Izzie was on the ground, a tray in front of her and a broken glass following after it. Some of the pieces rolled to other parts of the room. I let out a scream. Someone killed Izzie!
Izzie then let out a loud frustrated grunt before angrily getting up. I sighed in relief for a brief moment, happy she was okay. However, I quickly became upset once she started to yell at me.
"Watch where you're fucking going!" she shrieked angrily at me.
I whimpered and shrunk back. "I-I'm sorry!" I squeaked out.
"You better be!" she told me with an intimidating tone in her voice. "That could have been hydrochloric acid spilling all over my face! You're lucky it was just an empty beaker!"
"I'll get the broom!" I heard Fart call out. I looked over and saw him prance into the other room.
Izzie sighed and went to the back of the room. I got up and brushed myself off. Carefully, I stepped around the broken glass. Fart came back with a broom and immediately started to clean the mess up.
I finally started to look around, realizing the building with the beaker was a chemistry lab. There were dozens of different bottles containing a variety of chemicals in the cabinets lined up amongst the wall. I saw Izzie in the back of the room gathering some supplies from the lab.
"What are you doing?" I asked Izzie. I wasn't trying to sound like an investigator, but unfortunately she took my small talk as some kind of an attack.
"What's it to ya?" she asked me with a hiss.
"I-I was just wondering! I'm sorry!" I sighed and held my arm. We were doing okay when we first came to the amusement park, but now she seemed a bit different. I didn't understand. Was it all the murders that changed her attitude toward me?
She didn't reply back to me. She simply took her stuff and marched out of the building. The more time she spent at the amusement park, the more bitter she got. I decided it was useless trying to talk to her at this point, so I decided to continue exploring.
I left the chemistry lab and went to the building marked with a hand holding money. When I walked in, I was immediately hit with flashing neon signs and dinging noises. I blinked a few times before fully taking in what was around me. The building I had walked into seemed to be a casino. However, there was something strange about this casino. I looked at every machine, and it seems as though every machine had a picture of Tanezumi on it. However, that picture of Tanezumi seemed to be in place to cover up another picture on the machine. Just then, Uncle Grandpa popped up.
"Hey! What happened to the Uncle Grandpa Luck Machines?" he asked. Tanezumi popped up next to him.
"Luck, Schmuck! Tanezumi's new line is much better!" she told him.
"Is it?" Uncle Grandpa seemed skeptical.
"Of course! Try it out!" she offered one of the machines for him to try.
Uncle Grandpa sat down and pulled the lever. The pictures on the screen whirled around fast before stopping. The pictures that stopped spelled out "unnecessary surgery". Uncle Grandpa let out a loud cheer.
"Unnecessary Surgery? I WIN!" he clapped and jumped up and down. Tanezumi went right up to him, wearing a surgeon outfit, and took his arm off. Uncle Grandpa only laughed in response. I let out a loud gasp, prepared to see blood. However, Uncle Grandpa literally grew another arm back like it was nothing. I had completely forgotten that Uncle Grandpa was a magical being. I shook my head at their antics. Just as I was about to ignore them and go explore, Tanezumi took the arm she took off of Uncle Grandpa and began to beat him with it.
"GET OUT OF MY CASINO!" she screamed. Uncle Grandpa was yelling out and crying.
"I'm sorry!" he yelped out.
They seemed to disappear to another end of the building. I looked over at the slot machine Uncle Grandpa was playing on and he had apparently rolled the pictures "Banish Uncle Grandpa". I felt bad for Uncle Grandpa, but there was nothing I could do to stop Tanezumi. I began to explore more of the casino.
I saw Tiger, Ham, and Gweelok inspecting some of the machines. As I approached the middle of the room, I saw Susie inspecting the floor tiles.
"Are you alright, Susie?" I asked her.
She looked up in surprise. "Oh uh... y-yeah!" she blushed. "I was just admiring the floor work in here. It's beautiful!"
I looked at the tiles, and she was right. The color scheme was fuchsia, deep purple, navy, and black, and each tile formed a specific pattern. It was quite brilliant. Whoever designed the tiles did a wonderful job.
I went over to the back of the building and saw Steve standing in front of a large stand alone machine. As I approached, I began to see this stand alone machine was quite different than all the Tanezumi machines. This had triangular pictures that were blacked out with a permanent marker. I stood there with Steve for a moment, just observing it. I had a bad vibe about this particular machine. I jumped a bit when Steve suddenly began to sniff the air. He immediately looked over at me.
