Psycho Circus[Open]

If it weren't for the hat shading her face Bojangles would've seen her raising a frowning eyebrow. Like, he probably didn't need to, the look she gave him was pretty much audible. If he wanted to pick a sucky name because no one would take it she didn't care, but she was gonna call him whatever she wanted. Why didn't these people go by names that were easy and fun to say? Seriously twisted.
"Phshyeah whatever. It's your name, I don't give a shit," she dismissed taking another drag from her cigarette, subtly unhappy he didn't like what she came up with.

She kept drinking as everyone, like, conspired to drag her down and shit. She showed up to have a good time and hang out and everyone was so damn serious. She sighed and set her drink down loudly. This kept happening and she didn't want to get serious too but the only way he was gonna learn is if she spelled it the hell out for him.
"Look. Revy, if it's bothering you just say something and I'll slow down but like, I'm not gonna stop. You need to lighten up, dude. But if you keep fuckin' talkin' down to me I'm gonna get pissed off, okay? You're not the only one with shit pissing them off." She spoke with a half-angry laugh. Her tone wasn't pissy, she just said it matter of fact. Like, she was explaining it to him, not tryna start a fight.

She propped a hand out on the bar and began to twirl the neck of the empty beer bottle in her hand.
"I'unno, maybe? Like I was just gonna wreck his shit every night until he doesn't want his shit wrecked anymore and shows up to tell us to knock it off and junk, aheheheh..." Wicked plopped down behind the bar to get started on yet another beer in 20 minutes and remembered that Revenant couldn't drink without his crazy straws.
"Ahahahahaaa, yeah. You looked like a beetle!" she chirped as she set on her new mission of finding the straws so he could relax and stop being a freakin' buzzkill. After searching and searching and searching she found... absolutely jack shit.
"Tsssh! You fuckin' serious...?" she scoffed, rising behind the bar with a new drink in hand and smacking it angry onto the counter for the cap to fly off into the abyss that was an empty warehouse devoid of any kind of enjoyment except booze, "They're not here, this really fuckin' sucks." Patricia began to pout with her arms folded but she wouldn't stay that way for long, looking over to the knight for a few seconds before speaking loudly.
"Why the FUCK you keep comin' to a bar and not even drink!? Ahahahahaheehee!" Somehow it was, like, incredibly funny how he kept showing up to this bar and every time he just... couldn't drink. Like you think he'd bring his own straws by now, and that was funny on its own. Big badass knight with a sword as big as he was with a prescription box of silly straws. OH! She was totally gonna bring silly straws for that next time! The crazy ones that loop around and glow in the freakin' dark! The hyper-active witch vaulted back onto the counter to lay across the bar like those chicks in Hollywood did to drink her beer and smoke and look cool like she thought she was, head side to the clown boy
"I dunno man, what do you wanna play? It's just gotta be somethin' we can dance to. Like, do you know that Spanish mariachi stuff or something? That'd be pretty cool."

"Indeed it is my choice. Gagman was just awful though, why did you think that was fine?" Okay, he just had to say it. She was already in a bad mood he didn't like two of the names, imagine how pissed off she'd be if he told her the idea was terrible. If she hit him it would be good slapstick. If she just got pissed, the Undead would probably have a good laugh. He laughed a bit and continued to watch those two stepping on each other's toes, the Jester sipped his drink a couple times, whenever he grabbed it to drink the mask twisted itself, forming a grinning mouth with terrible and sharp teeth where he could insert the alcoholic drink. Part of that was done to  show off, after all the Dark Knight was unable to drink stuff without a straw. That was hilarious.

Admittedly he was growing more and more distracted as their conversation went on. Only when Wicked gave him a rather amusing suggestion he was pulled back into the talk. With a chuckle he began to play something from his land, but most people would assume is mexican.

...what on earth was Rogue doing?!

"I-" Nope. Gotta stop. This was going to go nowhere except down, and hell did he already know he could pull that off on his own. "...fair enough, Wicked. Just forgive me if that's not so easy as you telling me so."

Revenant looks flatly toward Wicked. "Do you seriously mean to tell me you were intending to repeatedly vandalise a place home to several superpowered entities...just to make the proprietor appear?" Deadpan notes of 'Are you serious?' and 'You have got to be kidding me' carry in his voice. He goes automatically to run his fingers through his hair, only for that to fail as his fingers touch metal.
He transitions that into a facepalm, gauntlet dragging down the front of his helmet.

As Wicked runs through her routine of looking for straws, and just cursing when that effort fails, he sits for a moment trying to process what he heard.
"A...beetle."
He shakes his head. That was not anything to be focusing on. "I usually come here in order to, as one might guess, coordinate whenever events are upcoming. Of course, instead I seem to be relegated to greeting party as of recent...as you can tell."

He stares for a moment as the mask the Rogue was wearing warps and shifts. "That...is not natural." Sure, they were in a supernatural bar run by a demon, wielding powers shaped by their own minds, but what he'd just seen wasn't anything like what came before it.
He made a note that the person sat there...might, just might, be a tad different from the rest of them.

