Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

   Mr. Puzzles didn’t hate thunderstorms, but he didn’t love them, either. The noise could probably be soothing, if it was from a distance, but it was roaring right over the house at the moment. Plus now his head was a giant lightning rod and susceptible to water, which made him hesitant to go out in any storm.

   Puzzles couldn’t get to sleep, with the noise and his own thoughts keeping him awake. Maybe he could find something to watch or read quietly, lest he disturb Tracy or Paula. He left his room and immediately noticed a light from downstairs.

   Mr. Puzzles followed it and found Paula in the kitchen. She wore a nightgown but no robe over it, probably because she didn’t expect someone else to be up. He noticed the nightgown was black but patterned with outer space objects like planets, moons, and… stars. In fact, it had some words on it too, with the word STARS right at the chest area.

   Probably best not to stare at that.

   She clutched a mug of hot chocolate, and gave Puzzles a neutral look when he came in. She asked, “Couldn’t sleep?”

   “Yes,” he answered. “It’s so noisy that it’s hard to doze off… The thunder doesn’t scare me, though. It actually reminds me of… Well…”

   “‘Well’ what? Spit it out.”

   “I kidnapped the SMG4 Crew on a night such as this one. These storms have a way of bringing people together, you know? And that made it easy to push them to the basement. But of course I was defeated in a storm just a month later, so that undermines my little victory…”

   As another roll of thunder passed over, Paula’s grip on her mug tightened.

   Puzzles asked, “You’re afraid of thunder?”

   “Well, I’ve got memories tied to thunderstorms, like you, but mine are the complete opposite.” She frowned. “I was kidnapped by the Happy Happy cult during a thunderstorm. I was trying to get to sleep, trying to ignore the noise. The next thing I knew, I was in someone’s blue-robed arms. I think they attacked then because they knew my parents wouldn’t hear me over the storm.”

   He let out an “Oh…”

   “Tracy rescued me a few days after that. I knew she was coming, but I owe her so much. You probably wish I was used as a sacrifice by them…”

   “I mean, if you’d been sacrificed, you would have never saved the world, correct?”

   “True…” Paula looked Mr. Puzzles up and down. “Are you still wearing your regular clothes? Don’t you have sleepwear?”

   “You’re just noticing that?”

   “It’s two in the morning. Forgive me for being unattentive. Plus I need to make some sort of conversation until the storm passes.”

   “Oh! I could talk about some scripts for PuzzleVision I’ve been working on…”

   “So you’re going to try to put me to sleep.” Then, a moment later, she sighed. “Okay, let’s hear them.”

   Puzzles went on about his scripts, and Paula gave criticism where appropriate. What felt like forever was probably only fifteen minutes. By the time he was on his third idea, she had stopped criticizing and couldn’t keep her eyes open. Fortunately the thunder had passed by then.

   “‘m goin’ back to bed…” she muttered out.

   Paula tried to put the half-empty mug of hot chocolate in the sink, but Mr. Puzzles took it from her.

   “Allow me.”

   She didn’t say anything. She just went to bed.

   Puzzles emptied the mug into the sink, but the hot chocolate inside splattered on his left glove. He cursed under his breath (or what was left of it) and pulled off the stained article of clothing. At least no one was around to see what was underneath. He’d replace it in the morning, before anyone saw him without it.

   For the next few months, every time a thunderstorm rolled over Twoson, Mr. Puzzles and Paula would talk over it. He would explain his script ideas to her, whatever he was watching currently, but eventually he started listening to her. She would tell him about her students, the most interesting fights she’d been in or seen, and ask him what he thought she should watch.

   Spring turned to summer. Paula got the same break as her students. She used that break to help Tracy and Puzzles make deliveries around Twoson one day.

   Puzzles asked, “Wouldn’t you rather be at home relaxing than driving around town with us?”

   Paula shrugged. “Sitting in the back of the delivery van is relaxing for me. Plus it’s a good way to keep up with everyone and everything happening around here.”

   “Paula Jones, are you spying on people?” He smirked.

   She elbowed him slightly. “It’s called being a good neighbor.”

