Earlier
Cuppy looked around, cleaning his head to find Freyja. She'd been gone what felt like a long time.
Cuppy wasn't the only one who felt uneasy. Leon hid behind his plastered smile as he twirled his whip.
Something's wrong. Gunta never misses her cue. he thought inwardly.
Dai Funka could tell Leon was anxious, but he wasn't sure why yet. The not knowing sent a wave of unease moving through his body as well. Subtly, a unified held breath wafted outward from the center of the arena in a spreading circle, and the audience began to stir.
What's going on? This feels like the ominous calm before a dream turns into a nightmare. Cuppy thought.
Scanning the floor, he looked through the flock of clowns and realized why, his heart sinking.
Among the makeup-painted and silly-suited clowns, one stood out in sharp stylistic and color contrast, a ruffled, diamond-patterned harlequin in Luchesi’s signature black and white, accented with red trim and topped with a tri-pronged conical hat tipped with bells. His leering drama mask was as uncanny as ever, and dark glee glinted behind those eyes, even as far off as he was from Cuppy’s gaze. There was an infiltrator in the circus, but why was he here? What did Luchesi hope to accomplish? Up till now, he had relied on the wandering corridors to ambush his victims, excepting only in part the raid on the police station, taking advantage of the liminal storm to extend his influence. Why would he have bothered with stealth in the first place if he was prepared to attack a whole circus arena head-on? This implied one of a few possibilities, the most unnerving of which was that something was about to blur the line between Station Bay and Luchesi’s yard on a grand scale. Cuppy felt Cuppet jitter inside his backpack, sensing the jester’s malevolence even without line of sight.
What was Cuppy supposed to do? How could he spearhead a sudden evacuation? Should he warn Leon? Given another few seconds, he might have dropped right into the ring and shouted at Leon. But, Luchesi didn’t give him a few seconds. As if being noticed had been his cue, he chuckled silently and made his move.
Above, a performer was riding a unicycle across the tightrope, carrying a long balance pole. Luchesi, giddy, was unable to contain himself. He could indulge a bit before the big boom, it made little difference now. He slid a dagger from his sleeve, flourished it, gave a long lick up its edge with his noisome tongue, drawing his own blood, then tossed it in a powerful diagonal trajectory. As the cyclist was halfway across the tightrope, the knife perfectly struck the line, severing it. The rope fell out from under the unicyclist, whose stomach lurched, their pole tipping and their unicycle dropping out from under their ass. His eyes went wide and he gave a startled shriek as he plummeted to the ground. A sickening sound, like that of pumpkin breaking on the ground, rang out through the arena. It was the kind of wet, sticky, visceral sound that instantly made someone squeamish and unsettled. The twitching body was planted facedown, blood leaking from their face.
A long moment of silence followed, and on its heels were a few nervous chuckles. Initially, it was assumed this was just part of the act, though it was in poor taste if so. Leon, his family, and Dai Funka turned, all eyes, wide like owls’ eyes, on the fallen cyclist. Such was the shock that their instincts were frozen in place long enough for the offending jester to waltz over to the twitching, dazed body on the ground.
“The real show begins now.” Luchesi said.
He lifted the man’s bleeding face with his foot, then dropped it again, and casually plunged his saber through the downed man’s back. There were panicked gasps and a few screams in the audience as it dawned on them that this was off-script. There was sudden movement in the seats as they tried to stand and clear out, but the atmosphere was thick and syrupy, as in a nightmare when the monster appears and the dreamer finds themselves slowed. Cuppy’s mental association between nightmares and this event was given credence in that moment, his fists clenching, eyes filled with an uncharacteristic rage.
“Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls of all ages!” Luchesi said grandly, stretching his arms out and retracting his saber. “Welcome to the greatest, and last show of your lives!” he slid a deck of playing cards into either hand from his sleeves, fanning them between his long waxy fingers. “Now die!”
He spun like a ballerina, flinging the dozens upon dozens of playing cards into the seats in a complete circle, landing like cluster munition bomblets at random rows. Fittingly, the cards exploded on impact, rupturing hollow organs, mulching limbs and faces, and throwing battered and burning bodies into the air. Chairs were blown apart, wood splintering to join the great cracking noises, the stairs themselves cracking in the wake of the shockwaves. As screams filled the circus, the spell broke, and the crowds stampeded for the exits, trampling over the dead and dying in their wake. Luchesi heard someone’s neck break under the tread of panicked hooves, like a cattle drive startled by the wolf in their midst.
