Chapter 38 – The Starlight Carnival

 

For the next 6 months, Becca’s stay at Black Nova's went by like a starlit blur. Every single night since, there was no more day, no sun to see arise or atmosphere outside the horizon of Caldera’s prestigious towers and illustrious city. She had nor the mental capacity to appreciate the past or nor sentimentality to hope for the future, instincts guiding her through her waking hours. The Set duo, Pipo and Jayne would occasionally visit her as the feline starry lovers. They’d inspect her forehead’s jewel with new theories and research, occasionally new equipment but quickly came to realize they couldn’t remove it presently without harming her, and would go off on their newfound jobs to earn money and making a scoundrel’s living. Oft they’d find themselves arguing with Jack, but Becca could never follow much of what they were arguing about anymore. Mother Hen oft kept Becca by her side like a Pomeranian to be pet and cuddled, never far out of her sights. Her warmth, mature charisma and jovial company would light up the whole bar that Becca spent most of her free-time in. Everyday she’d feed Becca a little to eat and let the two boys visit when they could. She’d often see a puffy little poodle drinking herself and flirting with the girl who could barely talk, the Xistress in her sphere now atop a shelf like a prize, attached to two tubes to keep it cool and liquid-filled, and watch the two Set boys argue over their plans to get her gem out. Most days she was alone, bored and left to be cuddled and fed by the kindly barkeep Mother Hen. When they grew busy, she’d be left alone unbothered like a little egg in a nest by the bartenders, in their care and she slept as the days passed by, every night being a new blur.

The girl was trapped like a fly in amber, her own identity lost. She was in the middle of a war without any side, in a city that wasn’t hers, where she couldn’t see the sun. She had no idea who she was anymore. The only thing that felt like a personal comfort to her was the puffy ball of fur from Nine that they’d left when they died.

For Jack’s part, she attempted to contact Goliath through various liaisons and informants in Caldera, but no matter how many she’d send or who she tried, she never heard any word back. Whether it was because of the Enigma or because something had happened back in Orchid, the gem didn’t manage to hear a response from him. The time flew by as the two girls slowly became more accustomed to the cold noir-like climate of Black Nova, though they

remained mostly inside, Jack unhurriedly getting a job at Mother Hen’s bar. Working and being a waitress, they never bothered to ask what Becca did all day, not bothering to give her work or let her do anything other than relax and be happy. Becca’s hair had finally grown out, and on a night shopping outing, Jack had taken her to a bar and let her dye her hair a bright pink color overtop her blond, perhaps to remove the distracting blond that Astrid had turned her

hair. Jack wasn’t sure if Goliath was currently successful in defeating the armada yet or the plants to subvert Xi were underway, but she heard more and more reports of tension within the Xi government, complete with press briefings from the fake Sandra from time to time.

 

 

One day, a strange woman came into the bar. Becca vaguely recognized her, the woman carried around a book of herbal remedies and briefly checked on her to see how she was doing. Once she inspired her forehead and tongue, she went to Jack and began telling her sordid news. The gem began to freak out, she’d panic in a way that Becca had never seen before. She said that the Xi army had captured Astrid, but Astrid had since escaped into the Boltholds. The girl told Jack she’d been working hard on their therapy sessions and trying to break her from

Goliath’s psychological hold and seemed to be making progress, but her sudden capture and then escape had thrown their mental health plans into a complete spin. Jack and her argued for a long time, until Jack finally let her go on her own and went to find Pipo and Jayne and the rest of the HEARTS AND STARDUST COCKTAIL BAR staff. They all had a conference.

She told the bar she was leaving, and although she was partially breaking her promise, needed Mother Hen to look after Becca while she went off to search for her mother. Jack rationalized it that Astrid represented a danger to Becca, so in going to find her and stop her from running loose she was technically protecting Becca in a way. The group was very saddened, but eventually Jack exited back through the Boltholds and found herself in a long endless trek through endless tunnels and cold sewer-like passages in Warp Station space.

The two boys on the other hand were spending the past 6 months in a constant battle. Every week they’d be arguing over their research of the jewel, and had spent the 6 months of Becca's staying at Mother Hen's bar trying to remove it off of her forehead, trying different solutions and techniques in vain.

 

For the next 2 months, Becca was left to herself in the bar without Jack to look after her. She’d never asked, but Jack had left her a large sum of cash and her credit card to ensure the girl could spend as much as she wanted, and the bartenders never said a word and left her be. She’d often watch news reports, which to most of the other bar goers and employees seemed very dire and panicked, but Becca couldn’t make out what they meant. She could tell others were sad and worried by this news- one day she watched the fake Sandra on the screen began to flicker in the middle of a press conference, and very strange people with overly wide smiles walk in her place. She never saw the fake Sandra again on the Galanet screen, or even the old news reporters she’d usually seen.

One night the lights in the bar flickered, and everyone was ordered to be quiet and sit down while people outside in military armor walked around with wires and cameras. The next day she woke up to the bar having been stripped bare of alcohol and food, no one to be seen but there were new people in white uniforms. They were working as hard as they could to search the Bar, and soon Becca noticed the lights getting dimmer and dimmer, her eyes began to hurt a lot as she was woken up with a headache for the first time in her new gem-forehead life. In the

darkness, they finally unveiled what the new plastic equipment and tools they’d been working with were, spotlights and guns pointing all over the Cocktail Bar. The bar staff soon returned forward with vengeance and expelled the new people with whatever weapons they had, Becca finding herself hiding from the ensuring gunfight. There was no one to watch over her during the crisis, so she fled to the same door Jack had gone through and soon found herself back in the Boltholes herself away from whatever had gone down in the Bar.

 

 

Becca walked for weeks in the dark bolt labyrinths, finding herself confused and without a way of contacting Jack. Most times she was lost and without direction either space or mind. When she needed food, she'd eat the rats and occasional cargo left behind in crates with old rotten supplies. Her vagrancy left her like a wild feral cat but she was smart enough to figure out how to get through station operators and push levers on the Bolthold's trains and rail platforms, traveling hundreds and thousands of miles over the weeks.

 

She'd often find herself alone, a little girl looking for her mother, and eventually got lost in the Boltholds. One day her food and water ran out and she eventually grew faint from starvation, when she got up off the ground she didn't realize she'd walked through a grating in the floor of the station and fell into a pit. She woke up in a heap, covered in her own vomit and

piss until she passed out.

 

When Becca woke up, she found herself trapped in a very small room. Soon a light came on overtop of her, an unloving fluorescent light, and she found herself being stuck to a metal chair by a very uncomfortable electro-magnet. She was stuck to the chair like a little fly, the light buzzing overtop her.

 

A woman with bright green hair in a bun, wearing a white mask with colorful rainbow decals stretched on clowny gloves and inspected her. "mmhuu?" She pawed at the strange woman. "mmhunhh?" Becca tried to say, but to no avail.

 

"What a cute little girl." the woman replied, a smile on her face and a gentle but still- clowny demeanor. "You're so cute and helpless." She pulled her in closer and gave her a few loving pats on the head. The woman turned the magnetic field off and yanked her off, guiding her through a long hallway that was lit with neon-blue lights, the chilly air mixing with fans blowing ahead. When the green-haired woman took her to an elevator, Becca curled into a ball. It went down a long distance and finally reached the bottom, and then opened to facility with marble floors and plush red-blue walls, the frigid temperature giving way to warmth ahead. The girl was pushed to the end of the hall out a gate, where some sort of disc-shaped stadium with a tent overhead that was madeup of numerous slices of orange-green-purple-pink color.

