“We have a hostile Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo on the loose in Wonder 
Plaza. Subject appears to be a female Clown from the Circus of the 
Disquieting with long black hair, white and purple face paint. Subject 
is too dangerous for Hall Monitors to engage. Deploy Wondertron 
9000. Repeat, Deploy Wondertron 9000!” 


The two Clowns ran into the unexpectedly bright and immaculately 
clean back alleys of Wonder World!™ and paused to catch their 
breath. 


“Icky, what was that about?” 
“| Know, I’m sorry, | overreacted, but he hit me!” 


“Before that. Why couldn’t you just let him stamp our hall passes 
and be on our way?” 


“Because | love you! | love you and I’m not going to obey any 
puritanical laws that say expressing that is indecent! Lolly, look, | 
know that when we’re in less tolerant places you don’t see what the 
big deal is about respecting local customs, but you've never been in 
the closet. You were with the Circus since before you even had an 
inkling of what you were, and you always knew you'd be loved and 
accepted. 


It wasn’t like that for me. | was terrified of people, especially the 
people who were supposed to love me unconditionally, finding out | 
was gay. It sucks living like that which is why | left and why | refuse 
to live like that again. And it’s not just about me because not 
everyone has the option to leave a situation like that. 


Think of everyone in this city who must be afraid to kiss the people 
they love. It doesn’t matter to me if it’s being done out of adherence 
to a bronze-age morality or because they want their whole city to be 
a kid-friendly fun-zone, it’s wrong! 


I... I’m ranting. | ruined our date. I’m sorry.” 


Icky hung her head despondently, only for Lolly to lean in and kiss 
her. 


“Don’t be sorry. | never really thought about it before, what it would 
be like to have to live like that every day, but you're right,” Lolly said. 
“| mean, | guess | didn’t want to think about it. | like it here because | 
thought that everyone else was like me, that they thought it was 
awesome to pretend to be an overgrown kid. But that’s actually the 
law here, these people don’t have a choice. Even | don’t want to act 
like a kid all the time. Icky, | love you a bazillion times more than this 
fascist tourist trap, and I’m sorry for not supporting you.” 


“Well, maybe | should do like you do and take Clown Impulse 
Suppressant whenever we go anywhere,” Icky smirked. “We forgive 
each other then, Little Lollipop?” 


Lolly smiled and nodded, and the pair exchanged a reconciliatory 
kiss. 


“HALT RIGHT THERE NARE-DO-WELLS!’ a booming robotic voice 
shouted from the end of the alleyway. Standing between them and 
escape was an eight-foot-tall robot made of shiny chrome, its 
chassis adorned with many blinking LED lights and buttons, with a 
winged jetpack mounted on its back. 


“What the fuck?” 


“| AM WONDERTRON 9000™, DEFENDER OF WONDER 
WORLD™ AND ALL INNOCENTS WITHIN. YOU HAVE BEEN 
CHARGED WITH COOTIE SPREADING BEHAVIOR, REFUSING 
FROWNY FACE STAMPS ON YOUR HALL PASSES, 
THREATENING A HALL MONITOR, CAUSING A PUBLIC 
DISTURBANCE, DAMAGING CITY PROPERTY, EVADING 
ARREST, AND, AS OF THIS MOMENT, NAUGHTY LANGUAGE.” 


“Hey, | remember you. You're the robot that came to the Circus 
when Herman tried to make his Little Mister knockoffs,” Icky said. 


“LITTLE MISTERS IS THE INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY OF 
DOCTOR WONDERTAINMENT!” 


“Look Wonderbot -” 


“WONDERTRON 9000™!” 


SCP-626: Vision-Altering Sculpture 


Item #: SCP-626 
Object Class: Safe 


Special Containment Procedures: SCP-626 is to be kept ina 
standard lockbox at Site-19's High Value Item Storage Facility. 
Standard positive-action defenses (explosive, chemical, biological, 
and memetic) are to be in place at all times, according to standard 
operating procedure. Research is currently suspended, pending 
review; see below. 


