Xaviers!

The first (proper) weekend of March Carter's Traveling Steam Funfair opens it's ticket booths, after several days of setting up on the field just off Warwick Drive, the smell of cotton candy and roasted almonds is wafting out over the town. Bright and colorful rides spin and rattle and twirl as the crowd of visitors spreads out through the fair. There's bumper cars and shooting galleries, hook-a-fish and a Chair-O-Plane that is soon producing the thrilled screams of excitement from children and adults alike. Carnies are goading people to their booths and colorful food wagons sell all kinds of unhealthy snacks. Off to the side a number of beautifully renovated Living Wagons are set up for people to admire, although between the fact that they're actually lived in and not as exciting as the rest of the fair, the crowd there is pretty thin.


((Open, naturally))

Out of sheer curiosity, Chase followed the smells and the sounds to the fair. He bought a ticket and wandered around a while before eventually approaching the games of skill. He smiled inwardly as he popped an almond into his mouth. Wandering how much he could get away with before the carnies figured him for a mutant, he got in line for the shooting gallery.

Someone who is probably a mutant, going by the pink hair, is already standing at the booth, looking at the giant knock-off Snorlax plush sitting in the corner with giant sparkly eyes and a tiny mouth.

Basil was strolling along with Colette at a casual pace, sipping from a lemonade cup and carrying a candy floss in the hand closest to Colette. A vision of black, Basil's monochromatic dress shirt skinny jeans and chucks made him standout in a crowd. Not to mention the gelatinous girl by his side.

He noticed Chase queued up for the shooting gallery and stopped but didn't announce his presence just yet, simply contented to watch his friends work from behind his Wayfarers.

Colette was, of course, clinging to Basil's arm, offering a little bit of colour to contrast his black on black on black attire; though the biggest contrast was her pink head and hair. And of course she was ripping small pieces of candy floss (or "barbe à papa" as she had called it) and popping it into her mouth. Cannibalism? Perhaps, but it was pure sugar and brightly coloured, which meant that she adored it.

Robin Stanton wrote:Someone who is probably a mutant, going by the pink hair, is already standing at the booth, looking at the giant knock-off Snorlax plush sitting in the corner with giant sparkly eyes and a tiny mouth.

"If that's what you want, I hope you're a good shot," Chase said in an effort not to be so damned introverted.

"Huh?" Robin is startled out of her longing stare. "Oh. Haha, yeah, no, I'm not. Guns and me don't get along."

"I could win it for you," he offered confidently despite only firing a gun at a training target years ago when the Lotus tested him.

"Seriously? That'd be awesome!" she grins broadly.

He smiled at her enthusiasm and when it was his turn, he handed over the necessary tokens and took up the gun. However, his first shot went high, glancing a target.

Presuming making himself known might cause too much pressure on Chase, Basil was contented to remain silent, though he pointed out his friend to Colette silently with a gesture.

Colette quietted her tittering at Basil's gesture, watching with a little smile. Chase was going to impress a girl, how exciting!

"Ooh, that's not what you want to see! Is the pressure getting to him already? He's got little room for error now!" Robin says in a sports-commentator voice.

"Just more used to a bow. But I think I've got this now," he replied, adjusting less for gravity and wind. He fired again with a near bull's eye, then again with a perfect shot.

"Ooh, turns out this isn't even his sport. He just decided to join the competition on a whim and he's killing it!" she goes on with her announcer-cheer.

He continued on, hitting a target with each shot with most being bullseyes. When he ran out of ammo, he twirled the gun before handing it to the carnie.

"Prettttty good, I guess." Robin grins.

"Good enough to get your lazy monster thing," he smirked. He chose the prize and held it out to her.

"Oh my gosh, thank you!" she beams as she takes the huge plush and set sit down in front of her. It's a little shorter than her, but only by about a foot. And then she jumps right at the plush-toy's stomach and turns into a pinkish-grey substance that threads itself into the Snorlax and a couple heartbeats later the stitched sleepy eyes slowly blink open into little black dots.

"It's perfect!" her voice comes from the Snorlax and it stands up, swiping it's stubby arms at it's back to dust itself off some.

The carnie at the shooting game goes from disgruntled somebody won to kind of an unsettled stare.

Once Chase had finished, Basil would leave the snacks with Colette and approach him with a slow clap.

"Bravo. Very nicely done mate."

Chase was too busy processing the girl possessed toy to respond to Basil. He looked mostly impressed but still a little unnerved because living plushes are always creepy.

"Well, that's a.. creative power application."

"Why thank you." she grins and wobbles from side to side to turn slightly towards Basil and Colette.

"Sup!" she waves with a stubby plush-arm.

Basil didn't even seem remotely put off by the moving plushie. He spent Christmas talking to a tree and the subsequent months since knee deep in jellomold.

His weirdness radar was calibrated extremely high these days.

He'd seen her disappear into it so clearly, that explained everything enough for him to casually wave back to Robin.

"Not much. Madame hasn't been to a carnival before so I thought it might be to her liking. "

Colette seemed suitably impressed, though she was already snacking on the candy floss again.

"Are you not worried about getting ze stuffing wet?" She asked, looking at things from her own perspective, if she had tried it. She wouldn't have succeeded, but still.

"Hmm?" she makes a noise while craning her neck to look up at the sky. "Doesn't look like rain..."

Ah, so thinks pink mass of goo wasn't of the soggy variety. Good to know.

"Well, zat is quite ze talent. Please do not do zat in ze middle of ze night, because if I see a stuffed animal moving at two in ze morning... I do not know what I would do."

"Pff! I'm sure there's stranger things walking around the halls." the plush Snorlax says with a wave of it's paw.

"Agreed." Basil replied to Robin's observation. However, as to not throw anyone else under the bus, he added-

"For example Madame, I have it on good authority an invisible boy keeps sneaking into your room at night and watching you undress." Said the invisible boy, as if it weren't him.

" Were I in your position, I'd find that much more unnerving than a mobile doll."

Chase shook off the unnerved feeling and chuckled. A mobile doll wasn't any stranger than a wereshark or a plant man or a Will.

"I hear he has dangerous friends too," he smirked.

"There's somebody creeping on people? Sounds like we need a stake-out to catch that guy!"

Colette flushed softly. "Indeed. It sounds as zough I need to get some rope and lay a trap, to capture zis peeping tomcat."

"Make sure to bait appropriately." Basil replied as a hand unseen to anyone clarified his statement by groping Colette's bottom.

"So, dangerous friend, what other skills are you going to wow us all with?"

Colette's facial expression remained cheerful and composed, but the woman subtly pushed her bottom into that invisible hand.

"Ooh, do zey have a high striker game?" Colette you're not helping.

"Wait, you're the creepazoid?"

Colette shook her head. "Nooo, it is pronounced Colette."

That giant Snorlax just tilts it's head and looks at Colette with little black dots-for-eyes.

Basil used the confusion to navigate around Robin's question.

"So Madame, are you wanting Chase to show off his strength and impress us all, or me to give us all something the chortle about for weeks to come?"

"Say him. Please say him," Chase grinned.

"Can't make a claim like that and then not follow up, Captain Creepazoid." Robin says, though she sounds jovial.

"Basil has already impressed me in many ways zat cannot be replicated in a mere carnival game." Colette said, squeezing her boyfriend's arm as she switched to whispering in French. "And would not be appropriate to demonstrate in public."

"Zat said, it would amuse me greatly to watch him attempt to hook a duck." In truth, she'd love to play just about any of these games against someone. She might even win a coconut!