"Do you smell that?" he asked me.
"What?" I asked, trying to smell the air.
Steve paced back and forth, tugging on his hair. He then stopped and shook his head. "No no no this isn't happening! I worked so hard!" he put his face into his palms.
"Are you alright?" I asked.
"They're here!" he told me frantically. "They're here!"
"Who?" I asked.
He didn't seem to acknowledge my question as he kept on repeating himself as he tugged on his hair. I finally decided to shake him to get his attention.
"Steve!" I tried to get him to snap back to reality. Instead, he placed his hands on my shoulders firmly.
"I've always hated anchovies." he told me.
"What?" I didn't really understand. Was he finally snapping? I knew he was a strange person and I know he has other personalities, but he's never been like this before.
Instead of answering me, he pushed me aside and ran out of the building. I tried to process what exactly just happened, but I couldn't really make sense of it. Why was he talking about anchovies? Who really are they? I began to think about the conversation Pizza Steve and Mr. Gus had last night. I decided to just leave and explore the last building. Not only was my meeting with Pizza Steve really strange, but that machine was creeping me out.
I went over to the building with the planet on it and went inside. It seemed to be an auditorium, except the whole place was covered in space and stardust patterns. It was actually really beautiful.
"Wow..." I said to myself as I looked around. I saw Eric, Dennis, and Mr. Gus enjoying the scenery. I also saw Ramona over in the corner reading something. I decided to approach her. I really wanted to understand why Steve was acting strange, and if anyone would know it would be her.
"Hi Ramona" I greeted her.
"Greetings, Mary" she got up and curtseyed.
"Can I ask you something?" I asked her.
"Of course!" she smiled.
"Okay..." I looked around before whispering "What's the matter with Steve?"
Her smile faded. "The Prince? Well..." she sighed. She had a mixture of worry and fear in her face. "I cannot disclose this information with you. However, I will say that he needs our help more than ever and it's crucial we get out of this amusement park"
I nodded. "I understand."
I decided not to bother her anymore about it, so I continued exploring the space auditorium. I found Billy on the stage looking around at the various items around. Billy noticed me and began to speak.
"This room is really fascinating. I can tell Tanezumi hasn't touched this place, because something about its aura is pure and calming." he told me.
"How can you tell?" I asked.
"I can sense certain things you humans can't" he told me.
"Ah" I nodded.
After exploring the room, I had some time to kill before we had to meet back in the cafeteria. When the time came, I made my way down to the cafeteria to discuss our findings. Mr. Gus had everyone gather around.
"So what did everyone find?" he asked.
"An auto-repair shop!" Slog giggled. He had more grease than usual all over him. "I fixed Tanezumi's car and she gave me a present!"
He held up a box she had given him.
"Cool! Let's see what's inside!" Eric said.
Slog looked a bit upset. "I'm sorry, Eric. I can't open the box! Tanezumi told me I couldn't open the box until I was alone in my room!"
"That's an odd request." Billy raised his eyebrow.
"I know!" Slog looked a bit worried.
"Anyways, there's a Chemistry Lab. I took some things I thought that might be useful to the infirmary so we wouldn't have to run back and forth between the different sections of the amusement park." Izzie told us.
"There was a casino!" Ham said.
"There was also a beautiful auditorium filled with stars!" Eric told us.
"Any leads on an exit?" Mr. Gus asked.
Everyone shook their head. Mr. Gus started to look around.
"Hey guys, where's Pizza Steve?" he asked.
Everyone gasped and began to look around the room. Suddenly we heard his voice.
"He's not here..." we head Pizza Steve's voice say. We all got a bit freaked out after hearing that, frantically looking around for Steve even more. He ended up being under one of the tables.
"He's not here..." Steve had a blank look on his face.
"Who are you?" Mr. Gus asked him. "Please, tell us!"
Steve looked at all of us with a blank stare.
"Who are you?" Mr. Gus repeated his question.
Steve shook his head quickly, finally snapping back to reality.
"Huh, what?" he looked confused.
"Are you okay?" I asked him.
"I-..." he looked around before biting his lip. "I-I'm fine!"
"Well that's good news because I've got a surprise for you!" we whipped around to see Tanezumi standing there with a huge grin on her face.
"I've got a really good incentive for you!"