   Indeed, Paula made some of the deliveries herself for people she knew - she even took a minute to catch up with her parents. Tracy did the same with the townsfolk she knew. Meanwhile, Mr. Puzzles was put in charge of complete strangers.

   In a particularly busy neighborhood, the three split up. Puzzles went up to one house alone. The package in his hands felt extremely light, like there was nothing inside it.

   Someone wanted just the box…

   Why did that feel familiar?

   Waiting for Mr. Puzzles at the delivery address was a man sitting on the porch. The guy didn’t stand out to him in any way. The only thing that stood out was the knife he held in his hand.

   As Puzzles put the package on the porch next to the man, he tried to add some levity to the situation by playing a classic meme.

   “Let me see what you have.”
   “A KNIFE!”
   “NO!!!”

   It would have worked, but the man didn’t respond. Mr. Puzzles was used to rude customers by now, and could easily brush them off. However, as he had that thought, the man started to speak.

   “That’s a nice TV you have as your head. Let me take a closer look!”

   The man lunged at Puzzles with the knife. He dodged, but he ended up on the guy’s porch. He kept dodging, going in a circle around the porch. He was back on the stairs to the walk when someone came out of the front door.

   They had a cardboard box on their head.

   They said, “Larry, we’ve been over this. We don’t need to separate his TV head from his body. We just need to knock him out.”

   A third person, behind him, did that.

   Even while unconscious, Mr. Puzzles panicked. He thought all of those Box Club members had disappeared years ago, along with their precious God Box! Why were they here? Why were they after him?!

   Puzzles awoke with a gasp. He found himself in a familiar yet unfamiliar position. The first thing he realized was that he was bound with rope. This time, it was by his wrists and ankles, spreadeagle style. The next thing he realized was that the ropes were attached to weights. Then he saw the candles around his body. If he had to guess what was beneath him, he would assume it was a summoning circle with a symbol inside of it.

   Mr. Puzzles fought the ropes restraining him, but they wouldn’t move. Not only were the weights attached keeping him from flailing too much, but he had a suspicion these ropes were made from the same material as the ones used on him in prison. Maybe, in his desperation, he could tap into a new psychic power and get the candles to burn through the ropes! Unfortunately, the cultists had placed the candles a safe distance away from him and the weights.

   There were many cultists in the room, and it appeared they were in someone’s basement. These people were of all shapes and sizes, but the one thing they all shared were the cardboard boxes on their heads. Again, they looked how Puzzles remembered, with two perfect circles in the front for the eyes. He couldn’t see the top of the boxes, but he assumed they also had the same symbol there.

   Soon, the “club leader” came downstairs. He was dressed in robes, similar to the original Box Club Leader. However, this one’s robe had a hood and zipper. He also wore black gloves and boots.

   He looked over Mr. Puzzles and said, “Excellent work, my disciples. Our new gods told us this ‘boxhead’ was living here, and they were right.”

   “Should we give him the spiel?” one of the cultists asked.

   “Of course. Our source of salvation should know what he’s in for.” The leader spread his arms wide as he stood near Puzzles’s head. “We are the Neo Box Club! We have risen from the ashes of our fallen God Box and united around the new Happy Boxes! Almighty beings, please convert this poor soul into our new savior!”

   Mr. Puzzles only understood half of what the leader was saying.

   Then he noticed the objects decorating the room. These “Happy Boxes” looked to be renovated PuzzleVision TV sets. They had been painted pink, displayed only static, and everything but the “P” on the bottom was scratched out. Mr. Puzzles knew his PuzzleVision wasn’t the only one out there, but who would make so many models into something like this?

   The silence was long enough that Puzzles thought - hoped - nothing would happen. Then his body glowed pink and the cultists started chanting. Only then did the TV-head notice someone in the back.

   She pushed her way through, cutting off the cultists’ chant. She took the box off her head, and sure enough, Mr. Puzzles saw Paula. She pulled out a frying pan before the cultists could react.

   Then she quipped, “You guys just let in any weirdo wearing a box on their head? You really need higher standards.”

   “HEATHEN!” the Neo Box Club Leader shouted. “GET HER!”