Description: SCP-626 is a metallic structure, approx. 72 cm in 
height. While SCP-626 appears to be made of some sturdy material, 
it has very low mass for its volume, possibly indicating that it is 
hollow. It consists of a base, which rises to a central stem supporting 
a sphere. The sphere's surface is broken by numerous protrusions, 
each of which ends in a sphere, in a similar arrangement to the 
base. 


When SCP-626 is in the presence of a human being, the subject's 
sight begins to deteriorate. Close examination reveals that the rods 
and cones within the eye begin to dissipate, rendering the eye 
unable to differentiate shapes and colors. After approximately seven 
hours, the subject is unable to detect any light through the eyes. The 
loss of vision occurs whether or not the subject is able to see 
SCP-626, but appears to be dependent on the subject's knowledge 
that SCP-626 is present. Any material that can block visible light will 
also block the effects of SCP-626. 


After at least fifteen hours of exposure to SCP-626, the subject's 
sight begins to return. Post-mortem examinations of subjects' eyes 
from this stage have shown no rods or cones are present any 
longer, yet the subject regains the ability to see color, shape, and 
degrees of light and darkness. Testing has shown that the restored 
vision is often sharper than the subject's previous visual acuity. 


“Whatever, we know when we’re not wanted. Just take us to a door 
outside of the wards, and we'll make a Way back home,” Icky said. 


“SPARE THE ROD, SPOIL THE CHILD. IT’S THE NAUGHTY 
CORNER FOR BOTH OF YOU. SURRENDER NOW, OR FACE 
THE FULL ARRAY OF MY WONDERTASTIC COMBAT 
FEATURES.” 


The pair of Clowns stared down the giant robot with simmering rage. 
“You think we can take it?” Icky asked. 


“Definitely,” Lolly agreed. She withdrew her oversized mallet from 
her pocket and charged straight at Wondertron. 


“HOSTILITIES INITIATED. DEPLOYING COUNTERMEASURES.” 


A large shield with the Wondertainment Logo unfolded from 
Wondertron’s left forearm, blocking the first of Lolly’s swings. 


"ACTIVATING ONE HUNDRED PERCENT NONLETHAL 
MEGAPHOTONIC LASER VISION™!" 


Twin rays of cherry red lasers beamed out of its photoelectric eyes, 
moving far too quickly to be evaded. Fortunately, its intended effect 
seemed to be nothing more than disorientation, and due to a 
combination of their Circus training and essokinetic abilities, Icky 
and Lolly were relatively unaffected. 


Lolly struck the shield from the bottom, knocking it upwards and into 
Wondertron's direct line of sight, reflecting its lasers back at it. 


"DEACTIVATING ONE HUNDRED PERCENT NONLETHAL 
MEGAPHOTONIC LASER VISION™. VISUAL PROCESSING AND 
GYROSCOPIC ORIENTATION IMPAIRED. SYSTEMS 
REBOOTING." 


Taking out her trick cards and engulfing them in a murderous red 
aura, Icky threw the entire deck at Wondertron while it was 
rebooting. Though some did make it through its shield, they all just 
bounced harmlessly off its chrome plated hide. Lolly bashed away at 
it relentlessly with her mallet, causing many disfiguring but ultimately 


harmless dents in its chassis. 


“SYSTEMS REBOOT COMPLETE. INITIATING KUNG FU ACTION 
GRIP™!” Wondertron announced as it grabbed Lolly’s mallet by the 
hammer and lifted it off the ground, with her along with it. 


“Put it down you dumb tin can!” she threatened, kicking at its shield. 


“INITIATING ONE HUNDRED PERCENT NONLETHAL 
MAGISHOCK TASER BLAST™!” 


Powerful electro-thaumic bolts shot out of the robot's fingers like Sith 
lightning. They coursed through Lolly’s body, causing her to 
convulse and expose her skeleton like she was a cartoon character, 
then fall unconscious to the ground. 