As they started to play, Revenant said nothing, just listening to the music. His eyes closed as he listened to the music, and after a while he started to tap out the beat on the bar with a gauntleted hand.

"*haaa...* Dude, like, it's fine. Just like... cool it, okay? No one came here to act like a jerk and nobody wants to, y'know?" The witch pinched the bridge of her nose. Like, she wanted to be cool but everyone was so damn anti-fun and fuckin' opinionated. Duuuuuh why ya gotta do that fer? What's that gonna accomplish? It accomplished because I fuckin' felt like it, that's why. Seriously, EVERYONE was just the biggest killjoy. Self-righteous types pissed her off, like, they always thought they were better than you and shit because they had some ideal or a stupid higher calling or whatever.

Speaking of wanting to act like a jerk. Wicked froze as her beer bottle approached her lips when Giggles opened his mouth to make fun of her again. Her hand clenched around the neck of the bottle as her head twitched slightly toward him, rage clearly burning in the eery glow of her yellow eyes. What. THE FUCK. Bro. The hell was he tryna start shit for?! She didn't call him out for his own stupid-assed name, The Laughing Rogue, like she coulda called him a dick-stroking fake-intelligent speaks-in-the-third-person try-hard fuckboi like he named himself but she fuckin' DIDN'T so WHAT. THE HELL?! Patricia bit her lip in anger. It took a shitton of effort not to just toss his drink onto the ground. After what felt like a solid minute of staring daggers at him she broke into fake, malevolent laughter instead.
"AHA HA HA HA HA I thought it suited you! Y'know, 'cause you're a fuckin' joke."

The worst that the witch did was reach out to flick one of the bells on his freakin' stupid jingly hat. She got tempted to put her cigarette out in his drink too and moved like she was gonna do it but changed her mind halfway through and brought it to her lips so she wouldn't want to hit something in a few seconds. She took a few steps away from everyone and crossed her arms to sulk and pout, focusing on her beer more than anything else. But she'd aggressively reply to Revenant's question that really wasn't a question.
"Uh, yeah. If you haven't noticed I'm kinda one of those too and the strongest one I've met. I think I can handle myself."

The witch killed yet another beer and stared into it through to the bottom. She huffed and continued to pout for a little while, trying to keep herself from snapping at either of them anymore. Whatever. This sucked. She didn't have to stick around for this kind of treatment, she could go out to another club and pay for fun instead of getting made fun of for free.
"Psssh... I don't have to be here for this..."
The lanky chick slammed her empty bottle down on the bar top and made another vault overtop, walking quickly.
"Whatever. You have fun with that I guess. I gotta go, see ya later." The witch seethed as she stomped for the exit, throwing the door open and slamming it behind her. She came to have fun and hang out with interesting people. She didn't have to put up with any of this garbage treatment.

The Jester continued to snicker and laugh, the bells jingled back and forth as he laughed unfettered. That girl was fun and she had spirit! Too bad she got tired of his antics and the Undead Knight's frigidness. He was just starting to have fun with this. As she stood up and left he made a motion as if he was wiping a tear from his face.

"C'mon don't be like that witch!" He shouted "Your drinks are pretty go- and she is gone. Shame, she seemed like she was fun." A sigh followed by a shrug came from the jester.

Still with his ass on the seat he spun around it so he could face the Dark Knight, he still held the rimshot in hand and the mask still deformed and reshaped itself to accommodate for the glass of alcohol. The vengeful undead seemed rather put off by the abilities of the mask, which just made it all the more amusing for the Jester. Beneath the white mask Archibald had a big smirk on his face.

"Aren't we all unnatural? Capable of conjuring these fantasy reject costumes out of thin air, capable of going toe to toe with demons." He seemed to ignore the rest of the of the conversation, he was more interested in the notions of natural and unnatural. The Mask's voidful eyes continued to stare at the other terrorist, the Jester remained static in place but his mask... The mask shifted and reformed, like it was made out of rubber band. The blank expression was soon replaced by an androgynous, handsome yet demonic face.

"Or perhaps, this is the natural order of things. Don't we deserve a little bit of power after carrying out such mediocre lives for so long?"The changes in the mask also brought a change in posture and tone. Were he was previously slouched and spoken like a madman now there was an individual who stood proud, suave in voice. Yet it was the same man before the mask, he just played a different role now.

Revenant can't help but cringe as it all falls apart, from Wicked very blatantly insulting people to her storming out, leaving him with a pain in his ears as the door slams behind her.
He sighs, burying his helmeted head in the palm of his gauntlet. "Well done me..."
Looking back up at the Rogue, he just shakes his head. "I cannot quite figure out how to speak to her." With a dark laugh that spoke little to his self view, he lifts a leg and knocks on his greaves. "As you can see, I'm not well equipped for a soft tread. These are feet meant to crush any eggshells they step on."

He watched with...feelings difficult to discern as the Rogue spoke again only to have his mask warp and shift, seemingly becoming someone else altogether. "...you remind me of what she was like when I first encountered her..." He found himself wary again, unsure of quite how to address the Rogue now after this shift. "She met little more than me and a few paltry demons, but that taste was enough for her to revel in the power it brought."
"Most powerful she's met...I cannot fathom how she can hold such confidence when she's met nobody yet."

