The half-demon on his mother’s side and the tortured soul entered CutieCon through the daisy-filled lobby, frantically looking for any sign of the Judge or the Hell Knight.

   “And you’re sure you don’t remember seeing them leave?” Steve asked as he kicked piles of daisies out of his way.

   Burney screamed a response.

   “Dawn screaming and running away doesn’t really help me find her. Why would she be screaming anyway?” Steve asked.

   Burney was about to scream a plausible explanation, but before he could, Steve heard the distant scream of a panicked woman running down the hallway.

   “Was that…” Steve asked. He stepped toward the hallway that led away from the lobby and toward the convention center’s main hall. There he saw Dawn with her eyes wide and foaming with rage. She held a pair of unbalanced silver scales in one hand. The other hand she used to uppercut a cutie in a puppy costume, square into his furry-covered testicles.

   “Too happy!” Dawn screamed, and leapt at the duck-costumed cutie who’d been flirting with the puppy cutie. “Too cute!”

   Perhaps the cutie in the duck costume screamed, but the duck bill and feathered head muffled whatever sounds she might have made as she turned and ran from the maddened Judge.

   “Come back here!” Dawn screamed as she chased the duck-costumed cutie. “Your smile is the bane of all balance and must be destroyed!”

   “Dawn!” Steve shouted, waving at his friend.

   Dawn did not stop or even acknowledge Steve’s presence, however. She merely stopped to grab a lamp and yank it off the wall, holding it up like a battle axe as she ran after the fleeing duck. She ran screaming through the lobby and out into the many hallways and convention gathering rooms. Her screams of anguish upon each encounter with a gloriously happy cutie made Steve realize she wasn’t in the best of mental conditions at the moment.

   “Dawn, come back!” Steve shouted. He made to run after his friend, convince her that punching cuties in the face wasn’t the best use of her time, when Evy stepped in front of him and held him back by his arm.

   “Hey, Stevey!” Evy shouted, stopping the half-demon.

   “I have to go, Evy, let me…” Steve looked down at Evy, and suddenly the sight of her made him lose his train of thought.

   Evy giggled. “You can’t leave yet. You haven’t finished putting on your costume!” Evy held up the pair of bright-white wings. She’d apparently added some glitter in the time since Steve last saw them.

   “I’m sorry, Evy. I need to get my friends.”

   “She’s coming back!” a cluster of cuties in pet shop-like costumes shouted. They stood together at the intersection of two hallways. Hooked arm in arm, they braced themselves with fear in their eyes and their lips forced into a smile while they sang. “Give the world your — ah!”

   Of course, they could only get about half a line of their song out before Dawn, roaring in imbalanced fury, crashed into them wielding a golf club. Where she’d gotten the golf club was anyone’s guess, but she used it to part the group of cuties like particles of sand in the world’s worst golf course bunker.

   As quick as she came, though, Dawn was gone, leaving only injured cuties and a bent golf club in her wake.

   “That was… one of my friends,” Steve said, and tried to step away from Evy.

   “Her? She’s been oh so hard to get to smile. We’ve tried our best to be as happy-happy as can be around her. But all she does is get more angry,” Evy said. “I guess that means we’ll have to be even more happy-happy-happy around her!”

   “I don’t think that will work.”

   “It has to work!”

   “Has she been like this awhile?”

   “I saw her a couple hours ago at breakfast.”

   “What was she doing?”

   “She beat a cutie with pony ears over the head with a waffle iron.”

   “That sounds painful.”

   “Don’t worry. We made him new ears!”

   “New pony ears?”

   “New real ears. The waffle iron burnt one of his ears real bad. So I made him some pink ones! We made him new pony ears too, though,” Evy said.

   “So she’s been doing this for two hours straight?” Steve asked, hearing Dawn’s distant scream.

   “We took the waffle iron away.”

   “But you didn’t try to stop her?”

   “She found a toaster.”

   “Why didn’t someone grab her?”

   “She’s very strong. And is very good at using a toaster as a weapon.”

   “I can believe that.”

  “We really did everything we could. We even covered this whole lobby with daisies just so she might be happy-happy and stop beating people with breakfast-making appliances.”

   Burney screamed.

