Once the show was live again, Miss Piggy briefly explained that Zoot was rushed to a hospital, but she is sure that he'll be fine and then proceeded to perform her song for the audience, as if nothing happened about 10 minutes prior.
When the band played their instruments, it felt a little odd to perform without Zoot, since the saxophonist was always performing right alongside them. There were times when Lips was absent from performances in the past, but back then he was pretty much new to the band, so it really didn't affect them much.
But Zoot they had known all their lives, so of course it would feel a little bit empty without their #1 sax player with them. Hopefully this would be a one time thing because in all honesty, the band didn't like these sort of changes to stick around for a while.
After the show finished and the cameras were shut off, the audience left the studio, murmuring amongst themselves about Honeydew's invention possibly harming Zoot in some way and it was long before people started talking about the incident on social media.
Scooter was scrolling through his phone, which had social media apps such as Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and Tumblr downloaded on it, where he read a bunch of tweets and posts about the show, which started out with people gushing about Harrison Ford being on the show, which made the orange Muppet smile, but then he started looking at the tweets regarding Bunsen Honeydew's invention, which first started off with excitement and curiosity, and turned to horror and anger after it got to the point when Zoot got accidently shot by it. There was even a new hashtag trending: #FireHoneydew and there were several tweets as followed.
"If there's something seriously wrong with Zoot because of that machine, Miss Piggy needs to #FireHoneydew"
"Zoot was my favorite Muppet, and if he dies, I'm going to be sad and mad! #FireHoneydew"
"I was okay with Beaker being on the receiving end of Honeydew's invention screwups, but hurting one of the members of my favorite band is too far! #FireHoneydew"
"There's no way Honeydew can get away with this screwup! #FireHoneydew"
"The Electric Mayhem had better sue Honeydew for what he did to Zoot! #FireHoneydew"
" misspiggy You had better fire Honeydew for what happened to Zoot! He in a sense just ruined your show! #FireHoneydew"
Scooter sighed as he scrolled through more hate posts about Dr. Honeydew. It was an ACCIDENT! Bunsen would never cause someone to get hurt on purpose! The Muppet was debating whether or not to inform Kermit or someone of the new hashtag, but judging by the looks on his coworkers' expressions as they scrolled through their phones, he was guessing they already found out.
Scooter watched as more tweets popped up and finally, the young Muppet decided to take matters into his own hands. He made a post on Tumblr, and posted a link to the Tumblr post on his Twitter account.
Okay, I just got on Twitter and the first thing I see is everyone trending this new hashtag #FireHoneydew.
Just to be clear, Dr. Bunsen Honeydew is NOT going to get fired! What you saw happen on the show was purely an accident, and our star, Miss Piggy, our executive producer, Kermit the Frog, and I realize that!
Bunsen also feels pretty bad about what happened, so please stop trying to make him feel worse! And I'm sure the Electric Mayhem would want you all to stop trending this hurtful hashtag as well, because they know it was an accident.
Accidents happen all the time and I'm sure most of you realize this.
As for Zoot's condition, we don't know anything yet, but if some sort of article pops up somewhere stating that he died, don't trust it right away! If something horrible happens to him, we, the Muppets, will let you all know.
~Scooter Grosse, Associate Producer of Up Late with Miss Piggy.
Hopefully that'll get at least some of the fans to calm down, but there were still some comments regarding the fact that Zoot still has a right to sue Honeydew for what happened, but Scooter knew the saxophonist well enough that he'd never do that. Zoot's siblings however, would probably try to do otherwise.
At the same time, the Electric Mayhem were in their van on their way to the hospital where Zoot was taken. Dr. Teeth and Janice were confident that Zoot would be okay, but Floyd and Lips had some doubts.
"Didn't Bunsen say there was a form of radiation in that beam? For all we know, Zoot could have a form of cancer now because of that crazy invention!" Floyd stated.
"Floyd, now's not the time for your cancer conspiracies," Dr. Teeth told the bassist. "Besides, Bunsen said there was no radiation involved with his invention."
"Yeah, but it still could've mutated something. I never really trusted Bunsen's inventions," Lips admitted.
Dr. Teeth sighed, getting annoyed by his two friends' paranoid thoughts. He was used to Floyd spouting conspiracy theories about all sorts of stuff, but right now, the keyboardist was starting to find them annoying! And Lips adding on to the paranoia with his own fears was not helping.
"Oh come on, guys. Like, think positive. I'm sure that whatever is wrong with Zoot can easily be fixed by the doctors," Janice assured the two musicians.
