Clowning Around [Afternoon Work Thread]

Fuck clowns.

Seriously, fuck clowns

Fuck this clown in particular.

*ahem* Perhaps I should backtrack a little bit...

During the morning, Selenus had, for the first time in his life, performed a job in order to get paid. Initially he was proud of himself, but now that he'd been called back by Professor J. to run another errand... he was more than a little bit annoyed. He was perfectly fine with taking up another job, but what he wasn't fine with was being called back to the Backlight on such short notice. Mobilizing from district to district was especially hard for someone who had to keep sightings to an absolute minimum (something Selenus was already abhorrently bad at, if, ironically enough, his group of friends and acquaintances was any indication).

Arriving at the alleyway located directly behind Grins' Hole In The Wall and another unnamed shop, Selenus was met with the five clones he had requested J provide him with when he recieved his... ¨*ahem*, job offer. Apparently J. used much larger numbers of clones for this kind of thing, but since Selenus was leading the search now, they needed the key element of steath: something impossible to achieve in such large numbers. The fact that the clones had already been out and about before both comforted and frightened him. On the minus side, someone was bound to have seen them roaming about. On the plus side, however, these units not only came in packs (Which would convert possibly existing rumors of "A robot dog" into "robot dogs"), but they were also clearly of custom design and essentially different from the government-designed K9 units, which meant that even if someone were to report him and/or the clones to the cadets, the government's beef would be not be a rehabilitatory beef with Selenus, but rather a legal beef with J. if any. Additionally, since he was presumed dead, the government, he thought, would have no reason to assume his specific involvement just from the public appearance of counterfeit K9 units alone. All in all, their presence carried more benefits than obstructions, he felt. Despite all of this, Selenus still chose to at least try to be sneaky. He could never be too cautious.

Selenus decided to stop pondering things and get down to business. The good ol' professor had called him in to assist with something he'd already told him the clones existed for back when they met for the first time in five years; something that involved chasing after a certain insane seemingly fourth-wall-breaking robotic clown after he randomly ran out the god damn door. Honestly, for all Selenus knew or cared, Grins was suffering from chronic schizophrenic hallucinations that caused him to run out wherever (Not that he knew how an AI would go around contracting schizophrenia, or if it would even be possible, mind you). Insane or not, however, the fact remained that if Selenus didn't do this he wouldn't be able to pay off his repair fees, which he was dead-set on paying fair and square.

First things first: Selenus and his troop neded leads as to where 8D might have run off to. Blindly searching with no leads was bound to get them nowhere fast, as the robot clown in question ws more than likely used to getting chased around, and it was thusly logical to assume that he'd gotten experienced in hiding and/or avoiding J's bots. Additionally, if they simply searched all around hoping to eventually bump into him, he'd more than likely recieve the long end of the element of surprise and be able to escape somewhere else, and Selenus wanted to make this babysitting session as short as possible.

For starters, Selenus would address the five bots before him and issue a command: "Search every spot in the backlight for clues leading to 8D's whereabouts, but avoid being sighted at all costs. Stick to alleyways and blind spots, and avoid bystanders at all costs. As soon as you find anything worth mentioning, report back to me. Keep in constant feedback with each other to inform the other units of what places have already been searched. Of course, if you spot 8D himself, report to me immediately." With two flashes of green from their visors, the five units took off in different directions. In the meantime, Selenus himself would also aid in the search.

Selenus decided he would start off in the most logical manner; 8D's starting position must've been Grins' Hole In The Wall, and Selens was pretty sure that the questionable establishment only had one entrance that doubled as an exit, ergo: 8D must've run off through one of the alleyways or walks connecting to Grins' Hole In The Wall, unless he had the ability to climb walls, which Selenus doubted. He checked every road connected to the door to the bar, but found no sign of which path 8D took exactly. Knowing that he wasn't as automatic as the other wolves in his pack, Selenus conceded to himself that he may have missed something, and tried again. In his second attempt, Selenus noticed that a small cluster of gathered dust in one of the alleyways connected to the bar had been spread in the shape of a shoeprint. It wasn't exactly conclusive proof of 8D's presence, but it was better than having no leads, so Selenus shadow-accel'd over to that alleyway and followed the length of it.

