say is haunted. Anyone who wanders in never leaves, what terrible secrets does this place hold?.....Okay, cut there; this place is bullshit; this is a total wash. If I don't get something soon, I’ll get randy here to bang some pipes upstairs and get some reaction shots I don’t know. Photoshop a heat reading, whatever. Just once, I would like not to have to fake this.”

“So Vox Veritas is a paranormal investigation group. I have to research them once we get out of here,” Elijah thought as Scout started to speak. “Hey host, I've meant to ask you something,” she said, suddenly gaining Elijah's interest. “What is it, Scout?” he replied curiously. “When we met, we were in such a rush, and you only learned my name, so I would like to know yours,” she said as Elijah grinned. “ Elijah Adler, but Elijah is just fine,” he said as Scout was speaking his name silently in hopes of remembering it. “Hmm, I thill stick with Host or Magic Man. It suits you better,” she said while Elijah just looked at her and sighed deeply “ Whatever floats your boat,” he said as Scout began to laugh, her laughter was soon joined by Elijah. “You are a truly interesting puppet, Scout,” Elijah thought, while he was still laughing.

When they were done laughing, Elijah walked out into the hallway and saw a room completely covered in mist. “That must be our next test,” he said to Scout “well, Riley was always trying new things to see what works best for testing newer puppets and their hosts, so I guess yes,” she said. “Well, if that's true, then I have to give her respect for the hustle,” he said as he walked toward the room of interest until he accidentally knocked into a shelf that fell over, making a loud bang that echoed through the dark halls of the Handeemen studio.

Elijah stood still for a minute, not trying to make a single sound; the same could be said with Scout as she did not make a single peep to criticize him for his fault. When the coast seemed to be clear, Elijah started walking again to the misty room, this time being more careful, but soon stopped when he heard a familiar human growl behind him. Elijah turned around and saw the puppet they saw a few minutes ago, but instead of the white eyes he saw earlier, it was an ominous red. Elijah instinctively put Scout behind his back to protect Scout from harm and slowly got into a combat stance, while the puppet ahead only just pulled out a kitchen knife from its pocket.

“Scout, don’t worry, I’ll deal with this quickly,” Elijah said confidently, “ okay…. just be careful,” Scout replied with a taste of fear in her voice. Elijah nodded at her request and focused on the puppet ahead. “So, can we come to some agreement here, or are you too stupid to understand me?” Elijah asked it with a growing grin on his face trying to egg the puppet on. The tool seemed to understand the insult and, as a result, yelled at the top of its lungs and charged like a rabid animal towards Elijah, who just stood there with his grin becoming impossibly wide. Still. Even no one could see it due to the cloth on his head concealing any facial expressions.

“HEHE, VERY WELL LET THE FUN BEGIN”

Chapter Text

The puppet, in a fit of rage, quickly rushed towards Elijah with a confident stride.“The puppet running towards me seems to be very confident in its victory already; hmmm well, I think I should break its illusion,” Elijah thought as he prepared for the coming fight. When the puppet was close enough, it thrust its knife towards Elijah, but before any connection could be made, Elijah sidestepped the attack and grabbed the host’s wrist, and kneed the arm he was holding, Which broke the host’s arm with a loud CRACK. Before Elijah could do more, the puppet pushed him off and backed away from Elijah. The puppet looked at its host’s broken arm, which was bent the wrong way due to Elijah’s immense force in his attack.

The puppet looked back towards Elijah and started running towards him again. “How will you fight me without an arm, bite me?” Elijah asked with a cocky tone, as the puppet itself opened its mouth to show sharp and jagged teeth that looked like it belonged to a shark. The puppet lunged forwards towards and quickly pinned Elijah down to the floor; after he was pinned, the host sent the puppet forward to bite Elijah, but before it could bite anything that would cause fatal injuries. Elijah put his left arm out to take the bite but quickly realized that he had Scout on that arm and tried to twitch arms, but it was too late as the puppet already sank its teeth into his arm. Thankfully the teeth seemed to miss Scout, who was screaming bloody murder as she began to send a flurry of punches to the puppets head but no avail as it didn’t seem to do any damage but only increased the force in which it was biting Elijah. Elijah winced at the pain he was experiencing. “How can a puppet have this much strength?” Elijah thought as he slowly reached into his pocket and pulled out a playing card. The card quickly turned into the same serrated knife he used earlier and, without a moment’s hesitation, drove the knife into the host’s head, and a moment later, you can see the tip of the blade coming out the other side of its head. At first, the force of the bite remained the same, but after a few seconds, it slowly got looser, and soon, the puppet let, as the host on top of Elijah slumped over dead.

