Chapter Text
The newest arrival to the Circus falls onto the stage as unceremoniously as the rest of them did. “Ow, okay, maybe don’t slam your face against the floor, that would be great,” she says, standing up to dust herself off. Well, “standing” is relative, in this case, as the woman in front of them doesn’t seem to have any legs. Halfway between sea slug and sheep, she pats herself down with four-fingered hands. A frilly turquoise dress with pink ruffles covers her mostly white body, purple ear-like antenna poking out from within leaf-shaped bits of “hair” cropped close to her head, emulating a sort of shaggy pixie cut. Chubby cheeks adorned with pink spots of blush sit comfortably below a pair of rather tiny and beady black eyes.
“Dammit. I knew I shoulda worn my glasses, I can’t see sh[%$!#].”
Jax breaks the silence among the rest of the humans to laugh. “You’re kidding me! Of all the things to carry over from the real world, it was their need for glasses?” Zooble glares at him, but before they can say anything to come to the new human’s rescue, she bites back. “Her need for glasses. Don’t they/them me because you’re too scared to be outright transphobic, d[%$!#]head.” Caine, popping back in from wherever he’d been moments ago, seems startled. “WOAH! I haven’t even had a chance to greet the new member yet and already she’s figuring out the censors! The last time this happened was with Zooble!” The slug woman waves dismissively. “Yeah, yeah, hold on a second guys, I’ll be back in a minute, I just need to take this headset off to find my glasses.”
“Uh, that’s-” Ragatha takes a cautious step forward, but the new woman holds out a hand. “It’s fine, I’ll be right back, just can’t figure out where I put them. Dammit, since when was this thing so tight?” She tugs at her face ineffectually for a moment before reaching behind her to search for a headset strap that isn’t there. She feels the new “hair” on her head and looks partway between confused and concerned. “Uh, the f[%$!#]? Wait, hold on, what? That is not my hair, what the f[%$!#]? God damn it, I still can’t f[%$!#]ing see!” Pomni looks up at the ringmaster with a pleading sort of look. “Caine, can you… y’know… give her glasses? She clearly needs them, and-” Caine cuts her off. “Right you are, Pomni! Here you are, you slippery sea cucumber you!” Caine snaps his fingers, and on the new girl’s face appears a pair of square glasses, blowing up her eyes to more normal proportions on her face. “Oh! Uh, cool, I guess. Let me… Look… Around…”
It’s clear from how her mouth gapes that she clearly wasn’t expecting anything like the assault on her eyes that the Circus provides. After a moment of gawking, her eyes seem to settle on the people around her. “Uh, where am I? I thought this was just some fun VR game rom off the Pirate Bay, how is this possible? Who are you guys? What is even happening?” Ragatha approaches again. “Now, let’s just try to calm down for a second, everything’s gonna be okay.” Pomni takes a few steps closer, nodding her agreement. “Yeah, we’ve all been through this. It’s confusing, but-” The new girl shakes her head. “No, no, I’m okay, just confused. What’s even happening?”
“You my friend have stumbled into an incredible world of wonders, where anything can happen! …Except for swearing.” Caine gives the same speech for everyone, but this time Zooble chimes in. “And sex, apparently,” they grumble, crossing their arms. Caine looks actively disgusted. “And… that. The Amazing Digital Circus is a place to be enjoyed by all ages!” The new girl seems just as disappointed in that as Zooble is. “Seriously? I thought half the fun of these online VR games was all the sexual bullsh[%$!#] people came up with. I mean, seriously, this place is full of freaks already!” Jax laughs, much to everyone else’s mild disgust. “Ooh, I like her!” The slug woman continues:
“I mean, we’ve got a furry-” she points at Jax, and his smile immediately drops.
“Hey, wait, I’m not-”
“We’ve got a clown f[%$!#]shist,” she points to Pomni.
“What?! No! I-”
“We’ve got little miss shibari personified,” she points to Gangle.
“U-uh, I-”
“We’ve got a literal living sex toy,” she points to Zooble.
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell him.”