Meanwhile, the five clones scoured around the backlight, obeying Selenus's order of staying as concealed as possible, but they hadn't found any leads yet. The backlight was ludicrously large for what was tantamount to a shopping mall, so it would be a long time before they'd covered every corner of their search area.

After a while of searching endlessly in vain, Selenus decided to settle down in an alley way and take a little bit of a break. He'd been looking for 8D for what felt like a literal eternity, though in reality it might've been half an hour at best. He didn't know what specifically was so exhasperating about dealing with 8D; He was constantly annoyed at the robotic clown, despite the fact tha the clown has never done much against Selenus's favor. He took a bit of a breather to ponder this. Was he... jealous of how carefree 8D could be? He and Selenus were very similar, yet Selenus was fated with a disgruntled reality while life looked to be a rollercoaster ride for the other robot. Jealousy didn't seem entirely out of the question, which Selenus, though he did not like to, admitted to himself. It was indeed insufferable to see somebody with a life so similar be able to live it so happily and joyously while Selenus himself was perpetually stuck in more than one gritty problem at once, between his vigilante antics, to his inner personal problems, to the hard work of being a to-be Psyche Terrorist, to keeping his identity and self hidden... Selenus's life was more of a chore than a ride, and 8D's cheer did not ease the wound.

The robotic wolf sighed in resignation. All this irritation was clearly clouding his investigative judgement, and he needed to do something to clean his mind. Recalling an article he saw in personal psychology on the internet once, Selenus remembered that recording your thoughts and feelings into a recorder or other method of storing sound greatly eased one's mind, an effect exclusive to the human mind. Though Selenus was far from human, his mind was modeled after and fundamentally similar to an actual human mind, so he figured he'd give it a try. It was better than remaining frustrated, at least.

"I've heard - well, read, actually - that voicing your current mind into a recorder can greatly ease stress and relieve tensions, so... here we are." Selenus voiced into his own CPU, making sure his external speaker was turned off so as to not attract any unwanted attention. "I've been searching for what feels like eons for Professor J's little renegade bozo, but I can't quite put my finger on his location nor why looking for a single escapee robot is causing me so much distress. My best guess is - and it pains me to say this, but... I envy him. I envy everything about him. Despite having had a similar life to mine before the Eternal Divide rolled around, and despite having been in my exact same position when it struck, we both moved down fundamentally different paths. I went on to lose my father and enter great depression, while he not only kept his own creator, he GAINED more family as well! In addition to that, it seems to me that the only emotion he's even capable of feeling is joy! He doesn't know pain! He must have absolutely no idea how it feels to struggle to keep yourself, well, YOURSELF every single day of your life, and I hate it! I hate every single god damn thing about it!... I... I suppose, the glass was just half full for him, and half empty for me. I don't hate him, I just... hate that I don't get to be him. It's... it's not fair..."

Selenus caught his own breath. He was getting worked up again, and this morning had taught him the hard way what getting worked up meant for him. "...Selenus out." He ended the recording and saved it in a folder he hadn't opened in quite a long time. It was Newman's mental growth log folder, where he kept all his notes about Selenus's growth of mind and maturing ego. Perhaps, one day, he'd be able to seem him again and show him all he's been up to... he should seriously record more logs.

Resuming his search of the robot bozo (Robobozo? Robozo?), Selenus got to work with the batch of alleyways and roads he hadn't yet checked. Things went relatively well as he and his cloned companions slowly but surely narrowed down 8D's location and taken route, but about another half hour in, Selenus recieved a call of distress from Unit 98 (The one he'd assigned to assist Unit 92). "I read you, 98. What's the problem?" Selenus would ask, in the most composed tone he could possibly muster. Internally, he was braced for the worst. " S O S . S O S . S O S. - U n i t - 9 8 - r e p o r t . - C u r r e n t -  s t a t u s : - S t u c k - i n - a i r - v e n t . " If Selenus had had palms, both of his own would've collided with his face with enough force to break the sound barrier and shatter his head. "How? Just... how?" To Selenus's dismay, the only response he got was the ear-splitting sound of AOL. He didn't even want to know. "Unit, send me your coordinates, I'm coming over there to do the dirty work myself." After recieving the coordinates to the unit's location, Selenus would quickly bang his head against a brick wall before proceeding to head over to the air vent that was stripping him of units. He was beginning to ponder who the real clowns here were.

