Chapter 9 – The Replacement I
Celeste polished off her martini and ordered a second. Harry the polar bear barely set the glass down before she started working on it.
"Heads will roll if he doesn't find a replacement ASAP," Sydney said, sitting on the barstool next to her. The serval was nursing a mojito of her own. "What was he thinking just up and cancelling the show like that?"
"You know how Crystal is: picky and impulsive. It's why he was so desperate to find a big act. Investors were already getting on his case about how this ginormous, state of the art theater had trouble booking long-term shows." A wry grin touched the edge of the martini glass. "He's been feeling the heat for a while."
Celeste turned to cast a glance out across the lobby of the Crystal Tower Hotel and the constant bustle of its guests coming together like a confluence of living rivers. Redshore was a big city, but it seemed like no matter what, Crystal's name or likeness followed her everywhere. At least the hotel had the best martinis in town.
"Anyway, I'm done thinking about him for today," Celeste said. "I'm going to finish this drink, go home and turn in early."
Celeste's ears violently flickered, nearly choking on her drink when the sound of a microphone's feedback screeched across the lobby. Every screen was suddenly filled with the awkward fumblings of a koala in a bow tie. The cougar shared a look with Sydney, and they moved closer to one of the large screens to get a better look.
"Uh, my name is Buster Moon, and it is my great pleasure to present to you, for one night only in the Crystal Tower Theater... a brand-new show called Out of This World."
Sydney's eyes bounced back and forth between Celeste and the koala hyping up his show on the screen. "Wait, didn't Crystal fire him? Like, he very publicly denounced this koala on Linda De Bon's show a few hours ago."
"Maybe he changed his mind," Celeste said. "Like I said, he's impulsive."
"...And what's more, this show is completely free, so step right up, folks, and take your seats," Buster urged.
Sydney gawked. "Free? Okay, there's no way in hell Crystal signed off on this. That guy's playing with fire."
Despite the sudden announcement and sketchiness behind it, the word 'free' and the unexpected namedropping of Clay Calloway by the koala was enough to start an exodus to the theater entrance. Celeste knew something was wrong when she didn't see any security controlling the crowds. It was disconcerting, and Sydney managed to express the same thoughts going through her head.
"I'm getting bad vibes. Should we do something about this?"
Celeste finished the rest of her martini in one gulp and said, "This is Crystal's problem. He brought the koala into the fold; he can deal with the fallout." She left a tip at the bar, said goodbye to Sydney, and made her way out of the hotel, feeling like a fish swimming upstream as she pushed against the crowd funneling into the theater.
When she got home, she wasted no time slipping into bed, the last thoughts on the situation being that the koala would get his show and Crystal would take a victory lap if it was well received. She went to sleep dreading the gloating she'd have to hear in the morning.
It was right before the crack of dawn when the phone dragged her out of her sleep. She answered it with pointed aggravation and was met with Byron's anxious voice.
"Crystal's in jail."
Celeste bolted upright in the darkness. "He's what!?"
"Buster Moon took over the theater last night and Crystal apparently tried to kill him backstage."
A sudden throbbing warned Celeste of a rapidly oncoming headache. "Crystal gets crazy sometimes, but he's not crazy enough to..."
"Suki Lane saw the whole thing," Byron said. "She's the one that called the cops."
"So, what, he needs someone to bail him out? It's not going to be me."
"No bail. His fancy lawyers couldn't get him out of this one." Celeste could almost hear the grin on the wombat's face. "They're holding him until the trial. That might not be for months, maybe even—"
"Years," Celeste finished.
"We're having an emergency meeting this morning. Somebody has to run the company. It sounds like it's going to be you."
Celeste was out of her bed and pacing around the room, but words escaped her. The initial news left her so shocked that the direct aftermath never occurred to her.
She was next in line. Her time had come.
"Congratulations," Byron said with a chuckle. "You finally got the throne. It's just too bad the empire is ablaze."
"That's me," she huffed. "Always putting out someone else's fires."
"Love what you've done with the place," Buster said, staring back at himself as he leaned over the edge of the rock pond. He used a finger to stir the water, disturbing his reflection. A nearby lily pad rode the resulting ripples.
Celeste found herself narrowing her eyes before she said, "It's not done. When this office is finished, it'll be a tribute to Mother Nature instead of ego."
The office had an organic look to it, as if carved from nature itself. Floors and columns took the appearance of stone, and a portion of the western wall was replaced with a digital image overlooking a cascade of waterfalls in the Amazon. There was still a lot of empty space, which Celeste explained was the missing foliage yet to be installed, the finishing touch that would bring it all together.
Buster continued giving himself a tour around the office when he was startled by a woman near one of the stone-like columns. The lioness, clad in a black bodysuit with light padding, barely acknowledged him.
"Don't worry about Rima," Celeste said. "She's just one of my sentinels."
Buster backed away with a nervous chuckle. "Sentinel, you say?"
"The entire security team needed to be flushed from top to bottom. These sentinels are discreet, efficient, and don't give off that mob-like aura of fear and violence."
Buster saw another sentinel out of the corner of his eye, posted near the column on the opposite side. She was a cheetah dressed similarly to the lioness.