“We’ve got someone with a doll kink,” she points to Ragatha,
“No no no, I don’t think you understa-”
“And we’ve got… Uh…” She squints at Kinger, who squints back. “I’m actually not sure about you.”
“Well, thank you!” He seems genuinely flattered - and genuinely out of it.
“Anyway, how can you look at all of these people and say that this place is even remotely PG? If you’re gonna make this place be ‘family friendly’, at least go all the way.”
Caine freezes for a moment, the same way he always does when something against his programming comes up. After a tense few moments of silence, something pings, and it’s back to normal, obnoxious Caine. “Looks like it’s time to give our brand new member a tour!” He floats up to the new girl, taking her arm and dragging her off to the outside of the tent as per usual. Moments later, she shows up again, looking nauseous. “Oh dear god, this was a bad idea… I would like to get off Mr. Bones’ Wild Ride...”
“That’s the neat part,” Jax says, wandering up to elbow her in the side. “You can’t! We’re stuck here.” This seems to snap the new girl out of her dizzy stupor. “Wait, hang on, what?! Stuck? As in, no way out, stuck?” Gangle, led by Zooble, finally speaks up. “Uh, th-that would be the… Definition of ‘stuck’, yeah…” The slug woman looks like she’s processing something. “Okay, this is some serious Sword Art Online bullsh[%$!#], y’all are telling me I got isekai’d into f[%$!#]n’ Purble Place?” The anime references seem to get Gangle’s attention, and her eyes widen, sensing a fellow weeb like a shark senses blood. Ragatha is the one to answer her though. “Uh, yeah. Pretty much. We’ve been stuck here for years.” Pomni raises a hand. “I’ve only been here a few months, I think. It’s kinda hard to keep track, but we apparently each get a special adventure when it’s the anniversary of the day we got here, so-”
“Years?! You guys have been here for years?!”
“Y’know, slimy, you don’t have to repeat everything people say,” Jax teases, “we can all hear each other just fine.”
She looks confused. “Slimy? I am not slimy, why would I be slimy?”
“Do yourself a favor and look down,” Zooble says, and they brace themselves for screaming once she realizes the horror of her body shape.
“...Oh. So that’s why my joints don’t hurt anymore.”
This is clearly not the reaction anyone was expecting, least of all Jax. “Wait, so you want us to believe you’re actually okay with being this jelly thing for the rest of eternity?” The new girl raises an eyebrow. “Uh… Yeah? Why wouldn’t I be? It’s not like it’s any worse than how I… used to…” She trails off. “Why can’t I remember what I used to look like?” Ragatha places a tentative hand on the slug woman’s shoulder. “Uh, so don’t freak out or anything, but none of us can really remember who we used to be before coming here. What our names were, what we used to look like, all of it is just kinda… Gone.”
The new girl takes a moment to process, before letting out something nobody expected: a sigh of relief. “Oh, thank f[%$!#]! Oh, that makes things a million times easier, oh my god. No deadnames to randomly come across, no old pictures that I look at and hate, none of that, god, it’s like the weight of the world is off my shoulders!” She actually laughs, clearly delighted. Everyone else looks almost unnerved. “Oh Kinger,” Jax calls, “we have another nutso sucker to join you in your pillow fort!”
“You’re one to talk, Diseaster Bunny,” she retorts immediately, throwing his energy right back at him to smack him dead in the face. “And I wouldn’t actually mind being in a pillow fort. Seems nice.” Kinger pokes his head out of his ‘impenetrable fortress’ for a moment. “Did someone say something about an insect collection?”
“We are getting very sidetracked!” Caine butts in, shoving himself between the new woman and everyone else. “How about a name? Your new name can be anything! Hereby acknowledging that your chosen name and/or names may not breach the Digital Circus User License Agreement stating that your name may not include objectionable content. Objectionable content includes but is not limited to sexually explicit materials, obscene, defamatory, libelous, slanderous, violent, and/or unlawful content or profanity. What are ya thinkin’?” The new girl seems to think for a moment, before asking, “Could I get an introduction from everyone else first?” Caine floats down from his place in the sky. “Of course! Why don’t you all introduce yourselves?”
