[Clown TF]
The fight to be the Top Star had ended. The Star Tiara, the mark of the Eternal Star, had vanished. Everyone was happy, and Starlight was once again performed for the public. And yet, the life of a Stage Girl was not as simple as that. Everyone that had participated in the Revues knew that.
So it came as no surprise to both Daiba Nana and Hoshimi Junna that their phones started playing that familiar tune. That same tune that had lured them both to the stage underneath their school. The stage where they had waged their lives, their very dreams, for a chance to be the one at the top.
Though they were Stage Girls, endlessly vying for Position 0, the main role… They didn’t want it to go this way. And yet, they couldn’t resist the tone’s pull, as they both made their way to the elevator that had dragged them down before…
And thus, the curtains were drawn on the latest performance by the Stage Girls, their pursuit of the top neverending…
---
“Why are we here again!?”
Junna shouted at the Giraffe that had brought them all into this, breaking character before the curtains had been properly raised. Her friend Nana did much the same, both aiming their weapons directly at the mysterious animal.
“I understand.” The Giraffe spoke, staring down at them like always. “Your pursuit of the Star Tiara may have come to an end. But your pursuit of the top role has not. Your friend remaking herself after falling has only proven that you can all take a new role, should the stage give you the chance.”
Nana tightened her grip on her blades. “She wouldn’t want this! None of us want this!” The banana-haired girl, while raising her voice, still kept it calm. She knew what the creature standing before them could do. She knew exactly what it could do, considering how many times it had granted her regressive wish.
The floor underneath them clicked, and the two were gradually pushed apart as the parts that they each stood on spun them away. “I understand.” The Giraffe said once more. “But the Audience does not. As long as there is an audience, the revues will continue. The brilliance of your lives as Stage Girls will burn ever brighter, letting you be reborn again and again!”
“LET THE REVUE OF MERRIMENT BEGIN!”
The lights shone upon the two Stage Girls, bringing their attention away from the talking animal and onto one another… And the stage itself, which was far different from anything they had ever been through before.
Instead of reflecting a dramatic scene, like the broken stage that Junna once used to fight against her friends, or the fire-filled battlefield where Nana let her heart pour out, it was more like.. A carnival. That would certainly explain the rotating floors below. But…
“We won’t fight against one another! Not this time!” The bespectacled bow-wielding Stage Girl cried out, trying to aim her bow towards anywhere she could think of where the Giraffe could be hiding.
Her white-clad blade-wielding friend nodded, as she stabbed the blades into the ground below. Just to keep herself from spinning around. She knew better than to take part in a fight that she couldn’t put her heart into.
“I understand.” The voice of the Giraffe spoke out, followed by a brief pause as the lights went out…
Only for them to be replaced with lights of several colors, all of them exponentially more ridiculous than the last. “Enjoy yourselves, Stage Girls. The Revue of Merriment is all for you.”
Just as he finished speaking, laughter started echoing around them. As if an audience had arrived to mock them. Or rather, be entertained by their futile struggle. Not only that, but music that wouldn’t feel out of place in a circus started to fill their ears, showing the true nature of what they were going to experience.
“Circus music..? I’m glad that I’m not here with Karen, but…” Junna muttered, slowly turning around as she continued to spin, further and further away from the girl who she had bonded so much with.
Nana watched as her friend disappeared to the other end of the stage. “Junna!” She shouted, drawing her blades as she tried to run off and catch up to her…
Only for a set of mannequins, each of them dressed in garish colors and extravagant costumes, to clash against her blades the second she drew herself from her passive position. Not only that, but they laughed just as much as the ‘audience’ around them.
“Get out of my way!” She shouted, invigorated by her need to save her friend. She’d crush the mannequins, if that was what it’d take!
Slash after slash lanced, leaving quite the mark on the giggly mannequins… But with every strike she made, it was like she was realizing how pointless it was to fight in the first place…
After all. Every mannequin she struck down just caused another two to take its place. And worst of all, the ‘blood’ that they all spewed when she slashed through them was like ink, dying its way into her body in a matter of seconds.
Nana didn’t want to stop, though she did giggle at how absurd the odds were. Even as she spun around, her laughter didn’t stop, though their attack did start to calm down. She got a chance to breathe, if only momentari-
*SPLAT*
She let her guard down. At the critical moment, she was forced to drop her blades as a pie smashed its way into her face, leaving her utterly and completely covered in cream. It was an utterly idiotic way of fighting somebody, and yet…
It made her laugh. The pies that followed, smashing into the rest of her body until she was left utterly covered in cream, made her laugh even more. It was all so stupid! And yet, that was what made it so funny. The sheer insanity of the act was driving her mad.