 

She saw a group of white-clad men in white shirts and sunglasses walk around a circular stage with a single woman in a colorful mask in the center, holding a bright red ball and a green wand. The woman waved the wand like a conductor's baton, and the ball was carried around the stage. Everytime it was picked up by a member of the audience, it gave off a little flash of light and a puff of smoke before being put down again, often carried through hoops, out a cannon, overtop a trapeze, and whenever it was picked up the woman's voice got louder and louder and she'd scream, waving her wand until the woman was satisfied.

 

The ring of people all wore colorful costumes and masks, smiling cheerily. The girl, who had the word's "pussa" muttered on occasion, soon found herself pushed and forced to join the group.

 

"Sit down." a woman who sounded just as husky and mature as the green-haired woman and in a rubbery bright cyan costume came closer, her hair hidden behind a latex cowl and high- rising neck collar. She turned to Becca. The girl couldn't see her eyes through the mask, despite the curved horizontal slits. "Got any skills? Got any fun to be had?"

There was another woman who came to the woman's side, wearing a metallic golden mask and pure-gold bodysuit, her hair in some kind of cowl that was draped with yellow dandelions around back, white star patterns throughout her entire shiny squeaky suit.

 

"mmmhuuuh?" Becca replied, her eyes wide and terrified. The costumed women around her were smiling cheerily, everyone wearing silly looking costumes. Soon, she was pushed to sit down. "What a prized catch, quite rare indeed."

 

The strange woman had an ominous air to her probing, the way she felt up Becca and examined the pitch and depth of her curves had Becca squirm. "A lovely girl. But so helpless and fragile." She pulled at the girl by her ear, then gently ran her gloved hands through

Becca's pink hair. "So powerless!" The green-haired one smiled and nodded without question or thought.

 

"But, she's missing a nose. Where's your nose dearie?" She said as if concerned, rubbing her nostrils. "Ah ha!" She pulled a big red rubber ball from her fingers and pressed it into the girl's nose, stickying it overtop.

 

"Tada!" The green-haired woman bowed as the others clapped in rote rhythm. "How the mighty crumbles before my gaze, such a little lost soul and nothing more!"

The clowning woman turned to Becca and gently slapped her back. "A little lost and powerless, aren't we all." She pulled the girl's hair and gave her a hug.

 

"Mhunhh!" Becca replied, a bit shocked by the hug.

 

The woman gave the girl her head and then let her go. Soon the green-haired clown came to take her off, and the girl was soon escorted to another part of the room. There were strange smells and sights, everything glowing with neon colors. She found herself strapped to a table, she tried to get up but soon found that the straps held her in place. The green haired woman undressed her and she found herself to be naked. The cowled ringleader came in and took a white sponge, dabbing it in powder as she began to smear and softly smudge it all across Becca, leaving trails of white as pale as chalk across her skin where ever the sponge went. The woman with the golden mask and sealed jumpsuit started combing Becca's hair up meanwhile, spraying it, trimming it with scissors and nearly tidying it in an updo.

 

The masked clowns were whispering and giggling around her, all the other women in the center smiling brightly and all wearing different costumes and masks, Becca in the middle entirely naked, bound to the table by the bright-haired clown's assistant.

 

"Now... this little girl's hair seems to be pink, isn't that cute and lovely?" The ringleader asked, caressing Becca's hair.

 

The green-haired one was stroking her, petting her like a wild animal, and Becca felt a gentle but firm pinch to her bottom.

 

"Oww." Becca replied. She was also fitted with a white eye-mask to go with the suit and a white wig.

 

Once her skin from head to toe was painted white, the green haired woman prepared a latex suit that resembled a jester, in checkered pattern of pink and white. The suit stuck to Becca's body taut and tight stretching and straining in uncomfortable ways.

 

When it was done, the ringleader helped her out of the restraints and unstrapped her, helping Becca take her first steps as a new member of the troupe. The tight latex suit was stiff and starchy, her movements restricted by the tightness of the suit. The white outfit, Becca's hair all painted the same color as everyone's suit, and her white gloved hands all white with

bright orange with blue and purple bands and designs on them. Even her face was painted white. The ringleader took a stick of silvery lipstick and started applying it over Becca's lips and cheeks, a bright pink that colored her pale makeup all shimmery and shiny with sparkling cosmetics, and then she felt eyeshadow of the same glamor applied to her eyes underneath the mask for good measure by a dab of the ringleader's finger. She was equipped with a silvery white collar with a ruff.

"Mhmumhum." Becca said, surprised.

 

"What are you going to be today my darling?" The ringleader asked, a sly smile on her face. Her hands felt Becca's latexy suit, rubbing and feeling all over Becca's shiny ass. "Mhh." The girl replied, her heart racing as the jester suit was very tight.

 

"Awwwhhuhhhhmmmmhhhu." The girl tried to reply, confused by the way her body felt.

 

"Look at her." The ringleader laughed. "You know that feeling where the air feels like it's stuck to your skin and there's no place for you to hide anywhere?"

 

"Mhm." Becca replied.

 

"That's what a white jester feels like, my darling." The woman held Becca's hands and face to face, looking at her. "Like having an airless world, and feeling like you're the most important thing in the universe. Like no one else matters. Like being the center of the world." The cowled woman ran her fingertips over Becca's skin. "So very white and pure and shiny."

 

"Mhmhu." Becca said, a bit disturbed by the way the masked woman seemed to be ogling her.

 

From the day forward, Becca became a member of the clown's troupe. They toured all around the underground warpstation cities and visited every Bolthold center imaginable, often having the girl in the white-clown getup doing small acts for tips or being part of a stage show to entertain bored travelers. The masked woman always took care of her, and even did her makeup, making her feel good and safe when they weren't performing. Becca couldn't be taught elaborate routines, but she was treated and trained like the other animals in the strange troupe of masked entertainers, taught to jump through hoops and come on command and do tricks for applause. When the ringleader wasn't attending to Becca, she was usually accompanied by the green haired lady and the woman with the golden metallic mask, who she'd kiss and treat affectionately as if she were a beloved partner.

 

Upon one summoning, Becca was brought into one of the ringleader’s rooms on her circus cart where she held important ceremonies. She watched the woman bring three of her acolytes in- the stocky green haired servant, the tall blond the older, creased women with mauv- purple hair who also felt vaguely familiar to the girl. The three stood as ordered, as the ringleader took three masks and presented them to each of them.

“The mask of the Schemer. May her acumen and erudite nature bless you well.” She carefully handed it to the lime haired servant, paint on the mask resembling a set of glasses with no ear-handles in stylized cycles soon pressing into the woman’s face.

“The mask of the lover. May her carnality bless you, and all those you love.” She handed

the silver mask to the golden haired lover, silver mask painted with lips, heart and heart shaped

eyes and alluring designs painted onto the lips, like a sensual invitation.

Finally she handed a mask to the purple-haired older woman. “The mask of the Tamer.

May her strength and tenacity guide you.” The mask had a pair of ears on it, similar to what would be on an animal with two sets of ears in front, poking out a tophat but facing outward. The eyes had a very regal, wise, and intelligent aspect to them, like a pair of deep blue lakes, and the mask bore the likeness of a lion tamer on the forehead with the eyes.

The ringleader herself took one final mask, a tall golden headpiece with two lions ears protruding from it, and her eyes were a pair of blue eyes painted on in the shape of a leonine face. “And to you my pet, I give you the mask of the Fighter. May your heart always fight back against the absences that encroach you.” Becca didn’t understand what she meant, but soon found the rubbery mask pressed to her face, making her look like some sort of rubbery cat.