The first to step up and approach is Ragatha. “Uh, hi! My name’s Ragatha, it’s really nice to meet you. I really hope we can be friends!” The new girl smiles at her, and nods. “I hope so too. You seem like a good person. Most of you do, actually.”
“Most of us? I’m flattered you consider me outside the norm, slimy.”
Jax takes a step forward and presses a finger into her chest. Her whole body jiggles, and he chuckles, turning away. The new girl crosses her arms. “No, actually. You seem like you’d be a good person too, under all that insecurity. The one I was talking about is the chess piece, who I just haven’t seen enough to know for sure yet.” Suffice it to say, getting clocked as easily as that is startling to Jax, and he freezes.
“Oh, Kinger? He’s great, actually, I think he’s one of the kindest people I’ve ever met. Uh, my name’s Pomni, by the way.” The jester reaches out a hand for the slug woman to shake, and she does, raising a nonexistent eyebrow. “What do you need to remember to do, Pomni?” She looks confused. “Huh? What do you mean?” The new girl looks down at her. “'Pomnin' is Russian for ‘remember’, specifically like, ‘remember to do this’. Did you not know that?” Given the stunned expressions on everyone’s faces, the answer is clear. “Seriously? Do none of you know Russian? Huh. I mean, I knew it wasn’t exactly common in the States, but I figured-”
“MOVING ON!”
Caine was clearly getting bored with this conversation, so he shoves Gangle and Zooble to the front of the pack. “Hey, I’m Zooble. Glad to meet someone else who’s actually willing to be real about all this.” The new girl smiles. “Of course. I get the feeling that you and I are gonna get along pretty well, you seem cool. Both of you do.” The ribbon girl blushes, looking away. “U-um, hey, my name’s Gangle… I, um, I really like anime, you like anime too, right?” The slug girl smiles, scoffing. “Do I like anime, the hell kind of question is that? Of course I like anime, anime is awesome! We should share our favourites one of these days. If we’re gonna be stuck here forever, might as well have someone cool to nerd out with.” The look of sheer delight on Gangle’s face is only interrupted once Jax senses his favourite person to torment is actually happy, and he sets about trying to fix that.
“Oops.”
Before he can even do anything, Gangle practically jumps out of her skin. Moments later, the comedy mask she was wearing lays on the ground in two pieces, something that the new girl couldn’t quite see having gone down between the two of them. Zooble looks absolutely pissed.
“God damn it, Jax, can’t we just go one day without you doing this?!”
“Hmm, lemme think about that one… Nope! Hope this helps, Zoobie.”
“F[%$!#] off.”
Jax laughs, walking away. “Sorry about him,” Zooble says, wrapping a mismatched arm around Gangle to comfort her. “Jax is a d[%$!#] to everyone just for the hell of it.”
The new girl shakes her head. “I get it, I was a huge a[%$!#]hole before I transitioned too. Have you tried putting him in a dress yet?”
“Uh, yeah, actually we did,” the ribbon girl answers between sniffles, giggling softly at the memory. The new girl looks genuinely surprised. “Huh. That worked for me. Ah well. Something will happen and he’ll get his sh[%$!#] together, I’m sure.” Zooble looks back at Jax, doubtful, but sighs. “Here’s hoping…”
“Well! Now that you’ve met everyone and know all their names, why don’t you pick one for yourself?” Caine gets uncomfortably close to the new girl, clearly getting impatient for an answer, but she stares him down, seemingly unbothered. “...I like Viola. It’s got a nice ring to it.” Viola nods, the name fitting like a glove. “Yeah. Viola. You happy now, dental plan?”
“Gadzooks you’re right! We should have a brand new adventure for our new member, Viola! You!” He points down to Viola with his baton. “Do you like adventure? Activity? Wonder? Danger? Horror? Pain? Suffering? Agony? Death? Disease? Death? Angel food cake?” Viola raises an eyebrow. “You said ‘death’ twice.” Pomni looks baffled. “That was your takeaway?!”
