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Invasion of the NOOBS: An Elegy for Clowns
Posted By: SeverianofUrth
Date: 7 September 2006, 3:40 pm
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It was too silent, this cell, with its stereotypically damp walls and darkness, and even the torturers had been of the routine sort: totally insane without a hint of mercy. Sergeant Kang pouted as he hung by his wrists from (very)rusty chains dangling off the ceiling, feet suspended a foot or so off the ground. Typical, he thought: n00bs are sooo typical. There should be some characterization for the torturers, damn it, and what about me? Nothing creative. Darn n00bs. Then he swung on the chain once more, to see if it had loosened a bit-- n00bs always left plot holes, and this should've been of no exception-- but nothing happened. Nick's wrists started to ache.
Blood ran off his scourged back as he tried to remember just what had happened. There had been that pinkish blur, but was that all? Just that blur, a hurtling black fist, and he had crumpled, blood leaking out in great globs from his shattered nose, his last thought but a whisper, a breeze, of: I don't want to die.
Then he had awakened in this dark cell, chained by his wrists to the ceiling. It was so over-dramatic, Nick thought, chortling. He wished that he could see himself on television. That'd be nice. Super-nice. It would be just awesome if the n00bling torturers dragged in a sixty-two inch plasma TV into a corner and turned on a vidtape of him being whipped, beaten, starved, and sponge-bathed. What would it be called? Masochists Daily?
The mind finds refuges in places where the body, in a very run-on sentence that will not employ those cowardly things called commas or periods or punctuation, suffers from physical torments to which the rigors of reading a non-formatted story posted by a unluckily English-deficient child of age eighteen who usually spends his time trolling on forums and trolling on the world and chortling in various comic stores in which he reads generic power fantasies that Scott McCloud would chortle repetitively at and thus the torments that the body suffers overwhelms the sensory perceptions to which the mind is narrowly subjected to and thus the mind escapes, usually, with much use of colons, with regal bearing and style, does converse with God.
Nick was going mad. He just didn't know it.
A day later, faceless n00bling goons had thrashed him, had tried to scare him with a rat (and when he did not react as they had expected, one of them had screamed, Thanks for the advice, Orwell!), and when both had no apparent effect on him, the goons had called for the clowns. The torturers, evil n00bling clowns with evil stamped into their very genetic code, so much so that the word EVIL was stamped in red on their foreheads, had come for him then. After a rather long session involving flesh rendered in several different diections, screams, and him thinking, man, I could do so much better then this, the clowns had tossed him back into the cell. Or hung him up, rather, like a half-used towel.
Is the Corporal alright? he wondered. Then Nick remembered again STYDK's shattered face, the pumpkin-yellow visage covered with too much blood. And what about the Clown, this time with a capitalized C? That... Chuckles? The torturer-clowns had been too akin to that Other. They all poured off the same miasma of frustration, humiliation, and juggling balls...
Swinging limply from the ceiling, Sergeant Nick Kang slowly, slowly slipped into sleep.
The Clown in question guts the last of the n00blings. He tastes slaughter, in the air, the globules of green blood reminiscent of sour apple, and when he draws back out his foot-long combat knife and stabs it back into the monster's face, his face, yellow and scarred and marred into something of horror, dimples into joy.
"So, Mista Kang, wanna tango you say?" The n00b sharpened his knife on the whet-stone as loudly as he could. Intimidation should be coming around soon, he thought.
But Kang was made of sterner stuff then that. No, instead of whimpering with insane fear from the torture that was soon to begin, Nick threw back his head and cried, FREEDOM!!!
"Shuttafugup," the n00b said sullenly. "You giving me trouble. Most people die, see? So why won't ya die?"
"For I am a scottish man, you--"
Then the n00b stabbed him in the thigh. The dirty n00bling blade-- more a dirk then a knife-- stabbed through flesh and cracked through bone. Kang spasmed on the operating table as pain wrecked its way through his nerves. Gasping, he spat out some blood. He had bitten his tongue.
