-1Chapter 9
"…Uh, he's not my friend," Jorelo said, shaking his head at Falkor.
"Well then who is this guy?" Falkor asked him, pointing his thumb at the pretztail as he interjected into the conversation, "I'm from PDF, but that's not important right now! You have to hide me! They could be looking in here any second!" Falkor glared at the eluding pretztail with anger. The fudgehog had a buring passion of hated for the PDF for what they did back at Piñata Central, that bombing was completely unnecessary in his opinion. Falkor wanted to take his anger out on the pretztail, but fortunately for everyone's sake, he contained himself.
"Well one of the many doors here will do just fine for a hiding place," Jorelo offered as he motioned at the doors behind Falkor. Without another word the pretztail bolted behind one them and shut the door behind him.
"What the hell was that all about?" Falkor wondered as he focused on Jorelo,
"I dunno," he shrugged and shook his head.
Falkor shot another question at him, "seen Pandora anywhere?" Jorelo took the time to think it over.
"…Um, yeah, she was in the other hot tub room last I heard," Jorelo answered, "why? Is something up? If this is to pull another joke-" the concerned fudgehog was instantly cut off.
"No, just wondering. I wanna ask her how long the stay is here, and if we're paying," the comment made Jorelo smile a bit.
"I have no idea, we were just brought here for the time being, I know it's a nice place and all, but knowing that the place being run by the sours and all gives me bad vibes… Y'know," Jorelo admitted as Falkor nodded.
"I get'cha… So are we paying or not?" He joked. making Jorelo laugh halfheartedly.
"Of course we're not paying." Jorelo stated the obvious. Falkor noticed that Marly was peeking into room from the hallway door.
"You!" Falkor shouted as he appeared ready to rip the human a new one, but he had second thoughts of beating him up knowing what Marly was capable of.
"Me!" Marly mocked as Jorelo turned around and pointed at him with eyes filled with puzzlement.
"…Marly, right?" He tried not to guess. Marly nodded, confirming that the dark fudgehog was correct.
"Anyways, the boss is ready to see you now," Marly informed them, "…Where's the blue one?" He surveyed the area looking for the blue one.
"You mean Pandora?" Jorelo helped Marly out with the blue one's name.
"Is that what you call her?" Marly questioned the dark fudgehog with a visage that read: "What a weird name for a piñata," Marly continued on, "Well go retrieve her and meet me by the boss's quarters, and don't take too long either," the human had retracted his head back from the doorway and started walking off. Following orders, Jorelo had gone over to the door that Pandora had entered earlier and knocked on it.
"Pandora?" Jorelo called out beyond the door… No answer, Jorelo knocked slightly harder.
Pandora shouted back, "yeah, yeah, I heard Marly, I'm already getting ready," it didn't take her too long to get out.
"So, we all ready?" Jorelo asked the other two.
"Yup," Pandora verified as Falkor bobbed his head. the trio left their suite and journeyed down the hall, leaving the escaping pretztail to rule the room for now.
The tiresome walk there was longer than they expected, but before they reached their destination, Falkor thought it would be a funny idea to whip Pandora's rear with the towel he was wearing. And that action landed him in a heap of trouble as the enraged pretztail tackled and pinned the ill-prepared fudgehog to the ground, ready to beat his face in. And it would have happened too if it wasn't for Jorelo to break their ugly quarrel up. Eventually all three arrived at the door, and in one piece. The door was monstrous compared to their size.
"…Should we knock first?" Pandora questioned as she turned to Jorelo for an answer.
"Nah, they're expecting us, I think we'll be fine just entering," Jorelo reached for the door lever, but it turned without him touching it. They were surely expecting them that's for certain, the door would have been locked otherwise.
Jorelo was impressed when he saw the inside of the room, the interior of this room beat the PR base leader's room by a long shot. Royal red rugs with golden fluff outline, the chairs looked like jeweled thrones in some sort of magnificent castle, and the glimmering multi-tan tiling was really eye catching. Jorelo could stare endlessly at this sight in an amazed hypnosis, but there were far greater matters to attend to as the group welcomed themselves in. Marly was the first to greet them, and quite rudely at that.
"What kept you?" Marly scoffed at them, glaring at the three suspiciously.
Pandora made an excuse to counter it, "We would have been here on time if it wasn't for Falkor!" Marly sighed irritably and let them of the hook, for now. If they were late it wasn't his place to worry about it. That issue was up to the leader of the sours.
"Hm…" I new, chilling voice chimed in, "As long as you are all here, I have nothing to be concerned about," the voice came from a rear facing chair from behind the main desk, "Marly, you may show yourself out now," and he did without another word as the doors closed automatically behind him. The chair twirled halfway around to meet the visitors, the leader of the sours had finally revealed herself to the three.
The leader of the sours was a pinata herself. A golden pretztail to be more precise. Her icy eyes had scanned over each one individually, one after the other, beginning with Pandora and ending with Falkor.
"Um…" Jorelo tried to come up with a question, unfortunately the golden pretztail cut him off.
