AN: Trigger warning; slight body horror, clowns... and LJ. I feel like he should be a trigger warning just on principle...

Danny shifted as he looked around the massive crowd waiting in a vacant field beside some train tracks that ran through Amity's outskirts.

"I've never seen this many Goths in daylight before," Tucker commented, watching pasty, pale figures in black skulk around in umbrellas, veils, and other sun-blocking setups. Even if the sun was setting fast, most Goths weren't the type to leave their 'dens' until it was long-gone.

"We're not vampires," Sam retorted under her own full-body veil. "We're not going to crumble to ash or burst into flames. You've seen me in daylight too, y'know."

"Yeah, or we could test it out anyways. Shine sunlight off a mirror or something. I know how that feels." Danny ribbed.

Sam huffed, the veil covering pinked cheeks, "I said I was sorry."

"But seriously, what's up with everybody? The circus isn't even set up," Tucker complained, gesturing to the empty field around them.

"Because they're going to be here any minute!" Sam explained excitedly. "The entrance is supposed to be amazing. It's always so over-the-top and so Goth. I don't wanna miss a second."

"It's coming! It's coming!"

The crowd buzzed as they turned to look down the tracks. The earth rumbled as a massive train screeched to a stop along the rusty tracks.

Danny gaped at the enormous thing. The engine was black, with green accents, bellowing out gray-purple smoke with ethereal, green flames licking the top of the smokestack. Even when Danny was alive (the first-time through), train engines like those were ancient. It was incredible that it was still working.

Trailing behind, the train cars were elegant, elaborate constructs set in a somber black. Like if a series of hearses were converted into train cars, as each passed by it exuded a feeling of dread and grim sobriety. A chilling wind blew across the field, setting people's teeth chattering and gasps of foggy breath puffing.

The train lurched to a stop, excited whispers pointing up to the engine itself. No conductor. It helped sell the 'spooky' factor, that's for sure. And in Amity Park, which had protocols now for ghost possessions, that wasn't a feat to scoff at.

Just then, the side of one of the train cars fell to the ground, revealing the entrance of a black, abyssal void in the cabin. Tension rose as people anxiously peered into the veil of shadows.

A pale face emerged, blank and ghastly and low-to-the-ground.

Then the woman spider-crawled upside-down along the ramp in a spine-crunching contortion. A hulking behemoth lumbered after with a midget balanced on his shoulder. A woman with spiked hair, piercings, and tattoos sauntered her way down, followed by an unsmiling clown with vibrant red hair juggling bottles of green acid.

Lastly, a figure with bleach-white skin and a completely bald head stalked his way down, toothy grin basking in the cheers. His vibrantly red Ringmaster cloak swished elegantly as he twirled an intricate cane in one hand.

"Ladies and Gentlemen," He announced loudly, "Boys and Ghouls of all ages! I am your host, Freakshow! Humble proprietor of this little slice of Hell on earth! But now is not the time to chit-chat! So, welcome! Welcome!"

His cane pointed behind the crowd.

"To Circus Gothica!"

The crowd's eyes followed the motion and were awestruck to see an entire fairgrounds setup just behind him. One that was not, could not have been there just moments before! Tents with ghastly faces gaping, stalls with prizes morbidly hanging from nooses along the sides, a dunk-tank with an eerie creature swimming in the murky water, and more all collected under the drifting sounds of a jauntily-unsettling calliope and the wafting smells of carnival food.

And in front of it, the ringmaster Freakshow, himself.

Danny's head spun back towards the train, but the figure who had directed their attention in the first place had vanished alongside his performers.

"And now! Prepare yourselves, for gory sights! Ghastly delights! A night you will all remember... well... for the survivors at least," The Ringmaster theatrically exclaimed. The audience ate it up, hollering and cheering.

"So, come one and all! To the greatest show unearthed. Where delights, horrors, and fantasies alike come alive! Where nightmares are reality, and our clowns never smile. Step inside-" He raised his arms grandly. Behind him, the sun finally dipped behind the horizon, and in the darkening twilight, spotlights erupted into life illuminating an enormous, striped, black-and-white Big Top tent.

"And let the show begin!"

The inside of the tent was spacious. Surprisingly so. Danny would swear the tent's ceiling was higher on the inside than the outside, but he'd also wager that the interior of the tent, the stands, and arena were all larger than the field they set up in, let alone sharing space with stands and stalls.