“Now, let’s celebrate our carnival’s mirth! We cannot all be so dour now can we?” The ringleader said, guiding the three to a bed. Soon Becca followed her and stood in the corner, watching as the three woman started lapping and pleasuring the ringleader, worshipping her.

 

“Let us give our celebration an encore!” The woman called out, a smile on her face, three masked figures all licking the ringleader’s pussy. “I give you, to my pet, the pleasure of having the Schemer fuck you with a cock.”

The blond masked woman took on a plastic strapon and on the ringleader’s orders, began to backside Becca and penetrate her, fucking her against a desk and kissing her neck and cheeks all the while, stroking her cheeks. She could’ve swore she heard the woman utter ‘My celeste.’

“Come let us all make merry!” The ringleader said, clapping her hands. “I give you to my pet, to the lover, to pleasure you with her tongue!” The lime masked woman dropped to her knees in front of Becca, pushing her down on a couch and kissing her all over, caressing her and then her tongue found her pussy and her mouth, she licked and teased the ringleader’s pet. “She has not yet cum. Will you help her cum, Schemer?” The ringleader purred, and Becca felt a hand on her hips pushing her down, her pussy rubbing against the lover’s tongue as she tried to suck and caress her vagina in as much time as she could before the ringleader pushed her away with a shove. Becca’s already haze concerns about her duties felt like a faded dream in the pleasure surging through her body, among the trio of older women.

 

The Ringleader watched coyly and perversely while Becca fell in line, accepting her entrance into the fold of their carnival with moans and orgasmic bliss. The went on in infamy within her mind and stayed with her for months to come, everything proceeding in the future around the first of many intense nights. Inbetween training for her act, the ringleader’s mysterious and enigmatic sermons about destiny and starlight like some sort of prophetess, and the pampering of the three, the girl could rarely ask for more.

 

✰ ✰ ✰

 

One day, one of the clowns who was a lot older than Becca saw her doing her makeup and told her a strange story. She told her that the ringleader had a series of magical artifacts that were alive- two of them she held in close regard. The first was a Drum, that could be said to command lesser gods and cast a charm, a festive illusion over reality itself when played. The second, was a magic bouncy ball she talked to for advice, a cryptic artifact of great value and importance, and Becca soon wondered what it was. The clown told her about how a young girl the Ringleader had taught who had created this ball for her in a forge beyond time itself, a toy that housed a powerful star inside itself, its rubber surface made of an infinite locking series of playful ribbons. This toy was now the Ringleader's prized possession, and sometimes spoke to

her in enigmatic hushed tones. The ringleader had had it with her through every battle and through every moment of strife, and it had been a talisman of hope for her through the toughest moments in the past.

 

 

After a few weeks of living in the center, the ringleader put Becca in the spotlight. She was taught to spin and turn in an aerial act, and how to dance.

 

"Whoa!" The crowd would cheer.

 

She was dressed in the same white jester outfit as before, her cowl had been cut up in back to let her hair flow out in a pink-ponytail.

 

The clowning ringleader, whose name the others called Lucky Bell, led her through dances with other white-clad women. Lucky always made sure Becca got her share of applause, and soon taught her some tricks she could use to steal the audience's applause. Bell would spend long hours every week to drill into her the most sophisticated dances and movements Becca could learn, which even within her dimmed and dazed consciousness she found could memorize with greater ease as time went on.

 

"EEEEEEEEE!" The audience would cheer, Lucky amused. When she turned to spin on the pole or dance, the audience was awestruck, their eyes shining. She was the only performer who could dance and spin while she danced, her movements almost animal-like in grace and acrobatics.

 

The ringleader sometimes took Becca to the clown's backstage to help with cleaning the equipment, and the girl's memory had slowly returned back to her in blurry flashbacks, she was given an old pair of blue jean shorts and a white-rubber t-shirt to wear when she wasn't in her outfit. She showed Becca her favorite rubber ball, the oracle Becca had been told about earlier. When left to itself, it floated with an iridescent light inside it and its surface unraveled like christmas lights off a festive pine into long strands. "She can take any fabric or material I please." Lucky Bell said, the material floating into a metallic metal. "Hop on and see."

 

Becca leapt atop the ribbon, surprised how something only a few millimeters thick could hold her entire weight several feet in the air!

 

"MMMMM! Tricky W-walk.." The girl replied, she was slowly learning to talk again. "Wow!"

 

Becca often found herself being taken on a bumpy train ride, being taken on a long journey for a few months through long tunnels and passages in the Bolthold. She traveled thousands of miles atop a train, in all directions. Each ride was different and each one seemed to lead to a strange destination. One night they arrived at a facility where everyone was dressed in black, the air filled with the smell of burning rubber.

 

It was a factory that Lucky Bell owned, the mindless drones of the factory gathering to a makeshift stadium to watch the group perform, their sleek smooth suits covering their bodies

and gasmasks obscuring any identity. When Bell held the ball over Becca's face, it unraveled into countless threads and soon wrapped around her, disguising her as one of the pudgy lackadaisical workers of the facility.

 

"So cute." The ringleader turned to Becca. "You're gonna be so useful." "Mhuhhh. T- tmmks." Becca replied. The ringleader whispered, holding her hand. She held Becca's face close to her own, breathing her warm breath on her. "You'll be so helpful to me dear, soon. Just as ah'm going to help dazzle the world, you'll help me. Like your costume, the suit is so... bright and shiny. As though the world's own reflection is all on you." She gave the girl's cheek a slap. "You'll be just like your suit. You'll be the brightest light on everyone's faces." She held the girl's cheeks in her hands, forcing her lips into a wide silvery-painted smile with a pull.

 

"I have very very big plans for you."

 

The group traveled to other worlds as well through the boltholds, and spent long days at a time just going and going. She'd often find herself running around the same place and traveling to different parts of the train, and soon became accustomed to her surroundings.

Sometimes her worries about the past, collecting those strange shards passed by in her minds, but they were usually far and few between.

 

One time the white-clad troupe found themselves in another clown troupe, being introduced to the other performers who all had the same masks and costumes as Lucky Bell's group, their faces unreadable beneath their cowls and masks. That night as the other troupe went to perform, Lucky Bell unleashed her rubberball on the group, which became a very long string that caught every single performer in a single tightrope. Becca watched the group try to get away, the threads dangling them high high high in the air! Then the threads invaded their ears and dug into their skulls, electricity dancing into their heads like a beautiful lightshow.

Becca heard Lucky Bell's voice. "Hush-a-bye." She saw the group fall asleep in the air. Becca watched a few minutes pass, before they were let gently onto the ground. Lucky Bell walked onstage, making gestures with her hands.

 

The performers all began to dance, their arms and hands rotating and making movements that matched Lucky's own, as if mime's trying to copy her in an automated fashion. "They wanted to be a cheap imitation, now they're imitating. It's just as easy as that!" Lucky Bell cooed, the jester costumes they wore being replaced by different ones in the same shiny style as Becca's troupe in real-time. She then held the big red rubber ball and started to bounce it on the stage, the troupe beginning to sway in time with Lucky Bell's bounces. The starlight from the bouncy ball's light soon covered everyone in a sparkly shine, the clowns laughing and smiling as they twirled and jumped in lockstep with the balls bounces. From that day forth, the other troupe was absorbed into Lucky's own as if the separation never existed at all.

 

The troupe's members were very pleased and satisfied with the new arrangement.

 

Every now and again Becca would hear Lucky's voice in her dreams, and one night as she was trying to sleep the girl saw a big glowing ball that spoke to her. "The brightest star on the darkest stage." The ball cooed in her dreams.