Caine, ignoring both of them, wraps an arm around Viola’s shoulders. “Since you’re new around here, we’re gonna make it a simple in-house adventure to warm you up to how things work around here, just like we did for Pomni!” Zooble sputters. “Wha- God damn it! This bullsh[%$!#] again?!” Caine ignores them again. “Today’s adventure is:” He snaps, and colourful block letters spell out above him: “Collect the keys!” Everyone glares at Jax for reasons that Viola can’t quite understand.
“Scattered around this tent are nine different keys, one to each of these nine locks!” Caine waves his baton, and a chained up door with nine enormous, coloured padlocks appears behind him in a puff of smoke.
“But Caine!” Bubble, his companion, floats in from seemingly nowhere. “What’s behind the door?”
“I’m glad you asked, Bubble! It’s-”
“Is it a sex dungeon, fully-stocked and ready for use at any time by anyone?”
Caine stares at Bubble in shocked silence for a moment, before shouting, “You degenerate!” and popping him without a second thought. “Behind the door is a mystery prize! One for each of you, in fact!” Jax approaches the door, digging around in his overalls for something before coming up victorious. “Cool, seven brand new prizes for me,” he says, twirling a lockpick between his fingers. Viola looks unimpressed. “Not so fast, England’s finest dental health model,” she jabs, earning a chuckle from Zooble, who seems otherwise entirely uninterested. “I’m not letting you just swipe sh[$%!#] from everyone. Especially if every prize is tailored to each of us, which it clearly will be. I’ve seen enough TV to know what this whole schtick is.”
“Right you are, curvaceous jelly jumble! Once the door is open, there will be seven gift boxes, each of which can only be opened by their respective recipient!” Pomni looks disturbed. “Wait, did you just call her ‘curvaceous’?” Viola, equally disgusted, shakes her head. “Yeah, no. Don’t call me that. I don’t like men.” Jax is still trying to pick one of the locks - a purple one. “What, not even a little bit? C’mon, Jello, there’s gotta be some guy out there.”
“Don’t be homophobic, Jax,” Ragatha warns.
“I’m not! I’m just sayin’, everyone’s got their exceptions. Even I do.”
“I shudder to think of the things you would consider ‘exceptions’,” Viola says, shaking her head again. “Not something I wanna think about less than ten minutes after meeting you.”
“HOWEVER!” Caine crashes headlong into their train of thought with one of his own. “Each key must be used in a specific order! If you fail to figure out the correct order, the keys will be scattered across the tent once again!”
“Wh- That’s not at all fair!” Pomni protests. “There are like, half a million possible combinations! How are we meant to figure out the order?!”
“362,880,” Kinger corrects, to everyone’s clear surprise. Caine seems somewhat dejected. “Fine! I can make it a little easier for you.” He snaps his fingers, and two of the locks disappear. Additionally, each lock is colour-coded a little differently: one is white with a red clasp, one is purple with a yellow keyhole, and one is even teal and pink with a white keyhole. “There! One lock for everyone! Happy?” Zooble scoffs, rolling their eyes. “Yeah, sure. Gangle can open mine. The rest of you have fun or whatever. If any of you need me, f[%$!#] off.” As they begin to make their way back towards their room, Caine waves his baton, and the door moves from the stage to blocking the bedrooms, slamming down right in front of Zooble.
“Wh- Caine, what the f[%$!#]?!”
“Now now Zooble, we can’t just run out on our new friend here! She deserves to be shown what fun we can have around the circus!”
Zooble glares daggers at the ringmaster. “Uh-huh. Fun. That’s the word for this.”
“Hey, it could be worse,” Ragatha points out, “at least there’s no gloinks this time, right?”
“Yeah. Very uplifting, Rags. Thank you.”
Ragatha cringes, realizing that she struck a nerve. At the awkward silence that follows, Caine clears his throat. “Good luck finding all the keys, adventurers!” The ringmaster vanishes in a puff of smoke, leaving the troupe alone once again. Pomni is the first to speak up. “Okay, so, we should probably split off into groups, right? That way, we can cover more ground, but we can still be prepared in case Caine has set up any… Obstacles.”