“Yes, run and trample over each other, cattle. Show your true nature.” Luchesi said to himself, smiling darkly. There were the sounds of crying children, and the screams and groans of agony. Men and woman clutched at their ruptured organs spilling out of their bodies, a man screamed bloody murder, panicking as he held a hand whose digits had been blown to stumps, his hand degloved, a pregnant mother fell over the bannister and landed in a sickening belly flop. All was chaos, fear, and mania.
The exits pulled themselves closed and locked under the telekinetic malign force of Luchesi’s nightmare will, and yet more people were pushed and slammed up against the doors, pressed and crushed by the weight of the screaming hoards trying desperately to escape, just like those trying to flee a burning building sabotage their own efforts like sardines jam packed in a can. Luchesi could taste the fear in the air, like a snake tasting scents on the air with their flickering tongue, and he writhed in orgiastic bliss, pelvis thrust forward as his spine bent backward in a cat-like supine yoga pose, his constrained arms within his straightjacket folds writhing and scrapping claws together within the fabric. His eyes danced, fangs flashing as his lunatic grin spread so wide it seemed it would encircle his head and detach at the jaw hinge. This was his moment of triumph, the happiest day of his life.
The circus floor was in an uproar. Some ran, some tried to attend the fallen, and some were still frozen in shock. The animals panicked, crying out and roaring as their instincts were set aflame. The white bengal tiger, hissing and roaring, crouched with ears laid back, whirled on Luchesi and took a swipe with its great paw. Luchesi plunged his saber through the massive paw, netting a roar of pain, then clicked the blade apart into its four claws, ripping the paw open down the middle, either half flopping uselessly on tendrils of muscle and sinew. The tiger fell on its side, and was nearly finished off, saved only by Kasper’s intervention.
“Bastard!” Leon’s elder brother said, plunging forward with a fencing blade of his own.
Luchesi seemed to drop down into the ground as an empty pile of jester garments, throwing Kasper off-balance. He was only alerted to where the harlequin emerged when he heard the blood splatter of another figure cut down. Looking back, some random clown, eyes wide with shock and betrayal, went down on his knees, clutching at his own spilling intestines, falling like spaghetti through the four slashes across his exposed beer belly. Luchesi grinned, cackling, and disappeared again into the chaos of the circus floor.
Wet splashes of blood flew unpredictably from different junctions within the circus floor as random performers were struck down, the jester moving unpredictably through the arena as though a figure skater upon an ice rink.
Kinga, growling, sprinted and snatched up the 700 pound mallet from the ground. His chest swelled, popping the buttons of his shirt as his blond mane fluttered back, shrouding him in the image of a lion himself.
Coward. Where are you?! he thought, tracking the blurs zigzagging through the circus floor. Who was the monster who dared suckerpunch an unsuspecting circus troupe and their audience, here in the heart of a place meant to shine with splendor and joy? This was an unforgivable corruption of childhood awe and innocence. People popped like bubble wrap bubbles, all in a flash, men, women, children, rendered lifeless sacks of meat laying in their own blood, or slumped and draped across the seats, red stitching rendered a dark maroon with blood. The blood aggregated together, seeping and flowing between the seats all around, dripping down the stairs like flood waters from an overflowing tub on a second story home floor.
In his mind, Luchesi cackled, any pretense of sanity thrown wildly aside, like his caution to the wind. Look, Crocus! Look at the festivities! Look at the beautiful streaks of crimson flung high to the sky, like so much confetti! Listen to the people’s celebration of terror! Oh, beat still, my heart! Such a wondrous carnival, a show for the ages! Take up these offerings, my Lord, see the strength and beauty of your loyal servant! Let this performance usher in the death of Station Bay, and then, the world itself! See the roses dance before the curtain falls on this miserable play!
He cackled, echoing phantom trails of laughter like a shadow following him. That made it easier to track. Kinga whirled, twisting his body at the hips with all of his strength, roaring, and hefted the mighty mallet overhead. “Gotcha!” - he slammed it down - and it struck, catching the jester out of his speed blitz, the timing perfect, calculated down to the microsecond to bring such a heavy and unwieldy implement down on such a fast, elusive target. A shockwave spread in the wake of the slam, fists gripped tight at the handle and upper shaft of the mallet. Kinga was grinding his teeth almost hard enough to chip them, eyes wide with kingly rage.