"You may call me Prisca," Prisca announced to Falkor with a distastefulness in her eyes. The bitterness left as she set her emotionless gaze on Jorelo and Pandora, "as for you two… You may call me mother," this comment made Jorelo and Pandora extremely perplexed. Was this the reason Prisca wanted them in the first place, but why now? Why not earlier?
"Mother…" Jorelo thought to himself, "my real mother died years ago… That's what my foster parents told me," he didn't buy the golden pretztail's story one bit. Pandora exchanged looks with Jorelo and looked back to Prisca.
"But, our real parents-" Pandora started but Prisca rudely interrupt.
"Yes, I apologize. I would have raised you both myself, however I had much more important tasks to finish at the time. I entrusted you two with set of parents while I was hard at work," Jorelo still wasn't bought. Pandora, however, wanted to know more.
"…So everything we've been told up to this point was just lies?" Pandora gawked at the golden pretztail in a sense of disbelief. The poor pretztail really wished what she heard wasn't true, there had to be another explanation. She knew her parents weren't the same as Jorelo's of course, he was a fudgehog and she herself was a pretztail. But Prisca nodded at Pandora, signifying that she was correct.
"For the most part, yes…" Prisca replied. Falkor had the urge to sit down, but some force unknown kept him standing in once place. Prisca could see him trying to struggle loose, but it was the least of her problems, so she chose to ignore his feeble efforts.
"But what about Jorelo, shouldn't he have fudgehogs for parents?" Pandora countered, in hopes to prove Prisca's point wrong. The golden pretztail shook her head before going on.
"You two were my last living creations," the golden pretztail informed them with an emotionless smile. Jorelo didn't like how the word creations rolled off her tongue… Creations… The word hit him cynically as he pondered it over.
"Creations… What are you tying to get at?" He questioned, tilting his head to the side as he still tried to put the pieces together.
"Jorelo… Pandora…" Prisca recited their names as she gazed at them separately, "you both are my weapons of destruction, my goal was to eradicate the piñatas and start anew… Using you two," it was nearly impossible for Pandora to take what was recently said into thought. But she now realized, the markings, those damned golden markings, they weren't just there for looks after all. The hopeless pretztail tried to hold back the tears, she wanted a real mother, not some cold tyrant.
"W-Why?" Pandora made an effort to speak, but her throat was already constricted by the tears welling up in her eyes, "I d-don't want to k-kill everyone," she could control the tears no longer.
"Worry no longer Pandora," Prisca reassured her supposed daughter, "the piñatas have nearly wiped themselves out, the war alone has done your job," Jorelo couldn't help but cut in with negativity.
"So you mean our purpose was already fulfilled? What are we suppose to do now?" Not that Jorelo wanted to keep killing, but he did think it was ill planning that Prisca created them to eventually find out everything took care of itself.
"There's nothing you can do, so just relax my children," Prisca attempted to calm them down, "feel free to do as you wish from now on… As long as you are behaving yourselves. If you get in my way, I will make you regret ever doing so, understand?" The three nodded apprehensively at her, "until I call upon you again, the time is yours to spend."
Falkor could feel the blood rushing back into the rest of his body. In a relief, the white fudgehog flexed out his muscles and stretched his limbs out briefly before they left Prisca's presence.
All three of them walked back to the suite without saying another word. It wasn't that they had nothing to say, they had loads upon loads of questions to get off their mind, but each kept to themselves as if it was forbidden to bring up such matters.
Jorelo opened the door to the suite and had gone over to the window for a quick sightsee, the bright moon shined over his face, he couldn't help but let out a wearing sigh. The perceptive fudgehog also noticed the time had gone by so fast without warning, how long was that talk? A few minutes? Half hour? Something was definitely up, but he pushed it all aside for the moment.
"Jorelo…" The burdened pretztail called her friend as she put a paw on his shoulder, "I refuse to believe that that witch is our mom…" Her voice trailed off, figuring out what else to say. Jorelo shook his head and looked at her with the moonlight still shining on them.
"It's true Pandora, we're freaks. All the piñatas back home were right… We have to accept it and move on," Jorelo wished he could have been like the other piñatas, just to be normal for one more day. "Besides, who's left to call us names? …Falkor?" He chuckled with a cute smile. That was a positive for the two, who would be left after a mass explosion like that?
"…I guess you have a point, but still, I just don't like Prisca." Pandora shook her head, "she seems all… Evil," because she was evil. Her intentions of their creation were for her own good. And that good was for wiping the island. No, the world clean of the piñatas. Which was confusing seeing as Prisca was a piñata herself. But the thoughts subsided as Jorelo placed a friendly paw on Pandora's shoulder as well and drew her to his side.
"We still have each other, and all the time left in the world," Jorelo let out a small chuckle, nothing could ruin this moment, nothing. Jorelo finally found happiness in solitude, solitude with his friends. No more piñatas giving them weird looks, no more getting beaten up over something stupid as glowing patterns, no more crazy psychopaths holding your best friend at gun point. Yes, this was what Jorelo wanted, and he finally got it.
Pandora's lips curved into an shy smile as she began to feel as blissful as Jorelo. Unfortunately for them, more troubles were just around the corner…