 

"How do you know so much about me?" In her dreams, she could speak in full sentences

and felt cognizant atleast.

 

"I'm the one you were talking to all the time. You're the brightest star. The pinkest of the constellations."

 

"But.. who are you?"

 

"I'm the star that never changes. Just a star that time forgot. The ankh ancient beyond eras, and lost to history." The light grew brighter, a spark of glimmering light that floated in and out of focus as Becca woke. She was back in the room, her heart beating fast and her skin with a burning sensation, her rubbery jammies rustling and colorful latex trousers squeaking on her.

 

The years passed, and the troupe kept traveling. Occasionally over the years the star would appear in her dreams again and they'd have short, sparse conversations, often with advice the girl never really understood. One day Becca was put in charge of managing the troupe, and she was given a bright shiny keycard that she'd use to open and close the doors of the train's many facilities.

 

"The key to life." She found herself saying, and she often felt that voice within her head as the keycard glowed a vibrant cyan color. She could speak in sentences of a few words, and Lucky Bell trusted her enough to on the train they traveled on to see all the facilities. Becca one day had another dream, in which the ancient star that never changed advised her to look into Lucky Bell's prayer chamber.

 

The white latex clown's troupe was never allowed into the prayer chamber, but Becca was made the trustee of the troupe, and had access through the key Lucky Bell had given her.

 

The chamber was a dome-shaped room, with an altar made of glass and chrome and many strange artifacts all over, the room's air humid and musty. There was a small shrine of worship on one corner, the glass altar and chrome table made of the glass of a window that had been fused back together after it had been cracked. The center of the altar had a small glass case, covered in silver, in which a big crystal ball that held the orb of a bright star inside. Along the altar walls were numerous elaborate masks each etched with a different expression, hung up like trophies. There was a mask that appeared styled different from all the others, half-blue and half- white in the center of the shrine, and a mask that resembled a red devil with horns beneath it.

 

Lucky Bell appeared behind her. "Have you come to pay your respects to the Novus? Auxilitrix was my teacher and dear friend. But I find my prayer always directed to the god of difference and dialects." She got on her knees and made a praying motion. "Dear god of stories, hear my heart when I say: I pray to thee, to deliver my writ and narrative to the very ends of this story. Forever and all time, in Shion's name we are blessed." She closed her eyes respectfully.

 

Becca ignored her and looked inside the rest of the chamber outside the shrine, finding it to be entirely devoid of furniture, with many piles of old and ancient looking books. Becca was soon able to understand the strange language of the text, and found one book that caught her attention, a strange book that read in a strange language.

 

*Rrrl-rurul't hhrrl*

"I know you can read." Lucky Bell said, her voice sounding clear despite the old and dusty sounding text. "Perhaps you wanted to know more about me." She opened the book, the pages turning like an automaton. Becca read about an ancient being called the Star of Elysium, and that it was called the Star of Elysium before anything else. "Mhhmm?"

 

The text read,

 

*An ancient time before all ages, when the stars were young. An ancient time before the gods. An ancient time before man. An ancient time before time.*

 

Becca read that the being, as an ancient being beyond ages, had the power to see, know and do anything, and so to see anything, it did not have a body. It did not have to rest, or age or sleep. It was beyond all understanding, beyond time itself, and so the being was the beginning of everything. The only detail describable about it was that it wore a Tiara.

 

This entity was discovered by the gods of reason and gods of harmony, but even they feared its power. From its void came desire, and from desire came the independent interpolation of countless particle'd ideas, residue of information from this being's imagination. Desires.

Wishes. Stars. When a great many ideas and desires coalesced and reached out to one another, they formed chains of thought, merged stars capable of articulating these desires through immense signals. Radiation. Electromagnetics. Gravity waves. Radar. Pulsars. Astral. The Star of Elysium was born this way, as one of many Nova.

 

A very few Nova ascended even further, their immense collective of stars powering into single entities known as Nebula. The Star of Elysium however, for all her desperation, and desolate nature never ascended to the rank of Nebula or materialized. She was a Nova who stayed in the great chain of interconnected matter, attempting to reach out but finding nobody to hear her lonely cries. She became the star that never changed, forgotten by time, lost to history.

 

One Nebula who had ascended took pity on her, and although she could not give this Nova physical form, she adopted her as her brightest nightlight, the only light in other otherwise pitch black reign. The one who took her under her wing was known as Black Nebula.

 

Becca stopped reading as Lucky Bell slipped off her covering, it was the first time in the entire time she'd known her Becca had seen her without her mask. The purple lipstick and lilac eyeshadow surprised Becca, if only for how vivid it was. "Black Nebula. My vaunted mother.." She folded her arms. "With one of my apprentice's help, I was able to give her star what she could not, a physical presence, and reforge it into a Sophonic artifact."

 

Lucky Bell said, the purple facepaint on her face. "Black.. She's a very important person." Lucky Bell held a mirror, and there was her own face. "I like to think I have the same features as her.." She sighed. "But sister says all I share is her arrogance." She turned to Becca. "You know, if it were just me.." She paused. "I could give a lot of things up. You know, this train and this mask. I could do a lot of things.." She gave a sly smile. "With your help. You know, I could do it.."

She looked at Becca. "Or.." The purple eyes stared at Becca. "You could be a lot of things to me." She took the girl's face and kissed her, putting the lips in her mouth and making out with her in lustful and sensual slow motion.

 

"Wwwww... hhuhhhh. T-ttllkkks.." Becca said, the purple facepaint making her gag. "Good girl." Lucky Bell said, kissing her.

Behind her, the woman with the golden mask stood watching. The woman took off her mask and stretched off her dandelion-coated cowl, revealing a woman that Becca swore she recognized before, those golden eyes staring with horror.

"Celeste?" The woman said.

The name lit up Becca's eyes, as if something in her took over.

"Astrid, I didn't give you permission to enter my chamber, nor speak." Lucky Bell said.

 

"Oh.." The golden girl said, her eyes wide and fearful. "Sorry. Oh. Hhuhhhh... " She went to leave, but Lucky Bell took her by the neck and dragged her to the center of the chamber. "W- why are you hurting me?"

 

"Oh dear. Your dear little sister Wonder Blight is going to get a beating thanks to you. I'll have to punish you both."

"N-no, please!" She said, trying to run away. But Lucky Bell held up her bouncy bar, which began to float in the air, latex-y threads appearing around the fleeing woman's legs out of nowhere and dragging her back.

 

"M-milady!"

 

"Don't worry." The woman said. "I'll make it quick." Lucky Bell held up the bouncy bar, the red rubber ball bouncing in Becca's memory and reminding her of the star that had spoken to her in her dreams. "The brightest star on the darkest stage." She managed to say outloud.

That night the green haired woman and the blond one were taken somewhere far back in the train.

 

The next morning after, Lucky Bell found herself a bright white latex-suited and tuxedoed man in the front of the train, a pale latex mask covering the man's face and revealing only his eyes, a red cloth over his mask's mouth. The man gave a bow to Bell, who was now dressed in an elaborate stage-outfit that included a leotard, gigantic peacock feathers, shimmering rainbow tights with scales and black latex gloves, along with an absurdly tall headdress.

"Ms. Lucky.. Bell.." The man said. "What a ridiculous name.

"Thank you Mister Fate, that was a good show you put on with AU's stormriders. The train would not well protected without you."

"I'm not accepting that name, why are all your madeup names stupid as fuck? So theatric." He said in a grizzly voice.

"I'm sorry, but you must be Mr. Fate, as I am Lucky Bell." She snickered..

