The Red Star Circus

Certainly, it would have been an odd sight to anyone, seeing Ivan Crowley's intestines and guts slither their way across the ground.

But, no one was truly around to see this event save Muramasa and the new being, and thus Jude was to free reassemble his new host in peace. Tendons slurped together, skin knitted back into a whole, and his organs slowly righted themselves in totally macabre fashion.

Jude felt a large, gaping hole where Ivan's spine should have been.

"Poor sod..." The Forsaken One croaked with weak, damaged vocal chords. He flexed his fingers, preparing for the pain of- there it was! A sharp agony shot through Jude's new body, as a row of disfigured spikes formed a new spine for him.

After several minutes, the process was complete. Jude stood, stretching his new limbs. Were it not for the glowing yellow and red eyes, and his large, spiked spine which protruded from the hole in his back, he would have looked just like Ivan Crowley.

The newly brought to life man smirked, looking out over the horizon and admiring the sounds of battle from the beast who had freed him from eternal torment. Jude's long tongue swished madly through the air, accentuating his grin. "it's good to be baaaaack..." He sighed, swiveling around and leaving the Red Starch Circus.

Muramasa had taken a stance after seeing Marnin. As he suspected, the beast was none too friendly. Yet, as aggressive of a stance it was, it held itself somewhat upright. It reminded him of an alpha wolf.

He held up a hand passively and politely. "I did not come to seek a fight. I was merely intrigued."

He bowed his head then, meant as a sign of respect, and waited to see if his manners were accepted.

Yet, face down, he noticed another quite unusual sight. The body of a Seeker, strewn on the ground, was reconstituting itself. His eyes widened. He had watched that Seeker lose his Object and be torn in half; he was surely only a human. What was this?

He rose from his small bow to watch the disfigured man rise, turn, and begin to walk away from the remains of the circus.

Marnin narrowed his eyes slightly. At least three supernatural beings that weren't Holders or Objects appearing simultaneously in one location...

Before waiting any longer, he walked calmly away as well, following Jude at a distance.

Jude coughed out a small amount of blood as the last of his organs righted themselves and he continued onward. His tongue continued to lash about, and he scarcely had time to observe his surroundings.

He was pondering all the time he'd spent in Hell. At the mercy of Hellhounds and various Demons, Jude had undergone eternal torment 3,000 times over. It had driven him quite mad, he supposed. But after a while, it had driven him sane again, so he was alright on that front.

"I need a smoke and a drink." He stopped, and his scratchy voice rang aloud for no one but himself to hear, or so he thought. He was unaware of the odd man tailing him from afar, choosing to revel in his new found body, even though it was quite disfigured.

He had no shirt, and only a torn pair of jeans on that did little to hide his emaciated figure. Unclean, angular scars webbed across his body like a map, and they all seemed to point to the X directly on his back; the enormous protruding spine that spiked out disgustingly, dripping blood slightly.

Reazling that in this state, Jude would have to stay discreet and unseen by the human world, he jumped on top of a nearby telephone pole, perching there for a better view of the area. His spindly tongue still swished, and his eyes still glowed. And Jude ggrinned a mad little grin.

Marnin looked up as the man leapt lightly onto a telephone pole and surveyed the area. When he did, he quickly--but not too urgently--stepped behind another nearby pole and faced away, keeping Jude in his sights only in his peripheral vision.

He could wait as long necessary. He wanted to see where this beast would go, and if he could manage it, what exactly it was. The matter deserved some investigation. He wanted to know more about the metallic creature as well, but he wasn't up for fighting something that large.

The man-beast swished its tongue through the air wildly, an incredibly odd sight. He thought back again on what he wanted to do. Perhaps he couldn't wait forever after all; he thought he had seen a few of the people from before head toward the nearest hospital. Hopefully, this matter didn't take too long.

What would Jude do?

It hadn't occured to him what he wanted to do or where he wanted to go just yet. Living was all that mattered to him right now. Freedom, sweet Anarchy--

That was it. What was the world without a little chaos? Jude stood up straight, retracting his tongue and putting one hand on his chin. Now, his visage was much more like Ivan than it had been earlier.