They shrank to pinpricks of shock and fear after he saw exactly how the blow had gone.
Luchesi had blocked the mallet head with his claws, a mere two blades at the ends of his first two fingers, lazily stabbing into the flat, smashing surface of the mallet. Luchesi stood, practically yawning to further rub in his superiority, and locked eyes with Kinga, who, even pushing down further, couldn’t drive the mallet down. His body trembled with effort, while the jester didn’t so much as twitch.
This can’t be. This mallet weighs 700 pounds, and he’s stopped it dead in its tracks with two finger swords? This is a nightmare. Kinga thought.
In the stands, Cuppy coughed, half-buried under splintered wood and bits of rubble. Cuppet spilled out of his bag and assembled himself like a pile of bones coming together into a skeleton, with all the sound effects that implied. He shook his brother, pushing over debris and giving him a shoulder. Cuppy was bleeding above the brow, but came to quickly, his eyes filled with hate for the jester.
That tears it. Whoever or whatever you were, you’re nothing but a monster now. You won’t leave this circus alive, you heartless jerk. Cuppy seethed quietly.
Spontaneous flames erupted out of the ground, moving in undulating, breathing waves, encircling the dead and dying and climbing up the walls of the arena, spreading into the stands. Cuppy wasn’t alone in his condemnation. Leon’s eyes darkened with fury. He didn’t know who this murderer was, or what he wanted, but he was going to pay for this. A long-buried venom resurfaced within Leon, as he remembered his youth, and his grandfather’s accounts.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
-
WW2
A Nazi officer backhanded a worn, emaciated man in striped clothes to the ground, spilling the heavy burden of logs he had carried on his back.
“Lebensunwertes Leben! Filthy and slow! What good are you if you can’t even do labor?!” he raised a booted foot, all too ready to bring it down on the back of the prisoner’s skull.
The man cowered there, in this hellhole encircled by barbed wire and staffed with demons in human skin.
As the boot came down, though, another leg intercepted it. The officer’s stomp was stopped, and the would-be victim looked up, shaking, confused as to why they were still alive. Zenon, a younger man then, face warped in a deadly glare, had blocked the overseer.
“How dare you!” the Nazi spat contemptuously, beyond shocked that this mongrel had been as brazen as to get in his way. He clearly didn’t understand where he was and what situation he was in.
Before further reprimand could occur, however, the Nazi was knocked flat on his back, face crushed by a headbutt. Naturally, guns were trained on him in a second.
“What are you waiting for?!” the officer spat out blood and a tooth. “Open fire!”
A crimson-robed figure strode into view, bringing sudden silence to the camp, apart from a few whispers that the shut-in had left the lab.
“No.” Rudolph said. “I have a better idea.”
…
Leon had secondhand nightmares from the horrific accounts of the atrocities Zenon had seen and been privy to, and of the atrocities framing that entire stage of history. The cycle of violence was always in flux. WW1 had been little more than the dam-burst of a global dick measuring contest, and Germany had been saddled with the blame. Resentment was understandable, but like the black rain that came later, was simply a primordial soup from which new forms of oppression and murder would arise. In a few short years, everything taken for granted by the Valentine Family until then had been destroyed. Imagine, your own neighbors and superiors suddenly turning on you, swept up in the fervor of genocide in the making. Scapegoats, to be cleansed as arbitrarily as the flip of a coin.
The purpose of life, so far as Leon was concerned, was novelty and entertainment. The clinical, cold, dehumanizing minds which drove war machines were beyond his comprehension, as distant from his understanding of reality and humanity as outer gods from beyond the rim of the universe. Oh, and how so many war criminals had escaped justice, just as arbitrarily evading accountability for their cruelty as had their targets been selected. Zenon had a grudging commonality with his victimizers, in that both had come up with the idea to lay low in South America.
Leon, on his last visit to the Amazon to remember the lessons he had learned, had decided to do something with this knowledge, and the knowledge that he was strong. It was the duty of the strong to protect and uplift the weak, after all.
…
The German man, hair long grayed, gurgled blood, head lulling limply. A kick in the groin woke him up again. His eyes shot wide open, and he screamed skyward.
“Morning, princess.” Leon snapped his fingers.
“Please, no more! I’m just an old man, what do you-” the man babbled.
