Second Heist- The Madcap Museum (Pt. 2): Guarded Mayhem

--- Joshua ---

Walking up to the museum counter he waited in line to buy his ticket before in his boredom he found himself wondering (why are you planning to pay for your ticket?)

(Because I need to get in the museum to start the show?) He frowned to himself.

(Yeah, but you’re the bad guy…) He reminded himself.

“Oh, right…” He blinked as that little detail clicked into place.

“Uh, sir?” The teenager in charge of the ticket booth called when he didn’t step forward.

“Huh? Oh, sorry.” He apologized as he removed his Groucho Glasses. “Just spaced out and completely forgot that I’m a supervillain. I shouldn’t be paying for this.”

With an amused shake of his head he slipped his glasses back into his coat before walking to the ticket turnstile and jumping over it.

Only for his foot to catch on it, causing him to slip and stumble in a rather embarrassing hopping foot action. (Well, at least you didn’t face plant?)

The few people in the museum lobby gave him confused looks and he coughed into his hand before yelling. “Just ignore that! The show starts, uh, now!”

He glanced around the lobby searching for a suitable starting act before spotting the gift shop. (That’ll work as an opening act.)

With his first target found, he reached into his coat and withdrew a large bag that he promptly toonified into a comically oversized and inflated bag as he made his way to the gift shop before throwing said bag over his shoulder.

Inside he found the gift shop -which he hadn’t really bothered with despite locating during his scouting- to be a large room filled with various toys and memorabilia based on whatever exhibits the museum had stashed within its walls. “Let’s see here… I don’t care about any of this junk but I’m still going to steal all of it anyway!”

With that decision made he grabbed everything off of the nearest table -and the table itself- before shoving all of it into his bandit’s bag. An action he proceeded to repeat with every other table in the room as he filled his bag with junk, at least until he found the bag had already reached its capacity. Something that no amount of jumping on top of it to stomp down the contents would solve.

Hopping off, he proceeded to glare at the bag, not actually feeling any frustration as he instead began to put together the basic inklings of a plan inside of his utterly deviously demented mind.

(Okay, I can see you’re trying to cook in here but let’s add a bit of kerosene to this and then we just light a match here…)

As he began to smoke pouring out from somewhere, he spotted a security guard making his way over, before yelling, “Hey, put all of that back right this instance! That stuff belongs to the museum!”

(Ooh, a volunteer…) He grinned before hitting his hand off of his forehead. “Oh, of course what am I thinking!”

He flipped the bag over and dumped out the bag’s contents into a massive mountain in the middle of the room.

“This is the cheap shit the museum sells, not the fun stuff they swiped from other people! Good idea!” He told the brown haired thirty-something as he gave the man finger guns, before reaching out with his Toon Hands and swiping the cash register. “Oh, like this money they stole from the unsuspecting rubes that bought all of this tacky junk.”

“W-wait, put that back!” The guard ordered as he stuffed the register into his bag.

“Look…” He glanced at the guard’s name tag and read, (Bill) as he led the man out of the gift shop. “Billie Bob, you had a good idea. That doesn’t mean all of your ideas are going to be bangers man. I mean giving back the money? What are you thinking? I expect your next idea to be better than that one.”

He looked around the gift shop where a couple of people were recording him with their phones, but nowhere near as many as he’d been hoping for when putting on a show. (Damn it, where is everyone?)

“Look you can’t just do this kind of thing kid.” Bill frowned at him, it apparently not clicking just who he was dealing with.

(Wonder if that’s because of the glasses, I mean not wearing them but a secondary effect maybe?) It was something to think about later, for now he assured Bill that his words were, “Nonsense. If I couldn’t do this kind of thing then I wouldn’t be doing it, but clearly given how I’ve been able to do everything I’ve done thus far, I can in fact do all of it.” He glanced around the lobby. “Hey, Duck Bill, what’s your favorite exhibit here?”

Bill blinked at him for a moment before pointing towards one of the museum doors. “Um, we’ve got an interactive animal exhibit for the kids over there.”

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

“Ooh, interactive!” He cooed before making his way in that direction, before finding a number of life-size models showing off various creatures of the sea. “Those things must’ve taken forever to set up.”

“It, uh, took like a week to set them all up but we did most of that after hours. The main exhibit was just the electronic stuff and the projector, so we could leave it open during the days.” Bill told him.

“I thought you were the security guard?” He frowned, eyeing the other man’s uniform.

“Oh, some of the staff ask me to help them move stuff around because I’ve got more muscle than most here.” Bill explained, flexing one of his arms.

“Ah, I see… it’s because you’ve got ‘I’m easily manipulated’ written all over your face.” He nodded in understanding as he capped his Toon Pen after subtly writing that on Bill’s forehead. (Did not think this thing made me that fast with my writing.)

(Eh, it was just three words.)

(And nine syllables!)

He gave the exhibit a once over before turning towards the projector playing an ocean documentary on the wall and bathing the entire room in blue lights as fish swam across the wall.

