SCS Fanfiction Contest Winner: Cassy the Clowns Big Top Bonanza, by FullAutoAlice

You are questioning my sanity? I’m not the one standing in an incursion zone in a 1-credit flak jacket, holding a microphone.

Potato King; Los Angeles Incursion, ground zero. Said to a reporter while he loaded a glowing green potato into his signature homemade PVC cannon.

**

“Who throws a pie at a plant monster?” Cassandra cried in her head as she ran down the empty halls of the community centre. Her oversized shiny red clown shoes slapping against old, but clean, linoleum.

A four legged plant, with whipped cream falling from its face, rounded the corner of the hall not far behind her. Losing its grip on the polished floor it slammed into the wall with a flurry of scrabbling legs and a bang, embedded slightly into the thin drywall. Causing young Cassy to start in surprise, and let out a small squeak of terror.

Deciding that racing a killer plant down a long hallway was not on her agenda today. Cassy turned quickly, and almost copied the antithesis, nearly going top over tea kettle. She barely managed to stay mostly upright by hopping on one foot. She booked it for the stairs.

“Maybe they are bad at stairs!” She hoped in her mind.

Cassandra had somehow forgotten about the very large, very awkward, very shiny, apple red shoes adorning her feet. She barely managed to make it down the first dozen steps before one glossy toe hooked on a pleat in her oversized, but amusing, pantaloons. Cassy careened cacophonously down the stairs, clattering off of corners, and generally having a bad time.

Her descent was stopped rather abruptly when she encountered something far softer and much squelchier than the concrete stairs and their steel railings. It gave way before her with some very awful splattering and squirting sounds.

Cassy found herself battered and a little bruised pressed up against the metal stair railing, covered in a rather unpleasant and sticky mess. It reminded her muddled mind of when she’d brought balloons full of flavoured gelatin to the water fight last summer. She had no desire to taste this goop though, it smelled rather awful, like a pile of week old grass clippings.

“Greetings Vanguard! Congratulations on your first kill! My name is Bartholymu. Might I recommend you get moving. The one you pied in the face is still coming”

Dumbstruck, Cassy just sat there, staring at her painstakingly handmade clown outfit. Days of hunting down the brightest colours of fabric she could find. Hours of learning to sew, and the pricked finger tips to show for it. Now a rumpled and torn mess, covered in plant guts. And she had a voice in her head! Was she was a samurai now?

No no no no no. Cassy was a clown. Cassy was going to bring them back into popularity. It had been her life’s goal since she found the archival footage buried in the meshl! The world was in chaos, there was an apocalypse on! People needed laughter, parties, and balloon animals! And whip cream pies thrown at them, and dunk tanks, and joy buzzers, and, and, and… Her mind spiralled trying to make sense of it all, visions of circus tents whirling in her eyes.

“I’m an entertainer!” She cried out in the stairwell. “I’m supposed to bring light and joy! I’m not a crazy Samurai, I’m not a killing machine…” She trailed off, a hiccup of a sob was followed by tears forming in the corners of her eyes.

“Why not both?” her new brain dweller responded. “You should probably get moving if you want to do either one though… pie boy is coming!”

Sure enough, there it was. Just rounding the corner of the stairs. All but the last drips of whipped cream gone from its strange planty head.

“Weapon! Weapon! I need a weapon!” She mumbled out as she tried to push herself further from the creature.

“What sort of weapon, I have a number of…”

“Anything” Cassy hollered out “Anything I can smack that thing with” She continued, as she managed to pull herself back to her feet. One sock and one scuffed red shoe slipping in the mess around her.

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

A solid weight materialised with a burst of confetti into Cassys hand. Gripping the shaft with two hands she swung it hard at the creature as it leapt at her. It smacked solidly into the vile things cranium, sending it careening off over the railing.

Cassy looked tentatively down at what she held in her hands, it appeared to be a large hammer, like the ones from the carnival strength challenge game, wooden, and brightly coloured, with a ring of stars at each end. “Did, did um, I hear a cartoonish Bo-oi-oing sound on impact?” She asked the voice in her head.

“You did! I thought it was very on brand. Cost an extra point. Totally worth it if I do say so myself. Why? You don’t like it?”

Cassandra stared down and the hammer gripped tightly in her hands. Her breath came faster. Images of the past half hour roiling in her head. Arriving early, her excitement as she set up her booth for the penny carnival, the anticipation of the smiles and laughter, she was going to bring such joy! Then, the alarms went off, there were plant monsters. A whip cream pie launched in panicked surprise sliding down a fibrous face…