He examined his surroundings once more, deeming Sacramento a fine enough place to begin. As long as he did it subtley, brought on the Anarchism slowly but surely, Hellhounds would not take notice of his actions. And in the mean time he could have a little fun!

Jude struck a rather...flamboyant pose, and guffawed in amusement at the city below him. Breathing deeply, and sighing inward, he smiled to himself. It was a good day to be alive. And with the smell of battle fresh in the air, Jude fit right in!

Marnin carefully reached out his pocket and withdrew a small seed. It looked like nothing more than a sunflower seed, before he stroked it carefully along its edge. It cracked open and appeared to bloom, a set of insect wings emerging and the seed itself turning inside out to reveal what looked like no more than a mosquito.

This was one of many he brought with him for his information gathering, and it was obviously nothing normal. When he closed his eyes he could mentally "see" the insect--or at least, the spores collected within the insect's mouth parts. No matter where those spores went, if he focused, he could track them.

He set the insect on his finger and pointed gently up at Jude, and it was off. It buzzed quickly and discreetly up to the telephone pole and set on his shoulder, undetected. And, when it stuck its tiny proboscis into his ragged skin on his, it did not inject any irritants, only the spores.

Marnin nodded, satisfied. He would check back on him later. It was time to head to the hospital.

Standing on top of the morgue, his yellow eyes glinting brightly, Jude observed the red-haired woman kick over a trash can and then dash away.

'Interesting.' He mused on the subject, eyeing the tall man who slowly walked after her. A name formed, as Jude drew on Ivan's memories to recall this man. 'Michael...?' Oh. Oh, okay. Now it hit Jude that these two must be looking for his body. Ivan's body.

Which would make the red-headed woman...

"Elata!" Ivan's voice cracked out of Jude's new host, and he quickly clapped his hand over his mouth. 'Idiot!' The anger flared. And alerted a being. Halfway across the planet, Hellhounds caught the scent of Jude's emotions. Jude felt it. And he knew it was time to go.

The Forsaken One turned, forgetting Michael and Elata, and opening his speed portal. He'd never really thought about how he came to have that ability. He just did.

It opened in front of him, and he let himself fall through, leaving Sacramento and avoiding capture, yet again.


--------


Michael rushed after Elata, not wanting to be left behind, and feeling strangely...unknown. He couldn't remember the last time he felt this way, but seeing Elata breakdown, coupled with his brother's missing body, had done something to him.

"Miss Elata, wait up!" The skeletal man's voice rang out much different than before, almost going back to the days when he was an ambitious, human Seeker.

Elata ran all the way back to the circus. She didn't notice the people she ran by, she didn't notice Michael trailing behind her, she didn't hear anything but the blood pumping in her body and the air rushing past her ears. She furiously wiped at her tears as she ran, but about halfway there they stopped as her muscles began to burn and she had to regain control of her breathing or choke. Her running continued when she arrived at the circus, hopping over the gate. She did slow down though, only to make sure she looked through every tent, hiding place, and trailer thoroughly. She threw things about in her search; looked under chairs, under the stadium seats, in hidden places Ivan couldn't ever even have known about, but still nothing. She finally returned back to the spot where he should have been. She came to a stop and simply stared down at the blood on the ground with a blank expression. The gears in her head were turning, fighting to come up with some sort of explanation.

"Miss Elata?

Michael tentatively approached from behind the red-head, having followed her and watched her from afar since she began to tear through the Red Star Circus madly.

He now had his hands in his pockets, and his mask off, so that his skeletal face remained only under a hood, but clearly visible. It was the grinning skull of a man who, at one time or another, might have been quite handsome, but now only the blue-tinted bones remained, with flecks of skin hanging here and there.

Most surprisingly, his jaw was down-turned in what seemed to be concern, as he walked up beside Elata and put his hand on her shoulder.

