Chapter 4: Comedy king

Things changed drastically for Loudmouth after that night. It turned out, their goal had been to make the audience laugh all along. Who knew!

And the problem, had been Mister Lyrack.

The truth was, the Peilor had been stifling Loudmouth’s natural comedic talent, rather than letting it shine through as he should have. And now that he’d stopped holding back the hilarious Hoig, Loudmouth quickly transformed into the comedy king he’d always been meant to be.

Mister Lyrack still wrote the jokes, of course, but it was Loudmouth who read them off the metal sheet on stage. It was Loudmouth who made people laugh.

The crowds coming to the Cracked Joke to see him grew and grew. Soon enough, Loudmouth was receiving more yams on any given night than he could reasonably carry off the stage, let alone eat, and the owner of the club had to politely request the guests seated anywhere but in the first two rows to stop throwing them, as the clean-up between acts was taking too long.

When the crowds no longer could fit into the venue, Mister Lyrack was approached by another Peilor, nestled in the forehead of a Yin Hoig.

“How would you feel about moving your act to the Prismatic Theatre?” she chimed. “You’d have to move to Clarity Cove, of course, but I’m sure that wouldn’t be too great of an imposition...”

As Mister Lyrack started enthusiastically chiming back, Loudmouth stared at her host, a relatively small and slim male, with very attractive, smooth cheeks.

“What say you, Loudmouth?” Lyrack chimed eventually, sounding exceptionally cheery. “Anything you’d like to sweeten the deal?”

Loudmouth blinked. “Huh? Sorry, Loudmouth wasn’t listening, ehm...”

“I believe your host is a little enamoured with mine,” the lady Peilor chimed amusedly. “Tell you what... as a signing bonus, you can have him. I’m sure your star here would appreciate a playmate.”

“Would you like that, Loudmouth?” Mister Lyrack asked.

“Loudmouth can have Friend? Yas! Want!”

The stage and seating area within the Prismatic Theatre were absolutely huge, and a lesser Hoig would probably have had knocking knees on his first night performing there.

Being a brave hero, Loudmouth was naturally perfectly fine, and definitely didn’t have a panic attack that required Mister Lyrack to use his strangely echoey words to calm him down.

In the end, it was a huge success, and the reviews were fantastic.

Once again, the crowds quickly grew to fill the theatre, and as they did, Loudmouth’s dressing room became fancier and fancier.

It never became his favourite place, however, as that was Loudmouth’s amazing private lake on their new estate.

After one particularly rave review, he requested a place to stay on the little island in the centre, and soon enough a small cabin had been built, with a veranda that overlooked the Hydrum. He and Smooth-Cheeks spent a lot of time getting to know each other, there. In fact, over the course of the weeks that followed, they got to know each other very well.

But their favourite pastime was cuddling up together, feeding each other snacks while watching great shows like Star-crossed: A Tail of Two Frogs.

Then Loudmouth won an award. The Stellar in the category of stand-up. Mister Lyrack was ecstatic, and once again came over to Loudmouth’s little cabin to ask Loudmouth if there was anything he’d like to have.

The truth was, Loudmouth pretty much already had everything he could possibly ask for in terms of material possessions. What he wanted most of all at this point, was to see his Friends again, the Blue Dragons. But when he asked... Mister Lyrack grew quiet.

Then he sighed. “Loudmouth... I hate to tell you this, but those humans are not your friends.”

Loudmouth blinked, and exchanged a glance with Smooth-Cheeks, who just shrugged. He turned back to Mister Lyrack. “Mister Lyrack wrong. Blue Dragons are Loudmouth’s Friends.”

“No, they’re not.”

“Are too.”

“Are not.”

“Are too!”

“No they’re—ugh, fine, I’m going to have to show you, aren’t I? I’d really wished it hadn’t come to this...”

And Mister Lyrack went on to show Loudmouth some obviously doctored footage of his Friends doing, ehm, certain things that definitely never happened. Loudmouth never fell for it a single second, but he could tell Mister Lyrack was not going to budge.

However, as he watched, a familiar face came by that made his heart beat faster. And Mister Lyrack noticed his reaction.

“Well, I think I have an idea for an alternate reward now...”

Bulging-Eyes was confused but happy to see Loudmouth. She absolutely loved the private lake and all the food Loudmouth provided, and it wasn’t long before she and Smooth-Cheeks got along swimmingly.

For some reason, Loudmouth found himself a little tongue-tied around her at first. Bulging-Eyes and Smooth-Cheeks both seemed to find that quite amusing, but eventually her patience ran thin, and she very helpfully untangled the knot in his tongue with her own.

Life was great. The only regret Loudmouth still had, was that he couldn’t meet his Friends.

Then one day, while Mister Lyrack and Loudmouth were doing their customary post-show review in their dressing room, something very unexpected happened.

One of the stone statues of himself that Loudmouth had ordered had been delivered to his dressing room. Moreover, it was in a crane-kick pose—which Loudmouth immediately recognised from Friend Alec’s stories. Realisation shot through him like a bolt of lightning. He wasn’t sure how, but he suddenly knew one of his Friends was hiding in the statue.

