[02] Perform for Gamer!

[Belle Hibiki]

The bathroom was, as bathrooms went, perfectly livable. Belle started evaluating just how long he could afford to stay locked up inside, his eyes flicking over each of the bathroom's luxuries in turn. He had a soft, slightly damp rug, a faucet, and a toilet. Assuming he didn't eat, he could stay sheltered inside for weeks, though as time went by he would probably find it increasingly difficult to resist the efforts of the creature just beyond the barricaded door.

Belle shuddered. His other options were to either make another exit through one of the walls, or to head out the window.

He eyed the glass dubiously. It seemed like the most obvious, common sense course... Which, in his mind, made it most likely that they were watching that exit. Still, he couldn't stay here; maybe if he tried flying he would be able to open up some distance.

He had just started to get up when the world around him started to twinkle and flicker, theair around him turning with a loud vvp-vvp-vvp! The bathroom grew brighter in his vision, flashed, and then he was gone, leaving only a towel behind.

~+~+~+~+~

The curtain rose on the next act, and Belle stepped out onto stage with Dorothy, the Lion, and the Scarecrow. He had been relatively silent throughout the entire play thus far, and although he knew more than anyone that he didn't have a lick of acting talent, the fact that he was nothing more than a... A... Lapdog bothered him, and just sitting on stage going 'woof' the whole time wouldn't get him any closer to Gamer.

To Hell with it.

"I just want you to know," Belle growled suddenly, "that I don't like you at all."

Belle glared at Orion - the 'cowardly lion' - and bared his teeth. He had always had fairly prominent canines - a quirk of his family on his dad's side - so he supposed that it was true that he was the one among their motley group who looked most like a dog, but that still didn't make the humiliation of being dressed up in fur any easier.

Orion glanced at him, his momentary look of confusion shifting rapidly to annoyance. "Oh, really," the lion-pretender rolled his good eye. "Why?"

"I thought you knew," Belle shrugged. "Dogs don't like cats."

"I'm a lion."

"That's still a cat," Belle pointed out.

"It's a big cat."

"I know you're a big pussy, but a pussy is still a pussy. And dogs don't like pussies."

"What-" Orion stopped himself and took a very deep breath as the audience broke into scattered laughter. "I'm not a pussy," he got out, trying to move his lips as little as possible.

"Well, you ain't a bitch," Belle observed, then yelped as Orion made a swipe for him. Dropping to all fours, the half-saiyan loped across the stage, more like a monkey than a dog, angling away from the angry lion and his 'owner.'

Belle didn't think that anything would creep him out more than a girl, but he'd been wrong. So very wrong. Every time he looked at Zhu had to suppress his gag reflex. Women were bad enough, but men pretending to be women was something so vile, so horrible, that just looking straight at Zhu made his guts twist. It was a good thing he hadn't had anything to eat yet.

Cain grabbed his arm as he passed. "Toto isn't supposed to talk," the android reminded him in an undertone.

Belle scowled. "And why the Hell not? That guy-" he pointed to Orion "-is talking, and he's a Goddamn cat."

The scarecrow grimaced. His voice dropped still lower: "The Wizard of Oz is also a play aimed mostly at children. You're not supposed to swear."

"What swearing?!" Belle snapped, then paused as he belatedly remembered. "I didn't mean bitch as in 'you're a bitch', I meant a girl dog. Overreacting freaks."

He turned and waved his hand. "Fine, whatever. I don't care. We'll do it your way." He looked out at the audience, stepped forward, and pointed to Cain. "Because you know, the last thing you want is to get on this guy's last straw."

Silence.

"I said last straw," Belle repeated.

Someone in the audience coughed.

" ... I ... I mean, er. Man! I don't wanna be the straw that broke HIS back! Ha ha?" He looked expectantly into the darkness. Hundreds of pairs of eyes looked impassively back at him, some bemused, others irritated. "Well TO HELL WITH YOU! That was FUNNY. Assholes have NO sense of humor!" He turned to the others. "The yellow brick road, right? That's that stupid ass thing that we're supposed to be following? Let's get this crap over with; this costume is starting to itch like crazy."