Chapter Two
Short, but sweet.
It’s now 9am, and the four ladies are currently one full hour into their punishment tag game at the gymnasium. They were all seated around the table enjoying some oranges which Waffle King Richard had included with their breakfast cart earlier on.
faelove64 suddenly had an idea pop into her head. “What if three of us were to try and run, and the other one of us tries to hide here by the table? She might then be able to avoid it all and get some rest between the taggers.”
Christmas Spirit Fairy giggled. “Yeah, I don’t think that would quite work, as I’m sure the taggers aren’t that clueless when chasing us.”
“It’s not like we have anything to lose in trying that idea” Queentintin replied. “After all, what’s the worst that could happen?" Before anyone could even answer that question, Queentintin quickly added "Don't answer that!" She then took a deep breath before continuing.
"The taggers catch the person trying to hide, and we know that the plan thus didn’t work. On the other hand, however, if the plan does succeed, then we clearly have a means for one of us to get some much needed rest from avoiding the taggers. Not to mention that it’s highly likely that the taggers will automatically give chase to those of us who are actually out running on the floor. It’s how people naturally behave in such circumstances.”
“Well then, let’s give it a try just once to see if it will work” faelove64 responded enthusiastically.
“If that’s the case, we should take in turns to make it fair” Pink Fregia added. “But who is going to be the first to try out this plan and stay hidden by the table?”
There was a brief pause as each of the four ladies contemplated about which one of them would (and in some regards should) be the first test subject so to speak in this experiment of theirs. Queentintin, faelove64, and Pink Fregia all settled their gaze at that point upon Christmas Spirit Fairy.
“Wait a second” Christmas Spirit Fairy said in a somewhat concerned voice. “Why do we have to start with me?! Let’s do Rock-Paper-Scissors to determine who goes first!”
Before the other ladies could either agree to that suggestion of Christmas Spirit Fairy’s, or even object to it, the now familiar sound of two metal pans being bashed and clanged together was played over the speakers in the gymnasium. For the record, this sound would only be played whenever Waffle King Richard was going to be making an entrance into the gym to interact with the ladies, but the ladies didn’t specifically know that just yet. And so they naturally reacted as if it was the signal for a tagger being launched on the platform nearby. They all leapt up in fear and started rushing towards the stage at the far end of the gymnasium, only to turn and see Waffle King Richard walking gingerly into the room at the doors where they had entered from themselves just over an hour earlier.
Waffle King Richard was carrying a small blue cushion in his right hand as he entered with his collective announcement of “Welcome to your Punishment Game!” He then walked up to the ladies who at this point had headed back to the table and were trying to calm their nerves.
“Lycanthropos said that your back side appears sore from where you were kicked earlier” he said to Christmas Spirit Fairy, referring to when she had been kicked by the kickboxer tagger. “And thus he told me to bring this to you.”
Unbeknownst to the ladies, Lycanthropos was actually still at home getting ready, as he wouldn’t be arriving until later that afternoon, in order that he could spend some extra time with his wife before punishing those four troublesome ladies for their actions earlier on.
“It's certainly true that it hurts” Christmas Spirit Fairy admitted. “Of which thank you for bringing this to me” she said as she took the cushion and set it on her chair before sitting down again to rest.
“Yeah, Lycanthropos had told me to bring it.” Waffle King Richard then took a deep breath. “He really is the model of an angel. A being whom we can all look up to and admire with dignity.”
He then turned and headed back out of the gym, leaving the four ladies to once again resume their discussion in regards to who would be the first to test out the theory which faelove64 had suggested.
“If someone does it though, won’t they get caught” Christmas Spirit Fairy said in passing.
“No, because the other three will all be running, as I explained earlier” Queentintin pointed out. “The taggers are naturally going to want to go after those of us who are running away from them, whilst leaving the one who is hiding back here alone to safely rest up.”
At that moment, they heard the familiar explosion sound as another tagger came up onto the platform before that tagger began running towards the four of them. Whilst it would have admittedly been a great opportunity for the four of them to test out faelove64’s suggestion, they hadn’t actually come to an agreed decision regarding who would be the first guinea pig of sorts and be the first to try staying hidden by the table. As such, all four began running in fear towards the stage at the far end of the gymnasium floor with a seemingly generic tagger giving chase to them.
This time, the screen behind the platform gave a rather ominous message regarding the status of the tagger who was giving chase to each of the four ladies. It simply read “Head-butt”.