“Because of course Maniac Eniac would set up obstacles for a simple find the keys puzzle,” Viola adds, chuckling softly. Jax seems to have given up on lockpicking for now, glad to find someone he can torment. “Alright, c’mon Ribbons, let’s go find these keys.” Gangle seems hesitant - almost scared - to follow him, but does anyway. Viola takes a good look around at the people surrounding her, and upon realizing that nobody is willing to really challenge Jax on this, shakes her head. “Alright, jaundice. Count me in. Where are we going first?”
“Jaundice!? I am not-”
“Really? Your eyes are the same colour as your teeth. That’s jaundice, buddy.”
Jax grumbles, clearly liking Viola less and less by the minute. She pays him absolutely no mind. “So. Uh, Gangle, right? What kind of anime do you like?”
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It takes some time, but eventually, one of Jax’s ears twitches, and then swivels in a new direction. “Hey losers, could you pause your anime smash or pass sesh for a second? I think I hear something.” Gangle looks embarrassed. “Th-that’s not-” Viola puts a hand on her shoulder. “Hey, it’s cool. Let him listen for a sec.” After a moment of silence, he grabs one of them in each hand, starting to drag them along. “Hey, wait a tic bunny boy,” Viola says, “wanna share with the class what you’re hearing?” He seems to ignore them, his ears swiveling like radar dishes as he drags both her and Gangle behind him. A soft sort of ringing can be heard, almost ethereal, getting louder as Jax continues to lead them. Gangle speaks up: “W-wait, I think I can hear it too! It sounds like-” They turn a corner, and floating in the middle of a few oversized building blocks is a key, mostly purple with an ornate golden crown handle. “One of the keys! Nice going, Jax, I’d have never been able to hear that over Gangle and I!” Viola smiles at him, and he rolls his eyes. “Helps that I wasn’t listening to you guys prattle on about which JoBro got done the dirtiest.” Both Viola and Gangle stare at him for a moment. That’s exactly what they were just talking about, beat for beat.
Before either of them can call him on it, he picks up the key. “Looks like this one belongs to hoo-ha,” he says, stashing the key in his overalls. “That’s a little weird, though,” Viola says, looking around them. “I thought Pomni said there might be… Y’know…” Before she can say more, the three of them find the floor having fallen underneath them. Both Jax and Gangle seem to panic, and Viola, acting quickly, does the only thing she can think of: grabbing both of them and holding them close to her chest. Her gelatinous body absorbs most of the impact, leaving all three of them perfectly unharmed. Jax almost immediately shoves her away from him, miming wiping slime off himself.
“You slimed me!”
“Would you rather I just let you fall to your doom? I saw how scared you were!”
“Yes! And I was not scared! I-”
“U-uh, guys…?” Gangle looks around them, and the two of them stop their bickering long enough to notice their surroundings. The floor beneath them is unmistakably still that of the Circus tent, black and white checked linoleum reflecting them even in the dim light. The walls and ceiling arch up around them, made entirely from impossibly large pillows. Through some miracle, they’ve managed to make it into Kinger’s ‘impenetrable fortress’.
“Good citizens of the Amazing Digital Circus!” Caine’s voice broadcasts from nowhere. Stadium lights come on, revealing through the darkness that they’re trapped in a stadium of some sort, a blue-bodied copy of Kinger sitting on an enormous throne, banners with his face on it adorning every surface. “Welcome to the Arena!”
“Oh no.” Gangle looks downright terrified.
“Holy sh[%$!#].” Viola looks stunned.
“Oh yes! Finally! This is something I can get behind!” Jax looks with clear glee upon the roaring crowd of mannequins. Viola smiles. “Like being in the spotlight, huh? Can’t say I blame you.” Jax scoffs. “What, the spotlight? I couldn’t care less about the attention, I’m here for the violence!” Gangle shrinks back even further into herself. “U-um, I’m just gonna… Let you guys handle this one… If that’s okay…” Viola looks back at her, an eyebrow raised. “Weren’t we just talking about something like this? C’mon, I’m sure we can all do something.”
