#bablovia

“LOOK OUT BELOW!”

With a comedic whistling sound, the humongous steel girder plummeted from the scaffolding. On the ground below, an oblivious ride attendant marched toward the locker room, exhausted from her twelve-hour shift.

“Hey, lady!” bellowed one of the goblin workers overhead.

The vampire didn’t even react to the shout. When the I-beam landed directly atop her costume’s spacesuit helmet, however, it split in two with a cacophonous crash, as the two halves hit the ground on either side of her. Meanwhile, the work crew gawked down at the surprisingly victimless scene, with all of their jaws dropped.

“How the…” The goblin foreman turned to his crew, face red. Rather than lecture them on safety, however, he criticized the material they had just dropped on someone’s head: “Just what kinda steel are we usin here! Styofoam?”

A squeaky voiced worker shook her head. “No, boss. We’re usin…uh…HatSafe™ Steel Girders. ‘So safe, it’ll bounce right off your hat!’”

“What the? How’d you say the…? Never mind that! Where’d that even come from?”

“The girders, sir.” The grunt pointed to a clearly visible label and description, printed on one of the girders.

“Oh. Yeah. Dunno how I didn’t see that before.”

The crew all shared a laugh, the incident immediately forgotten.

—

“So,” chimed a voice from the shadows, “I see my merchandise has done its job.”

The vampiric ride attendant tilted her head in puzzlement, at the mobster in an old-school suit, leaning against the nearby wall. “What do you mean, Mr. Barone?”

“…My hat!”

An awkward pause.

“The helmet on your suit! It just saved your life! You spit on my gratitude like this?”

“I’m not saying you didn’t give it to me, Mr. Barone. But it’s not a hat, really. Just a part of the suit.”

“But it just protected…” Brims trailed off, trapped between the attendant’s argument and the events he had just witnessed.

Artist: Simon Dominic

Surgeon General Commander is a hybrid that’s part wombat, part bat, and part chameleon. They’re presumably a member of the Crossbreed Labs faction on Bablovia.

Here’s our MTGinktober for “Patch // Bat" starring Spike, Tournament Grinder! GOOD GAME NICE NICE OOPS!

Click this post’s Source link for this piece’s Making-Of.

More MTGinktober here.

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“And for our finale: sawing the lady in half! Any volunteers?”

The audience went silent, staring intently at the disemvoweled robot lying at the foot of the operating table. Annoyed by the lukewarm reaction, the announcer pointed to an employee standing off to the side with a broom.

“You, miss! Come on down!”

“Over, you mean…?” The vampire considered her options for a moment, then shrugged. She cast the broom aside and approached the platform, much to the announcer’s glee.

“Wonderful! What is your name, miss?”

“Katie,” grumbled the park worker. “Beatrice, you know me. I clean up after every act-”

“Katie, everyone! Now, please lie down upon…THE SLAB!” Beatrice paused for dramatic effect, then gestured grandly to the operating table.

Katie rolled her eyes but ultimately complied, lying down upon the metal surface.

“And now, for the bloodsoaked grand…what?”

A second attendant sprinted onstage and whispered in Beatrice’s ear. She reacted aloud:

“‘PG-13’? We’re sawing a…I don’t care what the lawyers…Oh, fine. If Myra herself says so. Ahem…And NOW, for the…bloodless…grand…finale…”

With virtually no enthusiasm, Beatrice pushed a whirring saw straight through Katie’s torso. Rather than blood, however, it was glowing letters that sprayed from the shredded spacesuit costume.

Rather than react in horror, the audience remained silent. Katie - her upper half, at least - played on her phone, bored.

“W-Well, my lovely audience! It looks like Katie here was so close, to having all the vowels in her name!”

“Three isn’t that close,” grumbled the bisected vampire.

“No, I meant your title! ‘Discourtesy Clerk’!”

“Uh…” Katie counted on her claws. “Four out of five…I guess that’s close.”

“Five out of six, actually,” Beatrice corrected with a grin. “You have a ‘y,’ there.”

“Wh- ‘Y’ isn’t a vowel!”

“…Well of course, it is!”

As the audience quietly filed out of the tent, Beatrice and Katie continued to argue. The latter still lay atop the table, more bothered by vowels than her injuries.

“Myra, we can’t afford to run Spinnerette in any more acts.”

“What? Why!”

“Our lawyer said so.”

Myra the Magnificent fumed at her assistant’s claim. The ringmaster gestured wildly while speaking, jostling both her extravagant wig and the floating silver ribbons attached to her costume.

“Tell that ambulance chasing…Does our audience even know what an ambulance is?”

“Er…” The assistant began frantically flipping through their clipboard. “It depends. Which audience do you mean? It’s either a definite ‘yes’ or a definite ‘no.’”

“Which…? Ah, yes. Of course. Anyways…Why not!”

“He said spider-related injuries are up 3000% since her debut.”

“Up from what, I ask you!”

“Up from…” Again the assistant thumbed through their documents. “From 47, to 1457.”

“…Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Really? That many? To start, I mean.”

“Well, before her we had that guest star…what was her name-”

“Ishkanah,” Myra groaned, her memories clearly not favorable ones. “I remember now. Very unprofessional, telling her kids to attack the audience!”

The assistant blinked slowly. “She…was not sapient like Spinnerette. And she was from Innistrad. Actually, come to think of it, that second point probably mattered more than the first.”

Myra plodded ahead, ignoring the logic. “But seriously! Spinnerette was worse?”

“Much worse.”

“But she used her own webs for the safety nets!”

“Oh, it’s not the net that failed. She was falling, bouncing off the net, and flying into the stands.”

“Well, that’s just…uh…”

“Really funny. Don’t worry, I agree.”

“Good. But what are we gonna do now for our high wire act?”

“Well, we have those newbies, that group with the elephant? They seem pretty good.”

“Their routine is fine, but they’re so…lackluster!”

“If you have any better ideas…?”

Myra gave a defeated huff. “Fine. Send them out. Just don’t say I warned you when you see their lack of showmanship!”

The assistant rolled their eyes. “They’re loud and flashy. What’s not for the audience to love?”

“Plenty. You wouldn’t understand.”

“Evidently…”