He was cut off by a whiplash across the right peck, which split a nipple through his shirt.
“You’ll speak when spoken to, filth.” Leon growled.
Who was this man? What grudge could he possibly have?
“Do you remember Zenon Valentine?” Leon asked.
“Zenon?” the man asked, perplexed.
“Play dumb at your own risk.” Leon warned.
Zenon, Zenon, why did that name sound familiar?
“Let me jog your memory.” Leon tutted. “You were having a grand old time looking for any excuse to stomp someone’s head in, when Zenon had the audacity to stop you. It was the single most humiliating day of your life, the worse for the fact that this wretch lower than dirt in your eyes got away scot-free with not only defying, but assaulting you. Ring a bell?”
The retired Nazi’s eyes went wide. “Him.”
“Him.” Leon nodded.
Confusion spread over the man’s face. “But what do you care? A perfect specimen of aryan blood, what does it matter to-”
Leon dropped his cloak and exposed a star tattooed upon his wrist.
“What? You can’t be that old…” the man asked.
“I’m not. This is a statement. My family’s suffering is my suffering, and none will get away with inflicting it. My grandfather gambled his life on standing up to bullies. Fucking idiots, the lot of you. So worked up about bloodlines and purity and genetics, so utterly convinced that you were superior beings meant to rule the earth. But tell me something - if social darwinism were true, and you guys lost the war… then who was really the weaker people, eh?”
He continued to whip the man mercilessly.
“See, you didn’t factor in a critical variable, and that’s the fact that we humans can rise above blind pack mentality. A large enough threat eclipses the world, and all these feuding nations with so much bad blood between them come together to end the threat. There’s strength in numbers, and there’s strength in hatred. You should know, you bastards thrived on it. But, you seeded it too, drew enough disgust to set the fire to your own pyre. A leader must be respected or feared, but never hated, to be effective. The latter is all too easily subsumed into hatred, don’t you think? And lo and behold,”
He gripped the man by the jaw. “You lost. Soak it all in.”
The man saw, for a brief moment, the image of the whole of the human species swarming Nazi Germany as a tide of army ants.
“But, I have a bigger bone to pick with you.” Leon said. “You see, the swastika, before your ilk defiled it and tainted its reputation forever, was originally an emblem of the sun, used since antiquity throughout many cultures. Maybe you heard from your allies in Japan that over there, it’s known as a manji, and has ties to Buddhist scripture. Hindu too, for that matter. And, if you really want to shit your pants - African swastikas are a thing too. Trippy, right?”
“What’s… your… point…” the man panted, reeling in pain.
“My point, buddy, is that thanks to Nazi designs on world conquest and genocide, the sanctity of a symbol has been irrevocably tied to your bullshit. A symbol is a thing of art, and art is meant to bring entertainment and insight to the world. You’ve corrupted true purity on a very fundamental level. And for that, there must be restitution. In blood.” Leon said, cracking out his neck and wrapping his whip around his hand. He then smashed it into the man’s face.
…
Some hours later, the man was a brutalized, lacerated, quivering pile begging for forgiveness.
“You’re feeling it now, aren’t you? What it is to be helpless at someone else’s mercy.” Leon asked, his voice akin to that of a teacher or parent scolding a young child.
“Please…” the man groveled, blood leaking down his collar. “don’t kill me…”
Leon threw his head back and chuckled. “I’m not going to kill you.”
He left the bound man still tied to the tree and began walking off. Was he leaving him here to his fate? The battered old Nazi turned, incredulous, but relieved that the torture was over.
Leon stopped a moment and snapped his fingers. “Sparta.”
The old man heard a stomp at his side, followed by a low growl.
Bloodcurdling screams resounded through the forest before they were abruptly silenced.
-
…
Now, here in the present, that venom was dripping from Leon’s fangs again. The pride and joy of the Valentine Family Circus had been stained with blood, an unforgivable act worthy of the lowest level of Hell itself.
Oh, and the jester was trying to kill his dad. That too.
Luchesi half-heartedly swiped Kinga’s chest with his claws, netting a gasp, before wrenching the hammer away from him. Luchesi held the hammer betwixt his claws at the base of its head, and whirled, smacking the handle into the side of Kinga’s head and dropping him like a sack of potatoes. Still clutching the hammer, inverted, in his offhand, Luchesi stepped on the fallen circus patriarch and lifted his dominant hand high overhead, claws flexed. Mina Valentine gasped, hands covering her mouth. This couldn’t be happening.
