Shedu Du, Where are You?

Shedu Grimaced as she continued walking past the door. The moment she saw Mithra inside as well she felt a pang of regret for walking away. The girl bit her nail and paced back and forth. Eventually she decided that she needed to try to get the attention of the band. Luckily she found Myk in the VIP area. He was slipping out of his stage clothing and had obviously gotten into something more comfortable. A white cardigan with blue pants and an ascot tied flamboyantly around his thick neck. The very large orcish male looked strange, to say the least. This was especially because he was meant to be a rocker. A metal band singer. The music was pretty hardcore, but seemed like the demeanour both on stage and in private was more like that of a safe, family oriented organisation.

“Myk!” Shedu called out.

“Mr. Mad!”

“You know that’s not a real part of my name, right?” He asked in a gruff, yet kind tone.

“Oh… Uhh…”

“Did I stunlock your brain?” He waited patiently for her to gather her thoughts. She perked up after a second. She collected what she needed to say and informed him.

“Myk! There’s something real bad going on. There are some orcs assaulting some of my friends in the storage room.” She was hesitant to rescue Garland, but if Mithra was in danger she caved and felt like she had to do something.

“What!? That’s unacceptable! I can’t have anything bad like that happening at one of our shows. This is a safe space, dammit!” He rushed, but when they got there the orcs and Mithra and Garland were already gone.

“Dammit! It took me too long to find you… They’ll be caught by security, right?”

“Of course.” Myk said proudly.

“Our security is trained to look for signs of trouble in order to curb trafficking and any type of harassment felt at our concerts. So they should be caught.”

“But nobody was seen walking out of the hall, Myk.” Came a more deep, yet still feminine tone. Shedu and Myk looked to see the guitarist of the band, the orcish twink Jaim. He was dressed in a white shirt with an orange tie that was the same colour as his bob-styled hair. Jaim wore a purple jacket and orange shorts.

“Wait…” Shedu squinted.

“Are you-”

“That’s right.”

“Oh.” Shedu nodded along, feeling like she’d get an answer.

“I’m not jazzed about this happening at one of our concerts. I’m not jazzed at all, Myk.” Jaim announced in a tired tone, shaking his head. Shedu tilted her head side to side, unable to fully tell if Jaim was a boy or a girl. She shook it off as Jaim said.

“We got quite a curiosity on our hands. Grab the gang, we need to crunch this curiosity.”

“And fast!” Myk agreed, pumping his fist.

“Wait… what about the police? The authorities and stuff?”

“We don’t trust cops.” Jaim crossed her arms.

Myk added quickly. “As people we respect everyone, but as brainwashed agents of the state mechanism we just can’t rely on the government for any help. That’s why we became world renowned Curiosity Crunchers.”

“What the f-”

“Language, little fox.” Came a more nasal voice from another door. It was Caliphstetics, the band’s drummer. He was wearing a black turtleneck and black pants. He pushed up his glasses.

“This is quite the curiosity but there’s no need to fret and there’s no need to swear. This Curiosity is going to get crunched tonight, I’m guessing.” The orc lifted his finger.

“The culprits can’t leave which means that both them and our poor victims are still in this concert hall.”

Myk rubbed his chin. He had a blonde chinstrap beard. “Hmm. We should set a trap.”

“Hmm?” Jaim perked up.

“Oh, not you, Jaim. Not this time…” He mused out loud.

”Jeeze, fellahs… This is looking to be a hard curiosity and it’s almost night this place is gonna get scary with all the lights off… Are we sure we don’t wanna… you know, wait until tomorrow?” It was Firenzee, the shaggy bassist. He was wearing a red tank top with red arm sleeves. Below he wore green pants.

“Very sure!” Shedu announced.

“You’ll need my help crunching this curiosity!” Shedu offered, suddenly giving in to the insanity. She stopped questioning it and rapidly assimilated to her mad environment. She pounced between the gang and stuck her hand up.

“I’m Shedu, and I can Du anything, so I’m gonna help you find the culprits to this curiosity.”

“Shedu Du? I kinda like that!” Firenzee announced, sticking his hand in.

“We could really use a hand.”

“Alright, well… We’ve got our mascot. Now where do we start?” Jaim thought out loud. He looked to Cal.

“Any ideas, brainy?”