The audience settled into their seats, comfortably spaced out as they looked down to the sandy arena in the center. The lights dimmed, plunging the tent into darkness.

And a spotlight clapped to life in the center.

Around the tent, the sounds of whispers picked up, but too unearthly and unnerving to be the audience. Then, from around the stands and arena, shadows danced across the tent, nightmarish images morphing in and out of existence, vaguely detailing ghoulish creations before they sailed towards the center like flowing darkness.

The shadows overtook the spotlight's circle on the floor, rising like a black, tarry mass before splitting open. The darkness had transformed into a cape pinned around the neck of Freakshow, appearing in the center.

"My dear Children of the Night," He addressed to the adoring crowd, "Welcome, one and all! Have we got a treat for you tonight! Without any further adieu."

He gestured his arm up to the ceiling, where spotlights shone on the blue-haired contortionist from the train dislocating and shifting from the middle of a tightrope. Her legs behind her head and her neck at an uneven angle. She began hopping in place, flipping and contorting into a new form each time.

"Oh, and before I forget-" Freakshow began casually.

The contortionist missed.

Danny's heart stopped as the pale, ballerina-like figure gracefully fell from the tightrope to the cushion-less, solid ground.

Screams and gasps of horror echoed through the crowd as she fell-

*CRACK!*

…

In grim silence, the contortionist's impact was deafening, like the splintering of a house.

"This show is not for the faint of heart," The ringmaster concluded, still smiling evilly.

The contortionist's body jerked itself around and creakily shifted every bone back to normal before standing and the very-much-alive performer took a bow to the audience.

The silence erupted in cheers.

After the macabre opening act, the show heated up.

A trapeze artist swung majestically through the air before a knife juggler wielding a set of wicked blades juggled in the dead-center of the arena, the knives forming a dangerous ring of twirling metal above him. Danny's gut dropped as the trapeze artist dove through the ring several times, narrowly missing a close call when the trapeze bar the little flier had just vacated went off-course and was reduced to splintered sticks on wire.

The spiky woman with tattoos led out a set of lions, tigers, bears (oh, my) among other ghastly, enormous creatures snarling and gnashing at the audience, before she brought them to submission with a whip and had them performing tricks.

A pair of jester-like clowns in matching orange-and-red costumes, faces covered in Comedy/Tragedy masks, rolled about the arena. One rode an enormous unicycle with a huge circular-saw blade as the 'wheel'. Occasionally, he would swiftly pedal backwards, creating a flurry of hot sparks. Their twin rode a buzz-saw like a tiny car, sparking and screeching against the arena as it whizzed by.

A woman performed gorgeously choreographed performances while entwined gracefully in a flowing, black, silk sheet hung from the roof of the tent. It took Danny a moment to realize the 'silk' was actually coming from her scalp. She was performing on her own, scraggly, impossibly-long, black hair.

A fire-breather covered in eerie tattoos conjured an entire dragon of fire from the plume erupting from his mouth. The conjured creature soared around the tent, roaring loud enough to rival Dora on a bad day, before clamping its maw down on its creator, making them both vanish in a flash of light and smoke.

The red-headed, unsmiling clown came out just once. He did a skit to the sound of French accordion and violin music, like something from a depressing film noir. The skit was done in complete silence on his part, never once did he crack a smile nor utter a word, but it involved a newspaper, a cigarette, a decapitated rubber chicken, and a yellow balloon.

At the end, he let the balloon go, mournfully watching it sail up to the ceiling, where he immediately popped it with a BB gun and a grisly scowl.

The Goths (Sam included) laughed uproariously.

Tucker shared a weirded-out shrug with Danny.

The acts continued. A unicyclist balancing on a tower of balls across the stage. A man stuck his entire lower-torso in a lion's mouth. A magician slicing his own head off with a guillotine and giving a headless bow to the audience. A motorcyclist leaping over ramps and rafters. A woman balancing on a stack of live, sparking electric chairs. A man tossing about flaming devil sticks and juggling them in a frightening ring of fire.

The last act was a pale woman, with a 'Lady Macbeth' tragedy vibe to her in long-flowing-white robes standing on the back of a pale horse galloping in laps around the arena. The horse trailed blue flames for a tail and mane. Her steed eventually retreated off the stage, leaving the entire arena barren.

Then, a cluster of bats emerged from under the stands and converged in the center before splitting apart to reveal Freakshow.

"What an amazing night!" He cheered alongside the crowd. "Yes! Yes! Fantastic phantasms! Horrid horrors! Spine-tingling tantalization!