“Your goal is to entertain our Glorious Leader Dictatorer! Once he’s satisfied, he’ll let you out - and let you keep the key!” The evil copy of Kinger - apparently named ‘Dictatorer’ - holds up a plush pillow, the key from earlier laying on top of it. Jax frantically checks his pockets. “Wh- how- I just had that thing!” Viola giggles. “W-wait,” Gangle says, “if our objective is to entertain, then… do we even have to hurt anyone?”
“Who cares? I know what’s most entertaining for me,” Jax says, searching around for any sort of equipment he can gather, “and that’s bloodshed!” A few racks of various weaponry pop into existence, a few of the weapons glitching through the racks to fall behind them. Jax grabs a mace, giving it a few swings. “Hell yeah, I could crack some skulls with this!” He slams it full-force into the back of Viola’s head, and she screams, not quite able to duck out of the way in time. It sinks harmlessly into her jelly-like body with a sickening squelch. Jax cackles. “Oh, I forgot nobody told you that we can’t die here,” he chokes out between laughs. “Oh, that was hilarious! You shoulda seen your face!” Viola glares at him. “Yeah, laugh it up, buddy. I wasn’t the one holding on for dear life when we fell down here a minute ago.”
She tugs on the mace until it dislodges itself from her head with a cartoonish pop, her leaf-shaped hair settling back down where it was. She smooths it back, accidentally running her hands over her antenna. She shivers. “Ooh, okay, that’s weird. Yikes. Okay. Is there anything other than weaponry around here?” Glancing around, she finds her answer to be as disappointing as Jax finds it amusing. “No. Got it. Great. Gladiator pit it is.” She picks up a longsword, checking its balance in her hands and making a few moves towards Jax with it. He grins. “Ooh, I’m terrified. Gonna cut me in half?” Viola scoffs. “In your dreams. I don’t want your sweat on this thing. Gangle, do you want help picking a weapon?”
The ribbon girl looks more and more closed off the longer they stay down here. “Uh, n-no thanks, I was kinda thinking I could just… Stay behind… Let you do all the, um… Hurting people.” Viola crouches next to her - so far as a slug can crouch, anyway - and sets a gentle hand on her ribbon shoulder. “Hey, it’s alright. I remember some of this stuff, actually. Never did any of it myself, but I saw videos online about it. Uh, hang on.” She rummages through the piles of weapons for a second before coming out victorious - the single most enormous katana either of them have ever seen in her hands.
“This,” she explains, “is an odachi. It’s big, it’s quick, and most importantly, if you swing this thing around you? Nobody with even half a brain is gonna step within ten feet of you. Plus,” she cracks a smile, handing the hilt over to Gangle. “You get to feel like a badass anime character while you wield it.” This actually seems to entice the ribbon girl a bit, the tears from her tragedy mask falling with a little less force than they were before. She wraps her ribbons around it, standing up to give it a few swings. Viola steps back in time, but Jax only barely manages to, clearly startled. “Hey! Watch it, crybaby!” Viola chuckles. “C’mon. What’s she gonna do? Cut you in half?” Jax glares at her, picking up the mace again and rapping it against the bars blocking them from entering the arena proper. “Hey Evil Kinger! We’re ready!” Gangle seems to panic for a moment. “W-wait! Hold on!” Unfortunately, it’s too little too late.
The gate drops, and Jax immediately rushes into battle. A veritable tide of mannequins exits the other side, the sound of a thousand wooden limbs clacking filling the arena. The rabbit cackles, twirling his mace, and slams it into the tide, knocking mannequins flying. Still, the more he knocks down, the more seem to flood their way from the gates. Simply battling enough of them won’t be enough, but that’s clearly not going to stop him. “If you wanted to crack skulls so badly,” Viola shouts, trying to stay by Gangle as long as she can, “you should’ve joined a fraternity!” The bunny, breathing heavily with exertion, shouts back: “Who says I didn’t?”
Gangle looks unsure of herself, watching as Jax is tossed about by the mannequins. Sure, the crowd cheers when he bowls them over, but they also laugh when he falls, giving her an idea. “W-wait! Jax! They don’t just want violence! They want a show!” He glances back at them, causing himself to trip - the audience laughs again. “Yeah, and? Violence is the show, ribbons! That’s what a gladiator pit is!”
