The Beast of Play

There are many things you might expect to see at a fairground. Children running around with huge smiles plastered on their faces, and visibly exhausted parents trying to keep up; myriad stalls with energetic caretakers, goading the numerous curious onlookers into parting with their hard-earned cash; perhaps even a mascot character or two. While said mascot characters may, in actual fact, turn out to be disgruntled college dropouts with no other avenue to vent their frustrations, even these are reasonably common fare.

What you most definitely do not expect to see at a fairground, though, are people, through no volition or decision of their own, spent the greater part of their lives as test subjects for all manner of cruel and selfish weapons experiments.

And whether they knew it or not, that is exactly what the mildly curious revelers gathered at the entrance to the Southtown Carnival that sunny Saturday afternoon were looking at.

---

"...too damn hot."

"That's what you get for wearing that damn suit all the time."

"...shut up."

Heads turned in curiosity as the odd group made its way towards the ticketing counter outside the entrance. Heading up the group was a young woman with shoulder-length brown hair who was wearing a neatly-pressed white shirt and knee-length black skirt. Holding her hand was a considerably younger girl with chestnut hair, wearing a simple white one-piece dress and clutching a popsicle somewhat apprehensively in her other hand. Behind the two of them walked an impossibly large man sporting magnificent sideburns, wearing a shirt with a Hawaiian print and khaki trousers. He had a pleasant expression, sporting shades and a wide, friendly smile.

The one who drew the most stares, however, was the dark-skinned young man who shuffled along at a considerable distance behind the man with the sideburns. His eyes couldn't be seen because of the red-tinted sunglasses that sat atop his nose, but his mouth was twisted in possibly the most bitter scowl the onlookers had beheld that day, exceeded in bitterness perhaps only by the invisible scowls worn by the men wearing the otherwise adorable mascot outfits. What caught their attention the most, however, was that he was counterintuitively clad in a leather biker suit, and perspiring quite heavily for his transgression.

It was under such intense scrutiny that the group finally arrived at the ticketing counter.

---

K' glanced over his shoulder at the gawking onlookers. He was already in a rotten mood, and being subject to impolite stares certainly wasn't improving the situation. His scowl deepened as he turned to face the others in front of him. It went without saying that he detested coming to places like this, and would much rather be doing something else. As to what that something else was, he had no clue; however, it had to be better than spending the day out in the sweltering heat.

"I thought we were here to see the attractions, not become them," K' grumbled as he finally caught up with the others.

"That's no fault of ours now, is it?" replied Maxima,"You're hardly dressed for the occasion."

"I'll do as I please," retorted K', scowling up at his friend's irritatingly cheerful face.

"Then you have no real right to complain."

"Hmph."

"Will you two be quiet?"

Seirah glared over her shoulder at the two bickering men, but in particular at K', who made a pointed effort to avoid her piercing stare by taking a sudden interest in the cloudless sky overhead. Maxima mouthed "Sorry!" while maintaining his wide grin, now laced with just a bit of sheepishness.

Seirah sighed and turned back to the counter. The lady behind it was a portly middle-aged woman, clearly suspicious of this ragtag bunch who had come to spend the day at the park. She furrowed her brow and narrowed her yellowish eyes as Seirah began to speak.

"3 adult tickets and 1 child ticket please."

"$25 total," came the reply.

Seirah took out her purse, counted the requisite amount and handed it to the lady, who snatched it fromher and counted the notes. After giving the group another suspicious sideways glance, she grudgingly pushed four grubby pink slips of paper across the desk.

As Seirah stuffed the tickets into her purse, she felt a slight tug on her sleeve. Looking down, her eyes met the red-eyed gaze of the brown-haired young girl who had accompanied them. A quick glance further downward revealed the remainder of her popsicle had somehow found its way onto her dress.

Seirah sighed inwardly, but smiled anyway, and took the young girl by the hand.

"You two. I'm taking Kula to the restroom. Don't go anywhere, ok?"

"You got it," came the reply.

K' watched the two of them walk away, then turned to his partner with an irritated look on his face.

"Why the hell did I agree to come along?"

"Well, we never really had a choice in the matter. Your sister can be very...persuasive when she wants to be."

K's eyelid twitched slightly as he recalled the events of that morning. Perhaps they were best left unmentioned. Instead he continued his rant.

