Act 7, Scene 1- Angry Girls, Asskickings, and The Cabaret

--- Joshua ---

“Okay so we-” (You mean ‘you’.) “-have spent more time on deciding this project than we should’ve.” Annette told him, taking a seat at their regular table. “We need to get this sorted.”

“Alright, so what do you want to do?” He asked, his mind more focused on the ‘special training’ the Malice Doctor had planned than a school project he couldn’t care less about.

Annette glared at him for a moment before getting fed up with his bullshit. “You know you haven’t actually put all that much effort into this project.”

“And you know until we pick a subject we don’t have a project to work on.” He pointed out, in another attempt to push away the (pointless) project.

“Okay, then you pick a subject.” Annette told him. “Sanctuary or the Heroes’ Guild?”

“I’m guessing I can’t just say neither?” He asked with a sigh.

“No, you can’t.” Annette glared once more.

“Fine…” He groaned, rolling his neck as he thought about it for a minute. “Well if you can’t decide between Sanctuary and the Guild, why not just do both?”

“What?” His fellow teen scowled. “I’m not doubling our workload just because you can’t make a decision.”

He couldn’t help but roll his eyes. “No, I mean a compare and contrast of the two organizations.”

“A compare and contrast?” Annette repeated. “What do you mean?”

“What I mean is, both organizations are advertised as peacekeepers who deal with Deviant threats, and yet the way they do this is significantly different, as are the resulting reactions of the public.” He tried to explain.

“You mean, how Sanctuary uses their soldiers and the Guild has their Masks?” Annette figured. “I mean the soldiers are more intimidating than the Masks, and show a more authoritarian approach while the Masks show more of a public protection kind of thing.”

“What? No!” He frowned, his face scrunching up in confusion as he tried to understand where she got that idea. “Sanctuary Agents are basically the same thing as Masks so that’s not a point, especially when you consider the fact that outside of a few independents the Heroes’ Guild functions as an organization to encourage Masks to work with the police by offering legal legitimacy and assistance they can’t get on their own. No what I was talking about is how Sanctuary keeps the peace by maintaining law and order, and the guild maintains it by inspiring hope and good-will.”

Annette blinked as if surprised by how everyone knew the system worked. “Huh, that’s actually a unique concept.”

“Not really,” He disagreed, not getting why she was so surprised. “I mean one is focused on public security and the other is focused on public relations. Which makes sense when you look at how they operate on the macro.”

“Hold on.” Annette told him, pulling out a fresh sheet of paper. “Now keep going this is good stuff.”

“I guess?” He admitted before shaking his head and continuing to explain details about the two institutions that someone as bright as Annette really should’ve figured out by now.

Scene Consequences

-Grown a bit closer to Annette.

-New Skill Revealed: Street Smarts Lv. 3 (0/8)

--The ability to make judgements about how people and things work on an urban level.

---

As he made his way towards the Malice Doctor’s warehouse, he decided he had enough time to try and work on his budding parkour skills, an effort he found notably easier than the last time he’d attempted this.

(I guess that ‘enhanced strength’ thing really does make this kind of thing easier.)

He was by no means ‘good’ at his parkour attempts, but the various exercises he was doing were helping him with his footwork, as well as giving him a surprising amount of work on his full-body dexterity.

It wouldn’t help much with smaller more precise things on either front, but he was definitely seeing some improvement with the larger movements.

Unfortunately, despite being able to do a lot of the more basic movements relatively quickly, he wasn’t all that capable of chaining them together. And when he could manage that much, he found he had trouble keeping track of the obstacles in his little course at the speed he was covering it.

As demonstrated when after managing to kick off a wall and climb over a fence, he misjudged the distance of the following jump causing one foot to land on his targeted dumpster and the other to be just a touch too short. A combination that resulted in his legs parting uncomfortably right as he hit the dumpster with his full weight, on a notable weak point of all males.

(Ouchies…)

Scene Consequences

-Parkour Training (2/3)

---

Having walked off his near-fatal injury he eventually arrived at the warehouse, he took in the large empty space and saw no one else in the building, leaving him wondering where his ‘teacher’ was.

(Maybe they’re running late.) He’d made sure not to waste so much time with his -poor/(underrated)- attempts at parkour as to miss the time the Malice Doctor had given him. And at the same time he really doubted they’d stand him up after spending who knows how much time and a dozen malice vials on him.

This assumption was proven correct when an impact to his ass sent him flying across the room.

“First lesson, you need to know how to fight.”

(No.) His eyes widened at the familiar voice.

“And the best way to learn how to fight?”

(No, no, no.) He repeated as he picked himself up.

“Getting your ass kicked, until you stop.” Zylah told him.

“Fuck.” He cursed.

“Don’t worry, this is going to be fun.” The Shadow Dancer assured him, before appearing behind him and once more literally kicking his ass. “For me at least.”

“Mistakes have been made.” He told himself as he laid there with a heel print on his buttox.

“Yes, yes they were.” Zylah agreed, pulling her leg back.

Scene Consequences

-New Skill Learned: Brawling at Lv. 2 (0/6) due to previous experiences and mentor’s brutality and skill.

