Little Ed's Carnival of Chaos
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By: Akiko, Keeper of Sheep
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Chapter Two: Coulrophobia Is No Laughing Matter
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They were three dart games, two ring toss games, one net-climbing game, six milk bottle games, one fishing game, and four water gun racing games into the midway (or, if you want an alternative counting system, one stuffed giraffe, one stuffed unicorn, two stuffed dogs, three goldfish, six glowsticks, two whistles, a smiley face beach ball, and a neon pink jester hat with bells on) when Shindou spotted it.
"Hey, Touya, how about I win you that," he shouted, pointing enthusiastically and nearly taking a carnie's eye out in the process.
Akira sighed. It wasn't as though he wasn't flattered. No one had ever tried to win things for him before, and it was kind of nice to get that sort of attention. The downside, however, was the large plastic bag full of things he didn't need (or, in fact, particularly want) that he would have to find space for in his luggage.
Peering down at the goldfish bag in his other hand, he watched Seki, Sente, and Sabaki wriggle about in their little plastic world and wondered if goldfish counted as carry-on.
"Hey, old man! This game is rigged!"
Heaving a weary sigh, Akira turned from his fishy contemplation to mediate yet another confrontation between Shindou and the man in charge of the bell ringing game.
A flash of fire-engine red in his peripheral vision gave him pause.
It couldn't be...could it?
But when he'd slowly tilted his head, all he could see was a small child with pigtails and half the contents of her Sno Cone on the front of her shirt.
My imagination. It must be.
As he calmed Shindou and explained to the carnie that no, his friend wasn't accusing him of anything, and no, he wasn't currently medicated, he caught another glimpse of something. It was pasty white this time, and Akira could feel his pulse begin to race.
We are at a carnival. It would make sense.
But again, when he turned to look, there was nothing there.
"Touya-kun, have you seen Waya," Isumi asked softly, causing Akira to jump about ten feet in the air and nearly drop his fish.
Now the carnie was looking at him like maybe nice men in white coats should be contacted surreptitiously. Blushing madly, Akira shook his head. "Er, n-no, Isumi-san. M-maybe he went on the rides with Nase-san?"
"Maybe." Isumi puffed out his cheeks in an annoyed sigh. "I told him I was getting cotton candy," he continued, almost jabbing one of the sticks of cavity-creating carnival confection up Akira's nose in his contentiousness. "He even made me buy him one. I should give it to Shindou, just to tick him off," the older man finished with an uncharacteristic grumble.
For his part, Akira was only half-listening. He could have sworn he'd seen a pair of oversized shoes peeking out from underneath a tent flap, and he was beginning to shiver violently. Shoving his prizes into Isumi's arms (and nearly sending both tufts of pink candy flying), Akira bowed slightly.
"I'll go find him," he started to say shakily, but alas, his escape was neatly thwarted.
"Look, Mommy! Mister Bobbo!"
Akira's mind went blank.
"Omaeo korosu, Inakamono-san!"
There was no thought involved. One second, his rival was laughing at him, and the next, there was a heavy mallet in his hands and a dead clown at his feet.
He panicked for a second. After all, he'd just killed a clown. This might have been America, but surely there were laws against murdering children's entertainers, even in Southern California. Visions of black-and-white stripes and chain gangs and bikers named Bubba saying 'you mah bitch now' flooded his mind. He couldn't go to prison. He was far too pretty for prison.
As it happened, his fear was unjustified.
Mister Bobbo, as a nearby child had dubbed it, was slowly picking itself up off the ground, groaning like the undead. Which wasn't very odd, because it was undead, as Akira could plainly see when its be-wigged head lifted up. That one, terror-filled mallet strike had unhinged its jaw so that it dangled from its face by a few shreds of facepainted flesh.
As if regular clowns aren't creepy enough, Akira thought disgustedly.
Then, all hell broke loose.
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Hikaru wasn't certain what had gone wrong.
He had been having a wonderful time playing games, winning Touya all manner of wonderful prizes (one of which was sure to touch the Go prodigy so much that he'd instantly fall in love with Hikaru, and they could go have hot, sweaty rival sex behind the Tilt-A-Whirl) and eating a corn dog. He was sure Touya was getting over his trepidation at being at the carnival. The other man had even named his goldfish, which surely meant he was mere seconds away from being relaxed enough for rival sex!
Oddly, though, Touya did not drag him away to perform illicit acts upon Hikaru's willing person. In fact, he seemed to be getting tenser and tenser the longer they lingered by the bell ringing game. As he had yet to hear Touya cry 'take me now, my beloved', he could only assume it wasn't because he was anxious to get to the lovin'. In fact, Hikaru had noticed an odd correlation between the number of clowns in the general vicinity and the ferocity with which Touya shivered.
Touya's...afraid...of clowns?
Hikaru tried to fit this strangely-shaped piece into his mental Touya-Puzzle. It seemed incongruous that the ever-collected, logical Touya Akira would be afraid of something so silly as clowns. Sure, the creepy ones with sharp teeth and chainsaws that would pop up in houses of horror were kind of creepy, but regular clowns? Who would ever be scared of regular clowns?
And then there was a hulking great clown with weird, yellowed eyes and missing teeth looming behind Touya, and a little boy shouting "Look, Mommy! Mister Bobbo!", and Akira was screaming death threats and swinging a mallet, and oh, look. Zombie Clown.
Zombie Clown?
Blinking, Hikaru took a step back, then another, and bumped into something that honked at him playfully. Slowly, ever so slowly, he turned his head.