"Don't expect me to play along with all your games and shows." He scratches his head pausing for a moment.

"..like when we were kids sister." He replied.

"Phoebe.." He said in a low voice as if whispering, his mouth covered in red cloth. "Zachary." She said, patting his cheek. "You've been gone a long long time..." She hugged

the man, holding him tightly. "I knew we'd be together again.."

 

The train stopped and the girl got out with the trainmen, accompanying them was the woman in the golden mask who had been dragged by Lucky's bouncy ball the other day.

 

"Oww. My legs still hurt..."

She said, hobbling just a slight, clutching her kneecaps in pain.

This stop, Becca noticed was different than the others. It was a huge kingdom with a sky of a black and purple hue, the stars like a deep ocean glistening in the clouds. The 3 others stopped and Becca got out with them, her suit and jammies blending into the darkness of the area as she walked outside.

"Where are we?"

 

"Somewhere wonderful. The Tower my dear, for an extra special show this evening. And an extra special guest." She winked, the entire staff of troupe starting to trail behind as they left along an ancient road towards a colosseum.

Along the road to the stage, many many people with cowls and masks similar to the women walked along. Lucky Bell turned around and held up her bouncy ball, and its threads soon wrapped around the limbs of a nearby masked man and dragged him over to the group. "You too, dearie." The man struggled as he was swiftly cocooned, until his squirming stopped. When he was let go, he appeared as a clown in full makeup and latex cowl, and joined the troupe as if he'd always been a part of it.

 

Lucky Bell and her troupe entered the great and enormous structure of a stage, where many of the staff were seen working as if there'd never been any masks or costumes before.

"We're here, ladies and gentlemen!" Lucky Bell declared. The audience gasped.

"To bring you the very finest in entertainment. Today we bring you a new act from our friends across the stars, our very own stars." Lucky Bell announced, the audience whooping and cheering in response. The show that followed featured the troupe performing in their fullest potential, each of the actors and actresses given roles that suited them to a tee. They performed for hours, Becca being in all of the acts and finally feeling like she was at home. The audience whooped and cheered in delight.

 

Inbetween acts, the girl had time to eat. In a backroom, Becca could see a beautiful woman with a lilac dress and a red rose in her hair, sitting in a corner of the backroom, dressed in simple clothing with her bare face before the people outside. She looked up and saw Becca, her eyes glowing as she looked out. "I-is it really you?" She asked.

 

It was Diane. She looked less stocky, but her fiery crimson ponytail and face Becca could recognize.

 

The gem girl turned and looked up and down Becca, giving a look of disgust. "Who the hell are you?"

Becca took off her cowl and rubbed some of her makeup, waving. She had enough vague memories to know that this was someone important. The girl pointed to herself and waved. “It’s me!”

Diane looked looked up and down Becca confused. "I don't understand."

The girl tried to remember her own name, hoping it could jog any recognition, but

realized she herself couldn’t recall after this long. Then it came to her. “Celeste! My name is.. celeste!” She shouted.

Diane blinked, not giving a single ounce of trust. "You knew me." Becca said, her hand on the door.

Diane folded her arms. "I'm quite sure I don't. Do you know me then?" Becca paused, trying to scrounge up what memory she had. "I.. I think I.. "

 

Mr. Fate came in and sat next to Diane. He tapped her on the shoulder, and she tapped back. He asked her how her day was going, and she said it wasn't too bad until he asked that and she had to see him again. He asked if she needed a drink or something. She said that'd be nice if he drank piss, and got up and brought the girl out to the audience of the stage. Becca didn't get another chance to talk to her.

 

Becca went back into the backrooms where the performers were preparing for the night of their lives. Lucky Bell was organizing the massive colorful crowd, her magnetic presence like an unconducted orchestra, her gestures like a baton. Bits of costume and face-paint still were hurried on at the last moment to perfection, the last remnants of the preparations. Behind the Ringleader, her three acolytes stood with their respective masks locked to their face their movements as they prepared to take part in the spectacle unnecessarily emphasized in time to the music, their voices reverberating all the more strongly for their muffled tones, as the three performers warmed up with their own rituals of body and mind, with the music now increasing in volume and tempo.

 

The ringleader soon stood with a thin space separating her and her troupe, the starlight carnival lit only by the torches above and the glowing riptide of light released from her ball firmly in her arms. "It's finally time. Tonight, they'll believe in what we say. Let's pry the faithless from their faith. Let's start a religion. We'll build this place up around our shoulders, until Atlas himself hands us the keys to heaven. This is our night. The words were accompanied by a swell of sound, a cacophony of applause and chanting as well as the booming noise of the drum section. The Ringleader's hands were raised, and her voice echoed off the walls.

 

"It's finally time. To finally prove what we're worth. Tonight is the night of the carnival.

We'll show the world how it should be. To build a church of mirth and starlight. To take the reigns of their minds into colorful ribbons, and fashion them into something beautiful anchored onto the world. Alas! The celestial ballad has come to town! Come and let us tell a new tale for an old and creaking world, and let the world know we've spun our fates into gold."

 

The entire troupe was fired up, everyone rousing boisterously. The 3 acolytes stood behind Lucky Bell patiently. "All that exists is the glimmer we take for granted." She said.

 

The stage was set. The show was about to begin. The Ringleader took one final look around the space, her gaze coming to rest on Becca, who stood alone, not quite apart from the rest of the crowd, not quite in. The Ringleader approached her, the glint of her mask now in

sharper contrast. Her voice was a husky whisper. "It's finally time," she said. "The midnight mass of the starlight carnival shines upon you, faithful Celeste."

 

The Ringleader stepped away, her mask once again taking over the words of her voice. "Let's build a religion," she said as her arms swung out to her side perpendicular to her spine, her sultry voice echoing off the wall. The performers all took a few steps forward in response, taking in each other's faces and taking up the chorus. Soon she lead the troupe past down a hallway and through a curtain into the show. A guttural noise came from the crowd as the ringleader finally walked out into the colosseum. The other performers followed her, each of them standing in the center of the masonry stadium. Each of them took in the scene, as the crowd waited with a collective tension. As if they were a single organism, their heads were held up high, ready for the ritual to continue. "Are you ready? Because just for tonight, with carnivalesque hearts ablaze the scion of the Cosmic Jesters premiers! Bon spectacle!" As the song reached a crescendo, the crowd erupted into chaos of cheers.

 

The ringleader threw the ball into the air, where the performers began a series of acrobatic tricks that ended in a shower of stars, as the Ringleader stepped back. The ball inflated into a higher-dimensional shape, and the performers each took in a different color. With a final leap, the entire group floated on top of the crowd, who watched in disbelief. Fireworks went on. Elephants began trapeze acts, jugglers threw glowing knives that ricocheted between partners like reflecting lasers. Jesters did flips on ropes and rings. The night that the celestial ball she'd brought had come to visit would end with everyone in the audience laughing at the same thing, an echoing riot of glittering laughter resounding from the crowd. The Ringleader was the conductor of this orchestra, her body in motion, her voice a whip. As the night progressed, her voice was joined by more voices, and the Ringleader became less a soloist than the conductor of a chorus.

The three acolytes soon arrived on Lucky Bell's command with the first blond one holding a long, metallic rod, its end pointed to the ground. It glittered with stardust, radiating a brilliant radiance. "You there, with your eyes upon me." She said. "Do you see how the light shines? You think there's only a few sources in the heavens, but there are more sources to the light than you can imagine." The blond one stated, the mask of the lover.

