Chapter Text
Pinocchio chose a good secluded spot to build a Stargazer. It had a few bodies in it from people attacked by frenzied puppets, but nothing that they couldn’t make something out of. Verso moved aside a couple of them as Pinocchio constructed the Stargazer with the metal left behind.
As the muse did so, something fell out of one of the corpse’s pockets. It looked like a small pocketbook. Curiosity swiftly overtook Verso. After he set aside the body, he picked up the book and cracked it open.
The city of Krat has decided to put an indefinite stop to the investigation on the disaster that took place in the Monad Charity House, known more affectionately as the Rose Estate. This was to prevent chaos caused by the large-scale spreading of the Petrification Disease. There have been no confirmed survivors so far.
The Petrification Disease is a deadly epidemic, but this massive spread is unprecedented. The quarantine authorities surmise that something within the Monad Charity House caused the novel mutation and has thus cordoned it off to prevent the mutation from spreading further.
The Monad Charity House, once a boarding school for kids from the slums, has until recently been home to the founding Monad family, many students, and refugees. The leader of the Alchemists, Valentinus Monad, has been confirmed to have passed during this catastrophe, and this will take a toll on the Alchemists.
“Huh. Hey, Maelle. What’s this about?”
“Ooh.” Maelle cringed. “Yeah, I remember this happening. Despite the Disease ramping up during that time, for a week, the Rose Estate Incident was all anyone talked about.” Lured over by the discussion, Pinocchio took a peek at the book himself. “It was a whole thing. Over two hundred people were wiped out overnight, including the entire Monad family.”
“Who are… were the Monads?” Pinocchio questioned while both of them sat down before the Stargazer.
“At the time, they were the head family of the Alchemists. A very important estate. It affected not just the Alchemists, but the Painters, when they all died in the disaster.” Maelle was thoughtful for a moment. “I remember hearing about it from Maman. I barely kept myself caught up in the political affairs of a Painter, but I knew that if she was talking about it at the dinner table, it must have been bad.”
A moment of silence lingered between them. Verso knew little of the implications of Maelle’s words, but he could only guess that they were important.
“Anyways!” Maelle forced out a more chipper tune. “It looks like a lot of the streets are taken out or blockaded by the destruction of the street. It looks like we’ll have to go underground, in that case.”
“Underground?” Gemini’s lamp rattled. “You don’t mean through the sewers, do you?”
“Well, what else could I mean?”
“Oh… I know, that was a stupid question. But I really don’t want to go down there!”
“Do you even have a nose to smell sewage with?” Verso questioned as Pinocchio got to work looking for any nearby manhole cover.
“No… But that doesn’t mean I want to risk getting covered by sewage! What if my very nice lamp gets stained? We don’t have any spares to change it out with, do we?”
“Look, it’ll be for just a few streets,” Verso offered while Pinocchio tossed a manhole cover aside, smashing it into a nearby puppet that hadn’t even noticed them. “I don’t see us being down there for long.”
“NOT FOR LONG, HUH, VERSO?” Gemini practically shrieked about half an hour into sewer system trekking.
“You shut up,” Verso hissed, shaking his boots off with every step. “You’re not the one wading through literal shit here.”
Maelle giggled. “Boy, am I glad that I’m not there with you boys right now.”
“Whyyyy do you have such extensive sewer systems, oh great Rosa Isabella Street?” Gemini whined as Pinocchio bashed the upper half of a discarded puppet into the filthy water.
“I think that’s the first time in history such a sentence has been uttered negatively rather than positively. Good job, Gemini!”
“That isn’t something to compliment!”
Pinocchio snapped a hand up in front of Verso, forcing him to come to a stop. Slowly, he peeked around the corner of the next giant pipe that they were walking through. Just up ahead was a small cluster of puppets, looking to be in a circle and… talking to each other? It was hard to say.
While Verso watched, he saw Pinocchio fiddle with something. He immediately recognized the decoder that Gustave had made within his possession. Pinocchio held it up a bit, looking it over, before nodding at Verso.
“How exactly does it work again?” Verso asked quietly.
“Gustave didn’t say that we had to attack the puppets,” Pinocchio answered, lifting it up and holding it out. “We just needed their wavelengths…”
After a moment of clicking, the decoder audibly pinged. It was a loud noise, and both scrambled to tuck it into themselves, muffling the sound before the puppets could hear. Said puppets paused for a moment, staring in their direction. But as the two hid, they slowly returned to each others’ conversations, deciding that it must have been the wind.
“Was that a good noise?” Verso asked, ignoring that Pinocchio had shoved the decoder into Verso’s chest and pressed his own body against it.
“I… don’t know.” Pinocchio stepped back, looking down at the decoder as more gentle clicks and whirrs spat from it.
“... his Majesty… Opera House…”
“Sounds like it’s getting some of it,” Verso said. “That “his Majesty” must be the King of Puppets Gustave found earlier.”
“They also mention an “opera house”,” Maelle added. “They must mean the Estella Opera House, the biggest one within the district. Could that be the King of Puppet’s forward base?”
“Would that be a secure holding?”
“I can’t say. I’d gone there a thousand times for performances of all kinds, but I never tried to view the building from a tactical perspective. However,” and Maelle sounded smug as she said that, “I have the rather remarkable ability of knowing how to get there regardless of where we are in the district.”