“Farewell.” Luchesi licked his lips, and prepared to strike.
The crack of Leon’s whip rang out, and Luchesi turned his head to see the rose whip unfurling toward him. But, the whip struck out its full length and hit nothing, Luchesi having seemingly vanished into thin air, wind displaced by the sudden pressure change rolling to either side. Leon retracted his whip, coiling it tightly around his gloved hand, and the flow of time seemed to return to him, the massively-heavy mallet landing headfirst on the ground beside the wounded Kinga.
Luchesi had disappeared.
There was more pregnant silence amidst the crowd, still cramming and pushing to escape until then. It was eerily silent save for the sobs of the wounded or those who had lost kin, and the steady crackling of the flames.
Was it over?
Cuppy didn’t trust this. Nor did Cuppet, Sparta, and certainly not the Valentines.
A shadow passed over some random man, and he was yanked into the air by the force of four slash strokes ripping across his torso, spraying other bystanders with blood.
“He’s over there now?!” Eyrk shrieked.
Another person fell to claw marks from unseen blades, and another, and another. Steadily, one after another, the lethal wounds upon Luchesi’s marks announced themselves with the sound of slashed flesh, like velcro being ripped, sprays of blood and tattered strips of clothing flying wild. A woman was slashed open at the stomach, clutching it as though her stomach had burst, and dropped to her knees. Screams reached a fever pitch. No matter where they were in the arena, people were being cut down, and their butcher remained undetected except for his bloody aftermath. One second someone near Cuppy was gutted, the next, someone on the opposite side of the arena followed suit. More performers on the ground floor dropped like flies as well, soaking the sands with blood.
Darn you. Cuppy thought, growling. Show yourself, you hecking menace!
Leon was horrified, his face a blank stare of incomprehension. Why. Why was this happening. Why - no, how could someone do this? He… he…
You’re a clown, right? An emblem of whimsy. How could you? he wondered, trembling. Leon threw his head back, roaring sorrow to the peak of the big top. “YOU BASTARD! WHAT DO YOU TAKE THE AUDIENCE FOR?!?”
Cuppy felt a tear roll down his cheek. “Leon.” he said sadly.
Cuppy spread out his fine wire feelers, trying to pick up any vibrations to indicate Luchesi’s movements and proximity.
Come on. Face me! Cuppy thought.
Nothing, nothing, nothing, - !
One of Cuppy’s threads vibrated, giving him a tickle. Luchesi was behind him. Cuppy ducked, but not quite soon enough - his right shoulder was slashed wide open, and he grunted in pain. He forced his eyes to stay open though, and pistoned an arm forward, shooting a wire each from his fingers and thumb. They circled around Luchesi’s legs, snaring him out of his blinding slashing spree, and causing him to tumble head over heels down the seats, dragging Cuppy with him. Cuppy landed on his head, his body awkwardly folded over a chair. Luchesi stood, shaking himself off, and spat down at the topsy-turvied moppet.
“I was hoping to see you here.” he said, voice dripping with quiet spite.
Luchesi felt a shadow draw near, and looked up - Leon’s twin feet planted themselves in the jester’s face. Leon was swinging by his whip, affixed to an overhead beam, tarzan-swinging into a dropkick that plunged Luchesi back into the arena with a crash. Leon landed back in the arena with Luchesi, pulling his whip taut and ready to rumble. The jester opened his eyes to see the shadow of another foot about to stomp on him. He rolled out of the way as Dai Funka sumo stomped the ground where the jester’s head had just been. At his back, Sparta roared and swatted him with a huge paw, sending him rolling back. Cuppy descended onto the floor, pulling strings between his fingers as though stretching taffy, and Cuppet flanked him, a scissor blade poised in either hand.
The rest of the circus staff cleared the floor, helping the wounded survivors to their feet.
“Evacuate the audience!” Leon called.
Luchesi cracked out his neck and scraped his claws together. If these clowns wanted to play at a fair fight, he’d indulge them and show them just how powerless mere humans and their pet really were.
Leon glanced at his lion, Dai Funka, and the Cuppy Bros. “Listen. No matter what happens, we put this freak down, right here, right now.”
Cuppy and Dai Funka nodded in sync.
“Roger.” they said.