"But alas," His makeup accentuated his enormous frown, "It's time... to say goodbye." He pretended to weep into a black handkerchief he pulled out of his pocket. Then, his face shot out of with a maniacal grin and with a flick it transformed into a live crow which flew out the entrance and into the night.

"But don't fret, my noble cohorts of the night! We'll be here in Amity all week long! Come again, see what's else we have in store for you!" He smiled widely, the audience whooping.

"But first," He paused for dramatic effect, waiting as the cheers died.

"Allow me to make an introduction. Our final act for tonight. In his first appearance in my entire show, I present to you-" The audience was on the edge of their seat as he gestured to the empty center of the arena.

Then, from nowhere, the center burst into a cloud of confetti.

Black.

White.

And rusty, bloody red.

"LAUGHING JACK!"

The figure bounded out of the cloud like a tumbler. It sprung up to reveal a clown. The figure's entire color pallet was a monochrome black-and-white. From abnormally long-sleeved, thin arms ending in black, pointed claws to stockings down his feet, his entire figure was like one big optical illusion of black and white stripes.

Greasy, messy black hair tussled over a pasty, pale face. A long, conical nose striped black and white like candy corn sprouted from above black lipstick painted around a sharp-toothed, sinister grin.

And the laugh.

It was high-pitched, bubbly, maniacal, sinister. It echoed loudly across the arena, cutting through the applause like a knife.

Like every coulrophobe's giggly worst nightmare.

It set Danny's hairs on end.

"For his act, we will need a volunteer..." Freakshow announced, sinisterly raising his fingers with a loud snap.

The tent plunged into darkness as a set of stagelights twirled wildly about the audience, before stopping all at once on a single... person...

"And we have. Our. Volunteer." Freakshow cried gleefully. The crowd roared in approval around Danny as he sat like a dear in headlights, appropriately so, as the stage lights settled definitively on him.

Danny shuffled down to the main performance arena, awkwardly waving or smiling as the spotlights trailed after him, not letting the attention off for a moment. Once he was past the audience divider wall, the contortionist jerkily shifted her arm and pointed further down the stage.

He stopped in front of the tattooed woman. Wordlessly, she directed him onto a stool and raised his arms.

"And what is our Volunteer doing tonight?" The Ringmaster finally asked.

Stage lights flared, revealing Danny was standing in front of a large torture-wheel. Four iron manacles were screwed into the wood. A human-shaped outline drawn in the middle, with gouge marks around... and inside the outline.

"The Disk of Doom!" Freakshow cried excitedly, riling up the crowd.

Danny gulped as the carnies clasped his wrists in the manacles and repeated the process with his ankles.

"Now, now, don't worry folks. Jackie, here, is a professional! Isn't that right, Jack?"

The giggling clown nodded creepily, eyes not leaving Danny pinned helplessly down before him, as he twirled an assortment of knives and sharp instruments between his fingers.

"And he promises to have you back in one piece... mostly," Freakshow simpered mockingly.

"Cross my fingers, hope to die! Stick a needle in your eye! Ahahahahah!" Laughing Jack cackled giddily.

His fingers blurred and Danny jolted as a girlishly pink knitting needle embedded itself an inch into the wheel just beside his left eye.

Then, the tattooed assistant grabbed the side of the wheel and gave it a hefty spin.

Danny's world whirled together in a dizzying array of colors, music, laughter, and screams. In the center, however, was Laughing Jack's black-and-white blur in the distance, dancing about animatedly. The maniacal clown's laughter overtaking the audience.

Danny squeezed his eyes shut against the assault on his senses, but the whirl just made his head ache in a reality-warping spin. He felt the board shudder with each impact. The *fwip* and *thwip* and *shnk* of lethal instruments sailing through the air warbling in and out of earshot before each one hit.

Slowly, the wheel slowed to a stop and Danny became aware of the vigorous cheering around him. He shakily realized he was still, wonderfully, gloriously intact and/or unperforated.

The clasps were undone and he was helped off the wheel by the contortionist lady, who started leading him towards Freakshow in the center. Hesitantly, he looked back at the wheel. He felt himself pale dangerously at the sight of everywhere around a perfect outline of his body impaled with knives, axes, awls, screwdrivers, daggers, swords, and a stapler.

"Give it up for this lucky boy!" Freakshow announced, sidling up to Danny with a microphone in hand. "Well, what's your name?"

The audience's cheering died as the Ringmaster's microphone hovered in his face.