"Zombie Clown," he screamed (in a manly way, of course), thrusting out both hands and sending the new threat tumbling backwards onto the bell game target.
BONG!
As though the sound of Hikaru finally winning at the game ("Ha!") was some sort of signal, a small army of clowns shuffled out of the crowd, circling around the Go pros and chuckling in that eerie, not-quite-right clown way. As Touya didn't look to be giving up the mallet any time soon, Hikaru quickly scanned the area for a weapon of his own. No way was he going to let his soon-to-be-partner-in-sexy-time-fun fight this battle alone!
Leaping over the counter of the milk bottle game, Hikaru grabbed a pair of heavy ("I knew these were weighted, you cheating bastards!") bottles and lobbed them at the nearest clown, knocking off its nose (both the squeaky red one, and the real one) and putting a sizeable dent in its forehead.
This is not good.
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As Akira swung his mallet blindly, knocking jewel-tone-clad limbs off left and right, he could hear Shindou bellowing from his fortified position. He felt a bit less horrified with the knowledge that he wasn't battling this evil alone. At the very least, providing they survived this, there would be one other person who wouldn't be tempted to lock him away in a padded room if he brought up undead clowns.
Wait, one other person? Isumi-san!
Daring a quick glance around, Akira realized that their easy-going friend was nowhere to be seen. For one terrifying moment, Akira thought the clowns had actually eaten Isumi. He was relieved, therefore, to spot the man legging it towards the exit.
At least he'll escape alive, Akira thought nobly. He could've at least tried to help, the less-noble side of his personality griped as he knocked a midget zombie clown's head into the popcorn vendor's booth. Just behind him, he could hear the dull clunk of wooden bottles making contact with undead faces.
"Why me," Shindou was wailing, pelting his opponents with makeshift projectiles. "Why do the dead people always find me?"
Which was a strange fate to bemoan - normal people didn't often find themselves beseiged by hordes of the dead (or undead, in this case). Then again, since when was anything about Shindou normal?
He was startled out of his ponderings by a stream of water to the face. Wiping his eyes roughly, Akira hefted his mallet and sent the clown with the gaudy plastic flower soaring. He couldn't afford to get careless now. He would show these clowns that messing with Touya Akira was the worst decision they'd ever made, or die trying.
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As Touya made a brave stand against the insane clown posse and Shindou launched a counter-offensive comprised mainly of plush starfish (having run out of bottles in short order), a lone figure snickered to himself.
His dark eyes followed the prime target, racing for the exit with two sticks of cotton candy in one hand and a bag of goldfish in the other. Twirling his pencil-thin moustache around one gloved finger in a sinister manner, Waya cackled maniacally.
"Run all you like, Isumi! I'll have you chained to my bed before long!"
And with a swish of his black silk cape, he vanished back into the shadows.
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A/N - Another chapter! Yay! And it's just as weird and insensible as the first! Yay! And Waya has a moustache! Yay!
The moustache thing is inspired, in part, by a piece of fanart on deviantArt wherein the Autobots peek into an alternate universe where they're all evil, and the only difference is that they all have curly moustaches.
Teehee.
The clown-fight is inspired by...well...a clown fight. For details, read CrazyGirl47's incredibly hilarious Power Ranger's fanfiction, 'Of Love and Bunnies'. It's totally worth it.
Ahem. Anyway, I feel the need to point out that the crew are older than they are in the series; Hikaru and Touya are 19, Waya and Nase are 20, and Isumi is 23. I was pretty sure that those ages conformed to their canon age differences, but if I've cocked that up, let me know.
Translation Note:
Akira (being Akira) named his goldfish after Go terms. Not that I think anyone's all that interested (or ignorant of Go), but if you are, read on:
Seki: "mutual life". An impasse that can't be made into simple life-and-death.
Sente: "initiative" or "preceding hand". In simplest terms, being on the offensive. A player with sente controls the flow of the game, while the player on the defensive (gote) is forced to respond.
Sabaki: Creating a flexible position that the opponent will have difficulty attacking.
(No, of course I didn't choose these three terms in some kind of attempt to be subtly ironic and hint at my HikaAki bias. They just sound nice. *coughcough*)
As for Akira's war-cry:
"Omaeo korosu, Inakamono-san!": You will be killed, Mr. Clown! No, I don't think Akira realizes he's stolen Heero Yuy's shtick, but I don't remember Heero ever trying to flatten Relena with a big mallet, so I don't think anyone's going to court over it.
All those in favor of watching a version of Gundam Wing with mallets in lieu of guns, say 'aye'.
Snippets from Chapter Three: Silver Screen Debut -
"Hey! Do I look like a damsel in distress to you?"
Surveying the young woman he'd just tied to the tracks critically, Top Hat raised one eyebrow.
Nase sighed through her nose. "Oh, shut up."
xxx
"You can run, but you can't hide," the Not-Waya shouted, shaking one fist as Isumi made his getaway. He never even saw the VW bus coming.
xxx
"How the heck did he fit a piano on a rollercoaster?"
xxx
Father Everest blinked as the Chinese dragon rolled to a squeaky stop in front of the church and, with a rustle of vibrant cloth and bells, expelled a red-faced man with determined eyes. Gesturing at the startled priest with a somewhat-squashed plume of cotton candy (in a way that was somehow both threatening and desperate), the man took a second to catch his breath.
"Can I...help you, young man?"
"Yes," the wheezing youth said with a distinctly Eastern accent, "you can help me. I have a carnival game that needs blessing."
Peace!
Akiko =)