187 Interlude: 2nd Walpurgis Banquet

Olympic Mountains, Washington, February 1st, 14:41.

Inside of an opulent hall, one filled with masterful murals and engravings, covered in the golden shine of wealth, a strange scene is taking place.

Around the hall, various decorations have been haphazardly hung up, from cheap birthday banners to Halloween pumpkins, piñatas and everything in-between.

It looks like the decorator was told to decorate for a celebration, without specifying what celebration specifically, leaving to an eclectic mix of everything.

In the centre of the hall is a table that seems to take inspiration from the Mad Hatter's Tea Party with how it is filled with snacks and drinks that do not match, tea in wine bottles and teapots used to hold doughnuts.

Around the table sits a strange mix of Clowns, from the matching Negante and Chibi in their chequered, black and white doctor's outfit, with a smiling and frowning face respectively, to Butterfly, who is wearing a flowery, open kimono and a mask fitting of his epithet, to the head of the table, where Tear sits in an authentic piece of medieval steel grey armour.

There are some who chose not to dress up to such a degree, such as Diversity or Harlequin, but it only seems to make them stand out even more. For when the strange becomes the norm, then the norm can only become strange.

Behind some of the Clowns stand some aides, a pair of woman in combat maid attire standing behind Negante and Chibi, John Doe standing behind John Doe and a grizzled man in a kimono that does not at all match his look standing behind Butterfly.

Gathered together under the pretence of an important meeting, one could wonder why it seems that they are simply chatting with each other, enjoying the tea party without discussing anything of true import.

But the answer for such arrives when the large entrance doors are opened one more time, as a seventeenth Clown enters the hall, this one dressed up as a mime, with a playful smirk on his painted face as he looks about the suddenly silent room, paying extra attention to certain figures and glossing over others, until his eyes land on Lusia.

But before he can introduce himself, a drunken Buccaneer speaks first. "Aha! The guest of honour finally arrives! Good job too, you 'ere any late 'n there wouldn't 've been 'ny rum left... wait... never mind, the rum is gone."

"You drank all the rum already? There was like a gallon of the stuff, how are you even alive? That shit's neat?" String Theory's response only garners a weirdly smug look from Buccaneer as Butterfly speaks up.

"Oh please, my wife could drink him under the table, and she's been dead for... I don't know, an indeterminate amount of time."

"You don't know how long your wife's been dead?" Is March's befuddled retort, to which he just shrugs.

"It's been a while." His lame response leaves March so stunned that the newest addition to this mad banquet finally has a chance to speak up.

"That seems like a pretty good segue! So, speaking of dead people," he starts, getting a couple of chuckles from his complete disregard to proper grieving etiquette, though a certain someone among them feels slightly disappointed that he's speaking at all, since he's dressed as a mime, "my name's Casper, like the ghost! But I'm not dead! I can just turn invisible and float around and stuff."

"I can't believe you'd be so insensitive, my wife is dead, and  this is how you act?" Butterfly says, his voice deathly serious.

But Casper remains unaverred. If anything, he seems even more energetic in his replies. "What's she gonna do about it? Knock my glass over? Bitch please, I'll whip out my Ouija board and call her a cunt to her face."

"Holy shit, overreaction much," March says, confusing Lusia at the strange turn of phrase that just makes her feel older, all the while Butterfly bursts out laughing and pulls out the seat next to him for Casper to sit in.

"Well I'm glad we're all getting along,~" Lusia starts, getting everyone's attention, "and now that we're all here, we can finally get to the subject of today's tea party.~"

Her piece said, Lusia turns to the Fool by her side, her armour clinking as she reaches for a teacup filled with 'wine'.

"To get straight to the point, we've been offered a job."

Before he can continue further, he's interrupted by an annoyed String Theory. "Is that it? I already told y'all, I don't do commissions. What waste of ti-"

"Seven hundred million dollars." Jinx's words bring a sudden silence to the room, String Theory pausing mid word as the number registers in her mind.

But then the moment is ruined by a drunk's wide-eyed mumble. "That's a lot of rum." 

"Is rum really all you can think about?" Diversity Hire asks with a deep sigh, having had to deal with his personality a lot, as the two of them have gotten quite well acquainted recently, but March doesn't seem to share the same concerns.

"Who the fuck cares about rum right now!-" I do!" "-Did you really just say seven  hundred million? Who the fuck would pay us that much? Who  could pay us that much? And what the fuck do they get to be worth  that?"

Her rambunctious demand does the job of bringing the focus of the room back to Jinx well enough that he almost thanks her, but refrains because he knows that Lusia would use it against him by accusing him of 'siding with the kids'.

"Well, do you guys remember Hitler? Kinda well known dude, had something of a problem with other people, Jews especially. Well, there just so happens to be a group of neo-Nazis over in Germany called The Gesellschaft who kinda idolise him for some reason. But it turns out, some Jews happen to hold something of a grudge over the whole Holocaust thing, and you know what they say about Jews and their pockets.~"

By the end of his sentence, Buccaneer seems completely lost, but luckily Fast Travel, ever the intellectual, manages to dumb things down for him. "Soooo, a rich Jewish guy is paying big bucks for us to go cause some trouble with neo-Nazis?"

"Shiiiit, we get to beat up Nazis  and get paid? Did christmas come early?" Diversity's response surprises no one, as she is clearly black, and Nazis don't tend to have the nicest opinions on black people.