"But what if they can't?" Lips asked, his hands twitching.
"Lips, please calm down; it's bad enough Zoot is in a hospital for who-knows-what. I really don't want to have to put you in a ward for an anxiety attack," Dr. Teeth stated.
Lips just nodded and laid down in his seat in the van, trying to calm down. Animal retrieved Lips' stress ball from the trumpeter's bag and gave it to the blonde-haired Muppet, knowing it might help the musician control his stress a bit. Lips was one of the Muppets that had a bad case of anxiety and got stressed out easily, like Scooter, Kermit, and a few others did, and while his wasn't as bad as Scooter's or Kermit's, it was still bad, and it made his bandmates worry sometimes.
"How much farther is it to the hospital?" Floyd asked, getting impatient about the traffic and really wanting to know what was wrong with his friend.
"Not much farther, it's just around the corner," Dr. Teeth said, waiting for the drivers in front of him to make up their minds about which direction to go. He really wanted to honk at them to hurry up, but he didn't want to appear rude like most drivers.
Finally, after 10 minutes of driving, the band finally arrived at the hospital, and as soon as Dr. Teeth had the van parked, Floyd and Animal threw open their doors and raced outside, with Lips trailing close behind.
Dr. Teeth and Janice made a mad dash to keep up with them, but due to the three musicians being a bit more athletic than them, the trio got inside first.
They ran up to the receptionist and Floyd somewhat shouted, "Excuse me! I'm Floyd Pepper, I'm one of Zoot's friends. Can you tell us which ward our friend is being held?"
"Do you know anything about his condition?! Will he ever play the saxophone again?!" Lips shouted.
"ZOOT! ZOOT! WHERE'S ZOOT!" Animal demanded to know.
As the receptionist tried to calm them down, Dr. Teeth ran up to them, grabbed them all at once and pulled them a good distance away. Then he went up to the lady and said, "Sorry about my friends' behavior. They're a little stressed out about what's wrong with Zoot."
"A little stressed out? That's your definition of being a little stressed out?" the receptionist said.
Dr. Teeth, ignoring the comment, asked, "Can you tell us which ward Zoot is being held in?"
"No, but I'll call a doctor to check. Have a seat, please," the lady stated.
Dr. Teeth, Janice and Lips found seats to sit in, but Floyd and Animal just started pacing all over the place, waiting for some doctor to show up and tell them a verdict.
"I just hope Zoot will be okay," Lips muttered.
Dr. Teeth just sighed and stared at the clock, wondering how long it would take until a doctor showed up and gave them a verdict on Zoot's health.
Back at the studio, the phone on Yolanda's desk's ringer was blowing up, but the rat assistant was not around to pick it up; she was busy monitoring the social media sites along with Pepe, Scooter and Chip to see what popped up on the internet regarding the recent incident.
Zondra walked up to the desk and checked the collar ID to see who was it. Not recognizing the number, she decided it'd be best to not pick it up, since there was a chance it could be someone important and she doesn't know how to deal with talking to people like that.
After the call ceased, the answering machine lit up, and Zondra clicked it, hearing this serious-toned message: "This is Zachariah Simms. In case you forgot, I'm Zoot's older brother and I demand to know what is happening right now. Has anyone heard from the hospital yet? Is my brother alright? Are you going to fire that idiot scientist? If I don't get answers to any of these questions sometime soon, I will contact the hospital myself."
After the message ended, Zondra muttered, "How do you plan to call the hospital if you don't know which one Zoot is in?"
The Goth Muppet sighed and went to rejoin her friends, who were scrolling through multiple medias at once. The girl stated, "Zachariah called again. He says if he doesn't get word on how his brother is soon, he'll call the hospital to find out."
"I figured," Scooter said, clicking various Tumblr posts and skimming them.
"You never mentioned how intimidating he sounded," Zondra pointed out, thinking about the serious tone Zachariah spoke with.
"If you think his voice is terrifying, wait'll you meet him in person! He's the scariest guy I've meet! Even Sweetums is scared of him," Scooter stated.
"Really? What does he look like?" Zondra asked.
"He looks like Zoot except he's taller and has all his hair," Yolanda explained. "If he wasn't so serious all the time, I could even say he's handsome."
"Whoa, you think Zachariah is handsome?" Rizzo asked the girl rat.
"I would if he wasn't dead-cold serious all the time," Yolanda corrected.
"Wow, his personality doesn't line up with Zoot's at all," Zondra said.
