Act 10: Tooning Things Up.

--- Joshua ---

“Alright, so we’ve got enough to fix the stage now, right?” He asked as Avery began messing about with three of the Malice spheres he’d shown off during their tour of the Cabaret a few days prior.

“Yes? Maybe… No, yes, definitely.” The timid manager answered, cycling through answers as he did something that Josh could feel but not understand just yet.

“Not filling me with a lot of confidence here, Avery.” He frowned with just a touch of concern, given how this was currently his only lead on fixing up the Cartoon Cabaret, something they both wanted and needed.

“S-sorry boss, just, just give me a second… please?” Avery begged more than asked, as he continued to fiddle with the Malice spheres. “Wait… wait, almost got it and… Yes!”

Avery laughed as the three Malice spheres collided before merging into a glowing yellow sphere that seemed to almost vibrate with an excited energy of sorts.

“So this is an ‘Excited’ resource?” He made sure as he gently picked the sphere up, the madness not quite touching his skin as he examined it.

“Yes, absolutely!” Avery smiled with just a touch more relief than he was comfortable noticing.

(This really must’ve been a long shot for both of us…) He realized with a barely suppressed grimace, before focusing once more on the sphere in his hands. (At the very least it paid out. Though I’ve got to know,) “Why do you call this an ‘Excited’ resource exactly?”

“Oh, uh, just focus on it for a moment, and you’ll see.” Avery told him as the timid manager made his way towards the stage.

Doing as the Cabaret resident suggested he focused on the sphere in his head for a few moments before beginning to feel an excited sort of buzz at the edge of his mind as if the sphere itself was making him excited about something.

“Yeah, that… that makes sense.” He agreed, forcing his attention away from the sphere as it began to give him this odd sort of headache.

“Um, you mind bringing that over here, boss?”

He blinked before spotting Avery next to the stage and making his way over. “Uh, right, right… Here you go.”

“Thanks.” Avery rolled his shoulders as he focused on the stage, before slowly pushing the Excited sphere towards it until a faint glow began to spread out across the stage. “And… that should do it.”

“That’s it?” He asked, watching Avery dust his hands off as the sphere disappeared into the stage, before turning to the still decrepit (if glowing) stage.

“Since we’re just restoring it, yeah.” Avery nodded. “Though it’ll probably need a second to settle.”

As if that was the magic word something in the Wonderland snapped, and the glow of the stage burst before bit by bit the stage began to fix itself. Loose and scraped boards locked into place before restoring themselves to a smooth new wood polish. The lights along the front of the stage once burned out or shattered all flashed into new luminescence with brand new bulbs. Torn and faded curtains danced, shaking off the damage and looking as good as new velvet.

“Now that is what I’m talking about!” He laughed, climbing onto the stage as he felt an excitement that was too genuine to be the result of anything but himself. “Looks good as new!”

“Almost.” Avery admitted with a smile of his own. “There’s still a few other bits of it we’ll have to fix before we open but it’s a good start all the same.”

“Right.” He nodded, looking around the stage and noticing a couple of things that hadn’t been fixed with the main stage. “I’m guessing the spotlights and the screen are going to be the big things, huh?”

“Yeah, but there’s also the stage backgrounds and the prop dispensers, though we might need to fix storage before we can get to those.” Avery pointed out, growing a touch depressed at the list of still broken things.

“I guess that does fit the whole ‘living world’ thing.” He figured, remembering something about how Wonderlanders treated their wonderlands as living places where everything was connected in some way.

“Still it’s like you said, this is a good start if nothing else.” He reminded the wonderland resident with a pat on the back.

“Sure is boss.” Avery agreed looking over their small but crucial first step to fixing the Cartoon Cabaret.

Scene Consequences

-Cabaret Stage has been restored.

-New Wonderland Power: Stage Presence

--Observers of Josh’s actions who don’t interact with him become members of the [Audience] while those he interacts with become [Actors] in his performance.

--So long as there is an [Audience] gain a small boost to all Social stats.

---

Given his (hilariously) interesting use of it the day prior, he decided to keep experimenting with his madness field while he got ready for the day.

And while he could still only use it a few times in a row, after playing around with a number of things in his room he’d discovered that the field was notably less likely to hurt him the more he gave it to work with.

As seen when he’d set up a small rube goldberg machine in his room involving knocking over a series of dominoes, pushing a shoe over the dresser edge, and rolling his brother’s old skateboard out the door. A relatively simple series of events on paper, but a series that would probably require a greater understanding of physics than he had to pull off, especially since he doubted the dominoes actually had enough force to knock said shoe off the dresser.

“I guess this means the reason the field keeps hurting me is because I’m the only resource it really has to pull off these feats, so it has to force me into a position that does what I want.” He realized, as he made a small breakthrough that while not increasing his actual power that much did increase his understanding of the power in question.

