Meeple Control (INANIMATE INSANITY)

8| Out with the Old, In with the New

'No...'
Pickle shook his head, praying that it was a joke, that he heard wrong, Anything but that...
However, the grim expression on Microphone's face said otherwise. She nodded.

He stood motionless for a few minutes. She furrowed her brow in worry. Is he alri-? No, of course not, Mic, you idiot. She tentatively opened her mouth.

'Pickle, I'm so-'
'Thank you.'
'What? Pickle, wai-'

Pickle hurried away and before Microphone could follow, she was held back by Soap.

'Mic, I've noticed something.'
'Look, Soap, not now-'
'Is there something you aren't telling me?'
'Soap, now's not the-'
'MIC! LISTEN TO ME!'

Microphone sighed and turned to face her. She was surprised to see Soap being near tears.

'Wh-what's wrong?'
'There's something between you and Pickle isn't there? Whenever you two are hanging around (which seems very frequent!), I see you exchanging glances, acting like you have some sort of secret. Why do you hang out with him more? How come you don't tell me anything, nowadays?'
'What! No, Pickle and I don't have any sort of secret, you must be mistaken-'

She dropped her sentence as she saw Pickle with a rucksack. He raised an eyebrow and walked to the door. Microphone quickly muttered to Soap to wait and rushed to him.

'Where are you going? I'm sorry, it's my-'
'Don't blame yourself. None of this is your fault. If anything, I'm the one to blame. So I'm going to fix this issue by doing what I should have done before.'
'I'll go-'
'Alone.' he added meaningfully, before going out the door.

She stared at the door, defeated. As she walked back to Soap, she just hugged her tightly. Soap, confused, just hugs back, wordlessly.

*BANG*

They both whipped their heads up to see Pickle backing into the hotel.

'Pickle? What's-'

'THIS HOTEL IS NOW UNDER THE OWNERSHIP OF MEEPLE INCORPORATION.'

'Should we-'
'No.'
'But Suitcase looks extremely unwell! What if we-'
'Oh, now I see, Baseball. Self-preservation? Never thought I'd hear that from you.'
'No! I meant that, what if we are all infected with something? We each sneezed-'
'Oh, boohoo, we had a little sniffly! I suppose you want us to all trot along to a hospital and get surgery to cure that?'

Knife snorted whilst Baseball glanced nervously at Suitcase. In the previous months, all of them had sneezed, each occurring several months in between. Lightbulb was first, Baseball second, then Suitcase and then Knife. It didn't really affect any of them except Suitcase. She had seemed to have a greyish to her since that occurred and Baseball was worried.

'Besides, it's not like we can magically access medical care. You're being melodramatic.'
'Don't *cough* worry, I'm *cough cough* fine.'
'There, she said it herself.'
'Yeah, well...' Baseball looked doubtfully at her.
'Omga! Look, look!' Lightbulb rushed towards them, waving an letter like a flag.

They gathered together and inspected it. The words TO CONTESTANS was written on it. Contained within the envelope was the following:

GRETING & SALEWTAISHONS CONTESTANS,

YOUR NEKST CHALENJ IS TOO FINED MEPAD.

MEFON

After a long time trying to figure out what was written, Baseball chuckled awkwardly, 'Great! He's coming back. Well, where should we start-'

He was cut off by Knife suddenly groaning in ire and stormed off to the forest. Lightbulb looked at him and back at Baseball.

'Well, come on! Let's go!'

She trotted along after him. Baseball carefully supported Suitcase up, murmuring, 'You'll be well.'
She nods weakly and they both head to the forest.

'CONTESTANTS, I AM YOUR NEW HOST....'

The phone looked at the empty premises. He picked up the letter and scrunched it up.

'COMMANDING ALL MEPATROL: SPREAD OUT AND LOCATE MEEPLE PROPERTY.'