The Carnival

[Belle Hibiki]

Once - just once - Belle would have liked to be taken somewhere without being knocked unconscious. It would have made a nice change of pace, if nothing else.

The last time he had fought himself out of a drug-induced coma had been in Central City, and the experience had not improved. He was partially aware of things happening around him, movement flitting to and fro, and felt the occasional prick against his skin as something was inserted. He tried to move, but his body refused to obey. His arms and legs felt like they were made out of katchin, only without the nigh-indestructibility.

A shadow passed over Belle's head. "Fuck you," he slurred between numb lips.

"Not yet, pardner."

Belle slipped into darkness once more. The next time he woke up, the deadened weight that had infected his body was gone.

Judging by the feeling and the smell of whatever was under him, Belle was lying facedown on dry, packed earth. He opened his eyes and looked around. Everything was bright and swirling, and he realized a second later that the drugs, whatever they had, had not completely worn off. His stomach gave a lurch and he closed his eyes, fighting down the sudden urge to vomit.

The sickness gradually passed. He hazarded another look around, winced at the brightness, then opened his eyes completely.

The spinning lights, as it turned out, were not a symptom of his drugged state. A brightly colored Ferris wheel spun lazily overhead, its many-hued bulbs glowingly brightly as they traced spirals against the night sky.

Belle grimaced and he pushed himself to his feet. His hand went to his neck; the wound from before was gone. His lips were dry and his mouth tasted like grit. Just how long had he been under, anyway?

"Tch." He rolled his tongue around in his mouth and spat. He'd been careless.

The carnival reminded him very much of the one hosted by the traveling band he and Sayana had visited months before. Although that particular incident had eventually ended in a hostage standoff, his memories of the carnival itself had been mostly terror-free, if not outright tolerable.

He could tell that the same probably wasn't going to be true of wherever he was now. A large gleaming sign loomed over the park, built so high that it seemed to loom over the grounds like a giant. Belle thought he recognized a 't', an 'o', and the squiggly shape of a 'w' in the second word, but he couldn't tell what the last letter was, and the first word mystified him completely.

Light blipped and bells dinged. A carousel spun around its axis a ways down one of the lanes that branched off from the Ferris wheel. Aside from himself, the park looked completely deserted.

Which left the burning question of what the Hell he was doing here.

Belle mentally replayed the brief conversation he had had with 'Wess' as he started staggering down one of the lanes. He could only assume that the carnival was part of the 'game' that the gunslinging cowboy-hat-wearing robot had mentioned, or was at least a staging area for it. Whoever was behind his abduction would not have gone through so much effort just to get him to come to a stupid carnival.

A ticket machine chimed as he passed by. "Welcome to the circus of values!"

Belle shuddered.

~+~+~+~+~

As Belle ventured deeper into the carnival, he discovered quickly that he was not - as he had previously suspected - alone.

Men and women could be seen flitting to and fro between tents, and several more stood behind counters or alongside games, smiling hopefully at Belle, as if they somehow expected that doing so would convince him to come and play.

Shyeah, he thought, mimicing Sayana's tone. Right.

Still, it wasn't as if he could wander aimlessly forever, and he didn't have a lot of options. Belle had considered just taking off and trying to find his own way back to Coast City, but he guessed that running from the game would just inspire further assaults from whatever dickhead was behind the abduction. Better to let the game, whatever it turned out to be, play out until the boss showed himself.

And then...

Belle settled on a likely looking prospect, setting aside his internal debate over what would be the best way to kick a man in the balls without permanently damaging him, and quickened his pace. A slightly lost looking young man with short black hair had turned into Belle's lane and was staring around with the same kind of bemused confusion Belle himself had felt only a few minutes ago.

Belle approached him. On closer inspection, the guy looked a few years younger than Belle was, and was pretty stringy to boot. He was entirely too delicate to have been in many fights, and Belle suddenly wondered if he might have made a mistake; the mastermind behind the carnival, whoever he/she/it was, was claimed to have been recruiting strong fighters, and the man in front of him didn't look very strong at all. "Uh," Belle started in, paused, and then decided to take the direct route: "You get kidnapped, too?"

The man blinked, looking up at Belle. He opened his mouth... "Yeah," an entirely female voice exclaimed. "Is that what happened to you, too?"

Belle started and stepped back. "Holy shit!"

"What?!" The man-who-was-apparently-a-girl jumped and looked behind her, then back at him, dark eyes wide. "Are you - ... Did you see robots?"

Belle pointed at her. "You're a GIRL?"

Belle had automatically assumed that anyone as frail looking as the girl in front of him would not pose much of a threat. As he ducked the flying park bench she hurled at him, however, he decided that he'd been wrong. "What the Hell is your problem?!" he demanded. "I was just asking a question!"

"Eat shit, Ginger!" she snarled, going for the trashcan next.

"Ginger?!" Belle jumped easily over the bin-turned-projectile, but slipped as his foot came down on a sticky spill of cotton candy and soda.

To Hell with this.

Falling to all fours, he scooted like a monkey across the fairgrounds, beating a hasty retreat behind a nearby tent as the girl started going for a table. He didn't like running from a fight, but he liked fighting girls even less - even if they did look like guys.

Belle cut through a few more deserted tents to emerge in a relatively unoccupied alley, grumbling to himself about camouflage. Only two other people were in sight, a man and a woman, both blonds. Belle passed them over, then froze in mid-stride. "Wait a second," he said, turning. "Kaden?"

The courier froze, then turned to look. "Belle?" he asked tentatively, as if hoping Belle was a hallucination.

Belle could kind of understand why. The last time they had met, things hadn't gone over so well. Truth be told, Belle didn't know how he felt about the courier. He didn't hate him, but the thought of what Kaden had almost done still made his hands curl into fists.

Moving his eyes off of Kaden, he blinked. "Oh, and..." He searched for the name. "Soapy, right?"

"Sophia," Kaden corrected, reddening just a touch.

"Oh, right. Sophia-san. What's up?"

The woman seemed ot take a few seconds to remember, looking at him in confusion. Then it clicked. "Oh. Oh! Right. The guy who groped Sage?"

"What the - HEY!" This time it was Belle's turn to blush. "Is that really the only thing that stands out about me?!"

"Don't take it personally. It was the only time she met you, right?" Kaden pointed out diplomatically.

Belle growled between gritted teeth, then realized something: "So you guys get kidnapped by robots, too?"

The blonds exchanged looks. "Yeah. You too?" Kaden asked.

Belle folded his arms. "Yup. They said it was for some sort of game - or something like that - for the strongest people around. I said no, but they weren't really taking it for an answer. Kind of reminds me of Dante's Abyss."

Sophia nodded. Kaden raised an eyebrow. "You said no to a competition?" the courier asked, sounding surprised.

"Don't get any funny ideas," Belle warned him, bristling. "It's not like I've gone soft or anything! I just have shit to do. Anyway." He looked off. "I'm thinking we should stick together, at least until, you know, the game guy shows himself. Don't worry, though," he assured Kaden. "I promise I won't get in the way of you and your girlfriend."

"Uh, Belle? Sophia's not my girlfriend."

"Shyeah," Belle echoed his thoughts from earlier and turned toward the carnival. "Right."