A few hops and runs later, and Selenus found himself in front of the very open entrance to an abandoned warehouse. Probably one of the few buildings left undemolished that was used to produce raw materials shortly after the Eternal Divide, but the robot dog wouldn't be able to tell for sure. He stepped into the building, making sure that nobody was still inside before he did so, and found himself in front of a massive empty space occupied by broken down production machines. Scanning the area around him, Selenus noticed an air vent at the farther end of the complex. Rushing over to the other side (excluding from his retelling a couple times where he tripped quite embarassingly over assembly belts), Selenus used his knives to scale the wall and set foot (paw?) upon a catwalk a few short meters away from the air vent, where he saw, as expected, the rear ends of two of his units. Sighing internally in anguish at the competence of these clones, Selenus wrapped his tail around both the clones's own tails and pulled as hard as he possibly could. Eventually (after an unneeded lot of grunting and stressing out the limits of his extendible tail) both clones squeezed out of the air vent with a loud *plop* as Selenus lost his balance on the catwalk, and all three robots fell to the ground with heavy *thud*s.

As the three stooges left the complex, they came across a conspicuous yet not at all suspicious man donned in a sleek clown's outfit with a curly moustache and beard, holding a pipe in his hands. Out of pure, reflective instinct, Selenus spoke to the man. "Excuse me, sir, you wouldn't happen to have seen a robot clown around here?" The man turned to look at Selenus, a smug grin on his bearded face. "No, my boy. I can't say I have!" Selenus sighed. "Alright, thanks anyway." Selenus proceeded to walk a few steps further before he snapped back to reality and realized what had just gone down. He looked back, but only to find nobody behind him.

OOC:

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Why that little... as soon as Selenus found him, he'd wring his neck with his own confetti strings! How did he even manage to fool Selenus so easily? His mind is literally connected to a state-of-the-art computer! Ugh... If nothing else, Selenus felt absolutely humiliate. Thankfully, this only served to strengthen his already absurd determination to catch Grins and bring him to justice politely ask him to commit grievous suicide bring him back to Professor J in pieces as soon as humanly (or non-humanly, heh) possible. Selenus and his two recently unstuck companions decided (Well, Selenus did all the deciding, but you know what I mean), to split up and look for 8D each in one of the three ways he could've dissappeared to: Unit 92 went to the road to the left, Unit 98 went to the alleyway in the back, and Selenus went back into the abandoned goods factory.

As he stepped in, he made sure the volume of his main speaker was at maximum. "EIGHT-D! His voice thundered and roared appropiately. "I KNOW YOU'RE IN HERE!" He didn't, really. For all he knew the robot clown escaped to any other direction, but in the off chance he was here he wanted to be imposing so as to deter the robobozo (he's sticking with that now) from escaping again. "IF YOU COME OUT WITHOUT ANY FURTHER TROUBLES, I'LL REFRAIN FROM JAMMING PARTY POPPERS DOWN YOUR THROAT!"

To nobody's surprise, this didn't entice 8D into coming out any. Selenus spent the next few minutes looking around the factory while keeping a careful eye on the exit so as to ensure that the possibly present robobozo didn't slip through his non-existent fingers. eventually, the robotic wolf would decide to jump up on the catwalk to attain eagle's eye view of the locale. Once he did so, he'd see a humanoid figure standing stiffly on top of a vapor pipe. Having found his prey, the wolven robot pounced from catwalk to catwalk and pipe to pipe until he was directly in front of the robot bozo, immeditely after which he would pounce upon the target. The lack of weight pressed against his exoskeleton surprised him, and it was only once both him and his prey were on the ground and facing one another that Selenus understood why. What he'd caught wasn't the authentic steel-and-silicon robotic clown, but rather a cardboard cut-out of him that sported a shit-eating grin, as if to say "You fell for it, you idiot!"