Celeste gestured to the seat across from her desk. Buster took the hint and jumped into the seat.
Leaning forward and folding her hands together, Celeste said, "We have some things to discuss about the immediate future of Out of This World."
"I know you brought me here to talk about Porsha's replacement. I'm sure Roxy Sin is a great performer, but I feel I can still make the case for Porsha to keep her role."
"That door's is already closed. The next step is to—"
"I understand, Ms. Cassidy, and I apologize for interrupting you," Buster added, witnessing the growing glower on the cougar's face. "But I made a promise to Porsha and her father that I'd do what I could to get her back in."
Celeste studied the koala. "Is Crystal threatening you again?"
"No, not at all. It's just that Porsha is incredibly talented. I understand that you're trying to change the reputation of the company and nepotism doesn't look good, but we can all agree that she nailed her role. Keeping her on board would be acknowledging her hard work and not her heritage. And, honestly, I consider her a part of my troupe. I can't imagine a future in which she isn't part of Out of This World."
"'Future' is a pretty apt word. I don't like beating around the bush, so I'm going to say this. Circumstances around Out of This World have changed dramatically recently, and I haven't come to this decision lightly."
"What decision?"
"I'm sunsetting the show."
Buster nearly slid out of the seat. "You're... you're what?"
"I'm shutting it down. The show is over."
"Holy moly! You can't just shut everything down! That's... crazy! Like something Crystal would do!"
Celeste's eyes locked onto Buster in an emerald fury. "I am nothing like him," she hissed.
Buster raised his hands in defense. "Okay, okay. But to just shut it all down overnight..."
"Not overnight. I'm giving you five more months. We'll call it the farewell leg of the show, use FOMO to take advantage of fence sitters."
"But with the three months we've already done, that's not even the full year we signed the contract for. We even had an option for an extension."
"I know what the contract said." Celeste could see the koala clenching his teeth as a sign of pain or anxiety. She knew the news would hit hard and tried to soften her tone. "I'm ending the contract early, but I don't want to end our working relationship. When the five months are up, I want to offer a contract for a new show."
"Another show?"
"Are you surprised? It's said creatives are always thinking about their next project."
Buster gazed up into something far beyond the ceiling. "I do have a lot of ideas..."
"But there is a catch. I'm not going to just hand it over to you. I put feelers out across the Calatonia theater circuits and found someone very promising. You'll have to compete with him for the contract. I'll go into more details on the competition when he gets to the city."
"Not to toot my own horn Ms. Cassidy, but Out of This World is a smash hit. If I were to come up with a new show, what's stopping me from taking it to another theater instead of competing here?"
"We both know Crystal poisoned that well beyond just that show. I know your reputation is still suffering. And I have my doubts about you, Mr. Moon. Do you know why?"
"I take it you're not my biggest fan."
"In this business you have to work with a lot of people you don't like. The problem is I don't trust you." Celeste got up and rounded the desk, Buster following her with his eyes until he could no longer see her. He squirmed when she gripped the top of his chair, her claws pinching the fabric.
How could someone so small be so dangerous? Celeste thought it was absurd Crystal even bothered trying to throw him from the balcony. His rage-fueled strength was enough to easily snap the koala's neck, his claws sharp enough to slice it open on a casual whim. Buster was lucky Crystal devoted so much effort to the theatrics of defenestration.
"I was at the hotel the night you took over the Crystal Tower Theater. Did you know that?" Her question was answered when Buster craned his neck, his eyes full of surprise and a glimmer of guilt. "I was this close to intervening but chose not to because I was sick of Crystal's nonsense. I washed my hands of the situation and figured he would handle it. Sometimes I wonder if I did the right thing, or would it be worth it to get into a brawl with some gorillas.
"Let me make something clear, Mr. Moon. It was favorable for you that Crystal was in charge when you staged your little coup instead of me, because I would have used every legal, moral, and ethical resource at my disposal to purge you from this company. Society works because we have rules. Liars are discredited, cheaters are disqualified, thieves are punished. Somehow you continue to succeed despite being all three."
Celeste moved forward so she was in Buster's line of vision again, though the koala's difficulty at maintaining eye contact told her he'd prefer otherwise. "You felt vindicated that night because it worked out for you, but this company is more than just Jimmy Crystal. Many of us have spent years toiling away to make it what it is today, and it'll take years to undo the damage you wrought."
"I don't know what to say," Buster admitted. "We've put on the best show we can, and I hope that can make up for some of the mistakes I made."
"It doesn't. To be straight with you, I don't think you're qualified to be here. I know about your history of flops back in Calatonia. How do I know Out of This World wasn't some fluke? But I'm not conceited enough to consider my perception to be a hard truth. Maybe you can prove me wrong."
Celeste leaned over her desk and activated the intercom. "Sydney, bring the video please."
She motioned for Buster to follow her as she moved over to the lounge, which was redone in the style of a cozy log cabin. The TV brimmed to life just as Sydney, wearing a pinstripe skirt, entered the office with a tablet clutched against her chest.
Celeste looked down at the little koala next to her and asked, "Have you ever heard of Lucius White?"
