Konichiwa! How's life?

I'm so proud of myself (This never happens often)! I got a hundred on my oral test in Spanish! And I'm not a fan of talking in class.

Shoutout to Keyblade132, who favorite this story!

Astra let out a frustrated yell and smashed her flipper against a heavy bottle of Clorox, not even trying to hide her fury. This was the last straw. She had it up to there with these incompetent penguins. First, it was all those accidents, explosions, messes, brawls, and episodes of complete pandemonium, then add in the fact that she was expected to work efficiently under the conditions listed, and now her co-workers were basically trying to kill her. Even if they didn't plan on showering her with heavy cleaning products, or trapping her in a bathroom with no escape routes other than the door, or locking her in a stuffy closet, Astra was pretty sure that attempted murder or, at the very least, involuntary manslaughter was, oh yeah, illegal. Sure, they didn't intend for her to end up a cold, lifeless body, but their actions still caused the death.

"Astra?" a barely audible voice came from the distance. The agent sat up immediately, hitting her head against the metal bars of the shelf and groaned. "Can you hear me, Astra?"

"No, I can't hear you, which is why I'm answering you right now," Astra replied sarcastically, sliding off the boxes she was lying on. She landed with a soft thump on the floor. "Who is it?"

"What?" the penguin asked, the voice sounding strained as though he was yelling even though Astra could barely hear him. "Boo, kiss it? That doesn't make any sense. Who are you? Have you hit your head recently?"

The voice clicked in Astra's brain as soon as she heard the last question. Only one penguin could tick her off like that by making others look like idiots so he would seem intelligently superior when in reality, he was the one who was misinterpreting everything everyone around him was saying, such as the simple question "Who is it?"

"Never mind!" Astra shouted back, annoyance clear in the statement. "I already know who you are: the penguin who got us both stuck in the studio in the first place by locking me in the bathroom!"

"What?" Gary yelled back. "I locked someone in the bathroom? That's preposterous! I would never do that, and I didn't even have the time today! I was in the middle of the chaos created earlier today, and then I got yelled at by a penguin who might need to visit a psychiatrist and an anger management therapist. Later, I had to run the production of Club Penguin Talk Show briefly to make sure it started out smoothly until Dot returned from running an errand. When she did, I immediately went to the storage room to experiment with my potions before deciding to head to the warehouse in order to have more room with my potions. After that, a very rude penguin snuck up behind me and scared me just because she was accidentally trapped inside the bathroom! It wasn't even my fault, but she still blamed - oh, wait. Astra? You're still stuck inside the reflection room too?"

"No, it's Rockhopper, who everyone knows is traveling somewhere overseas," Astra replied sarcastically, rolling her eyes. Her stomach growled. That's when she realized how parched she was as a result of losing water through sweat from being locked inside the stuffy closet.

I NEED FOOD! a voice in Astra's head screamed. Astra's body seemed to respond by itself because the next thing she knew, a blanket of cold wind washed over her body and she was holding a broomstick (HARRY POTTER!). Well, more like two halves of a broomstick. Astra's mind put the pieces together slowly as she walked towards Gary's rambling about...something. She had lost track of whatever he was spouting about now.

After both she and Gary had been locked in their respective reflection rooms, yelling and screaming had ensued from the outside world. A couple penguins probably had gotten into a brawl because Astra had heard grunting and punching sounds, and possibly a cat fight (Do you all know what cat fights are?) had started based on the feminine cries and Dot announcing, "Ooh, and we go back to the old-fashioned way of hair pulling!"

Anyway, after some time of that, one penguin finally had the common sense to command silence by taking the same megaphone with enhanced speakers Astra bought with her own money, but then she heard a smashing sound. Let's just say that the fact everyone yelled, "SKYE!" at the same time revealed the penguin who will not be living and be buried under the snow by at least tomorrow night from the wrath of a black-haired penguin currently wearing gray high tops. The good thing was that everyone shut their beaks immediately and fled the studio when Astra shouted, "Just because I'm in the reflection room doesn't mean that I can't hear what's going on! I bought that megaphone with hard-earned coins!"

There were some penguins left, though, because she heard Skye muttering, "What am I going to do, what am I going to do? Astra's going to strangle me! Guys, please help me!"

Someone had snickered and said something unintelligible to the other penguins, which made them all chuckle. However, Aunt Arctic snapped coldly, "Astra is still one of our top agents, and you must treat her with respect. Not everyone is perfect, and that includes you."

Walking towards the sound of Gary's cries for help, Astra drew the conclusion that the penguins were so concerned with fixing the megaphone so none of them would end up lying in a grave at her flippers that they had completely forgotten that she was still locked in the stuffy closet by the time they left.

Now, just minutes ago, the closet door was smashed down with a broomstick that was snapped in half. Astra didn't know whether to be grateful for their intentions to fix her megaphone or furious at their lack of concern and the fact that they think she's homicidal.