Unsurprisingly, that was all it took for Icky to go full monster Clown. 
Her nails jutted out of her fingers like claws, her tongue became 
forked and flickered out between sharpened teeth, and violet smoke 
poured from her flaming black and purple snake eyes. 


Ducking the lighting, she grabbed the mallet and transfigured it into 
an enormous warhammer, as heavy and spiked as the club she had 
created mere minutes earlier. Yielding the unwieldy weapon with 
fury and precision, she knocked off the shield and then swung for 
the robot's legs. 


The hammer successfully punctured the metal limb, with hydraulic 
fluid gushing out of the wounds. Seeing (and hearing its 120-decibel 
announcement) that the robot was about to use its taser again, she 
forcefully pulled the hammer out of its leg and bashed it across the 
head. 


The blow was strong enough to knock Wondertron off balance and 
send it falling towards the ground. When the creature looked up it 
saw that Icky was coming in for a coup de grace. 


“FAILURE IMMINENT. LETHAL SELF-DEFENSE AUTHORIZED. 
INITIATING PYROMATIC GUIDED COMBAT MISSILE™!” 


“Wait, wha -” 


A large missile blasted out of Wondertron’s shoulder, punching Icky 
in the gut with the force of a freight train and ploughing her into the 
air with it. The missile soared up and through the city at near 
supersonic speeds, swerving and jerking to avoid hurting or 
damaging anyone or anything. Once it had a clear path up it made a 
beeline for the sky, rising for several seconds until it exploded above 
the city in a beautiful pyrotechnic display that sadly couldn’t be fully 
appreciated during the day. 


Icky, winded from both the gut punch and the explosion, fell from the 
sky and crashed into the middle of Mainstreet™, leaving an Icky- 
shaped crater in the asphalt. As the drivers skidded to a stop to 
avoid her they caused a 20 car pile-up. Fortunately, they were all 
bumper cars so nobody was hurt. 


Wondertron came soaring in on its jetpack, landing in the middle of 
the road. In one hand it carried the unconscious body of Lolly, the 
other it aimed straight at Icky. 


“CHARGING NINETY-NINE PERCENT NONLETHAL MAGISHOCK 
TASER BLAST™!” it said, its voice slightly more ominous than 
before. “SURRENDER NOW AND NO FURTHER HARM WILL 
COME TO YOU.” 


Since it was taking most of Icky’s essokinetic abilities just to stay 
alive at this point, she didn’t have much left to put up a fight. 
Shrinking back to her ordinary form, she placed her hands behind 
her head. 


“REJOICE GOOD PEOPLE OF WONDER WORLD!"™, FOR 
WONDERTRON 9000™ IS VICTORIOUS.” 


“Gary? Gary is that you?” Icky asked into the phone she had been 
provided with. “Good. Listen up. Lolly and | are in the Naughty 
Corner in Wonder World, their jail basically. They’ve got the Hume- 
idity cranked up so we can’t use our magic, so we need Manny to 
come bail us out. 


We're political prisoners! We were kissing in public, which is a 
misdemeanour at most here, and that somehow escalated to them 


sicing a giant robot on us! Make sure Manny knows we're the 
victims here, and if they actually try to charge us with anything we 
are suing for police brutality. | was struck by a missile! If they want to 
keep our business after this we’d better get an apology and a tent’s 
worth of free stuff! 


Yeah, bail’s 5000 Gold Edition Wondertainment Power Play Pogs. 
No, | don't know what the exchange rate is on that. Alright, thanks 
Gary.” 


Icky hung up the phone and sat down beside Lolly, wrapping her 
arms around her comfortingly. 


“Lolly, |am so sorry this got so out of control,” she said, kissing her 
on the top of the head. 


"At least we still got dino-nuggets,” she said, dipping the last nugget 
from their prison dinners into some honey. "They even got 
pterodactyls even though they aren't technically dinosaurs. Ca-caw!" 


"You are so sweet," Icky said, running her fingers across her cheek. 
“Are you sure you’re okay?” 


“I’m fine, | just got electrocuted. You got a lot worse than | did,” she 
replied. “Looking back on it, trying to fight an enormous battle bot 
was probably not the best decision we’ve ever made.” 


