—CHAPTER TWO—

They circled her, the lightning flashing their tiny shadows threateningly about her messy room. Only her short breaths could be heard as she tried to maintain equilibrium, but then she felt her mind slip messily into such a state of panic and disbelief she just started bawling.

The silver-head jumped. "What the fuck!"

"Go away!" Josie screamed, feeling life return to her legs which she used to fling out and kick a muppet into the pot-plant. Grabbing the armrests of her wheelie chair, she flung it hard around her room, ignoring the yelps of surprise before she let it go and scrambled towards her bedroom door. She was wheezing, chest incredibly tight.

"Stop her," that voice ordered.

"No!" she shouted, slamming herself against her door and fumbling at the handle. A glimmer of hope sparked in her chest before she felt the weight of several muppets cling to her legs and back, and she looked down to see two more pushing firm to keep the door closed. Josie yelped when one of them grabbed her short ponytail and yanked hard, snapping her head back.

They were strong. Absurdly strong. Strong enough that Josie found herself crumbling to her bedroom floor, one hand on the handle still, as who knows how many of them dog-piled and kept her pinned.

She couldn't believe this. It was a horrible – horrible – nightmare being submerged by squishy, big-eyed frowning muppets. Terror clamped on her like a vice and Josie curled up into a ball, crying into her arms. She could feel the constant slap of her crochet hook on her thigh while she vehemently wished for this nightmare to end and to wake up on the couch in front of the television with a hand in the popcorn bowl.

"Stop."

Everything stopped, though there was one final slap of the hook. Her thigh stung.

"Go away," Josie whispered, sniffling hard. "Wake up, Jose. Wake up. Wake up."

"This is not a dream," that voice said.

Between her fingers she saw him jump onto her fallen wheelie chair and then onto the carpeted floor.

"You will not be harmed if you answer my questions."

Josephine stopped muttering and took a deep, shaky breath. "What if I don't have answers?" Her voice was quiet.

"I am certain you will. You have pictures of us all over your desk."

"No." Josie tucked her head under her elbow. "That's not possible. You can't be—be somehow them."

"Open your eyes, girl, and see for yourself," he ordered.

Several tense seconds passed wherein which Josie tried to train herself to remain calm and cool as she looked upon this spiky-haired muppet again. In his four fingered hand he held up a group photo she was using as a guide, 'Akatsuki' labelled at the top.

"You made toys of us, correct?" he asked.

Josie weakly nodded. Snot and tears dripped from her nose and into her hands.

"As you can probably already guess, we are the real Akatsuki, trapped in these bodies. I thought perhaps you would have performed a jutsu to trap us, but considering your extreme reaction…"

"Jutsu? I-I—I don't know what that is. I don't know who you are!"

"The picture says otherwise, hm," a voice said next to her ear; it sent a chill down a spine when she realised there was no breath. And yet… she very clearly remembered hearing them pant earlier.

She felt a warning poke of the enemy crochet hook on her thigh and flinched. "I swear! I make toys and I got a bulk order to make you guys! I don't know who you are, or what you're from!"

"What we're from?" a feminine voice repeated. "Where are we?"

"Australia," Josie squeaked. "Uh, Darwin! I-It's a city in Australia."

"Never heard of it," someone else commented.

"Tobi hasn't either!"

"I think we're in agreement that this 'Australia' doesn't exist," the apparent leader spoke.

"Perhaps it's a faraway continent," a deep-voiced muppet suggested.

"That has photos of us posing?" another questioned. "It isn't a bingo-book."

"Have any other suggestions, puppet-boy?"

Voices came from all around her as more joined in on the discussion, and as each second passed by Josie was gradually reaching the conclusion that this was indeed reality. But how? Why? Why her toys? There must be thousands of them sold worldwide, so why did they sink into the stuffing hers? To be honest, she wasn't entirely sure she wanted to know the reason anyway. That wasn't important. The fact that they existed did. And they needed to leave; promptly, swiftly, quietly. But listening to them, judging by their steadily rising voices, they had no clue what happened or how to leave in the first place.

That unnerved her the most.

"Girl."

Josephine winced. She did have a name.

"We must find a way back, but for that to happen we need more."

"More what?" she dreaded asking.

He raised his hands and said, "fingers. We need a fifth."

Josephine frowned, confused. Why on earth would an extra finger matter on their hands? Just where exactly were these guys from? More to the point, the extra finger would totally ruin the stitching she did on them, and hands – even on toys – were incredibly hard for her to do well. She did such a great job on them.