Scene Consequences

-Gained 1XP to Rube Goldberg Field

--*Power Level Up* Rube Goldberg Field Lv. 3 (0/8)

---

Knowing that the Malice Doctor’s next test was due any day now, as well as the fact that he wasn’t entirely sure if he should tell them about him being a Wonderlander or not, led him to his usual training spot with a ‘borrowed’ wooden baseball bat from the park’s sports field.

“Alright, so my Toonification is going to be my big showstopper for this performance.” He told himself, feeling like the ‘show-y’ imagery fit with his wonderland’s show-club theme. “This means if I really want to wow them this time I need to actually put some effort into this.”

Reaching into his backpack he pulled out his last two vials of Malice. “Guess I’m going all in on this one.”

Rolling his shoulders once, he threw his head back before downing the contents of both vials, savoring the strawberry and copper as his foot began to tap to the symphony of his dreams.

“Now let’s see just what kind of show you put on, little buddy.” He told the bat with a grin on his face.

Coating his palm in ink, he grabbed the bottom of the bat grip before smearing his hand all along the bat, spreading a thin coat of ink across the entire bat.

The first thing he noticed as his ink sunk into the bat was that the bat’s wood patterns slowly became more prominent as the bat’s color faded into a monochrome appearance.

Feeling for his connection to his ink, he found one such connection had formed between him and the bat even if said connection wasn’t necessarily as strong as the connection between him and his tags.

Shifting into a batter’s stance -or at least what he thought was a batter’s stance given how he was barely passing P.E.- he shifted his grip on the bat around a bit before swinging it around in what he felt was a decent combo going off of his video games. And of course as was necessary of all video game finishers he held his last swing a little longer than the others before swinging with all of his might. An action that seemed to cause the baseball bat to grow to nearly twice its previous size before shrinking back down to normal as his toonification broke leaving it in the same state he’d found it.

(Okay… please tell me I didn’t just imagine that…)

With a shaky hand he toonified the bat once more before putting it over his shoulder, holding for a moment, and swinging with all of his might. And just as before the bat expanded to twice its previous size before shrinking down to normal, only with the toonification remaining intact this time.

“Oh, I’m keeping you, little buddy.” He grinned madly at the toonified baseball bat.

Scene Consequences

-Gained (1 + (2 Malicious D6 = 7) = 8)XP to Toonification

--*Power Level Up* Toonification Lv. 3 (2/8)

--New Data available on Toonification.

-Acquired: Buddy the Baseball Bat.

--Increases Blunt damage by a small amount.

--While Toonified can spend 2 units of duration to perform a Heavy attack with increased swing range, damage, and knockback based on Toonification level.

---

“Oh, would you look at that you’re actually on time today!” Zylah greeted as he walked into the warehouse.

“Fuck you too.” He greeted back.

“Mm,” Zylah pretended to think about it for a moment before telling him, “I’ll pass. One really shouldn’t lower their standards.”

“You’re right, I shouldn’t.” He nodded in agreement, before sighing when she didn’t react to his taunting. “What are we covering today?”

“I noticed you running around yesterday on your way to the park.” The Shadow Dancer admitted. “Now normally we’d cover teaching you how to move correctly, running, jumping, climbing and all of that, but I’m guessing you’ve got a power enhancing your reflexes in some way?”

“I guess?” He frowned. “I’m still working out most of my powers, so I don’t know for sure.”

“Did you have any parkour training before getting your powers?” Zylah asked, tapping at her mask.

“Not really.” He’d tried getting Chris to teach him the basics when he was younger, but a mix of childhood laziness and his brother amping his skill with his powers made those lessons less than helpful.

“Then you have Enhanced Reflexes of some kind.” Zylah told him. “A fair portion of what you did is beyond a beginner unless you had something increasing your dexterity and agility by a fair margin.”

“So, uh, what’s that mean exactly?” He wasn’t entirely sure where the other teen was going with this.

“It means you have no idea what you’re doing, but your power lets you brute force the problem until you succeed.” The Shadow Danced explained. “Which also means we can still teach you the basics of the skill to supplement said power, or we can focus on improving your reflexive power. It doesn’t actually matter to me or my job so long as you have the basic tools necessary to escape if you get into trouble.”

“What exactly would the difference between the two options be?” He felt the need to ask. “I mean aren’t the skill and power pretty much the same thing?”

“Mm, yes and no.” Zylah admitted seeming to actually think about the question. “There’s definitely a lot of overlap but if you have your powers long enough you’ll realize there’s a certain… difference between the two. Right now it doesn’t matter much, but in the long run you’ll definitely feel the difference between the two.”

(That still doesn’t explain that much.) He frowned, rubbing at the back of his neck. (Then again I guess if you want to do something well you need both the power and skill to do it. It’s just a matter of determining which is more important right now.)

Taking another moment to consider it, he eventually told the Shadow Dancer,

“Let’s focus on the skill, after all power is worthless without the skill to back it up.”

“Alright, if that’s what you want to do then let’s get to it.” Zylah nodded making her way out of the warehouse.