Cal smirked. “What about the labyrinth of tunnels running underneath the stage? It’s used to get the bodies out of the way for when they’re performing the Human-Spider Musical.”

“That’s where we start! Come on, Gang, let's try and head off these kidnappers!” Mysk announced.

Shedu’s sanity slipped back in for just a moment. Long enough for one of her cyber-eyes to short and twitch. Enough time for her to think to ask.

“Isn’t this tone really light-hearted for what is essentially a **** and ****.”

“Like, you’re telling me, man!” Firenzee agreed.

“All this talk about serious criminal activity makes me hungry… What do you say we split up and hit what’s left of the catering?”

Shedu nodded reluctantly. “Okay? Yeah! Food’ll help us think better.”

“That’s the spirit!”

Myk scolded them both. “Now's not the time, Firen. We need to be serious about this.” he paused. All of them looked around, seeming to be waiting for something. Myk huffed and admitted.

“I think we should split up so we can cover more ground.”

“There it is.” Jaim pointed.

“Me and Myk’ll explore the lower levels for a dark place to… find kidnappers.” He winked.

Cal adjusted his glasses. “I’m going to ask the stage manager some questions. I think I got a hunch that’ll crunch this curiosity in record time.”

“Then I guess that leave me and Shedu Du to, uh… inspect the backstage area.”

“Near the food!” Shedu cheered, getting into the spirit of things. The poor fox seemed to assimilate very well to any environment she was in. She enjoyed change and was drawn in by others' madness, so all of this was right up her alley.

“Alright Gang. Meet back at the stage in an hour.” Myk directed, leaving with Jaim. Cal walked out in a different direction. Firen and Shedu exchanged a dopey grin and rushed back to the catering room.

They wound their way through the narrow tunnels backstage, eventually arriving at the room. Along the way Firen explained while licking his chops comically.

“I’m gonna, like, make a sandwich so big I can’t even fit my mouth around it, Shedoob.”

“I can unhinge my jaw and fit almost anything in my mouth.” Shedu explained to Firen’s amazement.

“That’s incredible, Shedoob!”

“Why’re you calling me Shedoob!” She questioned angrily, gritting her teeth and getting ready to fight. She calmed down and felt a bit touched.

“It's like a pet name! You’re a friend, so I’ll call you Shedoob.”

“Oh…” As they approached the dining room they stopped, since they heard voices. Firen commented.

“We better get in there quick before they pack up all the food.”

Shedu held him back and motioned for him to be quiet. They listened to the teamsters talking.

“This damn fluffy metal band. I remember when bands were hard core! These newage punks don’t know anything about metal.” One of them complained loudly. The other chuckled.

“Almost makes you wanna make something for ‘em to feel bad about. These kids are so spotless. What if something happened to taint their records?”

Firen whispered while peeking his shaggy maned head around the corner. “These guys are, like, super sketchy.” Shedu nodded, then slowly turned her head. She wheezed and coughed pointing up and patting Firen.

“Like, what is it Shedoob? I’m trying to listen in on what these teamsters are planning.” Shedu continued trying to get his attention quietly.

“I know, buddy! We’ll find some food somewhere-” He paused and gulped as he felt a big hand on his shoulder. He looked back and saw the grinning face of a big orcish teamster.

“Like, we’ve been had! Book it Shedoob!” They both started sprinting through, past the other teamsters. Along the way Firen and Shedu both grabbed a stack of meats, lettuce, tomato and some bread and sauce off the table before ducking around the teeamsters.

“Eh? What the hell?”

“They heard about our plans, you dimwits! Get that burnout, and the stupid fox, too!”

The third orc teamster groaned. “Union’s not gonna like this.”

“Let’s go!”

For the next 55 minutes a comical chase scene ensued, with Shedu and Firen criss-crossing paths in the labyrinth-like backstage. At points they crossed Myk and Jaim and even ran into Cal, but they didn’t have time to explain what was going on so they just ran in and out of different doors in a long hallway, and eventually ended up on the stage 55 minutes later, with all three of the goons closing in on them.

“Like, I think this might be the end, Shedoob.”

“What? What do you mean? Are they gonna kill us or something?” Shedu asked, huddling together with Firen for comfort on the edge of the steep stage. It was a sheer drop down into the orchestra pit. They were at the back of an oval outcropping. They were trapped.