The mannequins, satisfied with how she had been covered in all of that cream, grabbed the disarmed and dirtied girl before tossing her into a cartoonish cannon, which was pointed up at the sky above.
“S-Stop! H-Hehehehe!” Nana tried to cry out, but her laughter drowned out her protests. In fact, it drowned out her own thoughts as well, preventing her from hearing the fuse slowly burn away until…
*BOOM*
Her body went flying through the air, curled into the shape of a cannon ball as she went through several rings that had seemingly been pre-prepared for her launch…
The cream gradually fell off her body thanks to the drag of the air around her, leaving her looking cleaner by the moment. Though her uniform seemed all-too-wrong, something that only became apparent as she landed in the middle of the stage, on her feet and with her arms spread out wide.
Nana’s outfit had been replaced. Transformed into a two-toned jester’s outfit, with the usual elegance of her Stage Girl uniform having long since disappeared. It went along perfectly with her chalk-white face, and the cute red cheeks that had been painted onto that white surface.
Combine that with her blades suddenly being tossed to her, only to turn into a set of juggling pins, and she immediately went to work impressing the audience. Juggling like the Clown that she was, with a bright and happy smile on her face.
Nana had disappeared from the stage. Haha, the happiest clown, had taken her place.
---
Junna wasn’t feeling great. She could hear the laughter echoing around her. It mocked her. Just like the music did. And to make matters worse, she had been separated from Nana. The Giraffe had tricked them into playing another role they didn’t like…
“I’ll get him, somehow... “ The bespectacled Stage Girl muttered as she drew back the string on her bow. She had to get to the middle of the stage, so she could meet up with her friend. But at the same time…
How was she going to get there, with all of these mirrors in the way? These massive mirrors that distorted her view? They were circus mirrors too, making them even more annoying than they already were!
“Just..!” Junna cried out as she fired off an arrow through the mirror, the frustration in her heart quickly swelling to a climax. It was bad enough that she had failed to become the top star once, even with the consequences… But to see herself reflected on those surfaces, in such morbid and twisted forms… It was the worst!
As she tried to break more of those mirrors, she suddenly paused. Her reflection in this mirror was… better, to say the least.
It depicted her with a Tiara. Not just any tiara either. The Star Tiara. It showed her what she could’ve been, the Top Star…
“But that’s not what you are, is it?”
Her blood froze as she saw her reflection not only move, but speak to her. It wasn’t just that one either, the many shards around her that reflected her body were speaking out as well. So were the other mirrors that she hadn’t broken.
She didn’t want to hesitate. But their scathing words… No, her own scathing words, were enough to paralyze her. Even as she noticed that the other selves were coming out of the mirror, each of them laughing at her, just like the world around her.
“You’re nothing but a clown. A sad clown that pities herself. Because you couldn’t be better. Because you could never be better.” Her voice spoke out, this time from her own lips. She couldn’t deny it. She couldn’t do a thing. All that she could do was listen and look at her other, better selves…
It shouldn’t be the truth. But the power of the stage she stood upon made it the truth. Her heart’s weakness was exploited by the Revue, and she could do nothing as she felt the forceful hands of her other selves fall upon her shoulder.
The rope that kept her cloak held on ripped to shreds, signifying her defeat. And with it, her eternal loss. Something that she felt potently, as her other selves started to meld on top of her.
Junna cried out in a mild sense of pain, only for it to grow mute as her emotions were shut away. Her clothes, her very sense of self, was being turned into something more fit for her heart’s true role…
A black and white jester’s outfit draped its way onto her body. Her hair lost its color as well, turning a dull and tired grey as she felt her heart sinking further down…
To make matters all the worse for the girl who had lost it all, who had given into her own despair, her very expression was locked behind a mask. A sad mask, the mask of a Pierrot.
“Juju! Hahaha, you look so sad! Join us!”
A voice echoed from the middle of the stage, as a light shone past the mirrors that now sank into the ground below.
The rechristened Juju looked up at the light, a sad frown hidden behind her frowning mask, as she saw her clown of a friend standing in the middle.
Haha...
The Pierrot walked up to join her, looking out at the audience at large. The ones that would only laugh at her, for the end of time. Because this was what she was meant to be. Entertainment for the masses, the ones that did not care for her heart’s futile wish.
*CLONK*
She nearly fell over as a pin hit her on the head, causing her to wobble back and forth. All while everyone continued to laugh at her.
“Haha, sorry, Juju! I lost my grip there! Watch for the other two-”
*CLONK CLONK*
The dizzied Pierrot let out a groan as she collapsed on the ground, and the audience as well as her colorful friend laughed even harder at her…
And thus, the curtains fell on the Revue of Merriment. And the Stage Girls’ fires went out for the last time.
Leaving but a Harlequin and a Pierrot on Position 0, where they should’ve been standing...