Hell, just at the thought she felt like crying at undoing everything she did. "W-what?"

This muppet dropped his arms. "Did I stutter?"

"I-I'm not…" She stopped, noticing the instant grip on her body the second she spoke. They had a strong grasp, were strong in general, but… they were just soft, squishy puppets, weren't they? "Y-You're in my toys. You don't like it, go find another body to inhabit."

Her words were strong but Josephine did not feel strong; at all.

"I'm sorry, care to repeat that?" another deep voice said, somewhere around her waist.

"I have no idea what happened. I have no idea who you are. And I have no intention in ruining my work just so you could look a little more human. You got into these bodies, you can get out of them!"

One of them suddenly started climbing her body, grabbing her in all the wrong places, before they were pulled off with a violent growl. She couldn't understand at all what they were saying as they spoke, then yelled, over each other, but she knew she'd more than touched a nerve when the apparent leader was suddenly right in face, fat velvet fingers cupping her chin in an awkward mix of intimidation and adorableness.

Up close she recognised this one; the orange hair, multiple piercings and freaky ringed eyes. He didn't even blink, and she watched with morbid fascination as he opened his large foam lips and spoke, "What do you think we're trying to do?"

Josephine didn't know what it was but seeing them up close somehow nullified most of the terror she'd been feeling. No matter how hard he tried, this muppet was not achieving the intended intimidation effect, and he must have noticed because he released her chin and furrowed his brow further. She honestly didn't know how he could, and at this point she wasn't going to argue with science.

"What are you looking at?" he demanded.

"What?" Josie parroted. She blinked, startling herself out of her stare. "What?"

His face seemed to darken. "You're not taking this seriously."

"I was, until you got in my face and I—" Perhaps it was best not to continue that sentence.

He crossed his arms. "You what?"

"You look so darn cute."

Laughter erupted instantaneously all around her and his expression morphed into fury. Josie knew it was fury but there was no way she felt scared looking at that adorable face. It was like fighting with a baby-faced child and trying not to laugh at their failed attempt of looking angry or evil.

It was just not possible.

The silver-head smacked the hook against her thigh as he tried to breathe, managing to choke out, "I won't lie. I was fucking pissed at the start but now—!" And he trailed off, burying his face into her leg in mirth while another muppet fell atop him as it lost all coordination in silent laughter.

One of them was chanting, "Must not laugh. Must not laugh. Must not laugh," somewhere around her but there was so much noise she couldn't pin-point where or who.

Josie tried to smile apologetically at the orange-head. "I'm sorry."

The leader crossed his arms. "You're not forgiven."

"But she said she was sorry!" a chirpy voice cried at her feet. "You have to forgive her."

"I don't have to forgive anything, Tobi." Anger became more evident with each word he spoke.

With this distraction Josephine noticed that most of them had relaxed their grip on her, and she took that opportunity to finally sit up. One or two of them gave her warning squeezes but she supposed she made it clear she didn't intend to run.

At least not yet.

"You just had to get up close and personal," a familiar deep voice scolded.

The leader cocked his head in that muppets direction. "What, Kakuzu?"

"We had the benefit of fear as long as we remained in the shadows."

"I'm well aware of that, now. Anything useful to add?"

A pause. "No."

A muppet at her knees, one still maintaining a squeeze on her, turned to the leader. His voice was softer, calmer. "Perhaps we can do it ourselves."

There was a chuckle at her ear. "Yeah, Sasori-danna has had practice making dolls, hm."

"They're not dolls, brat."

"What's the difference?"

"My puppets are a work of art. This is not a work of art."

Josephine glowered in the general direction of the voice. "Excuse me? What are you, a critic?"

The tiny muppet in the corner sharply turned to her. "I'm an artist."

"You're not an artist," she hissed. "A true artist appreciates all forms and media of art, regardless whether they like it or not."

The muppet chuckled. "You're wrong. As wrong as my foolish partner."

"Hey," said 'partner' protested; the one on her back, at her ear. "You're both wrong, it's—"

"Not. Now," the leader suddenly growled. "Now is not the time to be arguing about art."

"We should scout the immediate area," a feminine voice interrupted; she seemed to be the only female amongst the group. "We should gain an understanding of this world and how different it is from our own. Considering we were attached to these bodies specifically, there might be something nearby as residual evidence."

