Chi&Aiko: HELLOOO!

Chi: First off, we'd like to thank all those that commented/reviewed our first chapter!

Aiko: and warn you all that this chapter's really graphic- Flowerpower71, we're talking to you, since you said you felt squeamish reading the first chapter! :3

Chi: *smacks her* Shut up! I was squeamish writing it! .

Aiko: Whatever. Can we just get on with it?

Chi: *sighs and rolls her eyes* Arright, Arright, ya meshuganah kalba.

Aiko: Only one that can call me that Chi. Only one.

News of the Wizard's death had spread throughout the village, but most of the smurfs remained in their homes. They agreed, Celebration of death- even Gargamel's- was wrong. One smurf in particular was not in his home. No, Harmony smurf was in the forest, "playing" his trumpet loudly. He only stopped when he saw a familiar face approaching. "Hello, Jokey!" he said, a smile on his face. "What're you doing in the forest?"

Tobias had decided on turning himself invisible- he didn't much like being around smurfs other than just Jokey. The invisible Tobias jabbed Jokey in the shoulder.

Jokey stalked forward. "Oh, nothing, Harmony... Just...enjoying the scenery. There were some birds around here not too long ago... Shame; your 'playing' scared them all away." He gave Harmony a terrifying smirk. "Too bad, isn't it?"

"Eh..." Harmony was put off by that smirk accross Jokey's face and backed away slightly. "Are... You alright, Jokey?"

"I'm fine... But you really should stop all that racket. It gets on other smurf's nerves..." Jokey trailed off lightly, still stalking forward slowly with that same demonic grin curling his lips.

"W-Well-! Your joke boxes get on other smurf's nerves t-too, you know!" Harmony felt a sickening fear welling up inside of him, seeing that hellish grin. "C-Could you stop looking at me like that, please? I-it's kinda creepy..."

"Creepy? Me? That's a bad joke, Harmony..." Jokey suddenly lunged at him, knocking him to the ground and holding him by his throat, "A VERY bad joke."

"J-Jokey!" Harmony tried to kick him off, gasping for breath, "W-what're you d-aack!"

The tone-deaf smurf looked around frantically for something to fight back. Just to his side, his trumpet had fallen from his hand. He desperately reached for it, if he could get the instrument, he'd be able to get away, possibly!

Jokey saw where Harmony was reaching and leaned over to snatch the trumpet away from Harmony's desperately clawing hands. "Good idea, Harmony... What a VERY good idea."

Harmony's eyes widened terrifiedly. "N-no-! Oh god, N-NO!"

Jokey carefully pried Harmony's mouth open and began shoving the instrument down his throat, laughing all the while. "You were right, Harmony!" He laughed as the Smurf's eyes bulged. "This IS funny! You should have been a prankster instead of a musician!"

Harmony gasped for breath, desperately fighting to get away, to call for help, to BREATHE even. The trumpet lodged down his throat squealed and screamed with every desperate attempt at breath, not sounding too different from his usual playing. The tone-deaf clawed at his friend turned attacker, desperately trying to get free, desperately trying to save himself. Jokey just stood over him, sneering in amusement. "This is really funny," he mused as Harmony's final breaths drew near.

Harmony's desperate gasp swan song came to a slow end, dark eyes filled with confusion and betrayal as his fingernails raked Jokey's arms one final time, before falling to the cold, unforgiving ground. With a great shudder, the tone-deaf smurf laid chillingly still, eyelids barely a quarter of the way lidded and head slightly to the side.

Jokey started laughing. "That sure was a funny prank, Tobias!" He cackled, holding his sides.

In a small flash of sparkles, the Imp appeared again. "It was!" Tobias was laughing loud enough to wake the dead. "That little ditty he played was better than ANY of his usual playing!"

"Agreed," Jokey laughed. "Who should we prank next, Tobias?"

Tobias tapped his chin in thought. "Hmm, I don't know," he replied, "How about we go check out the village and see who'll take a joke?"

