Deus Ex: Cosplay Revolution

I was woken up with a piercing ray of light right to the eyes.

Fuck, I hate it when that happens. Groaning, I rolled to the side, snagged my sunglasses from the bag, and fumble with putting them on.

There was a mucus-y taste in my mouth, probably from inhaling all of this dew or whatever. Coughing with a pain in my chest, I unroll my sweater, fan out the grass that got on it, and put it back on. Next came the body armor a filmmaker friend of mine let me borrow and modify. After that, I tossed the trench coat over my shoulders like a makeshift cape, grabbing the paper bags and looking around.

Yep, still sleeping in the same spot, right on the edge of town. The bag of cash was where I left it, in a little hole inside the tree. It went into the pocket of my coat, along with some of the food.

My breakfast and probably lunch was two apples, a banana, and half a bottle of water. Still had four cookies left, and I doubted the natives had figured out that I'd stolen some food to sate myself. If so, I was fucked.

I set about sewing up a mask with the black and blue cotton fabrics. Took about thirty minutes, all things considered. A couple strips of blue covered my head, a sheet of black my face, leaving my sunglasses-covered eyes the only thing visible. Fit snugly, covered most of my skin, and probably concealed my identity well enough. The little bit of fabric I used to tie up the paper bags.

Hell, now I looked like Leon more than JC. Eh, something I'd be willing to live with, so long as none of them decided "hey, I'm going to walk up to the trench coat guy and ask him who he is!" That'd be an interesting conversation.

Might as well check the coins in the bag, see how much I got. Couldn't be too much, considering it looked like a rainy-day stash.

One-hundred bits.

That was the number of little quarter-sized coins with horseshoes in the bag. Looked like less, but who was I to complain?

Still felt a little queasy inside, knowing that I'd stolen them, but it was for my own good. These ponies couldn't possibly have had the death penalty. And if they did, I doubt I'd get it over the theft of some materials and cash. Might get a long sentence for the assault, but from what I can conjecture it was more likely I'd get a stern talking-to.

It was at that wee hour in the morning when a thought smashed it's way through my head.

Heck, maybe I could roll into town, masked man of mystery style, just walk into the library and start reading. Far as I could tell, only thing off about me would be the shoes, but they'd probably toss it out as some sort of birth defect. Anyone asks about the trench coat and mask, I could say I had a condition that necessitated I wear clothes like this all the time. Perfect disguise.

Yep, I had a plan. Bags under coat, I slipped my arms into the sleeves, buttoned it up, and slipped on a pair of makeshift handwraps.

Barely five minutes later I was standing in front of a bigass tree. The only natives in sight had looked at me real odd, but hadn't asked any questions. Some of the children were out, but paid no mind to me. Far as I was concerned, I just needed to get into the library and find information.

I opened the door. Was almost tempted to get on the floor and walk the dinosaur at the sight and smell of all the books, but I resisted with my awesome powers of not being a fucking retard.

"Yo, anyone 'ome?" I yelled, putting on a different accent. I already knew the answer, considering the sound of sizzling things from one part.

"One moment!" I heard, coming from the young voice of a little boy. What came out of the kitchenette area damn near sent me right out the door.

See, I'm used to seeing weird shit. You spend a long enough time browsing a series of tubes, you learn all there is to know in the realms of disturbing, disgusting, disillusioning, desensitizing, and plain gross material. Some of it's surreal, some of it's violent, some of it's horrible, but this fit right up in that category of things I'd like to call "Looks Like It's From Japan."

Basically, Barney's son walked out of the kitchen, wearing a chef's apron with a heart on it and a pitch-perfect chef's hat.

My thoughts raced to how a little boy by that tone of voice was cooking shit, and why he was wearing a chef's outfit, and just why the fuck was barney's son here, in a tree library. Couldn't dragons breath fire and shit? Just sneeze once and the whole place burns down. Why the fuck is there a dragon in a tree library? Shouldn't he be in a cave, hoarding shit like gems and princesses?

"What are you doing here this time of the mor- woah."

Musta scared the little guy. Was probably the same height as that little girl from the boutique, maybe taller. Considering that kid barely came up to my waist and I was six-ish feet tall, I'd be pretty surprised too. Plus, I had the mask and coat on, so I was probably looking real spooky right about now.

"Kid, no nee' ta be 'larm'd. All I want's a brochure, if'n ya got one Ay coul' borrow."

"Uh, sure. Lemme just run up stairs. Think we... uh, have a couple that we're about to put out."

And with that the little Barney-lookalike left, climbing up the stairs. He was a pretty eloquent kid, for someone that small. Probably paid off when you lived in a library. Too bad I wasn't going to be seeing him for long. Seemed like a pretty cool guy, all things considered.

Soon as he was out of sight and hearing distance, I started scanning through the bookshelves. A couple caught my eye, namely a self-help book about dieting, a book on history, another... on the sapient species in the world and some about... magic. Of course, magic, because unicorns. I took the first three and left the latter, seeing as I couldn't magic.

Flipping through the first one assuaged my fears. Nope, they didn't eat people. I put it back on the shelf where I found it. The second one would take a bit of reading to get through, so I slipped it into my coat pocket; same with the one about species. Then I snagged a fiction-looking book with the title of "Daring Do" and a Lara Croft-but-pony lookalike on the front.

Soon as the little guy came down and saw me reading the decoy, I turned and looked him dead in his dinnerplate eyes.

"You got da brochures?"

"Y-yep. Here you go, sir."

"Thank you, li'l... wha's yer name?"

He shook like a leaf. "Spike."

"Thank ya, Spike."

I could see his claws twitching. "No problem."

And with that, I turned and walked out the door, grin hidden under the mask.