AUTHOR'S NOTE: I think I can have this done in six parts, though I expect they'll be a bit long. Thanks as always to all of my fans, and especially to Malex, for letting me use his principal character in this story. As always, a link to Part 1: https://www.bungie.net/en/Forums/Post/251835555 [u]Same Night, Two Hours Later[/u] Despite what you might have expected, the show quickly recovers from the one technical hiccup, and goes on about as well as can be expected. Gloria produces the expected items from her bag. The nursery-tidying and chalk drawing special effects all work without a hitch, courtesy of Ikora's able direction, several unassigned Ghosts, and Scholar's technical skill. Oddish and Petra, dressed as dancing penguin waiters, get equal measures of laughter and "awwww's". No one forgets a line except Peter, and Stephanie picks it up for him. Eyes get misty when Gloria sings "Feed the Birds", tear up with laughter when the sweeps "step in time" (with only Malex dancing on the railing this time), and tear up again with sentiment when Marshall and Ventis discuss the evanescent nature of childhood. There is breathless silence in the audience while Marshall (disguised as an elderly banker, a traditional dual role for Bert) proceeds to desecrate Ventis's carnation, umbrella, and bowler hat. And finally, Dawn, Lillie, and the kids are back in the Banks kitchen, awaiting the denoument. IKORA (to her Ghosts): "Tiger Lily and Lemon Drops, put your spots on the principals. Autumn Wind, get ready to illuminate Ventis as he enters." (to Scholar) "And you, have the outdoor set on standby, for the kite-flying sequence." SCHOLARMIND: "I'm on it." Alas, his hand bumps the lever, and with a loud THWAPP! the outdoor scene painting slams down behind the indoor scenery. The noise startles the ever-excitable Dawn, who is standing right in front of it, and she panic-looses a grenade before she can stop herself. The deadly indendiary projectile shoots higher and higher in the air, then starts to come down. In horror, Oddish sees where it's about to land... right where Peter is standing. ODDISH: "NOOO!!!" If this were a movie, everything would slow down. Oddish charging onstage, diving to throw the boy out of the way before the grenade hits, while shouting his "No" in a voice that's super-low because everything's in slo-mo. He's still two or three feet away when the grenade lands at Pete's size-four feet, bounces once, and explodes. The blinding fireball consumes Mr. Oddish instantly. Sigmund quickly reassembles him, and he rematerializes more or less where he died. ODDISH: "Pete!" (looks around frantically) "Where is he?! Did he get out of the way in time?" PAULA: "I don't see him." DAWN: "I'm sorry... I'm so s-sorry!" STEPHANIE: "Pete? Where are you?" IKORA: "We'll find him!" It's instant chaos, onstage and back. Everyone scrambles about madly, hoping against hope that the boy got clear. Then, a horrified Oddish sees something on the stage. It's a tiny child's 1910-era shoe, scorched and blackened, smoke lazily curling from it. ODDISH (drops heavily to his knees): "No." A long silence, then Sigmund speaks up, with the tone of someone about to deliver the most horrible news imaginable. SIGMUND: "Oddish... I'm detecting approximately 18.72 kilograms of oxidized organic material dispersed in the air." ODDISH: "And how much did Pete weigh?" SIGMUND: "18.72 kilograms." (a long pause) "I... I'm sorry." Zavala, having seen what happened from his spot in the audience, has been charging toward the front of the auditorium; he now vaults onto the stage. ZAVALA: "What... have you done?" ODDISH (rises slowly, rage in his eyes): "What have I done? What have [i]you [/i]done?! I told you this was dangerous, didn't I?" ZAVALA: "I trusted you to ensure that boy's safety." ODDISH: "And if you'd listened to my advice, he'd've been completely safe! As in 'sitting in the audience with his family' safe But no, you had to put him in the show anyway!" ZAVALA: "You were supposed to be the greatest kinderguardian teacher ever! The one who'd never lost a student!" ODDISH: "And I never did, not once! For a hundred frickin' years I kept my kids safe!" ZAVALA: "You kept [i]yourself [/i]safe. Like the coward you are." ODDISH (eyes go wide): "WHAT did you say?!" ZAVALA (contemptuously): "You heard me. You spent those hundred years sitting in a classroom wiping noses and grading spelling tests while the world burned around us." ODDISH (angrily): "The world burned thanks to you, you... you blueberry-colored oaf! You forced us into a war with the Cabal, a war I could have