“What is it about a smile that is just so… contagious, my dear Sunbeams?”

The face of Mister Sunshine fills our screen, strangely deadpan.

“A simple twitching of muscles in your face makes your lips curl, and what we see is understood as a sign of happiness. It’s incredibubble! Then, a smile spreads like smoke, infecting those that breathe it in until they too wear that picture of joy.”

“Isn’t it a beautiful thing?”

Slowly, the usual cheery grin spreads across his mouth.

“A smile begins in our senses. The ear hears a kind word. The eyes spot an old friend. The hand feels the pressure of another hand. This emotional data shoots into the brain and two muscles leap into action.”

“Firstly, the muscles that pull our lips upwards. Secondly, the muscles around our eyes.”

“Only when BOTH muscles work together is it a real, actual smile. The cheek muscles can be tricked into action, and the face will smile… but the eyes, they beam only genuine sunshine. It’s in the eyes that you can tell a false smile.”

Sunshine holds a warning finger aloft.

“For some may fool many with a fake smile they wear as an artificial mask, but they won’t fool my little Sunbeams. Only through real emotions in our soul will the eye muscles dance.”

“When they stay still, it unmasks a false friend. When we look for somebody’s sunshine, we don’t look for the smiling mask they wear, we look into their eyes.”

Sunshine pauses, thinking. The smile fades from his face.

“Even though we are partners, when I look into the eyes of Mr. Nox… I’m not sure I see a friend smiling back at me. Not in his eyes, Sunbeams. Be wary of those that blow artificial smoke at you to try and hide behind.”

“Nox is the master of the artificial. With a little concoction, he can bewitch the mind and enslave the senses.”

“I’ve felt it’s effects, I’ve breathed his smoke trying to bend my mind. Yet as powerful as that gas was, it is nothing more than a fake smile that is all cheeks and no eyes – masking the truth.”

“That is why his gas will never affect my beaming light. Because I know my truth, that behind the smoke, my sun still shines.”

“My hope is that the world smiles with genuine joy, not an artificial concoction of a smile thought up in some creepy lab.”

In a snap, Sunshine beams a bright grin once more.

“So, my little Sunbeams. Don’t be fooled by the smoke.”

“Make sure your smiles reflect your joy. Don’t let the darkness steal your sunshine away, or the smoke of false fear darken your mind. We can overcome Arcadia’s false smiles, to spread our TRUE Sunshine with a song in our heart and a genuine smile in our eyes.”

“We only have to believe that the Sun will continue to shine once the smoke clears.”

“Then some day, Sunbeams, Nox will step out from behind his mask and that artificial smile he fakes so well will finally reach his eyes.”