The pride and arrogance, all the anger, had removed itself entirely from his voice, at least for the time being. "I believe my brother is gone. I'm sorry, it does not seem there is much we can do." To some extent, Michael now sounded like a more deep-voiced, mature form of Ivan.

"What if one of them took the body? The monsters I mean," she said sadly. "That's the only thing I can think of. We left before the fight because we had to take someone to the hospital and I couldn't risk getting into the fight to actually pull the body away..." she felt like she wanted to cry but tears weren't coming. "We probably won't get it back if they took it." She put her hand on the one on her shoulder and squeezed it. He sounded upset now, a bit at least. She did take this opportunity to smile. She was glad he was feeling something other than narcisissm. The smile was a sad one though. "Well...I don't know about you but I certainly don't have the power to get his body back if they took it. Do you want to have a funeral without it?" She looked up at his disfigured face and gave him a warm smile. "It's the least we could do, really. I have a lot of money saved." She squeezed his hand again, putting all the emotion into it she could. She wanted him to know she acknowledged his pain and that she would treat him as an equal, that she sympathized and didn't care if the staff had corrupted him, she would help him if he needed it. The only reason Ivan would keep listening to this man would be if he was a good person before this happened to him. She looked into his empty eyes as she would any normal ones.

A twinge of guilt toward Elata panged through Michael's empty chest, before dissipating.

"I do not believe it is your place to pay for such a thing, Miss Elata." His voice had grown cold again, the eye-sockets stale and his very posture permeating with rage and contempt for all that was around him. 'How dare they?!' He began to shake angrily, staring down at the blood spot he had once called a brother.

If he had thought the human race weak before, he certainly did now. These humans had been powerless to prevent his brother's death. He turned his gaze up toward Elata, admiration in his eyes.

"You were the only one who attempted to do anything when my brother was killed. Not a soul but you tried to save him. I am in your dept."

Surveying the area, Michael pulled out his Staff and held it close, a battle stance clearly at the ready. "You said a Great Beast slayed my fallen brother ivan? Then we will seek this Beast...and we will destroy it as vengeance for my brother's death!"

Elata stared at him for a bit, slightly shocked. 'Yes' she thought as her face widened into one of those vengeful smiles. She didn't think she could do it alone, but perhaps Michael could help her! The fire inside her that had burned down to embers reignited, her eyes almost flashed with it. She grabbed Michael in a bear hug. "Yes! Revenge is as good an emotion as any! Good job!" She tugged on his clothes and pulled him in the direction of the exit. "I just have to get to the hotel and get my stuff!" She started running again. She was so full of energy! She vaulted over the fence and did a summersault in the air before landing this time. She hurried but waited for Michael occasionally, running ahead and stopping until he caught up. Halfway to the hotel she let him catch all the way up and took his elbow in hers. "Let's discuss our plans on the way. Do you have any idea where to start?" she beamed up at him, happy to have a mission and to be doing something about this.

As expected, Michael's strong words had invigorated the young woman and had motivated her. If one thing he had always loved, it was determination, and he knew that his voice had inspired many to follow his lead.

A small smile crept across his face. It was one of triumph, pride, leadership, and most of all...revenge.

"I lead a band of Seekers, and we wield out Objects pridefully until that day when we can decide what to do with them. Miss Elata, will you join us"

Pausing for efect, Michael drew in a breath which he had no use for, and eered down imposingly at the shorter being.

"With your help, we will put an end to this Great Beast for good! And vengeance for my brother's death will be in our grasp! If only we are willing to reach out and take it. Which means..." The question he was abut to ask was not one he thought much of considering he did not know Elata's past with the circus and herfriends. Still, he said it with grave importance to his voice.

"You have the choice to gather your Objects, and return with me post haste to Los Angelas, where we can aquaint you with our group. Will you come?"