   “PK Freeze!” Paula shouted back.

   Frost and ice surrounded her, freezing the cultists closest to her. As the rest started attacking her, she kept them back with her frying pan. One snuck up behind her, carrying a cattle prod.

   “PAULA, LOOK OUT!” Puzzles cried, but it was too late.

   She gasped as she took some of the shock, but not all of it. Mr. Puzzles noticed that she had a distinctive badge clipped to the collar of her dress. The badge had a bright blue lightning bolt in the center and said FRANKLIN BADGE around the edge.

   Paula turned to the cultist with the cattle prod, glaring. Her frying pan ignited, fire crackling along the edge. “I said there would NEVER be another cult in Twoson… and I meant it.”

   She smacked the weapon out of their hands with her own. Then she smacked the cultist in the head. The fire barely burned them, but it did burn away the box. She quickly dealt with the remaining cultists in a similar manner, including the Neo Box Club Leader.

   Paula snuffed out her flaming frying pan. Then she snuffed out the candles around Mr. Puzzles. She put away the weapon and started to untie his limbs.

   She said, “You’re welcome, by the way.”

   “Thanks for nothing, by the way,” Puzzles replied. “Don’t you wish I was used as a sacrifice?”

   “If you were, Tracy might kill me. Or you might get your power back. Neither’s great…”

   If this was a way for Mr. Puzzles to get his power back, then he didn’t want it, either. He should probably tell Paula about the other way he almost got his power back, but he’d wait until Tracy was there and both he and Paula were safe. He snapped out of his thoughts when Paula snapped the last rope around his left leg.

   Puzzles stood up and looked around. “They called these ‘Happy Boxes.’ They don’t look like regular televisions anymore…”

   “They could be listening devices,” Paula pointed out. “The cultists seemed to know who you were. We should probably do something about them, just to be sure.” She took out the frying pan again. “Uh, you might wanna turn away…”

   Puzzles looked at a Happy Box near his foot and kicked the screen in. He explained, “As much as I’d love to save all these PuzzleVisions, someone has already mangled them beyond recognition. Let’s put them out of their misery.”

   Mr. Puzzles and Paula smashed up the Happy Boxes, leaving nothing but glass and pink-painted metal behind. None of the cultists woke up while they did so. Either Paula had knocked them out thoroughly, or they were smart enough to pretend until they left.

   Before they left, Puzzles took one last look at the summoning circle. The symbol in it had four points like an unconnected diamond, but instead of the circle and square in the center, there was an oval with two lines in it. The new symbol almost looked like a pig’s snout.

   Mr. Puzzles and Paula walked out of the basement and the house. Tracy was waiting at the delivery van for them, and she stood up when she saw the frying pan in Paula’s hand.

   Tracy asked, “What happened? I haven’t been waiting here long, but I thought you were doing okay.”

   “We weren’t,” Paula sighed as she put the pan away. “Puzzles was captured by a cult. They almost sacrificed him, but I saw them take him into that house. I grabbed a box to look like them and kicked their butts, but… Why would there be another cult in Twoson?”

   Puzzles said, “It’s happening again.”

   Paula looked between him and Tracy. “Wait, what do you mean ‘again’?”

   Tracy sighed. “I didn’t want to talk about it, but while we were making deliveries in Fourside a couple of months ago… we ended up in Moonside. We found the Mani-Mani Statue again and defeated it again. And now there’s a group of cultists in Twoson again. It’s like someone is bringing up parts of our old adventure, but why?”

   “And these cultists weren’t the same as the Happy Happy cult,” Puzzles added. “They were like the Box Club, something only SMG4 and his friends have dealt with. That’s something only I am familiar with. Not to mention their ‘Happy Boxes’ were renovated PuzzleVisions.”

   “So they know our past and Mr. Puzzles’s past too.” Paula thought about it a little more before groaning in frustration. “Whoever this is is only giving us breadcrumbs to follow! They won’t let us get to an end until they want us to get there.”

   “And I’m not sure what that end will be…” Tracy added.

   Mr. Puzzles and Paula both nodded in agreement.