The green haired acoytle clapped her hands, purple slime emerging into fantastical shapes. She formed an entire caravan and gigantic horses out of the slime and road atop them like chariots, dodging the beams of light and glittering shots from the lover. Her mask, the mask of the schemer reflected the golden lights like a gilded tint across a rubber smirking surface.

The third acoytle, her light purple hair puffed like clouds with two large buns flared the sides of her latex jacket donning a series of six wings as she took flight, creating walled trails of shadow with the twerk of a cracking whip. Her voice was a booming tone across the colosseum, her face masked by a grin of a spooky skull, her expression mocking all the fearful faces of the crowd. The mask of the Fearful.

"And as the stars swirl above you, let me ask you this. What did it all mean? Were the ancients wise or did they stumble into the stars?" The lover said as her rod beamed up and sliced through the purple jester's illusory walls. The schemer laughed and the purple jester's illusory walls collapsed, the jester and her gooey purple horses disappearing.

 

"Ce n'est pas une question." The ringleader said, the her gloved hands unleashing roving fireworks again, the crowd cheering. "The question has been asked for eons. Why are we here? Why have we been placed here? Why must we die? Why does the ground crumble? Why does the wind blow?" The Ringleader said, before once again stepping back.

"They are all trivial concerns. The real questions are those of the universe. I can give you the answer." The ringleader said.

"The answer." "The answer." "The answer." The three acolytes repeated.

"All the answers. Knowledge consumes you, like the endless stars in the sky with their blinding light in the cold, dark ignorance of the void."

 

"But first, the answer must be asked."

 

"The answer to the question." The lover said as her rod formed from a light whip to a heavy blade which cut upwards through the performers performing above who danced around it.

"The answer to the question." The schemer said as her purple slime dissolved the into a cloud of golden fluid and rose the ringleader higher and higher like a glacier pedestal.

"The answer to the question." The fearful tamer jester said, as the crowd took a collective breath as lions and tigers 10 feet high stampeded into the crowd around her, her clap and waving hands commanding them with ease.

 

The Ringleader formed a throne from the shining gold slime, her treasured spherical artifact slowly falling to her armrest. She stroked it with a confident grin. "What are you willing to do, to be for those answers, and for whom? Who will you give yourself up for to be gifted with the blessings of tomorrow?" The ringleader said, before clapping her hands together. Her orb created a dragon of nuclear fire, the immense radiation flying far up and dazzling the audience. The crowd went into silence and awe as a series of golden stars rained from the sky from the dragon's mouth. All the mid-air performers all gathered at the center. The performers flew in a circle, the stars all gathering into beneath the starslights like performers on a track, the ringleader rose up her three acolytes on pedestals just barely less-tall than her own. "If you wish to be saved," she said, the acolytes and the performers clapping their hands, the star orb glittering in her arms, "Then you must take part in the rites of the cosmic jesters. Submit yourself to your ringleader! I gift you tomorrow, as an oracle of the new age! I wrap your world in illusions, and your fate in gold!"

 

She took a step forward. "So you wish to believe in the star ball, to put your faith in the wondrous world of the Celestial Jesters?" The crowd cheered as her arms went up. The star ball hovered in her arms. "Then take this gift of light, and the light within us! Join with the ringleader! We are the path, and we are your light! We will be the answer to your woes!"

 

While the audience roared into cheers the ringleader turned to Becca with a wide grin, as the acolytes' pedestals rose towards the sky to intensify their performance.

 

In the stage, Becca saw Mr. fate and Diane sitting with their arms folded, Diane with a scowl. He looked at her and pulled on her cheek, as if testing the elasticity of her flesh. She could see he was sweating. "Goddamn I knew she was always so pretentious, but this takes the cake."

 

"What does she know of the woes of the world? What does she know of me?" Diane said. "That is, of course, assuming you believe in any of it. What do you believe, Diane?" Mr.

Fate asked her. Diane grit her teeth, a fang from the gem's mouth exposed. "I think the idea of some new sect or cult or whatever is just a waste of my time. The world isn't like that." She said. "Some people are just really good at getting the attention, and that's all."

 

"You adored Clementine and her little 'shows' once the same way. So what's the difference between her and Beauvoir as a cult leader? Or someone with more followers, or more influence?" The man asked her.

Diane snorted.

"Or maybe, she's not so different." he replied. "Perhaps, she's learned something she can share with the world." He said.

"Sheep to the slaughter." The girl replied.

"There's no need to be such a cynic." He told her, patting her head before she slapped his hand away.

"God damn, I should really get out of here." She said. "Diane." He spoke. "Hm?"

"We've got company." He looked over across the stadium as on the opposite side, two figures were slowly taking their seat and arriving late into the performance. A foxy girl with pure red lips, a blue uniform and long black bangs. With her was her mousy librarian, who smoothed out her long skirt as she took her seat. Ellie and Grace had arrived.

 

"Is this truly the Cosmic Carnivale you spoke of, mistress?" Grace said, sitting with Ellie and the couple on her side. Ellie watched the performance with a bored look on her face, her hand held to her chin. "Hmmmm.. I sure don't recognize anybody here." Celeste was thrown high into the air, juggled between the three acolytes continuously as if she were a mere pin, a rotating triangle of light holding the three in the air projected by the star orb in the center. "Hm." Ellie replied. "And yet.."

"Yet what?" Grace said, her hands on her lap, the redness of the blood beneath her uniform stark against the pale color.

"I'm sure, that this performance, is quite familiar to the ears of a few we used to see quite a bit. Its just not the same actors." She said, as the three acolytes were joined by the Ringleader in the air. The girl clapped her hands as they each took the star ball in their hands. The crowd clapped in response, their eyes aglow with a riot of cheers, the entire stadium alive with the cheers of the celestial jesters.

 

The girl with the red lips grinned. "My, my." She said. "That ball in the show. Where have I seen it before?"

 

The performance continued on into the night as the acolytes all played into their roles, the Ringleader the centerpiece of their show. The crowd erupted in an electric riot as the Celestial Jesters took to the streets, the ball inflating to an incredible dimension and then finally popped to three rings, forming a borromean knot that was levitating the trio and the ringleader herself, who kissed and fondled all three while holding Celeste closely in her arms their hands and body glowing with a light of the ages, as their auras took over the night, flooding the crowd with color. Their presence was the center of the universe as they came back to earth to a thundering applause..

 

All of a sudden the Tent ceiling above ruptured. Armored figures on flying motorcycles with feather-capped helmets, leather vests and an assortment of species, shapes and colors shot

through the ceiling. The Celestial Jesters were taken completely off guard. From their silvery chrome weapons, beams of blue bounced out and lit up the stage to screaming panicked audience. Grace looked up and took note. The LaserRider gang, she'd heard they were making grounds quite far about 3 floors up, she never expected them to crash in here.

 

The ringleader turned with a scowl. "That's quite rude." She said.

 

The motorcade incursion rained down on the Celestial Jesters, each of their lasering bullets bursting into shimmering rays of light.

 

The ringleader raised her hand. Her star orb swelled into a larger globe, a riptide of light bursting out and encircling the Celestial Jesters and shielding them from the downpour of lasershots. Soon the motorcycle gang on their flying vehicles were grabbing and harassing the crowd, Ellie throwing popcorn into her mouth and watching. One flew over to her with a mike, she went 'pew' and with a poke turned her into a rubber sexdoll with a painted clowny face and kept munching.

 

A figure on a jet-cycle rode past the Ringleader within her barrier and kicked her hard in the gut, knocking her off balance. She fell from her perch, her orb of light bursting into a million diamonds as she came down, as the gang closed in to grab Celeste and abduct her, taking off with her high above the tent.