Hmmmm. Elata thought hard. As social as she was she had never really been one to JOIN a group. She could easily work with others but if something came up that wasn't to her liking she would challenge it. However she didn't beleive that any number of objects could help her defeat Muramasa if it was just her. She was independent but she would join the group for Ivan! Besides, just because she was going with him didn't mean she had to do things his way. She also wasn't sure when the circus would start up again. "Yeah! I'll definitely go to Los Angeles!" she giggled and reached up, poking him where his nose should be. "but please, stop acting like an old King. It's not going to help at all when you're trying to command your group and I just can't stop laughing." She continued walking to the hotel. She decided if there was going to be object wielding, she should tell him which ones she owned. "As for objects, I already have six. I have two swords from the holder of Thunder, these scars from Zeal, a music box from song, a syringe of this WEIRD liquid from health and a mask from blue. I usually find the objects by looking after odd objects or legends from really obscure religions. I do quite a lot of reserach, I am actually tracking one down right now. " She waited for his response,smiling, hopefully it was an approving one.

Michael nodded.

"This is good. The more Objects we amass, the better. Our group wishes to collect as many as possible, and then decide what to do with them." He pasued a moment to think. "Whether it be use them, bring them together, or destroy them. Or something else altogether."

There was quite a lot of planning to do, and Michael rubbed his chin in a very human way, unaware of the action.

"I have arranged a train ticket or two,, back to Los Angelas. As quickly as we may arrive there, it would be most acceptable to get to the city within the next few days."

Then he peered down at Elata, appearing to squint slightly at the red-head. "What is incorrect about the manner in which I speak?"

"Well you use language very properly, which is great! but you don't speak like a modern person and it just makes me laugh. People that are really full of themselves like you make me giggle. Try using a contraction once in awhile." She laughed a little more. She wondered what would happen if she took his staff away? She wasn't going to of course, because that would completely stupid, but she wondered. Would he go back to normal? That would be nice, he might be more likeable if he was normal. Oh well, hopefully he would come down to earth if they spent enough time around each other. She hummed a tune as they returned to the hotel. She had to tell Ciaran she was resigning and collect her things. A new chapter was starting in her life! She felt like Beatrix Kiddo. She was going to start calling Muramasa Bill. This made her begin whistling the tune Elle whistled on her way to kill Beatrix in the hospital. In the back of her mind she kind of hoped it was annoying Michael.

((OoC: I know there was an issue with an inane conversation or someting or other with wolfezth about south park. But elata is still pretty mucha normal person and Kill Bill is a bitchin' movie. so i hope you all can forgive the movie reference XD she's just honestly thinking about Kill Bill right now))

(OoC: I don't think it's a big deal. At least you were making a reference/comparison. Wolf just put his shit in there for NOREASON.)

'Stop...humming...god...dammit.' Michael couldn't focus with this woman pestering him so. His admiration for her spirit was waning due to his rage at her annoying nature.

He quickly strode up behind and beside her, trying to keep a glare out of his stare while he wondered how much of a Seeker she truly was. She had many Objects, but could they have all been out of pure luck?

As he thought on this, Ivan also floated to his mind. What had happened to the body? Surely it was one of the foul beings who killed him's doing. He would make them pay for this, dearly. Especially this Great Monster which ripped Ivan in half.

Although, of course, Ivan was never very useful. He had let Alice die, and on top of that, he wasn't good at acquiring man Objects. Which was why Michael never sent him after many of them. But, Ivan's heroic nature was unmatched, his kind heart reminding him or an old adage head once heard.

He began to speak it aloud, and it reminded him of he and Ivan's losttime together when they were children, as well as Ivan's sacrifice for Elata.

"Disdaining fortune, with his brandished steel, which smoked with bloody execution. Like valour's minion, carved out his passage..." Turning slightly towards Elata, he felt amused by her prescence.

"...'Till he faced the slave. Which ne'er shook hands, nor bade farewell to him."

"Ooo, Macbeth," Elata said happily. She liked that play. Looking at Michael, she could tell he thought her amusing, she was glad they could amuse each other. "Don't forget to put your mask back on and everything." she reminded. As they approached the hotel she felt a certain trepidation. Even though she wanted to avenge Ivan she did feel a little nervous about joining Michael. She shook off her concern. If she didn't like it she could leave. Surely he would let her do so. They entered the hotel and she ran up the stairs to the room she shared with Praetorius and Ingrid. She noticed Ingrid was outside but didn't notice she was in distress. She did notice she had interrupted conversation though. She apologized and began packing her things, humming and smiling all he while.