“She’s right! I saw them laugh when you fell over! You’re not a gladiator, bunny boy,” Viola calls after him, a wild grin on her face. “You’re a clown!” Jax wheels around. “I am not-” Before he can finish the sentence, another mannequin charges him. When he swings his mace at it, he misses entirely, spinning around before falling flat on his back. The crowd cheers like they’ve never seen anything funnier in their life. “See? I told ya! You’re killing it, Jax, just not in the way you thought!” He stands up, dusting himself off, and glares daggers at Viola. “I hate you.”
Gangle looks down at her odachi, before nodding, striking a hesitant pose as more of the mannequins rush past Jax towards her. “U-uh, Ultimate ribbon slash!” She swings the sword over her head once to gather momentum before bringing it across, cutting through a half dozen enemies that weren’t even in range - just like any ultimate attack might do. The crowd goes wild, cheering and hollering, some even chanting Gangle’s name. Viola shouts over to her, cutting down another few of the endless waves of mannequins with her longsword. “Hell yeah! That was awesome!” She starts to exaggerate her swordplay, using techniques that would not even remotely work to incredible effect, even using her jelly-like body to her advantage for some slapstick comedy. Jax, meanwhile, looks positively furious, continuing his reckless bashing with increased fervor. Still, even he couldn’t help but ham it up for the crowd, sending scores of enemies flying with cartoonish flair.
“Ladies, gentlemen, and everyone in between,” Viola shouts to the crowd, “Welcome to the main event! Watch as Bunny the Barbarian, Ribbon Hero Gangle, and I, Viola de Bergerac, kick as many of your wooden a[%$!#]es as possible!” The crowd cheers, standing or stomping in their seats. The more the three of them make it a show, the louder they get. Jax “accidentally” hits himself in the head with his mace, tripping another mannequin as he bows, much to the crowd’s adoration. Gangle imitates attacks and poses from her favourite shows, shouting out new attack names like the shonen protagonist she was pretending she could be. Even despite her comedy mask still being in pieces, she smiled, wide and wild as the crowd oohed and aahed at her impressive set of moves. Viola marked a happy medium between the two, the slapstick comedy of Jax’s routine and the endless badassery of Gangle’s melding together into a style all her own, tying it all together with showboating commentary, exaggerated heroics, and just enough actual swordplay to keep both afloat.
Soon enough, even the Glorious Leader was standing from his throne, applauding them himself with clear, zany glee. The gates slammed shut, halting the tide of mannequins. Jax grabbed a pair by the back of their heads and clobbered them together, himself in the middle, all three of them falling over backwards to the crowd’s clear delight. Gangle took a final slash with her odachi and made an overly formal bow, saying something in Japanese that neither Viola nor Jax could understand. Viola, grinning like a maniac, ended her poem and her fight with the same line, “...And I strike as I end the refrain!” The crowd cheers for their heroes, chanting their names. The booming voice of Dictatorer over the crowd: “An incredible performance! The prize is yours!” He flings both pillow and key onto the ground in front of them, and they skid to a halt nearby. The moment it touches the ground, the crowd, weapons, and even the stadium itself all vanish, leaving Kinger’s impenetrable fortress once again empty.
“Huh. Guess it worked.” Jax shrugs. “Still would’ve preferred a bloodbath, though.”
“With a performance like that, the only thing coming away from that bloodied is your ego. I’m glad you actually kept up the slapstick though, you did great!” Gangle, catching her breath, clutches her arms close. “Th-thanks, guys,” she says with a soft smile. “I- I don’t think I could’ve done it without-” Viola tosses an arm around her shoulders, squeezing gently. “What’d I tell you? You’ve got the spirit for it, Ribbon Hero, all you needed was the right stage.” Jax rolls his eyes, even as the corner of his mouth tugs upwards into a small smile. “Ugh, don’t get all sappy on me. Let’s just take this stupid key and get outta here.” Viola chuckles, grabbing the key from the pillow. “And that, ladies and gentlemen,” she says to herself, “is how you steal the show.”