"Still...what's the point of celebrating that brat's birthday? She was never "born," after all."

"Hey."

K' looked up at his friend's face. The smile that had been so persistent was gone.

"Look, pal. She may have been created by a bunch of lunatics in a laboratory somewhere, but that doesn't mean she should be deprived of having a normal life. Heck...you and I-"

K's eyes narrowed. Maxima paused briefly, slightly taken aback by his friend's negative reaction, but he continued, "You and I are almost the same. Our everything was NESTS...yet we threw it away so we could go back to being normal people. Don't you think we should give her that chance, too?"

Maxima ended his tirade, yet K's expression remained unchanged. He sighed and ran his hand through his short hair while looking in the direction of the restroom. Seirah and Kula were on their way back.

"In any case, just...be nice to her today, ok?"

There was no reply.

---

"How about that one?"

Kula ran to the next booth, dragging her adoptive sister along with her. As always, Maxima and K' followed a short distance behind them. Maxima idly glanced at his watch. It had been a couple of hours since they arrived, and they had already seen just about everything the carnival had to offer. At least, what the carnival had to offer that was still working. The roller coaster was apparently out of order because someone had stuck chewing gum on the rail, and the ferris wheel's motor was missing, apparently the victim of a vandalism by one of Southtown's many street gangs. The haunted house was similarly incapacitated by said gangs, defaced with graffiti that offered advice to people as to what they could suck. Needless to say, it was off limits for Kula.

Ultimately, it had been a complete waste of time, but at least Kula seemed to be having fun. That thought was enough to help Maxima and Seirah keep their cool.

Unlike his friend, however, K' was finding it difficult to maintain his composure. In fact, he was just about ready to snap. He hadn't, of course, taken part in any of the carnival activities, but his already surly mood had been thoroughly aggravated by the weather, which continued to get hotter as the day wore on, as well as by the moment when he found out that the food stand didn't have any beef jerky. He would have kicked the thing over had it not been for Maxima restraining him in the name of enabling the continued procurement of cotton candy.

They finally arrived at the booth Kula had wanted to try. Stacks of cans were set up in the back of the booth, and a shelf full of prize items was set up off to the side. Behind the counter sat a mascot character, a huge yellow bear with a pink heart emblazoned on its chest.

"Wanna play?" it said in an uncharacteristically rough and uncouth voice.

Kula's gaze wandered all over the prize shelf until it fell on a rather scruffy-looking stuffed dog, which for some reason was blue. Her eyes lit up and she tugged hard on Seirah's sleeve.

"I want that one! The blue dog! Please?"

Seirah was exhausted from having to keep up with Kula all day. Still, she managed a smile and pulled out a $5 bill. The mascot snatched it out of her hand and handed her 5 grubby rubber balls. Seirah handed them to Kula, glad that this game would be over quickly.

Kula took aim, threw the ball and missed completely. The second and third throws also somehow managed to miss their target. Kula's expression steadily became more and more agitated as somehow every ball she threw managed to successfully avoid the stack of cans by a larger and larger distance.

It was on the fifth throw that Maxima decided that he needed to intervene. Taking the ball from her, he contemplated the target briefly, then lobbed the ball in a precise arc. It struck the pyramid of cans squarely in the middle, causing it to collapse like the fortune teller's tent had earlier when K' tripped over one of the mooring wires.

Kula let out a shriek of delight and was lost in celebration. Seirah gave Maxima a piercing stare.

"What exactly did you do?"

"Well, um, nothing complicated, exactly...just, er, a quick structural analysis of the stack to figure out where I should hit to cause the most damage, and an equally fast calculation of the trajectory required to impart the most- "

"What?!"

"Oh, come on! It's simple math!"

"I can't believe you- "

"Hey!"

Their quarrel was interrupted by a certain pink heart-bearing yellow bear.

"What the hell was that?"

Maxima seemed puzzled at the question. Seirah was equally so, and Kula stopped her celebration momentarily to listen to the exchange.

"I won, didn't I?"

"No-one's supposed to win, dammit! I glued those cans to the table so that no-one would win! How in the f---ing hell did you knock them over?!"

Maxima and Seirah stared wide-eyed at the cute bear which was spouting such colourful language, unable to formulate an appropriate response. It turned out they wouldn't need one.

"Well, f--- it! I'm not giving you people anything! Now get lost!"

