The ruins of the Grinland Carnival looked like a corpse painted with leftover clown makeup.

Half-rotted rollercoasters loomed over cracked pavement. The Ferris wheel groaned as if haunted by old laughter. Tattered ticket booths leaned at awkward angles like teeth knocked out of a crooked grin. Wind chimes made from broken puppet limbs clattered in the breeze.

And Hybrid had just kicked through the front gate.

"Showtime," she muttered.

She stepped into the main walkway, her boots crunching broken popcorn boxes and doll heads. Her eyes scanned the area—sensors active, blood pressure stable. She’d injected herself earlier with mongoose reflex genes to give her quicker reactions. It was already paying off.

The ground squeaked beneath her feet.

She glanced down.

“...A whoopee cushion floor?”

PFFFFT.

The entire path let out a massive farting sound. Dozens of rubber pads deflated as she walked across them, like a parade of clown backsides.

Her eye twitched.

From somewhere unseen, a recording played:

🎵 “Farts are the heart’s laughter, let them speak!” 🎵

“I’m going to rip his throat out,” she hissed, vaulting over a cotton candy machine rigged to explode with feathers.

Behind her, the machine blew a storm of pink fluff and squeaky duck whistles. Confetti burst from a nearby dumpster. One of the animatronic mascots half-jumped to life and screamed:

“YOU'VE BEEN FLUFFED!”

Hybrid snarled and slammed it back into its trash pile.

She turned down the Funhouse Hall. Mirrors warped her reflection—some making her look buff, others like a bobblehead. She almost ignored them.

Almost.

Then one made her look like Professor Deathjoke, with googly eyes and spinning bowtie.

“That’s it.”

She punched the mirror. It shattered. Behind it was a corridor—and her sensors picked up heat traces.

Found it.

She advanced into a long winding hall beneath the funhouse, stepping over tripwire bananas and sidestepping pie cannons that fired on motion detection. She narrowly dodged a bouncy boxing glove that screamed “SURPRISE HUG!” on impact. A floor tile gave way and dropped a bucket of jellybeans.

“WHY IS EVERYTHING SUGAR?!”

From deeper in the tunnel, a speaker crackled to life.

“Oh come now, Hybrid,” Deathjoke's voice echoed like a carnival barker on helium. “Can’t a genius villain cover his floors with joy?”

She ignored the voice and advanced.

In the command chamber below, Professor Deathjoke leaned back in his squeaky desk chair, watching the monitors with his gloved hands folded. He wore his usual ensemble: a dark maroon suit, sharp against his pale lab coat. His violet tie flickered in the lab light, a pulse of madness beating at his throat.

Across the room, Smiley tightened the casing on a containment device. His face blank. Focused.

“She’s close,” he said, his voice cold, even.

Deathjoke didn’t look at him.

“You know what we agreed on.”

Smiley paused.

“Yeah.”

“You’re not meant to be in the blast radius.”

“And you’re not meant to be a martyr,” Smiley replied.

Deathjoke chuckled, spinning a yo-yo with a laughing skull at the end.

“Smiley, I gave you a name. Now take it and walk. Like we always planned.”

Smiley’s eyes shifted—almost sad. He glanced once more at the monitor, watching Hybrid vault over a trap door that tried to tickle her feet with robot feathers.

“She's stronger now. More... dangerous.”

“Yes,” said Deathjoke, tapping his temple. “Which means she’s finally fun.”

Smiley hesitated.

Then he turned, walking toward the back tunnel. The one they’d always kept clear.

“Goodbye, Professor.”

“No goodbyes, Smiley. Only punchlines.”

Hybrid blasted open the final vault door with a burst of reinforced muscle fiber in her legs. She landed in the control chamber like a missile in motion.

Professor Deathjoke stood alone. Backlit by swirling pink gas vents and neon circuitry, his cane rested in both hands. His goggles shimmered in the dark.

The alarm klaxons inside the lair screeched with a screwy circus wail.

🎵 "Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls! Prepare your knuckles and nostrils for a showdown of slaps, smirks, and scientific stupidity!" 🎵

Hybrid didn’t flinch. She was already storming back into the control room—fuming.

“You had your chance, clown.”

But Deathjoke… was ready.

He threw off his lab coat with flair, revealing a dark violet suit that shimmered like an oil slick under the flickering fluorescents. His grin widened like a cracked jack-o’-lantern. In one hand: his trusty gimmick-cane, and in the other: a rubber chicken grenade.

