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Poppy screamed.
It was a unnatural sound, primal and agonized, ripped from her body then cut as suddenly as it started. Poppy slowly floated into the air, hugging her self tight enough to near draw blood. Her eyes squeezed shut in something akin to agony. Then-a flash. A light exploded from her, engulfing the whole volcano stadium and temporarily blinding every other troll there. The blinding white light slowly faded away and once the trolls could see again, dark spots hidden behind blinks and eye rubs, gasps filled the stadium. For one, everytroll from Funk to Classic was gray, from head to toe to clothes. Even the bounty hunters still hovering in the air from the hot air balloon. Far away trolls free from Rock trollnapping gasped and some freaked out as they lost everything with no idea why.
All over the troll known world they experienced the same thing. A part of their souls was missing, ripped from them, leaving a pit behind. Music was gone.
The other reason they were gasping was the strange sight on stage. Floating in the air, glowing brightly, was Queen Poppy. It looked as if all the worlds colors had absorbed onto her skin turning her into a rainbow. The colors swirled and shifted around her body and hair, mixing and un-mixing in turn. The light seemed to form a aura around her with small shifting music notes. Her clothes, also color shifting, were moving as if she was under water. And her eyes were closed, her hair gently swaying in the air free from it usual ponytail.
Branch, now free of zombie rock, stood to his feet and rushed closer. “What happened?!”
“Your girl broke my Strings- That's what happened!” Barb answered, sounding angry but also very freaked out. “Then it's like, everyone's color got sucked into her, and now all…this.” she gestured with a hand to the floating Queen.
“Well, undo it, since this wouldn’t have happened if you didn’t steal everyone's String in the first place!” Branch order snapped, not caring in the least that he was yelling at a Queen or even that he was being watched by the crowd.
“I don’t know what this is, so I can’t!”
“Poppy,” Peppy breathed, helped up onto the stage by the Funk twins and walking up close to the floating troll. His voice was choked up and his focus was on his daughter. “Are you OK, can you hear me?”
At that Poppy's’ eyes popped open and they glowed white with a small gold purple. She blinked, looked around, then Poppy’s face crumpled. To everytrolls’ shock, Poppy started crying loudly, hands lifting to cover her face and knees folded up like a child.
“Poppy!”
“W-why do you h-hate me so much?”
Everyone startled, some moving back. That wasn’t Poppy’s voice, or at least not alone. There was another overlapping hers, and the voice sounded oddly young.
“Hate you?” Queen Essence, seeming to shake off the surprise faster, asked as she and the other leaders moved in closer, her sons moving to her and Quincy's sides. Delta was cradling Clampers tightly in her arms, having checked her over once they were free from zombifcation. Trollex was hugging Beat-drop like a stuffy. “Who hates you?”
“All of you hate me!”
“I have yet to meet you, rainbow homie,” Trollex pointed out awkwardly but Poppy shook her head.
“You hate me you twist me you change me you lie about me you bully me!”
“Wait, Poppy, who are you talking to?” Branch asked with confused and cautious hands held up. His eyebrows furrowed in confusion.
Poppy whirled in the air and dove until she was floating in front of Branch. Her hands moved from her face revealing she was crying golden tears. What scared Branch was the fine white cracks forming around her body. Glowing eyes bore into blue as a finger pointed in his face then to Barb, then her dad, then to everytroll at large.
“All of you! I didn’t have to save you from the Silence, your people were fine even being gray.” Poppy yelled, her voice icy and sort of…childlike? “You lived, you loved, you stayed. Then I appear, and you throw everything away! You threw me away!”
“Who…what, are you the Strings?”
Poppy threw back her head and laughed, high and unnerving with the overlay echo. The cracks got longer as well as she smiled. The smile had everyone troll that knew Poppy shivering. “I’m not the Strings or the hair they were!”
“Music,” Cooper gasped out, eyes wide as he figured it out, pointing at Poppy er Not-Poppy. “Your Music!”
“Yes yes yes!” Music-Poppy spun in the air, smiling as she moved back and faced the crowd with a wave of a hand. “I am Sound, I am Rhythm, I am Harmony!”
“Why are you in Poppy's’ body?” Branch asked, focusing on this instead of the shock that Music was apparently Sentient.