With that, the mascot turned around and started setting up the cans again.

The bear's last line was like a death sentence to Kula, who promptly descended into sobbing loudly into Seirah's arms. Maxima furrowed his brow, and was about to open his mouth when it happened.

A red-gloved fist smashed into the wall next to the mascot. Thin plumes of smoke were rising from it, which one might regard as entirely unnatural for a normal fist. However, the owner was far from normal. K' had been standing on the sidelines for this entire discussion, but with he had finally had enough.

"Give her the dog."

The mascot looked up at the angry young man with smoke rising from his hand, and said what perhaps should be recorded in the annals of history as one of the stupidest things of all time.

"Eh? What, is she your girlfriend? Whad'ya going to do to me if I don't give her the dog? Style my hair or something? F--- off!"

K's eyebrow twitched briefly. It was at this point that the mascot realised that perhaps he should have said something else.

Two seconds later, his supposition was confirmed as he flew through the solid wooden rear wall of the game stand, crash-landing in the remains of the fortune-telling booth approximately twenty feet away. A thoroughly annoyed K' ran in his wake, his fist no longer smoking, but burning with a brilliant red flame.

As K' was about to reach the hapless mascot, however, he heard a loud cry of "STOP!" followed by the sound of heavy footsteps. Within a few seconds the both of them were surrounded by all manner of people - mascots of all shapes, colours and sizes, men in dark suits, engineers and even the food stand operator, who was wielding one of the wheels from his cart in a feeble attempt to look dangerous.

One of the suits spoke up.

"We can't have you causing trouble here. Geese' orders. We're taking you down."

"Geese?" thought K'. That would certainly explain the terrible state of the carnival - it was probably a front for laundering money or something. As such unusually coherent thoughts ran through his head, a heavyset man with long sideburns walked up behind him and surveyed the situation with some distaste.

"You sure know how to bring out the best in these people, don't you."

"Shut up. Are you helping me or not?"

Maxima sighed while smiling widely.

"When have I ever had a choice in the matter?"

For the first time that day, a grin appeared on K's face as he and Maxima ran forward to take on the varied array of opponents that awaited them.

---

"Pl-please let me go! I'm just a college student! I did this for the extra cash! Honest! I'm
not one of these goons!"

Maxima beheld the purple rabbit kneeling before him, bereft of its mask, revealing the slightly built young man within. Around him lay the ruins of the surrounding carnival, as well as its erstwhile operators.

"Just...just go home."

No sooner had the words escaped Maxima's lips than the purple-clad mascot was off running, tripping over his former comrades and other newly-created obstacles in his fervent attempt to escape. Sighing, Maxima turned around to face his friends.

Seirah was staring daggers at him, while Kula was staring at the floor, clearly downcast at the unexpected turn of events. Slowly she began to speak.

"It's...always like this, isn't it? All we end up doing is fighting all the time."

Maxima, already feeling the weight of guilt upon his broad shoulders, couldn't find the words to reply to her stunningly accurate assessment of the situation.

"I guess...we can't have a normal life, can we."

Seirah's glare somehow managed to become even more piercing. As she opened her mouth to unleash a verbal torrent, however, she was interrupted.

"Here."

A red-gloved hand appeared before Kula, holding in it a familiar-looking blue dog. Kula, taken by surprise, slowly looked up at the owner of the hand. As her eyes met K's, however, he made a conscious effort to avert his vision.

"You wanted the dog, right? Here."

There was a slight pause as Kula continued to stare up at K's face. Eventually, however, her face broke into a shy smile as she took the stuffed animal from K's grasp.

It was Seirah and Maxima's turn to be taken aback by the unexpected turn of events. Maxima raised his eyebrows and looked questioningly at K', who returned his stare with a scowl and a short retort.

"You said to be nice to her, right?"

And with that, K' walked away from the group back towards the entrance to the carnival, which somehow had managed to survive the carnage unscathed. Kula hesitated briefly, but ran after him, clutching her newly-won dog plushie, and dragging Seirah with her.

As Maxima watched them walk away, the sun setting in the background, he knew that they would probably have to leave Southtown soon - Geese wouldn't take to the destruction of one of his laundering sites too kindly, even if it was completely accidental. Still, he chuckled to himself as he started after his friends.

"Just another normal day for us, I suppose."