Crack. Astra glanced down to see navy blue shards of a curved object peeking out from underneath the toes of her sneakers. Slowly, she lifted up one foot and took a step backwards. The shards were scarily familiar. Astra picked up her right foot and moved it back to stand parallel to her left foot.

"You've got to be kidding me," Astra said aloud, kicking at the shards of her megaphone. Fortunately, there weren't enough pieces to reveal that Skye dropped and smashed the entire megaphone, but why did the penguins leave the pieces on the floor? Were they really too lazy to clean up the fragments, or did they forget to take them to glue the bits back together? Either way, this was evidence that someone had clearly broke the megaphone. Astra threw open the door of the nearest supply closet and grabbed a plastic Ziploc bag to store the shards before stuffing the bag into the pack she had brought with her to the set earlier today.

"Help," Gary exclaimed weakly, as if giving up. "Astra, where are you? Did you leave me? Don't abandon me. I've already been punished. Come on, please? I don't like this. I'll never suggest for you to take anger management classes ever again, but please let me out!"

Astra was about to open the door where Gary's voice was coming from when a thought suddenly struck her. If Gary was really that uncomfortable in the reflection room, what would he be willing to do in exchange for his freedom?

"Really, Gary?" Astra asked, leaning against the door casually to press the side of her head on the wood in order to hear him better. Sound traveled by vibration, after all. "You would never bother me again about my short-temper? This seems like a huge risk to take. How do I know you're not just making this deal in order to leave the closet? I mean, logically, a penguin could make a verbal deal about something and not keep to his word. After all, it's not like you're breaking the law or anything. Nothing prohibits you from making empty promises, unless you count your morals, though penguins would use whatever they can to get what they want, especially lie."

"I'm begging you," G pleaded. Astra could hear the panic and desperation in his voice. "I can't stand this! Let me out! I swear on everything I own that I won't bother you again about taking anger management classes."

"I don't know Gary," Astra said, pretending to ponder it. On the inside, she was trying hard not to bust up. "It doesn't really matter if you swear not to pester me about my short temper. You still have many other options you can criticize me about based on your own personal bias, such as the anger management classes, seeing a psychiatrist, assuming that you're better than me at everything, labeling me a troublemaker and lunatic among other names, thinking of me as the minority [abuse of the minority!], shooting down my ideas in favor of your own plans - must I go on?"

Gary scoffed. "I do not do any of that! Okay, so maybe I do advise you to see a psychiatrist, but it's for your own good! You're a touch too mentally unstable to be working for the EPF. Maybe you wouldn't be assuming I criticize you for all those fake reasons if you went to improve your short temper and unstableness!"

Says the one who lost his temper, Astra thought to herself, rolling her eyes. Still, she managed to keep her cool and replied, "Alright then, I guess your pride is much more important to you than your freedom." She let out a dramatic sigh. Hey, she could act even a tiny little bit (Lies. I'm too monotonous). "And here I was, possibly considering to be nice for once and release you from your prison. See you in the morning, G, unless you died of thirst, hunger, or suffocated."

Astra barely faked one step away from the door when Gary cried out, "Wait! I didn't really mean what I said about you being mentally unstable! Don't go! I'm too young to die!"

"If you're too young, does that make me a child?" Astra mumbled under her breath. She had just finished her last year in college as a pre-med student majoring in biology after transferring schools so she could stay in Club Penguin and ended up working for the talk show immediately after (She had literally been pulled out of the middle of graduation), which would hopefully raise enough money to improve the HQ (So I'm considering twelve years of learning how your bodies work, readers. Sue me). It was more likely that Aunt Arctic would be bugged by some lazy agent to update System Defender game. Astra thought that game was completely ridiculous. Ninety percent of the agents who played it could barely get past the first flipper-fulls of challenges, and the other ten percent who could finished the game were the top agents who actually went on dangerous missions that weren't "Fix the conveyor belt at the smoothie shop area of the coffee shop" or something else like that.

"What?" Gary questioned, obviously perplexed. "Astra are you still there? Don't leave me, please!"

Astra pulled out her Spy Phone and hit the record button. "Do you swear you won't criticize me over anything unless it's extremely rash?"

"Yes, I swear on my life, my occupation as the EPF Tech Lead, and even on the lab coat my mommy gave me!" G sobbed desperately. "Now please, let me out!"

Astra hit the stop button and saved the recording as she sighed. "Okay then, if you insist."

She pulled out a bobby pin from her hair that kept it from falling in her face, though her bangs were more of the issue, and expertly picked the lock.

"Oh, thank you!" Gary breathed, landing on all fours as he took in a deep breath of the outside world. It was as if he had been locked in there for all eternity. "Hey, Astra?"

Astra's jaw dropped when she peered inside the room. She dropped the bobby pin and the pack she was clutching tightly in her flippers.

"I can't believe this!"

Dun, dun, dun! What was in the room? Was this somewhat of a cliffhanger?