"Basically, but they wouldn't pay so much just for us to cause some trouble. Nah, they want us to  ruin them. Top to bottom, and there's another hundred mill in it for us if they officially disband as an organisation. So, whaddaya say?" Jinx's words cause those present to either smile or nod their heads, either happy with how fun the job sounds or about the money.

Either way, they're smiling.

Before anyone else says anything, Fast Travel's hand flies up into the air as he holds it up like a kid in school, and Jinx just lets his head fall into his hands, groaning for a moment. "No, you won't still get a cut if you don't participate."

His hand goes down and Jinx pretends he doesn't see his pout, or hear anyone's ensuing laughter.

"Well, do we have a plan?" Vendor asks, being one of the few sensible people present.

"And a timetable, I'm kinda busy right now," March follows, as her 'aide' Tori refills her cup.

"Too busy for seven hundred mill?" Harlequin asks, sounding genuinely surprised at the notion, a feeling matched by others present.

"Yeah, I was about to try recruiting a duo in Florida I've been looking into, so unless any of you can make sure nothing changes with them for however long this'll take, then I'm busy."

"I could do that." Butterfly cuts in with a wave in her direction.

"Yeah? I'll text you their details then." March responds, pleased by the quick solution, only to freeze with his casual response.

"Ah, don't worry about it, I already know them. The Graeae right? Triplets triggered in a shipwreck recently, knocked down to two, probably cuz've the kiss/kill syndrome that clusters get."

March, baffled by his knowledge and slightly suspicious, doesn't hesitate to question him. "How the fuck do you know who I'm looking for? I thought you didn't have any powers?"

"Wait what? You don't have any powers?" Casper interrupts, only to be swiftly ignored.

"I don't, I just have a good memory. You mentioned you were looking into clusters, so I memorised all the known cluster capes in the U.S.." Butterfly answers with a shrug, as if doing so is just a simple thing.

But his words only serve to annoy March even more. "If you knew I was looking for group triggers, then why didn't you tell me this?!"

"I wanted to see how long it'd take you to ask.~"

He gets a teapot full of maple syrup thrown at him in response to his blasé, mocking answer.

"Well now that  that's sorted," Fool says, bringing the conversation back to topic, "we have a rough timeline which is basically just to be done by the end of the month. As for having a plan, well. That's where our glorious founder, the Slaughterer of Slaughter herself comes in."

Lusia gives him a dry look from his introduction of her, but straightens up nonetheless, keeping a perfectly straight face as if she can't hear her armour clanking every time she moves.

But Negante speaks up before she gets the chance to, his voice in that sarcastic tone that only broody teenagers are capable of. "Oh boy, she's got a plan. I sure hope your plan doesn't need anyone other than yourself to be turned into a piece of modern art?"

"Ack! You wound me Negante!~" Lusia yells out, clutching at her chest in mock pain, "I'll have you know, only like... eighty percent of my plans result in my own violent mutilation.~ 'Sidessss, if all goes well, I won't even be fighting.~"

"When do any of your plans go well?"

"I'll have you know, my mutilation is generally a part of the plan, so technically nothing goes wrong... Except for that one time and the other time... and the other time, but they don't count."

With a low sigh, Nutcracker speaks up for the first time since Casper arrived. "We're all going to die."

"My gosh!" Lusia exclaims, exaggeratedly offended, "where is the faith!~ Do you truly think so low of me?~"

The almost unanimous head nodding of agreement makes Lusia collapse forward onto the table, her armour making a 'clang' noise as she does so, until she sees that Chibi is the only one shaking her head.

"At least one of you has a heart.~ Why are you all so cruel?~ Take a lesson from Chibi and be nice to me!~" Unfortunately, her bemoaning of her fate does nothing to draw any sympathy from those present.

March decides to hammer this point home by shooting even more emotional arrows through her heart. "Stop being so extra, it's embarrassing. Just get to the point and tell us this plan of yours so that we can tell you why it's stupid." 

"Now that is just  rude. But fair enough," Lusia says, sitting upright once again, "the plan is actually pretty simple, but there's still some setup required, like getting one of  your doors delivered to Germany."

Fast Travel perks up as he is addressed and gives Lusia a two fingered salute, clearly not paying too much attention but happy to be involved nonetheless.

"Sure thing! But what are you gonna even do? I mean, I might not know a lot of things, but Gesellschaft is a pretty big organisation right? Like, The Elite but racist Germans. How exactly do you get a group as big as that to dissolve? It's not like we can just kill their leaders or something, someone else would just take their place. So what exactly are you gonna do?"

As if he just asked the perfect question that she was wating for, a  feral grin grows on her face, and when she answers, she does so in a tone of poorly restrained glee.

"I'm going to walk through their front doors, sit down with them and I'm going to ask nicely.~"

=================

A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!

I'm tired. I think I forgot something while writing this, but idk what.

Though I do know that that last line was supposed to be like an endcut in a movie, y'know, fade to black and all that. idk how well it turned up like that, but eh. Tired.

Also, my diet recently has consisted of sausage rolls that cost 99p for a pack of 8, rich tea biscuits that cost like 60p a pack and savers white chocolate, that are 40p per bar that is larger than my palm.

But despite how horrendous that diet is, I'm balancing it out by taking a handful of multivitamins every time my stomach starts making the "please give me proper food or i'll hurt you" kind of sensation. It's like feeling sick but I know it's just the result of my own poor decision making.

(5+)Advanced chapters with the links below!

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