"Jesse?" Lukas eked out, backing up as the red-eyed people marched into the room, "what do we do here?"
"They don't look happy," Petra said, pressing her back up against the wall as they backed up.
Cassie gave the Blaze hybrid a bit of a look. "They don't look anything."
"Ho-kay, time to go," Jesse said in a rather forced, cheerful voice.
"Good plan," Ivor remarked rather drily.
Jesse tried to step forward, but the foremost person shoved her back, almost knocking the spider hybrid off her feet. "Okay, looks like that plan's a no-go," she huffed, a bit frustrated.
"You are not from this place," all five of the people spoke simultaneously, pointing at the five of them in almost perfect sync.
Jesse stepped back a step, swallowing nervously. Somehow her mouth had gone dryer than a desert biome. "Um... yeah, I... guess we're not? Just... paying a visit to your... lovely... town here," Jesse said, rather weakly.
"A decision has been made," the people spoke, in complete unison. Yeah, remember what Jesse said earlier about the zombies moving in unison being creepy? That looked downright adorable compared to these people. "PAMA has questions."
Petra made a soft sound as one of the people took her arm, and then punched them in the face. Their head snapped to the right, before smoothly rotating back to face them again, red eyes completely blank.
Petra let out a little yelp that sounded very unlike the Blaze hybrid. Jesse automatically stepped in front of her friends, spreading her arms a little bit to protect them.
"You will come to PAMA," the voices all spoke in spooky sync.
"No way are you even considering this, Jesse," Petra said shakily. "Since when do we take orders from..."
"Mind-controlled people?" Cassie finished flatly.
Petra nodded a little at that. "Yeah, what the redhead said."
"You're a redhead, Petra."
"Oh shut up, Ivor."
Jesse made another step back, shooting the red-eyed people a nervous smile. It probably helped that she was partially amused by the little interaction just now. In fact, in a different situation, Jesse probably would've started laughing. What a shame that it wasn't a different situation. "Uh, sorry, but, we were actually kind of on our way out-"
Petra picked up, nodding eagerly at this. "Sorry, we've gotta run, but, ah-"
"W-would you look at the time," Lukas chuckled nervously, ears twitching, tail flicking in agitation.
"No need to show us the way out," Ivor said with a rather forced smile.
"W-we're not very, uh, fond of goodbyes," Cassie added in an 'incredibly-forced-cheerful' voice, Winslow hissing at the red-eyed people standing in front of them.
The red-eyed people started towards them without a word, Jesse pushing back angrily to keep them from grabbing ahold of her- then out of the corner of her eye, Ivor fell backwards- he flinched as one of the chipped people reached down-
"Wait!" Jesse shouted, drawing all red eyes to her. "Wait, we'll go with you, just- just don't hurt them. Please."
"Come along," the people spoke again, and they turned, firm grips on their upper arms as they marched out of the house, to whatever in the world PAMA was supposed to be.
The others all looked at Jesse worriedly. Lukas's tail was bushing out again, Petra's left arm was literally spitting sparks all over the place, Ivor was fidgeting with his sleeve anxiously, and Cassie... well, besides the new claw marks on her beanie, she just looked incredibly nervous.
"I hope I didn't just make a mistake," Jesse whispered to them, her lower arms starting to weave agitatedly.
"So do I," Cassie whispered back anxiously.
Which really didn't help Jesse's fraying nerves.
The red-eyed people had led them to a sort of podium, and then moved back to stand guard at the staircase- presumably so they couldn't run away.
Jesse looked around curiously. "Wonder what we're here foAH!"
Jesse jumped back at the sight of a huge sort of green screen starting to light up. She wasn't the only one- Petra was emitting a large spray of red-hot sparks, Lukas's tail was standing on end again, Ivor looked rather nervous, and Cassie had backed up about twenty steps, Winslow clawing furiously at her beanie and spitting.
In front of the screen were crowds and crowds of red-eyed people, staring up at the podium as if they were guest speakers.
"Wh-what is that thing?" Lukas asked, his incredibly busy tail sweeping through the air nervously, flicking and undulating and curling.
A face seemed to slam into being on the screen, a very simplistic one- two vertical lines for the eyes and a horizontal line for the mouth. "I have no idea," Petra said, sounding as faint as any of them had ever heard her.
"You don't suppose it's friendly, do you?" Ivor asked, sounding equally faint.
Cassie looked at him with a flat look. "What, you mean the thing that's chipped every citizen and brainwashed them into doing its bidding? Yeah, it's probably filled with rainbows and kittens and crap like that."
"Cassie."
"Sorry."
The face was smiling now, and Lukas said, nervously, "Well, I guess, it is, kind of friendly looking... in a massively, hugely-intimidating sort of way."
Jesse actually nearly choked at that. Gosh darn it, they could probably be in a life-threatening situation and Lukas could just make one odd comment and make the girl just die laughing. At least their opponents would have less work to do.
"Yeah, I'm gonna guess a 'no' on the friendly thing as well," Jesse said, looking up at the face on the screen. "Whatever it is, I have a feeling it's behind all this."
"My apologies for the violent nature of this visit," the computer-y thingy said, its face changing to match the... um, 'emotions' it was feeling.
"I am PAMA. Greetings."
A/N: And we has met the crazy computer known as... PAMA xD
rebekahtpe: Haha xD I guess mine would be the Nilla cookies. Those are awesome.
NoItsBecky: Lol xD
angelwings: Yeah it's pretty depressing
LittleAngelbun: Lol xD
RapidSammi: Pffft xD
DemonCatLady: And I'm looking forward to writing it! It might not be during the actual episode, might be a sort of filler (the staircase they walk up in Episode 8 might be suuuuper long, for example) but then again it might be. (shrugs)
ChoyofBonk: Yes. Yes she does. :)
x.X. A.L. X.x.