Josie blanched. "I can't let you leave. Things like you are not commonplace here."

The leader glowered. "And how exactly are you going to stop us?"

Okay, so maybe she could still be a little intimated. His voice was, well… a little terrifying when he used words like that.

"I'll find a way!" Josie froze. She could have found a better excuse, really.

'Sasori' made a noise of amusement. "She really doesn't know who we are. Otherwise she'd know exactly how futile her attempts will be."

"Perhaps we should enlighten her," an entirely new muppet suggested. She glanced in his direction; he was the one with the detachable green pincers.

"A waste of time," the leader shot down. "Knock her out. We'll return once we've scouted."

Josie widened her eyes. "You've got to be kid—"

Clearly they weren't.

When Josie came to it was nearly dawn. It wasn't the coming light that had roused her though, nor was it the chirping of the birds or the blaring of her alarm, but rather Mollie shaking the daylights out of her.

"Yoohoo, crazy one! Why are you sleeping on the dirty floor?! WAKE UP!"

"I'm awake!" Josephine growled, pushing away her friend and sitting up. She grabbed her head, feeling her brain slosh to the front of her skull and throb painfully. "Oh my god."

"You didn't get hammered, did you?" Mollie asked, kneeling down beside her. She was already dressed in old clothes for work, although her black shirt was so badly crinkled it must have been from the back of her wardrobe. "I didn't see any bottles when I went to the kitchen, though, and your movie was still on. What happened last night, Jose?"

"You wouldn't believe me," the short-haired girl mumbled. Seconds later and she straightened, eyes wide, shooting up like a spring-loaded board, shouting, "shit!" and frantically kicking around the empty boxes of foam peanuts in search, sending said white stuff flying in the air.

Mollie watched with some amusement, even flicking a peanut off her shoulder when it dared to land upon her. "What are you doing?" she asked with a smirk.

Josie stopped short, huffing at the loose hair dangling over face. Suddenly she spun around and grabbed her friend by the shoulders, shaking her violently. "How didn't you hear me screaming and crying last night?!"

Mollie furrowed her brow and shrugged her off. "I had my earphones in. What happened? Why were you screaming and crying?"

Josie stared at Mollie with exasperation, a surmounting frustration threatening to punish her the worst way possible before she realised that there was seriously no time to be petty. Josie was alive, that was the main and important thing, and besides a tap on the noggin she was more or less fine.

What was not fine was the missing muppets, and for the first time she wondered how on God's green earth she going to convince Mollie what had happened.

"You haven't seen muppets running around, have you?" Josephine let out all in one go.

Mollie stared. "What the fuck?"

Josie swallowed thickly. "That was the worst way to start," she reprimanded herself, once again holding her friend by the shoulders and looking deeply and uncomfortably into her eyes. "You are going to think I have officially gone nuts, but… my toy order for Christmas suddenly came alive and attacked me."

"Bullshit," was the instant response.

"I'm serious! The muppets are in town!"

"Josie, what the fuck?"

"They tried to scare me into telling them things!" She stepped closer to Mollie, nose to nose. "They tried to make me change them," she uttered darkly. Josie was a perfectionist. She didn't just alter what she'd declared complete.

"What?"

"They wanted an extra finger!"

"What?"

"And then I argued with one of them about art! Me! Argued! With a muppet!" Dramatically Josie plonked herself on her cluttered bed and held her head in shaking hands. "Is this real?"

Mollie sucked hard on the inside of her cheek as she sifted through the myriad of things she could say to her clearly shell-shocked friend, but she did know Josephine – have for fifteen years – and there was barely a time she could recall seeing her like this. Josie was the kind that planned well ahead; planned for the worst and best; planned for whatever was within her control and even what was not, so something must have happened to uproot her order so badly.

"Alright, Jose. I'll humour you. What do you need?"

Josephine was instantly relieved. "Thank you. I need help finding ten rogue muppets."

Mollie suddenly found herself debating rescinding her offer but she bit her tongue and nodded stiffly.

"Before too many people are out on the streets," Josie hurriedly added.

"What… do they look like?"

"Oh." Josephine shuffled around her room and quickly found the Akatsuki photo amongst the foam peanuts of her boxes. She held it up and Mollie stared pointedly at it, then at Josie.

"Seriously? Naruto characters are running through the streets?"

"You know them?!"

"My kid brother watches that show," she explained.

Josie sighed. "Thank whoever-is-up-there! Come on! It's almost daylight!"