"Shuttup!" The n00bling cried. "You giving me trouble. Just tell me whattafug you doing here!" Another stab, then more, deep shcink, shcink, shcink sounds of a steel blade burying through something soft, like tofu.
Nick choked out, even through the screaming pain, "FREEDOMMMMM!!!"
"Whattafug are you!"
"I am a scottish man," Kang whispered, struggling through the incredible (and fantastic, you can't forget fantastic) pain. "I am Ben the Pwner."
"Wha?"
"FREEDOMMMMMMMMM!!!"
The torture ended sometime around noon , when the torturer went to go get lunch. He left Nick strapped down to the operating table, blood running down his legs into the drain below. The n00bling, though, before going off, had promised Nick that when he was back (after getting a meatball sub), he'd cut off something-- but that something would be something that Nick would desperately need, would want, would mourn its loss forever. "Justa making sure you gotta it? Capisce?"
"Screw you," Kang had replied.
Now, as blood steadily seeped out of those stab-wounds on his thigh, Nick wondered-- for the first time-- if he should give up. The n00b had sounded like he was going to cut off his testicles. That didn't sound too good. In fact, it was faintly horrifying.
"Hey, enunch boy."
The Sergeant of the loyalist HBO army turned his head towards the voice. It was sibilant, hissing, serpentine; dark and damp and everything related to Sauron in Lord of the Rings. Nick screamed as that voice suddenly turned into a giant flaming eye, and it was looking at him, ohgodpleasehelpme--
The eye flickered out of existence. Then the voice-- that very same snake-- spoke again. "That was just a hologram, retard."
"By WETA?"
"Yeah."
Nick sighed. "No wonder. That terrified me."
"Really?"
"Oh, yes."
"Well, good," the figure replied. Nick could only see the hem of the man's dark cloak. "They're making the next Halo movie, and if they could make some imaginary burning eye scary, they gotta be able to capture Cortana's threatening femininity... Hey, nice cloak, huh?"
"Yeah," Nick replied weakly.
"It's fuligin, a shade that's darker then black. Awesome for killing n00bs in the dark."
"Great."
"In fact, with my DAUGHTER OVER MY BREAST, WITH MY CLEAVER BY MY SIDE, ATOP MY TRICYCLE, I HAVE TRIUMPHED. I AM HERE. I AM THE CLOWN."
Then there was the sound of footsteps, steps coming closer and closer, like they were trapped in a metaphysical closet full of things that came closer and closer. Something severed the straps that bound him to the table. Nick groggily moved his wrists, felt the blood pool back into his limbs.
And then the Clown reared over him-- and there Nick screamed, screamed harder then he had ever before. For it was not a man that stood over him: it was instead a demon. A Clown.
The n00b patters back to the torture chamber. The meatball sub had been some good stuff; now he thirsts for action. He wonders what he should cut off, first, however: though testicles had been on his mind since noon, it would be more... elegant if he cut off something a bit more subtle. Like the ears. Yes, he thought: the ears. I'll cut off the ears.
Then the prisoner starts screaming. Loud and clear, it rings through the halls. The n00b smiles, thinking that this Kang had simply snapped from stress. "I'll getya soon!" Cries he. Then he opens the door--
A great cleaver spins through the air and thuds into his chest. The n00b stares dumbly down at the wooden handle sticking from his ribs. Then death knocks on his brains, tells him that the game's up; you've kicked the bucket, ye bastard. Somewhere, dim in his mind, the n00b is still aware that Kang is still screaming. Then his eyes travel up-- slowly, surely-- sees a white polka dot suit soaked in blood, sees a pale mottled neck, sees the horrible yellow face painted with stinky greasepaint, those teeth, those eyes--
He dies. The Clown smiles. And he turns back to Kang.
"You're..." Kang said, still frightened, "you're the Clown. Chuckles. I saw you cartwheeling off..."