In unmeasurable frustration, Selenus used his knife to chop up the cardboard cut-out to pieces. Thoroughly duped again by the great Papyrus insufferable Eight D!

No no no! He was so close! He practically had that in the bag! Selenus silently cursed the existence of cardboard cut-outs under his figurative breath. He could stand chasing somebody around, even for as ridiculously long a time as this, but being fooled so easily was not something that the robot wolf took so lightly. This task was seriously starting to grind his gears and decimate his patience. Regardless, he was convinced that in order to pu the cut-out there, 8D must've hidden inside the factory, so Selenus kept looking and looking and looking. Unfortunately for him, his search was to no avail. 8D was nowhere to be found.

Reluctantly stepping outside of the factory, Selenus was dissappointed to find that none of the units were there waiting for him. He was absolutely possitive that 8D hid somewhere inside the factory, but it was evident that one person (or rather, one robot wolf) wasn't quite enough manpower. Not having much of a choice, Selenus sent out a signal towards his fellow robots, instructing them to regroup at his coordinates unless they were investigating any promising leads. After a few short minutes, all five clones found themselves in front of the original. At the very least, Selenus had obedient henchmen.

Still not giving up on his theory, Selenus brought all five of his clones inside the factory. He would find that anthropomorphic ball of insane if it was the last thing he did. It didn't even have to do with repaying a debt anymore, Selenus just couldn't allow himself to be defeated by somebody who he felt already had every single thing in life that he himself wanted. It was almost like being challenged to a duel by a homewrecker of whom you happened to be a victim; if you gave up, you resigned to your dignity and way of life. Overly dramatic, yes, but that is the way it felt to Selenus. 8D had everything Selenus wanted in life, he wouldn't allow him to take victory in this "game" of their as well!

Selenus and the clones searched and searched, as did his clones, but none of them were able to find anything of interest, let alone their prime target. Selenus had been 100% convinced that 8D was hiding in the factory, but it was apparent that he had been fatally mistaken. Deciding to finally move on from his theory with quite a bit of self-complaint, Selenus had his clones follow him outside to rethink their approach to this. They had been trying for quite a long time, and while the robots were unable to feel immense frustration like Selenus did, even they could probably tell that their efforts were leading nowhere.

Selenus needed some time to think things through. He was obviously mentally compromised once more, but he doubted that recording another growth log would help him much at this point. It wasn't an issue of venting anymore, he just needed to lay down and relax before he blew a fuse (figuratively OR literally). In order to preserve his own health of mind (and to give in to the mere temptation, for it was so strong) Selenus laid down his body on the ground in front of the factory. The area around it was abandoned and behind quite a few alleyways, plus it was quite open and large, so if somebody were to threaten his privacy, he would be able to tell with enough time to get out safely. Right now, however, he needed to relax. Badly.

After a few minutes of comforting silence and the relaxing (well, relaxing to Selenus, at the very least. He had some odd tastes in relaxation.) sounds of mice squeaking about the abandoned area, Selenus would stand up and face his clones once more. He needed to devise a plan, one that would change their entire approach to capturing and returning 8D. He considered the situation carefully: They were trying to catch somebody who was always one step ahead of them. It would be easy enough to catch him if they could only find him and initiate chase, but it was only so impossibly difficult because of his pattern of popping up wherever in the Backlight with no rhyme or reason. It also didn't help that he would run if he saw them stalking him.

Realizing what he had to do, Selenus grinned internally. "Units:" He began in a solemn tone. "Spread out evenly through the Backlight and hide yourselves as efficiently as possible. Once you've done so, stay put until the target passes by your location. You are to remain perfectly still and hidden, but once you see the target, give immediate chase and notify the other assigned units of both your current location and the target's." Selenus had to fight fire with fire. If 8D was going to escape every time they ran into him, then they'd just have to act as landmines and garter the element of surprise.

Selenus decided to spread the units out evenly through the backlight. This meant positioning them in such a way that they covered the largest portion of the Backlight District's surface area as possible while maintaining an equal amount of distance form each other. Combined with the same factor that made staying still more likely to be found in the woods, this strategy maximized their chances of happening upon 8D in as little time as possible. All units stayed in their designated places for a while, and eventually the sun went down, signaling the start of night-time. Now Selenus could summon Fenrir to make the job easier of he wanted, but feeling this was a matter of personal pride, he refrained.