"Yeah, it's kind of a weird thing to think about. Zoot's sister, Zoeysha, on the other hand is a real sweetie. She came by the studio once and gave us oatmeal cookies. They were kind of bland, but it was a nice gesture," Scooter stated. "But if Zoot gets harmed in some way, she kind of goes into what I call protective-sister mode."
"Must be nice having two older siblings looking out for you as much as that," Zondra assumed.
"Are you implying Darci never did that for you?" Rizzo asked the Goth.
"Well, she used to. But at some point in high school, we kind of started drifting apart and by college, we were completely separated," Zondra explained.
"Aw, that's a little sad. Have you talked to her at all?" Scooter asked.
"Yeah, once a week, but all she talks about is either her music or a stupid man or rat or bear she ran into earlier that day. It gets boring to hear all that after a while," Zondra explained.
"I'll bet it is."
"So what's social media talking about now?" Zondra asked.
"Well, some fans have quit it with the #FireHoneydew thing, but there's still a lot of fans out there still upset about it. Some people are even sending death threats to Dr. Honeydew!" Chip stated.
"Dear god…" Zondra muttered, her skin getting goosebumps at the thought of someone actually getting the idea to kill Bunsen for what happened to Zoot. "Let's hope nobody acts on it."
Back at the hospital, the Electric Mayhem had been waiting around for a half hour, where Animal had fallen asleep in a chair and was snoring a little loudly, Janice was rereading an article in a garden magazine for the 3rd time, Lips was going through his phone to see if there were any messages from the other Muppets or Zoot's siblings, Floyd was flipping through a newspaper, and Dr. Teeth was just sitting there, twiddling his thumbs.
Finally, a doctor entered the room and said, "Electric Mayhem band."
The four awake band members looked up and jumped out of their seats.
"Give it to us straight, doc; will Zoot be okay?" Floyd asked.
"Yes, your friend will be fine. We just took some X-rays of his abdominal area and as far as we can see regarding his bone structure, there's nothing out of the ordinary. The nausea has ceased, so we're sure there's nothing wrong with his stomach and intestines, but we're going to have to do a sort of ultrasound to check on his other organs tomorrow morning," the doctor explained.
Lips fell to his knees and sobbed, "Thank god."
"That's good to hear. Is he accepting visitors?" Dr. Teeth asked.
"He's very tired right now, but he wants to speak to his partner," the doctor stated.
Dr. Teeth looked around the waiting room, checking to make sure nobody else was listening. Then the keyboardist stepped up to the doctor and whispered, "That'd be me."
"Ah, in that case, follow me," the doctor said, leading the Muppet down the hall.
Once they were gone, Floyd said, "He's willing to talk to Teeth, but he pushes the rest of us away."
"Floyd!" Lips and Janice scolded.
In Zoot's ward, the saxophonist was under the blankets in a bed, wearing the plain-looking clothes patients wore and feeling tired due to all the chaos that went down earlier that evening. He couldn't believe how worked up some people got over the accident, having heard about it from a nurse who was nice enough to check social media for him. He only hoped that the drama didn't cause Bunsen to feel guilty about what happened.
Then Dr. Teeth entered the ward, his mouth breaking into a grin for the first time that night. "Zoot!" he greeted.
"Hey…" Zoot muttered, smiling a bit.
Dr. Teeth went over to his bed and gave him a small kiss on the lips before asking, "How're you feeling right now."
"Pretty well. I'm going to have to stay here for the night," Zoot stated.
"Yeah, I kind of figured. Oh, your siblings called. They're both really worried about you...and they want you to sue Honeydew," Dr. Teeth told the blue Muppet.
Zoot sighed and said, "I knew they would, but I don't blame him for what happened. Do I have to sue?"
"Well, if you don't blame him for the accident, you don't have to, but a lot of people want you to, and they also want Bunsen fired," Dr. Teeth added.
"Some people are just so unforgiving," Zoot stated.
"Yeah...I'm glad you're still alive," Dr. Teeth said.
"I'm glad to be alive," Zoot said.
The two Muppets then locked lips again, this time for a little while longer and when they broke apart, Zoot lied down on his bed and went to sleep almost instantly.
Dr. Teeth sighed and left the room quietly, trying not to disturb his partner as he exited.
Well, that does it for this chapter! What is the final verdict of Zoot's health?
Will any of the angry fans enact their death threats against Honeydew?
Will Bunsen get fired?
Will Zoot's siblings sue Honeydew for what happened?
Find out in the next chapter!
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