“Well, that’s handy. Though I imagine we’d need to get back to the surface in order for you to put that skill to use?”
“Yep. I know street names, not sewer pipe directions. So good news, Gemini! We’re getting out of here!”
“We? You’re the one sitting pretty in that manor of yours.” Gemini sounded to be quite petulant. “Very much away from any sort of sewer smell.”
Re-emerging onto the streets put them back into the throes of commotion. What else could they describe kamikaze clown puppets and duster-armed maid puppets? The first time that they had found the former involved Pinocchio getting nearly blown to bits, only saved by Verso dragging him just narrowly out of the range of the explosion.
Still, the exploding puppets couldn’t account for the flames. The further they got into the street, the more burning buildings that they could find. And judging by the flamethrower-armed puppets waltzing about, they were very purposeful fires.
The question was, why? Verso found himself questioning the wanton destruction. Usually, the puppets would just patrol the area and hunt down any living beings. Why were they also destroying the buildings as well?
“Maybe they’re trying to flush out anybody still living?” Maelle guessed.
“This feels more… purposeful than that,” Verso responded, looking down from a bridge at one of the aforementioned puppets hosing down what looked to have once been a bistro.
“Purposeful?” Maelle scoffed. “It looks to me that they’re just destroying everything that they can see. Probably to clear the way for their grand Majesty.”
“... I’m sorry that you have to see this, Maelle.”
“This sucks. I have so many happy memories here, with both family and friends. And now look at it. Destroyed past the point of no return. I swear, if the King of Puppets has done anything to the Opera House…” Maelle paused, and judging by the crack in her voice, Verso wondered if she was about to cry. “I’ll come over and kill him myself.”
Verso wanted to ask. But the idea of pushing Maelle to the point of tears made his chest hurt. He remained silent instead, though not before exchanging a concerned look with Pinocchio.
Who in the hell made that clown puppet?
Their introduction to the hulking monstrosity was through a fist flying down the burning street and slamming right into Pinocchio’s face, bowling him over. Before they knew it, a clusterfuck of a situation began, with them having to deal both with flamethrower puppets and a giant clown puppet who could extend its fists.
As Verso stumbled back from another fist to the gut, Maelle pitched in. “I’m really sorry to say, but this street is the only way to the Estella Opera House. You’re going to need to take that thing out!”
“Working on it!” Verso snarled, sending a berserked series of slashes at the mad clown puppet as he spat out golden Chroma. “What even is it?!”
“My best guess is, it was meant for a street performance of some kind!”
“I don’t think I like its performance routine!”
With one last very satisfying crash, Pinocchio brought down the electric coil stick on the puppet’s head. It caved in with ease, and after a moment of staying upright, it toppled over. Verso was already looking relieved before it completely fell to the ground.
“I really don’t like the selection of puppets Rosa Isabella Street has for us,” Verso grumbled, dusting the spare Chroma off his body. “How much further is the Opera House, Maelle?”
“Once you take the steps at the end of this street, you’ll be right in front of it.” The two got to moving while Maelle took a deep breath. “I really hope this works…”
“What does?”
“Our plan. That if we kill the King of Puppets, the Frenzy will end, once and for all. And finally… you can come to the manor so we can see each other.”
Right. So much has happened that Verso completely forgot the original goal that they had in mind. His steps slowed, but only for a moment, before he continued following Pinocchio down the street and up the steps Maelle had spoken of.
As they came to the top, they stepped out into a rather beautifully untouched plaza. An illustrious white and golden building loomed ahead, draped with decorative red fabric and every window illuminated. A strange, warm sensation filled Verso at the sight of it.
The only other being within the plaza was a singular puppet. Dressed in a crimson gown, dark golden strings seemed to materialize from their body and hold them upright. Verso’s hand was on the Holy Sword’s handle as they approached, and he drew it when the puppet moved.
However, before he could swing, the puppet bowed, taking him by surprise. “Jrypbzr, Pneyb Trccrggb naq Irefb Qrffraqer.”
The puppet attempting to speak to them, even with the fact that he couldn’t understand, still took Verso by surprise. He looked to Pinocchio, who seemed just as stunned as he took out the decoder and turned it on.
“Uvf Znwrfgl unf orra rkcrpgvat lbh gjb. Gur fgntr vf frg.” The puppet stepped aside, gesturing to the door.
“His Majesty… the stage…” Barely any of the words came through as translated, leaving the vast majority of the message as concealed.
“Are we just… being allowed in?” Verso questioned, casting a wary glance to the puppet.
“I think?” Pinocchio put away the decoder. “That’s… odd.”
“Yeah.” Verso could feel confusion coming from Maelle. “You’d think that if the King of Puppets was here, security would be doubled rather than non-existent. This screams a trap, you two. Be careful.”
Verso put one hand on one of the doors while Pinocchio did the same with the other. Together, they pushed them inwards, expecting to see disaster inside.
And yet… There wasn’t. Illustrious banisters were left intact. The red rug underneath their boots was spotless. Golden candelabras were still in the hands of humanoid sculptures overlooking the main entrance. And most shockingly, the puppets roaming inside, wrapped in the same dark golden threads, bowed to them, just as the one at the entrance did.
Somehow, all of that made Verso feel more threatened than he’s ever been by the Puppet Frenzy.