Cross found himself in the Big Top early in the morning. A quick look around made him notice Lust by the sound booth, having a quiet conversation with Error. Cross paid no attention to it, instead being drawn to the other familiar skeleton sitting on the bottom row of the audiences seating.

"Hey, Hush, was it? I haven't seen you in a while." Cross walked over to the fire breather, who snapped his gaze up from the floor, teeth curling to a warming smile. (For a second Cross saw something way too familiar on it, but brushed it off. He knew Hush wasn't the one he was looking for.)

"Ah, Cross, NiCe to meet YoU again," he nodded politely, voice glitching. "Are you CoMiNg to the ShOw as well?" he inquired, curious.

"Yeah, the Ringmaster asked me to." That was a lie, and they both knew it. The Ringmaster didn't ask, he ordered. "But what about you? I thought you only perform during Halloween." Now it was Cross' turn to be curious.

"I dO, but I also HaPpEn To be our OnLy fire breather, and ThE town wanted OnE, so the RiNgMaStEr had no choice, BuT to pUt me in," Hush explained.

"Do you know who else is coming?" Cross tilted his skull. One of his guesses was Lust, since he was in the Big Top.

"NoT sUrE," Hush shrugged, looking at his hands.

There was shuffling by the flap and they both shifted their eye lights towards Dust as the broken magician made his way in, eyeing the very few people already there.

Dust parked himself against the wall on the other side of the entrance way from Cross and Hush. He was quietly mumbling to himself.

Cross shivered at his emotional emptiness, which was luckily soon drowned out by Hush's strange, glitching positivity and Lust's excitement.

"He's talking to himself, what a weirdo!" Chara pointed out, sarcasm coating their voice, knowing very well that Cross did the exact same thing when speaking to him – when looking at an outsiders perspective.

"Lust, Dust, you and I, kinda iNtErEsTiNg choice FrOm the Ringmaster," Hush admitted, raising a browbone. He seemed a bit surprised.

"Is it going to be just the four of us?" Cross asked, glancing between everyone. He knew nothing of how the smaller performances worked – or any performances in general.

"Most likely also an ExTrA staff member tO help oUt," Hush shrugged, not quite sure about the information.

And speak of the devil, a new person walked – well, in this case: floated – into the tent with a cup of coffee in hand. The literal Grim Reaper took one look around before making his way to Cross and Hush, deciding that they ought to be the best when it came to socialising on the moment.

"This is an interesting line-up, nowhere near what I expected," Reaper voiced his thoughts immediately. "A new performer, a slightly disabled performer, whose main focus isn't even performing, and two broken performers. I would like to know what was going on in the Ringmaster's brain when he made this decision," he spoke thoughtfully, sipping from his steaming coffee cup. "Not that it's bad," – he raised his hands – "Just unexpected, coming from the Ringmaster who always wants everything to be perfect." Reaper had a flash of suspicion on his frown when he glanced around again, browbone raised up.

"Something's a bit OfF about tHiS.." Hush admitted, furrowing his browbones.

"What's he planning.?" Reaper asked our loud from none in particular as non of them could know the answer to the question.

And as if summoned by this question, the tent flap flew open and the Ringmaster himself walked in, chin high and hands behind his back, a cold and careless, mysterious smirk on his teeth. His cyan eye light ran over everyone in such a judging manner that it made Cross' spine shiver.

"Line up everyone, we have some things to discuss!" the Ringmaster's smooth voice cut through the silence that had fallen over. "Error, return to your sound booth, you aren't needed here right now." He flashed a warning smile towards the DJ, who had already reached for the door of his safety.

"So, as you can see from this quite questionable lineup, the host of the festival isn't quite understanding when it comes to the prices of our shows and therefore we cannot give him anything of our normal level. Of course we'll be giving him a show, but just a bit below his expectations so he will see that his budget should have been better when thinking about hiring us. Now, of course the audience cannot notice the lower quality of this performance, you'll be doing your absolutely best and looking as professional as you can get, unless you want to suffer from my punishment. It just won't meet the level of his expectation as he's expecting a fully professional show with quite a lot of extra." Nightmare explained in a way that confused Cross a lot. He didn't quite understand what the Ringmaster exactly was trying to achieve, but that probably wasn't his problem to think about.

