(A/N: A new story has begun, involving he inner workings of the mind. I was pleasantly surprised with Inside Out, and, like many, saw the potential sequel setup with the PUBERTY button at the end. That's where this baby comes from. It was intended to be a short one-shot, but the plot bunnies got busy, and what was meant to be a one-shot became the prologue of something much bigger. Hope you enjoy it.)
Disclaimer: I own nothing
"OUTSIDE IN"
Prologue
Disgust was on dream duty tonight. She really hated it since there wasn't much to do with no feelings to convey. While the other four Emotions slept, she was stuck watching the dreams of the 12 year old they were inhabiting.
"Uch, there is nothing on," she grumbled as she filed her nails at the control panel.
Up on the dream screen, Dream Productions was providing a much more traumatizing version of what happened earlier today when Jordan came to pick Riley up for their date. Only instead of her father pretending to be in a band in front of Jordan in the kitchen, he was doing it in front of the entire hockey team while her mother acted like a crazed fan-girl. Riley was present too, and yes, she had no pants on again.
"Please," Disgust muttered, "as if her parents aren't embarrassing enough in real life. Honestly, why do they do that? What are their Fear and Disgust doing?"
There was just no understanding parents. And how was she supposed to do her job of keeping Riley socially accepted if her own parents insisted on humiliating her all the time? True, they meant well, but did they ever think before they acted?
"As if we'd ever let Riley do that to her kids," Disgust told herself.
With a sigh, she sat back, puting her feet up on the control panel, careful of the buttons, even if most of them didn't work while Riley was asleep. She was so bored. Perhaps she could find a memory that was more appealing than what was playing. With that, she hit the Memory Recall button, and a glowing yellow orb popped out of the recall tube and began playing.
"TripleDent Gum, will make you smile! TripleDent Gum, it lasts a while-"
"Not that!" Disgust shouted, and slammed her fist down on the button to send the memory back.
That had not been the kind of memory she had been looking for. Why wasn't there a memory delete button? The control panel had one for everything else! And being one of Riley's Emotions, Disgust knew what each and every one did.
Well, except for that one. That big red button labeled PUBERTY. It had come with the new control panel, and neither she nor any of the other Emotions knew what it did. It wasn't in any of the manuals either.
Disgust had to admit, she was curious. All the Emotions were. They had considered pressing it several times to see what would happen, but Fear always convinced them that it was too risky. But he wasn't here now, so…
She glanced left, glanced right, glanced at the button, and slowly reached out and pressed it. It sank into the control panel and remained embedded in there. An alarm sounded as red lights began flashing. A loud static-filled mechanical voice began chanting, "Puberty! Puberty!"
It didn't take long for the other Emotions to wake up and come rushing into the room. Fear as wrapped around Anger, shaking like a leaf as he looked around fearfully. "What is it? What's happening? Are we going to die?"
"Get off me!" Anger snapped, his head igniting, and Fear jumped off him, his rear end smoking.
"Why's the alarm sounding?" Sadness asked sleepily.
Joy's eyes landed on the pressed button labeled PUBERTY. She put the word they had mispronounced as "Pooburty" and the word the alarm was blaring together and came to a conclusion. "Disgust, you hit the button?"
"She hit the button?" Fear asked. He saw that Joy was right and panicked. "You hit the button! She actually hit the button!" He grabbed the green Emotion and began shaking her. "Why did you hit the button!?"
She slapped his hand away and crossed her arms. "Hey, don't blame me, ok. I told you I wasn't in the mood for dream duty tonight."
(A/N: There's the prologue for you. Short, I know, but it's a prologue, most are. The other chapters will be longer. I try to update every Wednesday, so if you're interested in seeing where this is going, I hope to see you then. Leave me a review to tell me what you think, and I'll catch you next time.)