Hello, everyone! This is Umbra the Hedgehog signing in! Well, since I really enjoyed working on my Spliced story (coupled with some encouragement by some of my friends), it's only natural that I'd make a sequel to it at some point. I hope you'll enjoy it!
Description: The frown-flipping team is back! Their next target: one of their own members.
NOTE:
-I do not own any of the characters or scenarios presented in this story.
Return of the Smile Squad
Chapter 1: Finding a replacement.
Patricia was sitting in front of her desk, in an attempt to finish her novel.
"I have a lot of catching up to do. I haven't worked on this since that conflagration."
After saying this, she began to write.
-inside the writing-
Marzipan Meadows is standing in the middle of the forest, talking to someone on her cell phone.
"No way! No way! You're pulling my leg, Sarah!"
Immediately afterwards, she's surrounded by a huge ring of fire.
"Whoa!" Of course, she noticed right away. "I'll call you back, OK? Vacation's over."
Putting her phone away, she noticed the evil patch-sporting rhinoceros approaching the ring.
"Let's see you get out of this one, Marzipan Meadows!" He completed this standard 'bad guy' routine with an evil laugh.
Much to his surprise, she tossed some dirt in front of her, which put out that particular section of the ring. As she walked out of the ring, she had her whip ready.
"Hold your applause, Dr. Spazzerhousen. I'm not done yet."
After a scowl from the evil doctor, a few...uh, indians, I think...appeared around her.
"Oh, come on! These guys again?"
She managed to wrap her whip around one of them, and then proceeded to spin him in circles, knocking out all the others. This was followed by her throwing him into the distance.
"Now, where were we?"
They began to shoot an intimidating glare at each other. And then...
...some happy laughter broke in from out of nowhere.
"What the...?" This caught her attention.
After searching for the source of the laughter, she finally found it: a furry orange creature.
"Hey, what's he doing here?"
-back in the real world-
"Wait, what?"
After taking a look at what she was writing, Patricia noticed that she had suddenly written Peri into the story.
"No, that's not right." She threw the sheet into the garbage, and continued where she left off.
-inside the writing-
"Now, where were we?"
They began to shoot an intimidating glare at each other. And then...
"Isn't something supposed to happen?"
"Oh, come on! We just got back into the action for this?" She turned to the sky. "Please make an effort and throw something in!"
Suddenly, the place was completely surrounded by fog.
"Yeah, that's more like it."
A figure began to approach her, and she took out her whip again. As the figure came into view, it was revealed to be...the orange guy again?
Irritated, she threw her whip away. "I can't take this anymore!" She turned to the sky again. "Would you do us a favor and focus?"
-back in the real world-
Patricia threw this other sheet into the garbage.
"Why can't I think of anything?" She was clearly frustrated. "And why do I keep writing about Peri?"
"You want to talk about it?" Surprisingly, she heard a voice inside her head.
"Huh? Who's there?"
"It's me, girl. Your character, Marzipan Meadows." Suddenly, the image appeared in her head: her character was standing in the middle of the tidy little house that was her mind.
Of course, Patricia was surprised. "What are you doing in there?"
"Well, I'm a product of your imagination."
"And why are you talking to me just now?"
"This lack of ideas is really starting to affect me. Since Spazzerhousen is bored enough to not show up, it's up to me to stop your crazy ideas."
"OK..." Despite being completely weirded out, Patricia decided to go with it. "And what exactly are we talking about?"
"Why do you keep inserting that orange guy-"
"Uh, his name is Peri."
"Right. Why do you keep putting him in the story?"
"I don't know! My mind just keeps on going back to that other day."
"Feel like sharing?"
"It's on the shelf." With this, the adventure huntress began to head for the shelf. "Tell me when you're done watching."
A few moments later...
After still sitting in front of her desk, unable to think of anything, she called her character. "Hello? Are you still here?"
"Aww, that's just so sweet!"
"Hey, what happened to your face-kicking snark?"
"How in the name of the Kingdom of Adventure can you not get it?"
She didn't take this well. "Oh, yeah? Well, if it's so obvious, why don't you just say it?"
"Seriously? Girl, you wouldn't know what love is even if it hit you in the face!"
Upon hearing this, Patricia found herself unable to answer to that. She didn't know what was worse: being insulted by a fictional character, having an argument with herself, or losing it.