Elijah pushed the body off of him as he got up, brushed himself, and checked on Scout. “Hey, you alright?” he said, looking at her. “I’m alright, you should worry about yourself, you’re the one who gotten bit bad,” Scout said as she pointed bite wound on his arm that was covered in his own blood but was slowly healing. “I’ll be fine, Scout, it’ll heal,” he said, as she gave him a concerned look. Elijah turned back to the misty room and started to walk with as he checked his wound one more time to find it completely healed. He continued walking but with a confident stride. Scout noticed this and merely sighed.

When Elijah entered the Misty room, he can partially see that he was in a shower covered in steam. “ What is this, a sauna? This must be our next test, hold me above the steam so I can guide you towards the shut-off valve,” she said as Elijah held Scout up as she gave him directions in the form of hot or cold. “You’re hot right now,” Scout said as Elijah kept walking in the same direction “ Your cold as shit right now” hearing this, he turned around and went another direction. This kept going on for several minutes, and it was starting to irritate Elijah. He quickly pulled Scout down into the steam, which she began to cough.” what are you doing? Put me back up,” she said in between coughs. “Quit the hot and cold bullshit and tell me where to go!” Elijah yelled. “Alright fine, I was just trying to have fun, geez fun killer,” Scout replied. Elijah quickly found the valve and turned it off with Scout giving proper directions, making the room suck up the steam in the room.

Elijah made his way back to the middle of the room, to which they both saw a contraption playing the same carnival music as the one they saw before. but this time, instead of buttons, it seemed to have flags instead. “Welcome to the advance visual sync test version 1.0.13; please approach the handy flag and waving machine,” Riley said quickly before cutting out. “I never made it this far before, okay stick me inside the slot like before,” Scout said with a touch of accomplishment. Elijah smiled and nodded as he put Scout into the slot. “Hey, I can see you out there, I have some colored buttons in here, but I don’t know which one to press. She presses the switch to start the game, and when it started, the screen that was in front of Elijah only had one word on it, and it was Black. Elijah pressed the flag, which made it go down and playing a chime that signified that he was correct. Elijah kept picking out the flags that the screen told him to until another explosion of confetti came out of the machine. “ That’s impossible; even at your best, there is no way you’ll make it through the test!...relax Riley, your plans in place, just slow down this accelerating pace." Riley barely rhymed before cutting off. “Plans in place, what does that mean,” Scout said with a worried tone. “She’s probably just trying to scare us, so we’ll fail the next test, but whatever shes planning needs to be pretty good for us to fail,” he said thoughtfully as he scratched the back of his neck.

Elijah walked past the machine, went through a door behind the machine, and was greeted by four bathroom stalls and a door with a touchpad to unlock it. As Elijah walked through the room, one of the stall doors slowly creaked open to show nothing but the toilet and toilet paper holder inside. Elijah thought it to be wind and pressed on, but when he passed the third toilet, it violently opened with a force that had to be made by some entity, but when they checked the stall, they found it empty. The thing that caught Elijah’s attention was the fact that there was no bathroom at all and was replaced with a small room with only a tiny desk with a light in the room. Elijah slowly crept into the small room and walked towards the desk to see a similar cassette player. In silence, Elijah swiftly hit the play button to let the voice do the talking.

“Okay, uh, it’s May third, this is tape 7 or 8? I actually can’t remember. Okay, uhh, they are not ghosts, I can tell you that, they’re corporeal. The scientist one, Riley has a lab downstairs, I found it tonight, and I have seen some bad shit in my life, but I’ve never seen anything like that. She’s like a puppet mangler or something; she has these tapes to all stacked up in boxes. Although a lot of them were burned, this one did play”. Anthony said as he put a tape into a player and hit the play. As soon as he did that, another voice could be heard talking, but with a static touch, making it slightly difficult to hear.

