For once, Cheshire was completely unaware of some drama happening in the club, but considering the fact that he might have been the source of it, he probably was better off not knowing what was going on in Dumas's office. It didn't matter right then anyway, he was in his element.<br/><br/>His illusions were mostly holograms, complex computer programs, and some good old fashion sleight of hand, but showman ship mattered, as it always mattered, and it was Cheshire himself who sold it. His simple grace when he seemed to summon lion-like creatures from his own imagination, his intense assurance that they would not bite so long as you folioed his instructions as they lifted patrons off their feet, his intense gaze when he hypnotized and bamboozled the crowd with swirling patterns of light and haze. At one point, he cut all the lights off, just as he, having proved it was really him, leaped from a high up platform. of course, it hadn't really been him, he'd gotten one of his groupies that figured out the trick last time to play along and make it seem like it was truly him up there, and that had sold it. He was really on the dance floor, and as the lights grew dark, some old thought surfaced on his mind. 'It would be easy,' he thought to himself, 'to simply reach out, and take whatever I wanted.' But he quickly shook the thoughts from his mind. He'd worked hard to build a reputation like this one, to have a following and a secure job. He wasn't about to jeopardize that kind of security for a shot at maybe forty dollars or so and maybe a card that he could milk off of for a few months.<br/><br/>The lights returned only a moment after they turned off, and it took the crowd a few seconds to find him, leaning against the walls of his smoky castle. They cheered and Cheshire bowed, but the real fun was about to begin.<br/><br/>"Ladies and Gentlemen, I will need a volunteer for our final act of the night." he said, and many hands raised. Cheshire looked from side to side, and spotted White's look of aggravation from his throne. It was no secret that White would rather be performing then watching, so Cheshire decided it was about time to include him... in a round about way. He looked directly at White, making sure the rabbit man saw him, and new he was watching only him... and pointed at a seemingly random point in the crowd. The program tracking his hands created a concentrated spotlight on the young women he was pointing at.<br/><br/>"You there!" he said, not looking away from White's eyes, "I believe that you came today with our own White Rabbit, did you not?" He then looked at her with one of his most dazzling smiles... or at least one of his holograms most dazzling smiles. Already he was stalking through the crowd to get closer to her. The timid looking girl in white simply nodded.<br/><br/>"Who else did you come with? Are they here? Can you vouch for the crowd here that she's real?" He asked, his voice only coming from the stage and not his real hiding place. The holo-projectors created a cylinder around him that showed only what was on the other side of him, making him effectively invisible. The cloud fortress started to reach tendrils of smoke into the crowd as the girl and all her friends nodded. Just as the tendrils smoke over and around Cheshire, he stalked forward, still mostly invisible. Without warning, he pulled on her wrist, not hard enough to hurt, but with enough force to get her to move as a tendril of smoke seemed to solidify around her wrist, tugging as he did. The young girl let herself be led along, and was soon up on the stage. Cheshire slid into the exact pose and position as his hologram, and no one knew a thing.<br/><br/>"White my friend, can yo come up here?" Cheshire asked, and White, ever the entertainer, had no choice to come up, bearing a fake but convincing smile as he did.<br/><br/>"Is this the young lady you came with today?" Chesh asked him, and White kept on smiling.<br/><br/>"Yes she is Cheshire." he said and added, "not planning on stealing her away from me, are you?"<br/><br/>"Oh of course not," Cheshire assured him in his best stage voice, "as lovely as Veronica here is..." he said, seemingly knowing her name without having to ask (he really hacked into her TEA phone when she wasn't looking), "I can't imagine her coming between to good friends like us!" he gave White a friendly shake of the shoulders, and White leaned in closer to Cheshire's ear.<br/><br/>"You better not be planning on embarrassing me up here," he whispered.<br/><br/>"Only as much as you embarrass yourself." Chesh replied before launching away, waving his hands to guid the smoke from the castle around the stage. The whole thing seemed to loom around the three of them, Chesh, White and Veronica, and the lights grew a menacing red.<br/><br/>"Now Ladies and Gentlemen, do not be alarmed," he started suspensuflly, "but tonight I will attempt to show you the most horrible, most terrifying, and most deadly of all my illusions and tricks, and Veronica and White here will help me." He placed the two of them together at center stage as he backed off and started to chant nonsense words that were almost plausible sounding enough to listen to. He haunched over and held his hands out dramatically in front of him. He slowly built up volume as the castle grew and grew before reaching a crescendo<br/><br/>"Hush, hush, whipple snap, running low with ripple tat," he yelled, "here he is both smoke and rocky, beware his wrath, the JABBERWOCKY!"<br/><br/>Suddenly the castle blasted into a million pieces, and in its place stood a dragon so fierce, so angry, so REAL that Veronica fairly swooned into White's arms, and White himself even took a step back. The dragon flapped its large, ragged wings and a real breeze blew over the crowd, it roared and the ground shook. It was Cheshire's masterpiece.<br/><br/>"Woesome gaul, your grave is made, unless you have the VORPAL BLADE!" Cheshire wailed over the sound, and suddenly White straitened up. He'd remembered something he owned that Cheshire once compared to a fictional weapon he'd been designing. It clicked in his head and he suddenly new what Cheshire was playing at. White reached into his inside jacket pocket and placed his fingers around a thin metal cylinder. He whipped it out dramatically, causing it to extend to its full two-and-a-half-foot length. At the same time, a shimmering aura surrounded the thing rod, making it transform into a shining white rapier, glowing like light bound to physical form. The dragon recoiled as White brandished the sword in front of him expertly, as if pushed back by the light of it, and then without warning struck forward. White, acting more out of instinct then anything else, struck forward with a precise thrust that caught the dragon right through the center of its head. The moment the brilliant rapier and the dark dragon met there was a crack of thunder and a brilliant flash of light all down the dragons body, bulging and distorting him before all stood still. There was a long moment of silence, and then like a collective sigh, the dragon simply blew away, dissipating into smoke as the lights returned to normal.<br/><br/>The crowd stood silent for only a moment before a single person started to slowly clap. Then another joined, and another, and soon, the whole crowd stood applauding White and Veronica, with Cheshire no where to be seen. Maybe white should have taken that as a sign to be on his toes, but all he knew is that he'd just faced down a very real looking dragon and had a beautiful woman stand by him as he did so. He looked into Veronica's eyes, and kissed her deeply. He felt his kissing partner melt into the kiss, closed his eyes, and then it happened. Veronica suddenly folded like a pack of cards in the hands of an experienced card shark, and in her place was Cheshire, enjoying himself probably more the Veronica would have even.<br/><br/>The crowd couldn't help but laugh, and White opened his yes to find the Purple Prankster in his arms. He immediately dropped Cheshire and tried to storm off, but Cheshire grabbed his shoulder and the both of them stood for the rest of the applause, White obviously looking less then pleased.<br/><br/>"Ladies and Gentlemen, Men and Women of the Kingdom of the Beat, I release you to your King, the one and only, the Valiant Vanquisher, the Dashing DJ, the Heroic Hair of the Highest Order, the WHITE RABBIT!" Cheshire said, introducing White before vanishing himself. White stiffly but quickly moved to his turn tables. He wouldn't have said it, he wouldn't even have thought it, but as much as he resented him he had to admit that the Cheshire Cat had lured him in to it, and he'd actually enjoyed it anyway.<br/><br/>God Damnit.