"Sounds like a plan," Jokey smirked, leading the way to the village of Smurfs.

In the outskirts of the village, not far from Harmony's and Poet's houses, there stood a painting studio, well lit and filled with magnificent works of art. The artist living there was proud of his masterpieces, every last one of them. The time he took making sure every detail was exactly right was only outmatched by the tears shed and French profanities shouted when a painting was "ruined", or a detail not the way the artist wanted it. And Painter smurf truly was a sight to be seen when that happened.

However for the moment, all was right in the artist's world. The lighting was just right for his painting; he had not been disturbed with silly observations about the weather, or about Gargamel, or storm preparations. No, today was just him and his oil paints, painting an image he had once seen in a dream, and now tried desperately to recreate. A fairy, with the longest, flowingest red hair, bathed in the light of the blue moon. It seemed such a simple project. But every time he attempted it, he always came up short of his dream.

Painter sang softly, something he very rarely did, as he painted almost effortlessly.

"La lune, trop bleme,
pose un diadème
sur tes cheveux roux.
La lune, trop rousse,
de gloire éclabousse
ton jupon plein de trous.
La lune, trop pâle,
caresse l'opale
de tes yeux blasés.
Princesse de la rue,
sois la bienvenue
dans mon coeur brisé..."

"How about him?" Jokey hissed softly to Tobias, peeking into the window slyly.

"I think he could use a little fun." Tobias smirked under his invisible guise. "Just close the windows. When we're in the village we're more likely to get caught."

"Got it," Jokey smirked, slinking into the room through the unlocked door, and carefully locking the door.

Then, he stalked silently passed, careful not to make a move. Slowly, he began pulling the curtains closed.

"The stairways up to la butte
can make the wretched sigh."

The poor, unsuspecting artist didn't even hear the click of the lock. The only way he noticed something in the room was terribly wrong was when the fluttery white curtains closed, shielding his usually well-lit studio from the light.

"While windmill wings of the Moulin
shelter you and-"

Painter looked at the window the instant he noticed his perfect light had gone. "Ohn? Jokey Smerf?!" Painter made a slight noise of disgust as he disdainfully dropped his paintbrush in a cup of water. "'Aven't you evair 'erd of knocking?!"

"Haven't you ever heard of a 'joke'?" Jokey growled back, his voice disdainful. "Just a little prank was all it was, Painter Smerrrrf," Jokey said, rolling the word in a French accent tauntingly, his demonic grin returning.

"Fils d'un schtroumpf" Painter mumbled under his breath. He HATED it when somesmurf poked fun at his accent. He was PROUD of his language, as well as the accent that came with it. "Breaking and entairing is hardly a good prank, it is not even funny, non?" the artist turned back around and dipped a coarse paintbrush in the paints. "If you only come to bothair me, Ah kindly ask you do it anothair time, anothair day, abruti."

"Oh, no," Jokey sneered, his sadistic smile widening as he came closer. "That's only the tip of th iceberg, Painter. There's more to come from this little 'prank'."

There was an edge to the younger smurf's voice that disturbed Painter. He was not well trained to hearing emotion in the voices of his peers, but even now Jokey's words sent a chill down the red-vested smurf's spine. Slowly, cautiously, the sensitive painter turned around, met with the hellish grin he had never- nor did he ever want to- seen before. "Eh?"

Jokey pounced as he had before pranking Harmony, pinning Painter under him and sneering down at him. "What do you think of it so far, Painter?" Jokey asked, his voice almost gravelly.

To say the least, Painter was shocked. And when Painter was shocked or afraid, or both, he didn't speak English anymore. "Je ne comprends pas, pourquoi faites-vous cela?! Qu'est-ce que je peux faire pour vous?!" he demanded, not even noticing he had slipped into his language of origin.

Jokey glared at him darkly. "You shouldn't talk like that," he spat coldly. "Nosmurf can understand your meaningless jabber."