“People think the occult is all superstition and nonsense, but I can feel something moving inside of Mortimer when I say these words I mean perfect as they are. His soul is in there; it wants to come to life, I’m so close”. The tape stopped as Anthony’s voice came back.

“That was Owen Gubberson, the creator of Mortimer’s Handeemen. I did some digging at the library and discovered that this guy was a nut. He went off his rocker. Obsessed with these puppets and the occult, he thought his puppets had souls and were trapped in their bodies with bringing them to life. I mean, was he crazy enough to find some occult spell that would bring them to life, and did the world go crazy that the spell fucking worked.” The tape ended after he finished his last sentence.

“Wow, that’s Owens’s voice,” Scout said shortly. “ Did you know him?” Elijah asked, “ When I was brought to life, he was already gone, but I don’t know where he went, probably ran away.” Scout said while passing a glance back at the cassette player. “ Well, I do hope that the case,” Elijah said with a hint of doubt. Scout looked like she was in deep thought.“Hey host, I have to tell you something,” she said. “what’s up” he quickly replied. “ I just wanted to say thanks for saving my life when you fought that puppet earlier. If I weren’t connected to you, I would’ve died back there,” she said. “Its no problem, Scout, we are teammates, so we have to look out for each other,” he said as he put his fist out towards her looking for a fist bump, Scout saw this and met his fist with hers. Elijah smiled at Scout and started walked out of the small room.

Back into the room, they were in, Elijah walked towards the door. Scout unlocked it; before he could walk through the door, they both saw another puppet walk past their door and walked along the hallway that they needed to go. Elijah pulled out the bloody knife that he used earlier and crept towards the puppet and its host and, in one swift move, slit the host’s throat. Blood sprayed all over the wall next to them as the host and puppet feel to the ground, and the host started choking on its blood as its life started sputtering out. Elijah stepped over the body and walked down the hallway as Scout had a horrified look on her face. “ What the hell was that?!” Scout asked while yelling at him. “I made sure he couldn’t harm us,” he said with a sharp tone. Scout gave him a stern look before returning to normal.l “ Just try to kill them quick,” she said somberly, which Elijah nodded slowly and started moving again.

Walking down the dark hallway, they discovered another door that led to a room filled with empty boxes and desks. Interestingly, they saw a puppet in a bow that looked a lot like scout but was more orange and had blue hair. Next to the puppet was some writing on a glass wall that was not comprehensible. As Elijah walked to the next door connected to the room, he saw two pictures of what looks like Riley with a test tube that seemed to explode in her hands, and the other one was of her fixing a bike while a child looked with amazement. “So Riley is a jack of all trades, huh, from chemical science to repair,” Elijah thought out loud. “ Yeah, in the show, she would be the teacher and would teach science, anatomy, and all different sciences,” Scout replied as Elijah nodded at the sage wisdom she was saying.

When he walked through the door, they both saw the same machine as the last two. “Improbably, you have arrived at your final station, but I added a special just for you that I think you will find quite…. a Taxation,” Riley said as she let out an ominous chuckle. Walking towards the machine that was their test, they both saw a sign on top of it that read FAIL O TRON. “The Fail O Tron, oh come on for fuck sakes!” Scout screamed out in pure anger as Elijah let out a deep sigh in pure disbelief. “I have a feeling we’re gonna fail this one,” he said as he got closer to the machine. He put Scout into the slot so the test can start.

This test was just the other two combined, so it was relatively easy as they breezed through round one and two as they worked together in perfect harmony. “Okay, round three is starting, so be ready for anything,” Scout said as round three started. Before any of them could react, four balls already feel giving them only small beeps to tell them that they are failing, they both could not do anything as the button would respond to neither of their commands, and they were forced to watch the balls fall. Elijah could not contain his anger and cocked back fist and punched a large hole in the machine, breaking it instantly. “ What are you doing” Scout yelled at him “ we would have lost anyway, so there is no need to keep playing,” he whispered “ we’ll be fine, trust me,” he added.