stopped!" ZAVALA (sneering): "Oh, yes, your 'diplomatic mission'. The one that you were too stupid to know was doomed to fail." ODDISH (shouting): "The one you sabotaged, and for what? Because you were afraid they'd make me Vanguard instead of you if I..." ZAVALA (shouting back): "So because of your ambition, you'd have doomed us all to be slaves of the Cabal Imperium!" ODDISH (shouting louder): "No. I'd have made us our first interstellar alliance. And stopped the Red War a century before it started! But [i]nooooo,[/i] whether we wanted it or not, you wanted WAR with the Cabal on Mars, so that's what we stepped into!" ZAVALA (bellowing): "It was inevitable!" ODDISH (bellowing back): "Next time you look out over the City, and see all those craters where thousands of people died... remember that you did that! And thousands of Cabal and dozens of Guardians are dead, too! Thanks to you!" Away from the stage, Paula and Ikora and several of the cast members are sitting in a cluster. Petra is very frightened; she's never seen the gentle man she knew as her teacher and father so enraged. She's cuddling against Paula, who has an also-frightened Stephanie in her lap. Ikora's lap is occupied as well... by Peter, who is very much alive, courtesy of Tiger Lily. PAULA: "Wow... I knew Petra got her temper from somewhere, but I never thought... maybe we should tell them." IKORA: "No, they really need to get it out of their system." PAULA: "At the school musical? In front of hundreds of people?" IKORA: "They came for a show, and they're getting one." Oddish's face is scarlet. Zavala's is dark purple. They're in each other's face and screaming at each other now... ODDISH: "You call me a coward, you gutless weiner?! I'm not the one who refused to go after Uldren Sov when he killed Cayde! Maybe you were afraid he'd take over your precious Vanguard spot instead of me!" ZAVALA: "I can't believe they let a pasty-faced imbecile like you be a teacher! Especially after you took a probie on a raid!" ODDISH: "You're more chicken then the Colonel!" ZAVALA: "A Hive Knight would be a better teacher than you!" ODDISH: "Stupid waste of flesh Awoken WARMONGER!" ZAVALA: "Yellow bellied pus sucking pink-skin CRYBABY!" ODDISH: "Hopeless, worthless, brainless, gutless, spineless, d***less, blue-headed BALD NOB!!!" ZAVALA: [i]"AAAARRGHHH!!"[/i] BAM! He hauls off and punches Oddish, sending him flying backward with lightning bolts crawling all over his body. Oddish charges back and punches back, and Zavala disintegrates in a burst of void light. ODDISH: "Eat that, you sorry excuse for a Vanguard!" Zappp! Zavala respawns, and produces an Insurmountable Skullfort from somewhere. he stuffs it on his head and charges at Oddish. CHONK! Oddish goes flying, but doesn't die: his overshield was still active, allowing him to tank the hit. However... CHONK! Zavala rams him again going the other way, and he lands in a shattered and motionless heap. Sigmund regenerates him in a flash of light. Zavala charges for a third hit, then Oddish sidesteps, then pulls his trusty Minimum Distance out of his costume trousers and shoots him three times with it. Zavala reels back, then pulls a Service Revolver out and returns fire. Both of them empty their weapons at each other. Because they're both dodging while they shoot, not every bullet hits, but the ones that do cause major damage. The sidearm locks open on a dry mag while the handcannon clicks on a spent cylinder. Since sidearms reload faster than handcannons, Oddish has his gun charged first. He shoots Zavala in the weapon hand as he's snapping the action shut, and the wheelgun goes flying offstage. ZAVALA: "You disgusting little son of a b..." ODDISH (keeping the pistol pointed at him): "Hey! Watch your potty mouth, there's children here." Zavala responds by snapping to his Ghost, who transmats a Huckleberry into his hands. RATATATATATATATATATATAT!! The hail of thirty large-caliber bullets sends the still-unarmored Oddish flying back to land in a bloody perforated heap on the ground. ZAVALA: "You messed with the wrong Guardian." ODDISH (dying): "S-sigmund..." SIGMUND: "Yes, Oddish. I know what to do." Zappp! Oddish rematerializes in full armor, transmatted onto his body courtesy of Sigmund's customary efficiency, and with his sidearm swapped for his combat loadout. This includes his Actium War Rig and the deadly rotary-barreled Sweet Business cradled in his hands. He brings the latter up and aims at his foe. ODDISH: "All right, Commander Voo-voo-zayla. Come see what Daddy's got for you." [i]Scroll down for the rest of it...[/i]