Act 17: Bags, Costumes, and Cringe

--- Joshua ---

Having spent most of the school day brainstorming what kind of things he’d be capable of now that he had toon powers, he found himself making a quick detour upon returning to Saint’s Crossing. One that found him swiping an old burlap sack from the kitchen that had once held the potatoes Chris cut up and fried to make wedges for the bar.

“Right, so Buddy hit things better, and my pen drew things better. So going off of that logic, if I toonify you then you should… hold things better?” He shook his head, knowing his habit of talking to himself tended to make him drift a bit sometimes.

“Still… might as well take a vial of Malice while I’m at this.” After all he found his powers tended to respond a little easier even after the vials had worn off, as long as he’d used said power while under the effects of the Malice.

Once he had a mouth full of copper and strawberries, he put his hands on the bag and began pushing his ink into it, causing the bag to grow large as if it was full of something despite being empty.

“Let’s see… storage, how do I test this?” He asked, looking around his room for something small enough to cram in the bag but still big enough to prove that the bag was fitting more than it should.

Eventually his eyes settled on his desk chair before he nodded. (That’ll do.)

It took him a minute and a fair bit of maneuvering (because the stupid bag won’t stay still) but eventually he managed to get one of the chair’s legs into the bag, at which point a gentle shove led to the bag devouring the chair in seconds.

“Huh…” He stared at the bag for a moment, marveling at the fact that it didn’t look any different from when he’d first toonified it.

Reaching in his hand fumbled for a mild terrifying moment in which he realized, (Maybe I should’ve started with something I can actually explain as missing to Chris.) Before his hand (thankfully) grasped something and he managed to pull the chair out of the bag by one of its legs.

“Okay,” Grinning a bit he set the chair down before turning his attention back to the bag. “So I Guess this means I’ve now got my very own… Toon Bandit’s Bag.” (We’re killing this naming things thing.)

Scene Choice

-Gained (1+D6 = 3)XP to Toonification.

--Currently: Lv. 4 (4/10)

-Acquired Toon Bandit’s Bag: While toonified this bag gains a number of inventory slots equal to Josh’s Toonification Level. This bag will remain Toonified for a number of minutes roughly equal to Toon Duration at which point it will spit out all of its contents.

---

“A-alright, just um, just give me a s-second, boss.” Avery stuttered out while weaving the bits of Malicious Madness Josh had managed to gather from all of the vials he’d consumed over the last couple weeks.

After a moment the timid manager gave him a nod before making his way towards the cracked door with chipping paint found behind the stage and pushing the sphere of madness into the door. The door shuddered for a moment before letting out a crackling sound as the various damages to the door stitched themselves together.

“That, that should do it, Boss.” Avery told him once the door was done fixing itself.

“Then let’s see what’s behind door number one.” He grinned, wondering what power the Cabaret Dressing Room would give him. (Hopefully whatever it is will solve my costume problem.) (After all, I can’t go out in just any old rags.)

Chuckling at his own joke, he pushed the door open and found a standard old dressing room, a wall of mirrors and makeup tables along one wall, seats in front of each, and a series of empty hanging racks along the other wall.

“Huh… I was expecting… a little more.” He admitted with a frown.

“Right, uh, well we’ve got the dressing room but we’ll still have to spend resources to um, unlock the actual costumes and outfits.” Avery admitted a little nervously. “Sort of like with the bar.”

“Damn.” He cursed, before realizing something. “But wait, didn’t the bar come with a drink already.”

“Um, yes.” Avery nodded before grabbing a hangar and a pair of black shoes he hadn’t noticed. “I guess your regular clothes are the default?”

“I guess they are.” He agreed, eyeing the white dress shirt, black vest and slacks on the hangar. An outfit that matched the clothes he found himself in whenever he entered the cabaret. “Not sure how much this helps me though…”

“Maybe… maybe this is one of those things that makes sense in the waking world?” Avery suggested. “S-sort of like how Doodle works differently out there than he does in here.”

“Hmm, that’s something I’ll have to test.” He admitted, eyeing the Doodle watching them curiously from his place on the wall.

---

After returning to the waking world -an experience that always left him oddly tired- he used the fire escape to make his way onto the building roof where he attempted to follow Avery’s advice about his power from the Cabaret Dressing Room.

Of course pulling on a power he knew he had, without actually knowing what that power was, was an odd experience of randomly nudging at the numerous bits of Madness and Malice connecting him to his powers in all sorts of different ways.