“Uh oh from what I can tell, it seems your test didn’t go so well,” Riley said in a cheery tone. “This is bullshit, that machines impossible no one could pass that,” Scout growled as she saw that Elijah was shaking uncontrollably from anger. “ I warned Mortimer about you, I said you weren’t a Handyman though, and though…” She was about to continue on but as interrupted by Elijah’s loud screaming, “SHUT UP YOU INSIGNIFICANT PIECE OF DOG SHIT. WHEN I FIND YOU YOU’RE GOING TO BE FUEL TO THE FIRE I MAKE WHEN I BURN THIS PIECE OF SHIT PLACE DOWN TO THE GROUND!” Elijah yelled as he took off his cloth to show his face to a camera. There was a silence for a moment, which both Elijah and Scout used to calm their tempers before Riley comes back on.

“How in the hell are you still awake, host? It seems like you are not like most. ROSCO! Come kill these two, so we can cook these two for a Roast,” She rhymed as the door in front of them opened up to show the dog creature that scared both of them earlier coming towards them. “ Host, we have to run now!” Scout yelled out in a panic as Elijah started to slowly back up and suddenly stopped, quickly gaining Scout’s attention. “ Host, that thing is too big for your knives to hurt it,” Scout said, trying to convince him to run away like a sensible person. “ What gave you the idea that I can only make knives with these cards?” Elijah asked rhetorically as he pulled out a card and threw it towards Rosco. When the card was meer inches from the right side of Rosco’s face, it quickly turned into a grenade and blew up in its face. After the smoke cleared, they both saw Rosco still standing, but with the right side of his face burned, including the eye, which made him blind on his right side. Quickly shrugging off the pain, Rosco let out a roar and charged them again at a faster pace. “ Okay new plan, we run,” Elijah said as the confidence he had was now gone. He turned the other way and sprinted away from the dog.

“That door straight ahead that goes to human resources fo there!” she yelled in his ear as he obliged. A smaller glass door protected a large metal door, entering through the glass doorway. There was another unison button press machine; they both repeatedly pressed until they both hit the buttons at the same time by accident. The glass door closed, and the metal one opened. Inside the metal door, there was another machine that required simultaneous turning of the gear handles. “ We got to turn these quickly,” Scout said as Elijah agreed instantly, and the two of them started turning the handles as fast at they could. “Switch,” Scout ordered as Elijah obeyed. After a few seconds of turning, the metal door closed, which brought them momentary bliss.

After a few minutes of calming down, Scout was the first to speak as she struggled to control her breathing. “Holy shit, Riley tried to kill to me, I mean I always knew she hated me, but I’m a puppet, I’m one of them. I never thought they’d try to kill me,” Scout said, then she began yelling at Elijah. “You...this is all your fault, ever since you came along everything has been fucked, I’ll kill you, you jolly green giant!” she said as Elijah looked at her and started laughing hysterically despite her threats. “What’s so fucking funny? we are going to die!” Scout asked with less anger than before. “You’re so cute when you’re angry,” Elijah said in between laughs. Hearing this, Scout started to feel wrong about what she said a few moments ago. “I’m sorry about what I said. I’m just scared,” She confessed as she looked like she lost all hope in life. “Look, I know this stuff is scary, but you don’t have to worry about getting hurt because I’ll take the fall, okay?” he said. Scout looked at him and nodded her head slowly.

Elijah looked around the room they were in and saw a sign leading to a door that said Human Resources. “ Scout are you ready to head into Human Resources?” he asked. “ Yeah, I think the worst is behind us,” she said, puffing her chest out to show that she was brave. “With that attitude, I think we’ll make it out just fine,” Elijah said with a chuckle as he started to walk towards Human Resources.

Before he entered the room, he took out a card and turned it into a lit cigarette. Taking a quick puff and exhaling the smoke out, “ man, I need a vacation after this,” he said to himself as he put the cigarette back into his mouth and walked through the door.

Chapter Text

Walking into Human Resources, the first thing that stuck out to Elijah was that the entrance to Human Resource was a bathroom, but with all the things he has seen, this wasn’t the weirdest. Shrugging it off, he walked through the bathroom with a sense of dread on his mind. Elijah continued walking through the large bathroom until he saw a large hole in the bathroom wall leading into another room. “Why are we even trying Magic Man, there’s a ton of them, and one and a half of us, even with your powers, we have no chance to escape,” Scout said in a defeated tone.