"I like to believe my language is... more refined than her mannerisms, but perhaps the Devil and Witch have something in common." The performer rubbed the mask's powerful and defined jawline in thought.

"What's wrong with confidence? Would you rather to live in meekness or to be proud of yourself and what you can do? Who are you carrying that weight for, Revenant?" The head tilted to the left. Intently curious about the Dark Knight's morals and ethics. After all the Fiend sought nothing but corruption of others. And Archibald was mentally compelled to play that part by the mask itself. "I say, revel in your power and freedom. You seem like a wise guy to know how and when to avoid trouble." The mask's lips opened once again, this time the movements were gentle and calculated as opposed to the jagged and curly shapes from previous times. Slowly he poured the drink in, delighting himself in the taste. He set the empty glass aside and stared at the knight, sizing him up.

"Or perhaps you are afraid of something, unable to afford to enjoy yourself. The armor is not a way to impose and intimidate, but rather shield yourself from external threat." Yet his worst enemy came from within. Of course Archibald meant it in a metaphorical sense.

Weight...? He...didn't quite get what he meant. Or...who he was even talking to now. Logically it was the same person, but their behaviour was so different...
"...I think I have misspoke. Confidence is one thing, but arrogance and ignorance are another." He stares down the new face, paying attention so as to spot the few signs he could read. "To be so assured as to think yourself a god in a world you are an infant in is folly. She places herself above all based on so little...I can only hope she does not receive too rude an awakening."
He sighs. "Might is not a toy, and its sole purpose is not self-indulgence. If she would rather treat it that way, that is her directive...but it is not mine. If one wields strength, than you should not bring suffering with it. And frankly...I'd hardly call this power freedom when for any to know you have it means condemnation."

His mind ran free as the Rogue(?) commented on the metal layer that covered him, seeking to divine from it the aspects of his mind. "...whatever this guise means, it is the visage I was granted over one that I chose. I would think it the same for any other. Whatever it means, or could come to mean...that is something to be discovered."

"You think you do not carry weight. Yet you use words like 'condemnation' and reject the notion of being able to have fun with the chance you were given for escapism." The Demon shook his head, he supposed the knight was one to stand his ideals no matter what. How dull. It would take a long time but he'd continue to corrupt the dark knight in the future. "I'll relent, though. You have your beliefs and it must be annoying to be prodded all the time for it. In a way i admire your sense of duty, even." He gave the Vengeful Undead a respectful nod.

"I suppose, there's no way i can claim for certainty what it means. But i'm sure our costumes mean something. They come from within us after all."

He wasn't kidding it was annoying...escapism? Seriously?
Even if he ended up being the only one to, he knew - this was something to take seriously. If all they did was revel mindlessly in power in pursuit of escape, they got no better than the caricatures the government made all those with their power out to be, selfish forces of pain and devastation rather than the people they all were.
He would not be one of the roaming demons that they had all been made out to be, another piece of the hell that this world had been made into.
He wasn't spitting in her face like that.

He thinks to himself, and chuckles. Come to think on it all..."Appropriate that one so dutiful bear the garb of a knight then, that warrior in service of their lord...though then again, one of this colouring is hardly known to serve under another, no...?" He shakes his head. "Regardless of such nuances...someone has to take up this duty if all that we of this place seek is to occur...many of us, no less." He shrugs. "If I doing this would ease the burden for the rest, then it is a path I would gladly walk."

"The Dark Knight is one who rejected a lord. But sometimes they are an anti-hero who fight for their own ideals, perhaps that would be the case." He chuckled a bit, amused at this situation. He enjoyed that Cecil at least played along with the talk of tropes and roles, perhaps that's where he should 'crack' the knight from and not with promises. "Perhaps even more diligent than a so called, shining knight. In the end i'm just the storyteller, here to chronicle the deeds, or misdeeds, of the damned."

He would stand up, stretching his body after having sat down for all this time. With his right hand he flashed a finger gun at Revenant.

"It was pleasure meeting you, Dark Knight. But the night calls me." And with a handshake he left the playhouse, no words as he walked off just the jingles of the bells.

His mind jumped to the day which he'd first arrived, to one of those present for his eventful induction. They cast in gold as they walked with an unrepentant murderer. Then, the Cadets, the more metaphorical knights of the city, the unwitting enforcers for a terrible regime. "Hm. I suppose there's something to be said for that. I wonder, though...how many of the shining that are so beloved would stay their course if their obedience was less blind?"

He nodded to Rogue as they left. "And the same to you. When we meet again."
Revenant listened as the jingling bells faded off into the distance, before casting an eye over his gauntlet. He...hadn't thought this armour had come from any place positive, he had to admit. It was one thing when there was metaphorically a barrier between yourself and the world...another when that was literal.
There might just be more to it all than that, though...
Actually, yeah. Probably was. It didn't come from nothing.

The knight stood, and made his own exit. He could think about this another time.