Keeping his cool, he quickly tried to signal that he was aware of their presence by mimicking the statue’s pose, totally pulling it off without losing his balance.

Then he engaged Mister Lyrack in conversation to keep him occupied, until the expected happened. The statue exploded into pieces as Friend Emma leaped out and onto Loudmouth’s back! Strange glowing tendrils burst forth out of her, and one of them struck forth and killed Mister Lyrack in a single blow.

Loudmouth was ecstatic to see her but full of questions, so Friend Emma quickly called over Friend Kaitlynn, and together they explained what was going on. You see, the figures before him weren’t the complete Friends Emma and Kaitlynn; it was more like their ghosts. They had managed to escape the Peilor by committing suicide, and their wrathful spirits had come back for vengeance. And also to save their Friends and home planet.

But since they had no bodies, they needed help, and their first choice had naturally been the great hero Loudmouth.

Before they could even finish her plea, Loudmouth silently held up a hand, bidding them to stop speaking. “Of course Loudmouth will help,” he croaked magmaliciously. “Just leave it all to Loudmouth.”

Loudmouth escorted his Friends back to the estate—which was now legally his, of course—and casually showed them around in a very humble manner.

When his two ghost Friends had calmed down from the shock of his wealth and status, they all sat down together and came up with a plan. Luckily, Loudmouth was already aware of the owner of one of the other Blue Dragons: Farouq. The artsy Peilor had bought Friend Alec after the show, and had been a friend of Mister Lyrack’s.

Thanks to Loudmouth’s amazing plan, the Peilor walked right into their trap, and Friend Alec was freed. Friend Emma used her special abilities on Farouq, and the Peilor quickly gave up the locations of Friend Jacob and Friend Dave.

Now Loudmouth had to choose who to go after next. It was a difficult decision, but Loudmouth knew that Friend Alec was secretly deeply in love with Friend Jacob, so he ultimately just couldn’t stand to see his Friend suffer any longer, and decided to save Friend Jacob first.

However, the Peilor who had bought Friend Jacob was a renowned fighting coach, and had honed Friend Jacob into a sharp weapon. The only way to rescue him... was for Loudmouth to defeat his Friend in single combat.

As a great hero and a mighty warrior, Loudmouth was naturally confident in his victory. But still, the stakes had never been higher, so he asked Friend Alec to train him.

To his confusion, his Friend proceeded to give him a can of paint and a brush, and told him to paint the fence around the estate. Loudmouth did not quite understand why, but he accepted the task with quiet dignity, and painted the entire fence. When he returned, however, the blond boy simply gave him another task: to wash all of the windows of the mansion. Again, Loudmouth did not protest, and set off to do a job that was normally performed by lower-tier Peilor.

By the time he was done, the day of his fateful battle had arrived.

He faced off against Friend Jacob on his little lake, confident but still confused. However, when Friend Jacob attacked with a downward axe kick, Loudmouth’s arm shot out as if it had its own mind, repeating on of the moves he’d been performing during his chores, and blocking the kick like it was nothing.

With his muscles bulging in the light of the Twinstar, Loudmouth finally understood his wise Friend’s training.

His fight against Friend Jacob was legendary, and lasted the entire day and most of the night. It was only just before Twinrise that Loudmouth went into the crane-kick stance he’d mastered through Friend Alec’s stories and Friend Emma’s statue, and managed to knock Friend Jacob out with a single, powerful kick.

Now the only Friend he still had to save, was Friend Dave. Unfortunately, Friend Dave had been bought by a very rich and powerful Peilor named Yog.

Thankfully, Loudmouth knew of Yog’s secret weakness because of... reasons. For you see, Yog was an avid fan of soap operas!

Loudmouth’s plan was simple but brilliant. He and his Friends snuck into a party pretending to be either Peilor or their hosts, and found the influential Peilor holding court from Friend Dave’s forehead.

To secure Friend Dave, they needed to get Yog alone, and Loudmouth knew just the thing to lure him: drama. And so, he waited for the opportune moment to trip his Friend Alec up, causing him to stumble into Friend Jacob’s chest.

His two Friends immediately lost themselves in each other’s eyes.

“Now kiss!” Loudmouth croaked quietly. “Quickly, is to save Friend Dave!”

They hesitated for just one more moment, then complied, doing what Loudmouth had long figured out they both wanted.

Two fish with one spear.

Yog, of course, could not resist. He immediately had Dave swagger over, right into Loudmouth’s trap, which would take too many pages to explain as it was so ingenious.

Suffice to say it involved a rubber duck, a telescope, a bucket of zirot juice, an alarm clock, a bar of soap, a fake nose, a skateboard, a jigsaw puzzle missing a single piece, two beach towels, and six barrels of fishguts.

Loudmouth had wanted to use some carrots as well, but Emma had vetoed those for some reason, so he’d settled for a box of tissues instead.

Despite the slightly suboptimal substitution, the plan went off to a hitch, and all of his Friends were at last reunited!

As far as Loudmouth was concerned, his life was now as close to perfect as it could get, but his Friends weren’t satisfied. They still wanted their vengeance on the Peilor, by taking out their almighty Godqueen, Starmother!

Author's note:

Thanks for reading. ^^