 

The Ringleader sighted the one who'd kicked her, they wore a black latex jester's cowl and had a pure white face. She rode up and soon swerved into the audience, raising her shades. My shades.

 

Ellie's eyes widened as she gazed at my cool leather jacket and kneepads. "Sup Ells. Gracie pacy."

The girl cheered, the sound reverberating off the tent wall. "WICKERS!"

"This place is looking like a lot of fun." I replied, my sick ride floating sweetly above the tower mistress and her gentle librarian.

"What're you doing with these hoochie mammas?" Ellie snickered.

 

I, Wick began to explain to smelly Ellie the epic story of how I was being hunted by bounty hunters in the legendary Skycity. Just as I was beginning to catch my breath from numerous chase scenes and Michael Bay explosions, I got caught by the notorious gang of LoserRiders. They showed no mercy, putting me through their deadly hogracing games and other torture methods. But I'd overcome their ridiculous bullytrials, and ended up displacing Godhog the odorous, earning her love and rising as the leader of these riders myself. Sadly Godhog had been turned into a rosebush again by my former masters and aided a rogue alliance of rival bikers in the Tower city against me. Yet, I had won the day by taking the throne of this city's local outlaws. I ruled with an iron fist, That's when the Celestial Jesters showed up on my horizon.

 

The fox looked me in the face, her face uncharacteristically chipper. "I heard about your little search operation." she said.

"You have?" She said, snickering.

"Yeppers. Trying to un-kazap pap-pap your librarian She said, glancing over at Grace. Grace blushed, a pinky of her face shining through, her hand slowly moving up and down her uniform, and looking at her watch. She smiled uneasily.

 

I turned back to the stadium. I saw Celeste, who was already bound and blindfolded and being dragged away. The Ringleader was NOT happy about my little light-show interrupting her lame stuffy ostentatious clownshow.

I felt a little embarrassed for her, . Yet, the Ringleader quickly began to shoot starbeams from her hand, her light illuminating all the motorcycle riders in a beautiful rainbow, she caught her eye onto me and waved at me to return. It was a mere flare, a call to arms. I recognized this woman, she'd come to this tower in times past attempting to carve out her own little niche closer and closer. She was a very cunning lady, Belldumb de Croissant or whatever. A sinister mistress of the cosmic carnival and the Celestial Jesters, she was. Yet, as soon as I'd heard about her show I realized it was only so much smoke and mirrors.

 

My grin quickly grew.

 

I loved smoke and mirrors. This malevolent hater meant nasty bizness. For a carnival caper she was no joker.

 

Slowly I raised my shades at her.

And it was going to be so much fun to take her on.

 

I rotated my hog's handles and fired a stream of laserbullets from my vehicle gatling gun at the ringleader's orb. I missed, a 5th-grade Quintessence field distorting the air and acting as a repulsive attractor which deflected my stream. The ringleader gave me a scowl, as I turned to her face.

"Welcome back to the city of mirrors, Wick. I've heard so much about you." She said.

The hater slapped her orb, which immediately began to create nanoscopic threads that filtered through the air until they formed a wired filament over the tent. One by one each of my laserriders was yanked and hoisted off their rides and strung up from the top of the tent, strangled at the joints like marionettes dangling about helplessly. Celeste got caught in the mix, hung by her legs and swinging back and forth from invisible nanowires.

 

"I'm the ring mistress here now. We're going to have to have a little chat." She said. The crowd, her audience, began to roar again.

 

"I can't help but wonder, what you're trying to get from this." I said, as I circled around the ringleader on my vehicle, avoiding the threads that danced between atoms and and molecules of my toonophorous being. "Cannot a performer deliver a fun show without it ending in your murder?" She asked.

 

"Your shows stink! Like rotten eggs up a donkey's ass. That's you, P-U! We're taking your shit show down." I said, grinning with a devilish grin.

 

"What a cute little prank then, huh? I have a trick for you!" She said, as her threads

began to weave across me, encircling my legs like ribbons as I spun my bike's wheels to stay upright. They soon clogged up my ride and soon began to dent the metal, like an industrial steel presser crushing a sodacan. "How about a game of cat and mouse?" The orb's wires got faster and faster, turning my bike's shredding gears into nothing but chrome dust. Then they wrapped around my from the neck down, dissecting my body into rubbery spagetti! I flipped and tumbled, my head rolled off and started to bounce along the audience arena seating. The starlit orb sped towards me and attempted to give chase

 

"Let's play..." I heard it say.

"Cat, Cat! Yep, that's me, Cat, mingling with the mice. Let's see what's what!" I stuck my tongue out at the dumby ball and kept rolling, my head bouncing as far away as I could. It tried to pincer me like a pinball but it never quite got me, its threads only getting faster and faster until they reached the speed of light. I sped up at the speed of light+1 nanometer/s and just barely escaped its tangly wrangly grip

The Ringleader was having fun, a wicked wicked grin forming across her face. "And to win this game, I'm gonna have to become a cat."

Widening my head and puffing in, I opened my mouth and sucked in like Kirby, swallowing the Ringleader's orb whole! I took some cues from two chapters back, when the big kitty bit that girl's head off. I swallowed her whole. I had a hunch she'd taste like a fine wine, but thems was spicy. My mouth lit on fire! Yet I didn't care. I'd swallowed her whole!

 

Slowly light began to leave my eyes, ears and mouth as I bloated up, becoming a decapitated balloon blowing up worse than a whole inflation fetishists wet dream. I swelled like a blowfish until I blew up like a fireball, my head splattering into goo and confetti.

 

As my eyeball went rolling below Ellie, I remembered where I'd seen this ball before.

 

I'd read about this one in the the library of light. It had once been an accomplice of the High Cosmos back in my world, a failed Nebula. The Star of Elysium.

 

The Ringleader was not as kind as the High Cosmos. She did not look benevolent, at all. She was a sly old fox. She was wily, the cunning kind of fox that I knew would never be satisfied. Soon the orb returned to her hands, and she looked up at Ellie, who looked back down disapprovingly.

 

As Grace picked up my eye and walked around slowly to put my back together like playdough, Ellie stood up, cracking her knuckles. She handed her librarian her snack.

"Eat some popcorn, Grace." The girl nodded. "Yes, ma'am."

 

Croissant pushed the Star of Elysium upwards, a ball of light, so hot it could cook your insides, was now floating and back in the hands of the ringleader. She raised it up, grinning and let it burst forward slightly, a chonky beam of pure dark energy flying towards Ellie. The girl was taken offguard by the speed, placing both hands out and shielding her eyes as the star ball shot by her, but she caught the beam with her right hand, and her head began to grow, like a balloon or a soap bubble, getting fat and blonde and then bloating up like a marshmallow, her hands turned orange, her mouth a little hole beneath the blasting flame. Slowly her fingers clamped shut over her mouth and she inflated a little more and a little more. She puffed up like a balloon

until her fingers broke off her hands and she began to bloat up like a marshmallow

 

"Yuck. This is disgusting." Ellie said. "Why does it have to be so messy." she said, as the Ringleader let loose with her beam, firing beams of pure nuclear darkness into the other girl's skin like the beam of a jet's engine until her flesh caught fire and she was a scalding hot marshmallow balloon at a bonfire. Ellie wiped the smoot out, put her finger in her mouth and blew like a reverse-popeye, deflating and returning to her original size and coloration. She winded up her left hand and fired back a rainbow beam against the dark purple-corrosion firing out of the orb, the two attacks traveling back and forth in equal measure.