Painter didn't understand his words. Then again, he didn't need to understand that Jokey was angry with him for some reason. "s'il vous plaît, pourquoi faites-vous ça?! Je pensais que nous étions amis!" the words slipped from his mouth like silk, as Painter's wide eyes widened terrifiedly. "Qu'ai-je fait pour mériter cela?!"

"Someone should shut you up," Jokey hissed, snatching the canvas of Painter's fairy painting off its easel and raising it over his head, preparing to strike him.

Painter's eyes widened in a horrified manner as he struggled to get away, kicking, struggling, trying anything at all to get away. "N-NO! P-PLEASE!" he shrieked, and looked out towards the door, "HELP! HELP, ANYSMURF, PLEASE!"

In a state of absolute panic, the artistic smurf bit down hard on Jokey's wrist, hoping that that little last-ditch attempt to get away would give him enough time to run for the bolted door.

Jokey growled in pain, then lunged, grabbing Painter by the back of his jacket collar just as the artist's fingertips unlocked the door. "That. Wasn't. Funny," Jokey snarled, slamming the canvas into Painter's head.

The wood of the canvas cracked against the artist's head, landing with a clatter on the ground next to its creator- who seemed still conscious, but incredibly dazed by the attack. There was a slight splatter of blood from the wound on Painter's head on the painting, giving Tobias a sickening idea. "Hey, Jokey!" the invisible imp whispered in his best friend's ear, "I'm feeling a bit... Artsy right now..."

Jokey smiled excitedly, seeing a letter opener on the desk next to him where Painter sketched out his ideas. "Yes..." He said slowly, picking it up and moving back to Painter, "Artsy..."

With one swift motion, Jokey slice open the artist' throat and laughed as blood poured from the wound in a deep crimson waterfall.

Painter gurgled slightly, trembling and shaking, clutching onto the limp canvas, and looked up at Jokey, all the hate in his eyes he could muster. "Vous voir dansenfer Jokey Smurf." his voice died in a gargle, and the artist laid very still, surrounded by the maroon pool around him, spreading quickly.

"I always knew Arts and crafts were fun." Tobias came into view again, placing a new canvas on the easel and giving Jokey a clean paintbrush.

Jokey snickered in agreement, sopping up some of the scarlet 'paint' from Painter's throat onto his brush and beginning to scrawl a clumsy forest scene, the image of a Smurf lying limp in the bottom left corner.

Tobias squinted his eyes at the doodle of the smurf in the corner. "Say, that kinda looks like that tonedeaf weirdo with the horn earlier," he said.

"It sure is!" Jokey cackled, dipping hi brush back in the blood. "Looks pretty good, huh?"

"Yeah! That's imaginative, leaving something behind of the previous prank..." Tobias almost purred, "Imaginative indeed!"

However, right at that moment, the door rattled a little bit. "Painter?" an obnoxious, nasally voice Jokey recognized immediately called out, "I need to talk to you about repainting my house!"

Before anyone could so much as bat an eye, the door opened, and Brainy stood there, staring at Painter, and especially staring at Jokey and his bloody masterpiece. Actually, he looked as though he would be sick to his stomach.

"Hiya, Brainy!" Jokey snickered. "What do you think of my prank?"

"What do I THINK!?" Brainy dropped the book in his hand and rushed to where Painter laid sprawled out on the ground, his coat soaked in his own blood. "Oh my god, Jokey, I think your 'PRANK' just KILLED somesmurf!"

A dark glare fell across Jokey's features. "So you don't like it?" He asked, as if daring Brainy to say no.

"NO, I DON'T LIKE IT!" Brainy shouted, not reading the dangerous expression on Jokey's face, "You smurfing KILLED someone, Jokey! I'm telling Papa smurf RIGHT NOW!"

Without a moment to spare, Brainy rose from his place next to Painter and dashed for the open door, panic the dominant expression in his face.

Jokey lunged at Brainy, throwing the knife, which lodged itself in the doorframe. "I wouldn't do that if I were you, Brainy," Jokey snarled darkly.

