The Carnival

[Kaden]

For several reasons – only a handful of which he was truly aware of – Kaden felt utterly drained. He was still staring down at the corpse of the long-haired saiyan when his view had become obstructed by a portal that tore open the air in front of him. The courier spent a good while simply staring at the swirling portal of bright orange energy. He really didn’t want to move, but he also figured he really wouldn’t get much of a choice in the matter.

If what “Gamer” had been telling them was even remotely true, they were all inside a computer… or something? The idea that something so outlandish could happen – again – did not seem nearly as far-fetched as Kaden’s sanity would like it to be. He figured out of three things would happen when stepped into the portal: he’d be taken to another fight-to-the-death, he’d be taken back to that bizarre carnival-cum-staging area, or he’d be killed. If they really were there for someone else’s amusement, having them killed in some death-portal didn’t seem particularly likely. Of course, trying to apply any kind of logic to that scenario didn’t seem like the best use of his time.

“Nothing to it, but to do it,” Kaden told himself. Though his voice hardly carried the tone of confidence he was hoping for.

Stepping through the portal was a fairly anticlimactic affair. It took the courier all of two steps to go from a massive parking-garage-battlefield to the middle of a carnival. Looking around, he was at least glad that he didn’t seem to be dead. Not having any idea where he was, or what could possibly happen next, though, put a damper on his mood. There was, of course, dealing with the fact that he had just elected to kill someone. That definitely didn’t sit well with him.

Casting his eyes about for a second time, Kaden decided he needed to sit down for a few minutes and at least get a handle on the turmoil that was quickly growing within him. Outside of the life-or-death situation he had been in, all he had was time to think about what he had done and that was not what he needed to be focusing on if he had any hope of surviving the game. And he’d like to survive.

Settling on a nearby bench, the courier dropped himself down with a long sigh. The buzzing and blaring of various circus rides and attractions actually made it quite difficult for the courier to concentrate on anything. At first it proved irritating, as his mind, frustrating as it was, would immediately turn to consider whatever sound effect had just invaded his thought process. He was seconds away from just jamming his fingers in his ears and humming when an actual voice hit his ears.

“Something wrong?”

Turning his head sideways, Kaden caught sight of the uninvited guest. Uninvited, however, did not mean unwelcome. His eyes slowly traveled up and down the woman’s frame before meeting hers – the courier momentarily wondered whether such an action would offend the woman, but decided that anyone wearing skin-tight leather with a figure like hers deserved what they got, so to speak. She wore a rather disarming smile and leaned towards the courier once she realized that she had the blonde’s attention.

“Perfect,” Kaden muttered to himself at the thought of another distraction.

“Why thank you,” the woman beamed. “A girl does have to look her best.”

“Fair enough,” the courier conceded after looking her up and down once more. “Was there… something you needed?”

“Nope,” she answered with a smile and a flick of her long brunette hair. “But I bet there’s something I can... help you with.” The pause in her voice, and suggestive tone, were very playful and very shallow.

“And what might that be?” Kaden replied, trying not to sound as annoyed as her intrusion actually made him.

“Well, for starters, I’m Mixie.”

“Kaden,” the courier

“Oh I know who you are. That’s why I’m here.”

“Riiiiiight. Of course you know who I am. That’s completely reasonable and not at all creepy,” Kaden ran a hand through his hair before standing up and turning to leave.

“I’m sure you have some questions about Kill Town. I’d be happy to answer them~!” She almost sang the words.

A thought occurred to Kaden as he stopped himself from leaving. His head swiveled about the carnival before he turned to face the girl. Once again he looked her up and down, but that time, his eyes were glowing with energy. He frowned at his initial finding, but shrugged and let the light fade from his irises. He considered the finding for a moment before speaking.

“You’re not real,” were the words he finally settled on.

“Wha- what?” Folding her arms under her chest, the girl half-turned from him in a huff. “Well that’s just rude.”

“Huh. Ok. Let me rephrase, then. You’re not real person stuck here the same way I am.”

“You caught me,” Mixie turned back to the courier, the feigned offense gone. “I’m just here to help the players of Kill Town. Answers questions, give directions, that sort of thing.”

That he had been able to see the ki of just about everyone but Mixie had been a pretty dead give-away, but he hadn’t expected her to be there to actually help him and the others stuck in Gamer’s game. The idea that there would be anything in the game that wasn’t there to accost its players was not something that the courier would have guessed. Still, he supposed it wouldn’t be very fun to watch if everything was always trying to kill everyone.

“Alrighty, then, Mixie. What the hell was with that portal? And having to fight some random saiyan?”

“Well that was your event,” the woman replied, as though such a thing should have been obvious. “And it looks like you did pretty well.” At that, she pointed to Kaden’s waist.