   “No, Burney, I wouldn’t ask you to let Dawn hit you with a coffee pot. I don’t think that would change the balance of good and evil much, anyway,” Steve said.

   Burney screamed his gratitude.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

   “What do you mean balance of good and evil? She’s just unhappy, silly. We need to make her happy-happy!” Evy said. “Here, put on your wings and we can sing. That will make her happy-happy!”

   “I don’t think that will help,” Steve said, and turned away from Evy and her wings. “Burney, we need to find Gore.”

   Burney screamed.

   “Have you seen a hell knight?” Steve asked Evy.

   “A what?” Evy replied.

   “A hell knight. About this tall? Black suit of armor? May or may not have tried to kill several people with a sword made of black fire?”

   “Haven’t seen him. But we should look for him!” Evy said, and gasped with excitement. “It could be like hide and seek! What’s your friend’s name again?”

   “Gore.”

   “That’s a bad name. We should give him a happy-happy name. Let’s call him Gogo! Okay, Stevey and Burney!”

   “I don’t think that—”

   “Gogo! Oh, Gogo, your friends are looking for you! Come out, Gogo!” Evy shouted Gore’s cutie-fied name and skipped down the hallway.

   Just behind the rainbow-skirted Evy, Dawn ran from an outside door and through the lobby. She had a broken piece of chair in one hand and the mangled head of a baby white tiger costume in the other. Steve tried to jump out and grab her, but the Judge was too overcome with her mission of beating the living daylights out of a pair of beaver-costumed cuties she was chasing. Steve did not successfully slow Dawn’s chase, but he did successfully get trampled and nearly beaten over the head with a chair leg for getting in her way.

   “Okay, we need to find Gore,” Steve said, and ran after Evy.

   They searched throughout the halls and rooms of CutieCon. With each room, Evy would shout, “Gogo! Oh, Gogo!” The repetition and happy delivery of this name inevitably caused a sing-along to the silly name. The impromptu musical Gogo Does the Tango, written and choreographed by Evy and a cutie in a squirrel costume in ten seconds, combined with Burney’s colorful presence, uplifted the already too-high spirits of the cuties. This most likely exacerbated Dawn’s condition, so Steve did his best to make off-handed comments and insults to cuties he spoke with. Anything to non-violently balance good and evil a bit.

   Not only were the cuties completely unable to tell Steve where Gore, or Gogo, might be, they were completely unfazed when Steve commented on how fat or smelly or resembling of a cancer-stricken zoo animal they were. Steve tried a room down the hallway, and saw dozens of cuties singing. Since there was no blood coating the walls, Steve figured Gore had not been there.

   The next room was a games area. The cuties were performing a scene from Hamlet, costumed in their adorable outfits. Steve looked around for Gore, but could not find him. He left the room just before the cuties broke into the second act of Gogo Does the Tango, where Gogo lost his true love to a rival salsa dancer from Toledo. This was in no way comparable to the works of William Shakespeare. Also, Gore was nowhere to be found.

   It was only until they returned to the costume creation room, and heard the sixth and seventh time Dawn’s scream coincided with the sound of someone having their nose broken, that Steve saw any glimpse of Gore. Amidst the myriad hats, masks, hoodies, and fuzzy heads to choose from for making a cutie costume, Steve found a pair of ram’s horns.

   “That’s interesting,” Steve said, and picked up the horns. Closer inspection revealed what Steve had suspected. “These are the horns from Gore’s helmet.”

   Burney screamed in acknowledgement.

   “But if Gore’s horns are here, where’s Gore?” Steve asked, and looked around the room.

   There were three young men on the other side of the room. They looked to be in their twenties, and were working with extreme care on a hippopotamus costume so big it required all three of them to move. Two ladies were negotiating over who’s costume needed a bright strip of pink ribbon the most, a joyful little argument that actually descended into a sing-off, concluded with hugging and the discovery of a purple cloth that worked even better in their mutual ensembles. Beyond all this adorable costume planning and materials selection, far in the back of the costume creation room, was an enormously fuzzy bear.

  A costume, yes, but this costumed person was larger than an actual bear, and quite a bit more dangerous. The bear wasn’t moving. It had its arms crossed, and its head sat crooked on the person contained beneath the fur. And while Steve couldn’t believe what he was seeing, he knew exactly who was inside this costume.