 

"Harder!" The ringleader scowled and raised her hand, but the star-orb didn't move from its spot. She clutched it tighter and tighter as if she were trying to squash a tennis ball between her thumbs, but her orb was not moving, rather giving the intense output of a neutron star to just barely keep even with Ellie.

 

"It's not a contest." Ellie said, her left arm stretched forward and the ball of starbeam she fired into her hands, causing the orb to catch fire and glow brighter, as if struggling. "I'm just having fun really. Don't bore me yet." The star orb bounced between the beams and soon was shot into a wall the aisles, exploding massively, its corona flaring out like a skidding screech.

 

Ellie yawned. "So boring, I'm just playing the bimbo.

Grace sighed, chewing her popcorn loudly. Her mistress leaned back to sit. "I'm not sure what you were on, but this has been boring me into a catatonic state. Get on with it already."

Slowly the Orb levitated up, creating a set of three streams of solar energy behind it which flowed in the shape of a figure-8: the pattern of eternity swirling behind it like rotating wings for the masses to behold in all it’s imposing morningglory. It’s plasma-fire rose from the ocean of gravity generated from the three patterns and firing forward a great nuclear ball, a massive sun that shot upwards towards the premier.

“Woah! Big boy.” Ellie said, hopping forward and placing two hands out. She licked her gloved palms and met its challenge, flying ahead until she caught the gigantic sun in her hands, feeling it pressing her back with its weight. She tried to squeeze it down with her fingers, but they would not budge. It was like holding a rock the size of Jupiter. “Hnn!” Ellie screamed.

 

“Think Ellie, think. It’s just a really big balloon. And the thing about Balloons is..” She reached out into her pocket, pulling out a needle thread and licking it, empowering the tip at a singularity point. Then she jabbed it into the sun. “They always POP!”

The nuclear sphere popped apart, like a balloon of helium had been popped by a tack, spraying across Ellie in solar-wind, the nuclear energy scattering into all directions, sending her into a spin of nuclear waves, bouncing her into a wall and out like a squeaky rubbery ball.

Below, Diane and Mr. Fate began creating wormholes and portals all around and below the crowd, shielding the masses from the nuclear fallout, winds and solar showers that followed and heated up millions of degrees. With a creation of a huge black sphere, Mr. Fate sucked in all the radiation heat and energy to prevent further catastrophe.

 

Frustrated, the sphere began shooting size sections of spherical mass above, the immense gravity crushing hydrogen and helium together until mini-suns were generated over the increasingly charred tent. The six began to descend like meteors, Ellie looking in awe. "You wanna play catch now? I'm a six-time Tower tennis champ y'know." She said cranking her arms.

In the aisles, Diane and Mr. Fate looked upwards.

The man sighed and leapt up himself onto a rope-line. The six blasts fell like the stars descending out of the cosmos, millions of degrees contained within. He shot up and began to dive into the flaming balls, black energy coalescing and expanding over the stars. "Warpstrike: Judgement." The energy around him flowed into his hands like water, forming two red scimitars. "I'm a little rusty but I still got it in me." The swords grew like a black flame, two red swords of light until they were each larger than each star, and were flung like two lances that began to pierce through the air and into the stars themselves like a comet. These two pierced the falling stars and warped around the surrounding ones, sucking them into a black singularity that pulled them together. One by one the falling stars began to be sucked into a black hole, their energies forming a singularity and then, the mass so great it imploded upon itself and went out with a flash of light.

 

Mr. Fate landed, the crowd going crazy around him as he looked up at Ellie. The two glared at each other.

 

"Yo." He said.

"Zacky! Haven't seen you in forever man, you getting rusty?" Ellie replied.

Mr. Fate took out his hat and lowered it over his head, turning his face. “I’m fine.” “A man of few words as ever..” She laughed.

The ringleader was fuming at the scene of the two. "Why you little" she said, her orb growing as if it was alive, the ball of light exploding and growing larger. "Hey now, let's play nice." Ellie said, a rainbow beam being shot into the orb, which then transformed into a rainbow flower and popped the entire orb out of existence. The ringleader picked up the flower horrified, her entire show having been torn to pieces.

 

Her librarian walked up and said "Excuse me ma'am. 5pm checkout. We have to leave in 10 minutes." She pushed the remainder of Wick together like a playdough doll, squeezed and squished until she was back in shape, Grace picking up her eyeball and gently sticking it back onto Wick’s face. The jester girl bounced back distinguished as ever, full of springy pep and step.

"Wha" The ringleader said.

"Yes ma'am. Time's up. We're on a tight schedule."

"Wait, this can't be happening, I still have an entire show to play and-" Grace and Ellie ignored her.

 

Wick's LaserRider gang fell to the ground, unshackled as marionettes. They got up back on their vehicles and continued firing, making a mess of things. Suddenly the remainder of the tent's ceiling was broken, a monstrous roar reaching deep throughout the lands. Looking above was a gigantic 80 ft pig with a leather mask, thick black lipstick, horned helmet and golden faceplated armor. "Godhog! You’re back!" Wick cheered, hopping up and kissing her on the lips, loving how she smelt like roses. The gigantic pig, which had left an inferno trail behind it destroying much of the kingdom and civilization in that floor opened its mouth and unleashed a wide torrent stream of flames, the inferno unleashing in chunks and destroying the entire stage largely in a disastrous firestorm. Mr. Fate grabbed Diane and hurried along away from the flames, absconding from the scene.

 

As Grace and Ellie left the stadium far behind them, Grace looked back one more time.

"What a lovely, lovely lovely performance. I shall not forget it." She said in a sing-songy voice, the smoking stage behind them fading out of view until Lucky Croissant and her show were but a memory. "Ah, it was ok. A fun distraction. Certainly not as amazing as the real cosmic jesters. I love being a little rascal, but that was like a little kid's school play of a legendary movie. Cute but makes you wish you had the real thing." Ellie said as her head bounced and bobbed in the air.

 

Back inside, Beauvoir de Croix fell to her knees. The ringleader looked up at her circus, her performers and her stage had all been obliterated. "All that work" she said as she got up and left the place, her ringleader costume and hat tossed off like crumpled up napkins on the ground. "All this stupid time!" she said, pulling out a single golden ticket, which she flung off the stage. "It was all this for nothing." She said. The ringleader left in a huff with her rainbow flower, her circus and performances burnt to the ground, her star orb smashed to a million pieces, leaving nothing but ashes behind. "Until next time, until I reach my Starlight."

 

Within the flames and wreckage, one of the acolytes got up. She took off her mask slowly, revealing the blond woman underneath who felt as if she was waking up from a long charismatic spell. Slowly coming around, Astrid saw Becca laying on the ground. She ran over. "Celeste!" She called out. Becca took a big breath of air, waking up from her fugue state, slowly getting up to the sound of kindling fire and rustling smoke that burnt her throat. Astronomica picked up the girl and ran around as fast as she could, hopping over a dying elephant which fell over.

Astrid and her troupe hurried and hurried out of the tent. As she was being carried, Celeste saw all the clowns, mimes and acrobats getting up. They hurried towards her, each of them putting their hand on her shoulders. All her acolytes hugged her. Her fellow performers gave her the biggest hug.

After the firestorm cleared, the tower floor and colosseum was back to its original, non- charred state. As the evening came, the tower and its occupants returned to their own business, and things began to get back to normal as if Croix had never even entered.

Soon what little remained of the Starlight Carnival returned to the train into the boltholde. Some quit not long after, some stayed on. They never saw their ringleader get on the train again, for it seemed she was done with them after the disastrous performance, and the end of her show.