Music-Poppy giggled like a spirited fae child, the cracks seeming the fade a little at the sound. “Silly troll, I was always in her!"
Branch blushed as he realized how that sounded. “Ah, yeah,” he cleared his throat.
“OK, time out, what is the deal?” Barb cut in and the smile dropped off of Poppy’s face all humor gone in a instant.
“Whats my ‘deal’?” Poppy repeated and huffed. Then she swirled up and hovered high in the air. Not too high for anyone to reach with their hair but still high. She placed her hands on her hips and kicked her feet like she was stamping the ground, cracks leaking light from them with the sound of timpani drums. “You just tried to change most of me into just Rock! Not even Sub Genre Rock, no Glam Rock no Scream Rock, just Rock with no Soul, no Life. Do you have any idea how much that hurts-, and I didn't even have a body to feel with before now!”
“Urr”
“You came up with the idea!” Poppy said pointing to Thrash, who looked guilty as Barb quickly moved to protect him just in case.
Then she pointed to Peppy and narrowed her eyes. “You lied about The Disharmony! You and almost every royal Pop Troll for generations! Sure, everytroll after King Talon didn't know it was a lie, but still! Your a Lying Liar Who Lies!”
Then at last to Branch. “And you…you shunned me, you hated my existence, you who was blessed with the voice of the angels!” This more than anything would prove that Poppy wasn't in control of her own body. Even with how the two last spoke, she would never throw his trauma, his pain, his years of grayness and guilt not only in his face but in public. Never mind the sneering tone they use that sounded like the bully kid, knowing what to say to hurt. Music-Poppy flew around the stage as they continued, now addressing everytroll in the stadium and perhaps even beyond.
“I give and give and what do I get for it? Trolls who should have honored what they have working to destroy each other, or pretending each other doesn’t exist. I know that's why none of you went looking for Pop and they nearly were eaten to death!”
“They what?!”
“So you see? You hate each other because of their Music, so that means you hate Me. And I am tired of being hated, it's exhausting and not just because Poppy hasn't slept in days thanks to this 'tour'.”
“What are you going to do?” Peppy asked, looking like he had a good idea what Music had planned.
“I am leaving and going to find creatures that respect me.” Music-Poppy sniffed, wagging their head as she turned around with hands on her hips. Many of the trolls gasped- it looked like Music-Poppy was going to fly away! They started to when two sets of hair wrapped around her middle like a pair of lassos.
“Not with Poppy your not!” Branch declared while wrapping his hair around the possessed queen.
Music-Poppy blinked then looked surprised down at themself. “Oh yeah, I’m physical now.” Then they shrugged. “Actually I quite like it, so Yes with Poppy! I’ll drop her off somewhere when I find a better option. Ooo, maybe Vaycay Island,”
Music-Poppy started off again, like they were going to fly away and be lost forever, but the hair wrapped tightly around her body by Peppy and Branch stopped them once more. Music-Poppy sighed as if she was being put upon, then did something strange.
Before their very eyes Music-Poppy’s form changed. The colors fading away like watercolor paint until she looked to have orange skin and sunlight yellow hair, hair which was wild with some braids. Her face changed as well adding a few years and gained makeup. Though her eyes were still white, Peppy, and several older Pop Trolls in the crowd, recognized who this was and gasped.
“Let me go, or you will never find out what happened to her, ‘daddy’,” the voice changed again, this time Poppy’s voice was covered by another woman's. Older but similar and for some Pop Trolls oddly familiar. Either from the shock or something else, Peppy lost his grip as he fell back, hand going to his heart. The look on his face was wreak with grief and horror. Then Not-Poppy turned to Branch, who was holding strong and steeling himself for what was going to happen. His Grandma no doubt-
In rapid fire, each lasting two heartbeats, the being shifted into four other trolls, each a different color of hair but sharing similar features, semi-transparent copies forming a half circle facing Branch ending with a pink-head. And they all looked down at Branch in pity.
“And you’ll never be able to help them in time.” Each said in unison with voices Branch could never forget. The shock pierced his heart and his grip slipped for just a second, no more than a heartbeat.
Then before Branch could do anything else the copies faded as Music-Poppy returned to normal, now covered in bleeding cracks, spun in the air fast enough to unwind from Branchs’ hair and took off as fast as a speeding cannonball.
In a heartbeat they were gone.