Eventually however he did manage to find the power he was looking for and with a twist of Madness felt something bubbling beneath his skin as he felt the odd desire to spin in place. And watching bubbles of Ink beginning to appear from his skin he gave into the desire and found himself spinning far faster than intended.

Stamping a foot down to stop himself, he shook the slight dizziness from his head before noticing that his hand was significantly paler than prior to using his power, as well as the fact that his clothes had somehow changed into the outfit he usually wore while in the Cartoon Cabaret.

(Right, the Cartoon Cabaret…) He realized, remembering a number of cartoons where a character could change costumes by spinning in place and becoming a short lived twister. “Wonder if that’s what I look like when I change?” (Would definitely be a sight worth seeing.)

Checking his pockets -and fumbling for a moment- he found that his phone had thankfully jumped clothing with him, even though his wallet hadn’t.

“Weird, but I’ve always been a bit of a weirdo.” He admitted with mild amusement as he pulled up his camera and shifted it to self-portrait before using the phone as a mirror.

Looking at his image he found himself mildly confused as he found his image on the phone distinctly more cartoonish than what he saw with his own eyes. “Maybe it’s a side effect of the camera?” It made a certain amount of sense that his clothes from the Cartoon Cabaret would make him look like a cartoon on camera. (At the very least it’ll make it harder for people to connect my Mask self to my regular self.)

Speaking of, now that he was over his initial shock he found a number of other little features that had changed, such as how his eyes were now solid white with two large black dots and no sign of his usual eye color. (Just like a cartoon character.)

In addition to the effect on his eye color he also found that the rings around his eyes were less noticeable, while the lines of his eyelids were more prominent where they overlapped with his eyes. (Is this what eyeliner looks like?)

“Wait,” He frowned. “Is my power making me wear freaking guyliner?!” He scowled glaring at his image before eventually shrugging it off and deciding. (At least I make it work.)

Forcing himself past that little hang up he found that in addition to his skin being paler his hair had also darkened from a dirty blonde to a solid black. A shade notably darker than the borderline brown Chris’s blonde had ended up stopping at. “Meaning even if my hair gets as dark as his, people still won’t connect it with black as ink.”

Honestly there were so many details like that, that he doubted anyone would be able to connect him to himself especially if he avoided wearing a mask. (Less is more in some cases.)

Scene Consequences

-Unlocked Cartoon Cabaret Dressing Room

--New Power: Dressed to Impress- Josh can now equip and remove his Cabaret Clothes at no cost.

--Costume Tab unlocked under Wonderland Tab.

--Investing Madness into the Dressing room can unlock upgrades to existing outfits as well as new Costumes.

---

With his identity more or less hidden by his new power he decided to try a bit of roof running to see if the costume hindered him in any way. (After all, slacks aren’t exactly exercise clothes.)

And as luck would have it, he discovered after a bit of running and jumping that despite looking and feeling like formal wear, the clothes he wore were actually far more flexible than even his normal clothes. (Guess that makes sense since they’re technically cartoon clothing.)

Continuing on with his run he was tempted to try and draw attention to himself, his inner show off considering the possibility of giving the city a sneak peak of its newest (star.) Unfortunately he quickly found two problems with this idea, that had him swiftly and mercilessly killing it both due to practical reasons and… less than practical reasons.

First, since the only way he could seriously train both his mobility and acrobatics at the moment was with this rooftop and back alley running, he found himself in places no one really checked since no one looked up and no one was stupid enough to walk through back alleys on the southside of town. (Well, except me, but I have superpowers so it doesn’t count.)

The second and most important reason however was, (I am a star damn it! Not a desperate attention seeker! We have some class and I’ll be double damned before I let you ruin my street cred by waving at people like an idiot without any way to prove that we are more than some dumb ass wearing formal wear on the roof! I refuse to be demoted back to being a B-lister so have some Cheshire damned self-respect for yourself Joshua!)

He shook his head as another massive migraine hit him all at once. (Damn thought I was through with those…)

Still he was glad that for once he managed to talk himself out of doing something cringe inducingly embarrassing. “Yeah, thinking about it like that, no one would take me seriously unless I have something actually worth showing off.”

(Thanks me.)

(Don’t worry, I’ve got your back other me…)

He couldn’t help but laugh at that thought as he continued his practice with a mildly mad grin.

Scene Consequences

-Gained 1XP to Mobility and Enhanced Acrobatics

--Currently: Mobility Lv. 2 (3/6) and Enhanced Acrobatics Lv. 1 (2/4)