Following her extended finger, the courier reached down and pulled the pager-like device free from the waist of his jeans. It was fairly unremarkable save for a small screen on its broadest side. It listed Kaden’s name and right under it displayed “Monies: 40” and below that was a scrolling marquee of text. Apparently he had tied for first in an event called “Doppelganger.” Most of that information made absolutely no sense to the courier.

“Alright… what are monies?” the courier started off with.

“You use monies to purchase badges and other helpful items that will help you win the game,” Mixie explained. “You can purchase everything from badges, which you need the most of to win, to items that let you steal things from other players. There’s also a mystery capsule which could be just about anything.” She giggled, as though excited by the prospect of what the mystery capsule could offer.

“Ok. So I buy stuff with them. Why do I have 40?”

“You get 40 monies for taking first place in an event. Like I said, your reward is based on your performance. So you’ll be fine as long as you know can… perform.” She flashed the courier an impish smile. “Will that be a problem?”

“Ha! Yeah, well, I haven’t had any complaints so far,” Kaden replied off-handedly. His mind was far more interested in processing the information he had received. “Actually, where am I?”

“You’re in the carnival. Didn’t you read anything?”

“Come again now? What am I supposed to read?” Kaden cocked an eyebrow at the artificial woman.

“The brochure. It explains everything.”

“I… didn’t get one. I don’t suppose you’d have an extra?”

Mixie seemed to consider the question for a second. Grabbing at the zipper of her leather jump-suit, which ran down the middle of the outfit, she unzipped it halfway down her chest, reach… in, and retrieved a pamphlet. With a smile, as though she had just reached into a pocket, she handed it over to the courier. Kaden simple laughed and took the piece of paper.

“Thanks, Mixie. I’m, uh, gonna go have a look around.”

“Have fun now. And if you need anything else, just give me a call.”

As Mixie vanished, quite literally, Kaden shook the encounter from his head and looked to the piece of paper in his hands. He had stepped out of his portal into the… amusement park section of the carnival. As far as the courier could tell, he needed to cross through it to get to the store. If he needed to spend monies to win the game he was stuck in, he might as well get started sooner rather than later. As he started walking, something pulled at the back of his mind.

Somewhere not very far away someone was… using ki, maybe? Admittedly, the courier still hadn’t figured out what the different sensations provided by his sixth sense actually meant. Deciding that a short detour was acceptable, he headed off in the direction of the energy he felt. He absolutely never would have guessed who would he would run across.

“Piper?” the courier waved as the medic turned at the sound of her name. “Glad to see you’re alright. Who’s your fr—“ Though Piper’s frame had hardly been enough to conceal the alien standing behind her, it didn’t hit Kaden until it stepped fully into view. “Holy shit! Szar?”

“Kaden?” the changeling asked after a moment of consideration. “It’s… been a while.”

“No kidding. I haven’t seen you since all that Kai Demolic nonsense. How’ve you been?”

“Dead,” the changeling replied with a sad shrug.

“Ouch. Sorry to hear that.” As it had been with Sophia during Dante’s Abyss, it was more than a little awkward talking to someone who was… dead. “So what brings you here?”

“Psychopath with an army of robots and a god complex, mostly.”

That was an interesting thought. Kaden hadn’t considered that Gamer’s robots would be able to retrieve people from the dead. Admittedly, Damon Dukes had been able to do it, and he had no idea what kind of resources or influence that had taken. Couple that with the fact that he knew nearly nothing about Gamer and it seemed as reasonable as anything else that was going on. Kaden was going to vocalize as much when his eyes fell upon the glove covering Piper’s hand.

“That’s quite the fashion statement you’re making there, Piper.”

“What can I say? I just have good fashion sense.”

“I can see that,” the courier smiled and let his eyes drift pointedly up to the beret on her head.

“Hey now, you have a problem with my hat?” She pointed a metal-clad finger at the courier in mock accusation before looking him up and down. “Besides, what do you know about fashion?”

“Two things,” the courier replied simply. “First, that leather never goes out of style.” Kaden tugged at the edge of his jacket. “And second, black is very slimming.”

“You humans wear way too much clothing,” Szar commented.

“I suppose we should all just walk around naked?” Piper asked.

“It would be nice not to have to spend money on clothes…” Kaden found himself thinking out loud. He decided not to vocalize the more obvious benefits of such a scenario. “Anyway, what’re you two up to?”

“Ferris wheel,” Szar replied, pointing to the ride off in the distance. “You want to join us?”

A long, drawn-out ride that slowly took people higher and higher into the air inside of a shaky, unstable bench with no reasonable method of keeping them fastened in. Yeah. Sounded like a wonderful time. Verbalizing none of that, Kaden pretended to think for a moment.

“I think I’ll pass, but you kids have fun. I can wait outside the ride for you to finish. That sounds way better than just wandering around on my own.” Kaden continued with a gesture in the direction of the ferris wheel. “Shall we?”