As the three orc teamsters advanced a trapdoor suddenly gave out beneath all of them. Their bulky bodies blocked up the door, trapping them all side by side, half in and half out of the stage. Their legs were kicking but they couldn’t move their arms.

“Gaaah! Dammit!” One of the teamsters shouted.

“Foiled by my own stage!”

“We did it, Shedoob!”

“We-” She cocked her head to one side.

“Did we? I don’t feel like we did anything but run around and eat food.”

“The trap worked!” Myk cheered, walking out on stage.

“Huh?” Jaim looked up.

“Not you, jaim.” He corrected.

“Oh.” Jaim nodded.

“These oafs were trying to set us up.”

“And I found the evidence of their plans… Which means it’s time to find out who these orcs really are! Because the documents I found were in the office of-” Cal paused for effect as he walked up to the trapped tria. Myk approached and grabbed the main teamster’s head. Shedu felt like she was going crazy, and that the wholesome band was gonna straight up kill a dude. Instead she felt even more insane as the head came off, revealing a human with wirey grey hair and a bald spot on top.

The entire gang gasped and said at once. “Old Man Weathers!?”

“But he helped us out so much by getting us this gig…” Jaim commented in a confused tone.

Cal smiled and nodded, holding up some papers. “Old Man Weathers wanted us to get this gig so that he could frame us. His plan was to shame us into becoming a hard-core metal band after all of our PG-13 fans moved to cancel us.”

“Wait… what?” Shedu looked around in pure confusion.

“I would’ve gotten away from it too! If it weren’t for you meddling kids and your fox!”

Shedu had to admit, it was exciting. She grinned and jumped up. “Shedu Shedu Duuuu!” The gang all cheered.

“Of course, I have to thank Kara. Without her help I never would’ve been turned onto Weathers’ intentions. The red-haired fox waved from beside Cal.

“Mr Weathers was instrumental in helping me get small gigs, but I always knew he had a dark side… He only wants hard-core Metal to exist.”

“I HATE soft modernity!” Weathers cringed, struggling to get out.

“Who are the other goons?” Shedu asked, squinting at them.

“Robots.” Cal said frankly.

Shedu’s mouth fell open. A mad smile crossed her lips. “Ah haha. Yeah! Of course!”

“Looks like this Curiosity is crunched, Gang. Let’s get in the Curiosity Car and head to the nearest milkshake bar!” Myk offered. They all cheered.

“Like…” Diren salivated.

“A place that sells burgers, too! I wanna get a triple stack burger with extra bacon!”

“Me too!” Shedu jumped up happily.

“Yeah! Hahaha, yeah! This is awesome! I love being a hero!” She paused, feeling weird as she said that.

“Huh… I… I love being a hero?”

“That’s the spirit, Shedu.” Myk smiled proudly.

“It feels good to help people.” Jaim added.

They left in the Curiosity Car. It was a purple, green and orange limousine with ‘Curiosity Car’ written in bubble letters across the side. They flew it to the nearest place that sold both Milkshakes and Burgers, then sat down and ordered. As Shedu was sipping her milkshake she couldn’t stop shaking the feeling that something was off.

“Wait… we never found my friends, did we?” A look of horror crossed her face as the others turned pale, as well.

“We didn’t find what we were actually looking for!? We got distracted!”

“Fuck!” Myk slammed his fist down on the table.

“Myk!” Jaim scolded.

“Sorry. Fuck.” He said more quietly, The orc unfolded the napkin he’d placed down on his lap and awkwardly shimmied everyone out of the booth so he could get out.

“I’m gonna hit the restroom. This was a cheat day and I shouldn’t be drinking Milkshakes with my lactose intolerance… I didn’t think we’d be doing anything after this. But, as soon as I’m out, we need to finish crunching this curiosity!”

“Yeah!” They all cheered.

“Shedu Shedu Duuu!” Shedu cheered/

“Let’s find my friends before we find ‘em in a ditch or buried somewhere!” Their mood diminished a little. Jaim cleared his throat. Everyone waited awkwardly for Myk to get back from the restroom.

***

Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed this story and want to read more of it, more Chapters are currently available to read at https://www.patreon.com/TVWintergreen I upload new chapters every week day with extra content also being released constantly to my discord for Extra Tier Members."