"Do you really need a figment of your imagination to tell you that you're in love with a guy?"
"You're kidding me, right?"
"I can't blame you, Patty." She ignored this question. "He's not bad-looking in the least. And he's really sweet and caring. Seems like you hit the jackpot!"
"You can't be serious."
"Alright, don't buy it from me. Just take a minute and think about it."
After flashing back to the incident, she began to think about every event and her reaction to said events. The roller coaster...the bottle knocking game...the crazy moment where Entrèe was talking to a rock...everything.
And she couldn't have had more fun.
Despite her claims that the day was just as fun as their completely random holiday, it was pretty clear now that she actually found it a lot more entertaining. Unlike the crazy holiday, which came out of nowhere and ended just as quickly, the day she spent with Peri was of regular length. And it was quite probably the happiest day of her life.
"See what I mean?"
After a brief silence, she managed to answer. "I don't know what's crazier: being in love with Peri, or losing an argument with myself."
"Trust me, you'll get used to it." After saying this, her cell phone began to ring again. "Well, I'm off now. Call me when you have a good idea."
With this, the image on her head disappeared.
"OK...that was just weird."
No sooner than that, someone was knocking on her door.
"Who could that be?" She began to approach the door. "Well, as long as it's not Entrèe with another truck-eating challenge, it's OK."
She opened it up, and was greeted by the figure of Peri. Much to her surprise, he was alone, with Entrèe being nowhere in sight.
"Hi, Patricia."
"Peri!" Of course, she found this whole scenario hard to believe. "W-what are you doing here?"
Peri just continued normally. "Actually, I need some help."
"With what?"
"Well, Entrèe's been feeling pretty sad for a while now."
"And why is that?"
"Well..."
-flashback-
Entrèe was kneeling in front of his rock.
"Why are you doing this to me? I thought we had something special!"
No response.
-end flashback-
Patricia's jaw dropped in complete shock. "He got dumped...by a rock?"
"Yeah. I think she said something about a lack of communication."
"And where's the rock now?"
"I don't know."
-awkward switch-
Two-Legs Joe stood in front of the rock, talking to it.
"I have to say, this is a surprise." He got closer. "But I'd be honored to get to know you better."
No response.
-back to the plot-
Peri began to explain his problem, having entered the house. "Anyway, he's really sad about being dumped by...uh, a rock...and I haven't been able to cheer him up. I really need the Smile Squad to enter the scene, but the sad person is half of the squad!"
"Well, what can I do?"
"You wouldn't happen to know someone who can take Entrèe's place, would you?"
Patricia was about to answer, when suddenly she heard a voice inside her head.
"This is a perfect chance, girl. Go for it!"
"Is this going to become a habit or something?"
"Stop talking to me and give it a shot!"
She suddenly noticed how crazy she looked: she was talking to thin air, with Peri standing right in front of her.
"So, do you?" Shockingly, Peri wasn't the least bit disturbed by this.
Opting to take the advice given to her by...uh, her fictional character...she decided to make the best out of this moment.
"Well, I'm free today. If it's OK with you, I could always-"
Before she could finish that, she suddenly found she was wearing a silly costume, given to her by Peri: black gloves, a cape, a mask, and a belt with a smiley face as the buckle.
"Let's go!" She wasn't given a chance to react to this, either, as she immediately found herself being dragged away by Peri, who was also wearing a costume.
A few moments later...
The duo were standing outside Entrèe's house.
"Are you sure this is going to work, Peri?"
"It worked for you, didn't it?"
She flashed back to that moment for a mere second. "Uh...no, it didn't."
Despite this short exchange, the two soon began to sing a rap song.
The Smile Squad is back in town
And you'll know we made him smile, when we're done flipping his frown
S-M-I-L
We think that makes smile, but-
Before Peri could finish that, Patricia cut him off. "I really don't think this is working, Peri."
"Hmm..." He began to think. "Maybe you're right."
"So, what now?"
"We need a plan." Peri took out a sheet of paper. "And I have one right here!"
Patricia was confused. "Where did you get that?"
"I don't know."
The two then began to look at the plan.
Yeah, as you can tell, this story requires reading the first one. Otherwise, this doesn't make any sense. Just remember to stay tuned for the other half of this story.
...And that's pretty much it.
This is Umbra the Hedgehog signing off.