“Yeah, I’m starting to see the appeal of nonviolent resistance. I’m 
just glad you weren’t seriously hurt. This was probably our worst 
date ever.” 


“In the short term, maybe, but long term it'll make one hell of a 
story,” Lolly smiled. Icky smirked and nodded in agreement, ever 
impressed by her lover’s unflappable optimism. “So where do you 
think we should go for our next date trip? Three Portlands is 
probably a lot more gay-friendly. Not as many rides, but more art, 
and the shops and theatre are probably pretty good too. Same for 
BackdoorSoHO.” 


“We could go hiking in Roadkill County.” 


“Roadkill County?” 


“It’s just a name. The scenery’s beautiful, lots of free anomalies to 
admire, you'll love it. It would be nice to go somewhere quiet for a 
little while.” 


“It doesn’t matter. As long as we're free to be who we are without 
being assaulted by giant robots, I'll be happy,” Lolly smiled. She 
cuddled up closer to Icky and rested her head on her shoulder to get 
some sleep. “Happy date night Icky.” 


“Happy date night Lolly.” 


« Dark and Disquieting | Dread & Circuses Hub | The Sea Slug 
and the Showman » 


The Sea Slug and the Showman 


« City of Wonder™ | Dread & Circuses Hub | Freaks, Friends 
and Fiends » 


“Why are all the halls robin-egg blue in this place?” Spratz asked as 
he and his siblings were rolled down the halls of Site-17 in their dolly 
cart. “How many robin’s eggs were butchered to paint these walls, 
you ovicidal maniacs?” 


“Pale blue is a calming colour, which is very important around here,” 
Luna Valdez, their assigned researcher, replied. 


“Walls not made from canvas, painted all one solid colour, toilets 
that don’t empty into a truck — this place is a madhouse!” Spratz 
proclaimed. 


“It's a lot quieter than the Circus,” Wilby, or SCP-3717-2, remarked. 
“Kind of lonely, actually.” 


“Well, that’s actually related to what we’re doing today,” Luna said. 
“It’s in everyone’s best interests that our residents stay sane, which 
is why we don't like to keep you in solitary confinement unless it’s 
absolutely necessary. You are permitted social interaction so long 
as at least one guard is present in case of any unexpected 
anomalous reactions. Before that though, we introduce you to each 
of the other residents one at a time so we can observe you under 
carefully controlled -” 


She was cut off by a pair of giggling preadolescent girls zooming 
past the dolly. One of them had had much of her body replaced with 
incomprehensible paratech, the other held wormholes to uncharted 
regions of space in her eyes, neither of which were the sort of thing 
one wanted around new anomalies. 


“Girls, get back here!” a researcher called as he chased after them. 
“Simon, what the hell?” Luna asked. 


“What am | supposed to do, tackle them?” he shouted as he ran 
around the corner. 


“Yes! Fight! Fight! Fight! Contain them with your fists of fury!” Spratz 
screamed. 


“It’s okay, no harm done,” Luna said with a relieved sigh. “But that’s 
actually a perfect example of what | was talking about. Those two 
are great for each other. We fully encourage our residents to 
develop supportive relationships with one another.” 


“I'd rather we just skip straight to testing to see if we can kill 682,” 
Spratz said. “Because | can.” 


“You’re not going to meet 682. How does everyone and their 
conspiracy theorist uncle know about that thing?” 


“The Serpent's Hand likes to use it as anti-foundation propaganda, 
how your attempts to contain it only cause more harm than good,” 
the twins replied. “So who are we meeting then?” 


“His designation is SCP-1867. He’s a sapient, telepathic sea slug, 
but don’t mention that to him. He’s under the delusion he’s still a 
19th-century British adventurer by the name of Lord Theodore 
Thomas Blackwood. We've found it best just to humour him as he 
tends to disengage with you if you bring up the fact he’s currently a 
sea slug. He actually used to be kept at Site-19, but since he’s 
harmless they sent him here to free up some resources.”