Eventually, after a while of waiting, one of Selenus's units gave out a distress signal. Selenus feared it might have been another "accident" but was delightfully surprised to find that the unit had finally surprised 8D and was currently giving chase. Immediately moseying over to where they would be (thank you, speed/distance calculation), Selenus and his units managed to corner 8D against a back alley wall. This was it.

"Got you now, you little shit!"

8D smiled and jumped up unto the roof of one of the buildings, effectively destroying their cornering advantage. "Oh no you don't!" As Selenus gave chase, he ordered his clones to follow closely behind but on the ground in order to catch 8D if he decided to jump down. Back on the rooftops, however, Selenus swiftly hopped from tile to tile in the shadow of the night, making not so much as a light *clink* with every step thanks to the muffling beneath his paws. He could hear the mad giggling of the robot ahead of him from way behind, and he knew himself that this was nothing more than another form of having fun to the robot clown. Rooftop after rooftop sped by beneath the metallic feet of both figures, and the wind hit both of them hard enough to cause a minor slip up or two. The fact that both parties were equally affected by the conditions, however, prevented Selenus from losing ground, and instead allowed him to slowly but surely close the constantly shrinking distance between him and his target.

Unfortunately for the robot pooch, one of the knives underneath his paws became slightly unhinged due to the careless force Selenus was stepping with, and caused him to trip on one of the bricks composing the roof of the building he was stepping on when it unhinged. Selenus fell on his snout with a *thud* giving 8D enough time to re-open the short distance that was left. Absolutely refusing to give up after he'd come this far, Selenus ordered the clones to take to the rooftops themselves; he himself would handle the ground now. Running extra fast to catch up with the general position of the rest of the clones, Selenus followed closely behind, but watched as the clones ran at about the same speed as 8D himself. If they wanted to catch him by pure force of speed, they would take quite a long time, and this was based on mathematic calculus alone. Selenus watched as the clones drove the giggling fool into a roundabout, and suddenly coming upon an idea, Selenus crossed the road to the opposite side instead of following the clones and the clown. Eventually, the clones forced 8D to take follow the roundabou through, making him run straight for Selenus. The robot dog positioned himself in an alleyway in front of the building 8D would run to next and spring up, catching him by surprise. In a blissful (to Selenus, anyway) finale worthy of a bollywood action movie, Selenus ensnared the surprised robotic clown with his tail, being carefult not to squeeze him too hard. His crusade was finally over.

"Got you now, you bozo."

"Ehehehe,.... EHehehehe HAHAHAHAHA! Well Done Lunar One! That was a LOT of work for some VC, but I must commend your efforts! You did a bang up job my friend! Truly Top Notch! By the way have you checked in with the bar lately?" 8D's sly grin would widen as Selenus's communicator would begin to sound... If he chose to answer he would be greeted by an infuriatingly familiar voice...

"Poochy! Where are you?" it was... 8D?...Wait hold one wha-Shhhhh... Let it happen- "Professor J told me to call you and find out where you are! I got back slightly after you left and have been calling you sense, why haven't you picked up?" And the most blatant lie of all time award goes to...-Quiet you...-"Anyway, you should stop slacking and get back here! We have work to do! EHEHEHEHEHEHE!" With that the ... Other 8D?... hung up.

The 8D in Selenus's grasp would smile at the robo pooch... Right before his face fell off reveling a count down timer...5...4...3...2...1....

The fallowing explosion of confetti would flood the alleyway and pour into the streets...



"Ehehehehe," 8D snickered as he munched on a carrot and disconnected his mind from his remote drone. Business was slow today... giving 8D ample time to wipe down the counter. Though he had to admit... Selenus did better then the last Pack Leader..."Ain't I a stinker? EHEHEHEHE!"

Selenus stared in complete disbelief at the broken drone and the confetti splayed out before him and on his own body. Rage built up in his systems before accumulating in his voice box and flowing out as swiftly as rushing water.