   “Gore?” Steve asked.

   “It’s not what it looks like,” Gore replied, his voice muffled from inside the bear costume.

   “It looks like you’re in a bear costume.”

   “It’s not what it looks like.”

   “Why are you in a bear costume, Gore?”

   “It’s not what it looks like!”

   “Then what’s going on?”

   “I’m bored.”

   “So you put on a bear costume?”

   Burney screamed.

   “I did not put on this atrocity, Burney!” Gore replied. “It was placed upon me.”

   “Why did you let someone put a bear costume on you, Gore?” Steve asked.

   “Because I lack the permission to challenge them otherwise. And I’m bored.”

   Burney screamed.

   “Dawn’s not present at the moment,” Gore answered. “She’s overcome by the unhindered good that permeates this building.”

   “Yeah, we saw her going to town on someone with a panini grill. She stopped using toasters, so it must be close to lunch time,” Steve commented.

   “Should I violate the balance of good and evil as dictated by the powers that be, I lose my status upon this earth.”

   Burney screamed.

   “Of course I would! If Dawn were here to relieve me of my imbalancing, I would sever the limbs and bodily… oh, what’s the point. I can’t even be eloquently loquacious knowing I can’t hurt anyone without getting in trouble. But Dawn gets to do it all the time.”

   Steve and Gore stretched their ears and heard the sound of Dawn breaking a microwave over a cutie’s head.

   “Is it Dawn gets to do stuff Gore wants to do day? Because it feels like Dawn gets to do stuff Gore wants to do day,” Gore said, and further crossed his furry arms.

   “Come on, Gore, get up,” Steve insisted.

   “No.”

   “What are you going to do, sit there till the cuties go away?”

   “Perhaps. What is it to you? You lacked the conviction to destroy them. Why should I?”

   “I’m not asking you to destroy them. Just get up.”

   “All this happiness sickens me.”

   “So do something about it. Get up. We’re going to New Orleans. We’re going to get that awesome sandwich and leave all this behind.”

   “Why should I?”

   “If you help me get to New Orleans, you can use my spinal column as a nun-chuck after we’re done.”

   Gore gasped. “Just like I always wanted to! Wait, what’s the catch?”

   “No catch. You can even use it to kill all these cuties.”

   Burney screamed.

   “It’ll be the end of the world. Who cares if they’re beaten to death with my spine or not,” Steve noted.

   “Perhaps I’ve underestimated you, Steve,” Gore grumbled.

   “But first you have to punch all these people in the face.”

   “Hmm. Done!” Gore shouted, and stood. With the flexing of his black-armored girth, he shred the bear costume from his body and tossed the remains onto Burney while brandishing his fiery black sword.

   The first thing he did was pierce Burney through the chest.

   “I said punch everyone, not stab Burney,” Steve said.

   “Knee-jerk reaction. Won’t happen again,” Gore said, and stabbed Burney in the leg. “That was in the leg. Legs don’t count.”

   “Hey!” Evy sang from the entrance to the costume room. “We were looking for you!”

   The little acting troupe that danced inside behind Evy were composing lyrics and music for their continuing musical, unconcerned for the man of multicolored flame screaming in pain from multiple stab wounds.

  “Did you find Gogo?” Evy asked.

  “We found Gore,” Steve said. “You okay, Burney?”

  Burney screamed.

  “Good,” Steve replied. “Evy, Gore. Gore, Evy.”

  “It’s Gogo!” Evy said, squeaking with delight and clapping her hands so hard she actually did achieve temporary lift off the floor. “Everyone, it’s Gogo!”

  And without further adieu, the many cuties accompanying Evy gathered to perform the third and final act of Gogo Does the Tango, where Gogo reconciles with his reclusive father to learn what it takes to win back the heart of his beloved in a triumphant musical number that concludes with a tear-filled duet and the couple dancing to the dimming of the lights and the rapturous applause of the audience.

  Of course, they only got two notes in before Gore threw the lead actor out the window.

  “Just don’t kill anybody,” Steve noted as he stepped aside and let Gore punch each and every chorus member and understudy in their costumed face.