Brainy slowly turned around, facing the maniacal smurf. "P-Please, Jokey, p-please don't kill me..." he whimpered, "I'll do whatever you want, j-just please don't k-kill me!"

Tobias-who had hidden himself again, poked Jokey in the ribs. "He might be of some use to us..."

"Hmmm..." Jokey mused. "How, though...? How can you be of use to us...?"

"P-Potions!" Brainy blurted out before he could stop himself. "I-I can make you potions for whatever you n-need!"

"But what sort of potions would we need?" Jokey asked, more to Tobias than Brainy.

"Anything, really... maybe a paralyzer, or a acidic one?" Tobias replied quietly.

"You think you could handle some paralyzers? And acidic potions?" Jokey demanded

Brainy, although he was only half confident his skills would be "useful" to the glaring smurf, nodded hastily, his face white.

"Good." Jokey released him. "Smurf to it. You tell anyone, and I'll have to prank you, too."

Brainy swallowed the lump in his throat, and tried to halt his knees from shaking. "C-Come with me, I'll bring you to P-Papa's lab. H-he's still in the forest investigating G-Gargamel..." his voice shook and squeaked occasionally.

"Don't forget that letter opener in the door!" Tobias reminded Jokey. "I think we'll need that later."

"Right," Jokey agreed, wrenching the letter opener easily from the wall and glaring at Brainy. "Come on. Smurf to it."

Brainy nodded, barely taking his eye off the blade in the prankster smurf's hand, and started leading him to his mentor's alchemy lab.

"I dunno, Nat," Slouchy spoke as they walked through the forest, suns beating down against the two smurflings' backs. "I think Papa smurf was right that it wasn't a human, but I don't think it was a fairy. All the ones I've seen carry a sword. The cuts on Gargamel's neck almost looked like some kind of a sharp rock or something. Same with Azrael."

"Yeah," Nat agreed, looking up at the dying sunlight as it peeked through the tree branches.. "Whatever it was was definitely too jagged to be a sword."

"Mm- hmm..." Slouchy agreed. "No matter HOW you smurf it, they didn't go quick- Ah!"

The smurflings stopped dead in their tracks once they saw a blue hand just barely outside of a bush. "Lazy must be sleeping in the forest now that we don't have Gargamel to worry about," Slouchy said quietly, careful not to disturb the smurf that belonged to the hand.

"I dunno," Nat muttered. "Whoever that is is pretty pale for just being asleep, Slouchy."

"You're right," Slouchy nodded, getting closer, a suspicious look on his face. "Hey! You! Wake up!"

When the body attached to the hand and mostly hidden through the bush didn't budge, Slouchy put his hands to the shoulder and shook slightly, "Brr!" he shivered, "He's cold t-AAH!" as soon as he saw the face of the supposedly sleeping smurf, he scooted away wildly, eyes wide and face pale. "H-H-H-Harmony!"

Nat was pale; he turned away from the gruesome sight and vomited into the grass.

"We have to tell Papa," he managed once he had wiped his mouth and caught his breath.

"W-Wait a second..." Slouchy got a little bit closer to the body again. "Look, whoever k-killed him had four fingers..." he used a twig to show Nat the harndprint-shaped bruises along Harmony's neck, "Faries have five. Imps and elves do too." Slouchy's face paled considerably. "Smurfaroo, do you know what this means?"

"H-he was killed b-by one of us," Nat replied in a choked whisper. "Harmony was killed by another Smurf."

Slouchy nodded slowly. "I just... I don't understand it..." Slouchy's voice was barely a whisper. "Who would DO this...? Who would do such an awful, unsmurfy thing like this...?"

"I don't know," Nat breathed. "But we hafta tell Papa so he can start to do something for Harmony and look for whoever did this."

Slouchy nodded, standing slowly and dashed-for once- back to the village, Nat following behind.

It took them some time to find Papa smurf. But when they did, they almost didn't want to find him. He was in Painter's studio, where another atrocity had been committed. "Smurfaroo..." Slouchy murmured under his breath, "Poor Painter..."