“And you had your moment, Hybrid,” he said cheerfully. “But you left before the fireworks!”

He threw the chicken grenade.

She raised a hand to swat it aside.

It exploded in a screeching chorus of laughter, hitting her with a wave of euphoric gas. Her muscles tensed as she struggled to suppress a giggle.

“I hate you so much.”

“You say hate. I say unresolved chemistry!”

She charged.

He kicked a lever. The floor flipped. A spring platform launched him into the air as Hybrid leapt—barely missing him. He cartwheeled through the air, landing on a unicycle that revved like a motorcycle.

“What in the genetic HELL is that?!”

“I call her the Circusycle,” he said, driving up a wall while firing glittering disco-ball shurikens from his sleeves. “Trademark pending!”

Hybrid batted the shurikens aside, and they embedded harmlessly into the console behind her, playing snippets of polka music.

“STOP PLAYING WITH ME!”

“Never! That’s the fun part!”

Deathjoke dove behind a cotton candy cannon and fired a burst of sticky pink fluff. Hybrid blasted through it with a roundhouse kick, the fluff catching in her hair.

She emerged from the cloud with the rage of a thousand punched pies.

“I will break your everything.”

“If you can catch me!”

He flipped open a trapdoor. She followed—and found herself in a new arena: a mini amusement park room filled with giant whoopee cushions, squirting duck statues, spinning teacups with blades, and walls painted like a child’s nightmare.

Deathjoke skated on soap shoes, tossing banana peels like caltrops. Hybrid crushed them underfoot and leapt off a teacup platform, lunging toward him.

He tried to duck—

—but she caught his tie.

“Gotcha.”

She slammed him into a wall. Then again. And again.

He spat confetti.

“Gosh! A lady’s touch!”

WHAM!

“Ever think of going easy on—”

WHAM!

“My spleen is laughing!”

She slammed him into a cotton candy barrel.

It squeaked.

She pulled him out by his leg, only to find his hand dropping a pie laced with smoke powder. It exploded in her face.

She blinked through the haze, coughing, then charged him again. He zig-zagged toward a rollercoaster control panel.

“Let’s take a ride!”

He hit the switch.

The rollercoaster burst to life.

Hybrid stood on the tracks.

Deathjoke cackled.

“You’re in the splash zone!”

She punched the coaster cart in half.

“No more tricks. No more traps.”

“No more fun,” he sighed, flipping backward into a ball pit—only for Hybrid to dive in after him.

Within seconds, only the sound of slapping, squeaky hammers, and muffled laughter echoed from the pit.

Then… silence.

She emerged, dragging him out by the collar.

His face looked like a living cartoon: two black eyes, a swollen cheek, nose twisted sideways, a boot mark on his forehead, and a propeller hat spinning lazily on his bruised head.

“Heh… hahaha…”

Hybrid dropped him like a sack of broken jokes.

He lay in a puddle of his own trap gadgets—balloons deflating, sparklers fizzing, and a horn making one last, wheezy honk.

Authorities arrived moments later—local strike force, gene-division enforcers clad in tactical exo-armor.

They surrounded the collapsed jester like vultures circling a tattered joke book.

The lead officer took one look at the absurd scene—burnt whoopee cushions, gas canisters still venting purple mist, the smell of fried confetti—and shook his head.

“This the madman?”

Hybrid stood over him, arms crossed, her suit singed, hair sticky with melted cotton candy.

“Yeah. He’s a walking circus of illegal weaponized comedy.”

The officer knelt beside Deathjoke, cuffing his twitching wrists.

“Professor Deathjoke, you are under arrest for multiple federal violations, including the creation and deployment of unlicensed biochemical agents, illegal possession of high-grade experimental explosives, unauthorized tampering with civilian neural chemistry, and manufacturing weapons of mass disruption without registration.”

Deathjoke’s mouth curled into a battered grin. One eye was swollen shut. The other blinked lazily.

“Now that… sounds impressive.”

“Save it for the tribunal.”

As they hoisted him onto a containment stretcher, Deathjoke hummed a twisted carnival tune, blood dripping from his lip onto the floor like crimson ink from a broken pen.

Hybrid turned her back on him.

But she heard him murmur as they rolled him away:

“Laugh last, hero… laugh last…”

She said nothing—just watched as the most dangerous joke in the city was finally wheeled into the night, sirens flashing red over the ruins of a twisted, technicolor battleground.