“Look, you may have given up already, but I didn’t, so we’re going to continue whether you want to or not unless you want me to cut the stitches connecting you to me and just leave you here if that’s what you want?” Elijah said with a somewhat threatening tone.

Scout immediately perked up at what Elijah said. “WHAT? Are you crazy? I was just dramatic, asshole,” she said with returning vigor. “Hehe, good, I would like the company; it can be boring wandering around abandoned warehouses controlled by sentient puppets trying to kill me,” he said sarcastically and continued walking.

Elijah slowly crept through the large hole and saw another large window connected to a hallway. Slowly approaching the hallway, they both saw what it looked like a rat eating a person in some form of a body bag. Elijah shuddered with disgust and looked down the hallway and what greeted him made him want to throw up. Down the hall was an uncountable number of people in body bags and hung up on hooks like meat. It didn’t help that the hallway was also covered in a deep mist. But the worst part of it all was the disgusting smell, which Elijah could easily distinguish from others as it was the smell of death. The smell got worse as Elijah walked forwards towards the bodies. Wanting to protect his nose from the smell, he dropped the cigarette in his mouth and covered his nose with the shirt under his jacket.

“What is this place? I’ve never been in here before,” she said before continuing “are these hosts?” she asked rhetorically as she looked at the bodies on the hooks. Elijah continued walking through this miserable place when he saw another window containing more rats, which seemed to have puppet parts stitched to them. The rats were eating a human hand, desperately fighting for it like it would be their last meal. Walking away from the window, Elijah kept moving through the hooked people without saying a peep. “Host, are you alright?” Scout asked since she noticed his silence.

“Scout, do you think I’m alright?! I’m in a room filled to the brim with people that are most likely dead on hooks like their pieces of meat. Now tell me, do you think I’m Alright?!” Elijah yelled out without care if anyone hears him. Scout looked at Elijah with an empathetic look before turning away in silence. “I’m sorry, Scout, I didn’t mean to take out my anger on you,” he said with regret in his voice. “It’s alright, host, we just need to get out of this hellhole and fast,” she said, gaining a quick nod from Elijah as he began walking again through the mist. Coming to the room still covered in fog, they both could barely see anything except a door that was touch activated. When Elijah got to the door, and Scout put her hand on it to open it, the screen turned red and said, “level 1 clearance required.”

“This door won’t open; I need a green security pin. It’s like the one I wore on my shirt. But I don’t have it, so we’re fucked, unless we can find one somewhere in here,” Scout said as Elijah looked at the bodies that surrounded them. “We don’t have time to find a fucking pin; I think I know a way to get through this door,” he said as he started stretching his right leg out. “How in the hell are supposed to get through this metal door?” she asked as she wondered how he would accomplish this feat. “Just watch me” was the only words Elijah said before violently kicking down the metal door off of its hinges. Elijah stretched out his right leg again before walking through the now opened door.

“How in the hell did you do that?” she asked, completely baffled at the strength he has shown. “Well, I work out a lot, that’s all,” he said as he began scratching the back of his neck. “Your hiding something from me, something other than the regeneration and the fancy card tricks,” Scout said as she gave Elijah a look that could be described as annoyed. “How about this? I’ll tell you everything when we escape and go out for lunch,” he said. Scout just signed and nodded; Elijah gave a small smile in return and continued through the newly opened door.

The door itself was connected to a room that was circular in design, but other than that. The room was empty in terms of furniture. But the only saving grace was that there was an employee elevator that didn’t seem to need any pins, unlike the last door. Elijah pressed the button next to the entrance to call the elevator; there was an awkward silence between the two as they waited for the elevator to come. When the awkwardness started to become unbearable, a musical tune played, followed by the elevator door opening up. Elijah walked into the elevator and pressed the only button in the elevator, and in response, the elevator closed and started going up slowly.