"As obvious: Lust, you'll be doing acrobatics on the ground, they don't have anything higher. Hush, fire breathing, Dust, magic, and Cross, knife throwing. Reaper, your job is to keep an eye socket out for everything and work as the announcer since I won't be coming with you," Nightmare continued, moving his gaze from performer to another, everyone shrinking under the cold, judging glare.

Then the Ringmaster went on explaining the acts in detail. Cross felt lost the whole time. He didn't know anything about the different names they had for different acts, but everyone else seemed to know what was going on.

-----

     Once the meeting was finally over and Cross about to leave, he heard the Ringmaster call out his name. "Come with me," he said, leading Cross out of the tent.

"So, Cross," Nightmare started once they got out of the sight of everyone else, his gloved hand slipped under the monochrome skeleton's chin, lifting it up.

Their teeth met for a quick kiss before Nightmare pulled away.

"I will not be taking this any further," he told, eye light glimmering with a hint of something that Cross was too slow to identify before it was gone. "But," – Nightmare leaned closer – "if you show up to my tent right before curfew with your lovely ecto summoned, maybe you'll get a reward~"

Cross felt his cheekbones dust purple. Nightmare chuckled, leaning in for one last kiss before pulling away and moving his hands behind his back.

"Killer will be showing your act to you. Go find him," he informed before turning on his heels and walking away.

"You're really turning into a whore, aren't you?" His Chara scoffed, sounding disgusted. "You used to be an honoured soldier, now you're just a dirty whore!" Their words were harsh and Cross wanted to snap back at them, but he couldn't. He couldn't because they were right.

-----

     Killer raised his gaze from the knife he had been inspecting when Cross made his way to where he was sitting outside the Big Top.

"So, Nightmare wants ya to perform finally," he hummed, slipping the knife away.

"Yeah," Cross nodded, sitting down next to him. "Do you know the act I'm supposed to do?" he asked, raising a browbone.

"'Course I do! Nightmare lemme know what it 's and it ain't that hard. A pretty simple one, especially if ya know what you're doin' when it comes to knives," Killer answered, smirking. He seemed excited about this, Cross wasn't sure if he should be scared because of that. "C'mon, let's go get started!"

-----

     All of Killer's instructions left Cross very confused, but at least he now had some kind of idea about what he was supposed to do. There was a lot of practicing left to do.

He sighed, opening the flap of the newcomers tent. Chara was laying on their bed, playing with something that didn't really make sense to Cross, but he could immediately tell that it was Epic's handwork.

"What's that?" he asked, sitting down on his own bed, looking over at them curiously.

"I'm not exactly sure," Chara shrugged, turning the wooden object in their hands, "Some type of wooden stress toy, I guess. Pretty entertaining. I got it from Ink, apparently something that was just laying around the prop tent," they explained.

"I see," Cross hummed.

His eye lights shifted towards the window. The ocean of lights outside was starting to dim. The curfew would come around soon. If Cross wanted to go see the Ringmaster, he ought to leave soon.

He hesitated, staring out of the window in the side of the tent. Did he really want to go to the Ringmaster?

"You do realise that Nightmare will never be the same as him?" his Chara asked, a warning tone in their voice.

Cross chose to ignore what they were saying and got up. The human performer raised their gaze from the toy and raised an eyebrow at him, curios about where he was headed. His own Chara gave him a look of disbelief and disgust.

"There's something I still have to do. I'll try to make it back before the curfew, but I cannot promise anything," he lied before slipping out of the tent, feeling guilt and shame wash over him.

He took one deep breath before changing his course towards the Ringmaster's tent, purple magic travelling over his bones, ready to pop into place.

Words: 1597

[2.4.2023]

Now that April Fools day is over you can have the translated chapter :D Excluding like two informative details and most of the Crossmare scene that you have to go find from the previous chapter and translate by yourself if you want them.

People who already translated this, I hope you had fun.