"Whoever killed Harmony must have killed Painter, too," Nat muttered. "I guess the bright side is that's two Smurfs ruled out now."

"I guess..." Slouchy muttered in return, looking sick to his stomach. "but there's something different about this..." he got closer to Painter, seeing his face twisted in agony. "Harmony was killed with his own trumpet shoved down his throat... Painter looks like his throat was cut... But there's nothing sharp enough around..." he looked around and noticed a small purple book with the words 'Quotations of Brainy Smurf' over the cover. "What's this doing here?"

Nat looked at it. "I don't know," he said. "You don't think Brainy is the killer, do you, Slouchy?"

Slouchy stared down at the ground. "Honestly, Nat, one day ago I didn' think ANYsmurf could be capable of this..."

Before any of them could say anything, Papa smurf approached them. "Slouchy! Nat! What'd I say about this!" he demanded. "I TOLD both of you to forget this."

"But Papa..." Slouchy looked up at the leader. "Painter isn't the only smurf now..." He looked up at the painting. "Harmony... Harmony's the smurf in that picture. Whoever killed Painter killed Harmony too. And it WAS a smurf."

Nat nodded. "Y-yeah... W-we came to tell you... S-somesmurf STRANGLED him with his own trumpet..."

Papa smurf froze right where he stood. "Good God..." he murmured, "What has this world smurfed to...?"

He was very quiet for a moment as Slouchy stood. "Take me to him." he said quietly, "I need to examine him for myself."

"Ok..." Slouchy said, "But we gotta be a part'a this case! Harmony and Painter were our friends too."

"Please," Nat added quickly, shooting a glare at Slouchy.

"No." Papa smurf shook his head firmly, "This is too dangerous for smurflings to be involved."

"But Papa smurf, we-"

"NO BUTS, Slouchy!" Papa smurf's voice was firm. "Now, show me where Harmony's body is, and stay in the bunkhouse."

"Alright, Papa smurf..." Slouchy replied, not sounding deterred in the least.

Nat rolled his eyes and took the lead, retracing their trail back to Harmony's lifeless, unmoving body. "Great Smurfs..." Papa smurf murmured, kneeling down next to the unmoving corpse.

Papa smurf slowly brought his fingertips over Harmony's wide eyes, bringing the eyelids down so they were closed. "No one can harm you anymore, my little smurf..." the leader murmured softly, "Nat, Slouchy. Go get Dabbler so he can remove this trumpet..."

"Yes, Papa," Nat murmured, turning to dash towards the village again with Slouchy hot on his heels.

"He's hiding something from us." Slouchy murmured softly, glancing back at the elderly smurf suspiciously. "There's something he's not telling us about all this."

"Yeah," Nat agreed dully. "He doesn't trust us because we're Smurflings... If you ask me, he already knows who the murderer is, he just needs proof."

"I dunno..." Slouchy shook his head, "there wasn' any evidence pointing to ANYone with ANY of those deaths... With th' exception of Brainy's book..."

"Yeah, but you never know; he knows nearly everything about everysmurf. Maybe he found something we didn't, or saw something we didn't think was important, and it pointed to somesmurf."

"I KNOW we didn't miss something." Slouchy said firmly, "I KNOW for a FACT we didn't miss anything. I wish I knew what it was we're not seeing..."

Slouchy looked at Nat in the face. "I don't know a lot right now. Bu' I DO know that Brainy has at least something to do with it. Whether he was there right before, or even during... we have to talk t' him."

"Yeah, but we have to go get Dabbler first, then actually track down the smarty smurf," Nat pointed out.

"Yeah..." Slouchy said, "I think he's at the infirmary, he said that's where he was taking Painter."

"Yeah, let's go," Nat said, turning in the direction of the infirmary and quickening his pace.

Slouchy nodded and followed Nat to the infirmary. They hastily entered, seeing Dabbler tending to Painter's stripped body. The doctor smurf turned around, seeing the boys, and drew a sheet over the body. "How can I help you boys today?" he said grimly.