As they ran back to the side of the gym where the platform was, Christmas Spirit Fairy, faelove64, and Queentintin all stayed together as a trio, running on the south side of the gym floor, whilst Pink Fregia decided to take her chances and ended up running on her own across the top north side of the gym floor towards the other side of the gym by the platform. The tagger, who is actuality was Markangel the Archangel, decided to give chase to Queentintin, who was left to fend for herself after a few seconds as Christmas Spirit Fairy and faelove64 stopped and turned a hard left to rush towards Pink Fregia.
Finally catching up with Queentintin, Markangel held on tight to her head as he looked at her from underneath the mask that he was wearing. “I’m sorry” he whispered, before proceeding to give her a head-butt on the forehead. Not a hard one per say, but more like a light tap, which he followed up with a series of addition tap style head-butts until the horn was blasted, at which point Markangel the Archangel let Queentintin go and gingerly walked back towards the doors beneath the platform.
Queentintin grabbed her forehead as a means to thus try and garner sympathy from the other ladies, even though it really hadn't hurt very much givn Markangel had been rather gentle. Pink Fregia hurried over to check up on her friend though.
“Are you alright” Pink asked of her friend.
“You left me behind and ran” Queentintin responded, aiming her complaint of sorts at faelove64 and Christmas Spirit Fairy. “I can’t believe that you would leave me behind and run off like that.”
“It sounded like hollow wood” Christmas Spirit Fairy observed, noting the noise that had been made when the tagger had head-butted Queentintin.
“Wait! Why did you run” faelove64 asked as she turned her attention to Christmas Spirit Fairy. “You were supposed to have stayed back and hid from the tagger over by the table!”
“Exactly! We can’t test faelove64’s theory if you are going to be running with us” Pink Fregia added in frustration.
“Do as planned next time” faelove64 mentioned as the four ladies began to walk back over to their table.
“Well, in all fairness, I can’t help trying to run when the taggers appear” Christmas Spirit Fairy explained in her defense. She then turned to Queentintin. “Sorry about that Queentintin.”
“It’s fine” Queentintin replied. “But let’s try some teamwork here.”
“Especially given that I saw all of you run in the opposite direction as a group away from me” Pink Fregia noted in annoyance.
"Wait a sec! We hadn't even finished deciding who was going to be the test subject of faelpove64's idea, as we were going to do Rock-Paper-Scissors in order to decide the outcome! I never agreed to be the Guinea Pig!" Christmas Spirit Fairy then sat back down in her chair.
"It's because of your kick earlier that we're letting you rest up first, so that you can relax whilst we do the running" Pink Fregia explained.
With a moment of thought, and a rather dejected sigh, Christmas Spirit Fairy caved to everyone's pressure. "Alright! Fine! I'll do it" she said in a somewhat aggravated and annoyed tone of voice.
Granted, there would be no more taggers for the nine o’clock hour, however it was certainly giving some amusement to the production team to be watching the screens in the buffet room over what the cameras were showing the four ladies debating amongst themselves over hiding from the taggers potentially.
The camera team within the gym were also having some fun filming what was taking place before them, especially given that they had staff bringing them supplies as needed. A runner named divine bunny was actually busy delivering snacks to each of the camera crew at their respective locations throughout the gymnasium area at the moment.
“Ah, thank you kindly” Asylum Renegade replied as he was handed some snacks at his current station on the stage. He knew that he would be trading out at the noon shift, but this was fine for now.
“No problem” divine bunny replied before heading over to where fairy-phoenix was located at the top of the southern seating grandstand. This location not only gave fairy-phoenix a good overall view of the lay of the land, but let her see the ceiling area as well, which is a good thing for later on.
“Thanks” fairy-phoenix said before taking a sip of her hot chocolate. “When are you doing the tagger run yourself” she asked.
“I’m first up at the 5pm shift, although I think I’m back on later in the night if I’m not mistaken” divine bunny explained.
“Cool. I’m looking forward to seeing you down there giving chase to the four of them, as well as seeing your hop speed as a bunny.”
**********
As the nine o’clock hour seemingly wrapped up on its own, the questions remained as to what was yet in store for those four traitors, and just when one might be able to find Waffle King Richard’s sanity.
Tune in tomorrow as the 10 am chapter runs into the station, and everyone gets taken by complete surprise at something they hadn’t expected.
Waffle King Richard · Fri Jan 11, 2019 @ 09:30pm · 0 Comments |