Phillis Circus: Big Top“Ari?” As the public continued to push and storm their way out of the tent, Lute turned and spun on the spot, to look down at the escalating scene at the performance ring below, and the disastrous way things were turning. Both the blone, pigtailed acrobat Isabella, and the magician girl they had met manning the gate Sammie, had gone ballistic at Crispin and his fiery ambitions. Lute couldn’t really blame them, a part of him wanting to scold the man for his reckless behaviour just as much, but it was when the two threatened him with mutilation and death, and then Sammie the same to Aria, who approached down the flight of steps as quickly as she could to Crispin’s defense, that Lute found himself propelled to follow after. The swords that Sammie had magically appear from her hat, and now brandished in Aria’s direction… he couldn’t allow her to get hurt!
The words that Elisa, the fortune-teller had said to him echoed through his head. He just knew if he didn’t move… if he didn’t act… that things would go horribly, horribly wrong…!
Unfortunately, Lute’s springing into action, charging towards Aria’s defence was actually prompting the wrong reaction. It, along with Moira and Syed’s movements, springing to the performance ring and dashing in front of Crispin to help protect him against Isabella’s threatening advances prompted another reaction altogether…
“Get the hell away from ma girl!”
A sudden shout startled everyone still within the circus, drawing their attention to the source of the voice, and a man
flying through the air straight at them like a rocket. His lower body was pure energy, exploding and pushing the man forwards with insane thrust and momentum, his arms held straight out in front of him with his hands curled like fists, and his goggles tightly strapped on his face. Max Powers, the circus’ human cannonball… was a literal human cannonball in every sense of the word, if not more accurately a
human rocket. He could propel himself into the air at insane speeds and from it, practically fly. He didn’t even need a cannon to be fired from, he could do it himself just by summoning enough energy to launch into his legs.
And right now, he had summoned all of his energy to do so, to fly through the air, and straight towards the gaggle of Guilders and his colleagues. Max, seeing Moira, Syed, Aria and Lute descend upon Isabella and Sammie the way they did, thought they were actually threatening his girlfriend Tammie. That, and the way that the newbie Crispin was trying to burn the circus down, and endangering her in the process had made him fighting mad! No way was he going to let them do so!
He flew sharply in front of Lute, disorienting and unbalancing the poor virtuoso enough to accidentally trip and collide into a row of seats. Max twisted just so, and almost knocked Aria over as well as he flew inbetween her and Sammie. He then rose into the air, slowly arcing around in a bend to face the performance ring below, before sharply pouring on yet more speed, aiming straight for Crispin, Moira and Syed.
“What the fuc-
kaaaggh!!”
Before she could have any time to react, Moira felt a sickening force explode against her stomach, and with it her whole body was wrenched from the ground and sent flying high into the air, as Max punched his whole body into her and dragged her up with him, twisting his body to fly high, high into the air, and crash through the tent’s ceiling, ripping a small hole. Syed, thanks to his magical tether to his partner, was suddenly dragged up into the air as well along with a sickeningly painful whiplash effect, screaming as he came to realise that he was now hovering several hundred feet in the air, and rising even higher the more Max pushed Moira into the sky.
“Moira!!” Estelle suddenly screamed in horror at the attack, letting the exit’s curtain fall. She couldn’t believe her eyes at what was happening. She, along with her friends, still didn’t know whether or not the circus performers were guilty enough of the crime they had been charged with… with kidnapping poor innocent civilians. But what she did know was that they had threatened and attacked her friends. Even if this whole thing was spiralling into chaos, and even if they had good provocation for it… she couldn’t stand by and let her friends be hurt for it!!
She began rushing down the steps towards the circus ring below, much as Lute had. However, she was still missing both her Fireblade and armour, and was left virtually defenceless… not that such a thing would stop her.
“You...” A voice suddenly shocked Lucien to his senses from his side, his eyes having been plugged on the scene before him and rubbing the sore burn that had gripped his arm. He had been trying to think of some joke in order to get everyone inside the tent to calm down and relax before things could go too far, his lips stretching into a smile when he saw Tammie swat the flames out and his mouth about to open and tell everyone to ‘cool off’ like Tammie had done, but he had laughed to himself before he could. Now though… now the boss and Syed had suddenly been attacked, and the others were under threat as well! And then… then…!
Then
he appeared right next to him, and with him a giant bulldozer of a lion and gorilla on either side of him, plus the panda that had raced through the seats before Lucien and his friends now brought back under control… and staring at Lucien with the same accusing eyes as his animal breathren. Abram towered high above Lucien, his muscles seeming to pop out and expand even larger then before from his chest crossed arms as he glared down at him.
“...have much explaining to do, da?”
And as tensions bubbled into an all out explosion, Isabella dashed towards Crispin now that his protection – Moira and Syed – were out of the way. He was still a disastrous danger to the circus and to her friends, and an enemy that needed to be put out of commission at once. The burns he had given her were insignificant compared to the threat he posed to the things that Isabella cherished above all else… and she’d be damned if she’d let him continue.
As she raced, she swung up one hand, launching one of her knives at him, aimed towards his shoulder. Following that up, she threw her own body forward, spinning and somersaulting and propelling her momentum to even greater heights, as she aimed to follow her knife’s attack with a swift kick to the little arsonist’s face.