"H-Harmony's dead, too," Nat explained. "P-Papa wanted us to get you so y-you can r-remove his trumpet from his throat..."

Dabbler shivered. "Great smurfs..." he murmured. "What has this world smurfed to...?"

Dabbler pulled the sheet the rest of the way over Painter's face, and took his doctor's bag from the counter. Slouchy eyed the covered lump. "Was there anything else you found out?" he asked calmly.

Dabbler nodded. "Yes." he replied. "There's a fracture in the skull, just above the hat line. It looks as though he was struck with some kind of pointed object BEFORE his throat was slashed."

Slouchy shivered slightly. "Thanks, Dabbler."

Dabbler nodded and dashed out the door. "Well... I guess Dabbler doesn't share the same thoughts as Papa." Slouchy shrugged, moving the blanket slightly so just Painter's neck and head were visible.

"Hey," Nat said, looking at the wound to Painter's head, "what's that little bit of white stuff? In the cut?"

"I don't know..." Slouchy squinted slightly.

The smurfling took a pair of forceps from the counter, and plucked the white bit from the wound. "It looks like canvas..."

"He was hit with one of his paintings?" Nat marveled. "Why? To knock him out, or something?"

"I think it was to incaparib... incapaki..." Slouchy shook his head slightly, "To make it so he couldn't do anything. Maybe he was trying to fight back or something?"

"Incapacitate," Nat supplied helpfully. "And yeah, I'd fight too if somesmurf was trying to kill me!"

"Yeah, that." Slouchy nodded. "I dunno, something tells me Painter didn't KNOW whoever it was was trying t' kill him until it actually happened." Slouchy shook his head again, and pulled the sheet back over the unmoving artist's face. "We need to talk to Brainy. Maybe he can tell us something about this."

Before Nat could reply, the door opened again, and Papa smurf entered, he and Dabbler carrying Harmony on a stretcher. "You two! What are you doing in here!"

"Just- smurfing our respects, Papa smurf." Slouchy replied quickly.

"Y-yeah," Nat said quickly, bowing his head.

"Fine... Then you can pay your respects day after tomorrow at the funeral." Papa smurf said solemnly, quickly putting Harmony's body down on a bed next to Painter. "In the meantime, you two go back to the bunkhouse, and don't come out. It's not safe to be out by yourselves."

Nat considered mentioning the canvas, but decided against it and trotted out the door after Slouchy.

Chi: Well, two deaths in one chapter, aren't we just moving right along?

Aiko: I don't think killing off more smurfs means more progress, Chisette -.-

Chi: *smacks her with a rolled up newspaper* I DO WHAT I WANT BIACH!

Aiko: -.-; ANYWAYS… Don't forget to comment and review. Because Reviews are better than sugar cookies with pepsi.

Chi: and people think I can be gross… -.-

Aiko: We'll see you soon!

Translations:

La lune, trop bleme,
pose un diadème
sur tes cheveux roux.
La lune, trop rousse,
de gloire éclabousse
ton jupon plein de trous.
La lune, trop pâle,
caresse l'opale
de tes yeux blasés.
Princesse de la rue,
sois la bienvenue
dans mon coeur brisé...

The moon, too white
Puts a tiara
On your red hair
The moon, too red
With gorey splashes
Your ragged underskirt
The moon, too pale
Caresses the opal
Of your indignant eyes
Princess of the street
Be welcome
In my broken heart- Complainte De La Butte- Rufus Wainright

Fils d'un schtroumpf" – Son of a smurf

Abruti- moron

Je ne comprends pas, pourquoi faites-vous cela?! Qu'est-ce que je peux faire pour vous?!- I do not understand, why are you doing this?! Whatcan Ido for you!

"s'il vous plaît, pourquoi faites-vous ça?! Je pensais que nous étions amis!- Please, why are you doing this?, I thought we werefriends!

Qu'ai-je fait pour mériter cela?!- What have I done to deserve this?!

Vous voir dansenfer- See you in hell