"OF COURSE. AND NOW I HAVE SAVED YOUR ASS." The Clown faced him: Nick closed his eyes, and bit his tongue to keep himself from screaming. God, that face had been satanic. And his voice was a low growl, not like that of a bear but of a undead bear, a bear crawling with rotting maggots and worms and skittering centipedes, who prowled through the winter night chomping down on Russian virgins and peasants... "WHERE IS HE?"
"Who?" Kang whimpered.
"THE ONE I HAVE SWORN TO KILL. THE ONE WHO KILLED MY DAUGHTER."
"You had a daughter? But..." Nick hoped Chuckles wouldn't be offended. "But you're a Clown."
"I WASN'T A CLOWN SINCE BIRTH. I WAS BORN A NORMAL MAN. I HAD A DAUGHTER, A FAMILY. A YELLOW HOUSE IN THE SUBURBS. A POOL IN THE BACK. EVERY NIGHT I'D VISIT MY DAUGHTER BEFORE GOING TO SLEEP, KISS HER ON THE FOREHEAD. YOU DO NOT KNOW; THE PAIN." The Clown paused, as if he was suffering from some great inner pain; but then, of course he was. After all, he was talking about his dead family.
THEN ONE DAY, THE NOOBS FILED IN... THE DIABOLICAL SAUSAGE MACHINE HAD SET UP IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD... AND THE NOOBS MARCHED THROUGH THE STREETS, KILLING AND NOOBIFYING EVERYTHING IN THEIR WAY. I HAD TO UNLEASH MY INNER SIDE TO PROTECT MY LOVED ONES. MY INNER CLOWN. I KILLED HUNDREDS OF THEM, THOUSANDS OF THEM. BUT THE HAXORS SIMPLY GATHERED UP THE SCRAPS OF CORPSES AND FED THEM THROUGH THE SAUSAGE MACHINE, OVER AND OVER, AND BY THE MILLIONTH SWING OF MY CLEAVER I... FAINTED."
"And that's when..."
"YES. HE CAME. THE ONE WHO SPEAKS IN SPANISH."
Then there was silence. Nick peeked out-- and saw to his surprise that the Clown was crying. Great fat drops of tears were running down his face, leaving clear trails through the thick greasepaint. "I'm sorry," he whispered.
"OF COURSE. OF COURSE YOU ARE. ALL I HAVE LEFT OF HER IS THE PICTURE... THE PICTURE OVER MY HEART, ONE THAT BEATS STILL DESPITE THE PAIN, THE SORROW." He touched his right breast. "MY STILL-PUMPING HEART. MY BLACK HEART. MY CLOWN HEART."
"Isn't your heart on the left side of your chest?" Nick asked.
"NOT FOR US CLOWNS."
"Oh."
Then the Clown turned back to the door, to the fallen n00b, and pulled out his cleaver. "I WILL BE GOING. I WOULD SUGGEST TO YOU THAT YOU LEAVE OPENING ACT FOR DEAD. MAKE FOR THE NORTH; THERE WON'T BE ANY NOOBS LEFT THERE. NOT ALIVE, AT THE VERY LEAST."
"Why aren't there any n00blings left over there?"
"DO NOT QUESTION ME. JUST KNOW AND BE GRATEFUL. AND THAT I EXPENDED THREE THOUSAND, SIX HUNDRED AND NINETY SIX ROUNDS OF MY SPECIAL CLOWN-GAS MAGNUM SHOTS TO SAVE YOU. THAT EQUALS NINE THOUSAND, EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND TWO HUNDRED AND EIGHTY EIGHT DEAD NOOBS."
Nick thought that over for a second, and said, "But that doesn't make sense."
"DO NOT QUESTION ME. I AM NOT TOO WELL AT MATH." As the Clown stepped out of the torture chamber, he said, "I HAVE CUT YOUR BONDS. FAREWELL."
Then he was gone: Nick stood up, shakily, blood still seeping down his legs. He limped over to the door. And he saw, with a flash of fear, the Clown still wheeling off on his little tricycle, his tricycle of doom. At that moment, Kang felt only pity for the Spanish Spartan. He was sure that the n00b's death was going to be slow, steady, and very unpleasant.
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