--Grants a +(Skill Lv.) to all melee combat rolls while unarmed.

--Note: You can learn multiple overlapping skills and when learning those particular skills you will gain a small starting XP bonus based on existing skill levels. Additionally skills do stack with each other if they overlap on a particular skill check.

---

By the time he’d finished getting his ass handed to him by Zylah, he hadn’t felt like doing anything else with his day. Something Chris and Maddie were willing to accept given the late hour, after he’d explained he’d spent all day working on a couple of projects for school. So it’d make sense that after a nice soothing shower, he’d pass out within minutes of laying on his bed.

Of course what didn’t make sense was why he was standing in front of an increasingly familiar set of doors.

(Another lucid dream?) He’d had a couple before but none quite so vivid or frequent as the few he’d had over the last week or so. (Ever since I got my powers really…)

He couldn’t help but shake his head with a grin. “Can’t tell if that’d be an awesome power or a terrible one.”

“Still if I keep having this dream, I should probably see where this is going.” He admitted, pulling a familiar set of golden keys from his pocket before opening the doors.

This was when he noticed a difference between his first time here and this, namely that the unlit lights along the wall were all glowing.

(Wonder what that means?) He frowned before continuing down the hall and past the curtains, where instead of finding a large darkened area he found a well lit, if empty, bar.

“So I guess all the lights are on now.” He commented, taking a better look at the speakeasy that didn’t look much better in the light than it had in the dark. (You can actually tell how run down this place is now.)

The cloth covering the furniture was covered in dust -(which I guess was the point)- but he could now tell some of the chairs seemed to be missing around a few of the tables. What’s more the carpet that he could tell had once been a smooth velvet was now faded and rough in several patches.

(All in all the only thing that doesn’t look like crap is the bar.)

“Boss!” A voice suddenly shouted in shock.

(Who?) His face scrunched up in confusion as he turned to the source of the voice and found the tall pale man he’d seen on his first trip through this place. (What was his name… Something Jones?)

(Whatever-his-name-is) Jones grabbed one of his hands and began to shake it wildly up and down a wide and relieved smile on the man’s face. “It’s so good to see you in one piece boss! I was so worried when you showed up here yesterday with your face so messed up!”

“My face?” He repeated before flinching as he remembered Zylah caving in his skull. (At least she didn’t go that far during our ‘training’ today…)

“Oh, sorry to bring up bad memories, boss!” Jones apologized with a light whimper as if he was scared of something.

“It’s uh, it’s no problem…” He waved the apology away, more concerned with clearing his head of that painful memory as he focused on… “Um, I don’t think I quite caught your name?”

“Oh, right! I’m so sorry boss! I had no idea I was being that rude!” The anxious man assured him continuing with his oddly panicky attitude by rubbing the back of his hands.

“It’s fine, really…” He told the man, while rolling a hand through the air in prompting.

“Oh! Avery, Avery Jones! I’m the manager of the Cabaret, or I was… am? Th-that’s kind of up to you boss…” The man -(Avery)- introduced excitedly at first, before trailing off nervously.

Paying no mind to the anxious man’s odd nervousness he asked, “The Cabaret?” as his eyes drifted towards the speakeasy’s stage.

“Yes, the Cartoon Cabaret! Home to the finest entertainment for nearly a hundred years now!” Avery nodded with a smile, suddenly filled with an enthusiasm he didn’t think the nervous man capable of.

“The Cartoon Cabaret…” He wasn’t sure why, but that name resonated with something in the both the back of his head and deeper within. “Why is that so familiar?”

“W-Well, because you're the uh, boss, Boss.” Avery told him a little unsurely.

“I’m the boss?” He repeated in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“Well… you own the cabaret?” Avery answered with equal confusion, as if he expected Joshua to know this.

“I own it…?” He frowned, before remembering a weight in his pocket and pulling out the gold keys within.

“Yeah, see you have the keys to the wonderland and everything!” Avery grinned, his smile downright giddy as he stared at the keys.

“Wonderland!?” He repeated eyes snapping to the pale man.

“Y-yeah.” Avery nodded, snapping out of his own giddiness.

“As in…” He looked around the rundown speakeasy, the one that looked like no one had taken care of it in years as his heart pounded in his chest. “As in this is a wonderland?!”

“Y-yeah?” Avery nodded again, though this time looking confused by something.

“And you said, you said I own it?” He checked, pointing seriously at the increasingly nervous man.

“Y-yes.” Avery swallowed.

He couldn’t help it, he laughed and he laughed madly.

“Uh, B-Boss?” Avery asked, looking scared to get any closer to his mad boss.

A mad grin grew on his face as something clicked in his head, as if suddenly so many things made sense, even if nothing really did. “If, if what you’re saying is true, then that means, that means that I’m not just a Mal-Corrupted… I’m, I’m a Wonderlander!”

Another mad cackle tore its way out of his throat as he realized he wasn’t just a madness user like his brother. No, if he really was a Wonderlander then that meant his connection to the madness was far greater than his brother, and that meant (I’m going to be the star of this show!)