“If you’re serious about this whole escape plan thing, then the only way out of here is through a hole that was created by the fire. but here’s the fun part, it’s way back in Mortimer’s section, and to get there, we have to go through the Soundstage, which is where all the puppets are, so I hope you have enough cards to fight them all or are a fast runner” she said. “Hmmm well, I don’t want to fight all of them if I can help it soooooo; I guess I can sacrifice my pride and run away instead,” he joked, which Scout did not appreciate. “How can you still joke around when we can be killed at any time?!” Scout yelled at him, clearly displeased.

“Okay, okay, I’ll stop. Damn, I was just trying to have some fun, fun killer,” Elijah said with a pout. Scout shook her head at his behavior and started to talk again, “Hey, I have a question,” she said, gaining Elijah’s attention. “Shoot” was all he said back. “Well, you’re from the host world. Is it a good place?” she asked, paying full attention to Elijah for an answer. “Well, it’s better than this place and more well lit, so yeah, it’s a better place than this dump,” he said as Scout’s eyes seemed to light up with excitement.

“I knew it! I’ve seen the host world, you know; before my first orientation, I found a television in the basement with working cable. I didn’t know how long I was watching it before Riley caught me. Cop dramas, bake-offs, nightly news, it blew my mind; ever since then, I never fit in here. That’s when I stopped rhyming. I just couldn’t anymore,” she said, then stopping to take a breath before continuing.

“If we survive, I was wondering if I would fit out there in your world; I know I’m a puppet, but do you think it’s possible?” she asked as she stopped talking to let Elijah say his piece. “Well, considering what crazy things I have seen out there, I’m pretty sure you would fit right in,” Elijah said as Scout’s eyes seemed to light up more with joy by the second. “Wow, thank you. I don’t know if I believe you, but it’s nice of you to say,” Scout said as the musical tune that played before started playing again, and soon the elevator door opened.

“It would seem that this is our stop,” Elijah replied, “it would seem so,” Scout replied. Walking through the elevator door, they were both greeted by familiar darkness. Elijah hit Scout on the head to turn on her light. When Scout light was turned on, the darkness surrounding them was pushed away by the light and shown a room filled with crates and cabinets. Elijah slowly walked through the small maze of cabinets and small chests when he heard a familiar voice start talking on the loudspeakers above them.

“Attention Handeemen of every shape, a defective puppet named Scout and her host has escaped. They have corrupted my data and rendered my test incomplete, so you must hunt them down now and halt their retreat. Rip out their eyes, eat their guts, burn their skin, throw them in the trash, OR I’LL FUCKING KILL YOU ALL!” Riley yelled out over the speakers making Elijahs ears hurt from the sheer volume.

“Damn, If she plans to make me deaf, then it’s fucking working,” Elijah half-joked as he covered his right ear in pain. “That’s Riley for ya,” Scout said. “She’s a very mean woman,” Elijah responded as the pain in his ears started to subside. “yeah, you don’t know the half of it,” Scout replied.

After the pain in his ears went away, he started looking for a way to get out of the room and started walking through the darkness. He kept walking until he pumped into a table with a rather large jack in the box on top of it that seemed to have skeleton hands holding it. Above the jack in the box was another series of writing that Elijah couldn’t understand. “That’s Mortimer’s handwriting. It says, “mind if I join in on the fun,” Scout said in a scared voice at the mention of Mortimer. “It’s about time he gets off of his lazy ass and does something. If he’s supposed to be the head honcho around here, then how come we haven’t heard from him sooner?” Elijah said, rather insulted by the lack of attention from Mortimer. He looked at the jack in the box and started to turn the handle slowly. After a minute of turning, the top of the box opened by a small bit. “I think you broke it,” Scout said, and right after, she said. A few seconds after she spoke, a replica of Mortimer’s head suddenly popped out of the jack in the box, scaring both of them.

Composing themselves, Elijah walked towards the jack in the box and noticed a pin with a fourth of Mortimer’s face on it stuck on the replicas hat. “That must be one of the pins I was talking about, but it seems incomplete,” Scout said as she started speaking again. “And why is Mortimer helping us? That makes no fucking sense,” Scout said as Elijah was deep in thought. “I don’t know what he is planning, but it doesn’t feel right. It’s like some game to him,” Elijah said as he put the pin onto Scout and began walking away from the jack in a box.