Michael leaned against the wall in the lobby, waiting for Elata patiently with his mask finally back on. He looked up as he heard her sliding, and frowned disapprovingly. That was dangerous, sliding down the banister like that. She could get hurt. Briefly, Michael wondered why he even cared.

He strode up alongside her as she continued on her way. "Miss Elata, we have a train to catch in several hours. I hope that you are prepared enough for that.

"Of course I'm prepared. Why wouldn't I be? Lead the way skeletor! Oh! do you eat? we can have some food before we catch the train. I'll buy." without waiting for an answer she led him out of the lobby and to a fast food restaurant. She considered that if he did want to eat, he wouldn't want to spend a lot of time sitting with people everywhere. As they turned a corner at the end of the block Ciaran burst out of the door to the hotel. He had had to dress in a hurry to stop her but....fuck she was gone. He glared into the distance and lit a cigarette, leaning calmly against the wall. Stupid bitch, she was far too flighty. If he saw her again he might throw a knife at her for fun.

"I can eat, Miss Elata." Michael sneered, angry that she had underestimated his ablities in this form. He paused a moment to consider what he might like, although no human foods of any sort sounded appropriate to him.

However, their train would not depart for another two and a half hours, and he would like a private moment or two to stop, rest, and sicuss things in detail with Elata.

"Yes." He spoke regally. "Let us go and find ourselves a place to eat. There is much to talk about." His hunched over walk would have looked proud, but it only seemed to make him seem shy-- like Ivan.

" No don't get offended silly," she said hitting him playfully. "I'm not asking if you can eat. I just didn't know if you needed to, since you're kinda...well yeah, you've seen yourself." she smiled and went into a burger joint. She got the food to go and they walked to a park not far from the train station to eat in the nice weather, and also not in the restaurant around tons of people. Elata sat down in the shade of a tree and gave Michael the food he ordered. "So, we have discussing to do. Discuss away!" She looked at him like she was waiting for orders and nommed away happily.

Swiveling his head upward to stare into the sun, Michael began to think deeply, rubbing his chin.

"You have many Objects, Miss Elata. This is useful to our group. Do you understand this?" His tone was extremely serious, and he looked gravely at the red-head. Then he continued, "As well, do you fully understand what my group is all about? Our goals are not exaclty the same as many other Seekers. Since, we are many."

He could not help but think of a Biblical passage, but he dismissed it quickly.

Reaching over his back and pulling out his Staff and fondling it, as if he would a special, sentimental possession. He gazed at it; it was now the only thing he had left in the world, with Ivan and Alice, his closest companions, gone. He wagered his humanity would be all but destroyed within a year of their passing...and it saddened him.

"Yeah, the objects would be useful to any seeker of course. But I would like a little further explanation on your group." She leaned against the tree and watched him remove his staff from his back. He...well petted it in a way. She couldn't help herself from thinking 'my preciouuuuuuuuuus'. She almost laughed but stopped herself. Really, it was kind of a serious matter. Golem was fictional, but this man is real, and right before her. If he treated the staff with such reverence. She didn't like what she was thinking but, she simply just might have to take it away someday, especially if it was the thing making him this way. She was almost certain Ivan would liked to have done it. Perhaps when she got to know him better she would talk to him about it first. If discussion got nowhere, she would have to use action. She kept this to herself and smiled as she waited for him to explain about his group.

"We are..." Michael took a deep breath and laid his Staff down in his lap.

"We are a group of Seekers who collect as many Objects as possible for our number. We number ten humans strong. We have a collection of about 19 Objects, my Staff included." At this, his fingers clenched around the Staff.

"Of course...Ivan had three Objects including his Tatto, so that would mean we are now out of three of our Objects, unfortunately.

'And one member...' Michael's mind whispered to him.