“Ugh, documentaries? We need to put on some cartoons.” He grimaced at the wall, before spotting the projector the documentary was coming from on the ceiling. (Hmm, I wonder…)

Setting down his bag he ran for the wall, took two steps up it, before kicking off and twirling towards the projector that he just barely managed to slap his ink covered hand against.

As his feet hit the ground the documentary on the wall cut away to black and white film reel for a moment before counting down. When the count down hit zero a black and white title card read, ‘The Cartoon Cabaret Presents’ the screen switched to a picture of his cartoonish self, ‘!^#’@ The Toon Criminal in’ the last slide read ‘The Madcap Museum’ over an old black and white image of the very museum he was in.

“Oh, this is so cool!” He couldn’t help but laugh as he watched a cartoonish version of himself waiting in line for a ticket to the museum, before comically stumbling on the ticket stile.

“Huh, that… is kind of cool, how’d you make this so fast?” Bill asked, watching the cartoon alongside his slowly growing audience.

“You see this face, Billie Joe, it was made for the big screen. Just got to broadcast my life as I go.” He explained, turning towards the museum figures as the cartoon played his meeting with the security guard, sufficiently distracting his little crowd.

“Hey, is that me?” Bill laughed, not noticing as Joshua began trying to shove the models into his bag.

“Yep, sure looks like you.” He admitted, eyeing one model that was even larger than himself before glancing at his bag. “Should’ve brought a bigger one of these…”

Not that that was going to stop him from trying to steal the thing. (Just need to make some room in my bag.)

He began pulling out some of the models he’d already swiped, toonifying them as he tossed them to the side only to flop around as if they were actually living fish. Except for the crab, that one got frisky and pinched him before he could toss it.

Ripping it off his hand he glared at the crab before stuffing it into one of his coat pockets as he severed his connection to the ink animating it.

“Hey, wait!” Bill shouted.

He turned at the sudden shout and realized the cartoon playing behind the glaring security guard was currently showing his attempt at stealing all of the models. “Huh, thought it would take longer to get to this point.”

“Look at this mess, what do you have to say for yourself?” Bill asked him.

“I have to say… That I am a little snitch bitch!” He shouted, pointing a finger at his cartoon self who paused and put his hands to his chest in a ‘me?’ kind of gesture. “Yes you! You snitched me out to the fuzz!”

His cartoon self shook his head, as Bill’s head darted between the two Joshuas.

“Yes, you did! And you know what they say about snitches?” He yelled, reaching one hand into his jacket before pulling out Buddy and waving the toonified bat in the air. “They get stitches!”

He ran forward with the bat held high, yelling like a mad man before running straight on past the cartoon that he could feel turning to watch him run past, before -and he wasn’t sure how he knew this- turning to Bill and holding up a sign that said, ‘Isn’t it your job to go catch him?’

“Oh, oh, yeah!” He heard Bill exclaim from where Joshua had hid himself around the corner, before watching as Bill ran straight on past him.

Walking back into the room, he passed the crowd that had been watching his little show and picked up his bandit’s bag.

“Forgot my things… Well, the things I stole… which makes them mine now.” He explained as he threw the bag over his shoulder before starting towards the next room with a skip in his step.

(Hmm, now what?) He wondered, only half-heartedly picking up things he wasn’t supposed to touch before tossing them to the side. (I doubt what I’ve done so far is enough to get a serious response… I mean I’ve maybe had the cops called on me by now, but… I don’t think the Doc would be happy with just that…)

(Maybe not, but he just wanted a show, at this point we’ve done that. It’s time to focus on what really matters.) A part of him reminded him as he felt his eyes drifting to a sign for the Baron’s exhibit. (We aren’t leaving without that gun.)

(Right.) He nodded to himself, before putting on a smirk and spinning the sign with a bit of toonification, causing the arrows to point in different directions even as the words remained legibly in place.

Seeing this he went ahead and repeated the little trick on every other sign he passed on his way to the Barons’ exhibit. Hopefully making the whole thing seem like he was just wandering about messing with things rather than focusing on anywhere with intent. An act he played up by occasionally tossing something in his bag before tossing something else out as he randomly fleeted between exhibits.

When he reached the one on the Barons’ he found himself pausing at the doorstep, unable to pretend he wasn’t feeling the Madness in the air, seductively whispering for him to come and claim his prize no matter how dangerous he knew it to really be.

He swallowed before crossing the threshold and feeling a shiver down his spine.

One by one he passed the exhibits on the various members of the old gang, blatantly ignoring the cold sense of longing each of them filled him with even as his eyes drifted to the airborne ink stains obscuring the one exhibit he thought he should have feelings about.

Eventually he found himself stopping in front of the Killjoy’s mannequin holding the Tommy Gun, and for a brief moment he saw the man offering him the gun with a grin beneath the skull mask. Almost daring him to take it in spite of the Madness it was sure to unleash.