Buster scratched behind one ear in thought. "That name... sounds vaguely familiar."
"He's the moose that owns The Orion. Part of what people around here call the Redshore Oligarchy. He's not as flashy and braggadocious as most of the other members, but that's what makes him dangerous. He dropped this video in all of his rivals' inboxes a few days ago. No warning, no explanation."
Sydney tapped a few times on the tablet's screen before swiping across. Through the magic of modern technology, she cast the video onto the TV and let it run.
The trailer started with a horse seated at a piano floating in space, juxtaposed against a glittering turquoise nebula.
A voiceover came in, "If you think you've been out of this world, wait until we take you into another galaxy."
Reduced to a silhouette as the nebula behind him shifted into a blood red, the stallion wailed on the keys and belted out a ballad. Without warning, the piano erupted into flames, engulfing the stallion.
"Holy moly!" Buster gasped, watching the stallion sing as if the flames barely affected him. It was only the first of many gasps as the trailer went into a quick cut of different scenes.
On a desert planet, a white tigress wandered the dunes alone until confronted by bandits, which she handily dispatched in a choreographed dance fight. In another scene, she wished upon a shooting star, which changed course and barreled straight for her.
The voiceover returned, "Featuring Jewel and Viktor Stratus! Two star-crossed lovers will challenge the heavens to meet..."
Against a cosmic backdrop, the stallion, accompanied by several soldiers, went to battle with a holographic space dragon. The trailer then switched to a final scene of the tigress and stallion hurtling through space toward one another, until they met in an embrace that ended with a kiss.
"Across the Stars! Coming soon to The Orion."
The room was cast in silence as Celeste awaited Buster's opinion. She watched the range of emotions running across his face.
Finally, he said, "I admit, I feel a bit called out by the trailer, and I can feel the uh... inspiration behind it. I understand your concern, but I wonder... wouldn't it be better to stand our ground and keep doing Out of This World? Show them that we believe in what we're doing?"
"You don't understand; this was the first warning shot of many. Everyone's going to have their own response to Out of This World in development. Look at what they did here. You like dance battles? Well, here's one of those and a battle against a space dragon. You liked the lost traveler storyline? How about two lost lovers trying to find their way back to each other? Every story beat deliberately ups the ante. They're trying to make the competition look outdated and inadequate."
"We can always alter some parts of the show if we need to spruce it up."
"Why keep making alterations when we can have something entirely new and different? By the time the competition puts out their responses to Out of This World, we'll already have something in the works that's beyond their imagination."
Buster balled his fists as if struggling to find a rebuttal. "It's such a drastic change..."
"Change is inevitable. You knew you couldn't hang on to this show forever. You might as well lead the charge." Celeste could see the cracks forming in Buster's resolve and made one final strike. "Think about it: Plenty of creative freedom, a budget far larger than anything you'd get at your home theater, much more time than three weeks to develop it..."
"And no Crystal breathing down your neck," Sydney added.
Buster glanced at the serval in surprise, as if he'd forgotten she was there. "Before I make a decision, there's one more thing I wanted to ask. If the show is closing in five months, why not keep Porsha onboard?"
"Strategy," Celeste replied. "Clay Calloway is a legend, but he's definitely closer to the end of his career than the beginning. Roxy Sin helps us cover the rest of the demographics. And with her being a Crystal Entertainment artist, that's brand synergy right there. Crystal only opened the gates for Porsha to benefit his own name. But most importantly, I want Roxy to be part of the new show from the beginning, assuming there is going to be a new show...?"
Buster was left unnerved by the toothy smile the cougar was giving him. He'd never seen her quite like that.
"All right, I'll do it," he said. "But I have one stipulation."
Celeste's smile evaporated. "You've got some nerve trying to make demands. I'm holding all the cards."
"I'm holding all the talent."
She held a glare against the koala, unable to tell if those half-lidded eyes and smile were a source of confidence or arrogance. "What's this stipulation?"
"If I win this competition, I get to cast Porsha in the new show however I see fit."
"That's fine," Celeste said; Buster was taken aback by how quickly she agreed to it. "You have people thinking you're this happy-go-lucky koala walking on sunshine, but you're actually quite shrewd, Mr. Moon."
"I prefer to think of myself as relentlessly perseverant," Buster said, flashing another smile.
"Now that we're on the same page... Roxy will audition for you tomorrow. I trust your judgment will be fair, but if you truly believe she doesn't have the chops after her performance, we can widen the search."
"Uh, could you do something for me? I'd like a copy of that trailer. I'm going to have to break the news to everybody and I think I'll need as much material as possible to help it sink in."
Celeste nodded and sent Sydney to escort Buster out of the office. Before he was gone, she made one last statement.
"By the way, Mr. Moon... don't think I didn't find out that you kept Porsha on the production as your intern."
"You said she couldn't be in the show. You never said she couldn't work on it."
"Strike one, Mr. Moon."
Buster loosened his bow tie as he vanished from the cougar's sights.
A/N
Writing what other characters were doing during canon events or how they react to the aftermath is one of my lowkey favorite things to do with OCs. We might see some more of those kind of flashbacks.