Elijah continued looking for a way out of the room. His search was not long when he found a door that needed the pin to be unlocked. Before scout could open the door, they both heard a new cartoonish voice that had bloodlust hidden within it coming from behind them. “You...you are the ones that killed my brother’s Crinkle and Bubbles, they were the only thing I had in this world, and now that I found you, I’m going to torture the two of you nice and slow!” the new puppet said without a rhyme.”

Elijah turned around and faced the puppet; he saw that this one had a more clownish look, as it had a colorful bowtie and clown nose attached to its face. Elijah looked at the clown puppet with an unamused look. He responded to the puppets threat by quickly pulling out a card that turned into a Colt 1911 pistol and shot the host in the head. The gun’s sound echoed throughout the warehouse as the clown puppet slowly fell to the ground dead, laying in its pool of blood. “That was anti-climatic,” Scout said, gaining no response from Elijah.

Walking back to the door, Scout quickly unlocked it, and they continued through the door to face the unknown, But the only thing that greeted them was a small hallway that led to another door. Elijah faced the machine that opened the door behind them and swiftly smashed it with the butt of his pistol, preventing anyone from sneaking up from behind them. “Great thinking host; since you fired that gun, everyone is going to be coming after us, but the door you just broke should give us the time we need to escape,” Scout said as Elijah continued walking down the hallway. Getting closer to the door in front of them, the machine that opened it was covered in blood; Elijah saw that Scout started recoiling from the machine. “Ew! What is that? Is that like blood? No, no, no, I have a thing about blood; it’s like a phobia. I get sick even the thought,” she said as she started to gag.

Elijah’s head started throbbing as Scout continued psyching herself into touching the screen covered in blood. Elijah blinked a few times to get the pain to go away, but on the fifth try, he opened his eyes and discovered that he was much closer to the screen before. He looked around and saw that he could see his body and quickly realized that he was in Scout’s body, controlling her. Turning back around, he tapped the bloody screen, and then the door suddenly opened up in response. Still, in Scout’s body, he began to get the same head pains, and before he knew it, he was back in his body. Scout turned around to Elijah, clearly shocked and mad at the same time.

“What the?... Either I’m going crazy, or you were just in my head; how in the hell did you?... Shit, our psychic link must be going haywire. Stay out of my head!” Scout shouted at Elijah. “Okay, okay, I’ll try not to, but it just kinda happened, so don’t blame me. Blame Mortimer for his dollar-store magic not working properly,” Elijah said as Scout gave him a confused look as she didn’t know what a dollar store was. “Use any excuse you like, just stay out of my head!” she yelled again, standing her ground on the issue. Elijah quickly nodded at her request, and when she gave him a content look, he walked through the door ahead and into the next room.

The room ahead was by far the biggest in the warehouse; as Elijah walked through the larger room, they could see various posters of the show’s main cast and even some of the show’s minor characters. When they were done looking around, they both turned their attention to a sizeable lit-up sign that said “Main Stage.” “I guess that’s where we have to go?” he asked. “Yup… but looks like we need the all of the parts to this pin to get through, and good luck kicking through that; it’s thicker than the other doors, so there is no way for you to get through,” she said as Elijah chuckled and walked forward to the larger door.

Elijah put his ear to the door and started softly knocking on it. “What the hell are you doing host, do you know how idiotic you look right now?” Scout said. “This door is indeed too thick to kick through, but I’m not going to do that, I got a better plan, but when this door is opened, we have to book it out of here, okay?” he explained as Scout just sighed. “It better be a good plan,” she said. “Oh, it will; you just have to trust me,” he responded, which Scout gave a quick nod; Elijah then continued with his plan.

Elijah reached into his pocket and pulled out five playing cards, which began to mold together, formed a brick of C4 with a detonator attached to it, stuck it onto the door, and quickly retreated behind some crates were nearby. He then grabbed another card that turned into a detonator and promptly pressed the button. When he pressed the button, both of them could only hear the roaring boom of the explosion as the bomb’s power utterly eviscerating the door. Seconds past after the bomb went off, and Elijah came out behind the crates and was ecstatic at his work, while Scout looked like she was scared shitless. “You asshole, you could of at least told me to cover my ears. And now since you made a shit ton of noise, everyone knows where we are!” she yelled as they both could hear distant yelling coming from where they first entered. “We should get going,” Elijah said as he began to sprint through the blown doors of the main stage.