"Uh, um. D-Danny. Danny Fenton," He stammered, still dazed.

The man's eyes widened imperceptibly before it broke out in his signature grin. "Let's hear it for Danny Fentoooooon!"

The crowd screamed in approval, shock, and amazement.

Danny felt someone nudge him on the shoulder, disrupting his head-spinning numbed shock. He looked over to see Laughing Jack himself, grinning and baring a row of unnerving, sharp teeth down at him. In his clawed hand was a little, pink-and-red heart-shaped valentine's box being offered to the participant.

As the applause started to die down, Danny was ushered off the arena, still holding the little box of chocolates as the audience started filing out to explore the grounds. Sam and Tucker were waiting anxiously by the sidelines.

"Dude! I can't believe it! I totally thought you were gonna kick it- again!" Tucker exclaimed. "It looked so crazy! That Jack guy was just dancing like a lunatic and throwing stuff left and right, I thought he actually hit you a couple of times!"

"Tucker," Danny shakily interrupted, shaking his chocolate box at him. "Just… don't."

"Oh, sorry," The tech-whiz sheepishly apologized.

Sam was almost bouncing at his side, "So what was it like? I've never heard of audience members being selected like that before. And this was the first time Jack was onstage? This is amazing."

"I'm so glad you had the time of your life while I was fearing over mine," Danny sarcastically remarked.

"Oops. Sorry, Danny. I just got excited."

"It's fine," He waved off. "I mean, I'm still in one piece. No secret intangibility, either, so it was the real deal. And I got this box of chocolate, for what it's worth…" He looked down at the box, a little apprehensively. Something about it just felt a little creepy. Like a 'stranger-danger' vibe of the whole 'don't take candy from creeps'.

"Speaking of, you gonna eat those?" Tucker asked, eyeing the box hungrily.

"Uh, no, but… I don't think I trust it, y'know? Carnival candy and all that," Danny remarked.

"Well, if that's the case," Tucker playfully lunged for the box, which Danny used to play a one-man game of keep-away.

Danny laughed, "Tucker!"

"C'mon, man, just one? If it's caramel, you gotta share," Tucker mumbled through squished cheeks where he pressed against Danny's elbow.

Then his waving arm accidentally knocked the cover off the box, spilling chocolates and the lid into the grass.

"Oh, crap! My bad, dude," Tucker stopped his mock-assault immediately.

"Don't worry about it. Like I said, I wasn't going to eat it anyways." Danny admitted. "Still a shame to waste it-"

"Five second rule!" Tucker exclaimed, bending down to pick up one of the chocolates. Then, as he lifted it up to his mouth, he shrieked.

"What?!"

"Ants! Oh, gross!"

The trio looked down and saw that the chocolates had all landed in the middle of an upset ant hill. The rest of the worker ants were excitedly swarming the confectionary. Tucker dropped the chocolate and hastily wiped his hands on his pants, crying 'ew-ew-ew-ew' the whole time.

Sam sighed, picking up the box (leaving the chocolates to mother nature's cleanup crew) and throwing it away. "Well that sucks, but back on track; what did you think of all the acts?"

Tucker shrugged, "They were okay. Creepy, but okay."

"Easy for you to say. You weren't the closing act." Danny retorted.

"Danny, relax. You got out fine," Sam reassured. The halfa shuddered, mouth puffing with steam in the cold winter chill.

"I dunno… something about that Jack guy sets me on edge," He thought aloud.

They left the Circus Gothica Big Top tent to explore the sideshows and game stalls surrounding the field. Sam eagerly soaked in the atmosphere. Tucker edged away warily from a set of dolls and teddy bears with massive grins leering evilly from their nooses along the sides of stalls.

Danny kept glancing back at the Big Top, an unsettling chill making him shiver every time he saw the black and white patterns around him.

Behind them, the chocolates had split open from the ants' voracious appetites. A thick, rich-smelling, fruity liqueur spilled out into the air. As it settled in the open, it bubbled into a cotton-candy pink, a cornflower blue, and an acid-green foam.

Around the candies, a cluster of dead ants lay still.

AN: Canonically, Laughing Jack is not a nice character.

I wanted to explore that deeper since I opted for a lighter interpretation in my other story, so he'll be a little more unsettling, sinister, and spine-chilling.

Oh, and if it wasn't obvious, Jack had a hand in the non-canon theatrics of the circus's arrival. And not just because I couldn't remember the specifics of that episode…