Running through the main stage as fast as possible, he saw only an empty stage with a table with no chairs near it. Jumping up on the stage, he could see another door that had an exit sign on top of it. Opening the door and rushing through it, Elijah continued running through hallways that seemed like a maze. He kept running and running until he came into a room that had two doors going that both had the same symbols that Scout was able to read before. “Scout, where do I go?” Elijah asked quickly, not wanting to waste time. “Go through the right door,” she said as Elijah started running through the right one. After running through the door, he was able to see another door that had an exit sign; in front of the door was yet another machine that needed turning. Both Scout and Elijah quickly grabbed the handles and started turning the levers at a fast pace. When they began turning the levers, a large door began to close in front of them and getting closer to closing with every turn of the levers.

Elijah looked up from the machine and saw across the long hallway in front of them a large group of sockpuppets with Riley leading the charge. “There, Scout and her host, they’re trying to escape, don’t let them!” Riley yelled out as the group of sock puppets started running towards Scout and Elijah with the intent to kill. “Scout, we need to double time it now,” Elijah said in a panic. They both increased their efforts in turning the levers, which started to close the door way faster than before. With the increased effort, they managed to close the massive door seconds before the group of sockpuppets could get through the door.

Scout and Elijah both released a collective sigh of relief when the door was closed. Beyond the door, they both could hear the voice of Riley screaming to the other sockpuppets to open the door. “I told you it was a good plan,” Elijah said while letting out a chuckle. “Good plan, my ass, we almost got killed,” Scout said, trying to hide a smile but failing. “Well, we’re still alive, so that’s all that counts,” he replied. “Yeah, your right,” she said, giving up trying to hide her smile and let out a big toothy grin. “We should go,” Elijah said quietly, which he gained a nod from Scout.

Walking through the door behind them, all that was keeping the both of them inside this hellish place was a long hallway, which at the end of the hallway, they could see a bright light that meant that they were almost outside. Elijah walked down the hallway as Scout was looking at the bright light in wonder.

When Elijah finally exited the warehouse through the hole, he saw that they were in the empty parking lot of the Handeemen studio. Elijah felt the cold autumn air hit him as the sun’s warmth shined on him, bringing him warmth. He took a deep breath and exhaled, slowly enjoying the outside air for a few minutes. “It’s not like I imagined,” Elijah heard Scout say as she looked at the trees that surrounded the parking lot. “What do you mean?” Elijah asked. “It’s far more beautiful than I could ever imagine,” she said as she began to tear up.

“Are you crying?” he asked.“I’m not crying; my eyes are just watery,” she said as she pretended to act tough as tears continued to flow from her eyes. Elijah brought Scout to his chest and let her cry on it while he patted her back for comfort. “Shhhhh, it’s going to be alright,” he said, trying to reassure her while her tough act quickly broke and started bawling on his chest, making his shirt and jacket damp.

Scout continued crying for a couple of minutes until she stopped and pulled away from Elijah. “Thank you; I needed that,” she said as her voice was trembling from the recent cry. “Hey, that’s what teammates are for,” he said as Scout sniffled and wiped her eyes. In a quick move, Scout hugged Elijah’s chest again as she began to speak, “You’re the best person I’ve ever known, and I’m happy to call you my friend.” “Now your gonna make me cry, Scout,” Elijah half-joked. “Now come on, we have to get to my car so that we can get away from this hellhole,” he added as he began walking across the parking lot and was soon back on the street. Elijah kept walking when they were on the road while Scout observed everything from Squirrels climbing the trees to leaves flowing in the wind. When they finally reached the spot where Elijah’s car broke down, Elijah noticed that his car was not there anymore. “Wheres your car Magic Man?” Scout asked. “Well, as you see, it’s gone; either Mortimer and Riley got rid of it, or it was towed away by a towing agency,” he explained as Scout gave him a worried look. “So, what’s the plan now?” she asked.

“We just have to walk.”